The Undergraduates

by Steven Snell

  “You’re a god.”

  “We’re just fumbling around trying not to fall, my friend – or perhaps maybe trip once and awhile but not fall off of something high.”

  “Nice metaphor.”

  I stand. I hug Jacob and say bye and pick up my pack and Cynthia’s camera and exit the shop and turn giving Jacob a nod and he nods back and I’m down the sidewalk people couples interactions in the city and I’m here and we’re all here stumbling seeking stories trying to make sense of one to tell others show others bring in others and join stories and make ones better to us and less bad to others whatever better and worse happen to be.

  12.

  Saturday finishes.

  Sunday starts. It’s midmorning. I’m feeling lazy and tired. Last night a girl pulled me close and said stay the night and I couldn’t think of a response so I lay there waiting for her to fall asleep. Her breath went deep. I tapped her hip and nudged her shoulder and she didn’t stir. I slipped out of bed and dressed watching her hoping she wouldn’t move. She didn’t. I left her house and cycled home not liking myself not because I left but because I showed up. I showered and went to bed. My alarm clock read 2:13. I rolled over and waited for sleep.

  I’m now sitting on my couch scanning the news on my phone. Economy dips, somebody powerful rapes somebody not, hate crime in Egypt.

  My phone beeps. It’s Alex.

  I answer it, “Hello.”

  “Vagina.”

  “Hello Alex.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Sitting on the couch listening to my clothes spin in the washing machine.”

  “Jesus would be impressed.”

  “By my sitting?”

  “By your cleanliness.”

  “My clothes’ cleanliness?”

  “Cleanliness is godliness.”

  “Ah.”

  “It’s supposed to rain.”

  “More cleaning.”

  “Precisely. Interested in catching a film?”

  “Sure. What time?”

  “Three-twenty.”

  “Theatre?”

  “Her Majesty.”

  “Cool. I’ll cycle there. Meet circa three-fifteen?”

  “It shall be done. Go in peace and be freed of your suffering.”

  “Right. Bye.”

  “Laters.”

  I push End and walk to the kitchen to make a snack. I have a shower and get changed. I grab my bike from my balcony and walk with it down the three flights of stairs. I cycle through the neighbourhood. I cycle past a park. Kids on swings and a lady playing fetch with her dog. There’s a gentle northerly breeze and a row of four flag poles with their flags flapping, a cool dry wind and if it shifts to come out of the east the clouds will sink and spread and the rain will come.

  I cycle for a few more blocks and roll up to a pocket park terminating a row of historic homes that have been converted to retail and professional shops. I sit down on one of the three benches settled back under a stand of trees away from the street. One is left empty and on the other two men are sitting holding hands conversing. They nod at me and I nod a hello and pull out yesterday’s paper from my pack.

  I scan the headlines and read the captions under photos. I read an article about a photographer who does large format photographs of industrial sites, warehouses, shots of mineral and resource extraction. Man’s large scale impact captured by his five- by seven-foot prints. I read an article about France investing in an offshore wind energy project. An article about mountain top removal and decreased fishing stocks and gang warfare in Mexico. A journalist held hostage in Iraq. I hold the paper folded in front of me and stare through it and wonder if my expression matches my thoughts. I’m not sure if I feel empowered or frustrated or empty.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket.

  It’s a message from Laura.

  “Hey!”

  “Hi,” I write back.

  “What r u up 2?”

  “Fighting depression”

  “U ok???”

  “Just reading the news”

  “LOL”

  “Not really!”

  “:) Want to catch up?”

  I don’t have plans after the movie but I’m not in the mood so I reply saying sorry I have plans and she replies with another smiley face and asks another time and I write of course and she writes bye and soon and I write yes yes.

  I put the paper down beside me and place my phone on it. The two men have stopped talking, still holding hands and smiling and watching the street life. I follow their gaze and watch the life dance. A small bird lands a few feet from me. It hops. Hello bird. It chirps. Another bird in the trees chirps. Hello hello hello. How are you bird? It chirps and hops. Yes, a lovely autumn day. It hops again and flies off.

  A girl in pig tails wearing acid wash jeans.

