Part 4, The Epic Conclusion!
Feb. 13th, 2006 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerWow. Now see, this is where an editor could come in handy. If any of you have taken the time to get this far, I owe you a coke.
Needing to wipe the experience from my mind, I took Dave to go see Kill Bill at the local grindhouse theatre. Well, it wasn’t so much a real grindhouse as much as a white-trash shack so crappy that the screen would vibrate when the sounds got too loud. The second helping of the movie soothed me some, but not my much. When we got out, May Day was in full swing.
May 1st is another great tradition for the students of Washington College. Back in the 70's, a professor decided to take his class out to celebrate the Spring equinox like the pagans of old. They would go out onto the campus green and dance around the flagpole as if it were a maypole. They did this again for the next couple years, until one year one enterprising young student decided to celebrate May Day by stripping down to nothing. For some reason, this “nudity” concept managed to strike a chord with the other liberal arts students, and by next year it became a proud college tradition for students to get as naked as they wished on May Day.
Over the years, regulations came and went; you couldn't be naked in class or inside any of the buildings (robes were allowed), some years you couldn't be naked during the day, or anywhere else other than the college green. But every year at midnight May 1st and again until midnight May 2nd, the students would get naked and stand around the flagpole. They didn't frolic anymore so much as get wasted, which is kinda like frolicking, just with more vomit and sex you regret the next morning.
I had never participated in May Day before, and after Blue Surge I just thought, “Hell, none of those drunken idiots would have had the balls to do what I did… whoa, bad choice of words there, Heffie.” Regardless, Dave insisted we go join the May Day activities, the theory being that you cannot be miserable with surrounded by naked people. We stood at the top of the hill, overseeing the sea of flesh as if we were generals overseeing their drunken, naked army.
“Hey John!” Dave said, “You bet me I won't get naked?”
“Uh... wait, what?”
“YOU LOSE, SUCKER!” he yelled, flinging off his pants. Next thing I knew, I saw a large glob of pale flesh and red hair run down the hill, screaming “BANZAIIIIIIIII!”
“And that's your best friend,” a friend of mine named Liam said. Liam was a freshman that year, a slender guy with a penchant for wearing ties and sweater vests. Liam's a delightfully pompous young man with a biting sense of humor, aspiring to Moliere and Wilde in his writing and his lifestyle. He had one of those pseudo English accents even though he was born and raised in an upper-middle-class Philadelphia family. For May Day, Liam was wearing nothing but tan shorts and a pith helmet.
“Him? He's not mine. He followed me here from the movie theatre.”
“How lucky for you,” Liam said and walked down to join the fray just as Dave trudged back up the muddy hill. He was out of breath and his pink Irish skin was complimented by grass and mud stains.
“Hey John,” he said, giggling, “ever get drunk and naked and run down a hill screaming banzai only to run smack into a cop? Cuz I just did!”
“Congrats, Dave, your life is just that much more fulfilled.”
“Ahh, I love me. Hey! I'm gonna do it again. WHEEEE!”
Yet somehow, not even the sight of Dave's pasty ass could lift my spirits. I stayed up on the hill, keeping my gloom far away from the crowd. Dave soon rejoined me and I was about to head back to my room for a long night of sulking, wallowing, masturbation, and cartoons. Just as we were about to leave, Liam showed up, accompanied by two topless girls I had never met before. One was brown-haired with freckles, the other was pale and mousy, with a long ponytail of platinum blond hair, and they both were clearly blitzed. In his pith helmet and shorts, Liam looked like he just returned from safari.
He said, “John, I'd like you to meet… what were your names again?”
“I’m Emily,” the brown-haired freckled girl said, “And this is Misty.”
“Yes, right,” Liam said. “John, this is Emily and Misty.”
“Oh, hello,” I said, with a little wave.
“Hey,” Emily said, smiling knowingly.
“Hi,” Misty said quietly.
There was a pause as we all stood there waiting for something to happen. Liam finally said, helpfully, “Misty likes you, John.”
“You… do?”
“Uh…” she rubbed her shoulder uncomfortably, barely able to make eye contact with me, and quietly said, "Yeah.”
“Oh!” I said. When I realized no one was going to say anything, I added, “Thank you.” Another pause. “I, uh… I’ve never seen you before, have I?”
She bit her lower lip. I suddenly thanked God I was the only one with clothes on.
“No. Probably not.”
I could tell that she was more than a little tipsy. I knew all too well how tricky alcohol could be, and how people could say things they really didn’t mean. After enough times of hearing Tammy proclaim her love to me only when she was drunk, I wanted to separate the truth from the booze. I walked up closer to this Misty girl to try to get through the haze. She was stumbling a bit and put her hand on my shoulder to brace herself. Or maybe that was just her excuse.
“Ok, well, uh, how exactly do you know me? Did you see me in a play or something?”
“Yeah. I saw you in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”
“And… because of that, you like me?”
By which I meant, you’re trying to tell me that you’ve got a crush on me due to my performance as the brittle, caustic, and effeminate Dale Harding?! Her hand caressed my shoulder. She looked at me and spoke like a star struck fangirl talking to Johnny Depp.
“Yeah.”
Ok. At this point, I was looking around the bushes for hidden cameras, waiting for someone to yell “SURPRISE!” and fling a pie in my face. But nothing happened. For the first time in a long while, I really didn’t give a damn about Tammy. I have to admit, that did kinda help my melancholy a teeny bit. I mean, seriously, I could really go for more drunk topless girls coming up to me and declaring their love, couldn’t you?
I had a beautiful girl in the palm of my hand at that moment, but I was trying to keep my raging hormones in check because this girl was, if not on Planet Scotch, then at least in the Vodka Nebula. One guy came up to me afterwards and said, “Don’t think too much about it. She’s been saying that to a couple guys and giving them her screen name. Sorry to break it to you, she’s just drunk.” I was worrying about just that, but wanted to find out for myself before I got disappointed.
While I spoke with her, I kept my eyes firmly on hers, trying to cut through the drunk and get to the truth. I wasn’t exactly used to having admirers of any sort, and was questioning her alleged attraction to me with almost intellectual curiosity. Fascinating! So muttonchops also turn you on? Let me just jot that down. And between Liam, Dave, and the other guys there, I was the only one looking at her eyes. Even she, in her drunken haze, thought to herself, “Uh, why isn’t he looking at my breasts?”
