Chpater Three

“Want to grow up to be, be a debaser.” The Pixies.

After Viv told Tre our plans, we all tripped back to the apartment, laughing and drunkenly leaning on each other. The headlights and streetlights blurred in my vision, and I remember the walk home as a smudged photograph, a Polaroid of a memory.
When we got back to our building, I shivered and leaned into Andrew as Marie fumbled for her keys. We all tumbled into the apartment, loose-limbed from our drinks. I moved the stereo to pick a song from our MP3 list titled “Party”. I choose a Velvet Underground track, one of my theme songs, “Sweet Jane”.
“Nice pick, Jane.” Andrew raised an eyebrow. I could feel heat coming off of him, a mix of sweat from his performance and attraction. I wanted to reach out a hand and touch his chest. I inhaled sharply and exhaled, getting a hold of myself.
“Want a drink?” My tone was falsely nonchalant, and I wondered if he noticed.
“What are you having” he asked, trailing me to the bookcase where we stored books and bottles of liquor.
“Gin and tonic.”
“Sounds good.”
As I mixed the cocktails, shaking them, adding lime wedges, he bent over and inspected the shelves.
“Whose Sartre is this?” he asked, holding up a book.
I raised my hand, and smiled.
“Jeez, I thought you’d be one of those Jane Austen girls.” He teased.
“I don’t even want to think about what you mean by that. Yeah, someone let me read Nietzsche in eighth grade, and it’s been existentialism and absurdism ever since.”
“I’m a philosophy major. You have no idea how hot you sound right now.” He deadpanned.
I laughed out loud, and quickly covered my mouth. I played overly sexy, putting a finger to my lips seductively and mock-whispered, “Hell is other people.”
He grabbed his chest, “Oh baby, I love it when you talk Sartre to me!”
I laughed again and shook my head. I felt a jolt of surprise; I was enjoying myself.
“C’mon, loser” I pulled his elbow, back toward the couches. Marie was conspicuously absent along with Drummer Boy; James, the bassist Colin, the keyboard player Dave and Viv remained. I assumed Tre would stop by after last call, and I guessed Viv would be accommodating.
There were no drinking games allowed in our apartment; No inane conversations driven by who takes a shot next. Our apartment required a simultaneous working knowledge of pop culture, world affairs, notable albums of the last couple decades, and classic literature. In those morning hours we bantered and posed hypothetical moral dilemmas.
“Aristotle is too clean,” Marie said, on the topic of her favorite ancient writer. “It’s like a teen movie, a neat formula where the classic male hero tries to achieve his goal, fucks up, and then gets it in the end. Ovid is much more compelling! He retold the story of creation, disconnected from the traditional timeline. And he made it about Cupid and love. There’s no hero, and everyone is a pawn of love. It’s much more realistic.”
“I agree,” Andrew replied, “but don’t reject Aristotle completely. He popularized deductive reasoning.”
“Yes but people’s actions are usually not reasonable!” I interjected, “You can’t have a series of events that make logical sense, because real life isn’t logical!”
“Live is often logical, when your actions have consequences that make sense. Ovid showed that love is the only thing that doesn’t make sense, and it messes up the natural order of things.” Dave pointed out.
“I wish there was a formula for love that involved deductive reasoning!” James said, “Like, you are a cool girl who likes nice boys, I am a nice boy who is single, thus you are a cool girl who is going to date me.” We all laughed.
“I have a tendency to compare all my relationships to literary romances.” I said, “It’s really embarrassing.”
“I think that’s sort of charming,” Andrew said.
“It’d be charming if it wasn’t so dorky.” Viv laughed.
“And so what do you think of love?” Andrew asked, defensively.
“I think it’s surreal. Look at Un Chien Andalou.”
“Because you routinely cut eyeballs in half?” Marie giggled
“No, because it’s just all arbitrary. She loves her lover, til she doesn’t, and then loves her husband until they die. No reasons, it just happens that way.” She shrugged, and let her cigarette dangle rakishly from her mouth, “I plan to break up with someone someday by sticking my tongue out at him.”
“So what’s the point?” said Drummer Boy, “If there is no concrete, deductive reasoning to life, why not just embrace the ambiguity of love?”
“Jesus,” Marie raised her eyes, “Welcome to the Theater of the Absurd, located at 1550 Commonwealth Avenue.”
“Here we go,” James said, “An appropriate song choice if I ever saw one.” He pressed play and ‘Debaser’ by The Pixies came on, a song about the movie Viv had referenced.
We then started a conversation about the best Pixies song, the uselessness of their “Greatest Hits” CD, and the relative success of their solo projects. I got that exquisite happiness in my stomach I felt every time I met people who would be on the same level with us. I was sitting next to Andrew, wedged in a way that would be uncomfortably close if we weren’t so faded. But he wasn’t making a move, at least not in a sexual way. I found myself following his words through my haze, and felt his attention to mine as well. But I still felt that same heat from him.
Eventually, Viv retired to her room when Tre showed up, and James made an awkward exit, the other guys got up to go. I walked them to the door, feeling confused and kind of rejected. Andrew turned to me after the other two walked out, and in his slow, careful speech, murmured, “Jane…” He leaned down, and tipped my chin up to him. I parted my lips in response, and felt him move in closer. I fit myself into his chest, putting my hand around his neck, feeling his hand on my lower back. It was a deep kiss, the kind you feel in your bone marrow. He pulled away, but held his gaze. As he stroked my face lightly with guitar-string roughened fingers, he said in a low voice, “I’ve been thinking about that all night. I left my number on your coffee table. Call me.” I heard the other boys yelling from the stairs, and he smiled faintly.
“Call me.” he called again, over his shoulder.
I tried to pry the stupid grin from my face as I closed the door behind him. I walked to the couch and fell into it, leaning my head back, still smiling. Marie came out of her room and flopped into the chair across from me. Lighting a cigarette, she raised her eyebrow slightly.
“What are you smiling about like an idiot?”
“That guy, Andrew, he kissed me, and, Marie, he’s kind of great.” I knew I sounded stupid.
“Jesus, Jane! You just saw the last guy you thought was ‘kind of great’ tonight, and you freaked. I watched you last time; you fell apart when he dumped you. It’s been a year, and you still can’t even be in the same room as Javier without losing your shit.”
“Thanks, buzzkill Betty. You can’t let me enjoy this for two minutes, can you?”
“You’re just an oblivious romantic under it all, you know that? You meet a guy, ignore his flaws, and take a kamikaze dive bomb mission into ‘love’, and they always hurt you, don’t they? Don’t they?” she raised her voice slightly.
“I know. I know you’re trying to help. He just, you heard him, he’s smart, and his band was just on the cover of Nylon...”
“Which means he makes out with a different groupie every night,” she interrupted.
“So I’ll be aware this time! Just for fun, just playing the game, ok?”
She shook her head slowly.
“I’m not holding your hand when you break up.” She warned, teasing me a little.
“So how was Drummer Boy?”
“Oh, you know, ambidextrous.” She smiled wickedly.
I slapped my forehead, “Gross, dude. But good for you, he was hot”
“Mhmm, he’s taking me out later this week for drinks.”
“Ah, yes, drinks. That’s what kids are calling it these days.”
“Ok, ok, let’s go pass the fuck out.”