Gray

by Pete Wentz

  Now I am here in Dallas, eating something made out of tofu. I don’t even remember what I ordered. The Disaster is hitting on our waitress, talking to her like an old plantation owner (“Why, hell-ooooo there, darlin’ ”) even though we’re in Texas. All the South is the same to him since he’s, in theory, Southern himself. Our road manager is laughing so hard he’s nearly crying. The Disaster can have her—the waitress, that is—I don’t even care anymore. I never really did. She just reminded me of someone else. You can probably guess who.

  We’ve been broken up for so long now, but I still feel as if I were cheating on Her all the time. My whole life is an affair. I owe it all to Her. Her. She made me, she put me here. We fought about that. We fought about a lot of things, but I still miss Her. She is Chicago to me, the humid summers and the lake-effect winters. When I’m homesick, it’s for Her.

  We pay our bill and leave, but not before the Disaster lets the waitress know that we’re playing tonight at the arena named after the airline and if she wants to come and check out the show, she should just give him a call. He doesn’t tell her that he’s just a guitar tech. It doesn’t matter, either. She’s not going to call. The SUV makes its way back into the heart of Dallas, the skyscrapers growing larger by the second, until they swallow us whole. There is something intensely foreign about Texas, like secession is imminent. Or death. Both are definite possibilities.

  I miss home again. I miss Her. It’s impossible for me not to. Chicago won’t let me go. I realize that I left my sunglasses back at the restaurant, but I don’t care enough to go back and get them. Maybe she’ll find them—the waitress—and think I left them for her or something. I decide that would be okay. In the front seat of the SUV, the Disaster is shouting about wizards again.

  3

  Now I’m back on the bus, alone. The light on my laptop pulses white on black, like Morse code, sending distress signals into the dark. This ship is obviously sinking. I’m thinking about that waitress, about how I should’ve tried harder. I’m thinking about getting back on my medication. But mostly, I’m thinking about the last time I saw Her. It didn’t go well.

  Her lips curl when she’s talking about the Q. Her middle name begins with Q, but she’s not like that, you know? She’s regular. She’s normal just like me. But Her lips still curl in the most exquisite way. You should see it in person. I’m not doing it justice. I call Her up because I want to hear Her lips cup the air around the receiver. I want Her to put the receiver to Her chest, so I can hear Her blood. I want to tell Her to build me a model of San Francisco, because I have a great idea for a disaster. I was drunk if you couldn’t have guessed. She must be on Her computer because the phone just keeps ringing. She can’t be bothered to pick it up. Right now I want to shoot those fucking Harvard kids who started Facebook in their dorm room.

  I call Her up again, to tell Her to build a mini-version of San Jose for me to devastate. This time she answers and tells me she is on the phone long-distance with Her aunt. “I’ll call you back,” she promises. I want to kill every member of Her extended family.

  I call Her up again because I want to go over the blueprints for a miniature Atlanta because I crave catastrophe. I want to tell Her I am the new William Tecumseh Sherman. She would get the reference, I think. Like I said, I was pretty drunk. It goes right to voice mail. Right now I hate Her voice because it reminds me of how much I think about Her. The faker. And I can’t stop thinking about Her. I miss Her lips curling around those Q’s. I miss Her body. After a while, when one bounces back and forth between different hearts, nothing gets old. You never really have to mean anything to anyone. My intimacy problems are with the world.

  Finally, a call. I pick Her up at Her apartment, even though I probably shouldn’t be driving. Her eyes are blackened around the edges so much that she looks like a raccoon. They look permanently bruised. She’s always the consummate victim. Her hair looks like rows of shark teeth, just jagged dye jobs on top of one another, running away from Her natural color. No one wants to be what they are. We drive around the city so she can alternate between smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. We talk about the kids we hate just so we have something to talk about.

  We’re sitting on the edge of my bed now, in my apartment. Every single inch on Her body is filled with millions of nerves. Somewhere inside Her brain neurons have fired to synapses and put them on alert. When my hands brush Hers, it feels electric. Every movement has a meaning, either yes or no. It’s getting later and later.

