This was awkward. REALLY awkward. But I guess I should have expected it. He’s been kind of a weirdo since he moved into the building years ago.
A pair of tighty-whiteys were on his head. He was holding a broom, but the way he was cradling it, I could tell he thought it was a gun. I thought he didn’t like guns, so I asked him about it.
“What’s with the gun?”
“Whatta ya expect? It’s the damned CIA, they teamed up with the gypsies, I have no choice.”
His eyes went wilder than usual, and I noticed that his long, dark hair wasn’t just messy, but cluttered with sticks and dirt. Then I whiffed the odd smell of peanut butter.
“Why does it smell like peanut butter?” I asked, looking around the room.
“Oh, that would be me. I ran out of shampoo.”
“So you used peanut butter?”
“Yeah,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Okay…”
He reached for the door as if to close it with me still standing in the doorway. How rude. Then I realized the one question I should have asked, but confusion distracted my normal brain patterns.
“What are you doing in my closet?”
“You’re my sworn enemy. They’ll never think to look for me here.”
“I see. Can you leave?”
“Can I have some macaroni and cheese?”
“How…how did you know what I was making for dinner?”
“I can smell it.”
“Oh.”
An awkward moment.
“Sure. Pull up a chair, but leave the gun. No weapons at the dinner table.”
“Meet me under the juniper tree,” was all that the note said, and so as she reached the summit of the hill on her vintage green bicycle, she saw a picnic blanket, basket, and an opened bottle of wine. And, of course, her boyfriend.
“Cute,” she said as she approached him, leaving the bike propped against the tree. The blanket, an old plaid one from the sixties they’d bought at a yard sale, was held down on each corner by different objects: his journal, the wine, a stack of 45s, and the old battery-operated 45 player they scored at a thrift shop. He moved the needle over the 45 already on the player, and Woman by John Lennon started playing as he stood up and reached his hand out.
“Care to dance?”
She took his hand and they danced under the juniper tree, the wind blowing through the prickly leaves, berries dropping here and there, one landing in her hair. He reached out and pulled it out, fixed her hair where it was messy from his fingers, and then returned his hand to its original position on the hip of her plaid t-shirt dress.
“You’re something else, aren’t you?” she asked. He smiled. “Don’t get a big head over this. It’s impressive, yes, but still, don’t get cocky.” Her smile told him he was doing a good job. “So what’s the occasion?”
He thought about it as they slowly rotated, moving from sun to shade and back again. He finally shrugged. “No occasion. Just felt like it.”
Her arms squeezed a little tighter, making him exhale a little, move his hand up to the back of her head and into her hair, and he brought his lips to hers. She made a tiny sound, letting him know the feeling of excitement in his chest was shared.
The 45 finished playing, and he stopped kissing and released her, returning to the blanket and opening the basket as she just stood there, a bit dazed.
“I got us hummus, pita, and of course, for you, green olives. Blech!” he said as he opened the jar and some of the liquid spilled on his hand. He placed everything on the blanket as she walked over, took her flip flops off and sat, knees together and feet under her.
“How thoughtful! Try one.”
“No.”
“Have you ever had one?”
“As a kid, yes, Gross.” He squinched his face so she understood he didn’t like them.
“Just try one. For me.” He looked at her, she pushed out her lower lip, letting him know he didn’t really have a choice. He opened his mouth, and she threw one at him, missing completely as it rolled down his vintage brown shirt, leaving a small trail of wet brine.
“Nice,” he said, smiling at her as he dabbed at the trail with a napkin. He picked up the olive and threw it into his mouth.
She watched.
“Well?”
“What?”
She laughed. “You like it, don’t you.”
“No!” he said with a sound of defensiveness in his voice. She smiled.
“You don’t have to admit it. But I know you do.”
He put out the food as she poured the wine into plastic cups. They ate in silence for a while, taking turns removing the berries from the hummus as they fell from the tree.
“This is nice,” she said to him after a sip of wine. He smiled at her and refilled her cup, and then his. She spread more hummus onto her pita and then passed it over to him. He took a bite and was surprised.
“There was an olive hidden in there!”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a curt smile. He laughed.
