Just Move, Pt. 2

I slept in jumps and starts. I remember fleeting images of Mike pulling the curtains, of birds calling outside, of a car alarm going off. I woke slowly, as if I was reconstituting myself from a state of disparate or disproportionate parts. I lifted my head. Mike was sitting at the table, reading the newspaper.

"Morning, sunshine. Feeling better?"
"Yeah. Did I really sleep 'til...4?"
"4:20. Time to get high."
"We don't smoke."
"You don't smoke, and I don't feel like it. So. We do it our own way." He placed a frosty looking beer on the coffee table by me.
"I think I've had enough to drink, and I'm still hung over."
"No, you were hung over when you got here. Now you're just lazy. Drink. Besides, it's the best cure."
"I thought that was a bloody mary," I said, but I took a swig. I'd leave it mostly full, just drinking to appease my erstwhile host.
"Thanks for letting me crash. I don't know what I'm going to do now."
"You're going to shower, shave, and then get a drink with me."
"Maybe food and then a drink."

I swore quietly, rubbed my neck and temples, and got up. In the shower, the mist swirling around me, I felt like I was in a jungle. I let the water pool in my mouth and pushed it out to pour down my chin and chest.

We went to a place I would describe as quaint. The burgers were organic or locally grown o something. I smiled at the thought of cows growing in Boston, like the trees they plant to beautify the city. I pushed my utensils around, bobbed my head uncomfortably, and generally skirted the things I really wanted to talk about. I thought about the word skirt being a verb and watched attentively as our watitress moved from table to table.

"I'm glad you're already moving on. First Moira and now what's her name? Cindy?"
"Mindy," I said morosely. "Why again did you change your clocks to London time?" It had not, in fact, been 4:20 pm but rather just after noon.
"I told you, that girl Lucy likes to keep track of her boyfriend's time zone."
"Twisted. I can't believe you're dating someone with a boyfriend."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa. Who told you we're dating? Did she tell you something? No-no, I just comfort her when she's lonely. Besides, it's not like it hasn't been done before. It's not like it won't happen again. He looked at me and the look slowly became one of significance, as if he had waited for me to catch on and was now actively implying it. I waved him off and distracted myself with folding my napkin into an origami frog. It wouldn't hop because it was not solid enough. I sighed.

"Did you know about it?"
"Not really. I wasn't there either when they all met her."
"Did Rafi know? He did. I knew he was acting weird last night."
"I don't know any more than you. I try not to get in the middle of anything. I thought something was brewing since you guys moved here, though."
"You mean this has been going on for six weeks?"
"No. No, I just mean I've known Sarah for a few years before you came into the picture and she acts different with you. I figured that was a good thing, but I didn't think it'd last. But c'mon, you're looking at every man's fantasy last night! And you walk away?"
"You don't know. I mean, we went to Oberlin. Oberlin girls, they don't always come back to the straight side."
"Isn't there that phrase? Four year queer."
"But we just graduated. And I'm sure that's incredibly offensive."
"You should talk to her."
"I know. I guess. I hate those conversations."
"Maybe it'll turn out well. Maybe she was just messing with you. Or maybe it's an early birthday present."
"What if she's, y'know, Madame Butterfly?"
"What, Japanese?"
"No. I mean--"

I shook my head, sorting through my thoughts. Everything was so jumbled in there. What did I mean by Madame Butterfly? I knew I had thought of it because I'd watched it with Sarah a few months before, but it didn't seem relevant. We ordered and I felt a surge of revulsion at the thought of eating a burger, picturing the meat raw and glistening and pink. It recalled the texture and color of my morning's regurgitation. I hurriedly drank down a swallow of water. Then it came to me. I felt silly. I felt like a teenager just getting his moorings.

"Madame Butterfly was a mistake. I was thinking of the Weezer album Pinkerton. Have you heard it?"
"I don't listen to that sentimental, whiny crap."
"It's not--look, I always thought the emblematic song on that album was 'Pink Triangle'. I don't know why. I realized my mistake when we watched the opera, but I still think of Madame Butterfly as a lesbian character."
"You could've just said your girlfriend is a lesbian. Your girlfriend is a lesbian. How hard is that? Butterfly has that hand maiden. That's pretty gay."

