funnysilly

Semester's almost over, so I'm going to try to post weekly again. Probably won't succeed, but we'll see!

Will Robinson

♫ South of the River - Tom Misch ♫

Here’s a fact you godless heathens outside the United States probably won’t know: every U-Haul truck has a painting and fun fact printed on the side. These murals, which the company website calls SuperGraphics® (because capitalists can’t help themselves), are each dedicated to a state of our glorious nation. The invention of the SuperGraphic remains an ill-understood part of history, studied alongside topics like ‘what did Proto-Indo-European sound like?’ and ‘what was Hitler’s deal, anyway?’ If you still don’t understand, here’s an example: A truck repping South Dakota would proudly display Mount Rushmore, but would lack a fun fact since there’s nothing fun about South Dakota. Our moving truck advertised New York, ignoring the tens of thousands of dollars I had already sunk into the state's largest city. Next to the Statue of Liberty and a crude depiction of an Italian man read the fun fact:

Did You Know?: In 2008, Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught soliciting a high-end escort using government funds. He was later found to have laundered eighty thousand dollars during his time as state attorney general!

This message, of a disgraced governor's infidelity, framed the truck as we stuffed it with boxes. Well, my dad did most of the stuffing. He may have been two decades my senior, but he was also a construction worker, and therefore more capable than a schlubby, newly-unemployed college sophomore. As he carried a literal sofa on his shoulders, I stood three feet from the front door, wrestling a half-filled box labeled ‘2006.’ “Come on, son,” he commanded. “Put your back into it!”

“I don’t know if I have any back to put,” I muttered. I tried lifting the box again and succeeded for a moment. Yes! I silently celebrated. Okay, now just– Then, the bottom broke. My preschool arts and crafts, and my mom’s Britney Spears CDs, littered the front path.

My dad turned to watch the commotion. Somehow, he had already loaded up the sofa and was carrying another two boxes. It was like running the mile in high school and being lapped by the fat kid (or in this case, the forty-year-old kid). His expression went grim for a moment and I expected a roast, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared. “You know, the important thing is that you tried.”

His smile was so drawn-on, that I wondered if water would wash it off. “Being more supportive doesn’t mean you have to lie.” I felt like Eliza at that moment: Please be mean to me! I can’t take it when people show me affection!

“Oh, thank god,” he exhaled, letting out a breath. “In that case, you’re incredibly bad at this.” Floodgates open, he lightly scolded me for a few minutes. “–and I know you’re working hard out there. But next time you go to class, try walking instead of taking the subway. And watch your diet. In college, I ate like a pig, but I paid for that after I turned thirty. It shouldn’t be hard to get fruit, in the Big Apple.”

“It’s not a literal apple, dad,” I countered.

“I know. See?” He made another strained smile. “I was joking! Haha!” He actually said ‘haha’ out loud. Even if I preferred it to what came before, I was decidedly not used to this upbeat version of my dad. Luckily, he quickly bored of jocularity and waved me away. “You’re slowing me down,” he chastised, as he shooed me from the front yard. “But be back later so we can watch the ball drop!”

I wasn’t too mad about my dad’s strange mood swings, or the complaints he’d filed and collated about my weight. Not only had I given him a ticket to chide, but a large part of me agreed. I hadn’t worked out since I started college (or before I started college, for that matter). I was too occupied with school and work and, until months earlier, quarantine. Sure, my metabolism kept me relatively skinny, but I was incel-thin, not gym-bro-thin. My hair was getting shaggy and unkempt, and my growing beard tickled my neck as I moved. This wouldn’t do. I wanted to look good for–uh, for myself, right? Definitely just myself, and no one else. So, I walked. Had to start somewhere, and where better than Wyoming, Michigan? A city so nice, they named it after the second-worst state (I’m looking at you, South Dakota).

Winter had begun to blow the bare boughs of the birch trees, which in Michigan, meant it was thirty-five and frost-bitten. I was wrapped in my grandpa’s patchwork coat and my father’s red scarf, which warmed me as I walked the streets of my childhood. The town was, for lack of a better term, hideous. It was the same for miles: bare lawns, dead grass, and too-big trucks parked over potholes. Every house was the same stumpy square-ish shape; one or two floors with fitful, trapezoidal roofs. Some had porches attached with awnings, while others had small sheds in the backyard, but there was no zhuzhing up the sheer banality of it all. The houses yearned desperately to be McMansions but fell a million dollars short.

