WordPlay

“She sent me an e-mail,” Phil said.  Which isn’t me by the way.  It’s my taller, blonder, handsomer doppleganger.  He sits rather awkwardly in Marley’s lawn chair on her balcony, covered in torn clothing, fake blood, and face paint.  He looks like the Ultimate Warrior had joined up with a rough and tumble street gang from the movie, “The Warriors.”

“Who sent you an e-mail?” I ask, stirring from my own thoughts.  I had been looking out at the expanse of Burbank and enjoying both the mild weather and the muted sounds of the Halloween party inside.  I was inappropriately attired this evening but given the eventuality of my situation, I was owed some pardon for my transgressions.

He sighed and repeated her name.  Ironic how she came up in conversation again.  He sits there.  “After we were together, she just stopped…she just stopped talking to me?”

“Why?”  I asked, genuinely intrigued.

“She said she didn’t have time for it…for a relationship.”  He sipped a Pabst Blue Ribbon.  He brought a whole twelve pack and he had been the only one drinking from it all night.

“So what did she say?”

“She still wanted to be friends.”  He looked up and sighed again.  I remember those words, the timing of them.  Old wounds re-opened before time had let them heal properly.  I told him my own stories of bungled mistakes and ruined relationships.  “Do you know why she did this?”  He asks me as if I would have the answer.

I shrug.  “Why does anyone do anything, anymore?”

“She’s lonely.”

“Aren’t we all.”

Of course, this revealed a lot to me.  I had long suspected something had been going on but whatever had happened had ended with things on tense terms.  Perhaps had I known, I wouldn’t have proceeded the way I had or let a lapse in judgement get the better of me.  This whole song and dance had just emphasized how strange our personal interactions are with each other.  In a lot of ways, my brain told me I should hate this guy.  Earlier in the week, I had seen him at the location of a job I had just interviewed for.  If I had been watching the rather boring television series of my life, I would have come to see this guy as this season’s antagonist in my story.  Around every corner lurks this taller, handsomer, bearded Phil and he would be my rival in life and career.

Had he been merely a casual acquaintance, perhaps it would be easier to hate him for being better than me.  For being all of the things I could not be or had yet to accomplish.  Phil had been a friend for awhile now and it’s always hard for me to hate my friends.  Two hours earlier, he had stood around the counter with Jess and myself and had bared himself to us in our conversation of relationships: casual, sexual, serious or otherwise.  He revealed his insecurities and lack of confidence, his frustrations.  He was no different from me.  His failings were my failings, too.

“You know it’s harder to hate her,” I offer.

“I know,” he replies.  He’s polished off the can, he’s probably at eight or nine cans now.  He gets up and pulls aside the screen door, the song bleeds out into the night air.  It’s still surprisingly early by most accounts and the overall elation hasn’t died out.  He turns back, “You’re really leaving.”

“Yep.”  I lean back against the railing.  “No one has an answer.  I’m out of time and money.”  I neglect to add I’m out of patience as well.  The past five months has weighed down on me more than I ever let on.  It has been five months of disappointment, let-downs, abandonment, and frustrations.

“Too bad.”

“What can you do?”  Phil disappears back into the party and the night goes on.

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It’s 5:25pm…