Collusion: Part XXX

Circle. Moon. Earth. Symbolic of an extraterrestrial sort of intelligence. Thought patters run in them. All sustainable systems burn in cycles. Perhaps the incidents that come to have the most meaning in our lives are those moments when a tangent forces the end of a cycle… and then enacts permanently bonded change. A mother gives birth. Your dog gets hit by a truck as you look on. You remember exactly the moment when… she broke your heart.

But which patterns are healthy ones? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

I have to share reader, that I find writing be a little tangent for me. I can almost hear a bottle cap pop when I begin. Though really Im never precisely certain what Ill be pouring one day to the next. Water? Or Sweet Tea? Blackberry wine? Or Jack? Or Pepsi? To some degree or another. Who cares? I’m dumping shit out.

As I have to some degree waxed nostalgic of a late… I’ll follow this path for a time. As I have mentioned before I was quite a voracious reader as a child. The tiny dusty white library was in St. Matthews. A short drive into town would bring me within reach of the thing that I craved most. Knowledge. It felt more intimate than the sort of statistics that you rattle off when you’re trying to be impressive though. It felt like I could leave the dirt roads and wet heat and soy bean fields beneath me and I could float up and up… To every which way but back down. 

The librarians were a mysterious thing to me. Most of the were nearly fallen into their tombs with age, and their accents were all something Mayberry. I had heard their names many times, but that always slipped my mind when Mom would take us by the place. I was rather a shy child. And you know, there’s nothing at all wrong with that. I suppose at the time I was uncomfortably aware of it though. I always wondered what others thought of me.

My Mother was very scrupulous of what she allowed me to check out from the library. She understood that books are just as dangerous as a loaded gun in the night stand. Perhaps more so. Books are tangents also. The books that we had laying around the house had been read and re read and I arrived at the feeling of curiosity about what other books might have to say. I had first thought that all the reading in our little white library might be only more of the same as what we had at home. Or that the books in the little white library would be a reflection of the building itself. That they would be sinless… sturdy… dusty. This was not so. I’d sooner vote republican.

I chose the books that I brought up to the counter judiciously. Weighing carefully the likely hood that Mom would read the spine, or not be over fond of the cover… and tell me to put it back. I didn’t really understand why should would find some in poorer taste than others… but who can say why, at that age mothers do what they do. Mothers are arbitrary.

Along and Along as we made more trips to and from the little white library I noticed that mom was paying less attention to the books I picked out. She would perhaps be using the computers, or talking with a librarian. And then of course there was John and Beth to be concerned about. I saw an opportunity to use less discretion in my selections… and so I decided to do just that. It was as much fun as throwing glitter.

I was a stealthy thing though. Hmmmm yes. I would pick two or so boring books that I knew Mom would find appropriate… and then slide something in between them. Whichever one I found most intriguing. The one that I would read thirstily and blithely ignore the others. Once I found a treasure trove of a read in Anne Rice’s ‘The Witching Hour.’ So adeptly sensuous. So filled with over wrought emotion. Fantastical tales about witchcraft. And… And women. And shockingly vivid vampires… and sex. There were so many things I thought I understood about the story when I read them. Rice painted. She worked for those words and that story. This little boy thought she was some sort of genius of the criminal mastermind variety.

There were other books too. There was one titled ‘speak.’ It was by some somebody that I cant remember. In it I was introduced to a 9^th grade girl. Something was very wrong with her… but I couldn’t tell what. This girl didn’t pray or go to church or anything. She cried often, and hardly spoke to anyone at school. She cut herself sometimes. Turns out though it made sense by the end of the book. She had been raped by one of her peers in a broom closet at school. The closing scenes were fantastic! She fought the boy, with his wanton and filthy desires… he was chocking her… and he pushed her head hard into a mirror. It broke. As the fight moved to the floor she snatched a shard of the thing and stabbed that horrible boy in the neck. And ya know? Good for her! I wanted to give her a hug…

I drank up Tolkien. All the way to the Silmarillion. Which didn’t make a lick of sense until I read it again. It was an intoxicating story of … well a sort of retelling of the Greek myths with name changes.