She gave me her screen name (“She’s been giving them all her screen name…”) and I forced myself to go back to my room alone. I couldn’t stand even the idea of taking advantage of the girl. On the way back, Dave, who had casually known Misty from a class they took together, was stuck in a mind-blown loop of his own.
“Dude, those tits were fucking perfect. I mean, when I saw her before, I totally thought she’d be soft. Only, y’know, in the bad way. But dude, those tits were fucking perfect.” He would repeat this many times over the next couple days, never quite able to comprehend it.
The next day, I sent Misty an IM, asking if she’d like to hang out and watch a movie. First and foremost, I wanted to see if it was just the booze talking or if she was serious. And if she was serious…?
Ok, I admit it. I just wanted to fuck her brains out. My experienced had never really progressed beyond dry-humping, but sex of some sort was totally in my mind. Sue me. I was lonely, horny, miserable, heartbroken, and just looking to drown my sorrows in a beautiful Aryan girl. This girl struck me kinda like Robyn, not just in physical appearance but in a total… well, let’s use the euphemism “free spirit” kinda way. A hippie chick, with no frills, no attachments, no baggage, just mindless, crazy, Tammy-distracting sex. Or something. I wasn’t really about to start considering if I was planning on losing my virginity to this fling. In fact, I was trying for once not to think at all, thank you very much.
Stop thinking for once, Hef! a miniature Dave wearing a devil costume said, popping up on my shoulder and jabbing my skull with his tiny pitchfork. Stop thinking and tap that ass!
She arrived, wearing jeans and a tight metrosexual white shirt with red and black Japanese designs. She wore odd black round-ended shoes, with stitched-on orange flames like on a drag car. This girl’s style was unlike any I had ever seen. What kind of weirdo (and I say that in the best way possible) girl was this?
I invited her to sit on my bed with me to watch a movie. She was very meek and quiet, not at all prepared for even small talk, much less a full-blown conversation. Since she told me she was a philosophy major, I decided to show her a movie called The Ninth Configuration. It’s an utterly bizarre and generally-forgotten movie by the author of The Exorcist, a film that’s weird in a way that no film has ever been weird. Definitely one of my odder favorites. How can I dislike any movie where Jason Miller plays a crazy guy who adapts Shakespeare’s plays for dogs (“If I cast a Great Dane in the role of Hamlet, will people accuse me of being too obvious?”)? And of course, it’s an awful date movie choice, at least for most normal girls. I could already tell Misty was probably not one of them.
Of course, I could also tell that neither of us were really paying attention to the film. We were both thinking about the other person not an inch away from the other on that bed. I occasionally turned to look at her, just to check in with her to see how she was. I noticed that in profile her nose seemed to slope. The shallowness in me immediately started to critique her features, that nose, her cheeks, those tired and perpetually bored looking eyes, and I forced myself to stop comparing, stop being such a shallow… well, human being. I kept wondering if she was attractive or not, as if unable to make up my mind. Did it even matter?
I noticed she smelled strongly of fruit, not fresh fruit but more like shampoo or lib balm flavors, that solid somewhat artificially sweet smell you find in the Body Shop. Nothing like the sweet natural scents that would cling to my sheets even days after Tammy had left.
“So what’d you think of the movie?” I asked.
“I was good,” she said, nodding.
“Good, good.” An awkward moment passed. “So, uh… let’s get right to it then, shall we? You said you liked me. But you were drunk. So, uh, I guess what I’m asking is… well, do you… y’know, still? Really? Like, now?”
“Uh…” quietly nervous, she said, “Yeah.
“Oh. So you really did mean it?”
“… Yeah.”
“Ok. Ok! Good. Um. Well. Uh. I, uh, I-I-I noticed you were, uh… uh, biting your lower lip. Now, uh, do-do-do-do you know what that means? When someone does that? Generally speaking?”
“Nnnnno, I don’t… think so.”
“Ah. Well. Well, uh… well in my experience, uh, it means that you… wanted to, uh, wanted to, to… uh… kiss me.”
Hesitating for a second, she said, “Yeah. That… sounds about right.”
We looked at each other, blinking stupidly. Then I suddenly charged forward and slammed my mouth into hers. Her arms whipped around me, slapping onto my back, and we started making out like crazed weasels. Six months earlier, I was too shy to even go to second base without permission, now within seconds of kissing I was already unbuttoning her blouse and she wasn’t stopping me. I wouldn’t even look at those breasts, those fucking perfect tits, dude but now I was frantically feeling for them, and my god, they were so firm, no way close to shuddering under my touch. This was one of the only times where there was no thought going on in my head, just pure animal aggression set loose after months of madness and frustration and pain.
What first took me out of the moment a bit was the way she kissed. Big gulping fish-mouth kisses, like she didn’t quite know what she was doing.
“Hey,” I whispered, “Don’t open your mouth so much when you kiss.” I heard these words coming out of my mouth, and it sounded like the way Tammy would speak to me as she gently tried to show me the ropes.
“Ok,” Misty said. She was a fast learner. She finished the unbuttoning and took off her black lace bra, saying, “Well, guess you’ve already seen these,” and now we’re both topless and going at it. After a few seconds, I realize she’s shivering. Is she cold, or is she so nervous because she’s with me? Am I really worth that much that someone can actually have such a crush on me? I find myself starting to soften on this girl. She’s looking less like an object to me, the mindless fling I was hoping for, and I suddenly find myself wondering about what kind of person she is.
No, you fool! the tiny devil-suited Dave yelled. This is not the time to start seeing her as a human being!
“I hope this isn’t too forward,” I said.
“It’s just I’ve never done anything like this before,” she confessed.
In my head, all I could hear was the deafening cartoon sound effect of tires screeching to a halt. She WHAT?!?!?! This girl isn’t some free spirit slut, some crazed sex toy. This girl’s a total innocent! Abort mission! Abort mission! I don’t care if she’s right here for the plucking, halt in the name of reason, you stupid fucking horndog!
“Wait. Really?”
“Yeah.”
Jesus. Hefner, you fucker.
I got up to go to the bathroom to change my pants, loathing myself every step of the way. Well, in that hallway of cloisters it’s only about ten steps, but still, each one with heavy with a lotta loathing. I looked in the mirror and cursed myself, not Richards.
You can’t get over Tammy. She’s still under your fucking skin, and you were going to just use that poor girl in there. That girl’s offering you her heart on her sleeve and you were just going to treat her like a blow-up doll. Look at you. You just dry-humped that girl and now you are standing here needing to change your pants and she’s in there alone. Is this what you want? Is this what you really want?