“You’re trouble, you know that?” She nodded.
He spread some hummus on a piece of pita and took a bite.
He thought about it for a few seconds, and after much deliberation said, “Can you pass me the olives?”
After a know-it-all smile at him, she passed him the olives, and a berry bounced right off the bridge of her nose, making both of them laugh.
He sat across the couch from her, Broken Social Scene’s Feel Good Lost album playing quietly in the background, as she typed away on her computer, and whenever the clicking paused he knew she was taking a moment to look at him. He knew, but didn’t try to catch her; he didn’t want to. He wondered if she noticed that every time she looked over he was smiling a little. And then he wondered if she knew it was because he knew.
She caught him peeking at her, only once.
“Sorry.”
“What for?”
“Distracting you.”
“You aren’t,” she said with her trademark big smile he was quickly falling for.
She reached out and took his hand and returned to her work, typing one-handed. He didn’t even try writing a story, and not just because she took one of his hands hostage.
“Am I keeping you from writing?”
“Nope,” he said, trying to be coy. He played around online for a bit with his right hand, and eventually gave up. She kept typing, but her mind wasn’t really on the task at hand either. It wasn’t long before she closed her laptop.
“Are you done?”
“Nope.”
“I promised you that if we had a homework date we would actually finish stuff.”
She smiled again, and he knew he would be losing this one. He closed his laptop and put it on the other couch as she scooched closer. She started messing with his hair a little, and so he poked her in the ribs, trying to find a ticklish spot. It didn’t take long.
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what?” he said with a devilish smile. He could see he’d figured it out…he’d been trying to tickle her feet earlier, with no success.
“Come here.”
They kissed, and he stopped her after a bit. “Do some work. I don’t want you to refuse other homework dates because we don’t focus.”
She smiled and started some paperwork, and he listened to her scribbling as he wrote a story. When the scribbling stopped he knew she was trying to read the story he was currently typing on his Mac. He looked up and caught her looking.
“What?”
“Don’t read it as I type!” he said, trying to cover the screen with his hand.
“Can I read it when you’re done?”
“Maybe…we’ll see.”
“Is it about me?”
“Mind your own business.”
“Well..if it is about me, doesn’t that make it my business?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Nope. And don’t worry, it’s not about you.”
She frowned and returned to her paperwork, and he finished the story about their homework date.
The date had been great so far, and he was nervous when he suggested they head to his place to listen to records, but he knew his intentions were fairly innocent. She accepted following some hesitation, and after a quick tour of the downstairs they sat on opposite sides of his plaid couch, chatting as the album Colours by Claudine Longet played.
They talked about all kinds of things people talk about when getting to know one another, and as the conversation continued, the record ended and he flipped it and returned to her.
It wasn’t until he’d switched to Donovan’s Greatest Hits, a few albums later, that he noticed that every time he got up to switch the record, she nonchalantly inched a bit closer to his side. Once he realized this, his heart sped up a bit, but started returning to the couch a bit closer as well, until their knees were touching during “God Help the Girl” by Stuart Murdoch.
It wasn’t until Astrud Gilberto’s “The Shadow of Your Smile” that her finger poked his hand playfully, and he opened it, inviting hers in. She smiled, looked at him with her big, greenish-brown eyes, and their fingers intertwined as she rested her head onto his shoulder.
They talked about music, life, everything, as the needle played beautiful music into the air, and she pushed into him a little more, making the butterflies explode in his chest. He put his arm around her and held her a little tighter as they discussed exes, quirks and other oddities that naturally came up in conversation.
The record stopped, and he didn’t want to get up this time. He enjoyed having this girl in his arms, and she squeezed him, subtly telling him not to get up, but he wanted to put on one more record. She’d mentioned a certain someone she liked, and so he felt it was his obligation to play it for her, to show her that he not only listened to what she said, but that he valued it.
“I really don’t want to get up, but we need more music,” he said as she gave him a sad look but released him from her hold. He walked over to the shelf and searched for the one he was looking for, found it, and before she knew it the needle was lowering onto the vinyl and he was returning to his original position on the couch.
