she gathers up her keys and smokes, kisses the air, turns away. a silence ensues as she walks off. soon enough, the two friends refocus and find themselves looking at each other across the table.
we both just watched her leave, says the first.
probably, says the second friend, probably that has happened before and we just haven't noticed it.
i guess usually i watch while she walks off, says the first friend, neither confessing nor confiding. there's something almost austere about her now.
totally! agrees the second. lately i've been noticing that every time i'm with her... she has a, not a sadness but a somberness to her lately. and it’s a good thing; I know it’s a good thing but I can’t figure out why I know that, because I love her, her kind of humor.
when she’s on. but yeah, usually she's on so much of the time — she’s so f'ing sharp — you love it. when she turns on you, even. even then it doesn’t matter much because the way it’s funny to you; it smarts.
right. and you know this because, because you —
love it too, yes.
you do. okay. sometimes you sound like yoda if he became a therapist? but, of course you do. so what is it about her?
which part, then?
the part that is like the class clown only mean.
he laughs. the class clown only by default, but she does have that part. because right at the start she gets tired of the class clown – she decides to wait for him in the parking lot after school.
she mixes her school-related metaphors.
but she does it so fast, relentless, and the class clown doesn’t know to defend himself, and then he is all sad inside, and takes off his clown hat and gives it to her. and now, back in class, she has it in her lap.
just holding it. but what I’m asking is why her being in a smart and reflective phase makes her less barbed. barb-ish.
barby.
right, but not. it’s not like I don’t want to be around her now, quite the opposite. but she has this reserve about her, almost; she is a lot slower to rise to the surface and bite.
well, the class clown and the smartest person in class are different people.
that’s why.
that’s why. those are the types. they're just a bump on each end of the graph -- any time you go towards one you move away from the other.
3 comments:
this is gorgeous: "but she does it so fast, relentless, and the class clown doesn’t know to defend himself, and then he is all sad inside, and takes off his clown hat and gives it to her. and now, back in class, she has it in her lap."
That's funny--I was thinkling about the same line. And I was thinking about who has my clown hat in thier lap right now, and how somehow I stuck with all this drive. I don't sleep anymore, it's all just writing and networking and meetings and work and obligation and beer and my ever-so-convenient pseudo relation(I can't bear to finish that word) with a boy who works graves so I never have to see him save once a week. Today is Monday, by the way, todays the day, and I've finished my first two engagements of the day, am currently breaking before I move on to the next three.
The point is--I wonder where that girl went that could get a phone call at one or two in the morning and be out the door; could joke and laugh in the face of responsibility. I miss her. I think we all do.
What happens when you lose the light that quaks and shimmers like a lantern in a nursery. When the smartest person in the room can hear the dreams noone says outloud, and they become louder, so loud that they're unbearable, and the smartest person must become smarter to outdo itself, repressing anyone or anything that dare to flaunt the gun that's turned on themselves. Fuck. We are lost and today, you gave us a map not to anywhere, just a discription of where we took the wrong turn.
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