Because of a Car

by Maurice Downes

A stereotypically lazy fall day oh so long ago. The kind of day that can only justifiably happen in the suburbs of a city that's not too large to begin with. Trees and brown leaves and cars that are sincerely out of date; everything just that far away from anything exciting, but always remembered in earnest. During school.

It was recess, and all lunch he stared at Jenny, one of the class beauties. There are always a few and he chose this one. At this school, recess was a time that, weather permitting, children went outside to play and be among each other. The kids would run around playing kickball or tag or whatever game was "in" at the time. Do you understand what I mean? Remember all those old black-and-whites of people playing stickball in inner-city streets? Right. Well, I don't know if anyone plays kickball anymore, but Ned's class did when the weather was right.

Ned stared at Jenny all through the lunch that preceded recess. She was pretty, and she smiled a very nice smile. She had freckles, but dark skin freckles, so they were like little chocolate chips on a cookie face. He made that up in his mind, and was surprised at how weird that sounded, but years later when he understood he would call it poetry. She knew him, they had been friends for a bit, but now she was past a friend and onto a "crush", and he was still Ned. Actually, he was now Ned, and Ned was becoming quiet and strange. Ned.

But everyone still liked him. I mean, no one hated him; he wasn't the kid that disgusted everyone in class and he wasn't the exhausting nerd. It was that... this was the time that people were getting into trouble with girls and turning them into girlfriends. Ned felt like he was the only guy who still hadn't had sex (as nine year old minds go). He was beginning to go into that "other" crowd, and would spend a significant amount of his life in it. You know the other crowd: they're the people who don't go out on Saturdays, because that's a strange idea to invite them out on the weekend. Jenny knew that Ned stared at her constantly. She was still his friend, and saw how he longed for that small bit of human contact that others seemed to get on a regular basis.

So, for the hell of it, for reasons that remain unknown to her to this day, she went to him. This was as smooth and even as an attraction went at that age when one's nuances weren't as finely honed as they might be later in life. What happened was, he was with some other kids, walking around in that fall day sun, doing nothing in particular, and Jenny was with her group. She grabbed his hand and led him away from his pals to some shady part of the field. He smiled the whole way, but managed to keep it together. It was finally happening, and it was so easy, sex. Her friends were there as lookout, and they could get to business. She kissed him a few times on the cheeks. He thought she smelled like something sweet, maybe cookies again, to stay with a theme. Now he smiled uncontrollably, and was embarrassed and aroused all at the same time. This was the best day of his life, up till then and too far afterwards. He held on to her hips because she was there and he could. And then let go immediately after, feeling the shame of one who eats too much of "all of you can eat". His temperature rose uncontrollably, and he almost started to cry because he couldn't think of anything else to do that seemed appropriate. She kissed him on the cheek one more time, smiled at him, told him not to tell anyone, and ran away.

Then she never spoke to him again. He never tried.

America, in all seriousness, could be said to have taken the European idea of a cafe society, bastardized it, and still come out with something so unique and lovable as to lay claim to it's own rules. It's why the cappuccino has become an anytime drink, as an example to all the American detractors. There are rules that would be the standard for other countries in the world envious of the smart young folks that regularly attend the café; so envious that they'd eventually yearn to gain some kind of America-like cafe society themselves... not realizing it was merely a continuation of what Europe already did. You never want to have a disadvantage when it comes to weekend philosophers looking down on a world they have no intention of changing. It's what defines the wealth of a culture; before it used to be the size of one's navy.

Just imagine all of these children, throwing around opinions as if there was no use in disagreeing with whatever they heard over the Internet the week before. It had become a sport lately, but definitely not a new one, just one played with different rules. Any sport's rules differ and grow as time goes on. Players grow stronger and faster, people learn tricks to score too easily, so the game becomes no fun to play anymore and something of a stalemate. What do you do? You make the sport more challenging and the goals a bit harder to reach. The players gain more modern personalities to make the whole thing seem fresh. Being a goddamned know-it-all was no different from any other sport, then. It grew as time grew.

