The way things happen sometimes sets a mind to wondering about the how’s why’s whichways and wherefores. Eversince seeing Rachel in the hall that day in school I’ve been hoping (wishing, praying) to bump into her again soon. Just about any old time would have been fine – any time at all really - except for the one that presented itself.
Synchronicity.
I still worry that she’ll tell everybody about my ‘pre-test upchuck-fest’ and I’ll never be allowed to live it down. The Most Embarrassing Moment of My Life - I could throw a pity-party for myself. Fear lingers. May be it’s time to re-evaluate my belief in Random-Chaos theory.
.
.
Took my driving test a few days ago.
Have I mentioned the You-Gotta-Try-Some-thing-New-Everyday kick Dad’s been on for the last week? No? Well, remind me to tell you about it some time. Anyway, the night before my test, Jack brought home Indian food and was slightly miffed that I wouldn’t eat with him. Even though I insisted I’d already eaten and wasn’t hungry, he kept telling me to ‘tuck in’ as he couldn’t eat it all by himself. He made a valiant attempt though, notwithstanding the profuse burning and streaming of his eyes and nose. There were leftovers, bad luck, and much later that night, unable to sleep and a little like Pooh Bear - rumbly in my tumbly – I found myself standing stark-naked in the kitchen before the microwave, nuking a plastic plate of unnameable brownish food. To my amazement, it tasted wonderful and I wolfed down the lot in a few short minutes. Crawling back onto cool sheet, I fell headlong into a spicy sleep, dreaming of the scent of cilantro and cumin and tumeric – envisioning spice girls currying me with the delightful flavors of their delectible favors. Posh-ginger-scary-sporty-baby sugarplum fairies swaying palpably singing seductively. So totally gone was I to this world that when Judy’s alarm-clock radio went off I slept on like a deaf man overcome by exhaustion. When finally persuaded round by a voice growling at me from the radio, I sprang up and out of bed alarmed by the numbers on the clock’s face.
Riddle-me-ree: What has digits but no hands? A digital clock. Dig it!
A 1, a 3, and two 0’s - harmless numerals you’d normally think, but viewed from the context of my current predicament, more asphyxiating than a scene from a Hitchcock flick. Like a nightmare… in the daytime!
.
10:30! Late, late, and not just late, but very late, for a very important date. The gravelly voice spat out raspy words that seemed to sum everything up: Overworked and underpaid, a dollar short and a day late… Chris t, I got my lips around a bottle and my fingers on the throttle… I pulled on clothes like a man in a house on fire (where’s my other shoe?) I beat myself up for sleeping late, metaphorically speaking (or is it metaphysically?), and continued to do so for the duration of my headlong run in the direction of the bus. I paid particular attention to the traffic as I ran, not wanting to find myself standing in the middle of a dead dog.
With only minutes to spare, I arrived, doubled over, gasping for oxygen, acute cramp in belly, brain disorientated like a punctured football. Eustachian tubes clicked and popped as leaking air pressured its way up through them. I stumbled around a long hall with a highly polished floor, banging off walls, holding my gut as though I’d just taken a slug, feeling like that tragic character in the gangster flick I saw the other night. I felt like that now – as though I’d been caught in the grip of a psychogenic fugue or something just as inexplicable - vaguely feeling my way towards the restrooms. All sense of Time and Space was lost to me. Dots duplicated in quick succession destroying my field of vision. All I knew was this: the Large White Telephone was Ringing. And God was on the Other End. In my turbid search for the Ringing Telephone, I ran out of gas, sputtered to a halt, slumped back against what I imagined was a wall, and fell backwards through a yielding door. Horizontal upon cold floor, ears filled with muffled buzz, stunned, surprised, and no longer in possession of the slightest idea where I was, I sang the title line from a They Might Be Giants song, over and over: Someone… keeps moving… my chair.
.
.
A voice - pleasant, female – one I thought I recognized - filtered through the effluvium, finding me, stopping my fall into the abyss, dragging me closer to my disembodied presence of mind. Her voice came to me down the long twisty wire I was pulling myself up with, saying something that sounded like: Ukelele.
U-O-K L-E-O?
You’re breaking up, I thought. In jerky slo-mo, I went about decoding the meaning of these six letters, all the while struggling to open my eyes and sit up. Aeons later, I managed it, finding myself staring up and into an orbiting oval - a face I was sure I recognized. Rachel Ferguson?
Who else?!
