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BLEAK FUTURE Part 3
It's seven o'clock when I wake up. I'd fallen asleep reading something for English. I think it was Hamlet. I don't even remember. After lying in bed for about fifteen minutes, I decide to take a shower and get ready to leave for Paul's house. Within half an hour, I'm dressed and ready to go.
"Mom," I whisper, poking my head into her bedroom. "Can I borrow the car?"
She's watching the movie I brought for her last night. "Sure. Where're you going?"
"To some study group thing. I'm failing Spanish," I explain. She grimaces and tells me to be home by twelve. I've had free reign on everything in the house since my father left four years ago. I pay for a quarter of the rent and half the bills so my mother lets me do almost anything I want as long as it doesn't involve drugs.
It takes fifteen minutes to reach Paul's house. When I arrive, the lights are off in every room except for one. I suspect that it's the living room, but I'm not sure. It's a big, light blue house with dark blue doors and sidelights. It has what looks like one of the biggest flowerbeds I've ever seen and a huge lawn next to it. It looks nice. My mom and I live in a small apartment with a welcome mat that could have been made of grass, maybe. We live in the eastern part of town whereas Paul lives in the West, where all the "upper-middle class" families live. My mother and I are "lower-middle" - one or two steps above white trash, I think. I ring the bell and wait, listening to the sound of grasshoppers, wondering why I never get to see them but hear them all the time.
The door creaks and Paul appears at the opening. "I started to think you weren't coming," he says. His hair is disheveled; he looks like he'd been sleeping too.
"I fell asleep reading," I say. He gestures for me to come in and takes me to the living room. The house looks bigger from the inside, but I can't see much of anything. All of the lights are off, except in the living room. "Am I that late? Where is everybody?"
"Sherry and Tina went to the mall. Some new guy's working at Scoops and they went to check him out. Matt forgot that yesterday was his anniversary with Liz so he's probably on his knees apologizing right now. He's whipped. Alex's dad found out that his whiskey's half water and grounded him for a week. Alex is an alcoholic." He sounds exhausted.
"I think all you had to say was that everyone else had better things to do."
After a few minutes of silence, I say, "You realize that I don't even know these people, right? I mean, if you think about it, I don't even know YOU." He meets what I say with a little grin, nothing else.
In the living room there's a big screen TV illuminating all corners of the room that could have been three times the size of mine. We sit in front of it on a leather couch and start to watch an infomercial with old bald guys telling us how Rogaine helped them grow fifty percent of their lost hair back. I'm skeptical because they still look pretty bald to me. In the middle of an interview, Paul grabs the remote and starts to channel surf.
"So this is how we're gonna study? What's the point if there's no one else here? I even forgot my books and stuff. This isn't even exactly a group. It's more like two people who had better things to do and are pathetically trying to make up for the fact that no one else is here where they're supposed to be." I know that I'm babbling, but I'm nervous. My heart's racing and I can't keep still. I'm thinking that I must be sick for this to keep happening.
"Why don't we just talk?" he asks, but when I don't answer, he continues. "Or I can order a pizza and we can study by ourselves."
"Okay. Sounds good."
There are too many rules in the Spanish language, too many tenses to remember. There are fourteen in all, Paul tells me. There's the indicative and the subjunctive. Then, there are forms. We study the forms in front of the big screen, then the indicative. This week, we're learning the Preterit in class so Paul makes me repeat the stems after him.
"Estar, estuv. Andar, anduv. Tener, tuv," he says seriously. I start to laugh.
"This is so fucking stupid. Why do I even bother? I'm not even gonna use this after I leave high school."
"Yeah, you will. You just don't know it yet," he sounds so serious that I become uncomfortable for a moment. "What if you end up traveling somewhere like Mexico or Spain?"
"Plumbers don't travel," I say. "And even if they do, foreigners expect them to be idiots so I'll be okay."
"That's what you wanna be?" he laughs. "A plumber?"
"Yeah. What's so funny?"
"That's what you ASPIRE to be? A plumber?"
"Yeah! What? Am I supposed to want to be a lawyer or something? Or a doctor? Better yet, a brain surgeon?"
"No, it's just that most people just fall into it. They don't DREAM about being a plumber or a handyman. It's just who they end up being. You know, like, against their will, without really WANTING it. It's just like one day they're in high school saying how they're gonna be a pilot and next thing you know, they're a plumber."
"Nah, I dream of being a plumber. I like the whole idea of fixing things around people's houses, having fun doing it, and then getting paid a shit load of money to do it. Plumbers are rich, you know? Plus, I can walk around showing off my ass crack without getting yelled at. You know, cause it's expected." Paul starts laughing; he doesn't know how serious I am. "But I know what you mean about falling into stuff against your will. Like, my mom, she's a waitress. She wanted to be a writer or a clothes designer or something, but she got married and then had me. Then when she decides that she wants to go back to school, my dad splits." I'm surprised by how much I'm telling him. I'm usually either nice and quiet, or rude and quiet, even around my friends. The only other person who can get me to talk this much is James.