What was at stake? Why did people go out of their way to have such an unaccommodating personality in such a relaxed setting? How did the American coffeehouse become such a hotbed of poorly stated theory after learning from the examples of Paris, of Prague, of so forth? It was... I don't know if I should say this, but it was, is, purely sexual. Almost purely sexual, at least as far as I can tell. Frankly speaking, we're too young a country to have completely non-ulterior motives when it comes to brash displays of intellect. Especially when it's the young. All they think of is sex, I'm afraid. They start off with fine intentions, but if someone attractive enough is in earshot of their dogma, then... they seem to become more radical, more sure of themselves, and knowledgeable. They are instant experts of political discourse. None of it rang true, but then this was a world where one couldn't necessarily strong-arm attraction with large muscles and such. So, you had to improvise at times.

In the corner of a lonely cafe in a formerly decrepit part of town sit two people: one old man and a young woman. The man is pushing 60 or 70 and is distinguished looking, though quite overweight, it must be said. He speaks with a wry authority on the state of things in general, and like any true teacher, doesn't expect to be disagreed with. The woman is accessibly beautiful, and like we've covered before, young. Early twenties, to be specific, and is also quiet yet something of a charmer. She gravitated over to his table because he seemed interesting, but note, the woman is the one we're concerned with.

He struck up a conversation when he noticed her thumb-through of one of his favorite books, a limited edition, no less. He regaled her with tales of the civil rights movement of the 60's, and how interesting it was to come to this country and learn English in time to join such a thing. How he was on the frontlines of the war "that threatened to rip this country asunder," and faced lines like "you ain' welcome here either, Frenchie" from racist, racist cops though he wasn't French. The man laughed a lot and had a bit of a sailor's tongue, if you know what I mean, and if you don't, then it means that he cursed colorfully. He knew she was warming to him, as many have, through witty conversation and interesting stories. However, she had no intention of sleeping with him, she really didn't. He also preferred West African Pop to Carribean Soca, but it was far too late for that opinion to matter.

Earlier in the evening, Betty, the woman, was assaulted. She sat down to drink a cup of tea and forget about what happened last week. How few things went right. This must've been the first time she'd gotten to sit still for days, because that's just how life was for her lately. Very busy.

Two men step in out of the rain, arguing about something heavy. They both looked like they were in a band, but Betty never confirmed this. She thought that one looked like a guitar player and the other seemed a lot like a keyboard/electric guy, so that's what we'll go by. When they enter, the keyboard guy stops the discussion short and excuses himself to the bathroom. The guitar player then looks around for an empty seat, sees a roomful of empty chairs, but sits next to Betty. See, there were a roomful of empty seats, and he could've gone into any one, but he chose to sit at the table that Betty occupied. Because he was attracted to her. She just wanted to read, you may remember.

His method for getting her to think his way, the guitar player, was to say that she seemed like a really nice person. That would be why he had to come over and say something to her. The number of people who've stopped him to get even an inch of his life story and future plans, because of the kindness of his features... the amount escaped him. But it must've been a fair number of people, the way he used this technique to justify the cornering of a complete stranger; no matter how good looking they may have been this had to be odd behavior. It wasn't odd, of course, but when you start to add up the social things you do on a regular basis, you will come across peculiarities.

This guitar player fellow was attractive. Very attractive, Betty noticed, and as she dug up way after way of deflecting his unwanted advances, she used all of his attractions against him. His hair was flowing, cropped rocker hair and it cradled a very strong Eastern European jaw and a smarmy laugh. This undoubtedly meant that he was a damned primadonna and spent too much time grooming and loving himself to be taken seriously; for that alone no jury in the world could convict Betty. The guitar player's main crime against humanity was being pompous, though, and that was completely unforgivable in her eyes. It wasn't pomposity gathered from what he said, but more from what he didn't say. Example: he didn't give an adequate explanation for why he had to sit at this table, he felt entitled apparently, and before he started in on his courtship nonsense, he made no attempt to ask if it was ok that he light up a cigarette. Yet here he was, smoking lustfully and trying to get her to laugh without adequate knowledge of what exactly she found funny. Take for instance the fact that she didn't find political humor very sexy. Not that he knew any, but it would've been helpful information had he bothered to make her into a human.

