Air Drums | by Gabriel Duran

 

I was thinking recently about my first and only girlfriend.  We broke up years ago, but whenever people talk about relationships I always want to weigh in.  “Well, back when Ariel and I were dating, she would do this thing that really annoyed me,” I  say.  “Dude, that was like five years ago.  Get over it,” they respond.  This doesn't prevent me from telling the same story for the seventeenth time, but it does get me thinking.

A while ago my roommate Nick told me his theory on dating.  You start dating a girl -in his case three or four- and after a month or so they want to become exclusive.  Then you have to break up with them and start all over.  Three weeks later he declared he was looking to get married, so I suspect he doesn't really listen to himself when he talks.    Still, I've always considered myself, in comparison to him, quite noble. My relationships almost never last that long.

Every few weeks my friends get together to complain about me.  It was at one of these gatherings, while I was away visiting my dad, that my friend Josh declared, “if Gabe had more game he would be really awful towards women.”  No one disagreed with him.  And though I've re-told this story many times, I have yet to find anyone who shares my indignation.  I think the most insulting part is the intimation that I lack game.  Staring awkwardly at the floor is a form of game.

 Nick was especially pleased to hear this, because I am always criticizing him for his attitude towards women.  I could see the glee in his eyes as I was knocked off my pedestal, though it was really more of a step-ladder.  At this point I think we're both fighting to be the first one out of the ditch.  My landlord says the disdain we show for our living room is evidence of our lack of self-respect.

  I repeated Josh's unwelcome and highly hypothetical appraisal to my friend Laura. “Yeah, that sounds right,”  she replied.  Laura had a friend, I'll call her Jess, who because she was Jewish and I was vaguely Jewish, had been attracted to me for months.  Jess and I met when Laura brought her out to a bar.  She mistook my casual meanness for flirting.

 “You're very confident, aren't you?” asked Jess, within minutes of meeting me.

“Yep.”  I'd had around six drinks, which is the magic number to turn me into an asshole.

“I'm not sure that's warranted.”

 Shortly after, we were on the dance floor.  Not long after that, we were making out.   I find it disgusting and highly degrading when other people do this in public.  But reflections on self-worth are best done the next morning, while staring in a mirror and trying to remove a penis someone drew in permanent marker on the side of your face.  Or at lunch with your mother, forty-five minutes later.

After I'd been “dancing” with Jess for awhile, I did what any gentleman would, and invited her back to my room, for “drinks and sex.”

“I'm not that kind of girl,” she replied, possibly offended.  I was confused.  In college that was more or less the only type.

“Soo.. your place, then?”

“No, you have to take me out to dinner and stuff.”  

 “Hmmm...” I said. This was the sound I made when pretending to be thinking.  Then I waited for five minutes, so as not to appear rude, before walking away.

Laura was not happy about this incident, which repeated itself in various forms many times later.  Usually afterwards Laura would have a talk with me about being respectful.  I would act unconvincingly morose.  I was like a beloved grandparent that talks about the “negro” next door at the dinner table.  They might be admonished the first few times, but eventually everyone accepts that they come from a simpler, more racist time.  

 Once, after sleeping with a girl, I explained to her my theory that sex is really just “super making out.”  Several mutual friends stopped talking to me after they heard this, which I found a touch dramatic.  I had become, in the words of one of my best friends, “kind of a dick.”  I thought back to my first week of college and my very first date, where it all began.

   ***

I suck Sprite into my straw and quickly put my finger to the tip to keep it in.  I am tempted to shoot at it Carolyn, who is sitting bored across from me.  This would probably just make things worse.  I let it go back into the glass.  I wonder if it's embarrassing that it took me until my freshman year of college to go on a date.  Or that I took her to California Pizza Kitchen.  But I’m cheap.  And poor.  And I love the Southwestern Pizza.

Carolyn makes no attempt to hide her discontent.  She pokes her half of the Southwestern Pizza and sighs loudly.  I met her at my birthday pool party a couple of weeks earlier, where I impressed everyone with my frighteningly pale physique and super soaker skills.  She was there with a girl from my high school who very openly hated me, but I guess liked pool parties.  

I am pretty sure Carolyn is here now only because she goes to an all-girls school, and I am preferable to lesbianism.  I am about to change that.  I excuse myself to the bathroom:  “I HAVE TO GO PEE!”  Carolyn considers me with a look of frank disgust.  I consider the possibility that she could dislike guacamole and corn on pizza, but disregard that as impossible.  That isn't a world I'd want to live in.

 In the bathroom I add water to my hair and carefully ruffle it.  I look in the mirror and give myself a James Bond smile.  “Irresistible,” I say to no one.  The need to wet my hair every forty five minutes effectively complements my small bladder and  impulsive need to drink whatever is in front of me as fast as I can for as long it is being refilled.  I am generally unpopular with waiters.

