Deborah placed her cell
phone smack dab in the center of her unmade bed. She stared down at
it, willing it to ring, and when nothing happened she flipped it
over, disgruntled and sat heavily upon the floor of her rented
bedroom. She leaned against the bed and hung her head. Her go-cup
coffee that she had purchased from Matt just a half an hour before,
but which seemed like millions of eons ago, sat dejectedly on her
chest of drawers, getting cold. She stared at it, willing it to
float over towards her, so she wouldn't have to rise from her slumped
position, depression stretching inward upon her like a familiar yet
unkind friend.
Suddenly, the phone rang.
She leaped up, almost as if her whole body rose into the air, and
reached for it. The number was unknown, as in not listed in her
friends, but the area code was familiar. Her heart raced as she
pressed the button to answer.
“Hello?” she called out.
“Hello? Hello?”
But, no answer came. “Is
anyone there? Who is this?” she implored more forcefully, with a
little bit of spice. “Stop clogging up my phone by calling and
calling!” And, she hung up with a ferocity and threw the phone
across the room, it ricocheted off the dresser, knocking the coffee
cup over, and fell to the floor as the cappuccino liquid slipped down
her dresser to the carpet below waiting to be stained Was this a
sign of something? Some signal, a truth, of things to come, of her
pouring her life and heart away on some guy who would not come
through yet again. She sighed and moved to right the coffee cup and
begin the process of soaking up the liquid before it stained, wiping
the drips off the dresser. It was probably just her crazy
ex-boyfriend after all. God! She groaned. Won't he ever ever leave
her alone?
In the coffee shop, Matt,
however, was not trying to avoid calling her or laughing over her
goof of thinking his flirtations were anything more than a barista
trying to garner some tips, but was being simultaneously distracted by
the conspiracy ravings of Shaggy, the mixed rants of conspiracy and
crazy ex of James, and Ray's urging that once he get off work they go
get some beer and begin their version of “church”, rather where
they all hike as far as they can go into the surrounding mountains,
sip their 40s, smoke joints, and sort of meditate, sort of explore
where ever they are led. Inwardly, he was hoping for one moment of
peace between all this to call Deborah, to hear her sweet voice, hear
her laughing jokes echoing his back to him with mirth and merriment.
“9-11 was an inside job,”
Shaggy was exclaiming. “Bush and the CIA, Daddy Bush, planned the
whole thing in order to make the masses feel fear and vulnerable, in
order to keep us under their control--
“My ex made me feel
vulnerable,” James mumbled and when they all swung around to look
at him, he added, “She was a crazy bitch, slept with everyone in
town, right?”
They nodded. They'd heard
the story what seemed like a thousand times a day it seemed.
Sometimes James seemed like a broken record, begging for anyone to
listen, to feel some sort of pity for him. Matt wondered about him,
sometimes. He himself had left a crazy ex that had in fact cheated
on him numerous times but recently he had found peace with her and
moved on. And, James it seemed, after discovering the likeness of
his story with Matt's, wouldn't let it go. Matt wondered why but
couldn't ascertain the answer to that question. He shook it off yet
again, hoping James would find the peace and answers on his own
someday.
Ray was pulling at his
shirtsleeves, metaphorically, like an anxious young child, wanting to
know “are we there yet? are we there yet?” Matt looked at his
funny friend, long straggly reddish-auburn hair, gnatted with dreads
scattered about the threads of his hair, a nose red and large from
too much of the drink, a frail build from living the hard life, too
many drugs, not enough good food, a ski-cap propped upon the top of
his head, and grinned at Ray.
“Hey, Ray,” Matt began.
“Has anyone ever told you, you kind of look like a lawn gnome?”
Shaggy and James looked over
at their friend, Ray and nodded, laughing.
“Yeah, you do,” joined
in Shaggy. “But you are tall so like, king of the lawn gnomes!”
They all laughed mirthfully.
“King of the lawn gnomes!”
They all cheered and the three of them bowed to Ray, who extended his
hand in deference and approval. It was right then that Barbara, the
remaining new girl, walked up and stared confusedly at their actions
before her.
“What the hell?” she
exclaimed. “What the hell is going on?”
“What the hell does he
look like?” exclaimed James right back, and Matt cringed.
Sometimes James seemed harsh to women, he didn't know why.
“Um, Ray,” Barbara said,
slightly wincing and moving towards the door. Matt leaned into her
and whispered in her ear, 'Lawn gnome', she turned back and looked
Ray over.
“Oh my god, yeah,” she
laughed.
“He's the king of the lawn
gnomes,” explained Shaggy.
“Bow down!” commanded
Ray and Barbara gave him a little curtsy. She hurried into the
coffee shop to begin her shift and Matt followed her to officially
clock out.
“Not to busy today?”
Barbara asked, turning to him, with a smile. He smiled back,
somewhat reluctantly. He wasn't too attracted to this girl, she was
a little on the plump side and a little too pushy when it came to the
area of love for his taste, always trying mostly unsuccessfully to
push her way into his world, his line of view.
“Nope,” he said. He
grabbed his time-card out of his cubby and scribbled out the time.
Placing it back, he grabbed his coat, knapsack, and hat, putting it
on with a flair of a 1940s movie star, that which he was unaware of
the affect he had on the opposite sex. He nodded, hat on head,
pulling his jacket on, swinging his knapsack on his shoulder, and
turned and walked towards the door towards his awaiting friends.
“All signed out?” asked
James. He nodded. Shaggy shook his head and Matt felt an oncoming
rant of conspiracy about to spew forth.
“Its just sad that the
government, or the forces behind, have us so wrapped up in being a
number in order to give us more meaningless numbers in a computer
that we use to--”
“Yeah, we get it,”
barked out Ray. “Let's get some beer before I start to puke.”
“His majesty has spoken,”
said Matt, smiling somewhat apologetically at Shaggy.
They all headed off,
following Ray, in a single-file to the nearby minute market.
While his team, his rag-tag
friends, busied themselves with the all too important task of picking
the right beers for the trek inside, Matt leaned against the outside
wall and pulled out his phone and the napkin with Deborah's phone
listed on it. He found it interesting that for some odd reason her
number seemed to already be in his “outward” calling list, but he
did not have any memory of calling her. He stared down at his phone,
debating inwardly whether he should call her, whether he had the
time, what his friends would think of her, if she really liked him,
if she was even single. All these questions filled his mind as he
stared down at the screen of his cell-phone, the number, for some
reason already dialed, before him. The door of the minute market
dinged open and Ray exclaimed, “Mission Accomplished!”
Matt slammed his phone shut
and stuck it forcefully in his jeans pocket.
“All set?” he set to his
somewhat giddy friends. They nodded. “All right, Ray, Your
Majesty, lead the way!”
The hike wound them up
farther and farther into the forests and wilderness above the city.
Matt looked back over his shoulder, over the city that he knew so
well, where every corner, every alleyway echoed a memory of so many
years, and thought of her, tucked away in some room, some apartment,
some home, he knew not where or which, and longed for her. He
wondered, he hoped, if they had a chance, if he could finally end
this quest to find the one, to end the emptiness of longing for love
and understanding. Would it ever end, he wondered, when would he
have his happily ever after?
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