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Part II
“Really?” Rick said as he opened another can of beer, sitting
down on the wet green grass right next to me. “That sucks.”
I was now sitting on Rick’s backyard, just a few blocks away
from my own house. His house was on the elevated part of the
neighborhood, and his backyard was a hill-like structure, on
where you were able to see as far as the Kettering Rec Center,
not to mention every little light of the houses below.
“It’s too quiet in here, I’m gonna get the boom box.”
It was a really peaceful place to just sit down, relax, have a
can of beer, and watch over the city below you, wondering what
everyone in those houses were doing. But then again, it’s the
overall picture of the view that really impresses people and
wows them. It’s really hard to describe the beauty of it with
just words, because you had to see it in order to understand its
beauty, its calmness and soothingress.
“What do you want to listen to, Tom?”
It’s just as Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel, or Leonardo’s Mona
Lisa, or any art in this beautiful world. You can’t just read it
in words to understand their beauty and serenity, you had to
actually see it with your own eyes, feel it with your own heart,
and let your soul smile at the peaceness presented by the art.
“Yo, are you still sober?”
The view here is just awesome, way better than
any backyard views I’ve seen in my life. The clear view of the
city’s house lights, blinking like lonely little stars in the
sky of the city darkness, blended with the real star lights
above, no telling where the earth ended and the sky began. The
moving car lights replaced the comets of the sky, moving quickly
through the dark spaces of the sky, never stopping, trying to
scare the darkness away with those headlights of theirs.
“Hey, Tom!” The loud snappings of Rick’s fingers brought me out
of my deep thoughts, breaking the hypnotism that the view had on
my fragile soul. “Are you still awake? Have you gotten too drunk
again?”
“Huh? What?” I responded in confusion, turning my head to look
at him with my surprised eyes. “What did you say?”
“Dude, are you drunk again?”
“No, of course not.” I said, looking around the
backyard like a lost child in the woods. I was surprised that I
didn’t notice the music blasting out from the boom box before,
since it was sitting just a few feet away from me.
I tried to take a sip out of my can of beer, only realizing then
that I hadn’t even opened it yet, having held it for more than
half an hour now. I tried to open it afterwards, only to be
interrupted by Rick, who pulled the beer impatiently out of my
hands, unable to wait for me anymore in joining our ritual beer
drinking. “Dude, this beer is warm.” He exclaimed, looking at it
with a disgusted look. “You can’t drink this, you’ll puke as
soon as it touches your lips.”
“Nobody ever said that you have to drink alcohol cold. In fact,
some alcohols tastes better when they’re warm.”
“Oh, yeah?” Rick said, as he walked toward the kitchen door
barefooted. “Name one, smart guy.”
“Sake.” I paused, as Rick went through the kitchen door. I
turned back toward the star-city view, as the songs of Third Eye
Blind accompanied me with their soft tunes. The noise of a door
opening graced me a couple of minutes later, accompanied by the
beer-induced burps of Rick.
“What did you say about sakei?” Rick asked as he handed me a
freezing-cold beer, the hole already open on the can, ready to
pour its golden liquid into the wanter’s mouth. “And what the
hell is a sakei?”
“It’s sake, you fat ass.” Fat ass was my
nickname for Rick, because of his beer belly, which always stuck
out when we were drinking beer together. I always had a nickname
for everyone dear and close to me. Jess for my brother John, P
or P-man for my dad. Thinking about it, my mom never got a
nickname from me, maybe because she was too special for me, too
extraordinary and incredible to get a simple nickname from me.
“Well, I’m sorry I’m not a goddamn Chinese to pronounce it
right.”
“Don’t worry.” I said with a smile, as I took a sip from my can
of bitter beer. “I’m sure your dream will come true someday.”
“Oh, yeah,” Rick replied sarcastically, as he sat down heavily
beside me on the wet green grass. “That’s what I pray for every
single night, to become a slit-eyed Chinese guy like you.”
“Now, now.” I answered calmly, slowly shaking my head. “Let’s
not get nasty now. I’m sure God will make your wishes come true
someday, if you pray hard enough for them.”