  The conversation and the possibilities are running out. Last call. Every time she moves Her hand to Her hair, she is sending me signals—fight or flight. Why can’t I figure them out? Don’t strike first. Wait until I’m tired enough to make a move. Lean in to kiss Her, bringing an awkward break in conversation. As I pull back, she keeps talking about writers she thinks will make Her look cooler. She’s changed, I think. Or maybe I have. There’s too much distance between us now to tell. Too much water under the bridge. Too much mileage between the legs. It’s awful.

  I push my tongue into Her mouth to kill the conversation. She smells like stale cigarettes, smoked by boys who were me on nights before. This is all I can think about as we begin undressing one another, panting with false ferocity. It’s all a show, and we both know it. Her body feels hollow. I push on anyway.

  Afterward, we lie in my bed, and I trace my finger down the scar on Her back. It runs the length of Her spine, as if somebody tried to steal it. I joke at Her like this: “Someone must have ignored the blueprints, look at all the structural damage.” But I stutter and trail off. The smoke curls off Her lips. For a second, I am dying to be it. Dying to be as clever and kissable as Her. There she is, lying in front of me, smoking a cigarette, thinking of something or someone else. And that’s how she is stuck in my mind forever. We are two explorers in the dark. Mapless and hopeless. Alone together.

  It’s funny how easy it is to sleep with someone, but how hard it is to sleep next to someone. It’s too intimate. It makes my heart race and pound inside my chest. It’s deafening. I slide my arm from behind Her head and slip out the door. I think I hear Her wake up, but I don’t stop. It’s summer in Chicago, there’s a warm breeze on the street. Everything feels wrong. Street signs are watching me go over every moment in my head. Watching me remember Her. Mistake by mistake. Frame by frame. I’m not just taking trips down memory lane; I am broken down on it.

  I am a corpse bored with my own funeral. I live like a gypsy, only with less gold and maybe more curses. People say I can’t run away from my problems. I am the problem. Well, that’s just shit because I’ve spent twenty-seven years on the run and can’t remember most of the problems that started this. Maybe that’s been the problem all along. It’s funny.

  It’s late now. I’ve been gone for hours, probably, but who knows? I call Her on Her cell phone; she answers and asks me where I am. I don’t really know. She asks why I left, and I don’t know the answer to that, either. Or I can’t tell Her. Same difference. So I don’t say anything. The line is silent forever. Eventually, she tells me she took a cab back to Her apartment, says the door is unlocked. Then she asks me what the hell is wrong with me. I tell Her I don’t know and she hangs up. I walk down to Lake Shore. We used to sneak out of school and drive up here. I stand there for a bit, looking out at the water, at the darkened windows in Lake Point Tower. Then I go home. It’s empty. A few hours later my road manager picks me up and we load up the bus and head back out on the road. I leave my medication on the kitchen counter, next to Her pack of cigarettes. Sometimes I like to think that they’ll both be waiting for me when I get home.

  One becomes a different person when they live on the road. You take for granted sleeping in the same bed, looking at the same clocks, waking up with a rug underneath your feet. The world looks different from the back of a rest stop. No matter how much you clean yourself, your clothes and your pillow never really get clean—and neither does your head. It never lets go of that smoky, cold/ wet
feeling. There’s probably a name for what I’m feeling right now, but I can’t think of it. I bet it sounds like Her name. At some point, I wanted Her innocence for my own. To breathe in every single breath that she breathed out; to taste Her spit; to feel Her falling asleep next to me; and know what it’s like to be let down for the first time. And the hundredth.

  I am still thinking of this when the guys all come crashing back onto the bus. They’re all drunk, laughing about some girl or something. Someone falls down, something breaks. I pull the curtain closed on my bunk and listen. . . . I don’t hear the Disaster, which means right now he’s discovering if cowgirls really do ride better bareback. I bet he’s still wearing his boots too.

  Then there’s even more crashing, and some cursing, and the Disaster is aboard. He was taking a leak outside, for reasons clear only to him. I hear his boots clomping through the bus, back toward my bunk. He doesn’t even ask if I’m awake, just whips back my curtain and turns on the light. He’s wobbly, but determined. On a mission.

  “You in herrre?” he shouts, looking right at me. “I’ve got somefing for you.”