No.
It’s not right, man. It’s not right.
On my way back to my room, which is about five steps between my room and the bathroom, was the lounge where Tammy and I danced after Birthday Ball. The rose petals were gone; I managed to catch every single last one, and they were in a plastic bag in my drawer. A couple of the candles remained, me too lazy to remove them. But our ghosts were still there, strong as the night they were created. Everywhere I looked, I saw Tammy.
“Yeah,” I said to Misty. “I’ve never really done anything like that either. I mean… yeah, I’ve done that, but not like that.”
“Yeah,” Misty said, wrapped up in my blankets.
“You’re a virgin?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me too. And you’ve never even… made out? A pretty girl like you?”
“Just once. With my ex-boyfriend.”
Just once? In their entire relationship, Misty and her boyfriend had only made out once?
“Yeah,” she said. “I feel so embarrassed. I know I’m not as experienced as you.”
“Well, now, that’s not quite…” I started to say, before I realized with some befuddlement that for once I actually was the experienced one here.
We talked for a long time and repeatedly we were taken aback at how much we had in common. I don’t mean, “oh, we like the same movies,” and blah, blah, blah. No, I mean:
“Hey, do you know that kid in the Philosophy department who looks just like Alessandro Nivola?”
“Totally! I’ve always thought he looked just like Alessandro Nivola!”
“… Wait, you actually know who Alessandro Nivola is?”
“… Wait, you actually know who Alessandro Nivola is?!”
We instantly clicked on so many levels. We both loved Werner Herzog’s movies with Klaus Kinski. We both couldn’t tolerate the dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We both had a deep affinity for ruined structures, everything from old castles to derelict buildings. Little things we were so passionate about that virtually no one else shared. Where had this girl been all year? She told me how she had a huge crush on my after Cuckoo’s Nest and whenever I’d walk by her in the cafeteria or someplace, she’d excitedly whisper to her friends, “Oh my God, it’s John Hefner, mmhmmhm.” I was overwhelmed. I checked under the bed; no, Rod Serling wasn’t there either. My God, I think it’s safe!
This was a girl of odd tastes, and truly one of the oddest was her love of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, AKA The Blood Countess. A real-life monster, she believed the key to eternal life was bathing in the blood of virgins, and it just so happened she was able to find quite a few virgins to fill her bathtub. Now, I suppose some of you might be saying, “Well John, if this Misty girl has an affinity for this Bathory person, don’t you think that might be a sign from God to run screaming to the hills?” Perhaps I would have been right there with you, if the first thought that popped in my head hadn’t been to ask, “Say, Misty, have you seen a little movie called Ravenous?”
And that’s how our first date went. The Ninth Configuration, crazed weasel make-out session, giving way to deep-seated guilt, to close and meaningful conversation and bonding, and ending with watching a movie about homoerotic cannibal vampire wendigos in the 1840’s. As Misty would say for years to come, “Best first date ever.”
We would have one more date before the semester would end and she’d have to go back home to Wisconsin for the summer. To think, I’d finally met a girl who made everything feel like it was all gonna be a-ok, and I wouldn’t be able to see her for three months. But that was fine, I was content. I took her to go see Kill Bill Vol. 2. I tried cuddling with her during the movie, but it just didn’t feel right. Then I kissed her and said goodbye, keep in touch, see you in the Fall. Life was finally starting to turn around, it seemed. Once again, there was hope on the horizon. But like they say, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and we hadn’t even hit nightfall yet.
I came back down to Laurel for the first performance of O/A feeling prepared, refreshed, and ready to take this on. Working with Tammy would still be tough, but at least now I’d finally managed to recover back from the mess enough that I was ready to do this once and for all. When I arrived at the theatre, she was nowhere to be seen for awhile, then after some time I finally did spot her at the end of the hall. She gave me a glance but turned away before I even managed to say “hi.” I was about to go and talk with her when Van Breeman intercepted me.
“Hey Heffie,” he said, “We need to talk.”
He took me outside, to the parking lot where I had been the boy who cried fuck, and out of sight of the Rudes.
“Tammy doesn't want to see you,” he said.
The words took a moment to sink in.
“What…?”
“Look, Heffie, this show is important to her. She doesn’t need to be… distracted by anything, know what I mean? Nobody wants anything to upset the balance, right? So the last thing anyone needs is for a scene to erupt, for more drama to be happening off-stage than on. It would just be best if you just stayed away from her. At least until the show's over.”
“Woah, woah, erupt… what? What are you talking about?”
Sighing, he said, “Heffie, you grabbed her.”
“What?”
“At the theater. You grabbed her arm and it scared her. I know you didn’t mean to, but it really freaked her out. It reminded her of everything she's had to deal with. She was crying all the way home after what you did.”
“I…” and that small part of me whispered, it’s bullshit, what he’s saying, you know it’s bullshit, but it wasn’t loud enough. “No… oh Jesus, no, no, no…”
“She doesn't want to see you.”
“No, I didn't mean anything, I would never, ever hurt her…”
“Just leave her alone, Heffie. It’s for the best.”
“Look, I gotta talk to her. She knows I didn’t mean anything by that. I need to make sure she knows that I didn't mean anything…!”
“Heffie…”
“I need to talk to her!”
“Heffie…” Van Breeman looked at me with slow realization, “you do know that Tammy and I are dating now, right?”
Whatever that little bit of denial I had that was holding back the flood finally snapped.
“… No.”
“Wow, I really thought you knew. Huh.”
“No. No, no, no, no, no, no.”
“Look, I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”
“But... no... no, she... but what about Bryan?”
“I really would have thought you'd have heard that part.”
“Heard… what part?”
“She left him. They've broken up.”
It felt like a fist was lodged in my throat.
“She said she'd never... she...” I wanted to throw up. I wanted to throw up. “She left him… for you.”
“It was inevitable anyway,” he said, reasonably. “Everybody could tell it was doomed.”
“And you... you were the one who told me to break it off with her.”
“Now look, Heffie, I didn't lie about you two. You did the only thing you could do. It was for the best, really.”
“How? How could you do that to me? I… I trusted you.”
“Heffie…”
“I fucking trusted you!” I yelled, and the anger was as more at me than him.
“I understand you're upset. Look, I'm going to leave you alone now. If you ever need to talk, though, I'll be around.”
He turned around with a friendly smugness and left me there alone in the parking lot.
