Dave

65. “This is the difference between this and that.” The difference is that this is the way we are, the way we are raised. This is what we are supposed to be-what we’re born to be. This, this here? This is everything that we know is good and familiar. It’s here and now, it’s yesterday and the day before, it’s routine, comfort and familiarity. This is everything you know to be true. It consists of that which you’ve learned and that which you know you will learn. This comes with a healthy fear of that which you will not learn. This IS the fear- the idea that that which you do not know is scary and bad. For why else do we need routine other than to avoid doing new things?
That is everything we don’t understand. It’s other cultures, other people’s routines. That is the dark alley you pass on your way home that might be a short cut-or it could be the road to hell. That is everything and nothing, things that go bump in the night and the snatch of a terrified scream that you think you hear when you wake up with a start at midnight.
That is also the chance that the grass is greener, the possibility that things could get better if you give them a chance. That is the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, today is the day that things change, today is the day that girl you have had a crush on for as long as you can remember will wake up and notice you. The faint dream that suddenly she’ll realize that her true love has been right beside her all along.
But that comes with the unexpected-it is defined by the unexpected. That is that when the girl notices you, it’s not because you scored the winning touchdown or said something particularly witty in class. It’s that small chance, that minute possibility that she just needed a ride home and you were the first one to answer their phone, and also the only person she thought she could call. The only person she thought would stand beside her after she had done something you had always considered a crime.
This is what I consider familiar. My best friend, Cindy, who I’m too scared to tell that I’m in love with, riding home with me and complaining about her dick of a boyfriend. Dropping Cindy at her house and then going home. Being greeted by three small kids, two dogs, four cats, the smell of whatever Mom is making for dinner, and Mom herself. Getting swept up in the feel of my house, the bustle of people everywhere, the constant requests for homework help and the persistent noise that fills the whole house, every corner, propping it up where its otherwise fragile bones might seek to droop. This is my Church; spending time with the kids I grew up with, doing homework in the quiet, ancient corners to escape the noise at home. This is running out of things to do and spending the rest of the night worried sick about Cindy, where she is, who she’s with, what she’s doing. And finally this is the text I get when Cindy is finally safe, at home, in bed, “good-night, worrywart.”
This is not what happened that day. That day Cindy wasn’t at school, which wasn’t so unusual. Her parents weren’t big on making her do anything, in order to do that they’d have to notice her. School was normal. Joe, my best friend, had been acting jittery for a while, but he wouldn’t tell me why, and I was a firm believer that if someone wants help, they will seek it. You can’t force them to take it. It was what happened after school that made that day so completely…that. On my way home I got a text from Cindy, “can you come get me?” Just that. No teasing little note, no slightly unkind nickname, nothing.
It was when I read that text that I knew something was wrong. When I called her she could barely speak she was so upset. I could hear in her voice that she had been crying for a long time, it had a hollow quality to it, like she had let out everything in those tears, and for her, there was nothing left to say. All she said was, “I’m at Planned Parenthood. Can you come get me?”
So of course I did. How could anyone abandon their best friend in a situation like that? True, we hadn’t been as close recently as in previous years, Cindy had started partying harder and longer and Steve, the latest in a string of skeezy boyfriends, was demanding more and more of her time. She laughed it off, but only with me. I went to one of those parties once, a long time ago, because she begged me for hours to go, and the whole time-almost seven hours-she never once smiled. Well, okay, she smiled, but it wasn’t a good smile. Not one that comes from happiness. The only smile of hers I saw at that party, and the only one I had seen recently was a little cold and cynical. She seemed to almost be laughing at herself for pretending to be happy.
When I got to Planned Parenthood she was sitting outside in the fetal position on a bench, arms wrapped around her legs, blank eyes staring straight ahead. I pulled up in front of her, my crappy station wagon grunting with the effort, and without looking at me she got in, buckled her seat belt and continued to stare straight ahead. I watched her for a second, noticed her lips trembling ever so slightly, noticed her hands clenched in her lap, knuckles white. After a second, I looked away. Her pain was etched so deeply into her body it would have been impossible for me to look longer.
The radio seemed to violate the silence of the car, so I flicked it off and as soon as I did so every tiny motion, every sound became huge and un-ignorable. I could hear Cindy breathing, and with every breath I could feel her struggle to not cry anymore. As the silence grew louder it became more and more obvious that even though she thought she had no tears left to cry, there was a torrent left inside her, waiting to be unleashed.
Finally I could hear in the rhythm of her breathing that she wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to start. So I started for her. “Anything you want to talk about?” it was normal conversation, how I always got her to start talking about what was bothering her.
She drew a shuddering breath. “I…don’t act like, like everything is all okay, Dave. It’s not. I’m not. I just…it…he…I…” she paused as the tears threatened to spill over.