She repeated the six letters, and this time, reading her lips, I understood. She wanted to know if I was okay. Scrambled to feet and grabbed butt with both hands to check for a new crack as the sharp pain gave me to believe I’d broken it. Jeez Louise - I can just see it: Pete, Mikey and Troy
Those guys… what can you say? So witty. So shitty.
‘Leo, are you all right?’ Rachel again, more concerned now.
‘I’m okay,’ I lied, expecting to drop dead any second.
‘Are you positive?’
‘HIV!’ Three letters I immediately wished I hadn’t said. What the hell was I thinking? Where had that come from? And where the hell was I anyway?
Rachel closed in on me for closer inspection. ‘Well, you sure don’t look okay.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said testily, ‘but thanks for asking.’ I wasn’t fine at all, and I knew I had to get away from her - before the inevitable came to pass. In the back of my mind I worked out the odds:
Fall over on face: 5-1.
Head explodes: 3-1.
Disappear up my own ass: 2-1.
Upchuck all over her: Odds on favorite!
‘No really,’ she persisted, alarm revealing itself in the dilating holes of her pupils. ‘You don’t look well at all – you’re so pale. You’re just nervous about the test, that’s all. Don’t worry. You’ll be right as rain in a minute. Here, drink some water.’ She took my elbow and led me to a sink. I took heart: at least I’ve made it to the bathroom.
‘What’re you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I’m taking my driving test. Aren’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ I wince as a crew of miniature men in bigboots and hardhats mill about in the hollow pit of my gut. Whatever it is they’re putting together, they’re nearly finished, and I sense something’s about to blow. I can feel it in my throat. When it goes off it’ll be messy – not a smart move for a guy to make in front of the girl he’s planning to ask out on a date. What are they building down there?
Damn – I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that Indian food.
‘Wow. What a coincidence.’
Ah – that’s it! They’re building a rocket. And they’re finished. The countdown’s
begun. 10. 9.
‘I’m not nervous,’ I insisted.
Rachel pursed her lips and knitted her brow. ‘But you must be nervous.’ With a hand on my nape she pushed me forward and told me to drink!
8…
I lapped like a puppy at the cold water in the cup of her hand.
‘It’s just pre-test nerves is all, no big deal. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed.’
7. 6.
‘It’s not nerves.’ Water leaked from my mouth as I strained to stand straight and force my lips into a semblance of a smile. For some reason her accusation hit me funny and I took exception. This wasn’t a good way for me to be perceived (nervous and embarrassed) by the girl I had designs on. Don’t want her to get the wrong idea about me. I mean, if anything, I’m pretty laid back. I’m cool.
5…
‘I’m not nervous,’ I assured her again, but she just smiled back, insisting that I must be.
4.
Along with my temperature, my stomach was rising. My mouth dried up - saliva sticky, stringy and salty. The toilet bowl rang out
getting louder
3…
How do you confuse an Irish laborer? My Uncle Brian likes to ask on occasion. Stand him in front of a row of shovels and tell him to take his pick! That one always cracks me up. But I wasn’t confused. I wasn’t nervous or embarrassed or confused. I knew exactly what was happening. And I knew that after what was about to happen that I’d no longer be in a position to ask Rachel out, ever again, and that if I somehow managed to muster the balls to do so, she’d decline my offer. And her bare, tanned skin – I’d never get to touch. Ha! How close can you get without it touching it? as Dad likes to ask. In this case… well, this was it, right here, right now – this was as close as I was going to get: her left hand on the back of my neck, my tongue dipping into the bowl of the other. And that’s kind of sad, when you think about it.
I grew more frustrated by the second. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of a face whiter than a blank page staring back at me.
‘No,’ I emphasize one last time, ‘I’m not nervous.’ My head’s like a tea-pot, short and stout, billowy steam whistling from the spout. Tip me over, pour me out…
2…
‘Well… if you’re not nervous’ she purred distractedly, and stuck the tip of a fingernail into her mouth, ‘then…’ clicking it against her teeth, and asked, ‘what’re you doing in the Ladie’s?’
1!
A yell. Or was it a howl? Oh no. Must’ve been me.
Right hand slipped over open mouth. Then I was on the ground, on knees in a cubicle, in the posture of someone taking one of those facial steam-bath things. The coagulated remnants of last night’s nuked leftovers issued forth in a spectacular projectile fashion, slapping the water like the ass of a fat guy doing a cannon-ball in a shallow pool. Now I was embarrassed: the splashing sound, the sight of me in this compromised position, the smell that quickly filled the air with poison-green gas – hard pressed to say which one is the cause.