When I return Carolyn is putting away her cell phone.  

“Was that Kendra?” I ask, referring to our mutual friend/ enemy.

“Yeah.”

“She’s probably not crazy you’re out with me.”

Carolyn shrugs.  “Not really, no.  She doesn’t really like you.”  I wonder if this degree of honesty is completely necessary.

“Yeah, my friend Chris was pretty disapproving, too.”  I sip my Sprite.

Carolyn furrows her brow.   I have made a mistake.  Other than taking her to CPK.

“Oh? Why?”

“No reason . . .”

“No just tell me why, it’s fine.”  She says this in a way that clearly indicates it is not fine.  What would Chris do?  Probably spit the Sprite in her face.  He doesn’t like her.  

“No . . .” I try.

“Tell me why.”  

My improvisation skills are failing me.  I took an improv class my senior year of high school because I liked the idea of not studying.  I didn't realize that I had a paralyzing fear of speaking spontaneously under pressure.  For my final I had to portray an electrician leading a gym class and I just silently ran around in concentric circles until my teacher disgustedly told me to stop.   He gave me a “B” and told me never to do improv again.  I stare at her blankly while I consider this. Then I give up.

“Chris said you were . . . ‘Rather friendly.’”  I use air quotes to indicate these are his words, not mine.  There, I said it.  I just called her a slut.  Classy.  Just like CPK.

I finish my Sprite, and starting making slurping noises as I try to get out the water at the bottom.

Carolyn is horrified.  Though to her credit, or my extreme discredit, I don’t really realize this until later.

“Try the Southwestern Pizza,” I say.  

The dinner ends in relative silence.  I walk her back to the T stop.

“So we should go out again.”

Carolyn laughs.  I realize with disappointment I'm probably not going to get any.  I can't believe I let her take the leftovers.  

     ***

My first date had been a growing experience.  In the years that followed, I was more discriminating about calling girls sluts, and would only do it if we were really good friends, or I wanted to hurt her feelings.  Fortunately, these two things often coincided.

I was in a bar with Laura near the end of my senior year.  We were standing close to the dance floor when a girl I used to kind-of-date walked by.  I was still in my only stage of mourning: resentment.  Laura had met this girl a few weeks ago and complained, accurately, that she was attention-starved and annoying.  I didn't notice this until she'd stopped hooking up with me.

“Hey Laura, we should dance together right next to her, to make her jealous!”   Laura was gorgeous.  She had red curly hair straight out of a Pantene Pro-V commercial.   Earlier that night, before she'd arranged, it didn't look so good.  It actually looked more like a red mop.  I pointed this out to her.  Then I called her Carrot Top until she told me to shut up.  I think she was irritable because she'd just discovered the little pile of drool I left on her couch pillow after my nap.  I told her it was there before.

“Ugh, Gabe, I really don't want to.”

“But you hate her,” I whined.

“That's true,” she said thoughtfully.

“I'll buy you a drink.  Two drinks.  Two drinks and minimal touching.”  I usually refused to buy girls drinks.  I tell them it's against my religion, which for all I know, it is.

“Hmm . . .” she said.

“Please.  Please, please, please.”

We made our way over to my kind-of ex and began to dance like middle-schoolers at a chaperoned dance.  Respectfully, with an imaginary ruler separating our hips. My attempts to get closer were discouraged.  It lessened the effect of my plan, which was already suffering from my inability to dance.

“Is she looking?” asked Laura.  I looked over her shoulder.  

 “I don't know. I can't tell.  Probably though.  I bet.  I bet she's so mad.”  I'm not sure if she ever really noticed or cared.  But at some point during the night she did text me asking if I'd seen “bumpy head,” a reference to a classmate of ours, who had a bumpy head.  I don't know why he kept it shaved.  I took great pleasure in ignoring that text.

I was being incredibly immature.  I was okay with it. I thought back to my second date, later on in Freshmen year, and all the lessons I should have taken from it. Everything I need to know I learned Freshman year.

    ***

Freshman year is a bad time to be male.  I am sitting in my closet-sized dorm room by myself, playing Halo.  I live in what is called a “forced triple,” which is where three people live in a room smaller than your average bathtub.  Triples are where Boston College puts the students it kind of regrets accepting. Living here is also my punishment for checking the Hispanic box when I applied, because both of my roommates are Hispanic, and I refuse to believe that this is a coincidence.  I always hesitate over that box, as my dad's parents are from Spain, but I know nothing about it and can only understand enough of the language to realize my grandparents are talking about how disappointed they are in me.  At least my grandmother switches back to English to tell me I'm going to be a gym teacher when I grow up.  