“Yeah, well… your painting SUCKS!” is what I should have yelled after him. But I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have anything left in me, but to just break down right there, sobbing as the cars, ever indifferent, sped past me along Cherry Lane.
I used to love being with the Rudes, putting on a show. Now I wanted to be anywhere else in the world. I would sit backstage, unable to do anything but wait for my cue. Waiting while Tammy would walk right by me without a word, without even a glance, as if I weren't even a ghost. And then I'd go out on stage in my cowboy boots and bolo tie and put on an exaggerated southern accent to be the clown for my cameo appearance. Then I'd run off and not even go backstage. And I'd sit in my car and listen to the radio or call my mother or my brother or Dave or I’d just sit there and rehearse Hefner Monologues to my dashboard. Because if I didn’t do something, I knew I would break down again, and I was too damn tired of crying. I’d do whatever it took to waste hour and a half so I could go back in and take my curtain call with her.
I knew even if I could talk with her, it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would change. Nothing would be fixed. But constantly being in her presence and being utterly shut out was unbearable. And as much as my friends were sympathizing with me, many of them were also just waiting to see what the hell I was going to do. Because they all knew I was gonna do something.
And so did I, for that matter. So this was how it was all gonna end? Hell no. Fuck no. I was not going to let all those months just be pushed aside like they were nothing. I remembered something Alan once said: “The opposite of love isn't hate. It's apathy.” I could deal with her hating me. But I couldn't deal with even the idea of being forgotten.
I knew that what Van Breeman told me was bullshit, either his or hers. She knew me well enough to know that I was about as threatening as a quadriplegic kitten. Was I intense? Well, duh. But if I ever even tried to hurt someone, I’d get a nosebleed. She just found an excuse that worked for her. After seven months, I decided I was finally done degrading myself. That had run its course. I was done.
Tammy's best friend Erin told me about how she could see this coming before it even started. I learned that Tammy had dumped Bryan before to be with her second boyfriend, and she dumped him for a second boyfriend, who she later cheated on with Bryan. None of these guys were what you could call “nice, decent boys.” These kids were jerks, insensitive, ignorant, rude, uncaring, and both Bryan and Van Breeman fit that bill perfectly.
And that’s just what Tammy wanted. She wanted men like that because she thought that was all she deserved, and at the first sign of happiness reared its ugly head, she would scatter to find someone else to treat her like shit. She didn’t know how to deal with happiness. I listened to all the dirty little details of the whole sordid saga, between all the little one-night-stands and the boyfriends and the flings the men like me who she sucked in and burned. I listened to all this, remembering Tammy on the couch, looking at me with shame and self-loathing, saying, “This is what I do.” And I thought, so that’s it? I'm just another notch on the belt of this… this… harlot? It's as simple as that?
No. No, I wasn’t just another notch. And she wasn’t just some “harlot.” It would be too insulting for us both to just be boiled down to that. She wasn't some crazed slut or man-eater. She was a human being, as complex a person as I've ever known. She was the first woman (who wasn’t either ten years older than me, taken, or my mother) who ever looked at me like I was worth it. Even for a little while. I needed to prove that I wasn't just another guy to her. That it all wasn't all bullshit. She needed to remember that no one would ever love her like I did.
It was suggested that I write her a letter and give it to her at the end of the final performance. I understood that this would be the last time I would ever see her. This time she wouldn't even lie and say “Sure, we'll hang out sometime.” So I had to make this letter count.
But what to write? I had considered a long, sprawling farewell where I got everything off my chest, something would have run about five pages and needed a table of contents. Scratch that. Then I thought, no, maybe just “I love you, goodbye.” Or maybe simply, “goodbye” in lower case letters with a period at the end for effect. Or hell, maybe I'd just write, “I would have gone with you to the end. To the very fires of Mordor,” so that whenever she'd see that beloved movie of hers, she'd think of me! Yeah! No, you dork. Just… no.
What we had wasn't true love, anybody could see that. Tammy and I didn’t really like the same things. We didn’t so much hold conversations as much as confessionals, with a few jokes thrown in. The only thing it seemed we had in common with each other, the only thing we had to offer each other, was our love. Or our obsession, or our lust, or our hang-ups, whatever it was and however you would feel more comfortable quantifying it. The more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized there really was nothing I could write. Words meant nothing to this girl. The thing that ever got through to her was action, were gestures. What this girl wanted was romance. What really hit this girl… was drama. And that's what I finally realized had to go inside the card.
I didn’t know if it would work. And if it did, I couldn’t tell you what exactly I hoped to gain. Did I want to salvage what little dignity I could? Did I want to snatch a shred of victory from the jaws of utter and horrible defeat? Did I presume to “teach her a lesson” about how you can or cannot treat people? Or was it just petty vindictiveness, and did I just want to see her hurt? No. I can’t give you an answer to anything else, but no matter how far I’d gotten, I never, ever wanted to hurt her. It’s funny… now that I think about it, I know exactly what I wanted. What I wanted was something that she also desired more than anything else. Perhaps the one thing that really united us, the only common bond we truly shared.
A reaction. I just wanted a reaction.
I prepared for the blessed final performance of O/A, the prepared card in hand. I waited until Tammy's scenes were completed so, if I provoked anything, at least the show wouldn’t suffer. At my behest, Paul played delivery boy and then all I could do was wait it out for the rest of the show. I went out for the last curtain call and tried to catch her eye, but she didn't look at me. She just took her bow like everyone else. It probably wasn’t personal, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
The show was over and everyone was getting ready for the cast party. As I was playing host, “Whoo, party at Heffie’s Mom’s house!” I knew she wouldn't be there. I went backstage where she sat with a few other Rudes. She was huddled in the corner at her table, her back to them all, including me. I think we were all being shut out in that moment. Van Breeman was in the corner painting figurines. I asked if everyone had directions to my place, ok, good, well, goodbye everybody. See you when I see you.
“Goodbye!” the Rudes said, and even Van Breeman chimed in with a cheerful, “Bye, Heffie!”
But Tammy said nothing. She didn't even turn around to look at me. I thought about walking up to her, maybe putting my hand on her shoulder and saying goodbye, but thought better of it. There were no words. Maybe there never were. I turned around and we were gone.
But that was fine. Because as I later learned, she’s wasn’t ignoring me. She just didn't want me to see that she was crying. Huddled in the corner away from me and away from the sight of everyone, Tammy was crying because of the card. The blank card, nothing written inside or out, which contained three of the dried rose petals.