“Pfft. Yeah, right.” He answered in a disbelieving voice, as he
drank out of his can of Red
Dog. “Sounds
funny, coming from an atheist like you.”
“I’m not an atheist anymore. I’m a Buddhist now.”
“Really?” He looked at me with a surprised look, the beer can
almost falling out of his hands, which were too shocked to know
that they were holding an aluminum can full of beer. “Since
when?”
“Last September. I told you about it before.”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Yes, I did. Last thanksgiving, right after we ate dinner
here.”
“Dude! That doesn’t count! I was puking too hard then to hear
anything at all!”
“Oh, yeah.” I laughed, recalling the events of that day. It was
right after the giant turkey dinner, when we sat outside on the
backyard, resting our bellies from any disturbances in the
world. It was quite warm then, winter sleeping late on its
schedule. Rick was thirsty after a few minutes of grass sitting,
and went back to the kitchen to get a beer, in his overstuffed
state.
He offered me one when he got back, as he sat down heavily on
the unprotected grass, I refused, since my stomach would have
exploded with one more drop in its expanded state. I think Rick
mocked me then, calling me a coward and a young fool, even
though I was only a year younger than him.
Well, I’m sure you can guess the outcome by now. He came, he
drank, he puked. No need to explain any further, unless you get
a kick out of reading about yellow and white stuffs in the
vomited mess. I’m sure that was when I told Rick about my return
to Buddhism, about my renewed faith in the Gods of my ancestors.
“Wow.” Rick sounded really surprised now, his voice lowering.
“You’ve been religious for that long already?”
“Wow.” I imitated Rick’s tone, trying to turn his attention away
from such a serious topic. “You’ve been fat for that long
already?”
“Shut up, Tom.” He replied angrily, taking a large gulp out of
his beer can. “It’s not funny, you know.”
“Oh, come on,” I continued smiling, hoping that it was
contagious enough to cheer Rick up. “Don’t be so upset! And I
thought that fat people are supposed to be cheery at all times.”
“Shut up, Tom!”
“Okay, okay.” I stopped talking, feeling that I pushed it over
the edge this time. “I’m sorry.”
Rick didn’t respond me, drinking quietly the golden liquid of
the wheats. The music was still spilling out of the boom box,
the acoustic melody of guitars and rhythms. Rick was drinking
the whole can in huge gulps now, trying to make the alcohol calm
that anger heat that was inside of him.
He drank for a few minutes, getting up and sitting down, going
back and forth through that wooden kitchen door, always back
with a new can of beer, always disappearing with a crushed can
of emptiness. He didn’t speak to me till he got to the middle of
his third can, still as sober as a priest. Rick was a great
drinker, having the drinking IQ of 546.
“So what happened afterwards?” Was the first thing he said, as I
struggled to finish my first can of beer.
“Huh? After what?” I replied, surprised at his sudden change of
mood.
“You know, after that girl left you...”
“What girl?”
“That girl you met at the fishing pond. Elaine, I think?”
“Elly.” I paused, taking a small sip from my beer. “Her friends
call her Elly...”
“Yeah, Elly, whatever. So what happened after she left?”
“My dad fished and fished, and he caught four big fishes, before
we decided to go back. I didn’t go to sleep till my thirty-fifth
hour awake; when both my legs cramped during the middle of
‘Gattaca’, and my mom ordered me to go to sleep.”
Rick laughed softly at this, the can wobbling with each shaking
of his laughs. “I told you that running two miles in the snow
might kill you someday,” He said between laughs. “And it’s
finally becoming true after so many years.”
“Pffft. Yeah, right.” I smiled, finishing the alcohol beverage I
had in my hands. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”
“That’s what you say.” He laughed for a few more seconds, before
he drowned it with another gulp of his beer. “Is she pretty?”
“Who?”
“You know, that Elly girl.”
I didn’t respond for a few seconds, as I looked around the
fenced-in backyard, its grasses waving along the soft breezes of
the night. “Yes, she is.” I said it slowly, as her smiling face
filled my heart and mind, making me miss her presence and voice.
