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MAKE THE MAN 3 | Something
Make The Man | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Three: "Something"
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The phone was ringing for the fourth consecutive time that morning. Neither Rich nor I made any attempt to get out of bed to answer the call, exercising our neatly honed ability to ignore alarm clocks, noisy suite mates, and annoyingly forgetful individuals who regularly left behind their Zoology book and then screamed up to their fourth floor roommate to toss it down.
The voice mail picked up the call after the fifth ring and I rolled over, wrapping up in my blankets. Soon, Rich began to snore again and I drifted back to the dream that had been so rudely interrupted by the phone.
Then the knocking started. Loud, insistent, it wasn't easily ignored, like the ringing.
"Answer it," Rich mumbled from the top bunk.
I put my pillow over my head.
"Answer it," he repeated, this time louder, angrier, but, thanks to the pillow, muffled.
The knocking finally stopped, but before I could go back to the man of my dreams, the talking began.
"Excuse me," I heard a familiar female voice say loudly on the other end of the door. "Is this Sam North's room?"
I groaned aloud. It was my mother.
I leapt out of bed and threw on a pair of boxer shorts that lay on the floor. I scoured for something more substantial to wear, but my drawers were inexplicably empty and it was too early to recall what had happened to my clothes the night before. I tripped over a box and realized, as my memory of the previous night returned, that all of my stuff was packed up. I recalled drinking myself to sleep, finally winning the battle against insomnia, and I remembered that this was the first morning in weeks that I'd woken up alone.
I could hear my mom still talking on the other end of the door, so I opened it.
She stood, disapprovingly. "You're not awake yet?" It seemed like she should be giving me a disappointed, motherly head shaking. But instead, she just stared, mortified, as if she could see my head pounding from the killer ache contained within my melon, or she could tell the room was spinning like a psychotic fair ride, and at any moment I might toss my cookies -- or whatever I ate the night before in my drunken stupor.
When you're a college freshman, the last person you want to see when you're hung over is your mother. And my mother -- I hadn't seen her in the three months since Spring Break, and she was outside my door, bright and early at 9 a.m., ready to pack the family SUV for the dreadfully long four-hour ride back home. Considering I hadn't gone to bed until five o'clock, and had been drinking up to that point, I wasn't sure if I was actually hung over, or still buzzed.
I'm sure that my mom wasn't too pleased to see the state I was in that morning: disoriented and half-naked in a pair of rumpled (and probably dirty) boxer shorts. I could tell from the look of horror in her eyes that she was now convinced that all her fears about college had come true. The sad fact was, she was probably right.
I slammed the trunk shut, the last box snugly smashed inside. I noticed someone up the hill from the car, hiding in the trees, watching me. I knew the spy instantly.
"Mom, I'll be right back."
At the top of the hill, I faced him. And he looked like hell. I'd never seen Duncan cry before, but I imagine he must've been sobbing earlier. To be honest, it sort of scared me. His eyes were puffy, and it reminded me of the time we got high together.
Neither of us made a move to speak. But suddenly, he swung at me, his fist flying towards my face. Luckily, my lightning-fast sissy instincts kicked in and I managed to duck just in time. It obviously wasn't meant to connect.
"Hello? When did we arrive in a Lifetime movie? My Boyfriend, My—"
"Shut up, comedian. I could've hit you if I wanted."
He was right. And so I shut up.
"You're an asshole. You know that, right?" Duncan asked.
"I had my suspicions, but your face right now pretty much proves it. God, I need a drink."
"Oh, that'll help. That'll make everything –"
"Look," I snapped, "I don't need this right now, Adam. Save it."
He looked up at me, hurt in his big brown puppy dog eyes. We'd fought before, little spats in our five months together, but nothing like this. This was it.
He made me melt. "Adam, I'm sor–"
"I hate you."
"Hello? Not sorry anymore."
"Shut up. I hate you."
"You shut up. You don't mean that."
"Yes, I do. I hate you."
"Stop saying that! You're making this hard."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm being inconsiderate. My boyfriend told me just yesterday that he's leaving me. I'm a little out of it."
"Stop. Stop it, you drama queen." For his part, he looked like he'd been slapped across the face. For a semi-closeted jocky frat boy boyfriend, anything remotely queen-y is the most offensive insult you can throw out there.
"I'm not leaving you, or because of you, or forever. I can't be here right now, and you know that."
I looked at him, straight in the eyes, and I launched into my monologue, the one I'd written and practiced in my head countless times every night for the past two weeks. "Listen. Listen to me. I care about you so much. You are so smart and sexy and funny and beautiful. You're so butch and buff. You've got great taste in music and in clothes. You will always be my baseball god. You make me say corny things, you ass. It breaks my heart not knowing when I'll see you next or if we'll ever be together again. But this really is about me, not you. I'm fucked up, Adam. This is my shit. I don't know who I am or where I'm going -- and I gotta find out."
And with that, he kissed me.
Tell me to come back, tell me to come back, tell me to come back.
And the kiss continued.
Just say it!
And then, he pulled away.
"I love you too," Adam said.
No! Not that!
I looked over his shoulder, through the trees, down the hill. My mother waited in the car below. Honk, you impatient bitch. Honk!
"I gotta..."
He smiled a smile of acceptance and contentment. And I hated him for being so well adjusted. "I know."
"Have a good..."
"Yeah. You too. And good luck, with everything." His grin seemed smug, even though I knew it wasn't. I'd made this man fall in love with me and now I was leaving, and he was smiling. He said the words. He had the power. "I love--"
This time I kissed him, hard and deep, kissed him good-bye.
"Bye, Adam."
And as I quickly bounded down the hill, my foot got caught -- on a stump, root, or rock -- and I tripped, tumbling a bit down the small hill. I had been up and down that hill a thousand times, in day and night, snow and rain, drunk and sober, with no problems before. It wouldn't have been so bad except for my landing. I fell into something, an early May spring goop, some mix of dirt, mud, and long-dead leaves. It splattered over my shirt and shorts, over my bare legs. My hand sank in it, the stuff oozing between my fingers. I was a mess.
I looked up at Duncan who, arms crossed, chuckled a bit at me. And then I looked down at my mom, arms folded, who leaned against the SUV, shaking her head.
I stood up, dusted myself off the best I could, and headed towards the car. It was going to be a long trip home.
[MAKE THE MAN concludes its first run on 20sum with this chapter. Is the story over? Maybe, maybe not. I have more written -- but after this point, the story gets murky and its future is uncertain. I'm focusing my energies on 90s-Something until that's done and may return to MTM after that. Until then, it's on hiatus.
This third part is short, troublesome, and largely unfinished. There's much more I want to do in Sam's last day in Rhode Island -- but at least this gives a decent goodbye -- for now, at least -- to the fictional character of Adam Duncan. Enjoy -- and please keep the constructive feedback a-comin'!]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Posted on 05/13/05 at 11:35 AM | Comments (4)
Tagged: Make The Man