Byouancy

Day three. Here we go again. It’s not in my legs. At least not yet. But it’s there in the core. Right in the small that makes it feel so damn big. And so small. Like Stretch Armstrong when you pull his limbs to the point of breaking. Rubber bands all cracked and taught. Like they’ve been sitting out in the sun too long. Sometimes, when I move, I swear I can hear them coming undone. I thought I had some left. Vicodin. Oxycodone. Flexeril. Tylenol with Codine for fuck’s sake. Started digging in my underwear drawer where I kept the bottles. But that’s all I found. Just… empty bottles. 

I did not take them.

On Saturday, Shaun and I are signing a lease. At this point, I don’t even care where. And then one more week. We’re out of here. I don’t know if we can make it work. We’ve not saved as much as I had planned. Too many broken things that needed fixing in the last month. An unexpected $400 mechanic’s bill. A blown compressor. A trashed nail gun. The usual. And Shaun’s still stuck at that job. He makes $30 more a week right now than he does when he’s on unemployment. But at least he’s not on unemployment. And as long as I take the train and he takes my car, we’re not losing money. I don’t know if we can make it work. But neither of us can fake it enough to make it work here, anymore. And you know what they say about sinking ships.

I remember this one time back in college. My friend Bree. She was… Bree was special. Beautiful, really, though not noticeably so. Not right away. Average height. Slender. With light brown hair she kept short, so it lay in waves that curled just under her delicately pointed chin. Bree loved the piano. And sometimes I’d lay on her dorm room floor, watching her fingers move across the keys like water rippling over rocks. A smooth stream of notes written on the fly. She never bothered with sheet music. She had enough of it already, in her head. And she had Bryan. And though he didn’t go to our university, I’d met him a couple of times. And he seemed nice enough. They’d been together since they were kids. Their parents meeting at church and becoming friends. Best of. A modern day arranged marriage. Evangelical bliss. That’s what they’d all planned, anyhow. And Bree was a pleaser. She just wanted to make them happy. But then she met Matt. And she was smitten. I’d listen to her for what seemed like hours. Just… talk and talk and talk. Matt this. Matt that. He said this. He did that. And when I said gkhkangiu, he gave me this look… what do you suppose this meant? 

She ended up breaking it off with Bryan. Sort of… unofficially. They’d agreed to end it, but to keep up appearances around the parents. At church. You know, around the eyes of god. Or whatever.

And so it happened one night at Chain Reaction. I don’t even remember who it was we’d gone to see – Bree and Matt, Kat and Clash and Fernando and myself. And I could tell – something in the way she looked at him – my Bree, one of those… now or never kinds of things. Only – god she was so shy. I mean – I’m shy, you know – but so was Bree. In a different way. With her soft, childish voice and her innocent need to please everybody. All night I watched her. Openers changed to first up changed to guest appearance… All she wanted was to touch him, despite the wall. So I figured – fuck it. And before I knew it, I’d grabbed his hand. And I remember it being… pale. And dry, despite the clamminess inherent to so many dancing bodies. And a little… spindly, if you will. But I grabbed it, and held on. Just there, in the middle of Chain Reaction. In the middle of a fucking song. Showed him this trick thing. I don’t even remember how to do it anymore. But it was enough to get things started. Because it worked, my trick. And he was intrigued. And that’s when I grabbed on to Bree and pulled her into our game. Passed the trick along and then danced away. Left them to work the magic out with each other – their hands dancing together throughout the headliner.

I’ve always loved hands.

And they dated throughout the rest of undergrad.

Not sure why this memory came back to me earlier today. Just, sitting on the curb out back at the office. About a third into my cigarette. And I don’t know when I stopped being a catalyst. But I was, at one point. For some reason or another, I think somehow I helped things happen. I don’t know when it stopped. Or if it did. Or even if I ever really did anything at all. Maybe I was just there. Maybe it could have been anybody. Or maybe it only works on other people.

Though Bree ended up moving back home after graduation. Marrying Bryan, after all. Had a little girl. Same bouncy light brown hair. And I don’t know what happened to Matt.

I don’t come around here much anymore. It’s not that I’m losing interest. It’s just difficult to get into that comfortable place when my parents are screaming at each other in the other room. A person can only handle so much vulnerability at once. A trick is only a trick until the illusion is broken. And then it’s done. Bodies cave in. Backs give out. Your spine like a spent match, carried along a soiled gutter, falling into a California drain pipe on its way out into the ocean.

Sometimes wood floats though. Something to do with movement when all other things stand still. Something to do with water traction. Which I hear is good for the spine. We’ll see.