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Just Wandering
"You and I, Kelly, we think more than most people."
"Stop being such a snob," I muttered and coughed. He was smoking again, the asshole. He knew how much I hated it, how much it filled up my shriveled little lungs. Wasn't I sick enough already? Surely Dale wanted to ignore the symptoms of heartache. Either that or he was convinced that I was a hypochondriac like everyone else in this wanna-be tie-wearing, Jaguar-driving world.
"All I'm saying..." His voice trailed off. It was a habit of his, like pathological smoking. He should have turned into a cigarette by now.
"I know what you're saying. You don't have to explain. I'm tired of listening to your raspy, know-it-all voice."
"Moody, eh?" He took a long drag from his cigarette and stared at the moon, like a young Humphrey Bogart.
I jumped up and brushed the mulch off of my skirt. "You don't look nearly as glamorous as you think you do."
"Who said I was trying to look glamorous? If that's what I wanted, I'd be sitting here in some faggotty sequined dress and lipstick, made up better than you in that ugly paisley dress."
"Whatever." I snatched the cigarette out of his mouth. "You're trying to look cool and it's pissing me off, Dale. Can't you stop smoking once and for all?"
He bolted up a few seconds later. In fact, his reaction was so delayed I could have sworn he was already dying of undiagnosed cancer. "Does every night have to end in a sermon?"
"This isn't a sermon! This is your girlfriend--"
"Yes—"
"You're the one lecturing me right now!" I shrieked. I tossed his hot cigarette to the ground and stomped on it like some rabid gopher. Besides, I didn't like his comment on my paisley skirt. Not dress, skirt. Why did boys always confuse the two? They probably only grouped girl's clothes in terms of difficult and easy access. In that case, skirts and dresses are the same.
"That was my last one, you bitch!" Dale's eyes looked incredibly mean just then. Meaner than a rabid gopher's.
"Well," I spat, "You'd have more if you hadn't smoked the rest of the carton—"
"I'll smoke whatever the hell I want, whenever I want and you have no right to say anything about it." It made me mad how handsome he looked in the starlight. It gave his eyes a corny gleam, like something out of a Cary Grant film. Wow, I wanted to kiss him and tear out his innards at the same time.
I paused and fingered my paisley skirt. It was bright purple short, cut with spaghetti straps. I didn't usually wear short things but I did that night because I thought he would enjoy seeing my legs. Now I felt like I had cheated myself. I should have gone with the usual paint-splattered jeans, even if he hated them. At least then I wouldn't be cold.
"Hey, you're right. But I'm not going to stick around if you keep on smoking like this."
"So what? I'm tired of you, anyway. You're worse than Janie."
"Don't talk about that little slut in my presence."
"Pretty judgmental tonight."
"I just don't want you talking about her."
"She's no slut."
"Hell, of course she is."
"You've gone further than her."
"So what? Only with one person. She's probably been felt up by eighty-seven dweebs already." I shuddered but tried to control it so Dale wouldn't notice. I didn't want to appear overly dramatic. Those kind of people irk me.
"Thirty-six, if you go by her last tally. Now, do you mind fetching me another box of cigarettes from the car?"
"No."
Dale picked the blade of grass that balanced on his knee as he sat cross-legged. "No, what?"
"I'm not fetching it for you." I made sure to curl my fingers into little bunny ears around the word 'fetching.' It was one of those cutesy gestures that irked him as much as it irked me.
"Look, Kelly," Dale started, "I just want a smoke."
"That's not all you want."
He gulped. "Why won't you—"
"'Cause I said no."
"Virginity's for the birds. You've said it yourself."
"What, is this 1959? Quick talking like some cool cat beatnik."
"I am a cool cat beatnik." He furrowed his brow, as if he was entertaining a profound thought. It annoyed me how often he did that, as if everything Dale Clyde, Junior considered was wider and deeper than the universe himself. Already I knew he was destined for a fancy liberal arts school.
