Myself and I

by Earl Sewell

  “Do you want me to come and keep you company?” he asked.

  “Hell to the no,” I answered.

  “Dang, why did you have to say it like that?” He sounded pathetic, and I knew I’d hurt his feelings. “You don’t have to walk on my love like that,” he complained.

  “Sweetie, you don’t have enough love to walk on,” I answered back with a harsh tone. Alex eventually got the message that I didn’t want to be bothered and left me alone. Then, just as I was truly beginning to enjoy the peace and serenity of being at the pool all alone, Jerry showed up. I stopped reading my book so I could keep an eye on him while he tried to impress me once again with his diving ability. However, to my amazement, he didn’t do any diving at all. He swam a few laps and then came over to the edge of the pool where I was sitting.

  “Are you feeling better today?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t feeling bad the other day,” I reminded him.

  “Okay,” he said politely. “Listen, about the other day, I may have come off sounding a little conceited, and I didn’t mean to.”

  “No, you didn’t sound a little conceited, you were practically boasting as if you were the best thing since the discovery of fire,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about that. My brother and I are just very competitive and at times I get so wound up that I give off the wrong impression,” he said apologetically.

  “It’s cool,” I answered, not really putting more thought into the moment than need be.

  “So, can I start over by introducing myself to you?” he asked.

  “You don’t need to,” I said.

  “Hello, Keysha, my name is Jerry and I’m your new neighbor.” He ignored what I’d just said. I remained silent.

  “My family just moved here from Buffalo Grove, Illinois. It’s a suburb that’s northwest of downtown Chicago. I like Chinese food, pizza and watching Tyler Perry films,” he said.

  “Now there is something we have in common,” I admitted.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Tyler Perry. I love his work,” I said.

  “Then that makes two of us.” Jerry smiled at me. “So, Keysha, what else do you like?” he asked.

  “Why do you care?”

  Jerry shrugged his shoulders. “It seems like an appropriate question to ask when you’re trying to get to know a person.”

  “Maybe I don’t want people to know me. Maybe I just want to be left alone. Have you ever considered that?” I asked.

  “Man, Keysha. You’ve really built up a strong wall of protection. What happened in your life that has made you so untrusting?” he asked as he bounced up and down in the water.

  “You don’t know jack about me, so stop trying to psychoanalyze me,” I answered rudely, hoping he’d just swim away and go on about his business.

  “You’re right. I don’t know much about you at all. But I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at spotting someone who has a broken heart or has dealt with a lot of emotional pain.”

  “Yeah, right,” I responded in a brazen attempt to throw him off.

  “Hear me out. If I’m mistaken, just tell me. But I’m willing to bet that you’re either in a bad relationship or just getting over one and right now you’re so hurt that you’re snapping out at anyone who tries to get close to you.”

  “Well, if you’re so damn observant, why are you over here bothering me?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question, and to be honest I don’t have an answer to it.” He paused for a moment. “I guess I’m just trying to make new friends. It’s hard when you move from one town to the next. You leave most of your old friends behind and you don’t really know when you’re going to see them again. Then when you arrive someplace new, you hope that you can hook up with someone who is real and not fake. One thing I can’t stand is phony people or people who pretend to be your friend but then turn around and stab you in the back. Know what I mean?”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew exactly what he meant. I’d gone through so much of what he was talking about that it was like he was telling a slice of my life story without even knowing all of the details. I decided to let down my guard a little and entertain talking to him a little more. “Yeah, unfortunately I know exactly what you mean, Jerry.”

  “See, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He smiled at me.

  “How old are you, Jerry?” I asked.

  “Seventeen, and you?”

  “We’re the same age,” I said.

  “So, what’s Thornwood High School like?” he asked.

  “Same as any other school I guess. There are some good things about it and some not so wonderful things, too. I pretty much keep to myself.”

  “Do you play a sport or have any other interests?” Jerry asked.

  “I had the lead part in the school play,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I also like to sing.”

  “Really? I’d love to hear your voice. Sing something for me.”

  “Get out of here, I’m not going to sing for you.” I laughed.

  “Look at you. That’s the first time I’ve seen your pretty smile.”

  I cut my eyes at him. “Don’t even try it,” I warned. I truly was not interested in dating or anything remotely close to it.

  “Hey, I’m not trying to pull anything,” he said, holding up his hands so I could see them.

  “So, what’s your story?” I asked. “I’m sure you have a slew of girls trailing behind you just dying to be your boo.”

  Jerry released a low chuckle and then glanced down at the water. “I’m not really like that. Now my brother on the other hand, he’s a straight-up womanizer,” he said.

  “How old is your brother anyway?” I asked.

  “Just turned twenty.”

  “So why aren’t you like him?” I was curious.

  Jerry winced and I could tell I’d just touched on a sensitive issue. He was quiet for a long moment before speaking. “I can’t believe that I’m still dealing with this, because it’s been almost a year since I broke up with her.”

  “What happened?” I was now very interested in what he had to say.

