October 6, 2007 (revised February 9, 2008)
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�Every other night,� I said. �My father used to live in this room when he attended Henning.�
�Wow. Your father attended this school?...Did he graduate? Not that I think he�s dumb, of course.� �I didn�t think you thought that�.Yes, he graduated, in 1959, with a degree in business administration. My mom graduated the same year from here with a degree in secretarial science.�
�My parents never attended college. They wanted to but couldn�t afford it. However, they always tried to improve their minds, which meant watching anything British on public TV�the more butlers, the better. They�d also drag me along each summer to outdoor concerts, symphony concerts. I liked the fireworks displays that would end each concert. And the concerts were free for us. Mom was the assistant director for the community arts group and could get free tickets for anything�.I�m sorry for going on about my parents so much.�
�I understand.� I took off my colorless coat (the one with the drawstringed cuffs), dropped it onto my bed, and sat down next to her.
�I just miss them, you know?...I still can�t believe I�m an orphan.�
�I understand.�
Another long pause.
�We�re both orphans, in a way,� Lissi said. �I�ve lost my parents, and you�ve essentially lost yours. I mean, you have a bad relationship with your father, right? And your mother�s a total blank, right? She has to be a total blank.�
Lissi moved in closer to me. I stayed still.
�We should start our own orphanage,� she whispered.
She started leaning in to kiss me.
I moved away from her. An involuntary response.
She stopped moving. We stared at each other. I started feeling uncomfortable.
Might as well get something out of this.
I lifted my hands from my lap. They hovered a few inches above it for a few seconds, as if I couldn�t decide what to do. But I knew what I wanted to do.
I slowly moved my hands to her pancake breasts. She didn�t try to stop me. Might as well feel a pair of pancake breasts at least once in my life, for the experience. I slowly squeezed them. My dick didn�t get hard. I looked at her breasts and wondered if I was really that desperate to fuck someone. I looked at the rest of her body and wondered the same. I slowly moved my hands back to my lap. Maybe I should have flashed back to seeing Greg, the biggest creep in school, slap his hand onto Frances�s ass at the graduation party. Frances did have a nice, shapely ass; maybe thinking about it would have gotten my dick hard.
�Congratulations,� Lissi said. �That was the most unenthusiastic grope I�ve ever had.�
�Sorry.�
�Yeah, you�re sorry.�
Yet another long pause.
�Did you want to have sex with me?� I asked.
�Well, the thought had crossed my mind.�
�Well, maybe it shouldn�t have�.I�m sorry, Lissi, but I�m not attracted to you.�
�So what?�
�So�call me strange, but I�d like to have sex with someone I�m attracted to.�
�Too bad no girl�s attracted to you, right?�
I�d started to hate Lissi�s perceptiveness.
�Well, you�re a girl,� I said. �Are you attracted to me?�
�Physically, no. I had more of an emotional attraction, from our shared orphanhood. I felt sympathy for you.�
�Okay, first, I don�t need your sympathy. Second, I�m not an orphan. And third, if I were an orphan, I sure as hell wouldn�t use my dead parents to get laid.�
I had to get rid of her and this feeling of discomfort.
�I�ll bet your parents aren�t even dead,� I said a little louder. �Are your parents really dead?�
�You asshole.�
�Are your parents really dead? Yes or no.�
�Yes!�
�Really? Because if your mother died from eating seafood, how can you even look at a fish sandwich without crying your po� widdle eyes out, Miss Skipper�s Treat? How can you even look at the fish on Taft's desk, huh? Huh?�
�You know what? Fuck you. Not literally.� She stood up, grabbed her parka, and walked to the door. She opened the door. �Don�t speak to me again.�
I stood up. �Okay, but before I quit speaking to you, I have to say that if there is a God, he probably does hate your guts. If he didn�t hate you, he wouldn�t have made you just another dumb, silly girl.�
I must have hit a sore spot.
�You fucking male chauvinist pig!� she yelled.
�Oink, oink!� I yelled back.
Lissi left my room. I watched her walk down the hall and disappear from view.
Peyton came back two nights later, Sunday night, around ten. He walked into our room with a bulging white sack slung over his shoulder. I was sitting at my desk, trying yet again to get through �Buster Magee at the Tent Revival,� a particularly nauseating chapter in Return to Stonycreek Farm.
�Hey,� I said to Peyton.
�Hey,� he said, dropping the sack onto the floor.
�How was your Thanksgiving?�
�Good. And yours?�
�The same.� After a beat or two: �Speaking of which, Lissi told me she saw you at Pageant the night before Thanksgiving�.She said you drove off in a strange car.�
�Uh-huh.�
After another beat or two: �You didn�t really go home for Thanksgiving, did you?�
�Nope. I changed my mind at the last minute. Now, my parents love me and vice-versa. We don�t mind spending time together. But this year, I just decided to go somewhere else for the holiday. So I called them from the bus station and told them I didn�t feel good, that I might have the flu.�
�You lied to them?� I asked with a smile.
