Improv Resource Center - Forums
There we are, the four of us, just around the corner from a convenience store like we always were. Where we're standing looks a lot like an alley, but it's not quite an alley. Ben and I are standing with our backs to the brick wall, I'm drinking a Dr. Pepper I just bought and he's smoking an American Spirit from the pack that he bought right after me in line. I'm smoking, too, but I roll my own. John is sitting down across from us, his back resting against the opposite wall, rolling a joint in his machine that Ben and I tease him for using. John doesn't smoke at all except for pot because he's obsessed with death in that way that he's terrified of it. Honestly, there's no better way to begin this story, and I'm sorry.
Also with us is a guy I don't know, a friend of Ben's, and I’m told that he's okay. They hang out a lot, probably when Ben can't find me, but I don't know the guy yet. He's also pretty good friends with John, so I should think he's okay, but I like to make my own decisions. I tend to call him Billy in my mind because I can never remember his name.
So there we are, the four of us, waiting to smoke a joint together on a late Friday night, Ben and me just smoking our cigarettes, John rolling the joint and Billy just sitting quietly for the moment. I know Billy from school, sortof, but like I said, he's not my friend.
“We should get some beer,” says Billy. “We don't need any goddam beer, we're about to smoke a J," says Ben.
I look around without saying anything, not being able to fix my gaze on much of anything at this moment, and they just keep talking. I’m wearing these cheap sunglasses with red lenses and thin metal frames like normal, and before I met up with the guys I took enough pain killers to cure a depressed elephant. My girl gives me codeine for free when I want it, and lately I always want it. She goes to our school too, but she doesn't really know my friends. We have separate friends, which tends to make things easier. Nobody wants to see a couple together, especially when they don't have anybody, and I don't want to make people feel excluded. Finally I'm able to focus and I stare at John fumbling with his rolling machine. Out of nowhere I ask, "Do you want me to do it?"
"No, I don't," he says. "I thought you hated rolling machines, anyway." "I meant that I would roll it by hand for you." "No, that's okay."
So I continue to stare at nothing at all, shifting my burning red gaze to whatever is most comfortable to look at until I grow tired and shift again. It’s hard to see things well through my glasses at night, but I wear them all the time. I’ve been wearing them off and on since high school, and just since the end of the semester I have been feeling badly enough to break them out again. I guess I just need to look at the world differently right now.
Secretly I am glad that John didn't take me up on my offer, because I don't feel like I could concentrate on much of anything at the moment. And just as I'm thinking that, I'm proven right.
"What?" I ask. "I said," says Billy, "do you want to go in and buy some beer?" "Nah, I don't want any right now," I said. I'm the only one without any ID, but I'm usually the one who ends up buying alcohol because I look the oldest. I'm almost a year older than all of these guys, but we're in the same grade. I was held back a year because I lived in Arkansas when I was five, and my mother made it clear that I was not going to be educated in such a place. The only other boy I knew there was nine years old, and the most impressive thing about him was his ability to climb a twenty-foot tree to the top, spit, and suck all of it back into his mouth just before it touched the ground. I know what these guys are asking me- they want beer for themselves and only I can get it- but I hate how fucking dishonest people are. I might get it for them if they didn't try and sneak around asking me to do it.
Before they get a chance to ask me again, John finishes the joint and holds it up for us to see. He sticks his hand out and without saying a word Ben hands him a lighter that looks pink through my lenses and off-white over them. John gets it lit, takes about two and a half hits and passes it to Billy. For the moment I don't have to think as the four of us stand in a circle and share in this moment. That's what we are best at, with our art-school, superpretentious educations. At better schools they might know the law, and they might know their way around the human body perfectly, but we know the way straight to the human heart. We know everything subjective and understand everything subjectively, and we know how to break everything away into that subjectivity so that we are never at a loss for words, no matter what the subject, and no matter how little we might actually know about it.
So we're standing there for a long time, passing the joint around and talking about nothing at all, like always. We're considering buying beer, at least they are considering my buying beer, and I start to get quiet. I'm fixated on nothing and the guys start to see I'm quiet, and finally Ben says he's going home. I'm still staring away into rose-colored space as John and Billy walk off together, saying where they're going, but I'm not listening. Ben watches them walk off for a bit and eventually turns to me and says to follow him.
We walk along silently for a moment before he turns to me and says, "So what's up?" "What do you mean?" I ask him. "You've been quiet for awhile. Are you okay?" "I'm impressed. I can't remember the last time you let down your tough-guy facade long enough to show concern for others." "Don't box me in," he says, and I stop boxing him in. We all say that to each other, to our friends, to anybody at all who ever boxes us in. We will allow ourselves to take on roles for periods of time but we refuse to let anyone tell us who we are and what we are most likely to do in any given situation.