Sitting next to me, occupying the last remnants of free space between the beds, is my very first bottle of Smirnoff Vodka, which I intend to share with one of my roommates, and several yet-to-be determined beautiful women.  My roommate and I are unsure exactly how it will play out, but we believe now that we have alcohol, they will eventually migrate to us.  

As freshman, we are used to having to pay to get into parties, but this is the first time we have had our own liquor, so we are figuratively drunk with imaginary power.  It was bought for us by the leader of Hillel, after a trip I went on with two Catholic friends to an event at Brandeis.  The idea was to meet single Jewish girls, and attract them by virtue of being technically Jewish, while possessing no actual knowledge whatsoever of my culture or religion.  

Despite the star of David I wore as a giant “Fuck You” to everyone at Jesuit-run Boston College, I actually knew far less about Judaism than either of my friends, and was constantly in fear of being found out as a fraud, or at least a bad Jew.  Especially after several slip-ups about when the Sabbath is, drinking the Mansechevitz too frequently and  before everyone else, and holding the prayer book the wrong way.

I refuse to accept blame for my ignorance.  When I was six  I was kicked out of  my Hebrew school for refusing to wear my yarmulke (which, save for spell check, I would have spelled 'yahmikah').  I wore purple sweat pants and a matching sweatshirt two sizes too small everywhere I went, but refused the yarmulke because I didn't think it looked cool.   I knew it was sacrilege to cover up such a beautiful head of blonde hair.

After hearing several Jewish girls talk relentlessly about themselves and make a number of culturally specific jokes I didn’t get, I had to call the evening a failure, minus the kosher Chinese food and free vodka.

I am enjoying my evening with Halo quite a bit more, until is interrupted by a knock on the door.  I reluctantly hit pause.  Who could that be?  I don’t have any friends.  Or rather, I have about five, but they all know the door code.  I hide my vodka and get up to see.

It’s Maggie, from upstairs.  I have kind of been seeing her.  By which I mean occasionally I will go to her room and watch The O.C. DVDs.  Around half way through we will make out, but I will position myself in such a way that I can continue to watch The O.C.   I secretly believe myself to be just like the nerdy-but-lovable Jewish protagonist.  It gives me hope of landing my own Rachel Bilson.

I am surprised and a little irritated to see Maggie, who is far less attractive.  She is also in R.O.T.C., the army training program, which makes me uncomfortable. I don't like the idea that she could defeat me in hand-to-hand combat. Sometimes she looks at me like she is considering it. At least she is Catholic.  I've lost my faith in Jewish girls.

“Hi,” I say.

“Let’s go out into the city!”

“I can’t.”

“Why, what are you doing?”

“. . . Playing Halo.”  My improvisation skills at work again.

“We are going into the city.”

“But I don’t want to,” I reason.  I look longingly at Halo.  I'm just starting to get good with the battle rifle.

We go into the city.  It’s cold.  I let Maggie know this. I wish I had drunk some of my vodka before we left.  

We wander around Newbury Street.  All the shops are lit up festively.  It’s less romantic than it sounds.  I notice bitterly that there are dozens of Christmas trees but not one single gigantic-light-up Menorah.  I'm relatively sure Chanukah is either approaching or recently ended.  If my mother would send me presents for each of the eight nights like I requested, I would know for sure.

“I can’t feel my fingers,” I tell Maggie.

“Well, you should have worn gloves,” she responds.  I don’t own gloves.  I'm from New Hampshire, where we have the good sense to stay inside when it gets cold out.

“Let’s go into that store!” says Maggie, pointing to a department store.  It looks boring.  I hate shopping.  Most of my clothes are picked out by mom, and it shows. Even if I lived in a magical, alternate reality where I had money, I still wouldn’t want to buy anything.  Maybe more vodka.

“Fine,” I say.  I want to go home.  I imagine myself going over to my neighbors' room, sitting down on Dan’s bed, and eating his Doritos as per usual for a Saturday night.  They have taken to calling me the Big Mooch, which I don’t mind, as long as I keep getting free Doritos.  I’m starting to rapidly put on weight, but I've been told it's a freshmen tradition.  Besides, I only have to take my shirt off in front of other people a couple times a year.  Usually the lights are off, and we’re both drunk.  Thanks, Natty Light.

We wander around the department store.  Maggie is telling me about her mom, and I am pretending to listen.  I spot a Santa mannequin perched on a platform above the exit.

“If I ran over to that Santa, and grabbed it, and just took off, what do you think would happen?” I ask her.

“We would catch and prosecute you,” says a nearby security guard.  “We have cameras all over the store.” He glares at me.

“Ha Ha,” I say.