“She is beautiful, very beautiful.”
“Uh-huh.” Rick answered, looking at me with a wide smile. “Love
at first sight, huh?”
“No, I wouldn’t say love at first sight.” I laughed a little,
remembering the first time I saw her bright green eyes. “When I
first caught glimpse of her red hair, I thought it was the hair
of a dog inside the station wagon. That was the only reason I
approached her car.”
“Wow, great way of falling in love there. Seek a red haired dog,
and ye should find yer woman.”
“Yeah.” I continued laughing, this time louder then before.
“Isn’t this world great?”
“Oh, sure.” Rick replied in a sarcastic voice. “It’s the
greatest place for finding Loch Ness monsters, Easter Bunnies,
pillow-stuffed Santa Clauses.”
I was still laughing, hiding my true sadness with jokes and
laughter, not wanting Rick to see my true self. I was really
depressed inside, by the fact that I may not see her again, by
the fact that she’s gone away from my life... Just like Jeni
had, taking a heart piece that would be lost to me forever.
“So, does she look like the girl of your dreams?”
“No, not at all.” I responded frankly, looking distractedly down
at the dark-green blades of the grass. “She had a luscious red
hair, eyes as green as the reflecting springs of a summer dream
forest, the creamy white skin covering the works of the love
goddess Venus herself. The nose being a perfect curve, the lips
moist and...”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rick yelled out, interrupting me. “Let’s not
get poetic here, Tom. Come back to reality! Wordiness alert!”
“Okay, okay. I got ya.” I replied, raising my
eyes up to the man-made stars of the backyard view. I paused, my
soul lost in the mixture of mind and heart, her smile
accompanying me, reminding me of her perfumed scent. I missed
her, too much, which was not good for my personal health, both
mentally and physically. “She was like my Galetea you know?” I
said after a few seconds of silence. “My gift from the love
goddess Aphrodite...”
“Thus Cupid loaded his shotgun with golden bullets,” Rick said
this with a low, grave voice, sounding like one of those male
announcers in movie trailers.
“Golden bullets filled with the powders of love. He aimed the
twelve-gauge shotgun at an unsuspecting victim, who was talking
to a red-haired girl by the fishing pond...”
Rick got up immediately, putting his beer can down on the green
grassfield, and pointed his imaginary shotgun at me, closing his
left eye as he aimed for my chest. “He slowly pulled the
trigger,” He said this as his index finger pulled on the
invisible trigger. “As the gun shot the golden bullets out of
their barrels, the noise caused by the burst was only heard by
animals and Gods, too high for human ears to perceive.”
“Gee, all this hearing is making me thirsty.” I said in a low
voice, as I picked up his half-empty can of beer.
“The golden bullet digged right into the male’s back,” Rick
continued, as I drank out of his foaming beer. “Spreading the
love dust inside of him, ripping a piece of his heart out, as it
makes its way through the guy’s body, jumping out of the chest,
leaving a dust-filled hole behind it...”
“Tch, tch.” I slowly shook my head, still sipping beer from
Rick’s portion. “Poor guy, he’s going to die before he has any
sex with the girl.”
“The golden bullet flew through the air, as it found another
host in front of it. The girl’s chest didn’t resist, letting it
sink into her soft flesh, the guy’s heart piece still trapped by
the fast moving bullet, accompanying the bullet into the path
toward the girl’s red heart.”
“And that’s how the girl got the AIDS disease,” I gave out a
loud burp, as I continued my drinking of Rick’s beer supply. “By
that contaminated piece of heart, that the bullet had brought
from the boy.”
“The golden bullet stopped near the girl’s heart, exploding
inside her, releasing all of the remaining love powders, filling
her with love and lots of passion, keeping a part of the boy’s
beating heart with her.”
“Um... yeah,” I acted seriously as I said this. “I liked the
originality of this piece, how it replaced Cupid’s bow and
arrows with shotgun and bullets. And for revision, I’d say that
he repeated the word ‘golden bullet’ a bit too much in the
story, and it would be nice if it were a little bit longer.”
