The Disconnect  by Corie Allen                                                            Bookmark and Share

 

            You meet him at a sports bar in Pasadena, the kind of place with quarter slot pool tables in the back where big men in t-shirts drink beer out of frosted glasses and reminisce about their fraternity days. The kind of place you both swear you never go.  But there you are anyway, you in your tight jeans, the ones Nicole convinced you to buy at the basement sale at the church in Westwood.  “They make your ass look great,” she had said.  You were embarrassed because you were in a house of worship and even though you are Jewish you were afraid the Presbyterian Minister would overhear her talking and condemn you both.  But it was a good comment, enough to convince you that you wanted them.


            Now, sitting down at the long table, you notice their tightness and wish you had worn something else.  He tells you his name is John, and you like that about him.  Its sound fits his hard, muscular build, fits his smile.  Nicole, who noticed the jeans when she picked you up in her bright yellow Volkswagen convertible, is there too, smiling, smiling, saying “hello” to John and staring at a slender boy, a stranger with a handsome face and thin, fragile wrists.  Nicole turns from the boy, watching him out of the corner of one eye, running a practiced hand through her artificially blonded hair.  John is looking at you, at Nicole, questioningly.  His eyes are an almost brilliant green underneath his long black hair, and you can tell that he has probably grown it out to cover his nose, a too big nose, even for a man as tall as he is.


            He asks you what you do, and you pause, wanting to say the words just right, wanting not to sound indulgent or silly, hoping to impress on him the seriousness of this thing that you do, that you hope to be able to do.  Nicole answers for you, tossing her hair this time, another practiced gesture.  The thin boy looks away.  You can see from the lines around his eyes that he is not as young as his frame suggests, that “boy” is the wrong word.  His frame betrays him.  Nicole speaks, too loudly, even for her.  “She teaches,” she says and you feel the pink in your cheeks, the too long pause that Nicole fills by saying something about Mexico, the weekend girls trip you took a few months ago for sun and lobster and just to be away from parts of the city that have bars like this.  He looks at you, and there is challenge in his stare. You don’t say anything.  He has freckles on his face, and you notice them, scattered as though they had been thrown, like confetti, across his too big nose.  You hear him say your name when he takes your number, and you like the way its syllables roll off his tongue.  “Stephanie.”  It’s plain name, like his, too many duplicates of you and not you carrying the moniker.  You mention it to him, and he agrees, reflecting on the ubiquity of titles.  “The Common Thread,” he calls it.  Everyone alike and unalike simultaneously.  He talks about women, sex, and uses the word “atavistically” out of context, but you like it anyway.  Like him for it.

     
            And that is all it really takes.  Those few words, the jeans, maybe.  The freckles.  Weeks go by and, somewhere between the vodka martinis and the beer, there are other bars and unfamiliar places.  West Los Angeles lit up at night, filled with low hanging neon and salt air and lines of cars trapped in traffic.  Girls in sheepskin boots and short dresses are everywhere that fall and you pick them out together, driving or walking by, noticing them on street corners.  He reads his own stuff out loud to you, and you are embarrassed by its nakedness.  Not as good as you would have liked, but good enough, because he wrote it.  You tell yourself that aren’t in it to instruct.  You tell him that you like it more than you do and see the glow of self-love in his face when he heard you say it.  You are bored and want him anyway.  Liked how he reminds of home in Louisiana, how he seems a world away from the other Los Angeles people, from Hollywood and nightclubs and the Urth Café.


            You have sex for the first best time and drink coffee in out-of-the-way cafes where people are still friendly, and they sometimes leave samples of baked goods out on the counter.  The places you always wanted to go.  The waiter at the Indian restaurant on the east side remembers you, remembers how you liked the traditional tea sweetened and how John always wants a lighter soup.  Remembers how you come in late, almost midnight and close to closing, when the DJ booth is empty and the upstairs is deserted.  And how you always order the spicy dishes with chili’s that almost mask the taste of sex that lingers in your mouths for hours afterward. 

     
            You fill one diary, then two, with resolutions for a new year.  You will change.  You will do it together.  At first, words come fast, you can’t write them fast enough.  Pages and pages and pages of inky stuff, probably incomprehensible, important at the time.  You work some of it into a short story, send it out, win a prize.  “I want to show you,” you say, one morning over orange juice.  You had made pancakes again, and he is reading the paper. Stacks of dishes, syrup in the sink.  “Sure.”  He nods without looking up. 

     
            He wants to spend more time with his friends, you think.  It’s not personal.  Flowers arrive on the doorstep, notes and cards and proclamations.  Regular trips to the movies, shared tuna sandwiches and family dinners with his parents, who take too many pictures and give him gifts.  You all go to synagogue with his grandfather, who kisses your hand and tells you that he finds you beautiful.  Once, during shul, John leaves to make a call on his cell phone, is gone over an hour, and whispers to his father when he returns.  


            You fill more journals and begin to notice the empty spaces in the margins, like the vacant spots in your apartment when you are the only one in it, and how, when you are alone, night pours in through the windows but can’t fill up the place.  You pull the blinds and wait, reading by the living room lamp.  You rent movies, go out with girlfriends, and ignore the offers of other men who invite you for dinner because they cannot ask for only sex.


            You buy shoes. 

     
            And then that afternoon, lying across the sofa at his apartment, waiting for him to put on his colored contacts, the ones that give his eyes their almost brilliant green, you know that you are lonely.  You don’t tell him then.  You wait.  One night it comes, the two of you sitting on the floor, even though there is plenty of furniture in your place. 


           He is wearing the vintage baseball t-shirt you liked so much when he tried it at the store, the one that makes him look slimmer than he really is.

     
            He doesn’t take it well, thinks he can talk you out of it but you hold firm.  It’s easy to do, sprawled out on the Berber carpet, looking up at your shelves and shelves of books.  You sense that the ground will never give way. You could do anything with that carpet beneath you. 


            He cries a little, and it embarrasses you, even though you are alone except for each other.  When you finally look at him, you don’t know what words will come, if any will come at all.  You part your lips, remembering the taste of sex and curry and the smell of him on your clothes with nothing more than the fondness. 


            “Really?” he asks, before you’ve had time to speak.  You want to nod, but think it’s cruel, so you look him in the eyes, noticing the faint outline of his contact lenses.  You nod.  You hope the look on your face resembles one of sympathy.  He tilts his head to the side and narrows his almost too green eyes. 


            “You’re crazy.” 


            “Maybe.” 


            He sighs and gets up to leave.  There is a long embrace and his big arms are a heavy weight around you, and he looks at you, and you wince, wishing it were someone else, another “Stephanie” caught up under his weight.  His cologne is faint so late in the day, but the smell of his skin is still there, too familiar, and you take it in, knowing it is the last time.  And when you say goodbye and close the door, you are glad you are alone.