To add, the guitar player was very nervous and fidgety. He was constantly moving his fingers in some kind of annoying picking motion and bobbing his head, which, in addition to his unnecessarily slender frame, gave him his imagined title. In fact, he did nothing in particular, and a conversation on the merits of ¾ time signature which she almost fell into when it seemed like that's what he was strumming would've turned up fruitless. Oh, if Betty only knew this, but the guitar player never claimed to be a guitar player. And besides, his friend the keyboard/electric guy started steadily moving towards the table. His out loud wondering of who was the "girl" sitting next to the guitar player pointed to this man's even greater lack of social mores. When she rejoined the general consciousness of the table, the keyboarder (who's lone trait was to seem as if he lived in his own world) apparently wanted to stake some sort of claim as well.

Betty's escape from this scene was to act as if the older man from before was someone she hadn't seen forever. For what could either of these two musicians have said to that? The guitar player could only say, "stop back later" inaudibly and blow smoke in her direction; a move that was supposed to be erotically charged in some way. The keyboard player fumbled a salutation and reassumed his battered role in the relationship. He could've stayed in the bathroom longer, really. As for the older man, he ended the night when he got impatient with being merely interesting and decided to stamp his intention forthrightly.

As Betty walked off into the cool, mellow evening she decided that she would indeed like to be around friends. There were many stories to tell and many interesting characters to divulge. How and where could she start? The poor young boy from before who just did not know his way around a woman, bless him, and then there would be room needed for the "civil rights guy" who wanted to "do things to her that they only wrote about." In all honesty and while he stroked her horrified hand.

She called her friends in alphabetical order.

The only part of the whole thing he hated was the beige pants, that's all. If they all felt like attending the office in their idol t-shirts and ripped jeans, then that was fine, but he just couldn't get his head to around the beige pants. They felt even more constricting than the business-type dress that used to be the flagship of the city workplace. Something felt falsely casual about them, as if this "business casual" was actually the new suit and tie. To hell with them, he thought, when you're just trading in one kind of man-made prison for another. Instead of seeming like you were a member of the Harvard Yacht Club, now you could seem like you were a model for Abercrombie & Fitch. While working approximately the same job, of course.

"Man-Made Prison." As Ned started tapering down his freshly pulled up socks, he started to wonder where he got such a phrase. Such a convoluted phrase, and when did he start taking on the plight of the workingman? It had to be all those relentless "American Socialist Party" meetings he'd been attending when he couldn't figure out what to do with his Thursday nights. Those damned college kids and their handy book of oft used phrases for the devil and his works: "Two sides of the same coin", "Playing the audience", or Ned's favorite "Bait-and-switch economics." The guy who said Ned's favorite phrase didn't even bother to fully explain what it meant, the saying far too clever and quotable to be burdened with such things as justifications. Many cheers that night.

Ned was always a fairly righteous person, so he always felt tinges of guilt about not doing anything remotely so when weeknights came around and the bars weren't exciting enough to leave home. That was not a good reason to let the robber barons of the world just barge in and think they could own it all without a fight. Luckily, this was a college town and with a college town comes government watchdog clubs. Ned surely didn't see himself joining a church group, but time was running out to shutter his conscience and he was much too close to becoming a Calvinist before he discovered the Socialist's meeting place. He wasn't sure what Calvinists did, but liked how they seemed to be passionate about it.

Arriving at his job, many missions lay ahead. He worked diligently throughout the day, much more focused on the many tasks at hand than he'd usually be. Ned's boss didn't seem to mind that he never seemed to work past his station, almost to where he enjoyed that fact. Ned, who'd bore the brunt of not shining shoes from other people he's worked for, had two theories going for why this was:

1) "This is an easy going place, why rock the boat?"
This one was less likely to be true, but it had some adherents. First, there was the aforementioned dress code, which looked like people were almost trying to out-casual each other. The failed art-nouveau design of the floor seemed to lend credence to this claim, perhaps not as intentionally as planned. Second, he considered the fluid timeline in which they had to actually get projects done. There would be sweat, and there would be the thousand phone calls a day near the end… that was to be expected. But overall, Ned wasn't exactly sure if there was even a deadline set. He was forced to assume that when the finished product got there, it got there, and, really, who was he to argue? He was in just no position to argue.