�No. I said I might have the flu, Gerald. I didn�t say I did�.So my parents, they told me maybe I shouldn�t risk traveling. I can make the trip, I said. No no, they insisted, I should go straight to bed. And I did. Only I went straight to someone else�s bed, know what I mean?�
�Of course. And you started feeling much better, right?�
�Much, much better.�
�Ha ha ha. So, uh, who helped you in your recovery?�
�A gentleman never tells.�
�Not even a clue?�
�It was someone off-campus.�
�You lucky bastard.� To my immature mind, off-campus meant sexually-experienced. �But what if your parents had called here, asking about your condition?�
�Well, I knew they wouldn�t have the chance. I knew they�d be preoccupied with holiday stuff like eating and watching football and going shopping and interfacing with the hundred or so relatives that always visit us around Thanksgiving.�
I knew that was a lame explanation. If his parents loved him, they certainly would have shown more concern for his health, unless they didn�t love him or vice-versa. Maybe he didn�t even call them. And I somehow didn�t buy his story about the four-day fuckfest, despite my immaturity.
However, I chose to ignore my skepticism, for I idolized him�his looks, his loving parents, his popularity, even the way he could make me swallow his bullshit and ask for seconds.
At work the next morning, I�d just sat down to start typing out an order request from a Mr. D.T. Dwain at the Office for Theoretical Development, for something called G-99 routers (he was always ordering stuff I�d never heard of), when my supervisor Martha asked me if I�d had a nice Thanksgiving.
�Yeah,� I replied.
�Same here. Did you spend a lot of time with your family?�
�Uh, no. I stayed on campus over the break.�
�You did?�
�Yeah. My parents had planned to pick me up, but with gas prices so high�you know.�
�Of course, but why didn�t you tell me you were staying on campus? I would have invited you to my humble home for Thanksgiving dinner. Jill would have liked meeting you. I�ve told her all about you.�
Great, I thought sarcastically, for I knew what Jill looked like. A framed, six-by-eight color photo of her sat on Martha�s desk. A head shot of Jill smiling against a hypothermia-blue backdrop. She had long, feathered blonde hair and brown caterpillar eyebrows. Her cheeks bulged as much as Martha�s did�like mother, like daughter. Jill looked a little heavier than Lissi, not that I myself had a trim figure, but we men rule the world, and anyone who rules the world can get away with packing a few extra pounds, excuse the male chauvinism, ha ha.
Anyway, Martha went on about the many friends Jill�s made at the community college, and how Jill�s made the honor roll this semester, and how she plans to take a creative writing class next semester, and�
�A creative writing class?� I asked
�Yes, she�s recently caught the writing bug. She�s written a few stories, short stories, about our town in the olden days. You know, when we had ice-cream parlors and Model-T�s and, what do you call them, gazebos? I may not be an impartial critic, but I think they�re pretty good stories, better than I could write. They�re like the Stonycreek Farm books, only without the farm?�
�Mm-hmm.�
�You�ve heard of those books?�
�Yes.�
�Well, she loves reading them, and so do I.�
I hated Martha and her daughter even more. I had to get even with them somehow for their abysmal literary taste, as if women like them would have read Norman Mailer or even heard of him. I myself had never read anything by him, but at least I�d heard of him.
I started typing out the order request. After a few moments I had the perfect plan. I stopped typing.
�Martha?...Are you trying to set me up with Jill?�
�Well...I have to confess....�
�I appreciate the thought, and she does sound nice, but�I�m sorry. I don�t think I would have much in common with her.�
�Oh, well.�
�Hey, you know who Jill should meet instead? This guy in my dorm named Nathan Paul Spivak. He�s a creative writing major and writes stories similar to hers.�
�Really?�
�Yeah.� I�d never read anything by him, either. �He�s a pretty interesting person. He speaks and acts in a cultured way.�
�Jill likes culture.�
�Good. Then the two of them would make the perfect couple. Maybe we could arrange a date, if they�re interested. I could tell him about her the next time I see him.�
�She�s a writer like you,� I told Spiv that night during my first-ever visit to his room. Three different cans of talcum powder�not plastic containers, cans�sat on his dresser. �She even likes British culture.�
�Uh-huh, but what does this bird look like?�
�She�s blonde, with a nice shape.�
�He�d like to meet her,� I told Martha at work the next morning.
�I know. He called her up last night.�
�Hah! He doesn�t waste time, does he?�
�Apparently not�.They talked for maybe ten minutes. She liked his accent. He told her you�d recommended her, and that he trusts your judgment. He even called you a good friend.�
�Uh, I�ll have to thank him for that.�
�You should. Friendship is a valuable commodity. Anyway, he plans to pick her up at our place Friday night for dinner and a movie.�
�That�s good.�
And then my life started to get better.
TO BE CONTINUED
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� 2007-2008 David V. Matthews