Dickenson. Shakespeare. Blake. Emmerson. Shelly. Some Bible.

I replicated this process innumerable times. I longed to feel… beyond. And so I did. Each new story began something. The marks that those books left on me are permanent.

I wonder if I still have anything that’s due.

Collusion: Part XXVI

Every single experience of our lives in a new layer of paint. Some clear like varnish. Some opaque. Some black. Some layers should be chipped off, and some of them should be painted over. All the same they are what makes us individuals. They are what give us color.

But you knew this already. We don't wander around stagnant... forced to stumble into what and who will be our next mistake.

The sun beat down relentless. Kids from the south develop a certain tolerance to heat. Not just heat like a sunny 78 with light breezes. Heat like a fever in the Sahara. South Carolina cares for no one. She believes firmly that it is her job to prepare all the baptists that live within her confines for the strong likelihood that they will at some point forget a prayer before bedtime and thus be sentenced to a little swim in the lake of fire. Oh yeah,  and the humidity cranks up the heat index so that being outside almost always feels like a sweat lodge.

I was one of those children who was almost always out in this heat, and as such was most nearly always sweating and playing happily. It was that part of the late spring just before the first days of true summer where all the wild vines that plundered their ways across ditches along the sides of the roads were gushing blackberries. Big fat, thumb sized remnants of their more gentrified bacchanal cousins, they gushed with a tangy syrupy sweetness. They tempted simple country children to cheat their sharp thorns and if they were so brave, to claim the high prize of their fruit.

My sister and I left the house yelling out to mom that we were going to pick berries and taking with us big squeaky Styrofoam cups from the pantry. We had made plans to pilfer and pluck only the best from this rush of berries and bring them back home... We had planned to make them into pies or tarts. Silly children we were then so easily amused.

The torrential heat and blinding sun were no match for out bright laughter and determined delusions of culinary mastery. We tripped and tumbled and frolicked down the side of the highway looking for the best vines with the biggest berries. Only the best would do for our tarts. Our big yellow dog, Minnie followed along behind us. She kept up well, never mind that she was nearly 12 years old. I think she felt like we were her responsibility and that there would be no berry picking without her.

ME: "Did you buy anything when you went shopping with Ashley the other day?"
BETH: "We got some pizza and road the carousel in the mall... it was really big! It was fun..."
ME: "and you didn't bring me back anything! haha. How dare you!?" I replied impishly...

My sister was eight and I twelve. She's one of the most beautiful people I know... and at that age had flawless sheets of shiny honey brown hair that ran down her back. Bangs that stuck to the sides of her forehead in the heat, and big doey brown eyes that were so brown that sometimes they looked black. We picked through the brambles in our ill fitting pre-adolescent clothing that had been handed down and handed down again. Happy as puppies.

We worked our way from thorn to thorn, and vine to vine. Following the line of ditches that lead from our house over to the church where dad was working.

BETH: "Stop eatin all of em! We're not gonna have enough!"
ME: "Oh whatever... there's plenty... look at all of them!
BETH: "I know but we aint gonna have enough if we keep eatin em all."
ME: "Ha ha.... stop bein a lil mama!"

We made it all the way over to the church and decided to go in and wash the berries and see what dad was up to. He was most days bunkered inside his office. Books spread all over the place and pages of scribble falling off the sides of the desk as he stacked things in piles that only made sense to him.

BETH: "Daddy! look at! Look at all the berries!"
DAD: "I see that. Were ya'll get those?"
BETH: "They're all along the sides of the road!"
DAD: "You're momma know ya'll walked down along the side of the road?"
ME: "I told her where we were going."

Dad got up from his desk and walked us down the long main hall of the church building. Back towards the kitchen. The lights were kept off in the hall during the day to save money... so it was all dim and gray. We walked slowly. I could tell dad was upset. But we were just having fun.

DAD: "I told yall about leavin the house and not tellin momma where you're goin. I don't want you kids gettin hit by a car. You ain't got enough brain between you to look up."
BETH: "We didn't stay by the road very long..." She started cryin a little. That made me angry. Me and my short fuse. Being twelve is sort of a curse.
ME: "It was my idea in the first place... "
DAD: "That's even worse... you should know better."
ME: "Know better than walking into traffic? Well... I do..."