Some of the roads I walked down felt vaguely familiar, but it was an esoteric kind of familiarity. Less ‘this is where I feel most at home,’ and more ‘I think I used to take karate here,’ or, ‘Didn’t that house give out full Snickers bars on Halloween?’ But those little, fleeting connections did nothing to diminish the feeling of unease. If there was a hell, this would probably be mine: an endless, freezing mirror of my childhood hometown, vacant of the innocence that once kept it warm and homely. If Eliza were here, she might have enjoyed it; she did always like getting lost. “When I’m lost, it’s like I’m not here,” she said once before she knew she was a she. “Like I’m somewhere else.”

“You are somewhere else,” I remember responding. “That’s how being lost works.”

If I was on this walk with her, the way we used to be, she might have regaled me with stories. But I alone, left with adult thoughts: nostalgia for the past, worries about the future. Questions about money. I tried to avoid thinking about Eliza, but she popped up behind every tree, every hydrangea bush, making my chest tight and my feelings hazy. I’d have to confront those feelings eventually; hell, I was staying in her apartment the next day. But I had ten hours left of 2021, and I was going to spend them in denial. Shit. Make that seven hours. I could have sworn it was just noon.

If I wanted to celebrate New Years’ with my parents before they flew east for the winter, I needed to head back home. The sun was beginning to set, for the last time that year. ‘At five pm?’ you ask. ‘Duh,’ I answer, ‘it’s Michigan.’ I was about to circle around when I bumped into the first person I had seen in hours. She was looking down at her phone, so all I saw was a mop of shoulder-length, straight black hair. But then she looked at me and asked, with a slightly-nasal, slightly-familiar voice, “Will? Is that you?”

“Lainie?” I asked because I wasn’t sure. Lainie Lin and I hadn’t talked since elementary school, though I sometimes saw her in the high school halls with her clique of mathletes. Our friendship was one of obligation: we were both smart, and both Asian (or half-Asian), which made us destined companions in my mom’s eyes. We hung out for a few years, mostly studying, before puberty hit and made everything awkward. Lainie found her nerds, I found Emmett, and our friendship faded into memory.

“Oh my gosh, Will! It is you!” I remembered her as a lanky, awkward kid. The Lainie I knew would never have worn dark purple lipstick or a high-end faux-fur coat. Yeah, she still struggled to make eye contact, but definitely had no trouble filling the silence. “Wow, you look so tall! Well, I guess not that tall, but compared to fifth grade, you’re, like, a giant. Are you going to college? What’s your major? Wait, let me guess. Math? No, you sucked at math. Art?” She shook her hands. “No way. You give off Religious Studies vibes, honestly. But not in a bad way! Not, like, priest vibes. More like, ‘someone who studies religion’ vibes. Someone who’s like ‘you can practice whatever religion you want, just don’t use it to justify banning abortion,’ you know?”

“What?” I questioned. I was dumbstruck. Gobsmacked. Flabbergasted, even, to use some two-dollar words. From afar, she looked like the cool silent type, not… Chatty McTalkerson. Sorry. That was really rude of me to say.

She blanched at herself. “Oh, shoot. I didn’t even let you talk. Sometimes, my mom says that I talk like a fish swims. I just keep going and going, like a trout going upstream to spawn. Did you know that they do that? Like, swim the opposite way the water flows? Maybe there’s an evolutionary reason for it, but it seems pretty dumb to me. But fish are dumb. Not that humans are very smart. I saw a video on TikTok the other day–my ‘for you’ page is absolutely crazy, bee-tee-dubs–of this dude is playing with a knife while jumping on a trampoline, and… shoot. I did it again.”

“It’s okay,” I assuaged her, but inside I was cringing. How could someone so small talk faster than an auctioneer? “Um, I was just about to head home, but maybe we could catch up another time?” I had every intention of following up with Lainie, just… maybe when I was a little less irritable.

“Wait,” she said, not waiting. “Your house is super far from here, right? Because I can totally drive you. I live literally around the block. Well, it’s more like four blocks, but it’s still pretty close.” I must have made a face because she began attempting to persuade me. “Come on, it’ll be fun! Just like old times, except I’ll be the one driving!”

My brain hurt. I was sure that if I kept up this level of social interaction–or any interaction beyond ‘feet move, brain wallow’–it might legitimately explode, leaking brain goop everywhere. But I really needed to get home, so I smiled and said, “Sure! Thanks.”