"John depresses me sometimes," is all I finally say. "Hold on," I say, and take out a sandwich bag full of tobacco and my pack of rolling papers. I casually throw some tobacco onto a rolling paper and begin rolling the cigarette with my free hand. I got into that practice when I went to Europe the summer before college. I roll joints the same way, but it’s harder to do single-handed. "You want one?"
"No, they tear up my throat if I smoke those too often. Besides, I got my own." I forget our conversation while I lick the paper and finish rolling. I put the tobacco away and take a lighter out of the same pocket, as smooth as a river, I always say. We're all pseudo-poets, the three of us. "You're almost sophisticated," Ben says to me. "Oh, yeah? How's that?" I ask with more interest in the sophisticated than the almost. "You roll your own cigarettes like that, one-handed and all, but you use lighters." "You use lighters all the time. I've seen you." "Not anymore. I use lighters now." "Oh, I see," I tell him with much less interest. "Well, anyway, John depresses me sometimes." "I heard you. What do you mean?" "He's always so nervous, even around us. Like he’s afraid to talk.” "So?" Ben asks defiantly, pulling out a cigarette from his pack and doing his best to give me the impression that he already knew the solution. He likes to think of himself as the dominant figure in our group, but I think it would be unfair to say any one of us dominated the others, except that John was so timid sometimes. "He's nervous around people," Ben continues. "He's shy. I'm shy. So what?"
I hate feeling like I’m being left out of our group. “I'm shy, too, sometimes," I offer. Ben says nothing and drags on his cigarette. "Anyway,” I go on, “he's more shy than you are. You're outgoing, and you never give me the impression that you care too much what other people are thinking. Just hold on a second," I said, stopping him from interrupting me. "I don't want to hear how you actually feel just yet, I'm just making my point about how he makes me feel. And he gives me the impression that he worries a whole lot about how other people feel about him. Usually, that sort of thing gets cleared up as you go along in life. After you've tried drugs, after you've lost your virginity, after you've moved away from home. All of those things cause a reaction in you, and you change a little bit with each one, usually. And he hasn't. I remember him telling me the night he lost his virginity, and I sat there quietly wanting to ask him if he was sure."
Ben laughs and I start to stare at his hoodie where he must have spilled something before. I can always see stains and things like that through my glasses that people can’t normally see. "Yeah, I see what you mean. The kid’s got problems, sure. He's just a little complicated. But so are we. And he gets frustrated with you sometimes." Slightly offended, I ask Ben why. He tells me that John sometimes thinks I hate him, and he’s always afraid that I was judging him incorrectly, or something. And that's where this all started from, that conversation on that night. I'm convinced that there comes a time in every person's life where they feel they have to write down there life for posterity. As much as I feel that it is self-important bullshit, I'm getting this out of the way now, telling you all this story of Ben and John and I, and how Ben and I talked that night, and how after he and I got to my house I threw up on the sidewalk just after Ben turned the corner.
Also with us is a guy I don't know, a friend of Ben's, and I’m told that he's okay. They hang out a lot, probably when Ben can't find me, but I don't know the guy yet. He's also pretty good friends with John, so I should think he's okay, but I like to make my own decisions. I tend to call him Billy in my mind because I can never remember his name.
So there we are, the four of us, waiting to smoke a joint together on a late Friday night, Ben and me just smoking our cigarettes, John rolling the joint and Billy just sitting quietly for the moment. I know Billy from school, sortof, but like I said, he's not my friend.
“We should get some beer,” says Billy. “We don't need any goddam beer, we're about to smoke a J," says Ben.
I look around without saying anything, not being able to fix my gaze on much of anything at this moment, and they just keep talking. I’m wearing these cheap sunglasses with red lenses and thin metal frames like normal, and before I met up with the guys I took enough pain killers to cure a depressed elephant. My girl gives me codeine for free when I want it, and lately I always want it. She goes to our school too, but she doesn't really know my friends. We have separate friends, which tends to make things easier. Nobody wants to see a couple together, especially when they don't have anybody, and I don't want to make people feel excluded. Finally I'm able to focus and I stare at John fumbling with his rolling machine. Out of nowhere I ask, "Do you want me to do it?"
"No, I don't," he says. "I thought you hated rolling machines, anyway." "I meant that I would roll it by hand for you." "No, that's okay."
So I continue to stare at nothing at all, shifting my burning red gaze to whatever is most comfortable to look at until I grow tired and shift again. It’s hard to see things well through my glasses at night, but I wear them all the time. I’ve been wearing them off and on since high school, and just since the end of the semester I have been feeling badly enough to break them out again. I guess I just need to look at the world differently right now.
Secretly I am glad that John didn't take me up on my offer, because I don't feel like I could concentrate on much of anything at the moment. And just as I'm thinking that, I'm proven right.