That was just about enough snark from me apparently. Dad turn quick on his left heel as he was walking in front of us slapped me hard across the face. Thwap!
I wasn't quite expecting that... I was walking and trying to make sure not to spill the berries we were going to wash. Slapped or no, I fell down hard on the gray floor.... I tossed the berries and they scattered across the floor...

I didn't say anything. I just bobbled back up and started crying too. I hated when I let myself cry. But I wasn't expecting him to be that angry....

DAD: "Clean those up. I'm calling your mom to come get you."

quixotic

My blood pressure had been spiking for most of the late afternoon. Cause I knew it was time. I knew I had to make a move, or no one was going to.
I was scared though. It would either work or it wouldn't. And to tell you flatly reader... I'd never been kissed.

I'd known 'X' for about three months... Christine was way...way over by then. And Melodie.... I don't think Im gonna get into that right this second. X and I had been playing a delicate little game of 'hint and lie' for something that was starting to seem like the better part of a decade. X is a bit of a wall flower. X had drawn me in with a surprising complexity and the promise of something I'd never felt before. Connection.

Not like 'networking' or 'friendship' or... anything quite so trite as those things. It felt like that rush you feel when you're on the highway and you're dead sure you're gonna tail end somebody because they stopped and you didn't notice. It felt like what a shark feels when there's blood in the water. It felt like enough static to raise every hair on your head and then make all the little blond hairs on your arms stand and point.

We were driving around in the car and it was turning dusk. We were talking about things that didn't matter. And i was rummaging for every hook I could think of to turn the conversation in the direction I wanted with out being blunt and plain and..... childish. I kept rubbing my hands on my khakis... cause my palms were sweating. I felt like I was being hunted. But that was irrational. Of course I wasn't.

"Nothing has to happen at all!" I kept reminding myself. A little mantra I was chanting in my head. "Everythings going to be fine.... you'll see." Maybe that little voice wasn't mine. Maybe it was Satan. Maybe it was worse. Maybe it was lust. Either way it calmed me down and set me just like steel to my purpose.

I don't know how I had let all this come to have such intense meaning. This wasn't skydiving. But just at that second... I would have been less nervous about jumping out of a plane.
I was trying... but you know, honestly there was no way to flip the conversation from "but of course, that was before Bach's wife died...." to... "I want to stick my tongue down your throat."


I took the best route that I knew. I let the conversation die off for a minute.
ME: "So.... I have a confession."
X:.......
ME: " I kinda.... uh. wanna.... kiss you."
X: (laughs nervously)
ME: "I mean.... you know.... just.... if that's ok with you and all..." I had never felt this exact mix of emotions before. It was like tight rope walking 50 ft over a snake pit. Each contraction of my heart was clearly audible.
X: "Um....."
ME: "I mean.... if you don't want to.... " (Stupid! Just stop talking!) I thought.
X: "OK." "Sure."

Well. I guess that was supposed to make me feel better. At least X wasn't opposed to the idea.
X knew an out of the way place. Up a winding road. Up and up the side of Paris mountain. The charcoal silhouettes of live oaks and maples twisted and arched their backs across the sky. They laughed at us and fought back some of the starlight. They must have snickered about how absurd humans must be.

We weren't really talking.
ME: "Where are we going?"
X: "You'll see. I know a place."

Oh X.... you charmer you.

We parked along side the tiny off road leaving just enough space for passing traffic to squeeze around. It didn't matter. There weren't any cars that far up the mountain. Not tonight. Mercifully.
We stumbled like children down the embankment. Tiny souls blind to the bitter broken change. Blind to the way they would soon be broken together.  Down the hill they stumbled through the dead hill grasses that came up to their knees all white and gray in the light of the moon and stars.

It was a little flat space. Maybe at one time someone had intended to build a house there, on the side of the mountain. Maybe they had gone bankrupt. Now it was a dump site for extra cement and building materials no longer needed. If you looked carefully the clearing was dotted with crush beer cans... Evidence of low living and bad decision making. I didn't notice though... I was staring out over the edge of the cliff. All of Greenville was stretched out in front of me. I could see for miles and miles and the landscape mirrored the cold diamond sky, with it's tiny lights from all the houses and street bulbs.