"See? I told you that you were trying to act cool."
"Uh-huh." He crumpled the blade of grass between his pointer finger and thumb. If it had been daylight, I probably would have seen green smears all over his skin. But it was nighttime and we were on another crummy date because he was too miserly to take me anywhere that cost more than $1 admission. Dale would rather shell out his spare change on his affectionately called 'smokes.' Bastard. For once I wish he would revere the right character in all those black-and-white movies we watched.
"No," Dale went on in his irritating drawl, "You said I was trying to look glamorous."
"Cool. Glamorous. What difference does it make?"
"Pick up a dictionary."
"I don't feel like it." I didn't like reference books, truthfully. They made me feel like a push-over for consulting them. Like their ink and pages gave them an authority I myself could never have. Sorry I'm made out of flesh, not paper.
"You're such a drip, Kelly."
"I'm not the one always wiping my nose with the back of my sleeve."
"Oooh! Nice come-back! Christ, you're being immature." It wasn't the first time someone had described me that way. My mother insisted that I was still a little girl; my father refused to believe that I would ever grow up.
And why were all of these thoughts colliding in my head? Why couldn't I just focus on our conversation? Why did I have to observe every detail and make every comparison? "I'm mature enough."
"To what? Ride a two-wheel bike?" I knew he was picturing me in one of my billowing sundresses, hair flying through the sky, as I pedaled nervously on a wooden doll bicycle.
"I'm breaking up with you," I blurted, just like that. Although the statement surprised me, I didn't even gasp afterwards. We both knew it was coming. I had written enough angst poetry about that.
"S'okay. At least I won't have to see your ugly dresses anymore."
"And I won't have to see your ugly jeans. How old are those things again?"
"Not as old as our love."
"Ooh! Burn! Newsflash: I was never in love with you."
"Congratulations for finally becoming introspective."
"I hate you."
"The feeling, my dear, is mutual."
I gritted my teeth and tore my necklace off. It was a gold, heart-shaped one he gave me for our six-month anniversary. Then I chucked it right in his face, the face whose every freckle and wrinkle I knew.
He scoffed as the necklace slid down his chest and crumpled in his lap. Squeezing the necklace in one hand, Dale flicked open his lighter with the other. Then he united the necklace and lighter, burning the chain.
I clenched my fists and pressed my foot hard against the ground. He wanted me to react. He wanted me to yell for him to stop. He wanted to know that our relationship still meant something to me.
But I did not respond. The chain began to melt, dripping into metallic beads that splattered into the ground. I should've known it was nothing but cheap nickel, anyway.
"Bye, Dale." I said it flatly, as if the words themselves contained no meaning. I wasn't bidding a long-time boyfriend farewell. I was issuing syllables to the summer breeze. This is the age of immateriality, after all.
He dropped the necklace, along with his jaw. The hurt in eyes almost made me want to apologize, but I didn't. I whipped around and kept walking without ever once looking back. The spookiest mummy could have emerged from behind me and gripped my ankles like in some B-list horror movie, but I still wouldn't have looked back. This time Dale and I were breaking up for real, no exceptions. I had drawn too many asterisks next to my conditions before.
As I walked toward the car, I thought back to all the other times Dale and I had broken up, only to get back together within days, sometimes hours. Once, we broke up over the fact that he said he hated honey buns. I am obsessed with honey buns—their sweet, natural goodness and their grated nuts. Their pure shape and undeniable fluffiness. I mean that in the most serious way possible. But honey buns grossed him out. He always went on about carbs and calories and fat like all the decidedly anorexic girls in my ballet class. I couldn't wake up every morning and share breakfast with someone who despised honey buns. So I broke up with him. I threw a honey bun in his face and told him that we were totally incompatible and that he better start dating one of the girls at the academy. He blinked. I can't remember any other response. Later that night, he called and said he would never comment on my honey buns again. Dumb, but I decided that our relationship was, too.