Needing to wipe the experience from my mind, I took Dave to go see Kill Bill at the local grindhouse theatre. Well, it wasn’t so much a real grindhouse as much as a white-trash shack so crappy that the screen would vibrate when the sounds got too loud. The second helping of the movie soothed me some, but not my much. When we got out, May Day was in full swing.
May 1st is another great tradition for the students of Washington College. Back in the 70's, a professor decided to take his class out to celebrate the Spring equinox like the pagans of old. They would go out onto the campus green and dance around the flagpole as if it were a maypole. They did this again for the next couple years, until one year one enterprising young student decided to celebrate May Day by stripping down to nothing. For some reason, this “nudity” concept managed to strike a chord with the other liberal arts students, and by next year it became a proud college tradition for students to get as naked as they wished on May Day.
Over the years, regulations came and went; you couldn't be naked in class or inside any of the buildings (robes were allowed), some years you couldn't be naked during the day, or anywhere else other than the college green. But every year at midnight May 1st and again until midnight May 2nd, the students would get naked and stand around the flagpole. They didn't frolic anymore so much as get wasted, which is kinda like frolicking, just with more vomit and sex you regret the next morning.
I had never participated in May Day before, and after Blue Surge I just thought, “Hell, none of those drunken idiots would have had the balls to do what I did… whoa, bad choice of words there, Heffie.” Regardless, Dave insisted we go join the May Day activities, the theory being that you cannot be miserable with surrounded by naked people. We stood at the top of the hill, overseeing the sea of flesh as if we were generals overseeing their drunken, naked army.
“Hey John!” Dave said, “You bet me I won't get naked?”
“Uh... wait, what?”
“YOU LOSE, SUCKER!” he yelled, flinging off his pants. Next thing I knew, I saw a large glob of pale flesh and red hair run down the hill, screaming “BANZAIIIIIIIII!”
“And that's your best friend,” a friend of mine named Liam said. Liam was a freshman that year, a slender guy with a penchant for wearing ties and sweater vests. Liam's a delightfully pompous young man with a biting sense of humor, aspiring to Moliere and Wilde in his writing and his lifestyle. He had one of those pseudo English accents even though he was born and raised in an upper-middle-class Philadelphia family. For May Day, Liam was wearing nothing but tan shorts and a pith helmet.
“Him? He's not mine. He followed me here from the movie theatre.”
“How lucky for you,” Liam said and walked down to join the fray just as Dave trudged back up the muddy hill. He was out of breath and his pink Irish skin was complimented by grass and mud stains.
“Hey John,” he said, giggling, “ever get drunk and naked and run down a hill screaming banzai only to run smack into a cop? Cuz I just did!”
“Congrats, Dave, your life is just that much more fulfilled.”
“Ahh, I love me. Hey! I'm gonna do it again. WHEEEE!”
Yet somehow, not even the sight of Dave's pasty ass could lift my spirits. I stayed up on the hill, keeping my gloom far away from the crowd. Dave soon rejoined me and I was about to head back to my room for a long night of sulking, wallowing, masturbation, and cartoons. Just as we were about to leave, Liam showed up, accompanied by two topless girls I had never met before. One was brown-haired with freckles, the other was pale and mousy, with a long ponytail of platinum blond hair, and they both were clearly blitzed. In his pith helmet and shorts, Liam looked like he just returned from safari.
He said, “John, I'd like you to meet… what were your names again?”
“I’m Emily,” the brown-haired freckled girl said, “And this is Misty.”
“Yes, right,” Liam said. “John, this is Emily and Misty.”
“Oh, hello,” I said, with a little wave.
“Hey,” Emily said, smiling knowingly.
“Hi,” Misty said quietly.
There was a pause as we all stood there waiting for something to happen. Liam finally said, helpfully, “Misty likes you, John.”
“You… do?”
“Uh…” she rubbed her shoulder uncomfortably, barely able to make eye contact with me, and quietly said, "Yeah.”
“Oh!” I said. When I realized no one was going to say anything, I added, “Thank you.” Another pause. “I, uh… I’ve never seen you before, have I?”
She bit her lower lip. I suddenly thanked God I was the only one with clothes on.
“No. Probably not.”
I could tell that she was more than a little tipsy. I knew all too well how tricky alcohol could be, and how people could say things they really didn’t mean. After enough times of hearing Tammy proclaim her love to me only when she was drunk, I wanted to separate the truth from the booze. I walked up closer to this Misty girl to try to get through the haze. She was stumbling a bit and put her hand on my shoulder to brace herself. Or maybe that was just her excuse.
“Ok, well, uh, how exactly do you know me? Did you see me in a play or something?”
“Yeah. I saw you in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah.”
“And… because of that, you like me?”
By which I meant, you’re trying to tell me that you’ve got a crush on me due to my performance as the brittle, caustic, and effeminate Dale Harding?! Her hand caressed my shoulder. She looked at me and spoke like a star struck fangirl talking to Johnny Depp.
“Yeah.”
Ok. At this point, I was looking around the bushes for hidden cameras, waiting for someone to yell “SURPRISE!” and fling a pie in my face. But nothing happened. For the first time in a long while, I really didn’t give a damn about Tammy. I have to admit, that did kinda help my melancholy a teeny bit. I mean, seriously, I could really go for more drunk topless girls coming up to me and declaring their love, couldn’t you?
I had a beautiful girl in the palm of my hand at that moment, but I was trying to keep my raging hormones in check because this girl was, if not on Planet Scotch, then at least in the Vodka Nebula. One guy came up to me afterwards and said, “Don’t think too much about it. She’s been saying that to a couple guys and giving them her screen name. Sorry to break it to you, she’s just drunk.” I was worrying about just that, but wanted to find out for myself before I got disappointed.
While I spoke with her, I kept my eyes firmly on hers, trying to cut through the drunk and get to the truth. I wasn’t exactly used to having admirers of any sort, and was questioning her alleged attraction to me with almost intellectual curiosity. Fascinating! So muttonchops also turn you on? Let me just jot that down. And between Liam, Dave, and the other guys there, I was the only one looking at her eyes. Even she, in her drunken haze, thought to herself, “Uh, why isn’t he looking at my breasts?”
She gave me her screen name (“She’s been giving them all her screen name…”) and I forced myself to go back to my room alone. I couldn’t stand even the idea of taking advantage of the girl. On the way back, Dave, who had casually known Misty from a class they took together, was stuck in a mind-blown loop of his own.