Reader... come with me. Follow me to the most beautiful place on earth. X and I were both shaking by now. Inching closer in the grassy desolation. Laughing nervously.

As the breeze swilled around that blue lit perch on the mountain... we kissed. My blood turned to liquid fire as dark methamphetamine scorched its way into my heart.

I laughed...
Me: "That wasn't so bad was it?"
X: (still shaking) "No. No it wasn't."

The deed was done. And we like successful thieves laughed our way back down the sober mountain. I won't ever forget that place or those moments. Come death or starvation. Come the spite of the rest of humanity. I'm sorry it didn't last X. I'm sorry it wasn't forever. I'm sorry that some things that should never have been forgotten... were lost.

I was a changed man after though. I no longer had the fear of god in me. I would trick hell and swim the river Stix if i must. This was what I was born to be. This was the closest I had ever been to perfect.  

Collusion: Part XXV

I hadn't planned on it happening that way. There's just no good way to do some things though.

Classes were over for the day. A day that had been heavy with the gray brooding weather that drifts across the state in the spring and fall. Rain that rolls down from the mountains and makes the rivers swell and makes everyone change their routes to and from classes. Christine and I had made dinner plans. Or I should say that she had briskly informed me that she didn't want anyone else coming with us to dinner.
"Ok,... that's fine. I only wanted to spend time with you... anyways." I had thought morosely, but didn't say anything.

Something was wrong I could tell. We wandered through the cavernous dinning common, and everyone else in the room seemed like extras on the set of a sitcom pilot that no network would ever pick up. I just got peas. I wasn't hungry and wanted to drag them around the plate while listening to Christine unload. 

ME: "You seem really down today babe... What's going on?"
CD: "Oh, it's nothing.... It's just been a really.... really long week." She said, as if that was all she was really intending room. But we both knew better.
ME: "You know... I can tell somethings on your mind... you've been so so dark lately." The concerned look I was giving her was one I had seen I had seen on the faces of the doctors of ER. It was working like a dream.
CD: "Well... (it's at this point her blue eyes turned all slate and glassed over.) You know how I told you my dad was crazy?"
ME: "Yeah I remember us talking about it."
CD: "Well I don't think I ever said just how crazy.... I mean. Two years ago he converted to Judaism and tried to get my mom and I to stop eating ham. He went on these crazy pilgrimages to imaginary places. He barely spoke to me or mom." I could see it. I could see all the tiny little lacerations in her soul... and you know. I didnt have to look. She was just showing them to me on her own. "He's never told me that he loved me." She said staring me straight in the eye. Metalic.
ME: "Well... damn. Im... I hardly know what to say. You know you mean alot to me. You do. Maybe he's just got a very odd way of showing you that he cares about you?" I searched piteously for things to offer.
CD: "For the Feast of Tents.... he didn't have a ten... So he went out into the yard and lived in a cardboard box for a week."
ME: "See...." I said amused and smirking. "That's starting to sound like a personality disorder."
CD: "Yeah..." She replied. Her voice had turned to gravel and tears slid down her face. Now I felt like a complete shit head. No more smirks. Nothing funny. Lock it up.
For a few minutes nobody said anything. Mostly because i couldnt think of anything to follow up that beautiful little chasm that I had dinted the conversation with... and because whenever Christine is that up set... She just gives up talking. Her voice turns rusty. It's pitiful.
It was in those moments I saw through the layers of collegiate snip that she had developed. She wasn't snarky now. She wasn't dangerous. She was just a little girl. She couldn't be more than seven.

ME: "Babe, you know you're not going to have to put up with that forever... I mean why haven't you and your mom ever moved out?"
CD: "We did for a while.... "
ME: "That sounds like the way it should be always."
CD: "I know I talk about this stuff too much. I let it affect me too much. I let it affect you. Im sorry."
ME: "If it's something you wanna talk about, then we talk about it. It's no big deal.
CD: "I'm just.... so worried about my platform on Tuesday. I still have three pages to memorize. I have to go sign papers with financial aid. Oh and my dorm sup. wants to meet with me and talk about my 'christlike attitude.'"
ME: "Don't even worry about it." I offered with a slow smile. "Ill dress like you and go meet your dorm sup."

