The Fun We've Had (5 page)

Fist to frown. Anger without expression.

But only the one time. There would be a repetition but that second punch went straight through. She fell sideways; he might have laughed, but mainly because she expected that he would. Time for laughter elapsed. There was only silence. The silence augmented the muted fit. Fury boiled to the surface in the only way possible.

“Are we having fun?”

Repeated over and over, because it was
her
turn.

She had become aware of the title of this chapter, the momentum of these pages. She read into the next sentence while he was stuck reading the past.

Just like her to use it against him until the very last moment, when they both would need each other to finally let go. 

HIS TURN

He said as much as he could ever say, but truth of his turns, and for that matter, hers, the real source of anger and hostility could be found in the fact that what they wanted to say couldn’t be said. What they said existed in different conversations, spoken in a different voice. What they had in mind to speak was overwritten by the lines that left his lips and hers.

What they said had already been said and what they said now and again, fell flat, a conversation held at sea rather than solid ground. But perhaps what is still important is that he spoke.

He still speaks.

Straight faced, these lines tell a different story.

A story that was more like his and hers than could be immediately understood. Characters joined, they were intertwined in the lapsing of holding on. Held on, he could begin to feel that pressure, and with each push, he reacted with anger. Anger directed to the only one there to take it. He took to one side of the coffin, the one that offered the clearest view, the part of the coffin that might have been labeled the bow, where the captain points and plots out a destination. Feet firmly placed, he positioned both hands on his hips. He pushed out his chest. He let out hostile accusations, watching as they immediately fell flat.

“I am faithful to my father.”

[…]

“Now how does that make me feel, to hear that you need to tell me what I should already see?”

[…]

“Confidence!”

Adding exclamation points to every line would be right, but that would also imply that what he said was somehow changed, which could not be remotely true.

Stepping forward, he tempted more of the coffin. This coffin was his. This coffin was his to take.

Thought registered in the heat of this awkward back-and-forth, that she might think that it was his fault.

His fault?
It was enough to take a second, big step.

“I lost something back there.”

[…]

“You should have covered that mouth of yours.”

[…]

“Calm down.”

[…]

“It’s just a headache.”

Words without reason are words burned like kindling for the fires of anger. For this: A fight to pass the blame. Neither to be blamed when in fact both are the leading cause, both are burdens on each other. He enabled her as much as she enabled him.

And so they conjured up bad times.

They hurt themselves, and each other.

HER TURN

She said as much as he had said, but who got the last say? For sure he did, but because this was her turn, this time the last will be hers until turned back over to him.

She couldn’t have a turn if he didn’t get one too.

Measure not a single line more because this really has nothing to do with her feelings for him. This was a blameless and needless sort of resentment.

A deep resentment that was there to fill the missing pieces, the halves from this point out forever hidden.

When he stepped forward, it made her step back. Where she now stood, she had no room to step back. Stepping back meant falling into the water. Falling in meant breaking her stare.

That couldn’t happen, not without letting go a little more.

She remained right here. She did not let the blame drown in the calm, warm water. The frigid temperatures must stay inside the coffin. Hurt comes in a dozen shades, all of them having to do with the way she looks at him.

She gestured with each line, knowing that words would fail her. He took steps but she took him back to dark times. Picture the lightless night in a cramped space. Picture words written all across the walls, maybe words like the ones that left her mouth now.

[…]

“Oh your dad…”

[…]

“My dad, what?”

[…]

Raw, like wreaking havoc on his memory, she gestured for sleep. She drew the shape of blankets and pillows, and then of hands around her neck, pulled tightly.

Then she spoke, shouting out the first word, much like he did with his own lines, only to have it all fall back down to the flat monotone muttered in her gruff, frank voice.

“None of your business.”

But the flatness let it pass as he took that second step forward. Lost language as she had begun to feel the same way he felt: Overcome with this heated, murderous need to make something change in the other, something bad. New scars.

New lines of distention, something.

Something…

[…]

“This isn’t yours.”

[…]

“This is my house.”

[…]

“You don’t pay for anything.”

[…]

No—she simply could not let him take a third step.

She couldn’t taste the saltwater. She refused to drown, feeling like she had already drowned. 

Maybe failed at that too.

When she looked beyond him, she felt calm, like this might all be washed away with a simple rainstorm. She would be washed out, blurred by the storm. For that to happen, she would have to let go of what she felt, and she simply couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t work, not when everything that had been written before this line defined her character as resentful and capable of holding grudges.