  “It’s a long story,” he said.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, adjusting my position on the lawn chair.

  “You’re sure that you want to hear this?” he asked.

  “Lay it on me,” I encouraged him to tell his story.

  “Okay, but don’t call me some hopeless sap afterward, okay?”

  “I won’t,” I agreed.

  “Okay, it’s like this. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school I started dating this girl named Jessica. She was everything to me. I loved her and thought we were going to be the classic high-school-sweetheart love story. I thought we were going to make it against all the odds, you know?”

  “Oh, I know that feeling,” I admitted.

  “She was my first, but I wasn’t hers. I gave up my virginity to her because I really felt that I was in love with her. After we’d done it a few times my feelings for her grew stronger, but she started becoming distant with me all of a sudden. She wasn’t returning my phone calls, e-mails or text messages. When I saw her in person and asked her what was going on she just said that her computer was down and her mom forgot to pay the cell phone bill. I believed her until a friend named Carlos called me up at around nine-thirty one night and told me to come outside and walk over to his street. When I asked him why, he just said I needed to see it for myself. So I sneaked out of the house, hopped on my bike and rode over to his place. When I got there Carlos was standing outside with his finger pressed to his lips, telling me to be quiet. I stopped my bike, placed it on the ground and tiptoed over to him.

  “He had said, ‘Your girl Jessica is getting nailed in the car over there.’ He pointed to a sedan parked in a dark corner on his street.

  “‘No she’s not.’ I wanted to punch his lights out for lying, but instead I reached for my cellular phone and gave Jessica a call but she
didn’t answer.

  “‘If you don’t believe me then let’s go take a look,’ Carlos suggested. I was positive he was wrong and the only thing we were going to see was some chickenhead and her boyfriend doing their thing.

  “As we’re sneaking over to the car I could hear and see that there was activity going on. The car was rocking, the windows were fogged up, and I could hear music as well as moaning.

  “Then Carlos had said, ‘Why don’t you knock on the window? That would scare the crap out of them. Then you could confront Jessica and ask her what’s up and why is playing you.’ I told Carlos I wasn’t going to do that but he pressed the issue until I finally found the guts to interrupt the couple. As I approached the passenger side the door opened and Jessica stepped out zipping up her blue jeans and buttoning up her top.”

  “You’re kidding!” I said, totally horrified by what he must’ve felt like.

  “I wish I were,” he said.

  “Well, did you say something?” I asked.

  “Of course I did. I went ballistic. I wanted to kick the guy’s ass, but my friend held me back.”

  “Well, what did she say?” I asked.

  “She was surprised as hell to see me. She fed me some bull crap about trying to let me down easily and how I should’ve recognized the hints she was dropping.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said, feeling sorry for him.

  “Yeah, I was pretty messed up after that. I felt like I should’ve waited for someone really special to come along. My brother keeps telling me that I need to get over her by going out and dating a bunch of girls and having a ton of sex, but I’m not that type of guy. I know a lot dudes that are, but I’m not one of them.”

  “Wow, that is so messed up,” I said as I leaned back in my seat.

  “Yeah, but it is what it is,” he said and swam away to the other side of the pool. Jerry got out and toweled off. He walked back over to me and thanked me for listening.

  “No problem,” I said, smiling at him warmly.

  “I’ll see you around, okay?” he said as he extended his hand. I shook it and then he turned and left.

  thirteen

  Over the next few days, Jerry came to the pool during the morning when no one was around to hang out with me and chat. On the third day he arrived with some breakfast food from McDonald’s and asked if I could share a meal with him. I felt obligated to let him know that I really wasn’t interested in a relationship, in case that was the road he was trying to go down.

  “Neither am I. Why can’t we just be two people who chill out with each other?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with that,” I admitted with a smile.

  “Good, because I just happen to like talking to you. I hope you like sausage biscuits,” he said, opening the bag and placing one in front of me along with some orange juice. “I also have a plain biscuit without meat if you’d like that better.”

  “The sausage biscuit is fine,” I assured him. As we ate our food I asked him what his parents were like.

  “Hang on,” he said as he finished chewing. He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin before he continued. “Well, my parents got divorced seven years ago and my brother and I lived with my mom. Less than a year after the divorce she married this guy who was in the military. We moved around a lot for four years. I’ve lived in Maui, San Francisco and Baltimore. Then my mom got really sick. She developed lung tumors that were cancerous. She’d started smoking cigarettes at a young age and over the years it caught up to her. My brother and I tried to get her to quit, but her addiction was just too strong. My brother and I had to move into my dad’s house out in Buffalo Grove. It hasn’t been easy, because he just got remarried to a girl who’s not much older than my brother. It’s really messed up having a stepmom young enough to be your girlfriend. Anyway, the house in Buffalo Grove was too small for all of us, so my dad found us a bigger house here.”