“Mrs. Rab, I totally disagree with Tom.” Rick replied, also in a
way serious manner, as he raised his right hand high up in the
moist night air, waving it, trying to get noticed by the
invisible writing-class teacher. “I think that the piece is
absolutely perfect, and the author must be a really experienced
and professional writer.”
“Mrs. Rab.” I raised my hand also, waving it at the imaginary
teacher. “I think Rick is stupid, and deserves a fart on his
face to wake him up into reality.”
“ ‘A fart on the face’?” Rick bursted out into a loud laughter.
“ ‘A fart on the face’? What the fuck have you been smoking,
boy.”
“Your girlfriend’s tits.” This induced more laughter among us.
It wasn’t funny at all, at least not to me, but since I was
under the influence of alcohol, I couldn’t stop laughing, not
able to close that loud mouth of mine.
We stopped laughing after Rick went in and brought out new
supplies of the alcoholic gold, thrusting one into my open palm,
drinking the other one with his wide-smiling lips. “Man,
creative writing is just not that much fun without you, Rick.” I
said as soon as we ceased our laughters.
“Yeah, I know, every class is suckier without me in it, right?”
“Nah, every class is smarter without you in it.” I replied with
a smile on my face, as my right index finger pulled the can tab,
the beer foam flowing out of the newly-opened hole. “The
school’s IQ increasing by 50% after your graduation.”
“All right! Now Fairmont students are as smart as an extinct
dinosaur.” Rick said in a sarcastic voice, as he continued
sipping from his aluminum can. “Go, Fairmont!”
“Hey!” I yelled out, trying to sound and look very offended by
his words. “You should be very proud of our Kettering Fairmont
High School. It’s quite a leap from a rock’s IQ to an extinct
dinosaur’s IQ!”
“Yep, you’re right. Not to mention that we’re still maintaining
a higher position than Centerville’s dust IQ!”
“Amen, brother.” I said this as we clanked our beer cans
together, trying to stir up that old Fairmont proudness I had
when I was graduating from the Junior High School’s eight grade,
but lost after attending my first lame and crappy pep assembly
in ninth grade. “That’s the good old school spirit.”
“Eh, don’t worry, I’ll throw it away as soon as I finish my
beer.”
“Really? Can you throw mine out for me? I’m just a little too
dizzy to throw anything into the garbage.”
“Sure.”
“Thank you so much, fat ass.”
“You’re very well welcome, small ass.”
Rick’s remark incited some more laugh between us, which didn’t
last as long as our last one. We remained quiet for a whole
minute after that laughter routine, listening to the remaining
tunes popping out of the Third Eye Blind CD, intoxicating
ourselves further with the poisonous liquids pouring out of our
beer cans. “I’m sorry about the ‘girlfriend’s tits’ remark...”
Was the first words I said after that musical silence.
“Eh, don’t worry about it.” He replied in a sincere voice. “I
broke up with her yesterday.”
“Really?” The news surprised me, since it was news to me. “Why?”
“’Cause it was kinda awkward for a college guy like me to be
dating a High School girl like her.”
“What’s so awkward about that? You’re just a college freshman,
and she’s a High School senior. I don’t see that much difference
there.”
“You just wouldn’t understand, Tommy boy.” He said as he took
another sip of the drowsing liquid. “You just wouldn’t
understand...”
“Why wouldn’t I, huh? Because I’m still in High School?”
“Exactly, boy. You wouldn’t understand how the college system
works in this real life.”
“Pfft. Yeah, right. Whatever.” I took a large gulp of my beer.
“What is this, something that they teach you at Wright State?
The University’s system 101 class or something?”
“Kind of like that. It’s like an unofficial rule of college
students, that doesn’t need to be taught, but are understood
among all of the college’s inhabitants.”
“That’s bullshit. I know friends who have boyfriends in college,
and they haven’t broken up because of that stupid shit.”
“That’s because they’re nerds.”
“And what’s so cool about a fat ass drunk like you?”
“I’ve got beer.”
“And the fat of a three year old elephant.” I shook my head,
angry at my friend’s stupid decision. “How did Stephanie react
to this.”