When I was younger, the drama of breaking up and making up intrigued me. We were like a couple out of some tragically romantic play. In an era of texting, Facebook, and online dating, we were the modern Tristan and Isolt. Ask anyone at our high school, anyone at our college--everyone knew our story. I took pride in that level of recognition. We were the couple that screamed passionately in the hallway before third period only to publicly make-out by the end of fifth.
I didn't care about drama anymore, especially if it involved exchanging vows of eternal love in front of the Modest Mouse posters taped up in our hideous blue lockers. I just wanted to be happy. I don't mean all fake yoga guru happy, either, but genuinely happy. Simple and happy, not yuppie, buy-it-in-a-bottle happy. And if Dale couldn't make me happy, then I didn't want to stay with him. Now I knew that he couldn't make me happy. Honey buns made me happy. Not smoking made me happy. Not burning things made me happy. (Not repeating the same word sixty times makes me happy, too, but I'm not finished yet.)
"Happiness isn't a commodity," my mother always reminded me. "Nobody can package it and sell it. It's up to everyone to make it themselves. Remember cottage industries?" Even at home, she behaved like an history teacher and therefore the kind of person who would never approve of Dale. She swore he would never make me happy.
"He used to make me happy," I'd retort. "And he makes me happy now."
"But will he make you happy in a year? In five? In ten? You've been together for years now, so long I dare say you'll get married."
"I just want to be happy now. And part of my happiness hinges upon not hearing your sermons, Mom."
That usually quieted her for about five minutes. She was the talkative type, the opposite of Dale in that respect. Dale spoke in smoke signals. I just could never decipher the language. Maybe I should have followed my father's advice. Maybe I should have majored in linguistics or communications instead of Dance and Art History. Then I wouldn't have fretted for so long about dating a guy majoring in Ceramics.
Eventually I reached my car. I almost didn't notice because the thoughts swirling around my head made me so dizzy. My brain is way too tangential, no matter how hard I try to control it. Dented in more than places than I wished to count, the car sagged close to the ground. For whatever reason, I always kicked the front bumper before I got in, perhaps conjuring good luck. Perhaps just giving my foot something to do outside of dance class. Then I jumped into the car and switched on the ignition. In the process, I accidentally turned on the radio and sucked my tongue as corny country songs blared. Dale loved to make fun of that kind of music, even though he worshipped Johnny Cash.
I huffed and turned off the music. "I don't care about your shotgun or your fried chicken."
Immediately afterwards, I backed up, destined for nowhere in particular. I circled around the park several times, panting. I almost didn't recognize how hard I was breathing until I slammed the breaks at a red light. I began feeling drowsier. Everything in sight assumed a blue hue. Stop signs started to bend. Trees warped into jelly. Nocturnal birds fainted from trees.
I must have let go out of the wheel at some point or put the car in park. There's no way I could've continued driving through all that loopiness and not killed myself. All I can say for sure is that at some point, I fell asleep.
Then my cell phone suddenly vibrated in my jacket pocket and I became freakishly alert. No doubt it was my mother, poised to yell at me about being late, being a loser, being unworthy of her love and devotion, and being unworthy of life in general. I ignored it. I didn't need to hear about Dale or applying to graduate school and 'fulfilling my potential' at 2 a.m., less than 24 hours after returning home from campus.
But what if it was Dale? The question circulated in my mind. I wanted to leap up and catch it, then strangle it. I hate my tendency for optimism. Besides, even if it were Dale, I wouldn't want to answer it because we're over, I told myself. I never wanted to see those impossibly blue eyes again. Or that sexy stubble. Or those strong hands. Or those well-sculpted arms. Or that prominent Adam's Apple.
I fished the phone out of my pocket.
"Dale?"
"Kelly?"
"Duh, it's not Cleopatra."
"Well, it could've been—"
"What did you want to say?"
"I..."
