sacred cow

Let’s pretend I’m not completely drunk right now.  Let’s pretend I didn’t drink four big glasses that were half vodka and half cranberry juice.  Let’s also pretend that I didn’t take all those sleeping pills.  While we’re doing all this pretending, let’s pretend that she likes me too.  I don’t think my imagination is that strong.

I have problems.  They’re only moral problems.  It’s okay because they’re almost all socially-sanctioned problems, things I’ll never get arrested for.  Right now, I’m looking at pornography on my computer.  Teenies, redheads, fat girls, they’re all spreading their legs just for me.  And it’s free.  I could do this all day.

And I don’t want to hear that nonsense about self-esteem.  I have plenty of that.  Girls love me, and not just digital ones.  I can get phone numbers, dates, and play whenever I want. 

Right.

Just not from her.

I was in love one time.  There was this girl who worked at a supermarket.  Me and my friend were skipping school one day and I saw her stocking shelves.  I walked up and asked her for her phone number, and she just started laughing at me.  My friend laughed at me too when I told him what happened.

But I’m persistent.  Every time I went there I would try and flirt with her.  And every time she would shoot me down.  After a few months, I got a job there bagging groceries and persisted to hit on her.

Sorry.  I get off-topic sometimes.  And my drink is empty.  Wait just one second while I go make another one.  You can look around my room if you’d like.  You can look at the shot glass collection, my book of sketches, or even through the stack of sticky magazines under my bed.

And I return!  I was telling you about something.  Oh yeah.  That girl.  Well, so I started working at her supermarket, and we started hanging out together during our days off.  She had an older sister who was just as cute as she was.  There were a couple nights when I didn’t come home until four in the morning.  And if it weren’t for that damn dog, I’d have never gotten caught.

We talked on the phone every night.  For hours and hours.  Until five in the morning sometimes.  I slept through my classes.  I slept on the drive to school.  She was everything to me.  For her, I quit smoking reefer.  I didn’t really try to hit on other girls as much even.  It wasn’t a mutually affectionate relationship.

She insulted me, called me names, laughed at my shortcomings.  And she had these terrible and boring stories about her day and her family and under any other circumstances I would have never cared.

But I said it was love.  It was love.  We kissed and listened to Incubus under the black-lite with all my colored-pencil drawings glowing in the background.  And she would smile at me and I would pretty much melt.

There were some things I could never understand, though.  Like why she always came to my house and I could never go to her house, and why she never ate in front of me, and how she got her hair to be so damn curly and perfect.  Between her enormous brown eyes and immaculate curls, I couldn’t think a negative thought about her.

Holy cow!  My drink is empty again.  That expression, ‘holy cow’, it must come from India I think, where cows are holy.  And my hands are freezing.  This girl I like, she says that’s because of poor circulation and that my health is bad and that I’m going to die.

Not soon enough, I’d say.

Oh, and by the way, the liquor and the pills are starting to kick in.  I can feel a certain heaviness in my fingers and head, and I might not be able to keep this up for much longer.

So the girl.  About the girl.  We broke up.  I don’t really know why, but I have a strong suspicion that it’s because I wouldn’t have sex with her.  I was a virgin then, and she was dropping lots of hints that she wanted to deflower me.  But I didn’t want to.  I didn’t want to defile my angel.  That’s how I know I loved her.

Since then, I haven’t cared very much about the feelings of the girls I’ve dated.  Pretty much it’s been all about getting play, getting head, getting some.  But it’s not fulfilling.  There is no way to be satiated on something like lust.  If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve made out with about forty girls, but only had sex with four.  That second statistic isn’t a guess.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this. 

When I first came here to go to school, I was a business student.  There was this girl in one of my classes who really liked me.  I mean like in a cultish and obsessive way.  She wasn’t pretty.  I think if she was prettier, I could have loved her.

And sure, we had fun together.  Between the skinny dipping, and doing it, I know she was having fun.  But being with her started to kill me inside, so I stopped spending time with her.

Really, just hold on so I can make one more, one last one.  Well, maybe second to last.  You can peruse my collection of stupid alternative rock CD’s while I’m gone.  You can try and play my guitar if you want, but it’s left-handed and probably backwards for you.

I’m starting to get itchy for some reason.  One time I found this yearbook, and it had that girl in it, the first one, who I loved.  It seems she used to weigh a whole lot, but had since lost an obscene amount of weight.  I think the reason she never invited me to her house was so I wouldn’t see pictures from when she used to be fat.  Looking back, I think that she probably took lots of those diet pills and was maybe anorexic. 

When you love someone, it’s hard to notice her flaws.

Maybe there’s someone out there who can love me.  Maybe there’s someone out there who won’t care that I crank it six times a day or drink every night.  Maybe there’s someone out there who likes to listen to goofy songs on the guitar. 

Maybe not.

I’m not going to re-read this story.  I’m not going to edit it.  I’m sick of censoring things because certain people might read them.  The girl I loved, her name is Laura.  The girl I didn’t, her name is Kathy.

(c) 2003  J Baugher