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by Bosley Gravel
Mainstream, 10 pages.
Originally Published in The Deepening, 2006
(1) Rate this Story Things growing are not ripe until their season;
So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason
—Shakespeare
Chapter 1
He met her at a high school dance in his senior year. It was a sixties theme and she was wearing a yellow and blue dress. He didn’t believe in love at first sight but he did ask her to dance. So they danced an unremarkable dance and passed the dragging time and even laughed a little towards the end.
He saw her at school the following Monday and she shared a bag of potato chips with him. He appreciated it, but it was only potato chips and he soon forgot about it.
Some days he would see her with her friends and say “Hi.” Other days she was invisible to him and he didn’t think about her at all. Once he found her in the library, frustrated over a Quadratic Equation.
“I hate math.”
“It’s not so bad,” he said, “It just takes a little getting used to.” She smiled and that made him feel good. He sat down and helped her.
“Algebra is a lot like poetry,” he said, “There’s a lot of rhythm and meter. First you have to become comfortable with the numbers... There’s an equation that works every time, and you always get two answers, sometimes they are negative and sometimes they are positive.”
She found Algebra, like poetry, could be enjoyed.
Chapter 2
A week later, feeling alone, he called her for a date. They went to a terrible B movie and laughed at the tasteless gore. When he was driving home he said, “Do you remember the part when the kid got his hands cut off with a machete?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It made me feel sick.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He kissed her at the doorway. It was an unremarkable kiss, which did not linger.
“Thank you for the movie,” she said and went inside. He drove home and didn’t think about the date.
Next week he called her again and they went out for hamburgers at a fast food place. He said he knew a place where they would sell him beer if she were up for such a thing.
He bought a twelve pack and they drove up to a hill that was notoriously known. They looked out at the city.
“It looks like a butterfly nestled on a wasteland,” he said. “It looks like a lake full of fireflies. It looks like a magical thing.”
He got drunk and felt her up, which was unremarkable. She was pretty; her body smooth with youth, but it was still unremarkable. He swerved a lot when they drove home. He was praying in his head the whole way. They got to her house and everything was okay.
“Good night. It was a remarkable evening,” he said.
“Good night,” she replied.
“Do you want to go out next weekend?”
“Sure, call me.” She went inside. He didn’t believe in “love”, but he did believe in “like”, and he liked her, but it was an unremarkable like.
Chapter 3
Summer came and she spent a month with her grandmother. She wrote him letters and he wrote back when he remembered. He didn’t think of her much, but in some dim way he missed her.
She called him when she got back and he asked her on a date. He had a bottle of whiskey and they got drunk. He knew how to get her naked without her really knowing it and he did. When he was inside her, she spoke in a drunken mumble.
“Do you love me, Stafford?”
He didn’t want or know how to explain about “like” and “love”, so he said, “Yes, I do love you.”
Thus, losing concentration, he ejaculated and pulled himself out. They were at an awkward angle in the car, so it was really impossible to get it out in time. When they got situated he looked down at his flaccid self, and saw a layer of blood and semen covering his hair.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “It was my first time.”
He cleaned himself with an oily rag and they got dressed.
He felt sorry that it had happened. It seemed he had broken something that wasn’t his.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did it hurt?”
“A little.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
When they were at her doorway, he kissed her on the cheek.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said and tears welled up inside him.
I’m sorry,” he said and walked back to his car his hands trembling slightly.
In the morning it didn’t seem so bad. It had really been an unremarkable event. He called her and said “Hello” and she was pleasant and sweet. They talked for a while, but for some reason he couldn’t keep track of his side of the conversation. So he excused himself saying that he needed to mow the lawn.
He didn’t want to think right now, so he mowed the lawn, even though it didn’t need mowing.
Later that evening he went out with his Best Buddy and they -- [End of Preview.]