That got a little chuckle out of her. But didn't break the mood. I didn't have to think about it too long to come to the conclusion that I just couldn't support the both us. I'm a reasonable guy. But... this was no way to go about a romantic relationship.
It wasn't that I minded her crying in public and getting everyone else to think I had just said something wicked about the way she was dressed. I saw myself more as a care taker. Where's the challenge in that? I didn't say the right things at the right times. We could have a perfectly good date, and at the end of the night, she seemed.... melancholy. Just seemed like she was made out of porcelain, and it was my job to follow her around and pick up pieces that had broken off on her travels... and glue them back on the best I could.

One week later I broke up with her.

I walked her back to her room after another one of those sparkling dinner conversations. We were standing there on the corner in the lamp light.
ME: "I think we need to take some time off, you and me." I said flatly.
CD: "You........ do.........?" She said after a really long pause.
ME: "Yeah. I think it's a good idea."
CD: "So, that's it? walk me home and break up with me?" There was just black anger in her eyes. It sorta cut me.
ME: "Yeah... that's all I got."

I shrugged and without anything more, walked to my room in the dark.

Collusion: Part XIX

What is beauty... exactly? No... seriously. Think about it. I don't mean a definition. What is it to you? Is it balance? Is it symmetry? Is it perfect? Is it that exotic balance between right and wrong? Maybe not any of these things. Not exactly anyway. It's not perfectly constructed personal grooming. Nor is it the product of rampant orthodontia is this country. Beauty is perception. It's our believing, however foolishly, that something is perfect. Balanced. Innately circumspect.

Year two started, and my brother requested to room with me. It was fine... despite his poor sanitary habits, I had grown used to his idiosyncrasies; seeing as we had shared a room for the better part of 2 decades. Through some odd twist of karmic fate, Josh Roland was one of our room-mates. I could hardly wait for the enlightening conversations that might await. This semester was going to be like a season of Dynasty... without the creepy long nails and big hair.

Classes and schedule got set without a hitch and I threw myself back into the work. I was checking performance class times on the bulletin board in the main hall of the Fine Arts Building after chapel on a Tuesday... when someone stomped up behind me smelling like a Bath and Body Works. A heavy wave of Japanese Cherry Blossom rolled into my sinus passages... storming the beach like weather hardened Marines. Desert Storm. First strike. I don't discriminate against ladies who like to wear perfume... but to be frank, there's no reason to drink it for breakfast with your morning coffee. Almost immediately my sinuses clamped shut in defense of the invader.

"Josh Medlin!" yelled a raspy little girls voice behind me. I turned around to a familiar cow eyed round face. Shoulder length black brown hair that was shiny enough to shift around the salty white gray light from the industrial strip lighting in the hall way. A quick survey showed a floral print button down top with frills and a stocky little mandarin collar. Grey pencil skirt and ice pick black patten leather stilettos. Cleavage. Cleavage. Cleavage. This girl is what any self-respecting rapper would call 'thick.' Big old faux alligator skin shoulder bag held most of the library and a laptop.
"When's the next time you play in perf class?" She asked... tossing her hair back in a easy little flick.
What is this girls name? Crap. I've seen her all over the place prancing around like she invented music. We were in at least three classes together. All of which I was sure she was acing.
"Ahhhh. October? Apparently?" I answered... looking for her name on something. Anything. Nothing. I forget this isn't like kindergarten.
"Oh really!?... that's a long time! I've been dying to hear you play something!! Like... anything! What are you working on?" This girl was hard core.
"Oh.... ah. You know. Bach. Some stuff from the Well Tempered Clavier. Tom's wanting me to do a concerto, but I'm not so sold on the idea just yet. Ive got Mozart and Beethoven sonatas in the works... and Ive recently gotten really interested in Edward McDowell. The Sea Pieces, and the fireside tales. Do you know the works?"
"McDowell? Oh! I did his concerto in high-school! Totally love!" She pranced around me and traced down the list of performances and students' names until she found the two dates she was performing. Melodie Cappoccia. A musician named Melodie. Cute.
"How do you say your last name?" I queried... Looking for other topics.
"Oh! Yeah everyone always asks me that! Ha Ha! It's CAP....OH.. CHA! It's Italian..."
Already I was convinced that this amount of vivacity was un-natural.... and that I should begin to inquire who her dealer was, and if he was accepting new clients.
"We should totally hang out sometime! What's your schedule look like? Where do you work?"
I would discover she was always like this. Militant. Aggressively friendly.
"Well... Im a cook. Ya know, in the dinning common." Eye roll. "And I dunno... Im free for lunch today.
"What a coincidence!So! Am! I! I used to work in the dinning common. All the little academy kids who work there had the biggest crush on me." She exclaimed, winking.
She rummaged through her bag and pulled out an over-sized compact and did a little touch up.
"Wanna go now? I've got fourty-five minutes or so until I accompany?"
"Well I... thought I was just gonna skip lunch and practice or something."
"Oh come on! I won't bite! (hair toss... another wave of Japanese Cherry Blossom.)
"Ok.... sure..."