The song “Come Dance With Me” started and she smiled, recognizing his attempt to impress her by playing The Best of Frank Sinatra, and she held him a little tighter. He felt that enlightened feeling boys get sometimes when they know they impressed a girl they like, and they talked and cuddled a bit more as the needle slowly made its way across the record to the last song, “Put Your Dreams Away,” at which point he made to get up, she sat up, and he kissed her. Their first kiss, as the lyrics played, “Let your kiss confess this happiness, darling, and put all your dreams away.”
“Good timing,” she said. He didn’t mention it was purely chance. He didn’t even know the lyrics to the song, and listened. “When your dreams at night fade before you, then I’ll have the right to adore you.”
Be sure to watch the accompanying short film capturing some of this moment at the end. Thanks for reading!
Anabelle sat on her stoop, the afternoon sun splashing her face, diffused through the thick leaves of the oak tree in front of her house. She placed the black suitcase-shaped machine on her lap, pushed the two black buttons on the front and gently lifted the cover off her Brother Charger 11 typewriter.
She picked up the bubble-wrap package the mailman left in her doorway and tore the top off with her teeth, dumping the contents onto the ground, including a spool of typewriter ribbon and a receipt, which she automatically threw into her bright blue recycling bin that sat at the bottom of her stoop.
She peeled back the tape that held bubble wrap around the spools and carefully removed them, looking the mysterious objects over, trying to figure them out. She took the cover off her typewriter and looked at all of the little arms that would be creating her work as soon as she figured out how to spool it. She gently pushed the B button, seeing how the mechanism moved, and discovered where the ribbon had to be placed.
After some struggle, she got it under and over all of the right little pegs and was ready to go. Reaching behind her, she grabbed a small stack of old paper, green and faded from age with browned edges, and she pushed it under the big black rubber bar she knew to be the platen (after Googling the parts of a typewriter) and started spinning the dial on the side, hearing the click and watching the paper slowly appear from underneath, nestling safely under the metal beam that held the paper in place.
She started typing and simple words came out, words that people have probably typed millions of times when testing out any sort of writing instrument.
“Anabelle rules.”
“This is fun.”
“Kinks rule.” Okay, that one was just because the record was playing in her house and she could hear the song “A Well Respected Man.”
“Annabelle loves her typewriter.”
All of which were true. She practiced a bit more, sometimes typing specific words, other times just closing her eyes and listening to the sound, a new one to her, of the clicking typewriter parts, the arm slamming onto the paper, and the gentle click of the whole carriage slowly gliding one spot over each time she typed. She tried out all of the buttons, including the ¼ and the * and the @, #, and even the %. She was thrilled and even squealed a little with glee. She even figured out (after a few tries) that for an exclamation point, she had to go back and add a period underneath the single line that the typewriter created.
She grabbed the top of the paper and pulled, hearing the metallic ripping sound the platen made, put in a fresh, clean sheet of vintage paper, readjusted the paper holder, and with a serious look on her face started typing a story.
He opens the fortune cookie, drops the remnants onto the little dish, and reads it out loud. “Your life will be happy and peaceful.”
“That’s ironic,” I say from across the table.
“Why?” he asks me.
I give him a quizzical look. How could he fail to see the irony in this situation? “Why are we here tonight? Why did you drag me out on the coldest, rainiest night ever to a Chinese Restaurant we haven’t been to since we were dating ten years ago?”
“I sometimes forget we dated, we’ve been best friends for so long. We used to come here all the time.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. But that’s not why we’re here.”
“Oh yeah…that.”
He’s so frustrating. Clueless. But then, that’s the kind of person who would do this in times like these.
“So,” he said, “Can I have your orange wedge?”
I push the little plate towards him. “Knock yourself out.”
He reaches his big, stupid hand over to my plate and takes the wedge. He starts slurping at it, sounding like a kid who just started wearing braces.
“Don’t you think I’ll look good in fatigues?”
Ugh. “Yeah I hear they’re quite slimming.”
He looks like I just slapped him. He puts down the chewed remnants of peel. The smell reaches me, making me regret giving up the orangey sweetness.
His gaze is drawn outside, looking at the street now devoid of cars. Every once in a while the wind blows a splattering of drops onto the window.