Now, that was one theory. The other, which was far more likely and, in fact, true was:

2) "He doesn't fully know what I do."
Ned used to work for a different guy. A man very detail oriented and astute, but obsessive compulsive past the point of sickness. When he hired Ned, the man, in all seriousness, alerted him to the fact that although his job was of a technical nature Ned needn't worry. He said he was one of the nicer, more hands-on people Ned would be facing in life. Literally, and that's why it came as little surprise when weeks later it got to the point where he paced back and forth behind Ned's workspace for 5 minutes (exactly) at a time. This although they were hardly on speaking terms at that instant. The person Ned currently worked for came to the job when it was reported that the old one couldn't come in that day. The "nice man" never showed back up again, mind you. He spent 45 minutes in his coldly appointed room that morning trying to rub a spot out on his black leather shoes. That they were outmoded and made him look like a gangster wasn't the point. The point was that there must not be a spot on his shoes, or else Ned would own even more stock in the company than he already did, which was too much. Of course, Ned didn't even know the company was publicly traded, but his former boss couldn't be expected to work with such people. Not in spotty shoes.

And such is life and that's the way things go. Ned now works for the CEO's nephew. Not the one who has a patent for cancer research, but the one who can't turn on a computer by himself. Good talker and delightfully oblivious. So, Ned's job was a technical job. But technical in an artistic capacity, meaning that most of the people he worked around had an artistic backing. He could either work by himself on a project, which was rare, or assist the more artistic types on their projects, which was far more likely. Computers were introduced into the creative workplace sometime ago, and yet with their ability to carry out an infinite number of calculations per second they've failed in making someone like Ned's life any easier. He wasn't so much a technician, it's not what he was hired to do, but slowly and surely it's what he'd become especially since it wasn't his intention. His ability with machines was the reason he even had a job, but like most people concerning the subject of jobs, it was the reason for his, well, pain. For shame, since he had the fighter's soul of a revolutionary but was crushed to death by the realities of keeping up with bills and such. It was his curse, then, to be necessary like medicine to the entire 4th floor staff of the building, yet disrespected on principle, because of what he allowed himself to become. And somehow he still forced himself into work. Whether he was one of those who found nobility through suffering, he couldn't remember, but he did ask himself that at one point: "Do I suffer silently?" He never asked anyone else, so the answer very well may have been "yep."

Now I think it's my duty to point out a peculiar trait of the human condition before we go any further. I have to, because otherwise the following will make no sense. You'd read it, decipher one or two sentences, put it down and then no one would come away pleased that the whole thing was wrapped up correctly. Bear with me while I explain this. People, of any race or age or economic status it doesn't matter, live their lives through what psychologists might call "association." It's not so much a matter of point A leading to point B; that's often what happens in a fairly good minded person, therefore not being very interesting to talk about. For example, I was hungry when I woke up this morning (point A) so I went to the local diner and had breakfast (point B). That, in and of itself, was easy enough to understand and consequently not at all worth mentioning. But as a result of a world that often asks us to think 5-7 steps ahead just to cope, humankind has developed a way of somehow getting us to "associate" point A to point E or point G… even point H, for Christ's sake. It's not logical, of course, none of it makes any sense, but we do it because and only because. The previous example becomes, I guess while you're still bearing with me: I was hungry when I woke up this morning (point A) so I finally repaired the desk my aunt bought me for my 20th birthday (point E or F maybe). That's just how people's brains work, I suppose, and I absolutely refuse to tell you what led up to that. You'd forget Ned, which would be outrageously unfair.