We walked briskly to lunch. To my surprise I found her a bit charming. After you get past the perfume and the mascara.... She was pretty ok. She kept telling me stories about how very 'Italian' everyone in her family was. How she had perfect pitch, how she was trying to lose weight. I really didn't know what it meant to be 'very Italian.' Did she have mafia ties? Was her family life like watching Everybody Loves Raymond? She chatted on and on...

During lunch I noticed a text I had missed. Christine.
CD{R U Free for lunch?}
hm.... this could get interesting.
ME{I found someone to tag along with!}
CD{Oh?}
ME{Yeah. This chick named Melodie... ya know her?}
CD{Oh. Oh yes. I know who she is. She smells like Bath n Body Wrks?}
ME{Yes! And she has enormous boobs!}
Christine and I talked about everything. And everyone... No one was safe from us.

"Is something wrong?" Melodie asked, salting a single pea.
"Oh. Oh no.... Just chatting with my girlfriend."
"OH! Ha!" Blank big eyed stare.

CD{Uh. I hate that girl.}
ME{I dunno... she seems nice enough.}
CD{Nice enough? No one can be that happy all the time.}
CD{Oh.. and she's a skank.}
ME{How do you know that?}
CD{Ill tell you at dinner. Deal?}
ME{KK.}

We finished lunch and said our 'see ya laters.' Why the heck was up with Christine? It was just lunch. Geez. Whatever. Id find out at dinner. Work in fifteen minutes.

Collusion: Part VIII

Contact. Confluence. Society. Tiny threads of familiarity that we spin each day. We work with differing levels of pre-meditation, with differing goals attaching ourselves to those around us with invisible filaments. Fibers made from memory, affection and complex belief systems. Our decision to invest in friendships seems arbitrary. This however much we’d like to believe it is the farthest thing from the truth.

Whatever wholesome thoughts we might have about ourselves…. Under whatever peachy stage lighting we like to see ourselves… the ties that bond us to others are most often motivated by selfishness and the promise of personal gain. Look for yourself. Look at your closest friendships. Why do you love the people that you do? You wont have to look too far to find the reasons are simple ones… and most often have to do with personal pleasure… entertainment or money. We as a people have the strongest of self-preservation instincts. This fact is evident in everything. We love who we love because of an intrinsic desire to thrive, to be perceived well by others and to be successful. We must choose the ones we invest in carefully; because the paths that life takes are so often directed by these choices. It was now that I should begin making these selections of who and what to love. It was my choice, and it was the expected time in my life to begin making those choices. Or so I thought…. That’s what I believed back then.

I had an extensive prayer life then. I remember in the months before I came to school… I had a little prayer that I would recite before falling asleep. I asked God to make me stronger. Sharper. To give me wisdom. I thought of college as something to be afraid of…. Being much more than a challenge… it was a threat that would force me away from my family and snatch away my childhood. I only now realize how childish I was then. I still kinda believed in magick. Such is the plight of precocious children. Their minds grow so much faster than their hearts.