“It’s nice here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. I don’t get why you would leave.”
“There’s so much peace and quiet.”
I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. He continues.
“I love this place. I’m going to miss it.”
“Then why go?”
“You know.”
I really didn’t. There is no reason, no point. The worst is that as of now it’s faceless to me. I don’t know anyone there, so I don’t need to worry or care. I can avoid it by staying away from the news, papers, websites. But now he will be there, and now it has a face and I will be confronted with it at all hours. At work. In the car. Washing the dishes. On a date. I’m forced to think about it now…and it makes me feel…
“Uncomfortable?” he asks.
“Huh?” It is like he was reading my mind.
“You look uncomfortable. Need to switch? My chair is pretty soft.”
“No, no thanks,” I say, laughing a little.
“I ship out pretty early tomorrow.”
“Do they still say that? Ship out? Isn’t that the navy?”
He turns a little red, reminding me of the time he walked in on my little sister changing.
“I dunno…”
“Maybe you better find out before you make an ass of yourself.”
He gets up, bumping into the table and making the glasses of water sway enough to spill a bit over the edge. He drops a twenty on the table.
“Thanks. This was important.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He turns to go, and I feel like I need to say something meaningful, but can’t think over the emotional noise cluttering my head.
“Wait.”
He turns, but I still don’t know what I want to say.
He gives me a sad wave and turns around to leave. Pulling his coat tighter, he opens the door and is attacked by the wind, rain spraying him as he makes his way out of my life, and possibly out of his.
Music to go along with this story: Staralfur by Sigur Ros.
Music played in the background as she was stretched out on the couch, resting her head on his lap and her feet on the arm of the old, beaten up couch. He played with her short, brown hair, and she smiled.
“I love how content we can be, just sitting here.” He nodded agreement. She continued. “Do you think we’ll be poor forever?”
“Poor but happy,” he said with a smile as she sat up and he put his arm around her, drawing her closing.
“That sounds nice,” she said, allowing herself to be pulled in.
“Starving artists, and all. But if you want we could totally get nine-to-five jobs. But…”
“We’d miss out on moments like this. If we worked normal jobs, we’d both just be getting home.”
“Complaining about work.”
“Worrying about dinner.”
“Fighting over who has to do the dishes.”
“That’s just not us.”
They both paused, thinking about this alternate world.
“You know, we end up with so many…”
“Responsibilities?” he finished. She smiled at this and nodded, placing her head on his shoulder.
“You know, there’s only one way to ever be free of them, ever again.”
“Going insane?”
“Exactly. And that would put the burden onto someone else, our parents, most likely. Seems unfair. But that’s our only possible escape, from here on out.”
She looked up and played with his hair in the back a little, pulling on it to make him smile.
“Insane is the idea of giving all this up,” she said. He nodded and picked up a nearby notebook.
We’d just spent the whole day together, the four of us, me and Jimmy, Fern and Able, an entire day. I remember it was warm, too warm for Spring, Easter around the corner, things were simpler then, when we still anxiously awaited the Easter Bunny, wondering what goodies we would find in our baskets. No school for a few days. The long trek to Scranton to see the relatives we only saw twice a year, once for a huge Easter brunch and their yearly summer visit in Sea Isle City.
The creek had been especially cold still, too cold really to put our feet in, but we did so anyway. I shivered a bit, and Jimmy pointed out the goose pimples on my arms. He started trying to warm them, and they only grew worse, not from the cold but from his touch. I turned a bright red, which Able pointed out, and I just tried to explain away as part of the unusual heat.
We headed over to the swinging rope from there, the boys daring each other to swing farther out over the creek, then taking turns attempting other dares, trying to outdo each other for the sake of our affection. It wasn’t until the rope started to break that they stopped, and Jimmy won, of course.
Fern and I sat and chatted while the boys played with a frog they found, listening to us giggle from afar. They pushed each other a bit, back and forth, but playfully. They weren’t fighting over us, everyone knew Able had a thing for Fern, and Jimmy, well Jimmy had already told me he was going to ask me to marry him one day.