I could smell the alcohol on his breath over the phone. "Dale, go to sleep. You're drunk and we've only been apart an hour." I blinked. It hadn't been longer?
"Uh-uh. I miss you, baby."
"Go write a poem!" He wrote such emo junk. I could say that at age 22, but not 16. You fall for anything with the words "imbue" and "soul" before age 20.
"I don't got a pen."
"Are you saying you lost the one I gave you for our fourth anniversary?" It was a fancy-ass fountain pen with his name printed on it. After you've been together a while, the gifts start to go downhill.
"Yeah, babe. I dropped it in the toilet. It made a little plink! sound, all splashy like in those Max Fleischer cartoons."
No surprise. "Where? Wait, don't tell me--"
"Rusty's." Rusty's was his favorite bar, a tin shack overlooking the ugliest part of the interstate that came to mind. Even the woodchucks avoided burrowing along that stretch of land. A hitchhiker might slit their furry throats.
"I thought I told you to stop going there." My brain soared to the inch long scar on his forehead. You don't hang around Rusty's if you covet blemish-free skin. Someone's likely to pull a knife on you eventually. It's kind of like a hillbilly opera.
"But they got free pool on Tuesdays."
"Screw free pool!"
"Can I screw you, baby?"
"Dale, you're drunk." I clapped the phone shut and continued driving around all the bends in my childhood neighborhood. The trees loomed over me, black and scraggly, looking more sinister than I ever thought at age ten. Even the houses appeared foreign. None of the people from my past still lived there. My father, however, does not believe in change.
"The Wincott family has occupied this neighborhood for eighty years, Kelly."
"That's a long time." What else was I supposed to say? If you ever have a choice, don't get a Southern Irishman angry.
"Damn right, it is. You don't mess with legends like the Wincotts."
At that, I usually just wandered away and inspected the house. And by inspect, I mean mumble criticisms to myself. The house was about medium-size, no cottage or mansion, with a bright green lawn that occasionally sprouted dandelions that my father would rush to pluck. Plain wood with termite-eaten shutters, the house hardly resembled the shiny, new mammoths in the development a few blocks away. I was just surprised that a bulldozer hadn't confused our house for abandoned property long ago.
Even my more "progressive" mother insisted on staying. "It's what your father wants. Besides, it's the only place he knows and it makes me happy."
Back to happiness. I often wondered what made my mother happy. Besides the facts that she taught French history and literature at the local community college, read for hours, and baked pumpkin bread on Sunday mornings, I knew little about her life. Whenever I tried to turn her into my specimen, I quickly became bored of observing her. Shouldn't someone with a life so full of sameness begin to grow moss? That was an expression of Dale's. "Grow moss." He applied to it boring people who never take any chances. Like those German existentialists carrying suitcases and wearing their bowler hats as they march into work everyday. (Okay, never mind. Unless you're an art student, you probably have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. Me and my contrived similes.)
Dale refused to grow moss. Instead, he grew weed. Literally. I only saw his greenhouse, small and glowing, once but I believed him when he said he kept up with it. He's picky about what he'll latch onto but once he chooses something to hold, he doesn't let go. Hence the inability to break up with me no matter how far I try to dance out of his life.
I glanced at the gas tank meter and groaned. Time for a fill-up. I almost considered going home, where I knew my parents expected me, but I hadn't received the fatal call yet. Mom probably figured that Dale and I had a lot to talk about, not that I felt like doing that. I wanted to drive around for as long as my swimming head would allow. I switched lanes and pulled into the humming gas station. There was nothing better to do in this town on Saturday night but cruise, anyway, especially when you have every stressor in the world bouncing around your house.
"Hey, Kelly!" It was Dale's brother, Dylan, who looked just like Dale only younger, despite the fact that he was three years older. He was just so much skinnier, thanks to his bookish habits. He also never stood up straight. He didn't assume the James Dean slouch, either. He just looked like a guy who'd been beaten up too many times in high school.
