The Parting

I remember the way it ended between us.  It was right after one of the band's Saturday night concerts at The Hole and it was a sticky hot night and the air above the pavement was still shimmering in the aftermath of a day in the summer sun, and there were mosquitoes, thick like a buzzing veil, all around us.  We were sitting on the hood of my car eating something fried from a plastic-foam basket.  I don't remember what kind of food it was exactly, but I know it tasted like chicken because even the hamburgers at Fry's tasted like chicken.  And it was altogether miserable, but I was happy, because I thought we were happy, but then I found out we weren't.

You looked at me with those dark-dreaming eyes that were suddenly so serious and full of meaning, and there was this nervous expectation in me, and I was holding my breath and listening for the next beat of my heart, because I knew you were going to ask me to move in with you.  Because that was the next logical step.  But, “You're going to need to move on with your life,” is what you said.

And I said, “What?!” because in the profound silence of the moments after your words, I was positive something more must have been said.  But there wasn't.

“It's just not going to work out,” you said.

“What do you mean?  It is working out.  At least it seems to me like it is.”

“That's only what it seems like.  Trust me.  I know this.  I can see it all before me.”  Waggling your fingers as though you were casting a spell of prophecy.

I wanted to smack your all-knowing face.

“You're on your way to somewhere else.  Somewhere better.  Or somewhere you think is better, at least.  You're always working: job, school, caring for your brother and sister.  You want more.  More money, more things...”

Like we were weren't both trapped in an endless circling rut of poverty.  Like only I was, and you had somehow transcended it.

“You want to climb that ladder, aspiring towards middle class.  You want to be a consumer.”

“And you don't?”

“And I don't.  I'm satisfied with the way things are, actually.  Sure I live in a hole, but the rent is cheap and I can pay it playing guitar, and still have enough left over for whiskey and weed.  I've got a mattress and my video games...  I'm good.  Someday I might have more, but that's not what I'm living for.  I'm just looking for the next good time.”

And up until then there had been a hopelessness welling up in me, threatening to drown me, like my lungs were filling up with stifled tears, but when you said that, sure, it suddenly all made sense.  Yes, it made me swoon when you wrote me love songs, and you would strum and sweetly sing them while we basked, spread out like beach towels in the warm lax moments after booze and sex... but someday that damp mattress on the floor would not be enough.  And you were right, even in your assessment of me, aspiring towards middle class, wanting a better car, and a home of my own, and, heaven forbid, a box spring and headboard attached to the place I lay my head at night, but the same spin could be put on the freedom you thought you had, which to me sounded an awful lot like a lack of purpose or ambition.

You said, “You think what we have is love, and hey.  It might be.  But I think we both know it takes more than that to stay together.  You're moving in one direction, and I'm staying stationary.  Eventually we'll be apart.  Let's just spare ourselves the grief.”

And I choked out the words, “Fair enough,” and wiped my dewy eyes with the back of my hand.

And Then I drove home and I tried my best not to think about you and how good it felt to be walking beside you on the inside of your elbow with your fingers in my hair.

I was actually pretty good at not thinking about you.  It'd been years since the last time I looked back with any feelings approximating nostalgia or tenderness.  But today the memories came back when I saw your bumper-stickered guitar on a stand at a flea market; unmistakable in its blue and gold fuck-you-itiveness.  I asked the man at the booth where he got it, and he simply said, “Some guy, desperate for cash.”  The price on your guitar was $30.  I didn't buy it or anything.  I just saw it while I was busy loading my newly-acquired antique brass headboard in the back of my SUV.

Fair enough.