  “So what’s your dad like? Is he cool?” I asked

  “I don’t really think he cares what my brother and I do. He’s too busy trying to make his wife happy. She wants to have children and is healthy enough, but he isn’t exactly a young man anymore and…” Jerry paused. “He has to go a male-fertility specialist. Anyway, to make a long story short, my dad is too busy catering to his young wife Adiya’s needs.”

  “Wow,” I said as I took all of that in.

  “Yeah, it’s not very pretty, but there is nothing I can really do about it,” Jerry said.

  “So where did you and your brother learn how to dive so well?” I asked.

  “When we lived in Maui all we did was hang out at the beach and swimming pool all day. Sometimes we’d hike out to the waterfalls and dive off cliffs. It was crazy, but we had a lot fun. When we lived in California and Baltimore we both joined the swim team. My brother was good enough to get a scholarship and is sort of pushing me to do the same, which is why we’re so competitive.”

  “Jerry, I’ve gotta say that I’ve never met anyone with a background as unique as yours.”

  “What’s so unique about being the kid of divorced parents? Last time I checked, it wasn’t big news.”

  “Not that part, I’m talking about having to live in so many different places,” I explained.

  “Trust me, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. Just as we were getting settled and making new friends we had to move and start all over. I’m hoping this is the last time we have to move for a while.”

  “So what does your dad do?” I asked.

  “He owns a software company. He develops software applications for all kinds of firms. Some of his biggest clients are Kodak, Motorola and Toyota. He’s always on the road traveling with Adiya.”

  “It sounds like you don’t like her very much,” I said, picking up on his disdain for her.

  “No. I’m not very fond of her. She acts as if she’s so much older than she actually is and is always trying to tell me what to do,” he said.

  I learned a lot about Jerry and realized that I’d misjudged him. He and I weren’t so different when it came to bruised hearts and being forced to deal with complicated family issues. I decided to let my protective wall down and share with him all of the drama I’d recently gone through.

  It didn’t take long for my little annoying admirer, Alex, to feel threatened by Jerry. Every time Little Alex saw Jerry talking to me, a scowl would form on his face. He’d begin to break the rules of the pool by running around the deck, pushing his other friends into the pool or splashing water on girls before they had a chance to put on their swim caps. I know he did it just so he could get some type of attention from me. He was a real nuisance, and once I had to kick him out of the pool because of his bratty behavior.

  One Saturday afternoon, Alex decided to issue a diving challenge to Jerry in order to impress me and prove that he was so much better than Jerry. Needless to say, Alex lost horribly. He tried to do a back dive and landed flat on his back with a loud splat. All of his friends and even the little girls his own age laughed at him. Not willing to give up, he tried to do a jackknife dive and lost his form in midair. He ended up flapping his arms and legs wildly and landed with a hauntingly loud belly flop. When he exited the pool, his chest and stomach were turning bright red. Jerry, on the other hand, showed his young challenger no mercy. He executed the dives that Alex had attempted with flawless perfection. All the girls in the swimming pool began clapping for him and asked that he continue to entertain them with his superior diving skills. Feeling humiliated, Alex left the swimming pool with his head bowed down.

  “It’s sort of cute, if you ask me,” Maya said once Little Alex left.

  “That boy needs to just give up,” I said, laughing at his efforts to win me over.

  “It’s puppy love, Keysha. He likes you so much and it’s just killing him that you see him as a little boy and not the young man he feels that he is. My little brother is the exact same way,” Maya informed me.

  “Well, I can’t
control the way he feels. He’ll just have to get over it,” I said, laughing. I focused my attention back on the pool. Jerry’s older brother, Erin, had arrived. He and Jerry continued to impress everyone at the pool with their talent. As I watched the two of them go at it, I had a greater appreciation for their diving acrobatics. A few times as Erin got out of the pool he glanced in my direction and looked at me longer than necessary. It was as if he wanted to say something but decided to hold back. I didn’t think much of it, I just found it to be a little weird how he studied me as if he were going to be taking an exam. Then, when Jerry wasn’t looking he blew me a kiss, grabbed his crotch and winked at me. I responded by flipping up my middle finger and my rude gesture surprised him. The expression on his face was that of disappointment. I think he actually thought I’d get a kick out of his degrading antics. What an idiot, I thought to myself.

  Every year the park district held an annual Fourth of July pool party and invited everyone in the community to attend. For a small fee, attendees could enjoy a day filled with fun and games for small children, live music and free barbecue. The evening would be capped off with a fireworks display at sundown. The days leading up to the holiday weekend had everyone who came to the swimming pool talking about the event and how they looked forward to attending. All the lifeguards had to attend a mandatory meeting with park district officials to discuss pool safety and to be on heightened alert for people who were intoxicated and didn’t have the good sense to not jump into the pool. Two other lifeguards who were there asked Maya and me if we wanted to cover their shifts and make extra money. The catch was that we’d have to be on duty and wouldn’t be able to participate in all the fun. Personally, I didn’t care about a party as much as I loved the idea of having additional spending cash. Maya, on the other hand, wanted to spend some quality time with Misalo.