  He thrusts out his massive fist, drops a pair of sunglasses on my chest. They’re mine. The ones I left in the restaurant this morning.

  “She came to the party, wanned to give these back to you.” He belches. “She was asking where you were. You blew it, man.”

  He stomps back to the front of the bus. I just stare at the sunglasses, watch them rise and fall with every breath I take. Then I put them on. They smell like her. I pull my curtain closed and lie there for a while, thinking of the waitress, her hips grinding on mine. Just a little bit of pain. Camus. Her terrible father. I hear the engine start. We always slip out under the cover of darkness. Dallas disappears into the night.

  4

  There’s another trick. Here, I’ll show you,” she tells me. “Take a couple of seconds with each of the following lines. . . . No, I promise it will be worth it. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself walking down a road. Look around the road. What time of day is it? What does the road look like? Are there people on it? Do you feel safe?

  “At the end of the road there is a ladder,” she says seriously (she is majoring in psychology at Columbia). “What does the ladder look like? Is it made out of metal or wood? Is it sturdy? How tall is it? Would you feel safe climbing it? Next to the ladder, there is a box. What is the box made out of? How big is it? Is there anything inside of it? Is it open or closed? Where is it compared to the ladder?

  “Picture a storm coming in over your head. It then clears away,” she continues, really feeling it now. “Look up at the horizon. What do you see? Is it clear?” (I am grabbing at her now, but she pushes my hands away, pins my arms beneath her knees.)

  “Go through this again and remember it like a movie,” she says, giggling. “The road represents how you see your own life and the path you are taking. It’s whether you see it as safe or dangerous and whether the people in it are good or bad. The ladder represents your relationships and friendships and whether they are strong and safe, and how important they are to you. The box represents how you see yourself, how strong you are and whether you are open or closed. Finally, the horizon represents how you see your future and whether you are hopeful or fearful.”

  This was the first time we were together, when the band was just starting, when everyone was young and didn’t know any better. We were in my bedroom at my parents’ place because I hadn’t moved out yet. The bedroom is still exactly the same if you go there today. Same twin beds (“To keep the girls from staying over,” my mom would joke), same posters on the wall, same window looking out onto the same street. Frozen in time. We had just met a few weeks ago. I saw Her standing alone by the jukebox—one of those giant, gold-plated numbers with the colored lights and the bubbling water in the frame (the whole situation was so clichéd)—wearing a hoodie, chewing on Her thumb, Her wide eyes dancing around the room. She looked like a fawn separated from Her mother, spindly and unsure, waiting to be hit in the dark by the car called me. She looked like a sure thing.

  I remember walking up to Her and dropping some terrible line. She laughed, but not in the good way. I asked what Her name was, and she just sipped on Her drink. She played it cool, just stared at me with those big, round eyes, yet to be blackened by mascara or life. It drove me wild. I remember the way I could feel my heart beating, as if it were up in my throat, and I remember thinking that I should probably just walk away. Imagine what my life would be like if I had?

  But instead, I insisted. I pressed close to Her ear, begged Her, “Come on, just tell me your name.” She laughed (in the good way this time), called me persistent, told me Her name.

  I tell Her my name. I have just offered Her the first piece of me. Time stands still, the way it does during a car crash. Bent metal and busted glass. My words hang heavy in the air, spiraling in slow motion. Leaden. We have creased time, made a pocket and stepped inside. Her and I, enveloped and alone. All sound fades away, all the edges blur. Such is the case in moments like these.

  “I like you,” she says. “You’re brave.”

  I’m not. I’m a total coward, only she doesn’t know that yet. We watch the band finish their set, standing next to each other with our hands stuffed deep into our pockets, neither of us sure what to do or say next. Occasionally, we sway into one another, accidentally (but on purpose), and we laugh nervously. I steal a glance at Her in the dark of the club, watch those big eyes quiver slightly whenever the light shifts. She’s concentrating hard, focused on the stage like a shipwrecked sailor scanning the horizon for rescue. She needs to be saved because she’s afraid of what will happen next. I want to reach out and hold Her hand—it’s such a simple, beautiful act, when you think about it—I want to let Her know that she can let go of the horizon and sink to the bottom with me.