"What?" I ask. "I said," says Billy, "do you want to go in and buy some beer?" "Nah, I don't want any right now," I said. I'm the only one without any ID, but I'm usually the one who ends up buying alcohol because I look the oldest. I'm almost a year older than all of these guys, but we're in the same grade. I was held back a year because I lived in Arkansas when I was five, and my mother made it clear that I was not going to be educated in such a place. The only other boy I knew there was nine years old, and the most impressive thing about him was his ability to climb a twenty-foot tree to the top, spit, and suck all of it back into his mouth just before it touched the ground. I know what these guys are asking me- they want beer for themselves and only I can get it- but I hate how fucking dishonest people are. I might get it for them if they didn't try and sneak around asking me to do it.
Before they get a chance to ask me again, John finishes the joint and holds it up for us to see. He sticks his hand out and without saying a word Ben hands him a lighter that looks pink through my lenses and off-white over them. John gets it lit, takes about two and a half hits and passes it to Billy. For the moment I don't have to think as the four of us stand in a circle and share in this moment. That's what we are best at, with our art-school, superpretentious educations. At better schools they might know the law, and they might know their way around the human body perfectly, but we know the way straight to the human heart. We know everything subjective and understand everything subjectively, and we know how to break everything away into that subjectivity so that we are never at a loss for words, no matter what the subject, and no matter how little we might actually know about it.
So we're standing there for a long time, passing the joint around and talking about nothing at all, like always. We're considering buying beer, at least they are considering my buying beer, and I start to get quiet. I'm fixated on nothing and the guys start to see I'm quiet, and finally Ben says he's going home. I'm still staring away into rose-colored space as John and Billy walk off together, saying where they're going, but I'm not listening. Ben watches them walk off for a bit and eventually turns to me and says to follow him.
We walk along silently for a moment before he turns to me and says, "So what's up?" "What do you mean?" I ask him. "You've been quiet for awhile. Are you okay?" "I'm impressed. I can't remember the last time you let down your tough-guy facade long enough to show concern for others." "Don't box me in," he says, and I stop boxing him in. We all say that to each other, to our friends, to anybody at all who ever boxes us in. We will allow ourselves to take on roles for periods of time but we refuse to let anyone tell us who we are and what we are most likely to do in any given situation.
"John depresses me sometimes," is all I finally say. "Hold on," I say, and take out a sandwich bag full of tobacco and my pack of rolling papers. I casually throw some tobacco onto a rolling paper and begin rolling the cigarette with my free hand. I got into that practice when I went to Europe the summer before college. I roll joints the same way, but it’s harder to do single-handed. "You want one?"
"No, they tear up my throat if I smoke those too often. Besides, I got my own." I forget our conversation while I lick the paper and finish rolling. I put the tobacco away and take a lighter out of the same pocket, as smooth as a river, I always say. We're all pseudo-poets, the three of us. "You're almost sophisticated," Ben says to me. "Oh, yeah? How's that?" I ask with more interest in the sophisticated than the almost. "You roll your own cigarettes like that, one-handed and all, but you use lighters." "You use lighters all the time. I've seen you." "Not anymore. I use lighters now." "Oh, I see," I tell him with much less interest. "Well, anyway, John depresses me sometimes." "I heard you. What do you mean?" "He's always so nervous, even around us. Like he’s afraid to talk.” "So?" Ben asks defiantly, pulling out a cigarette from his pack and doing his best to give me the impression that he already knew the solution. He likes to think of himself as the dominant figure in our group, but I think it would be unfair to say any one of us dominated the others, except that John was so timid sometimes. "He's nervous around people," Ben continues. "He's shy. I'm shy. So what?"
I hate feeling like I’m being left out of our group. “I'm shy, too, sometimes," I offer. Ben says nothing and drags on his cigarette. "Anyway,” I go on, “he's more shy than you are. You're outgoing, and you never give me the impression that you care too much what other people are thinking. Just hold on a second," I said, stopping him from interrupting me. "I don't want to hear how you actually feel just yet, I'm just making my point about how he makes me feel. And he gives me the impression that he worries a whole lot about how other people feel about him. Usually, that sort of thing gets cleared up as you go along in life. After you've tried drugs, after you've lost your virginity, after you've moved away from home. All of those things cause a reaction in you, and you change a little bit with each one, usually. And he hasn't. I remember him telling me the night he lost his virginity, and I sat there quietly wanting to ask him if he was sure."
Ben laughs and I start to stare at his hoodie where he must have spilled something before. I can always see stains and things like that through my glasses that people can’t normally see. "Yeah, I see what you mean. The kid’s got problems, sure. He's just a little complicated. But so are we. And he gets frustrated with you sometimes." Slightly offended, I ask Ben why. He tells me that John sometimes thinks I hate him, and he’s always afraid that I was judging him incorrectly, or something. And that's where this all started from, that conversation on that night. I'm convinced that there comes a time in every person's life where they feel they have to write down there life for posterity. As much as I feel that it is self-important bullshit, I'm getting this out of the way now, telling you all this story of Ben and John and I, and how Ben and I talked that night, and how after he and I got to my house I threw up on the sidewalk just after Ben turned the corner.