Finally, “why?”
“Why what?”
“Just…why? Why did this happen to me? Am I really such a bad person? It’s not like I’m the only one who parties…I just…always seem to be the only one who ever has to feel the repercussions of it. It’s just…those girls are so pretty, and so perfect, and they seem so happy. I just wanted to be like them.. But they…I can’t, Dave. I can’t be what they want me to be. Why?”
“It’s God’s plan, Cindy. He just, wants us to be strong. He’ll be there to help when we can’t be, but sometimes He works in ways it’s hard for us to understand.”
She sat quietly after that, thinking about what I had told her. Cindy has never been the religious type. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in God, it’s more that she doesn’t believe in a God for her. She has no problem with other people finding solace with Him, she just doesn’t know how to herself.
The miles rolled by, and as we got nearer to her house she started to shake harder, and her breathing got more labored. As I was about to get off the highway she broke, “No. Don’t take me home. I can’t face it. The empty house, the expectant look on the faces of the clocks, the echoes. Take…go…Dave…” she started to cry tears of sorrow and pain and fear. And how could I ignore that? How could I let her go into that house, when it caused her so much pain? How could I resist being her hero?
I couldn’t. So we drove away.
“Where do you want to go?” this from me. Old habits die hard, and I just wanted to make Cindy happy, not cause drama by going somewhere that was going to make her feel worse.
She drew in a breath, closed her eyes. I could feel her gathering her façade, pasting what she thought I wanted to see on her face, and even though I didn’t like it, I had no clue how to make it stop. Once she had rearranged herself, carefully pushing the emotions she didn’t want me to see inside herself the way you sweep dust bunnies underneath the tablecloth when you’re cleaning and you’re in a hurry, she opened her eyes, and the look of determination there scared me, even though I had no idea what she could be so determined to do. “Let’s go to the park,” she said at last, not looking at me.
I focused myself on the road, willing myself to keep the feelings she didn’t want to know about inside and said, very quietly, very controlled, “okay.”
“The park” is basically just a vacant lot. I think that once, a long time ago, the city was going to build something there, but they bought all of the materials, plunked them in the nice, open space, and then forgot about it. By the time Cindy and I discovered it, there were plants growing up and around all the cement pipes, wire frames and various other building materials, making it a kind of hidden fantasy world we could escape to. Throughout our childhoods it served as a mystical fairyland, a domesticated house, a school on another planet, a battleground, a castle, and countless other things, but it was always a haven, always a place we knew we could go to get away, until.
Until one night in the tenth grade I got a call, an unintelligible call, from Cindy. A call that convinced me that she was lost and alone and needed help. That she was in need of serious help and was at the park. So I went to the park, and there she was. She was there all right, there with all of her “friends.” All of her “friends were there, and they were all talking and laughing and having a good ol’ time. Having a good ol’ time trashing our sacred haven, desecrating it with their sin. Desecrating our sanctuary with their alcohol and their joints (which Cindy had tried to convince me, several times, were “not drugs. They’re different”). They were all wasted out of their minds, dancing to a pagan beat, with Cindy’s “best friend,” the queen bee, the bitch of the bunch, Evelyn, in the middle at the top. Perched on the top of the tallest cement pipe, bonfire throwing her face into stark relief, highlighting her cheekbones and casting her eyes into shadow, giving her a skull-like mask for a face. Her fake-blonde hair danced around her, picking up red highlights, her skin glowed gold, and she danced sexually, grinding her hips against the air, shaking her breasts. With the fire and the dark and the amount of skin she was showing (wearing only a black, lacey bra and a tiny, jean miniskirt, she was barely clad at all) she seemed to represent sin itself, to be the devil incarnate.
And then. And then Cindy was there, too, throwing her arms in the air, grinding against Evelyn, removing her clothing so she was just as scantily clad, and reveling in the sin she was accepting in her life. Below them on the ground the guys danced a little, talked a little, weaved and bobbed in a drunken pattern, making their shadows dance and spin and twirl. To me, it felt as though I had just stepped into hell. It felt as though all my hoping and wishing, as though all of my praying had been for naught, because a simple phone call had condemned me to hell, when all I ever wanted to do was save my best friend from it.
And as I stood there, as I stood there and watched, I knew how Orpheus must have felt. Though we risked completely different things, at the same time, we both risked everything. Neither of us should have ever looked. But such is humanity. To sin, to err, to make mistakes- it’s what we do best and most often. My oldest friend saw me, did a double take…and then looked away. And I realized that my deepest wish, the thing I wanted most, it was never going to happen. At least, not the way I wanted, anyway. Cindy would never love me the way I loved her.