  I notice so many things about Her in this instant, things that I will never find in anyone else on the planet: the way she bites Her lower lip, the freckles on Her nose, the curve of Her neck. She’s amazing. I want to feel Her to make sure she’s real. I want to possess Her. I feel my left hand moving from my pocket. It has a mind of its own and it’s going in.

  But then, the lights come on. Kids bump into us as they make their way to the door. Some red-faced kid spills a beer on my sneakers. Her roommate emerges from the crowd. The guys are standing back by the bar, and they’re calling for me to go—there’s a house party around the corner. Free beer and fistfights. I ask Her if she wants to go with us, say her roommate can come too (she knifes me with her eyes), and the games begin. Everyone who has ever interacted with anyone of the opposite sex knows exactly how this will turn out. There are politics at play, loyalties to obey. She will say no because she has to go home with Her roommate, and then I will ask Her for Her phone number, and she’ll give it to me knowing that I’ll probably never call Her, and I never will, and she’ll swear off boys for a while, because we’re all assholes, until she meets another guy just like me, and the whole cycle repeats itself, over and over, until she’s lying on Her deathbed, closet stuffed with bridesmaid’s dresses, totally alone and unloved, knowing that half the men in Chicago are walking around with Her number entered into their cell phones, and none of them thought enough of Her to ever call Her back.

  That’s how this is supposed to happen. Only, it doesn’t. She says yes. Her roommate storms off in a huff, the first casualty in a war that will last for years. We grab coats and head out into the night. It’s brutally cold, the wind tears right through us as we walk down Fullerton, and I offer Her my scarf. She says she doesn’t want it, but I wrap it around Her head anyway. I wanted to protect Her from everything back then.

  The party is typical: suburban kids getting urban drunk. Shitty couches. Stolen road signs. Loud punk rock is blasting through tinny speakers; you can hear the cones ripping with each note. They push hot air back into the room, make smoke rings with their vibrations. It’s crowded and sweaty, and we lose our coats somewher
e after the front door. The guys slip off into various corners of the room. She and I make our way into the kitchen, shouting to each other over the din. She’s sitting next to me on the counter, Indian style. I lean in next to Her to hear Her words, and she pours them into my ear. I am getting drunk on them. Arms reach between us, opening the fridge, fumbling for lighters, but we don’t notice. We don’t stop. We’re alone together now, surrounded by a million strangers.

  She tells me she moved out of her parents’ house a few weeks ago. Not because Her mom is a bitch or Her dad is a drunk or anything like that; Anya (that’s Her roommate) just has a better Internet connection. I’m not sure if that’s a joke, so I just go “Mmmm,” take a drink of my beer. She’s got me on the ropes. She has a younger sister. I tell Her I have a younger brother. She says she wants to go to Columbia next year; I say I already go there and maybe we can room together. She just goes “Mmmm” and takes a drink of Her beer. Maybe she didn’t hear me. Things are getting critical now. Time to be bold.

  “Hey, let’s go outside for a second. I wanna smoke a cigarette.”

  “Why don’t you just smoke in here?” she asks. “Everyone else is.”

  I make up some story about my asthma. I don’t even have asthma. I don’t smoke, either. She probably knows this, but I get up and she follows me. We push our way outside, and now we’re standing on Fullerton again, without our coats. It’s freezing.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” she says.

  “I don’t,” I shoot back, and I grab Her tight. I pull Her close to me and we kiss. A sudden jolt goes through Her body, an icy bolt of shock, but then I feel Her shoulders go limp, feel the warmth push its way through Her body. She moves Her arms from Her sides and wraps them around my back. She moves Her left hand onto the back of my neck. Chicago does her worst, blows her hardest, but she can’t pull us apart. She moans softly as I move my hand up Her back. I feel her soft skin run through my calloused fingers. It’s so warm. I push Her against the frame of the door. Our tongues move in unison, giving pieces of ourselves to each other (imagine the possibilities of shared DNA). This could probably go further, right here on the street, but I don’t let it. I pull away. We stare at each other, Her big eyes just happy slits, lips curled around Her teeth in some blissed-out grin. Neither of us cares that we’re not wearing our coats.