Hella Love Story

Her name was Veronica. I knew her sisters before I knew her. She was the youngest of them. Her sisters were harpies, both emotionless. One was too cold, hewn from a block of indomitable ice . One was too hot, perpetually burning and threatening to spread.

She was different. I told myself that a lot. She was different. She was different. She was young. Young and different.

We didn't talk on the phone. We talked on the computer. We only talked in person when we bumped into each other when I was at her house to pick up assignments from her sister, the one made of fire. She was shy. Her eyes were always to the ground when she talked to me. She was maybe a little intimidated. I kind of liked that.
"I like your newspaper articles. They're really good." Her voice was young and sweet and full of all the innocence in the world.
"Ah, they aren't so good."
"Well. I like them."

That was when she was a senior in highschool. After she graduated she would look me in the eye.

She had three boyfriends before me. I think they all loved her. I think everyone who ever fancied her fell in love with her. That's just how she was. And that's just how she'll always be. She was just pretty enough to be beautiful, just strange enough to be funny, just smart enough to be intelligent. We loved her idiosyncrasies. We loved her stupid dimples. We loved her. We thought we loved her.

Adam was the first guy she kissed. He was her age. He shamelessly claimed he was an individual. I wanted to shamelessly disabuse him of that notion. I never did. Adam was an objectivist. He couldn't explain objectivism.

Ian was her next boyfriend. Before I even knew her I used to ask her sisters about the boys that went after her. Lots of them did. Ian was a good one. He was big and boring and never had anything interesting to say but he was loyal and true and would have made a good husband. He made a bad boyfriend for a girl in high school.

I don't want to talk about the third boy. I never met him.

I would lend her books. I would say, "Read this, you'll like it." And she would take it. And read it. And tell me her thoughts. Her thinky thoughts. Sometimes she liked them. Sometimes she didn't. When she liked them she would go on and on about how great they were. When she didn't she wouldn't go on and on about anything.

We took walks. And when I got my car back we would go for drives. There were long uncomfortable silences. My music would fill the car but we weren't listening to it. We were listening to each other not talking. We went to our own secret places. She showed me hers. I showed her mine. She took me to yard where the big trains slept. They were like sleeping dragons. Huge. The gravel crunched beneath our feet as we walked heavy steps over long stretches of quiet.

We went to all the parks and elementary schools with playgrounds. Swings and slides were all we needed in the world. I took her to my favorite liquor store. She charmed the clerks. She could charm anyone in the goddamn world.

We were at my favorite park.
"What are you gonna do when you grow up?" I asked her, riding the rhythm of my swing. Hers swayed beside me, it creaked with age and rust.
"Televangelist."
"No, really."
"I want to be a lawyer."
"Really?"
"Really really."
"What kind of lawyer?"
"One of the ones that fights for justice. And animals."

The shadowy pool hall. The bright bowling alley. The cool dumpster that always had the best garbage. We went everywhere. I would tell her that I hated her in a loving way. She said it back to me, I think in a loving way.

She thought flowers were stupid. I thought giving girls flowers was stupid. So I didn't give her anything.

"Tell me something." I said this all the time. She never had anything to say.

When we hang out with my friends I talk a lot to fill the silence that clings to her. She smiles a lot and laughs with us. When we hang out with her friends she becomes a chatterbox and I don't say five words. Her friends look at me strange. I am too old to be hanging out with her. I was a college drop-out, they all loved the college life. My hair is funny looking. Sarcasm isn't interesting anymore. They are beyond that. They are post post-modern. They are the hippest hipsters around and they think they have me pegged. They can see I'm not hip, that I stopped paying attention to the things in life that really matter. I'd like to say I don't care. But I think it might be alright to be hip. Every now and then.

We broke into a swimming pool where I almost died. I had been five. Scariest thing ever. But we broke in anyway because it was hot and we didn't have anything else to do.That was the first time we kissed. We were on our backs. Looking at the stars. Saying the stupid things people say when they look up at stars. Except they don't sound so stupid when you are looking up at them and you think about how big things are and how small you are. It seems perfectly legit to delve into melodrama.

Nice kiss, good kiss.

I walked her home. The streets were empty and cold and there was a mist from the bay coming in. I plunged into it, sucking it all in and letting it surround me. It was the best feeling ever. Nights like those reminded me that I was alive.

A transsexual gave a talk to my class the next day in Human Sexuality. Everyone was respectful. Even the rowdy kids. What was once a woman was now a very convincing bearded and charming man. I wrote Veronica a letter talking about it. It got needlessly saccharine towards the end so I aborted.

I played some of my songs for her. She sat on my carpet with the the white Arabic writing, staring up at me with adoring young eyes. I don't play guitar very well but I make up for it by playing it hard and faking the rest. The theme of all my songs is "Life is strange. Lets just shut up and fucking live." Nice theme. Good theme.

I told her I'd write a song about her. I jotted down a few words. It was horseshit. I never even picked up my guitar.

I went record shopping with some of my friends with the intention of picking up something she might like. When I get home I scan my new records for songs that remind me of her. I find some sad songs that remind me of old girlfriends. I thought about calling some of them, just to hear the contrast between their voices and hers. That was a stupid idea.

"How's your little whore?" Heidi had a very ugly smile, a cruel twist of the upper lip that spread all the way to her cruel eyes. She had been my most recent old flame.
I wish I had been surprised enough to almost spit out my soda. But this was Heidi and that's how Heidi would always be. Heidi was beautiful, so she thought that was an excuse. It usually was.
I stared back at her, unflinching. Somewhere between amusement and anger. "She's good."
"You fucking her yet?"
I found that notion absurdly funny, and didn't even answer.
"Me and Anthony are having a party on Saturday. You wanna go?" Anthony is the guy she cheated on me with. He is tall and nice.
"I was kind of planning on just sleeping all day."
"Sleep, come to the party, get drunk, then you can sleep. You can even bring what's her face-" she crinkles her nose grasping for the name, even though I know she knows it, "-Veronica. Yeah. Bring her. It'll be fun."