“I don’t know. I told her over the phone.”
“Over the phone?!” I exclaimed, looking at him with surprised
eyes. “Over the phone?! What are you, a seventh grader from
Junior High?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that...”
“Oh, my god... Where’s your pride, Rick, thrown away along with
your school spirit? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“That’s just your opinion, Tommy, and no one else’s.”
I wanted to retort something else, but stopped before uttering
anything at all. I realized how useless all this discussion was.
Once Rick had made up his mind, it would take more than Zeus’
lightnings to change his mind. As the old saying goes, sticks
and stones may break his brain and bones, but word may never
change him. Once he thinks he’s right, it’ll take more than a
herd of charging rhinos to prove him wrong, and change his brain
into another new gear. “So what are you now, a lonely single?” I
said this instead, just to keep the conversation going.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll forget Stephanie by the weekend, and
get a new girlfriend by the time Monday arrives.”
“Hmm...” I said thoughtfully, sipping little amounts of the
golden beer. “And they wonder why America’s divorce rate is so
high.”
Rick bursted out into a loud laughter, probably because of the
alcohol intoxication filling his tiny brain. “That... That’s the
funniest thing I’ve heard this whole week!” He said between his
laughters, laying down on the green field behind him.
And he continued laughing till the song “I want you” came on,
track 11 of the Third Eye Blind CD. He stopped laughing then, as
the first tunes of the song graced the inner drums of his ears.
He stopped laughing, his mouth slowly closing, as his brown eyes
gazed at the upper stars of the higher skies, calm and peaceful,
a complete turn in his rude personality and manner.
I followed his eyes toward the skies, wondering if anything up
there had changed the course of his confusing mind. There was
nothing extraordinary up there, except for the same dim-lighted
stars stuck on the darkness of the night sky, and the occasional
gray-purple clouds floating up past the views of the
ground-stuck humans. “This was our song.” Rick whispered in a
dreamer’s voice, his eyes half-open, hanging on the borderline
between reality and dreams. “The song I picked up for Stephanie
and me, so long ago... In that summer night...”
“Really?” I responded, as the soft tune of the song started its
lyrics.
“Uh-huh.” He answered in a distracted voice, his ears
concentrating on the music, probably. He was quiet for a few
seconds, in that calm and peaceful manner, watching up at the
peeping stars and sky-covering clouds, listening to the soft
voice of the lyric-singer. I was quiet too, along with the
silent ghosts of nights past, the sweet chirpings of the
courting crickets, and the annoying barkings of the goddamn
dogs.
“What does the girl of your dreams look like, Tom?”
“Huh?” I replied in a surprised voice, looking at him with
half-cocked eyes. “What the hell did you say?”
“You know, what does the girl of your dreams look like.”
“Dude, don’t you think that’s a little personal?”
“Come on, it’s not like I’m a stranger or something.”
“Then why don’t you start?”
“’Cause I asked first.”
“That don’t matter.”
“Sure it does. First come, first serve.”
I let out a low grrr of frustration, looking away angrily toward
the sky-city view. It was impossible to discuss anything with
Rick, just plain impossible. But my anger didn’t last long,
quickly cooled down by the alcoholic liquid stored inside me. I
was actually depressed as I told him of my dream-girl’s
description, probably just another side-effect of the foaming
beer, as the memories of Jeni rose up into the darkness of my
mind, showing it as a home-made movie from the 1950’s.
“She has a blond-dyed hair,” I started, as I rested my chin on
my tired knees. “A beautiful ponytail tied on the back of her
hair. Her eyes are of a sky-blue color, a small nose and rosy
lips. 5’10, thin, pale skin, a lovely body...”
“Hmm, totally different from Elly, huh?” Rick
interrupted, his obese body still resting on the softness of the
wet grass.
“Yeah, I guess...” I replied weakly, chin still resting on the
jean-covered knee. “Elly doesn’t even have a ponytail, wearing
her red hair down behind her...”