“Dude, those tits were fucking perfect. I mean, when I saw her before, I totally thought she’d be soft. Only, y’know, in the bad way. But dude, those tits were fucking perfect.” He would repeat this many times over the next couple days, never quite able to comprehend it.
The next day, I sent Misty an IM, asking if she’d like to hang out and watch a movie. First and foremost, I wanted to see if it was just the booze talking or if she was serious. And if she was serious…?
Ok, I admit it. I just wanted to fuck her brains out. My experienced had never really progressed beyond dry-humping, but sex of some sort was totally in my mind. Sue me. I was lonely, horny, miserable, heartbroken, and just looking to drown my sorrows in a beautiful Aryan girl. This girl struck me kinda like Robyn, not just in physical appearance but in a total… well, let’s use the euphemism “free spirit” kinda way. A hippie chick, with no frills, no attachments, no baggage, just mindless, crazy, Tammy-distracting sex. Or something. I wasn’t really about to start considering if I was planning on losing my virginity to this fling. In fact, I was trying for once not to think at all, thank you very much.
Stop thinking for once, Hef! a miniature Dave wearing a devil costume said, popping up on my shoulder and jabbing my skull with his tiny pitchfork. Stop thinking and tap that ass!
She arrived, wearing jeans and a tight metrosexual white shirt with red and black Japanese designs. She wore odd black round-ended shoes, with stitched-on orange flames like on a drag car. This girl’s style was unlike any I had ever seen. What kind of weirdo (and I say that in the best way possible) girl was this?
I invited her to sit on my bed with me to watch a movie. She was very meek and quiet, not at all prepared for even small talk, much less a full-blown conversation. Since she told me she was a philosophy major, I decided to show her a movie called The Ninth Configuration. It’s an utterly bizarre and generally-forgotten movie by the author of The Exorcist, a film that’s weird in a way that no film has ever been weird. Definitely one of my odder favorites. How can I dislike any movie where Jason Miller plays a crazy guy who adapts Shakespeare’s plays for dogs (“If I cast a Great Dane in the role of Hamlet, will people accuse me of being too obvious?”)? And of course, it’s an awful date movie choice, at least for most normal girls. I could already tell Misty was probably not one of them.
Of course, I could also tell that neither of us were really paying attention to the film. We were both thinking about the other person not an inch away from the other on that bed. I occasionally turned to look at her, just to check in with her to see how she was. I noticed that in profile her nose seemed to slope. The shallowness in me immediately started to critique her features, that nose, her cheeks, those tired and perpetually bored looking eyes, and I forced myself to stop comparing, stop being such a shallow… well, human being. I kept wondering if she was attractive or not, as if unable to make up my mind. Did it even matter?
I noticed she smelled strongly of fruit, not fresh fruit but more like shampoo or lib balm flavors, that solid somewhat artificially sweet smell you find in the Body Shop. Nothing like the sweet natural scents that would cling to my sheets even days after Tammy had left.
“So what’d you think of the movie?” I asked.
“I was good,” she said, nodding.
“Good, good.” An awkward moment passed. “So, uh… let’s get right to it then, shall we? You said you liked me. But you were drunk. So, uh, I guess what I’m asking is… well, do you… y’know, still? Really? Like, now?”
“Uh…” quietly nervous, she said, “Yeah.
“Oh. So you really did mean it?”
“… Yeah.”
“Ok. Ok! Good. Um. Well. Uh. I, uh, I-I-I noticed you were, uh… uh, biting your lower lip. Now, uh, do-do-do-do you know what that means? When someone does that? Generally speaking?”
“Nnnnno, I don’t… think so.”
“Ah. Well. Well, uh… well in my experience, uh, it means that you… wanted to, uh, wanted to, to… uh… kiss me.”
Hesitating for a second, she said, “Yeah. That… sounds about right.”
We looked at each other, blinking stupidly. Then I suddenly charged forward and slammed my mouth into hers. Her arms whipped around me, slapping onto my back, and we started making out like crazed weasels. Six months earlier, I was too shy to even go to second base without permission, now within seconds of kissing I was already unbuttoning her blouse and she wasn’t stopping me. I wouldn’t even look at those breasts, those fucking perfect tits, dude but now I was frantically feeling for them, and my god, they were so firm, no way close to shuddering under my touch. This was one of the only times where there was no thought going on in my head, just pure animal aggression set loose after months of madness and frustration and pain.
What first took me out of the moment a bit was the way she kissed. Big gulping fish-mouth kisses, like she didn’t quite know what she was doing.
“Hey,” I whispered, “Don’t open your mouth so much when you kiss.” I heard these words coming out of my mouth, and it sounded like the way Tammy would speak to me as she gently tried to show me the ropes.
“Ok,” Misty said. She was a fast learner. She finished the unbuttoning and took off her black lace bra, saying, “Well, guess you’ve already seen these,” and now we’re both topless and going at it. After a few seconds, I realize she’s shivering. Is she cold, or is she so nervous because she’s with me? Am I really worth that much that someone can actually have such a crush on me? I find myself starting to soften on this girl. She’s looking less like an object to me, the mindless fling I was hoping for, and I suddenly find myself wondering about what kind of person she is.
No, you fool! the tiny devil-suited Dave yelled. This is not the time to start seeing her as a human being!
“I hope this isn’t too forward,” I said.
“It’s just I’ve never done anything like this before,” she confessed.
In my head, all I could hear was the deafening cartoon sound effect of tires screeching to a halt. She WHAT?!?!?! This girl isn’t some free spirit slut, some crazed sex toy. This girl’s a total innocent! Abort mission! Abort mission! I don’t care if she’s right here for the plucking, halt in the name of reason, you stupid fucking horndog!
“Wait. Really?”
“Yeah.”
Jesus. Hefner, you fucker.
I got up to go to the bathroom to change my pants, loathing myself every step of the way. Well, in that hallway of cloisters it’s only about ten steps, but still, each one with heavy with a lotta loathing. I looked in the mirror and cursed myself, not Richards.
You can’t get over Tammy. She’s still under your fucking skin, and you were going to just use that poor girl in there. That girl’s offering you her heart on her sleeve and you were just going to treat her like a blow-up doll. Look at you. You just dry-humped that girl and now you are standing here needing to change your pants and she’s in there alone. Is this what you want? Is this what you really want?