I flicked my pointer and middle finger up into a casual wave.
"You look kinda pale. Need help filling up your tank?"
"No, no. I can do it myself."
"You sure? I wouldn't want you to get gasoline all over your pretty dress."
I opened my mouth but Dylan practically ripped the nozzle out of my hands. Dale never would have even offered, maybe because I'd given him my 'women as objects of sexual desire in a patriarchal society as demonstrated in art' speech a billion times. I shrugged my shoulders and leaned against my car, whose body had cooled off significantly now that the sun was down.
"So...what's new, Dylan?"
"Are you sure you're okay? You've got these bags under your eyes and--"
"I'm fine. What about you?"
"Well, I'm transferring to another university."
"You can transfer in grad school?"
"Indeed," he said in his signature way, "I'm changing programs."
I crossed my arms. "But you love history."
"I do, I do, but I love writing more. My historical knowledge could really inform my first novel, you know. It's going to be about--"
"You're going into a writing program?"
"Indeed. I'm aiming for an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Your eyes are kind of--"
"Really? Where?"
"Iowa."
"Iowa?"
"Yes, aren't you impressed?"
"I didn't know there was anything but corn there. Isn't that a step down from this dump?"
Dylan pursed his lips. "The Iowa Writers' Workshop is one of the most prestigious M.F.A. programs in the country."
I nodded. "I still don't see why you're leaving—"
"Iowa's program offers the challenge and connections that I need."
"What about Dale?"
Dylan froze for a second and then adjusted his collar. "What about him?"
"Who's going to take care of him when you transfer?" I was shocked I had asked the question but it was too late to reel it back.
"You will."
I shook my head.
"What do you mean?" Dylan lowered his voice. "Did you two—"
"Yeah."
"Again?"
"I just said yeah."
"Indeed, but surely it's temporary."
"No." I pronounced the word very crisply. "No more drama. It's for real this time."
"He'll deteriorate without you. You're the only reason he went to college to begin with."
"So?"
"He loves you."
"The tank is full."
Dylan didn't remove the nozzle. "You're sick."
"Dylan, the tank is full."
"I heard you."
"Then pull the thing out of the stupid--"
"If you break up with Dale, he'll kill himself, Kelly!"
I slapped him as hard as I possibly could, something I had never done to anyone before. Dylan closed his eyes and stood there, undoubtedly a volcano brewing inside. I cringed at the welt I planted on his geekily handsome face. Suddenly I felt compelled to kiss him. I lunged forward, touching my lips to his cheeks. He didn't push me away immediately but when he did, I whispered, "You taste like Dale."
"No, I taste like me." He threw a bunch of bills on the ground. "Gas money." Then he returned to his car, slamming the door too hard. His was almost as old as mine but actually resembled something with monetary value. I wondered if he realized what Dale and I had done in the back of that car.
I didn't want to think about it but I was in a state where I thought about everything. I drove off without paying. It was so late that I could get away with it. You can get away with anything in a town like mine on a Saturday.
I kept driving. Neighborhoods evolved into Jell-O but I drove on anyway. My mother called at some point but I only bothered to listen to her message. It was the standard lecture about how I wasn't following my dreams. That I hadn't even thought of a destination on my roadmap. I threw the phone out the window, praying that the next driver who came along would run it over. Maybe the fireflies would distract them and they would veer off course. The fireflies distracted me enough to put me in a life-threatening situation, after all. They reminded me of everything from my past, to days in cut-off shorts and jellies to the night of my high school graduation, but mostly they reminded me of Dale.
Dale. D-A-L-E. I wanted to say that the association I made between Dale and fireflies was romantic or at least sweet. But then I'd be lying. And when you feel as if your head's about to shatter into a million shards of glass because it can't stand the heat any longer, you yearn for the truth. The association I made between Dale and fireflies was not romantic or sweet. It was dreadful.