“You know, when I first saw Stephanie, I thought that she was
the dear image of the girl of my dreams.” Rick said after
another moment of serene star-watching, his eyes not ripped away
from the moonlighted skies yet. “Short black hair, those clear
brown eyes, the thin eyebrows, that white face full of make-up.”
He narrated this as a smile slowly stole onto his dreamer’s
face. “She was just my definition of a beautiful woman, a reborn
Venus on the surface of this Earth.
“At least, that’s what I thought at first, you know?” His smile
was still there, not in a dreamlike stance, but more of a
sad-depressed state. “But after a few months of dating her,
after a few months of calling her mine, I realized something,
you know, something that I hadn’t realized before, something
that just popped out one day inside of my mind, and stayed
there, calling the place its.”
I didn’t say anything, sipping the toxic liquids of the ancient
beer makers. “I realized that Stephanie wasn’t the girl of my
dreams, you know?” Rick continued in his soft voice, the music
still seeping quietly out of the web speakers of the boombox. “I
realized that she never was, and never could be, that perfect
image of a girl that belonged only in a spring night’s dream.
Yet, I still loved her, with all of my heart, and really didn’t
give a damn if she was or wasn’t similar to my dream girl on
Earth.”
“I see...” Was all that I could utter after his speech, silenced
by the uncertainty of my heart.
“I think breaking up with her was the best gift that I could
ever give to her,” Rick continued, as he slowly sat up in the
darkness of the early spring night. “She deserved someone better
than me, someone way better than me.”
I nodded as the reply, thinking up feelings of my own heart. We
were quiet after that, as the nice song ended, and Rick repeated
it again with the simple touch of that plastic rewind button. We
both finished our beers, and I went in to get us some more,
realizing then that I was already entrapped by the illusion
world of the drinking alcohol, which spinned the world of
reality and made me wobble as I walked unstably into Rick’s
kitchen.
His parents were sleeping. They always slept early, for some
reason. They never complained about us under-aged people
drinking beer in the middle of the night or just before the
brink of dawn, as long as we paid for the beer that we drank,
and didn’t wake them out of their beauty sleeps. His dad was a
heavy drinker himself, not ashamed of teaching his only son the
art of damaging his bruised liver, addicting him into the world
of alcohol at an early age. Thinking about it, Mr. Richardson is
probably proud of his son’s alcoholic dependency, able to show
his friends how manly his son was, how much alcohol Rick could
consume in his sober state. This is probably the reason why he
didn’t give a shit about us drinking in the darkness of the
night, talking in the cover of the dark night.
I guess I’m not the only one who covers my true feelings with
jokes and laughs, I thought as I took out two more cans of
refrigerated beer, my eyes half closed with alcohol induced
drowsiness. Rick seemed to be doing the same mistakes that I was
making, to hide the sad true feelings of his life behind a stage
of laughs and goofiness, sealing them away in some dark dusty
corner of his beating heart, till it accumulates so much that it
obstructs the feelings out of his heart, stopping the beatings
of the red little machine.
I should have told him to stop the macho actings of a depressed
man, to pour it out and make his body feel healthier. I should
have told him, even though he would stubbornly deny it, and get
pissed at me for the rest of the evening. But I couldn’t, for
how could I tell my best friend to do something that I myself
couldn’t achieve? How could I tell him to stop hiding his true
feelings, when I couldn’t even approach that concept yet, always
running away, hiding away from it.
He had repeated the song again, as I walked out of that
greasy-smelling kitchen, holding the beer cans with both of my
hands. He was looking out of the backyard, as I handed him the
poisonous liquid, viewing the remaining lights of the dark city
night. I sat down next to him again, watching the same view as
his eyes perceived, thinking of both Elly and Jeni, the song
inciting the memories of them.
That was the last thing I remembered that night, as the alcohol
kicked into overdrive, and dropped my consciousness out of my
body’s cockpit, letting the subconsciousness become the
substitute pilot for the night. My subconsciousness must have
been a hell of a driver, for when I woke up next morning, I was
lying on my bed, inside my room, inside my house, with my
clothes still covering my alcohol-stenched body, not knowing how
the heck did I get here, and not wanting to know either. |
