shredded and nothing
you
can do to put them back
together again. Nothing you
can
do to stop bleeding anger,
and even if you could, you don’t
want
to because anger feels better
than the pain of losing
someone.
Been Asking Around
About Conner. Not sure why
I feel the need to know, but
seeing him at the movies
made me wonder what
the hell is up with him.
He looked healthy enough,
as fit as I’ve ever seen him,
in fact. And considering
he was always an ace running
back, that’s saying a lot.
Nobody seems to know
much for certain, but Bobby
Duvall had an opinion.
I think he tried to off himself.
He’s probably been under
lock and key, you know?
Conner Sykes, loose in
the head? Yep, that makes
sense. But even if it’s true,
why should I give a shit?
I Guess I Don’t
Unless it means Cara shares
whatever craziness gene
he’s carrying. I mean,
maybe she’s just a little
confused. Maybe she could
get help for that, and then
there’s still hope for us.
But how do I find out
for sure? And even if I do,
how could I ever suggest
to her that her brain chemistry
might be in need of adjustment?
Lots to consider. But not today.
Spring break. No school.
No game until Friday. Fresh
powder on the mountain,
I’m skiing. I’ve avoided it
all season, worried about
injuries. But what the fuck.
Can’t live in fear of a fall.
I Don’t Want To Ski Alone
I called Kendra, but she’s busy
having an operation. Fixing
the little bump in her nose
that makes her face unique.
What’s with girls, always
trying to fix stuff that doesn’t
need fixing? Anyway, since
she’s unavailable, I did
the unthinkable and invited
Duvall to come along. He’s
annoying as hell, but a fair skier,
and for some lame reason, girls
are attracted to him. Can’t hurt
to have him with me. Ski resorts
are babe magnets. Maybe I’ll
hook up with a Cara stand-in.
Just something to play with
until I win her back. Still have
Viagra left. Hate to let those
little blue pills go to waste.
Rose Has Been Invaded
“Shit. Check out the crowd. Lift
lines are going to be impossible.
We should ski the singles line.”
I watch three curvy pairs of Lycra
ski pants walk by as we put on
our boots in the top parking
lot. Uh, yeah, agrees Duvall.
Easter week and all. Which
means after next weekend
this place is closing up shop.
Spring break is traditionally
the last week for Mt. Rose, no
matter how much snow is left
on the slopes. “Too bad. Skiing
will be great for a month yet.”
Yeah, well, it is baseball
season. You ready or what?
We clomp down a slippery
road, skis over one shoulder.
Wait in a forever line just to
buy our lift tickets. Glad
I’m not here for actual
exercise, although
standing in five-year-old
ski boots is kind of a workout.
Finally we’re good to go.
“I haven’t skied all season.
Lakeview good? I need
to warm up.” Duvall gives me
one of those whatever looks.
Sure, dude. I’d rather ski with
a girl anyway. He laughs, slips
into his bindings, and trucks
off toward the chair. And it takes
until I’m snapped into my own
skis to realize he just called
me a girl. The little (literally)
prick. Under my collar, a warm
seep of irritation crawls
up my neck, toward my face.
From Here
I can choose to go after him,
show him how this particular
“girl” could mess up a certain
guy’s face. Or I can forget it.
Try to remember how to ski.
I push off down a gentle slope
toward the high-speed chair
where Duvall stands, looking
put out. Do I have to wait for
you all day, or will you pick this
up eventually? He’s smiling.
Kidding. But I want to smash
his freaking dopey smirk right
through the back of his skull.
Deep breath. And another.
My blood pressure lifts like
mercury in a thermometer.
Time to take a break from
the ’roids. When this cycle is
over, or I die of a heart attack.
Even The Singles Line
Is slow. By the time I slide
my butt onto a chair beside
three kids kicking snowboards,
the bottoms of my feet hurt.
Time for new boots. At least
this is a fast chair. It sweeps up
the mountain until… thud…
it stops because of a problem
above or below. To my right,
the old, slow chair keeps on
moving at a forty-five-degree
angle toward a lower disembark
point on the same run this one goes
to. It crosses beneath us, and my
ears catch the sound of familiar
laughter. I scan the line of chairs.
