The stench of stale beer clings to the painted white cinder
block walls. It haunted the common area
and stairwells, too. More bunker than
dormitory, the thin, tall windows – one to a bedroom - appear better suited for
an archer defending a keep than for letting any kind of warmth into the
space. I see the long rays of the sun
peeking through those slits and creeping into the hallway out each door of the
westward windows; yellow tendrils of some giant laying siege to this gothic
castle.
Seated on the thin carpet, a young man sits playing three
chords in succession on a poorly tuned guitar.
He is in the hallway between doors, head back against the block with
eyes shut tight. One of his cuticles is
bleeding slightly as he bangs away at the steel strings with no pick. I notice the intensity with which he plays and
it occurs to me that he believes this song deserves radio play. He is pathetic and painful to look at.
Utterly unaware of the world around him, he is singing
mournfully and rather loudly. There is
no stirring in the dorm, no audience save the tendrils of light. That lucky, earless light.
My first instinct is to wait for him to finish, lest I snap
him out of this state in too jarring a fashion. But after the song appears to repeat endlessly,
hammering away on the unhappy theme of lost love, I decide that he will surely
continue beyond my capacity to wait. I
am not known for my patience.
I stalk around the corner but hesitate before I reach
him. Will he recognize me? I’m not really certain how this all
works.
“Stop that,” I command.
There is a quiet force in my words.
His eyes flash open and cheeks flush.
I’m standing over him now, not menacing but certainly invading his
space.
He inhales with clear intent to berate me but stops
short. He’s staring. Maybe he does recognize me? Hard to say for sure. Taking advantage of the pause, I press
on.
“I bet any friends you have left are exhausted from hearing
that awful song. Have you considered
playing it in your room with the door closed instead?”
“Look, man, that’s a great song and it means a lot to
me. And I’ll have you know that nobody
has told me anything bad about it.” His
voice is raised, tone defensive. I
shudder at the familiarity of it.
“Who do you sing it for?
Who’d you right it for?” I accuse
him.
His eyes cast downward at the floor I answer my own question with a wounding one. “Has she
heard it yet?”
He loses touch with the conversation to watch a few moments
flash before him.
“No… she hasn’t heard it.”
“Would it make a difference if she did?”
He sighs. The anger
is seeping out a bit, losing its hold as the sadness struggles for attention.
“Sure it would. If
she heard this song, she’d realize what she means to me. She’d be touched by it.”
He is genuine in this line of reasoning, and I find myself
disgusted.
“Do you remember when you were in the sixth grade, and the
clothes your parents bought you were completely out of fashion?” He chuckles and nods, but his look quickly
becomes a perplexed. I can see him
questioning how I know this.
“One day some guy from another homeroom who you’d never seen
before walked up to you and told you plainly that no one wears their socks
pulled all the way up. Then he walked
away. He didn’t ridicule you, or use
that knowledge to wound you. And when
you looked around, it was suddenly so blatantly obvious?”
“None of my friends said anything,
and that guy comes out of nowhere and gives me some perspective. But how do you know anything about…”
I cut him off, staring straight into his eyes. “You will never get her back by being
pathetic. No girl dreams of someday
reluctantly letting someone have her heart out of guilt. Be worthy of the love
you seek.”
I turn on my heel, and rush back towards the stairs. When I open the door, I’m look straight up
at the ceiling. My head rests on the
pillow of a cushy sofa. Several framed
diplomas hang above me, and I wonder absently how long it takes to earn a PhD
in psychology.
“Well that was a different approach. Do you think it will make any difference to
him?”
“Him? Probably not,
Andy. There is no ‘him’ apart from your memories,
of course. But you weren’t really
talking to ‘him,’ you were simply
talking to yourself. What did you tell ‘him’
anyway?”
Be worthy of the love you seek.