Hearing something or someone referred to as 'gay' recalled high school locker room talk. I always felt a little uncomfortable, even when it was being used to describe something or someone as actually homosexual. It felt ignorant and insensitive, but I knew Mike wasn't as liberal as I liked to think I was and I knew he was really just using it to goad me. The idea sat too awkwardly in my head. My girlfriend a lesbian? It made me squirm.

"Whatever. I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, I have no life without her. I have no plans. My future revolved around being with her."
"Maybe it's good. You're twenty-two. Do you need a plan? Do you need to be locked in? Why don't you go back to Ohio?"
"Fuck that. You can't take two steps backward if you've only come one step forward. You don't get to retake negative steps. You just keep sliding back. Next thing you know I'll be married with three kids and still not twenty-five and I'll sit on my lawn chair on my lawn with my beer gut and yell at my neighbor's kids. I don't want that!"
"Are you that far from it here? You were practically married to Sarah."
"The beer gut's your fault."
"Granted. But, look, do you like your job? Do you actually like Boston? I have one more year at the University and you better believe I'm out of here they day I graduate, if not sooner. Go through Ohio, Dub, on your way to L.A. That's where struggling writers go, right? A little struggle could be good for you."
"I'm not a writer."
"Are you a copyist? Do you like compiling indexes? Do you want to write those damn summaries on the backs of books as a career?"
"I can't just quit my job. I'm not like--"
"What? Not like what? Why not quit your job? You have other references, and Sarah told me you went to Oberlin for free."
"It wasn't free. Just the tuition. I'm still in debt. And I can't just leave. Seriously Mike, I don't have anywhere to go."
"Why do you need a place to go? Just go."
"I should figure this Sarah thing out first. I do love--"
"Don't! Don't break my heart over it. I don't want to hear it. It's just one more thing to figure out. It's the same as any other day. Some things just trick you into thinking they're more important. They're not. You make them that way. On Monday, either you'll go to work or you won't. It's a decision. You make it one way or the other. So you might as well just do it. The more you brow beat yourself over anything, the less it does for you."

I looked at Mike and tried not to show my surprise. He wasn't the most loquacious guy, but he wasn't shy about his opinions. I certainly didn't buy this philosophy of one decision is as important as any other, but it was something to think about and perhaps would be useful in the near future. I was still hedging, though. Still didn't want to actually face this. Outside, it had started to rain. The broken drops clung to glass like little animals, pleading with me. Just a passing shower.

"Maybe I should talk to someone who knows more. Rafi..."
"Talk to her, Dub."

As we left the restaurant, I found myself coming back to Madame Butterfly over and over again. I could hear the end of the first act, the long duet between Pinkerton and Butterfly. It was so love soaked and thinking of it made me feel heavy and slow. The sky was still dark, viene la sera, and the leaves dipped ironically at me, passing on their burdens to the leaves below. As I watched them bob up, as if nodding at me, I thought of the second part of the duet "Sweetheart, with eyes..." and I imagined the drops of moisture were eyes at the end of these large, droopy leaves. They bobbed up and down and watched me as I walked down the wet Boston streets. It had been a passing shower, but its effects had a lasting effect on me. It was not the downpour I had fantasized about the night before. It was more real, more irksome, nagging and insistent and insinuated. My skin felt sticky with the warmth of the moisture rising into the air. It felt like the rain drop animals had dragged themselves up my body back towards the sky, like a thousand miniscule snails had climbed my body and left a shimmering mass of trails upon my skin.



I asked Mike what he would do when he left the city. He shrugged and said, "Anything." We walked on and he brushed his fingers through the leaves of a hedge we passed, scattering drops of water to the concrete. "So long as I was somewhere else," he said. "And had a real chance to just be. And think. There's too much here. Too many distractions. Maybe I would take up the violin again." I nodded and wondered how I might respond, but he went on. "You should go back to your apartment. Deal with it now. I don't want to see you until you've at least tried to sort it out. After that, my door is always open. But call next time, just in case."



"Moira has my phone!" I said, remembering.
"Talk to Sarah first," Mike said. "As for me, I'm going to go practice my left hand suzuki method." He walked off grinning, and I shook my head at the joke. I had read about a version of Madama Butterfly where Suzuki kills herself. I assumed that was not the kind of left hand method Mike was talking about. I turned aimlessly towards Sarah's apartment. Funny how easily it no longer felt like mine. I wasn't sure if would actually go there, but I let my feet do the walking and my eyes the wandering. I looked into the coffeeshops and odd stores I passed, wondering whether I was more like Madame Butterfly or Pinkteron.