Cara? I think it’s her, buddied
up with some girl. With a bump,
the chair starts up again. Before
I know it, I’m at the top, where
Duvall stands off to one side.
I ski right past him. “Coming?
Or will I have to wait for you all
day?” Down the short, semi-steep
face, onto the flat trail that circles
the resort, I reach for whatever
speed I can, hoping to catch up
to Cara. Duvall is right on my
heels. Hey, man! What’s the hurry?
Thought you wanted to warm up.
I don’t even know why I want
to see Cara. She’ll only piss
me off. I’ve stopped by her
house maybe a dozen times,
but she won’t talk to me, except
to keep repeating, It’s over, Sean.
Just let it go. I can’t let it go.
Can’t let her go. Sometimes
I drive by her house, just to see
if there is anyone there. Anyone else
in her life but me. Sometimes
I follow her, but the only place
she ever goes is to rehearsals.
I know she still loves me, even
if she hasn’t forgiven me. Time.
There she is, up ahead. God,
she’s sleek as a dolphin,
surfing snow. Who is that
she’s boarding with? The two
turn down the mountain, and
they took, the girls are out of
sight. I stop at the cornice’s edge,
breathing hard. Not sure I want
to drop over this. It’s damn steep.
Duvall, of course, is up for it.
What are you waiting for?
Banzai! I pause for a second
or two. But what can I really do,
but tail the guy through the trees?
I’m Sure It Isn’t Pretty
But I manage to stay on my
feet and avoid running into
any obstacles. There are lots.
Trees. Stumps. Rocks. A few
bushes, even, thinking it might
be spring. Turn. Turn. Pause.
Turn. Turn. Pause. I think
I used to be better at this.
Where the hell did Duvall
go? He can’t be more talented
at something than I am, can he?
Because that just isn’t right.
Of course, if I didn’t have
to be so cautious, I could kick
his ass, on or off skis. Since
I don’t want broken bones
right now, however, I’ll pick
my way to the bottom of
this pine tree slalom course.
Finally it intersects a long
beginner run where I can pick
up enough speed to catch Duvall.
It isn’t hard, considering he’s
waiting for me at the fringe of
a small stand of cedars. He waves
rather frantically for me to join
him. Check it out, he says,
pointing into the trees. Jesus,
O’Connell, you turned her, like,
gay. What’s he talking about?
I lift my goggles, look hard
at where his finger is aimed.
Two girls on snowboards…
wait. What the fuck? It’s Cara,
for sure. She’s with that girl, the one
with spiky hair, now frosted
blue. They are chest to chest,
and they are kissing. Not just
kissing like friends do. Kissing
like people who are in love do.
Andre
People Who Are In Love
Expect certain things.
Time together, to learn
all there is to know about
each other. Falling in
love
can happen to complete
strangers. Staying in love
requires being best friends
and
that means accepting the person
beneath the veneer. What
complicates things is
sex.
Loveless, it’s easy. Insert
Tab A into Slot B. Enjoy what
happens naturally. But under
love’s influence, the directions
aren’t
quite so straightforward.
It is then, striving for perfection,
you realize that all Slot Bs are not
interchangeable.
When It Comes To Sex
I was kind of a late bloomer. Not that
I didn’t know what it
was, or think about maybe having it one
day. At eleven or twelve, I started having
all the problems young
guys do, waking up sticky and sometimes
turning into walking wood, wrong place,
wrong time. Embarrassing
stuff. My first actual encounter was with
an Oakland girl—one of Gramps’s neighbors.
She was a couple of years
older than me. Every guy should have an older
woman for his first. She taught me every
move in the Big Book
of Sex. Guess she liked playing teacher.
I was fifteen. After that, I kind of got a taste
for it, and let me just say,
private school girls aren’t exactly all prudes.
