Issues.
“You have issues.”
Phil knew about my issues. He helped bring many of them to light.
“Like what?”
“Trust for starters.”
“How would you know?”
“Trust me.”
“Why.”
“See?”
“No. Just because I don’t trust you doesn’t mean I have trust issues.”
“That’s not the issue. There isn’t even a desire to trust; that’s the issue…”
“I’d love to be able to trust someone.”
“Then trust me.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is.”
“Trust takes time.”
“Trust takes risk, not time.”
“I’m not big on risk.”
“No?”
That day Phil took me cliff jumping. Forty-odd feet to start. Our phys-ed teacher had taught us how to deep dive off of a three meter board… but that couldn’t prepare me for sprinting off of a forty-plus foot plateau into nothing, and then water. It was exhilarating to say the least.
“Now do you trust me?”
Treading water after the fall. High on adrenaline. Elated.
“Enough to follow you off of a cliff… not enough to reveal my heart.”
He laughed and we swam for shore.
“Are you going or not?”
“I don’t know.”
This was the night he met Angelica. He was trying to convince me to accompany him to this party for some guy in our Algebra class I had never spoken to in my life. I’m not big on parties to begin with, not the kind I figured this would be, and especially not parties for strangers.
“What else are you going to do?”
“I don’t know… something might come up.”
“Someone?”
“Something.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know… something I’d enjoy.”
“You’d enjoy the party if you gave it a chance.”
“There’s a lot I might enjoy that I will never give a chance for that very reason.”
“No one could say you’re a hedonist… but they could say you have a commitment issue.”
“How so?”
“I told you about this a week ago, and you’ve kept putting it off in hopes of something better. Hope isn’t worth waiting for, Fost. You’re going to miss living for hopes of living.”
I don’t think he could have known then about Hope… but he sure hit the nail on the head… sort of. I am aware of my commitment issue, but that isn’t to be confused with my indecisiveness issue. My indecisiveness comes from not caring about certain decisions and not figuring that they’re actually worth the effort of thought and weight of commitment. I take commitment seriously. Remember, my problem with commitment is that I commit to things that don’t exist… but I still take it seriously; this was my first act of commitment towards Hope, but I had previously acted similarly with both Jules, and Alice, so it’s an issue with a history I’ve never bothered to delve into. This wasn’t indecision, it was commitment-oriented: determination not to enter into a circumstance in which I might willfully or otherwise compromise my chances of being with Hope.
“I’m not going, Phil.”
He left it at that. I ended up trying to call her that night, long-distance, and getting the answering machine. I left a message and spent the night waiting. Had anyone called that night they would have been the recipient of uncharacteristically prompt, well-mannered, and good-natured greetings, but no one did, which meant I didn’t have to explain much the following day, especially because Phil was doing most of the talking during coffee. He was going on about Angelica. I just kept agreeing, thinking of Hope.
“I know what you mean.”
“You couldn’t, you haven’t met her.”
“It’s your turn to trust me. Have a little faith.”
“Faith is one of my issues. Prove it.”
“She is the cause, and the solution, of every problem. She poses questions and she is the only answer. There are traces of her everywhere, but they are not enough. You’re thirsty, and only she can satisfy your thirst…”
I would have continued but he interrupted me.
“Ok, you’re close… perhaps one day you could make me a believer… today, just let me…”
He trailed off, so I finished his sentence.
“Hope.”
He looked at me looking at him with my smug smile. That coffee we said little, considering the time, but we communicated much.
“It’s not so much communication… more a lack of honesty therein. You’re very good at articulating thoughts and stuff… just not yours.”
He was exploring another one of my issues, this time during lunch, after a drama exam. I had to tell a personal story…
“We left early enough, but that was because we didn’t have a clue where we were going. I had booked the test in a nearby town, that I wasn’t familiar with, to avoid having to wait eight months to take it. Let this be lesson, patience is a virtue. I ended up arriving early, despite numerous detours, and parked with my licensed-driver friend in the parking lot. While I waited patiently for my appointment time things began to happen around us. Cars started lining up in the street, the uniformed transportation officers arrived, and my friend spilled hot coffee down my front. I was supposed to be one of the first scheduled to take my test that morning, but I didn’t know that the timetabling was just a farce and that the real MO was to line up and wait your turn. I only figured it out when the driving authorities made their way to the line of cars that had formed before my very eyes not far from where I sat parked.”