 He has clearly been eyeing me since I came inside, which I don’t really blame him for.  In my ratty, stained Brown University sweatshirt, lint-harboring beard, and torn cargo pants, it would not be the first time I have been confused for a homeless person.  I once fell asleep on a park bench and woke up two dollars richer.   The sweatshirt was a gift from my sister, who goes to a much better school than I do because she is substantially smarter, and does her homework instead of playing video games.

“I’m bored,” I tell Maggie, “I want to go home.” And drink vodka and eat Doritos all by myself.

“Do you think your whininess is endearing?” she asks me.

“I doubt it.”

“Well” -she pauses- “it isn’t!  Just because you aren’t having a good time doesn’t mean you have to ruin everybody else’s!”

 I shrug.  “I told you I wanted to play Halo.”

“How can you be so selfish?” I assume she's speaking rhetorically.

“Hmm . . .”  I say.

The ride back on the subway is understandably awkward.  I look intently out the window.  Christmas lights flash by.

A week later, I check Facebook and see I have been de-friended. So much for Catholic girls.  And I hadn’t even finished the first season.  Damn.

   ***

I'm glad that Laura never found out about the incident with Maggie, because it probably would have led to another talk about how I was doing something wrong.  More importantly, she would have made fun of me for watching the O.C.

My mother was very impressed with Laura at my twenty-first birthday party last year, because she played football with the boys, while all the other girls tanned by the pool.  My mom likes a girl who can pitch a tent, or dig a ditch, or kill a man with her thumb.  She also likes to tell me that I'm self-involved, because she's a therapist, and is used to having people value her opinion.  I just say “what's that?  Sorry, I was thinking about myself.”  Even if her observations about me were both unwelcome and wildly off base, I had to admit my mom was right about Laura.

Every three years or so, I ask Laura to go on a date with me.  The first time she was naïve enough to do it.  I have come to view asking her out as a sort of tradition, much like the Winter Olympics.  No one really enjoys it but still it keeps happening.  Each time I hope maybe she is more desperate, or maybe I've changed in some intangible way that only she can see.  Laura has either been present for, or I have told her about almost every terrible thing I've done to her gender. I have always suspected, and have since confirmed, that this has been a turnoff over the years.  Laura's rejections were as unpleasant as they were expected.  I once thought I'd reached the height of despair when my friend Josh killed me in Halo twenty-five times in a row.   I threw my controller at him and punched a hole in the wall.  This was even worse, or at least as bad.  Laura's awkward refusals  were an unpleasant reminder of the reasons my first girlfriend left me.   If I'd asked them to compare lists, I bet they'd get a kick out of seeing “asshole” at the top of both of them.

Freshmen year was a series of little mistakes culminating in one big one.  Her name was Ariel.  It took Ariel four months to figure out I was a gigantic piece of shit, though the warning signs were there much earlier.  It was the first serious relationship of my life, so naturally I did my best to ruin it as quickly as possible.  I started when we were driving to Cape Cod and she began to “air drum” in the passenger seat.  I drew the line at air guitar, which I also hated, but at least it was more reserved.  I threatened to pull the car over and make her walk.  Later, we were playing mini-golf with my parents, which, thanks to a highly selective memory, I always think will be enjoyable.  I ended up losing by a lot and storming off the course.  

 When I was visiting her in New York we got into the only real fight of our relationship, because I was “surprised Gilmore Girls is so popular, since it has a female protagonist.”  

 The argument became heated and ended with her saying, “well, if personal experience is anything to go by, girls are smarter than guys, because I'm I got a better score on the verbal than you did.”   I was always bragging about my SAT score. It was my only tangible accomplishment in life thus far, discounting a pair of spectacular Junior Varsity soccer goals.  Our break-up talk a few weeks later consisted of her saying she just wanted to be friends, and me saying “okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?' she asked.

“Nope.”   We didn't.  Instead, we watched Lord of The Rings: Return of the King.  Our equivalent of break-up sex.

Years later, around the time I made my first failed pass at Laura, I was at a Hi-Liter party with Ariel's best friend Ann.  She asked me if I wanted to know why Ariel had broken up with me. I reluctantly stopped eye-sexing a cute sophomore across the room.  I was a little drunk and suddenly very cognizant of a glowing yellow penis on my face.  

 “Alright,” I said.

“Remember how you were always joking with her in like a kind of funny, kind of mean way?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, at the end it was mostly just mean.”  She also told me that I didn't listen to Ariel when she talked, unless we were talking about me, and that I wouldn't do things with her unless I enjoyed them. Which meant 'better than she was at them.' I didn't disagree with Ann on any particular point.

  It took some girls one date.  It took Ariel and Laura a while longer.  But they all eventually came to realize I was kind of a dick.  And that didn't change just because they got to know me better.  

 Sometimes, when I successfully directed conversation towards me, people asked  why Ariel and I broke up.  I would simply say, “air drums.”