But none of them can come close to Jenna
when it comes to
doing the dirty. Part of it is because I love
her, and love really does put a whole
different spin on getting
naked together. But Jenna knows more
than that Oakland girl and my preppie
lays all rolled up into one.
Without carrying a single iota of shame.
I have no idea where she learned what
she knows. To tell
the truth, I really don’t want the details.
Enough to have her for my own, doing
those things to me.
Hopefully, we’ll be doing them tonight.
This Afternoon, Though
I’m helping Liana teach a dance workshop
for a bunch of underprivileged
kids. Some of them are really young—like four.
First, I want you to see how the body
is meant to move,
Liana tells the group, who are sitting
on the floor beneath the barre. Andre,
will you please dance
the jazz routine—the one to Coltrane.
She fires up “While My Lady Sleeps,” superb
classic sax from one
of the greatest jazz musicians of all time.
Beat comes first, and it remains steady under
the sad song of the saxophone.
The music closes around me, and I draw
it inside, a flowing current that my muscles
float upon. Contract. Release.
I am the music, and the music is my body.
And when it stops, I come out of the trance
that is jazz dance. If there
is a God, he listens to John Coltrane.
The sound of clapping hands pulls me back
into the studio. Lots of
little hands. And some bigger ones too.
Shantell has appeared, like a backlit cloud
reflected on still
water. The look on her face is hard to read.
But then she smiles as Liana says, Okay,
kids. Let’s break up into
groups. Shantell, Andre, help divide them
up, and each of you take a group of ten or so.
Today is all about movement.
Let the music tell you what to do, like Andre did.
Awesome Day
The kids are amazing, so eager to learn.
I never thought about
teaching before, but I really love working
with them. It makes me feel like I’ve got
something to give, and
I’m sorry it has to end. Guess we all have
places to go, though. There’s a chorus of
thank yous as they leave,
and when the studio has emptied, Shantell
comes over. I really hate to say this, and
have it go to your head
and all, but you are an incredible dancer.
How long have you been training? She
waits for an answer
she probably doesn’t want to hear.
“A little over a year. I started after we
moved here to Reno.”
As I suspected, she reacts with a scowl.
That’s it? What made you decide to take
lessons, then? Did you,
like, wake up from a dream, doing pliés?
God she’s funny. “Not exactly. Actually,
it was that TV show—
So You Think You Can Dance. I’ve always
liked street dancing. Used to do it some
when we lived in the Bay
Area. I saw this b-boy picking up ballroom
and thought maybe if he could, I could.
I found Liana online,
and that was straight from heaven.
She tapp
ed something inside me I might
not ever have found
without her. That’s my story. The end.”
But She’s Not Quite Finished
With me. So what are you going to do
with all that talent?
Go pro? You could, you know. There are—
I stop her with a shake of my head. “No
way my parents are
going to let their only son make a living
onstage some place. It was always just for
fun. Dancers don’t make
the kind of money I need to be comfortable.”
Now she looks totally disgusted. Money?
You can’t be serious.
Dance isn’t about money. It’s about heart.
If it isn’t, you damn well don’t deserve
the gift God gave you.
I can’t believe you’d let it go to waste!
She jumps up, stomps across the hardwood
floor. “Lots of talent goes
to waste.” My voice is lost in her footsteps.
Every Time
I’m around her, I like her more. Not
sure she could say
the same thing about me. In fact, pretty
sure not. Oh well. She doesn’t know
my parents, or that I’m
already a major disappointment to them.
Wonder how they’d feel about me teaching.
Other than the money thing.
Because teaching isn’t about money either.
As I start to head out, Liana gestures to
me to come closer.
Uh… I happened to overhear your
conversation. Shantell is right, you know.
You were destined to
dance. If you try to ignore that, you’ll be
completely miserable. A new TV dance show
is holding auditions in L.A.
next month. I hope you’ll consider trying out.
Me? On TV?
On the Jeopardy! College Championship,
maybe. If I go to college,
that is. But on a dance show? That would
require letting the world know I dance. Which
means letting my parents
know I dance. Putting all that aside, however,
that kind of competition is for real dancers,
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