No.
It’s not right, man. It’s not right.
On my way back to my room, which is about five steps between my room and the bathroom, was the lounge where Tammy and I danced after Birthday Ball. The rose petals were gone; I managed to catch every single last one, and they were in a plastic bag in my drawer. A couple of the candles remained, me too lazy to remove them. But our ghosts were still there, strong as the night they were created. Everywhere I looked, I saw Tammy.
“Yeah,” I said to Misty. “I’ve never really done anything like that either. I mean… yeah, I’ve done that, but not like that.”
“Yeah,” Misty said, wrapped up in my blankets.
“You’re a virgin?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me too. And you’ve never even… made out? A pretty girl like you?”
“Just once. With my ex-boyfriend.”
Just once? In their entire relationship, Misty and her boyfriend had only made out once?
“Yeah,” she said. “I feel so embarrassed. I know I’m not as experienced as you.”
“Well, now, that’s not quite…” I started to say, before I realized with some befuddlement that for once I actually was the experienced one here.
We talked for a long time and repeatedly we were taken aback at how much we had in common. I don’t mean, “oh, we like the same movies,” and blah, blah, blah. No, I mean:
“Hey, do you know that kid in the Philosophy department who looks just like Alessandro Nivola?”
“Totally! I’ve always thought he looked just like Alessandro Nivola!”
“… Wait, you actually know who Alessandro Nivola is?”
“… Wait, you actually know who Alessandro Nivola is?!”
We instantly clicked on so many levels. We both loved Werner Herzog’s movies with Klaus Kinski. We both couldn’t tolerate the dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We both had a deep affinity for ruined structures, everything from old castles to derelict buildings. Little things we were so passionate about that virtually no one else shared. Where had this girl been all year? She told me how she had a huge crush on my after Cuckoo’s Nest and whenever I’d walk by her in the cafeteria or someplace, she’d excitedly whisper to her friends, “Oh my God, it’s John Hefner, mmhmmhm.” I was overwhelmed. I checked under the bed; no, Rod Serling wasn’t there either. My God, I think it’s safe!
This was a girl of odd tastes, and truly one of the oddest was her love of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, AKA The Blood Countess. A real-life monster, she believed the key to eternal life was bathing in the blood of virgins, and it just so happened she was able to find quite a few virgins to fill her bathtub. Now, I suppose some of you might be saying, “Well John, if this Misty girl has an affinity for this Bathory person, don’t you think that might be a sign from God to run screaming to the hills?” Perhaps I would have been right there with you, if the first thought that popped in my head hadn’t been to ask, “Say, Misty, have you seen a little movie called Ravenous?”
And that’s how our first date went. The Ninth Configuration, crazed weasel make-out session, giving way to deep-seated guilt, to close and meaningful conversation and bonding, and ending with watching a movie about homoerotic cannibal vampire wendigos in the 1840’s. As Misty would say for years to come, “Best first date ever.”
We would have one more date before the semester would end and she’d have to go back home to Wisconsin for the summer. To think, I’d finally met a girl who made everything feel like it was all gonna be a-ok, and I wouldn’t be able to see her for three months. But that was fine, I was content. I took her to go see Kill Bill Vol. 2. I tried cuddling with her during the movie, but it just didn’t feel right. Then I kissed her and said goodbye, keep in touch, see you in the Fall. Life was finally starting to turn around, it seemed. Once again, there was hope on the horizon. But like they say, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and we hadn’t even hit nightfall yet.
I came back down to Laurel for the first performance of O/A feeling prepared, refreshed, and ready to take this on. Working with Tammy would still be tough, but at least now I’d finally managed to recover back from the mess enough that I was ready to do this once and for all. When I arrived at the theatre, she was nowhere to be seen for awhile, then after some time I finally did spot her at the end of the hall. She gave me a glance but turned away before I even managed to say “hi.” I was about to go and talk with her when Van Breeman intercepted me.
“Hey Heffie,” he said, “We need to talk.”
He took me outside, to the parking lot where I had been the boy who cried fuck, and out of sight of the Rudes.
“Tammy doesn't want to see you,” he said.
The words took a moment to sink in.
“What…?”
“Look, Heffie, this show is important to her. She doesn’t need to be… distracted by anything, know what I mean? Nobody wants anything to upset the balance, right? So the last thing anyone needs is for a scene to erupt, for more drama to be happening off-stage than on. It would just be best if you just stayed away from her. At least until the show's over.”
“Woah, woah, erupt… what? What are you talking about?”
Sighing, he said, “Heffie, you grabbed her.”
“What?”
“At the theater. You grabbed her arm and it scared her. I know you didn’t mean to, but it really freaked her out. It reminded her of everything she's had to deal with. She was crying all the way home after what you did.”
“I…” and that small part of me whispered, it’s bullshit, what he’s saying, you know it’s bullshit, but it wasn’t loud enough. “No… oh Jesus, no, no, no…”
“She doesn't want to see you.”
“No, I didn't mean anything, I would never, ever hurt her…”
“Just leave her alone, Heffie. It’s for the best.”
“Look, I gotta talk to her. She knows I didn’t mean anything by that. I need to make sure she knows that I didn't mean anything…!”
“Heffie…”
“I need to talk to her!”
“Heffie…” Van Breeman looked at me with slow realization, “you do know that Tammy and I are dating now, right?”
Whatever that little bit of denial I had that was holding back the flood finally snapped.
“… No.”
“Wow, I really thought you knew. Huh.”
“No. No, no, no, no, no, no.”
“Look, I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”
“But... no... no, she... but what about Bryan?”
“I really would have thought you'd have heard that part.”
“Heard… what part?”
“She left him. They've broken up.”
It felt like a fist was lodged in my throat.
“She said she'd never... she...” I wanted to throw up. I wanted to throw up. “She left him… for you.”
“It was inevitable anyway,” he said, reasonably. “Everybody could tell it was doomed.”
“And you... you were the one who told me to break it off with her.”
“Now look, Heffie, I didn't lie about you two. You did the only thing you could do. It was for the best, really.”
“How? How could you do that to me? I… I trusted you.”
“Heffie…”
“I fucking trusted you!” I yelled, and the anger was as more at me than him.
“I understand you're upset. Look, I'm going to leave you alone now. If you ever need to talk, though, I'll be around.”
He turned around with a friendly smugness and left me there alone in the parking lot.