We continued the conversation during our walk. Rather, she continued the conversation at a lightning-fast (potentially record-setting) pace. Lainie only slowed down once we got into her car, the same old red Subaru her mom used to drive. Apparently, she couldn’t talk and drive at the same time. At first, it was a brief reprieve from the madness, but I quickly realized it was terrible in its own, unique way. She’d start a random run-on sentence, then trail off at the slightest distraction. And I do mean slightest. Things that grabbed Lainie’s attention included: an old man on his porch, trees moving in the breeze, an unknown flag (it was Lithuania), and, at one point, an actual squirrel.

The moment Lainie’s foot hit the brakes in front of my house, she launched back into conversation. “It really was so good to see you, Will. I’m sorry we never hung out in middle school. You were always with that weird kid, Emmett, and I guess I just didn’t want to intrude on whatever was going on between you two. You know people said you were together, right? Not that it was bad if were. Middle schoolers can be so homophobic. Anyway, are you single?” I began to nod, but even that was interrupted. “That’s crazy! I’m single too. No surprise, haha.” What was the deal with people saying ‘haha’ out loud? “Before you go back to college, do you maybe want to go out somewhere? Like, together? There’s this really good Mexican place in Roosevelt Park whose ceviche is–”

“Lainie.” She paused, and I basked in the alien silence for a second. “Look. You’re really, uh, nice, but I’m not looking to date right now.” Not looking to date you, a tiny part of my brain whispered.

“Oh. Okay.” For once, Lainie had nothing to say. After a moment, a quiet question: “Can we still keep in touch?”

“If you want,” I said simply. We awkwardly traded numbers and parted in what was a hushed goodbye, at least compared to the whirlwind that came before. Ah, sweet silence. The U-Haul truck was parked unattended, and the Statue of Liberty shined beneath an orange sky. I could see the TV, still unpacked, on faintly through the window. I stood on the curb long after Lainie’s car had left. Dusk poured over and around me.

As my parents’ rental truck merged onto I-96, I carried a hastily-packed suitcase into Eliza’s apartment. “Happy New Year!” Eliza said as she ushered me inside. Her dad was lurking behind her, giving me a weak glare. The man could not look intimidating to save his life.

“Happy New Year,” I responded, pausing my effort to give her a quick smile. I gestured towards my luggage. “Um, I’m sorry about all this.”

“No, don’t be sorry. I’ve been looking forward to this,” she said sheepishly. “It’s been nice, hanging with my dad, but–“ she lowered her voice to a stage whisper, ”–he can be really annoying.”

“Hey!” Lawrence said, before laughing along with his daughter. His smile felt much more natural than my dad’s.

“We have the guest room set up for you,” Eliza informed. “Are you sure you can carry that by yourself? Do you need help?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, emasculated. I wrestled my luggage into the “guest room,” which wasn’t exactly a room inasmuch as it was an air mattress next to Eliza’s bed. “Um!” I hesitated. “This is not a guest room!” No, my face wasn’t burning, why do you ask?

“Yes, it is,” Eliza answered simply, though she looked slightly flustered about it too. “When I’m not here, my dad uses it for guests.” I gave her a skeptical glare. “Look, if you want, you can take the bed, and I’ll use the air mattress.”

That was so not the problem. “Are you sure you’re okay, sharing a room with me?”

She looked unsure but spoke with conviction (or tried to, at least). “Y-yeah. I’ll be… fine.”

We glanced away from each other. While looking for anything to look at instead of her, I briefly made eye contact with Lawrence, who was watching us thoughtfully from the doorway. “Eliza?” he asked. She looked up from the floor. “Keep the door open, please.” 

Lawrence walked away, and as soon as he was out of earshot, Eliza broke out laughing. “Oh my god,” she giggled. “That was so awkward. Does he really think we’re going to–?”

“I don’t know!” I responded. I understood the humor but found the whole idea a little less funny. “I guess!”

“Do you have intentions to date my daughter?” Lawrence asked, later that day. He’d caught me in the kitchen, sneaking a snack from one of the cabinets.

“U-uhm,” I stuttered. I quickly swallowed my handful of M&Ms. “No?” Fuck. Maybe sound more sure of it, next time.

He looked at me and held that same plastic grimace, before letting it soften. “Are you going to hurt her?” He asked like he already knew the answer.

“No! Of course not!” I responded with much more conviction.

“Good. You know, I pieced things together about what happened between you two, in middle school.”

It was my turn to grimace. “I’m so sorry about that, really, I–“

He put a hand up to stop me from rambling. “No, I know. When I brought it up with Eliza, she stressed that you had already apologized. I just want to make sure you won’t do it again.”