Like I said before, Dale grew his own pot. Needless to say, given the aforementioned 'credentials,' he also smoked it. No, wait, it's important that I clarify because this is where the fireflies come in. Dale did not SMOKE pot, he INHALED it. You know how little kids run around catching fireflies and put them in jars? Then they come home, their moms think it's cute, and the little kids prop up the jars to light up their rooms throughout the night. That's what Dale did every summer, except that he was a lot more ambitious than most little kids. Instead of taking a single jar, he would go out into the night with dozens of them. His mother stopped thinking it was some endearing quirk leftover from childhood when she discovered what he did with all the fireflies. Once he brought the jars home, Dale stuffed them full of marijuana leaves. Sometimes he would crush the fireflies in his hurry, sometimes he wouldn't. Then he poked extra holes in the jar lids if they needed them and threw a match into each jar. His whole room would absorb the smell of pot and then his whole house. I'm not sure why he never suffocated or how he managed to preserve his brain cells, but I worried far less about him on these occasions than I did the fireflies.
You can imagine what happened to the innocent bugs. Dale always flicked off the lights right before he tossed matches into the jars, so his room mimicked the summer sky. Of course, he would get bored of the beauty in a matter of seconds because he was so eager to smell his beloved reefer. That's when he lit the matches. I didn't believe it the first time he did it. I thought it was a joke. I saw the fireflies catch flame and burn into tiny mounds of ashes a few times before I promised myself never to come back again. The few times I did witness the firefly genocide, I ran out of the house and wandered around the nearby woods for an hour or so. When I returned, the house reeked and smoke still slithered into the hallways. His parents couldn't have avoided that stench, but Dale said they never once spoke to him about it. With a brother like Dale, I understand why Dylan graduated from high school a year early.
At maybe 3 or 4 a.m., I parked and sat in the middle of a public basketball court. I half-expected a hobo to approach me, but that's only because I was used to going to school in the city. I had forgotten that hobos didn't live in my hometown. Hitchhikers passed through all the time, often to grab a beer at Rusty's, but they had no reason to stay.
A spell after, I got back into the car. I inhaled deeply and I exhaled deeply. I even reached into my pocket to see if anyone had called me before I remembered that I had cast away my phone. Then I decided to drive home.
All of the lights in the Wincott residence were off, save for the orange one glowing in the front porch. I pulled into the driveway, smiling at the firefly or two that blinked in the yard. I hoped that Dale, wherever he was, had seen one that night, too. More importantly, though, I hoped that he had refrained from setting it on fire. With that thought, I crept into the garage because Dad didn't want me parking in the driveway. He was almost as proud of the family cars as he was of our house, even if none of them were what you'd call 'classy.'
The garage became a cave where I could just go think my stupid, self-indulgent, post-adolescent thoughts. It was dark and I would be alone. I could cry about Dale and cry about my life. My only company would be my dad's tools and maybe "Polar Opposites" or "Bukowski." But I couldn't step into that house. Mom would see me and ask all the questions that Dylan had asked. I'd smack her and kiss her all in the same minute, too.
I remained in the car with the engine on. I reached for the air conditioning knob but I doubt I even touched it. Instead, I hit my head against the steering wheel, slunk forward, and dreamt about my first 100 dates with Dale. The car exhaust fumes should have killed me and would have if my mother had not discovered me.
"Kelly!" I felt a slap. "Kelly! Wake up!" My eyelids fluttered. "Are you--? Please! Jesus!" My tongue seemed to weigh down at the back of my mouth. "I don't--God! Wake up, Kelly!"
Mom kissed me hard on the cheek, at about the same place where I had kissed Dylan hours before.
My name is Kelly Wincott and I am 22 years old. My immediate destination is the Clark County Hospital, ten miles from my home, but it is not my last. I still have plenty of wandering to do. This firefly is just learning how to glow.
More resourceswww.christinestoddard.com
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