Baby-shit-brown and green gunge entered the bowl with a sploosh, followed by a gargled retching that sounds like aaarrghhoyakkkh. The noise reverberated off tiled walls – the sad song of a stumblebum after a few bottles of cheap wine. When the worst of it had subsided, when I was in the final death-throes of the dry-heaves, I experienced two opposing feelings simultaneously: Relief (from upchucking the glop in my stomach and all the pain that was chuckedup with it) – that was wonderful, but negated by Disappointment at the fact that I had forever blown any slim chance I may have had with the gorgeous Rachel Ferguson.
Embarrassment gave way to a sense of feeling sorry for myself. As ears began to clear, I noticed how quiet it was out there. Maybe she’s gone! Yeah. I listened harder, hopefully. May be she’d left before the blast. In the hunched position of a man looking down a well, I reached for some paper to wipe my mouth.
Shit! Unsurprisingly, there’s none. Murphy’s Law, Uncle Brian would say. Or is it Sod’s Law? Whatever. It’s the law: What can go wrong will go wrong.
‘Here.’ Rachel was standing over me, offering a wad of lipstick-stained Kleenex.
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, taking it. ‘Sorry.’
‘For what? Don’t be silly. Like I said, just pre-test jitters. Butterflies in your stomach. Everybody gets ‘em. When I do, I try to get ‘em to fly in formation – like it’s more bearable that way, you know?’ She laughed and slapped my back. ‘I think you managed to do that – get them to fly in formation, I mean – to fly out of your mouth in one straight shot. Amazing.’
‘Amazing,’ I repeated, dabbing at the cold wet dots on my forehead, staring listlessly at her shiny black shoes.
Amazing-mazing-azing-zing-ing-ng echoed through the empty stalls.
‘Hey, listen, I gotta go. You’ll be all right now, now you’ve got the butterflies out of your system.’ She slapped my back again. ‘Take your time, get your head together, and don’t come out till you’re good and ready. Okay?’
‘Okay. Thanks again.’ I hung my head in the bowl and considered flushing it. Goodbye, cruel world.
I don’t remember taking the test, but incredibly, I passed somehow. And like a baseball card clicking in the spokes of the wheels of my bike, Rachel’s been stuck in my mind ever since. Seeing her, I mean the way she is now - is mind-bending. To me, she was always just that metal-mouthed, pigtailed kid living in the mustard colored house at the end of our street: the beanpole sissy girl with the weird, older hippy brother - what was his name? oh yeah - Dwayne. A name that cracks Judy up every time she hears it.
A couple of years ago Judy and I happened to find ourselves in the Ferguson
.
.
I remember Judy scrunching her nose up as we left the hot, fetid room (six mice and two rats later), whispering from behind cupped hands of how it smelled like bad tomatoes – or old spilled ketchup. Wow! Funny the things that stay with you.
Seeing Rachel has got me thinking about How Fast Things Change. I don’t know exactly who she is now and all, who she’s turned into, I mean, but she isn’t the skinny beanpole kid down the street anymore, that’s for sure. She’s all grown up – all filled out! I’m enthused (and somewhat bemused) to find that strange things start to happen when I daydream about her. For one, a compulsion to write poetry overwhelms me. For another, the desire to stroll in the woods raises me to my feet. The simplest, stupidest things send my train of thought down tracks that always and finally lead to her.
Yesterday morning for instance: from a vertical position upon the lawn in the backyard, quietly minding my own business, gazing up at the tree, considering the way it proudly displayed its harvest of just-ripe apples – snap! - there she was, Rachel F, on my mind.
Today, in the woods down by the drying-up stream, a doe stepped out of the underbrush and sloped into my field of vision. In her beauty and grace, I fancied I saw Rachel’s face, as youthful and vital as it would ever be. She’s like a brand new person to me. The result of a spellbinding metamorphosis: from a common-or-garden-variety caterpillar she has emerged an exquisite butterfly.
At school guy’s heads in the halls turn to stare when she glides by. My head mostly, I guess, like it’d been cut off and placed on a well-oiled Lazy Suzanne.
The sight of her – her smell – her smile - takes my breath away. Thinking about her does my brain in. Could it be love?
Jack’s calling up from the foot of the stairs. Dinner’s ready.
I’m going. I’m starving.
PS: Would I really want to eat if this was love? I read something in Reader’s Digest to suggest not. Ha! It’s probably nothing more than a bad case of lust. A good case of lust!’
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