untitled story (from the netherlands files)

december 1999, sunday night in a small maine town. two teenagers lie under the covers of a twin bed. she rests her head on his shoulder; they both look out the window. it is a new moon and the cold air seeps through the window panes. the moon is their first in a long time and familiar hands feel strange after being apart from so long.

he is thin like a runner. he does not look particularly healthy. you can count his ribs, little hills under skin stretched like play dough about to burst. she's slender, poised and slightly insecure. beautiful to him. light, pale skin that reflects the moonlight, alert brown eyes that she keeps open and wide. she wears her heart on short sleeves.

'everybody wants to know where you've been,' she says, looking up at him - but he is looking out the window at the birch trees at the edge of her yard.

'college, work... i don't know'

'you never write'

'nothing to really say'

she grabs his hand, sandwiching it with her hands. she opens and expands his fingers, bends them back and forth. she studies his hands. they are clean but calloused, they have been used and abused. there are long, slender scars on the fingers and what looks to be burn scars on the back of the hands. 'i missed you,' she says.

he's quiet. he looks sullen, sad, lonely. 'i missed you, too.'

'why don't you write? why don't you call?'

he lit his joint. a small, thin joint that he cradled between his fingers in a style that dictates he has done this for years. he lays back, falling into the bed even more. she rearranges her head, he is careful not to blow smoke anywhere near her. he doesn't offer her a hit because he knows that answer already.

'i don't know'

he exhales slowly. she feels his body relax, sink into the bed. it feels like his body is about to disappear into itself. she rearranges herself, pushing her body into his.

'you're a fucking puzzle you know,'

he takes a long pull on the joint and starts to blow smoke rings. his adam's apple moving up and down quickly as his tongue pushes out carefully measured puffs of air. the ring leaves his mouth at a fast rate and gradually slows down until it hangs motionless in the moonlight. 'fucking tell me about it.' he says. 'but fuck me, how are you doing? hows life? what's it like coming home?'

'whatever...' she says dropping his hand. 'you never talk about yourself. it's like pulling teeth with you, you never say anything about yourself. what's going on in that head of yours? why don't you ever say what the hell is bothering you?'

'because you don't want to hear it'

'well i'm asking you'

'i can't stand myself.' she stares at him in silence. he tries to circumscribe the moon with a smoke ring, but he fails to achieve the proper trajectory. 'and,' he continues, 'you really should stay away, because i will only make you cry. even your parents agree with me.'

in the silence the moon slides across the window. they both watch, content in each others presence but not willing to look into each others eyes.

'tell me a story,' she asks quietly.

'what kind,' he says without hesitation - 'a real one or a made up one?'

'real.'

he takes a pull, exhales slowly. 'well, i don't know... my real stories always end up sad.'

'then tell me something that makes you happy.'

'okay...,' he says and starts to think. you can tell that he is thinking because he furrows his brow together and stares off into the distance real hard. you'd laugh if you didn't want to hear what he had to say. 'okay, i got it.'

she smiles.

'it's a story about dogs.' he took another long hit, she smiles and rolls her eyes. 'stop fucking around! i'm being serious' he says, looking at her.

'just tell the story,' she shuts her eyes and pushes into his shoulder. they are both quiet for a while.

'okay... it's a story about two dogs, alley and ripley, who are best friends. their parents work together at a hospital. they met for the first time at the hospital when they were attending a cookout (as guests of honor, no doubt.) that day they swam in the pond on the hospital grounds. they have been best friends ever since.

alley is the older, wiser, more focused dog. ripley is wild, crazy, runs away, has been brought home by the police - definitely the wild child. i imagine alley saying something like: "let's go dig holes in the yard!" and as they both trot over to the yard, ripley suddenly says: "let's go swimming!!!!!"

when ripley came over to my house for a sleepover, he would not calm down. literally. he'd just run and run and run, and if you stopped paying attention to him he would start to howl. i think he missed his parents. ripley drove me crazy, but there was no way i could let a dog like that feel lonely, so i spent the whole night sleeping on the floor with him so he would be quiet.

the next day ripley had to go home and alley was very sad. i later heard from ripley's parents that ripley howled for the rest of the day. however, this is not a sad ending because they are still best friends and they still go swimming in the pond pretty much every week.'

she smiles. 'that was nice.' he grins.

he says a few lines from a song, she rolls her eyes. 'how can you respect a cracked out, heroin junkie who recovered, only to later stab himself in the heart over some petty bullshit?'

'he made beautiful music.'

'your prophet is a pop artist?'

'well he wasn't really pop, i guess...'

'yeah... but is that all you want out of life?'

'i just want to make this world a better place... what about you?'

'i don't want to be alone'

'me either'

'why aren't you with someone?'

'i guess i haven't found the right someone'

'you've been searching long enough'

'i know'

'there are probably a thousand girls in love with you'

'i doubt that'

'you can't be like that, you need to choose, you can't just run around saying that you are going to solve all of the world's problems, you're just going to burn out like you did before.'

he looks down at her for a moment, then looks away, back out the window

'when are you going back to boston?'

'tuesday -'

they are both quiet for an extended period of time. eventually, he falls asleep.

he snores like a dog. out of nowhere, a sucking in of air that continues and you wonder if he is about to die, but he keeps breathing in like he hasn't breathed for years. and then the exhale, loudly, one of the few things that he ever does loudly.