No. Simply no.

That’s how she would leave things. Scissors cutting the cord, letting it all drown.

All of it.

No.

HIS TURN

Stepping back, he was too late. He had already overstepped. Two steps too many. She lashed out with lines that read more like:

FIRST WORD.

Enough to remind him of her distaste, her complete loathing for him, followed by a trail of the rest of whatever she said acting well to make it sting.

What exactly stung wasn’t worth talking about. Rather, it was how she continued to define things, those places, which seemed so wrong. For that reason, he saw himself there, in the wrong.

She put him in this situation, the feeling that it really was his fault, and he could feel the anger subside as she lashed out at him with line after line, spoken statements like triggers of the self, wilting.

[…]

[…]

[…]

[…]

[…]

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[…]

He saw in himself what he saw on her surface.

What you are:

Overweight.

Half a life over, a life over from the start.

Crackpot. Desperate for legacy but destined to be forgotten.

Insomnia-driven caffeine addiction.

Poor hygiene led to poorness in a number of respects, mainly that of poor finances and poor looks.

Look at you, look at that.

He tripped and fell as she delivered one more line.

[…]

Looking beyond her he felt calm, as if he could still let go of all the wrong, all the bad that he had done. Demise buried it all, though. It buries everything. For the wrong to be wiped clean, the good times would need to be washed out as well.

He sat inside himself, sat inside his sitting, balled up and retreated inward.

HER TURN

She had wanted the worst in him to surface. She didn’t know what she wanted, but it’s practically identical to how they once were, which is to say that she hadn’t a clue from the start. It was always about just starting, never finishing, going and letting it go whenever she lost interest, hoping it wouldn’t return.

But he returned. And returned.

He returned every one of her lines with one of his. It wasn’t even what he said anymore but rather that he had forced her into a corner. This allowed for the anger to completely boil over. The result is what can be seen as one lashing out at the other.

As she breathed nonexistent breath, she spoke in rapid succession, each line beginning with a sharpened blade and ending dull. She pushed forward as she spoke. The coffin weighed in one-sided, causing one side to rise and the other to sink.

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“Whatever.”

“No! Not ‘whatever.’ You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I just did.”

“Are we having fun, huh?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Watch where you’re fucking going!”

“You should feel bad.”

“Well I don’t.”

“Without me you’ll drown.”

“You’ll drown too, bitch.”

“What is happening to you?”

Coffin at tipping point, she jumped up and down, the extra weight causing water to pour in.

She enjoyed it, what she saw, the losing end of this, his face in a state of worry. But if she wanted to make sure, she couldn’t stop now. She jumped a second time. More water poured in but she watched a different source, tears from his face, from that stupid young face of his, the one that made her resent him more. The reason, she already had it in mind, but she would have to let go a little more to see herself, really see that the only thing she hated was how she looked. She had always hated how she looked. Too thin, too childish. How old are you really?

People were always mistaking her age.

There, see how a single flicker of memory is all it takes to send her over the edge. One more line spoken:

“I’m falling in ‘love.’ Whatever.”

He could be seen curling up, bringing knees up toward his chest. For one brief moment, she would almost enjoy the satisfaction. Almost because, floating here, she couldn’t be anything more than half.

Half of a feeling, half of a thought, half of herself.

For this one brief moment, she believed she was not responsible for the strangeness of this tale.

HIS TURN

“You are weaker.” A line, a leash, a tether tending to him before he sank. Before he gulped up the water pooled in the coffin. After he grabbed and held on, he could quickly see that everything wasn’t wrong. When he looked at her, he was forced to look at himself. Beyond all the blemishes, he could identify the good. He could see that his eyes weren’t dull, behind swollen cheeks was a brilliant mind. He sat inward and was able to see that all the good he had experienced, everything he had given and in turn given back hid inside rather than broadcast plainly on the surface.

Since he had been given very little to work with, for his sake and for the sake of her, the anger returned. The anger bled and bade for his best attempt. Pathetic, but it had to be pathetic. This was not for him. The anger was for her, because she needed him to be angry. At this precise moment, she needed him to bend down and be like a dog, lapping up the water she had brought on.

Burp out lines, each given plain, the anger saved for the last word rather than the first, between mouthfuls of the water.

“I’m the one with the license.”

“I feel perfectly fine. In fact, breathe in this air. I have never felt better!”

“You haven’t proven anything!”