"My parents are stockbrokers. Both of them," he says.
"I guess that explains the house and the stuff inside it."
"You should see my room."
"Nah, I like this TV. The only bedroom I really like is my own," I don't know why I say this. It feels like a defensive remark, but I have no idea where it came from.
"Hey, you want me to order the pizza now? I'm starving."
I answer yes. He goes into the kitchen, where the menus are and calls. When he comes back into the living room, his hair is combed and neat.
"So you hang out with Sean McCarthy?" he asks casually and plops on the couch.
"Uh, yeah. We've been friends since I moved here."
"You moved here about three years ago, right?"
"Yeah."
"Why'd you move?"
"The rent got higher and my parents separated."
"That sucks."
"Yeah."
We sit quietly for half an hour while waiting for the pizza, watching videos on MTV and VH1 alternately. We seem to like about the same sort of music, but he likes more popish things, I think. I'm more alternative. For example, he likes the Backstreet Boys and Blink 182 while I like Depeche Mode, Stone Temple Pilots, and Soundgarden. When the doorbell rings, we both jump. I didn't think it would come so soon. Paul gets up to get the pizza and does the weirdest thing, instead of throwing the remote on the couch like anyone else would've done, he hands it to me staring straight into my eyes. It seems more intimate than friendly so I bring my eyes back to the television as quickly as I can make them.
While eating the pizza, he decides to start up another uncomfortable conversation.
"I hate this place," he says in mid-chew.
I laugh. "Why?"
"I don't know. I've been here all my life and I just can't stand it anymore. I want out."
"Well, I guess I hate it too. It's so fucking boring and I've only been here three years."
"Yeah. You swear a lot, don't you?"
I take a bite of my slice of pepperoni pizza and take the risk of speaking with my mouth full. "Uh, sorta... yeah. I don't mean to. It just comes out. Like, I do it without knowing that I'm doing it. I don't do it that much cause I know some people who swear a lot more than I do." What I really mean to say is that I swear a lot more when I'm nervous, which I currently am.
"I guess. My friends swear a lot too, but not the way you do. They swear when they're drunk or mad. It's weird."
After a few minutes he says, "You move a lot, don't you?"
"Uh, I guess. Just every two or three years though. This is the longest I've ever spent in one place."
"I wish I were you," he says, so seriously that I think that he actually means it in the REAL sense of the word. Like, if he had a choice, his soul would leap out of his own body and enter mine.
"No, you don't," I say, more uncomfortable than ever.
After that, we don't say much until I decide its time to go home. I lie that I have a ten o'clock curfew.
"I'll see you in school or the video store, I guess," he says when I'm out on the porch. He either sounds disappointed or tired. It could've been either.
"Yeah," I say. "Later."
The week passes slowly. When Paul and I see each other in the halls, we nod our hellos. We do not wave or call out to each other. We are not friends. We simply acknowledge each other's existence now. In class, it's as if our study session never happened, but I find myself waking up early (six o'clock in the friggin morning) and making class on time.
At the video store, James continuously asks me for details of my study session with Paul. She smiles broadly when I tell her stupid things, like the fact that he handed me the remote instead of throwing it. Although this comment might not apply to her, I think that girls find the most trivial details amazing and important. Like, a crack in their nail polish or if Paul said he liked Madonna or Janet Jackson. James is so confusing. So much like no one else I've ever met. Why would Madonna or Janet Jackson be important? When she asked that, I think I shrugged and said that I didn't know, but when I stop to think about it, it seems like a strange question. Sean, on the other hand, wants to know things that I'd never, in a million years, notice.
"What was he wearing?" he asks Friday night, while we're both standing in front of the counter, watching the "The Nightmare Before Christmas", one of his favorite movies.
"Dude, I don't know. I can't remember that." I sincerely have no clue.
"Well, what was it like?"
"What was what like?"
"Hanging out with him?"
"Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Why is everyone?"
"Hmm. I don't know. Maybe cause he's HOT."
"Yeah, that's you, but why's James?"
"Hmm. I don't know. Maybe cause he's HOT," he repeats.
"She's not like that."
"Maybe you don't know her as well as you think. Maybe she's got a little secret." He winks at me. He's so strange. His height and manner remind me of Martin Short, but his face is feminine and pretty. I think he wears eyeliner, which I find interesting.
I choose to shrug at his comment and say, "Maybe. Maybe I don't know any of you as well as I thought I did. Maybe you don't me that well either though. Maybe we all have our little secrets." The last part of what I said came out of nowhere, but Sean smiles.
"Yeah. Maybe," he says.
Copyright 2001
Please do not reproduce any of this without my permission. Just email if you want to use it. I just want to know where it's going is all.
(7/8/01)