“I won’t. I promise.” That still didn’t feel like enough, so I added, “Sir.”

Lawrence smiled at that. It quickly turned wistful. “You look at her the way I used to look at Prudence.” Did I really? I wasn’t even sure I was into her, that way. Okay, that’s a lie. I was definitely attracted to her, but what did that mean? I wasn’t attracted to Lainie the way I was to Eliza. Did that make me a chaser? Was I creepy for liking her? Was I destined to hurt her again? I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize Lawrence had more to say. “Prudence was a tall, older woman, and she carried herself with so much poise and conviction. You know she has one kid from a previous marriage? I guess some guys are scared of that kind of experience, but I loved it. She had this maturity I definitely didn’t have at twenty-eight. Hell, one time she had to order for me in a fancy restaurant since I didn’t understand what the hell antipasti were. I guess the rose-tinted glasses made me blind to the fact that she never looked at me the way I looked at her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I was surprised, and a little bit put off, by the level of sincerity my friend’s dad was exhibiting.

“Eliza is nineteen, almost twenty. I don’t think she needs my permission to date anyone. But Eliza looks at you the way you look at her, Will. If you wanted my blessing, you have it.” He walked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with my M&Ms once again.

I remember far too much of the day I let Emmett out of my life. The way his sister’s dress poured over his body like water, the way his face fell when I raised my voice, and the thought that flitted through my head while walking home. ‘This will be a day I remember for a long time.’ It was the same thought that appeared the day I re-met Eliza. After the meeting, after Alicia confirmed who she was, I stood there, thinking, ‘This will be a day I remember for a long time.’ But for every lynchpin of a person’s life, there’s a moment that’s only memorable in retrospect. When I was seven, fishing with my dad on Lake Superior, I never thought about how that place–with its dock, its wooded beach, its cabin with the whip-poor-will nest–would appear so often in my dreams.

The second day I stayed at Chez Hammond, we spent most of our time indoors. I think I’ve already clarified just how little there was to do in winter in Grand Rapids. January 2^nd, 2022 fell on a Sunday, which meant Eliza’s dad was home, only slightly less frazzled about my presence. Not that my presence seemed to change much. We lazed around. Ate breakfast, played Monopoly (I won), ate lunch, then talked. Lawrence got up to do “work, or something” which left me and Eliza alone together.

“Do you have any New Years’ resolutions?” I queried.

“Pfft, no. Resolutions are stupid. No one ever actually completes them, anyway.” She thought for a moment. “Actually, that’s not true. My 2015 resolution was to, quote, ‘play more Minecraft,’ and I did.”

“Good job.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, thanks. What about you? Any goals for 2022?”

I thought for a second. “Last year, I told myself to ‘go with the flow.’ I don’t think I did a great job of it.”

“Too goal-oriented?”

“Too anal-retentive,” I rebutted. “This year, I think I’d like to be a little more honest with the people I care about.”

She looked at me kindly, in what seemed to be silent agreement. Then she said, “that’s stupid.”

“What? Why?” I asked, genuinely a little crestfallen.

“New Years’ resolutions are supposed to be concrete. Like, ‘I’m gonna do fifty pushups a day,’ or ‘I’m not going to cheat on my wife.’ You can’t count honesty.”

“Oh, but ‘play more Minecraft’ is concrete?”

“Of course it is. I played 1500 hours that year.” You might think that memory, of us, laughing together, was the one I cherished. But that came later.

Eventually, as the moon rose on the second night of the year, we ran out of words to say. I don’t think either of us wanted to separate, so we sat on the couch, shoulder-to-shoulder, in companionable silence.

Why did I turn Lainie down? She was objectively very pretty, and even if I wasn’t super attracted to her, it was just one date. She even said ‘before you go back to college,’ like she knew it would be a temporary thing. And it wasn’t like I was morally opposed to sex before marriage. But the idea of dating her felt deeply wrong. It felt almost like cheating. Eliza scrolled on her phone next to me and chuckled to herself about a funny tweet she’d read. When she thought no one was watching, she let her smile reach every corner of her face. She leaned slightly on my shoulder, and I could feel her body heat. I didn’t like Eliza because I was a chaser, or whatever bullshit I tried to tell myself. I liked her because she was pretty and kind and so much smarter than she gave herself credit for.

It was a moment of tangency that I only canonized in retrospect. It was a beautiful memory that was only beautiful as a memory.

And god, was she beautiful.