“Yeah, well… your painting SUCKS!” is what I should have yelled after him. But I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have anything left in me, but to just break down right there, sobbing as the cars, ever indifferent, sped past me along Cherry Lane.
I used to love being with the Rudes, putting on a show. Now I wanted to be anywhere else in the world. I would sit backstage, unable to do anything but wait for my cue. Waiting while Tammy would walk right by me without a word, without even a glance, as if I weren't even a ghost. And then I'd go out on stage in my cowboy boots and bolo tie and put on an exaggerated southern accent to be the clown for my cameo appearance. Then I'd run off and not even go backstage. And I'd sit in my car and listen to the radio or call my mother or my brother or Dave or I’d just sit there and rehearse Hefner Monologues to my dashboard. Because if I didn’t do something, I knew I would break down again, and I was too damn tired of crying. I’d do whatever it took to waste hour and a half so I could go back in and take my curtain call with her.
I knew even if I could talk with her, it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would change. Nothing would be fixed. But constantly being in her presence and being utterly shut out was unbearable. And as much as my friends were sympathizing with me, many of them were also just waiting to see what the hell I was going to do. Because they all knew I was gonna do something.
And so did I, for that matter. So this was how it was all gonna end? Hell no. Fuck no. I was not going to let all those months just be pushed aside like they were nothing. I remembered something Alan once said: “The opposite of love isn't hate. It's apathy.” I could deal with her hating me. But I couldn't deal with even the idea of being forgotten.
I knew that what Van Breeman told me was bullshit, either his or hers. She knew me well enough to know that I was about as threatening as a quadriplegic kitten. Was I intense? Well, duh. But if I ever even tried to hurt someone, I’d get a nosebleed. She just found an excuse that worked for her. After seven months, I decided I was finally done degrading myself. That had run its course. I was done.
Tammy's best friend Erin told me about how she could see this coming before it even started. I learned that Tammy had dumped Bryan before to be with her second boyfriend, and she dumped him for a second boyfriend, who she later cheated on with Bryan. None of these guys were what you could call “nice, decent boys.” These kids were jerks, insensitive, ignorant, rude, uncaring, and both Bryan and Van Breeman fit that bill perfectly.
And that’s just what Tammy wanted. She wanted men like that because she thought that was all she deserved, and at the first sign of happiness reared its ugly head, she would scatter to find someone else to treat her like shit. She didn’t know how to deal with happiness. I listened to all the dirty little details of the whole sordid saga, between all the little one-night-stands and the boyfriends and the flings the men like me who she sucked in and burned. I listened to all this, remembering Tammy on the couch, looking at me with shame and self-loathing, saying, “This is what I do.” And I thought, so that’s it? I'm just another notch on the belt of this… this… harlot? It's as simple as that?
No. No, I wasn’t just another notch. And she wasn’t just some “harlot.” It would be too insulting for us both to just be boiled down to that. She wasn't some crazed slut or man-eater. She was a human being, as complex a person as I've ever known. She was the first woman (who wasn’t either ten years older than me, taken, or my mother) who ever looked at me like I was worth it. Even for a little while. I needed to prove that I wasn't just another guy to her. That it all wasn't all bullshit. She needed to remember that no one would ever love her like I did.
It was suggested that I write her a letter and give it to her at the end of the final performance. I understood that this would be the last time I would ever see her. This time she wouldn't even lie and say “Sure, we'll hang out sometime.” So I had to make this letter count.
But what to write? I had considered a long, sprawling farewell where I got everything off my chest, something would have run about five pages and needed a table of contents. Scratch that. Then I thought, no, maybe just “I love you, goodbye.” Or maybe simply, “goodbye” in lower case letters with a period at the end for effect. Or hell, maybe I'd just write, “I would have gone with you to the end. To the very fires of Mordor,” so that whenever she'd see that beloved movie of hers, she'd think of me! Yeah! No, you dork. Just… no.
What we had wasn't true love, anybody could see that. Tammy and I didn’t really like the same things. We didn’t so much hold conversations as much as confessionals, with a few jokes thrown in. The only thing it seemed we had in common with each other, the only thing we had to offer each other, was our love. Or our obsession, or our lust, or our hang-ups, whatever it was and however you would feel more comfortable quantifying it. The more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized there really was nothing I could write. Words meant nothing to this girl. The thing that ever got through to her was action, were gestures. What this girl wanted was romance. What really hit this girl… was drama. And that's what I finally realized had to go inside the card.
I didn’t know if it would work. And if it did, I couldn’t tell you what exactly I hoped to gain. Did I want to salvage what little dignity I could? Did I want to snatch a shred of victory from the jaws of utter and horrible defeat? Did I presume to “teach her a lesson” about how you can or cannot treat people? Or was it just petty vindictiveness, and did I just want to see her hurt? No. I can’t give you an answer to anything else, but no matter how far I’d gotten, I never, ever wanted to hurt her. It’s funny… now that I think about it, I know exactly what I wanted. What I wanted was something that she also desired more than anything else. Perhaps the one thing that really united us, the only common bond we truly shared.
A reaction. I just wanted a reaction.
I prepared for the blessed final performance of O/A, the prepared card in hand. I waited until Tammy's scenes were completed so, if I provoked anything, at least the show wouldn’t suffer. At my behest, Paul played delivery boy and then all I could do was wait it out for the rest of the show. I went out for the last curtain call and tried to catch her eye, but she didn't look at me. She just took her bow like everyone else. It probably wasn’t personal, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
The show was over and everyone was getting ready for the cast party. As I was playing host, “Whoo, party at Heffie’s Mom’s house!” I knew she wouldn't be there. I went backstage where she sat with a few other Rudes. She was huddled in the corner at her table, her back to them all, including me. I think we were all being shut out in that moment. Van Breeman was in the corner painting figurines. I asked if everyone had directions to my place, ok, good, well, goodbye everybody. See you when I see you.
“Goodbye!” the Rudes said, and even Van Breeman chimed in with a cheerful, “Bye, Heffie!”
But Tammy said nothing. She didn't even turn around to look at me. I thought about walking up to her, maybe putting my hand on her shoulder and saying goodbye, but thought better of it. There were no words. Maybe there never were. I turned around and we were gone.
But that was fine. Because as I later learned, she’s wasn’t ignoring me. She just didn't want me to see that she was crying. Huddled in the corner away from me and away from the sight of everyone, Tammy was crying because of the card. The blank card, nothing written inside or out, which contained three of the dried rose petals.