Ned found himself completely worn out by the day's work. He never had cause to work that hard, he certainly didn't have one now, and it would be something he'd never make the mistake of doing again. One can see into the future. It was the future where no one acknowledges that all the assignments, which could lapse for weeks otherwise, were handled in one self-righteous sitting. Ned half-knew that this would be the case. He half-guessed what was coming, or what wasn't coming; his job was just that unglamorous. It was a disappointing state of affairs that would be brought up with his boss at one point or another. Was this man actually expected to carry a company on his back and not receive a "thank you" every now and then? That kind of situation can lead to a souring of relations between the staff and the technical "back-end" people. Keeping all this in mind, he finally called up the woman he'd been meaning to see for weeks.

She was not clear enough in memory, yet the majority of votes were on how attractive she was. Guilt. Guilt flooded over Ned for remembering someone merely for how good-looking she may have been. And how could he treat someone like this, and how could he do this to her? Yes, he was very much in the wrong for remembering her this way and not, say, her personality, which was probably great. He was sure that she knew a lot of good jokes; that she possibly could carry on a good conversation. Yet here he was about to put together something with her based on half remembered looks. Ned forgave himself. She remembered him as well, so it was easy to find himself in the right.

It was in the middle of the ensuing dinner that he got around to recalling how he even knew her. Through friends, so that wasn't out of the blue, but the way they met... that was comedy. Ned couldn't recall everything, but it involved a car, his friend's, and her car and a faulty traffic light. What she called a faulty traffic light as she flew off into a stream of curses over something that was clearly her fault. Then another friend who wanted to get the cops involved, but she up and decides that the damage isn't horrible enough. She cuts a check, offers to buy them lunch, gives one of them her number. Now over the next few weeks, as they're arguing over whether or not she's "worth" calling Ned figures that if they can't decide, then he'd just decide for them. And he told them so, which left them shocked, dumbfounded, and utterly silenced. All they were left with was a 1985 Buick Skylark that was slightly dented while he had a woman.

Andd the woman? She was funny! She was damned funny and her name was Betty, which made every joke that much more hilarious. He thought it was such an unassuming name, that it should belong to a spinster or something similar and it belonged to this effervescent person, this interesting person. They were at his favorite eating-place and it seemed miles away from the accident that brought the two together. Everyone called it, a diner, seedy and greasy, but it had a charm that Ned exploited. Its almost departed waiters with their old school manners and the way they only needed to hear your name once and they knew you forever, things like that. It was those qualities, hidden and completely special, that kept it from being closed long past profitability. You wanted to protect it if you knew about it and this feeling made it seem perfect for being with her.

He laughed at what she had to say and she laughed at what he had to say. It was so easy, then. She was horrible when they first met, if he remembered correctly. He did; she tried to weasel her way out of what was, again, clearly her fault, tried to charm her way out of any further repercussions. He called women who did things like that "cunts" because it sounded as unnecessary as it was. So using terms that he had no intention of ever using again signified a kind of special anger for him. But he had no reason to be angry now; she turned perfect. Perfect would be enough for right now.

Going on, as they walked the sidewalks and the intersections, Ned let himself relax into the night. And Betty, who before painted him as helplessly bookish now let everything just melt over her and relaxed herself. They meal wasn't the point, and it was pretty forgettable; Ned didn't even so much have a favorite dish there. It was bitterly cold outside so as to not let them digest properly, but they had a great time together at a great place, and now they walked whatever their condition. Continuing was effortless and they allowed themselves to be a part of mindless chatter. Things that they already discussed over dinner, things that they forgot to cover: he never asked her where she went to school (she didn't), she didn't get where he was from (from two cities "over"), she didn't ask what he'd been up to. He made her reveal that she was something of a pattern-junkie, obvious from how she dressed. They laughed even more, him out of comedic fear, her because she revealed what she didn't intend on revealing. A flaw, that's all that it was. Betty needn't fear.

All that happened, all that could happen, was that they'd go too far for a first meeting. This would happen near a brick wall in the lonely part of the city. Blocks away from the accident. He would try to be better about things this time, Ned.

--Maurice Downes (Werd up)