(no subject)
Someone once told me that they didn't believe in coincidence. That for every action there was an equal reaction somewhere in the universe. It's an awfully romantic thing to think that everything that you do has it's own purpose. That in the scheme of things, in the big picture, everything matters and you aren't just a speck on a speck floating in a sea of specks in an infinitely huge void.
I told that person that they should leave, because they were sucking up all the crazy and I wanted some for myself.
“Why should you have all the fun,” I asked them, “why can't I be delirious and full of pointless drivel as well? Generally speaking, this isn't something that anyone wants to hear. No one wants to know that someone thinks their ideals are pointless. No, not pointless, invalid. You can't just float along,” I sputtered, “expecting your life to play out for you. You need to chase your own ambitions, and no one, not God herself is going to stop you from doing something that you truly love.”
It was at that point that the conversation stopped being genial and turned into something ugly. I noticed it was happening along the time frame of 'pointless' and it was open hostility after 'herself'. See, this is how my conversations tend to play out. I find someone who is sitting alone and, over the course of the evening and a few stiff drinks, I decide that this persons' mind needs expanding. My mission shifts far from polite conversation to “Haven't you ever thought that...?” which tends to put most people off of future conversations with me.
“What do you mean, herself?” It was an innocent enough statement at the time. At least I thought it was. “Who ever said that God was a woman? The bible clearly says 'He'.”
“You misunderstand me.” My instantaneous response. If someone questions my views, it's obvious that they can't possibly grasp them. “I don't mean that God has a gender. In fact, I'm highly positive that any omnipotent being would ever be able to justify having an assigned gender. It creates too much tension between the sexes. What I meant was that, figuratively, as the creator of all things, the 'mother' if you will, God exhibits many of the qualities that we attribute to the female gender.”
I probably should have stopped drinking long before then. More than likely that entire statement was one long, incomprehensible mumble. At this point most people will just walk away content to shrug anything off that I previously said; the drunken ramblings of a burnt out twenty something.
She made like she was going to get out of her seat, to walk away like everyone else before had, but just readjusted the seat of her skirt and sat back down.
“When was the last time that you shaved?” I thought it an odd question, and apparently my expression told her so. “I don't mean to be rude,” she continued, “I was just wondering when it was that you last shaved.”
“My face? I don't really know, I've lost track, maybe a week?”
“How old are you?”
“I know that the lack of facial hair throws people off, but I promise that I'm twenty one and...” This tends to happen at least once a month. Health inspector comes in, pretending to be a patron and thinks that I'm underage. I've just never been able to grow a beard.
“No, no. I assumed you were old enough to drink. It seems like everyone here knows you and that's the mark of a regular, I just wanted to know how old you were.”
“I'm twenty two. Well, almost twenty three. But that's beside the point. I thought we were having a theological argument.”
“Would you like to meet some of my friends?”
“You know, I didn't really mean anything earlier, I was just talking to piss you off. It's kind of what I do when I'm bored at the bar.” What is this, some sort of trap? “If you're gonna have some big dude kick my ass I want you to know that I'm a judo master, and will feel no remorse for breaking his neck.” It was a blatant, downright lie but she might have been drunk enough to believe me.
She laughed like breaking china. The sound of it clashed with the rough drunkedness of the bar.
“Now it's you that misunderstands me,” and she smiled. “I just wanted you to meet some of my friends. I saw them coming through the door, and I dunno, I thought you might like their company.”
I stood up and gestured with my arms, as if to say 'lead the way', and we trooped across the shabby worn wood floor of the bar. I felt like a man condemned, working my way towards the gallows. This girl, leading me by the hand that wasn't clutching my drink, was my hangman. Yet all the while she smiled, and the light danced on her lips and there was something oddly comforting in the absolute resolution in her step. If she were going to have me beat to a pulp, she was being rather nice about it.
When we got to her friends table I realized that I didn't know her name, either that or I couldn't remember it, one of the drawbacks of my lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I'm no playboy. I'd only ever slept with one woman, and this had been after a serious relationship, and I had had no intentions of sleeping with this girl. In the moment right before we were noticed she turned to face me and said quite discretely “Play along. This should be fun.” and, resigned to the worst, we sat down at the two empty chairs on the short end of the table.
Her friends were an interesting group. A mash-up of young neo-bohemians, hipsters, headbangers and what appeared to be a few members of the elite society. The person directly across from me was wearing a Dead Kennedys t-shirt and I can remember thinking that if all else went wrong, there was at least one kindred spirit at the table. It took a full second for the whole of the group to realize that we'd sat down, and that there was a completely new face in the group. There was a general murmur of hellos and I heard someone say “'llo Sadie.”
“This is my boyfriend.” Sadie announced to the table. There were a number of expressions that changed after this statement. The guy wearing the DK shirt seemed to tense up a bit, one of the girls batted an eye at the two of us, and whomever had said it before threw a “'llo!” at me as well. I thought it safe to assume, as she hadn't used it, she had no idea what my name was either.
“Hello, everyone, I'm Charles.” The table went around, giving introductions.
“What's up, man, I'm Pepper.” A nickname? “How did you meet our Sadie?”
It was the 'our' that threw me off. She truly belonged to this pell-mell group then? I hope I don't embarrass her in front of her friends. But she asked me to be here, and I might as well put on the best possible show.
“We met at a mutual friends house about a week ago..”
“Two weeks dear,” she winked at me, “Toms' party, remember?”
“Ah yes, it would be a bit difficult to forget, at least what I can remember of it.” A grumble of laughter from around the table. How many of these people had been at this theoretical party as well? “We started off by talking about God, if I'm not mistaken, which led to a wonderful conversation about French politics(in regards to Canada of course) and some point in the course of the night we wandered off to get coffee.”
“We never made it though,” everyone was paying quite close attention now, “because Third Place was closed before we could get there. So instead we went into the park and laid down to name constellations and pretend that we knew more about what we were talking about than what we did.” This girl had me pretty much nailed.
“So we fell asleep, right there on the ground, and didn't wake up until the morning, when the parent of one of the children playing in the park told us that we weren't allowed to sleep on the slide.” I felt her foot through my shoe, nudging me on. “We spent the rest of the day looking up constellations at the library, and comparing things whenever we found something cool.”
One of the girls was smiling at us. It looked as if she'd never heard of anything cuter. Pepper was eying me, trying to determine whether or not I was being serious.
At the end of the night, everyone payed their tab and I had a few more minutes alone with Sadie.
“Thanks,” she said, “that was some of the most fun I've had in a while. Everyone always seems so uptight now-a-days. Well, I'm gonna run on, it was nice to meet you Charles.”
“You too.” She was about ten feet away now, wrapping a scarf around her neck even though it was a warm night, “Sadie!” I jogged to catch up to her. “Do you want to actually look up constellations with me sometime? When I was talking about it, it sounded like fun.” She laughed her breaking china laugh.
“See? I told you there was never such a thing as coincidence.”