Freshmen were required to complete at least one community service project for the city of Greenville. It was one of the requirements of the class called ‘Orientation.’ The class would have more aptly been named “How to Attend School at Bob Jones University.” It covered everything. Importance of abstinence, harnessing sexual desire, how to visit the library, how to budget your time to include an annually completed Bible reading programme… all the essentials really. Anyways, I asked Richard from work which community service project he had picked off of the list. He had chosen one where bus loads of freshmen were trucked to a park downtown and then expected to pick up liter. Delightful. I loved liter. We decided we would shmuck along together and check this experience off of our bucket lists.

The Saturday morning of our planned parole- like experience arrived. We waited on a curb with an unfortunate looking group of like sentenced students… all looking much the worse for this occurring on a Saturday morning. A white school bus with big blue stripes down the side and the schools name shuddered to a stop in front of us and we all piled in.

Richard and I sat side by side glumly. It was expected that males and females would sit only with members of their own gender in the two seat benches on either side of the aisle in the center. God forbid that a little thy-to-thy friction should be the spark that ignites a raging orgy on the way to the park to collect discarded soda cans and half- buried plastic grocery bags.

Some redheaded thing was sitting on the seat in front of us. She was quite noticeable because she was as loud as a macaw. She was laughing with all the force her lungs could muster. The kind of laughing you do when you’re laughing at something you really shouldn’t be laughing about. As the bus made its way through traffic she turned around in the seat, got on her knees and leaned on the back of the bench to greet us. She said hello in an elvish pitch… she sounded like Fran Drescher. She had her bright red brown hair pushed up in violent spikes. Rainbow colored earrings. Rich-girl red lip stain. A pink floral micro print short sleave t, and jean over-alls that were 2 sizes too big and had the legs rolled up. Converse. Of course. A style that made me think perhaps Rainbow Bright and Prince had given her up for adoption to pursue their carriers, and she had been raised instead by Bible believing faeries. 

She asked for our names and told us that her name was Amy. Amy Jasperson. And that her pint-sized quiet friend was named Tisha. Through out the remainder of the trip we four palled around… and formed a little troupe. Amy was instantly captivating and kept all of us laughing with her antics. She was cartoonishly animated. Her being no more than five feet tall only added to the comedy. It wasn’t unusual for her to break into an eighties power ballad and look around expecting us all to join in. Always raucous and loud. I quickly came to fall in love with her. There was nothing she wouldn’t say. Rapid fire wit and comic observation about the irony of us collecting trash being an obviously academic pursuit.

Tisha and Richard more or less were magnetically attracted to one another from that moment on. Standing between them felt odd. The four of us made our way up and down the river that ran through the city park. Mostly goofin’ off… but occasionally being intrigued by a caution cone sunken in the water…or a tire. Cigarette butts all over lost in the fallen leaves. The park was filled with sprawling live oaks… and it seemed like they watched the little dramas unfold beneath them.

It was the first time I remember having fun at school. The brevity of class and piano and work fell away for a few hours and fresh air and muddy water washed away any thought for what I would spend my time on the next day.

Perhaps we are not the only ones that influence our social network. Others are hard at work as well, searching for people that they enjoy. People that entertain them… People to share parts of their life with. Maybe my thoughts about friendships weren’t so right after all. Maybe it wasn’t foolish to allow friendship with less protective skepticism. It was clear that there were people that were much more skilled with these threads of connectivity. Without my noticing Amy had looped strong and fast filaments around the four of us… bonds that would last for years. And you know… it didn’t seem all that dangerous. Maybe I didn’t have to be so careful.  

These thoughts mulled around in my head on the way home. We sat in the same arrangement on the bus. Tisha was spent and was laying her head on Amy’s shoulder. The chatter was less boisterous on the return to campus. Play time was over.  

As the bus dropped us off back at school we said our goodbyes. ‘Lets do lunch soon!’ Amy suggested. Women have a secret language that they speak to one another, and I think quiet Tisha had wanted this to happen but lacked initiative. Bye. Nice meeting you…. See you all later.

I spent the evening reworking the fingering on a phrase in a prelude… looking out the window as night fell like a blanket.