I started my story with the utmost sincerity. I was seated before my peers telling the tale of my failed driving examination, not the easiest thing to share with classmates, and as the imminent humiliation was presented to my conscious mind, along with the realization that all eyes were on me, I started to feel cramped and violated. This all happened during “We left early enough”. In the time it took for me to take a breath, a change occurred. I paused, realizing I was on a stage, in the spotlight, and a strange thing happens to me when I perceive that I am the center of attention… I start acting. So the change that took place between “We left early enough” and “but that was because…” was subtle, but enough to convince Phil that it was no longer myself telling my story but a character, birthed out of convenience to distance myself from the associated shame and simultaneously actively entertain those who were watching.
“I mean, it was over before it began. The man who kicked my friend out of the car and asked for my permit was a hulking beast who must have stood six five and weighed in at over three hundred pounds. He later claimed that he was the least intimidating of the driving instructors. He entered what information he needed and then prepared himself for another leisurely drive down the familiar streets he knew so well.
‘You can go when you’re ready.’
He seemed pleasant enough. I was as ready as I would ever be so I went, smoothly and safely, wherever he directed me to go. Then it happened, the one little mistake that ruined it for me. He directed me to make a left down a small residential street. I did; he critiqued my steering. As I drove down the street I was haunted by the horror stories of those who had taken similar tests before me. I was calculating and anticipating what to expect and how to overcome the trickery I would face at the whim of this man beside me who held the key to my immediate future in his hand. Then it registered, something was not quite right with the scene composing my field of vision; facing me, on either side of the street, were two stop signs. Which was fine, of no relevance whatsoever, so long as I didn’t have to…
‘Turn left at the stop sign.’
I bet he said it with a malignant smile of deviant victory. I scanned around frantically for a logical aid. There was no oncoming traffic, no lines down the middle of the road, and there were two stop signs, on both sides of the road, facing me. On the other hand I didn’t see any ‘One Way’ street signs… but I had been distracted, and besides, every road test is supposed to take you down a one way street, every story I had heard foretold of the dreaded ‘one way’ situations. On every account my reason was backing the decision I made. I lacked confidence however; if reason were enough, we wouldn’t need laws. I began hesitantly to drift into the left-hand side of the road, trying to test out the water, until he grabbed the wheel and the water froze and trapped me under, in the frigid darkness, and he won. I knew I was finished.
‘You realize that you’re driving on the wrong side of the road.’
It didn’t matter that I had preformed flawlessly up to that point, or that I triumphantly overcame my attitude and completed the test without peeling out into the nearest throughway and playing chicken with Mack trucks until he passed me, or crushed me, or I killed us both. He failed me mercilessly. He even had the audacity to say I parked too close to the curb (without hitting it) while parallel parking. I guess that’s the price of the road less traveled…”
When I finished my story I sat for a second and slowly came to myself. As I stood and returned to my seat in the audience, my peers congratulated me. My teacher’s criticism was that I was too comfortable (‘too close to the curb’?). Phillip, seated in the back, was shaking his head. We didn’t talk until lunch.
“What was wrong with it?”
He hadn’t even sat down yet, but I was curious.
“It wasn’t you.”
I put my drink down, he was starting something.
“So.”
“You have issues.”
He took a bite of his sandwich.
“So do you, so does everyone… so what.”
“True. But when you know what they are, shouldn’t you try to work through them?”
My greatest issue is just that; I’m comfortable, even content. I embrace these personal quirks because I think that they define me.
“You won’t be remembered for your problems, Fost. Like you said, everyone has them. You’ll be recognized for overcoming them, because you not only have the ability to do so, but you can do so in a unique way.”
“What are you prophesying or something? You’re starting to sound like some of the guys from church.”
“I may not believe in your religion, but I believe in you.”
“Stop, you’re making me all teary.”
I’ve never been able to accept compliments or encouragement easily. I tend to get offensive when people try, thereby dissuading their praise, that they might direct it to one more worthy… another product of institutional religion and circumstances affecting my developmental stages.
“I’m serious… there’s potential in you”.
“There’s potential in everyone.”
“Maybe… but there’s not hope in everyone. You’ve retained a means of hoping, and that’s going to empower you to heights many can’t reach. Hope is going to give you wings, as soon as you cut the binds tying you down.”
“I’m sick and tired of hoping, Phil. I want more.”
“There is no life without hope.”
“There are greater things than hope.”
“Hope comes first.”
I’m not intending to illustrate how inconsistent people can be, while remaining true to themselves, and true to the given scenario, but that seems to be the case for Phil at the moment. I’m coming to think that we, as people, are capable of making issues out of just about anything. The more we talk and think about things, without professing them in action as well, the more apt we are to make hypocrites of ourselves or clichés of what we say. I wonder if the law of supply and demand applies in literature. If it does, and I have a store of one million words to share, what is the worth of one?
No comments:
Post a Comment