We kiss a lot. Whenever we can. I think about the last kiss for the rest of the night. And into the morning. I wake up with it and carry it to the breakfast table and then cling to it during school then remember it fondly the next night. I remember it all the way until the next one. And then there is nothing but that.

I still like taking walks. "Walking is still honest." I say that a lot. I think she is getting tired of walking past the same trees and kicking the same bushes and picking up the same rocks. But she doesn't say anything.

I walked her home and saw a black cat. She thinks it means something bad is going to happen. I think it is a black cat.

The next day all of her goldfish die. It seems like she dies too. I can't say a thing to assuage even a bit of sadness. I just get in the way. She sits on her porch a lot and stares at the cars passing by with listless empty eyes. I wonder what she is thinking. I am thinking, "Fucking goldfish."

A little bit later she invited me to stay the night with her. Her mom was away on business, the fire sister at school and the ice sister with her boyfriend. My friends are on my case all day. Lots of teasing, good natured and otherwise. Someone slips me some condoms. I protest.

I won't need condoms.

I stay the night with her and we mostly watch cartoons. The room is pitch black except for the glow of the television. We start kissing and eventually we do what everyone knew we would do. Take the first opportunity. There are condoms begging to be pulled from my pocket.

I don't use a condom.

This isn't a first for either of us. We both know that. But sex is sex. And it's everything sex is supposed to be. Wonderful, awkward, messy, and poorly planned. We laugh about it, and have our own thoughts about it as well, that we don't share.

I let her read one of my finished screenplays. It is not one I am particularly proud of. But it is definitely decent. She sits on my bed and consumes it, flipping frantically though the pages.
"You use too many cliches."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you are a good writer. But you seem to have a thing for cliches."
"Well, it's kind of my dream to just talk in cliches and non sequiturs."
"That isn't your dream."
"I know."
"I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just saying. Everyone uses cliches. Just. I don't know. Back off a little."
"What do you mean 'back off a little'?"
"Exactly what I said."
"And you are such an expert at cliches."
She looks offended then gets up and slams the door and it's like a movie except I don't run after her. I just stare at my ceiling fan and jack off, thinking about old girlfriends and how they didn't think I was cliche.

I am angry with misdirected indignation. She is angry too but she doesn't tell me. She doesn't call or go online either. I have to hear about it from someone else. From one of the boyfriends. Adam. Boyfriend the first. He finds our problems terribly amusing and never lets me forget he is the shoulder she cries on.

I crossed the street and someone from a passing car shouted "Faggot!" at me. I wonder about the world sometimes.

I spend a long time writing a letter to her. The theme of it is "Please forgive me for being a dipshit." I leave it her mailbox. I talk to all her friends and make all the required bleatings for forgiveness. Her hipster friends are surprisingly sympathetic. They all promise to talk to her.

She comes to my house and we sit on the steps in front, avoiding eye contact. She's still beautiful. Still different. We end up having sex that night. I found a four leaf clover afterwards. She plucks it out of my hand and eats it. I've never been more in love.

"I hate to say this. Since it is a cliche and all. But I think she's the girl of my dreams."
"Not a good thing, dude." Morgan is small and wise, so I listen to him when he speaks, even if it is a high pitched whine.
"Come on, she's fucking perfect. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's got a sense of humor. She likes good music. She dresses well. I don't know. I can't think of a single thing wrong with her."
"Sure you can. Anyway. Dream girls are fine for dreams. Not for life. That's all I'm saying. She's a...She's a sweet girl."

I try to explain to Veronica why Paths Of Glory is my absolute favorite movie of all time. We were sitting on her bed, the credits were rolling, and she looked baffled that I could claim that as THE movie of movies.
"It's cause this whole movie is about bad shit happening to these three guys who are basically innocent. It's about being ashamed of humanity. It's about people siphoning their problems onto others for no reason but advancement or to sate their pride or whatever. It's about the dirty fucking muck inside every human that they don't want to accept. It's about an ending that isn't sentimental. It doesn't pull any punches. Those three innocent guys, they get put in front of a firing squad, get shot and they are dead. So this whole fucking turgid movie, black and white, grimy motherfucking movie, it's all this sadness, all this hopelessness, all this, 'Why the fuck do the bad guys always win?' Well that's what the last scene is for. The fucking German bitch gets up there and all the French guys are jeering and leering and doing their French soldier shit and you know, it's more horrible stuff, mocking her and shit. But then she starts singing. And her fucking voice is so full of emotion that all these hardass motherfuckers from the front, from no man's land and they all break into tears and start humming from just the pure fucking beauty of it all. And without that scene that movie would be incomplete. It would just be an endless stream of 'life isn't fair, life isn't fair' but this one tiny tiny scene negates all that. That scene brings the entire thing to life. And that's it, that's how life is. You march your way through the fucking sludge and things look shitty and then there comes a fucking moment of clarity and you realize that life ain't so bad all the time. That there is beauty in the world. That there are things that are worth it. You know what I mean?"
She thought about it for awhile. I could see her brow tense. "But, there is no final moment of clarity in life, is there? It just goes on and on? Right? Bad bad bad good bad bad bad good good bad bad? That can't be all there is to life. That's bullshit. Not life."
"What I'm trying to say is-"
"Yeah, I know, the girl sings and everyone is happy. But you know what happens the day after? They die."
"But-"
"I have to pee." And she leaves.

Charles Rochester Bucket