Paul

Here we are. It’s the middle of the summer. I’m still unemployed after the pet food store had to lay us all off, so I’m just struggling to keep gas in my Nova.

   Paul is heartbroken over the breakup. At first we felt bad for him. He just wanted to be around people, so we let him. When the rest of us were hanging out at my place doing our thing (usually the Star Wars Roleplaying game or Strat-o-matic Baseball), we let Paul come over and play video games in the corner. When we were done, I tried to be a sympathetic ear while the others then played video games. It was hard when Paul would give the day-to-day recap about their relationship in great detail. And when we found out he talked to his mom about it with the same detail, we were stunned because some of the details I try to block out the visual imagery to this day. Talk about T.M.I. I think Sean calculated it once that for every hour they dated, we had to hear about it for 2 and a half weeks.

   After a while it became clear that he was always around under the guise of “protecting me from Carrie.” Deep down I knew he just wanted to make sure nothing happened between us, which of course was never going to happen, but it had gotten so bad that people were referring to him as my side-kick. It made for a difficult time because the girls we knew from High School never cared for him and if I went to hang out with them, I’d have to park blocks away from where I was because people swore that Paul had a Nova Tracking Device installed on my car.

  It had gotten so bad that one of my brothers had recorded an answering machine message that said “Hi! We’re not available to come to the phone right now but if you’re looking for Paul, he’s hiding out in our bushes.” One time when I had parked blocks away from where I was hanging out, there was a note on my car from Paul denoting that he couldn’t find me. And another time when a hose in my car had ruptured and my brothers had teased that I’d never get away from Paul now, I had vowed to walk 5 miles to an auto parts store just to not be home when he showed up. He found me walking down the road.

   One morning he showed up at my house right after I had just woken up. He asked if I wanted to go get breakfast. I told him no. I had no money. He then said he’d be right back. And my brothers made me go with him because they didn’t want to watch him eat.

  So there we are, inside some fast-food restaurant in the morning, when, and I don’t know how he even noticed this, Carrie drove by. He hands me a quarter and tells me to call George and warn him that Carrie is coming to visit him at the Pet Food store.

  “Are you serious?” I asked. He was.

So I did.

    “Hey, George? Paul wanted me to call you and warn you that Carrie was on her way.”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you in a couple minutes,” was all George said

  “Oh no, you won’t. I’m going home right after this.” I replied rather annoyed.

 “Uh-huh.” And he hung up.

   Paul had gotten his food by this time and said, “Let’s go visit George.”

  I told him no way. I just told him specifically that we weren’t coming.

  We went. I guess it was good to know I wasn’t the only one with the Paul problem. The bad thing for George was that he was a captive audience to the both of them.

  Things finally came to a head when one night Matt was having a get together at his parent’s house.

  That was the night we met Michelle, Laurie’s “former” best friend. The girl we were not supposed to like because she was dating Carrie’s ex-boyfriend.

   Naturally, I brought Jean. We pulled up to the house the same time Paul did, or he was following me, which seemed more likely, as I don’t know for sure if he was invited. All I know was as we were walking in to Matt’s house, Paul asked me if I returned the video game he had rented from Blockbuster. I had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently he had rented some video basketball game the last time we let him hang out in the corner and left the game “in case I wanted to play it”. I told him I did not return it as I did not know he had left it. He said that it was due by midnight and suggesting that I leave with him to return it before he had to pay a late fee. So off I went with Paul to go back home, and get the dumb video game only to get back to Matt’s an hour later. Jean, realizing my frustration with Paul, felt that she needed to get me out of the house and away from him. She asked if I would help pick up a friend of Laurie and her that needed to have a “night out.”

  That was something I could justify using gas on and agreed. I was so angry that I vented the whole way to the girl’s house. Even after I picked her up I was still going off. Her name war Dena and I could only image what she must have thought of me and my tirade.

  When we finally got back to Matt’s house I saw Paul’s stupid talking car and on impulse just kept bumping it up the street with my Nova. It was immature and yet very therapeutic. If Dena thought I was crazy before, she must have thought I was a nut job by then. Laurie was a bit shocked, but Jean found it to be extremely funny. But Jean was a girl who while riding in Carrie’s car weeks before, spontaneously asked “what would happen if I do this?” and switched the gears of her car from drive to reverse while driving down a highway.