It was Fern who pointed out the sun, guessing it was probably almost supper time when we started hearing all of the neighborhood moms yelling out children’s names, so we started the long hike back through the woods. Birds sang, the boys hit saplings with walking sticks they found, and we just followed.
We emerged from behind old Mr. Sampson’s back yard, careful not to be seen since he was a notorious kid hater, and was known to call parents when kids cut through his yard. But we didn’t care, it was a perfect day and we practically dared him to call our homes as we strolled through.
It was after we got to the street that Jimmy slowed down, allowing me to catch up, telling Fern that Able wanted to ask her something so that she would run ahead a bit. He took my hand in his for the first time, and an excited chill ran through my body to my heart. I smiled a crooked smile, trying to act normal and keep from him how he made me feel, and as Fern turned around, smiled, and waved her goodbye to me, I wiggled my free fingers at her in return and Jimmy walked me home, holding my hand all the way.
She always dreaded that the day would come. He had been serving in the army for a second tour of duty, and she would often have nightmares of that fateful moment. The men would come, dressed in their uniforms, and solemnly approach her home with that letter, the typed, impersonal apology from the United States government.
It had happened to Ethyl down the street, and she spent days there, consoling her, bringing casserole after casserole, returning home with the emptied dish every night with the knowledge that she would just have to fill it up again tomorrow, a shared sympathy. After all, it could just as easily be Ethyl bringing the casseroles to her.
And then one evening, she was sitting watching the television when she heard a car coming down the street and just knew. She got up, still dressed from her long day of shopping with Ethyl, attempting to keep her mind off of her loss, and she could see the car slowly driving down the street. She watched from the window, lights off, praying that the car would just pass her house.
It pulled into her driveway, a long, black Buick, and the headlights illumined the space around her, through the window. For some reason she grabbed her purse, an afterthought, or perhaps something to hold onto when the news came. She watched as two older men in uniform got out of the car and straightened their shirts, double-checking for perfection. Then one reached into his pocket and withdrew the envelope.
For a brief moment, she felt a breath on the back of her neck, and she turned and saw her husband there. The men approached her stoop.
She reached out to touch him, and he smiled, just for a moment. The men were at the door now.
His smile disappeared, and he nodded knowingly, reassuringly, and she knew what he was trying to tell her. The men knocked.
She looked down at the carpet, freshly vacuumed, felt the gentle caress of his hand at the small of her back, and when she looked up he was gone.
I sat at my art desk drawing a wooden model man. I had him posed as if he were frozen, mid-air, while skipping down the road. One arm flailed towards the heavens, the other reached out as if it would make him land an inch farther, both of his legs stretched as if jumping a hurdle.
That’s when I heard the voice. “Why?” It was calm, quiet, mysterious and yet manly. Almost whispered, with a childlike tone.
I looked around, confused.
“All I want is to be positioned naturally, just once.”
I strained my ears, listening for the source. It sounded as if it were right in front of me, coming from the wooden man, and yet, it also seemed to come from deep inside of me as well.
“What do you mean?” I asked, prying more words so as to detect the source.
“You always position me in unnatural poses. Jumping, dancing, walking, but never how a real person would jump, dance or walk. Always different from a human.”
It was definitely coming from the wooden man.
“It’s the part you play, my friend,” I said to him, turning the invisible face towards me so I could see if there were any visible changes.
“I just want to look human. I’m supposed to represent one. Why make me stand so many ways, and yet none of them make me feel more like you?”
“So what, I should sit you on the couch in front of the tv? Should I put you to sleep at night, under the covers?”
“You’re mocking me. All I want is to be like you. And you mock me.”
I turned him away from me a bit.
“I guess I never thought of you as a sentient being before. How was I to know this was what you wanted?”
“You should have known. You should have guessed.”
“Well, I apologize. How would you like to be posed? Your wish is granted. Tell me.”
The wooden statue failed to respond, trying to decide, I assumed. I picked him up so he knew I was serious. Finally he responded.
“Sitting in a chair. That’s what I would like.”
“Should I put you on an actual chair, or just position you as if you were sitting on one.”
“Those chairs are much too big for me. So I guess just a pretend chair.”
I picked him up and bent his legs, his back, his arms, and granted his wish.
A Flash of Inspiration 