But I haven't written a word all summer.
"A String" is definitely one of my favorite essays, but it has been up far too long.
I haven't even written any story-stuff this summer. Not a word. Sad, sad summer.
The excerpt I'm posting was written just before Evan and Caleb decided to shun me. Little jerks. I like the scene, though of course it needs plenty of revision. At the moment it's all I've got. So...there.
He was staring at something on the ground. It wasn’t the ground itself because he faced me.
“We should watch something tonight,” I said.
He nodded.
“Any ideas?”
“You’re the movie guy.”
“You know what I wish?” He raised his eyebrows. The thing following us on the ground held his eyes. We walked through typical San Francisco fog. I can’t say typical San Francisco weather because there is no such thing. People think it’s fog but it’s only fog a half-hour before it’s sun again. Then there’ll be fog six straight days at the Marina while downtown greets mini-skirted girls with eighty-degree sun. They still dressed that way in the fog, except that they wore sweatshirts too. I always find that funny. When girls wear tiny shorts with sweatshirts. Doesn’t make any sense. “I wish I could’ve been around when all those movies were made. Then we could go to the theater and see everything how it was really supposed to be seen. It was all made for the big screen, you know.”
There was one, a girl with a sweatshirt. It was an SF State sweatshirt. The same as mine--that really hideous purple color with the letters in yellow outlined with white. I’d chosen that one after much thought. It would be hideous except that it was my college sweatshirt and I loved it all the more because it was really so hideous. The girl wearing it was actually normal. She had jeans on rather than something useless. When she got cold she would be honestly cold.
“Did you see her?” I asked. My friend shook his head. He didn’t have to ask who I meant because he was looking down and hadn’t seen anyone. The girl was pretty. She was a bit short and had brown hair halfway down her back. I think her eyes were brown too but I hadn’t met them and what I saw was seen in only an instant. “That’s too bad. She was cute.”
He didn’t even nod. It would’ve been nice, saying something to her. ‘ Hey, I’m at SF State too. Just finishing my junior year. What year are you? Do you like it?’ I could’ve asked about her major. She looked smart but didn’t walk like she wanted to kill someone. Not an engineering major, then. She wasn’t in scrubs and so couldn’t have been nursing. She wore tennis shoes but wasn’t kinesiology or anything like that, I don’t think. There seemed to be so many of those. She only wore tennis shoes because she was walking and smart. Communications, maybe? There aren’t many English majors. If she were communications she probably would’ve thought English a cool major. ‘There aren’t too many of us. But it’s what I love, and what better to study than what I love?’ That would’ve been good. It was true, anyway. She’d be able to tell that it was true and that I wasn’t just being stupid. ‘Half the city must have been at SF State at one time or another.’ Definitely communications. She was textbook communications major. Pretty, but not crazy. Smart, but not evil. I bet she wore glasses at home and liked to go walking early in the morning before the city woke. Not running: walking. ‘I had to say something, though, because I have the same sweatshirt you’re wearing. Isn’t it almost hideous? I think college sweatshirts should be. That way you can wear something horrible but people won’t notice that it’s horrible but only that you went to a particular school. They can gab about it to each other. That’s a good school. My grandson’s going there. San Francisco--what a place to study!’
Caleb sighed deeply. I thought it ironic, that he should sigh. I would’ve spoken to that girl if he wasn’t with me. He wouldn’t have had to do anything. Just stand there and smile once in a while. She probably would’ve been less likely to think me a creep because I wasn’t alone. And I knew exactly what to say, too.
“Seen anywhere to eat?” I asked. That was mean because I knew he was staring at something on the ground and hadn’t seen anything.
“No. Sorry.”
“Anything sound good?” Of course not. I don’t think he had a problem with food but with the physical act of eating. For some reason I had to beg him before he would eat anything and even then he sometimes refused. Why he couldn’t just act like a normal person was beyond me. He knew I wanted him to eat but still made me beg.
“Whatever you’d like is fine.”
He wouldn’t even look up. Usually I love the fog but today it annoyed me. I didn’t want it to be foggy. If the sun were out then I may not have noticed the pretty girl with my sweatshirt.
“Ever been on a date, Caleb?”
“Me? No.”
“Didn’t think so. Do you even notice girls?”
“I notice. Never can to talk to them, though.”
Still he watched the ground. What could he possibly be looking at? His stare was intense. Upon this great something hinged his entire world. I found it funny that he was so tall. And when he got shy like this his shoulders bunched up to his ears and made him even taller. He didn’t have to be so stiff like that. There weren’t that many people around--normal city flow. No one bumped into us. “Do you really? Tell me about one.”
He swallowed. It was just me. He didn’t have to get nervous around me. Hadn’t I proved that to him a thousand times? Opening his mouth couldn’t be so incredibly difficult. “The girl who brought your coffee--remember her, from a couple days ago?”
“Not really.”
“I guess you didn’t really see her. She came from behind you. She had those black-framed glasses without lenses that everyone wears, and had bleached her hair so that it was really, really light. That’s not usually my favorite. But she was really pretty anyway. She bit her lip because your coffee almost spilled. That was still behind you, though, so you didn’t see. I remember that her mouth was really pretty and she didn’t have anything on it.” He swallowed again. I wondered why he didn’t close his eyes, if he couldn’t look up. What was he watching?
“Sorry I missed her,” I said.
He nodded. I looked around because I did want to lunch somewhere. Being annoyed makes me hungry. Especially when I start to realize what a jerk I’m being, so I’m still annoyed at whomever I’m annoyed at and also annoyed with myself.
My feet. That was it. Dear God--he was watching my feet. I stopped walking and so did he.
“Do you want to go home, Caleb?”
He looked into my face now but not into my eyes. How had I not seen it? The pain was so great that he couldn’t even look in my eyes. But he still looked at me. Looked hard at me. He was frightened to death. I put my hand on his arm and watched the slow way he blinked.
“Why don’t we go home.”
“You wanted to eat somewhere.”
“I changed my mind. We’ll go home and just make something.”
“There isn’t much at home.”
“We’ll make a party out of it. We’ll order pizza and watch movies. We’ll watch some of that Marx Brothers set I just bought.” He was sick. He was sick all the time because he couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat and everything terrified him.
“But it’s our one free day. All week you’ve wanted to go exploring.”
“I’m done with exploring.” We turned back and started walking. He watched my feet again. “We’re going home. I bet you’ve never even heard of the Marx Brothers.”
“We don’t have to, Evan.”
I took his hand, and when it shied away I held tighter. He could watch my feet if he wanted, but I was going to hold his hand. “I don’t want anymore argument. We’re going home and watching A Night at the Opera. And if you think you’re going to slip away with some girl wearing dark-rimmed glasses,” I held up our hands, “then you are terribly mistaken.”
I got a smile out of him with that. His hand was cold but held warmly to mine, now. Now he could close his eyes as we walked.