  I look somewhere else. Then somewhere else.

  Like Teflon, things just kinda cook and slide by.

  I look at my watch. I should get going to the theatre.

  I see Alex. He’s wearing a cast on his forearm.

  “Nice cast.” On it someone has written, Mission Accomplished.

  “You should see me try to wipe my ass.”

  “No I shouldn’t.”

  We hug and go into the theatre and watch the film and it’s a good film. We go for a coffee and talk about the film and the news and work and he recommends a stock. I don’t know anything about stocks. He tells me about a girl he met last night.

  “She said she wanted to have sex like an internal combustion engine.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “I didn’t think to ask for details.”

  “Amazing. Where do you meet’em?”

  “Online.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes, it’s where single girls go whose friends are married and having kids and they’re feeling left out.”

  “And you give them the emotional satisfaction they’re looking for?”

  “Everyone likes sex, Shawn.”

  “Right. Did you end up finding out what the internal combustion engine meant?”

  “We were on a second date. Her comment wasn’t directed at me per se. It was stated more as a goal, an objective really. Stepping on the gas is more third date material.”

  “You’re such a gentleman.”

  “Don’t I know it!”

  “But obviously you two were talking about sex.”

  “Is there any other topic of interest?”

  “The stock market?”

  “That’s a form of sex.”

  “…”

  “In the penetrative sort of way.”

  “Ah.”

  “Like sometime you’re fucking and it feels good and sometimes you’re just getting fucked.”

  “Nice analogy. Did she elaborate for you?”

  “About what?”

  “What the heck it means to want to get laid like an engine?”

  “Ah, sort of, sure, as much as one can describe a metaphor.”

  “Heat generation maybe? The use of oil?”

  “No, more like in an inventive sort of way, the beginning of something that tips the table and the world’s modes of transportation slide off. And then the table is righted and someone puts a car there and you get in it and jam down the accelerator and scream over the steering wheel, ‘blow me everybody and get out of my way!’”

  “Like pedestrians and cyclists?”

  Alex roles his eyes. I smile. He continues, “As in whatever sex had been for her she no longer wanted that. She wanted to clean the slate. Start over. Turn the engine over.”

  “Right.”

  “She has no time for feeding horses or pushing into a packed steam-powered train. She wasn’t seeking a complete reversion.”

  “I hope you wore a seatbelt.”

  “Is that also a metaphor?” Alex says with a laugh. “She was indeed a gas engine.”

  We continue talking and then we leave and hug and say bye and I
cycle home in the spitting rain. Goodbye beautiful day.

  A girl who lives on the second floor is exiting our building and sees me roll up and holds the door open for me.

  “Hi. Thank-you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She turns angling her yoga matt so I can fit by with my bike.

  “Thank-you thank-you.”

  “It’s not a bother.”

  “Bye.”

  “Have a good evening,” she says with a sincere smile.

  I return my bike to the balcony and take off my shoes and sweater and sit down on the couch.

  I watch another movie.

  I get ready for bed.

  I go to bed, sleeping on my back my breath the only thing in the night.

  I get up and go to work. I task and answer phone calls.

  I go out and get a coffee from the barista. My day’s highlight so far.

  I return to work. I answer phone calls. I leave work.

  I’m on the train and Karen messages me. Her husband is working late. She wants to come over. I arrive home. She shows up a little while later.

  We’re naked in my bed on our sides and I’m inside her and our heads are on separate pillows. I’m inside of her and this is how we started and we haven’t moved. I haven’t pushed any deeper than this.

  We’re looking at each other and I can feel her vagina pulling on my penis.

  “What is that?”

  “What?”

  “That. You’re pulling me.”

  “You like it?”

  “I do.”

  She extends her arm and rakes her fingers through my hair.

  “How was your day?”

  “This is the highlight.”

  She pulls at my penis again. “Well thank-you.”

  I smile. “You?”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “If you get any deeper than you are right now.”

  “I’ll keep you anticipating then.”

  “You’re terrible,” she says pushing me, pulling me.

  “Keep wanting. … Random question.”

  “Okay.”

  “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  She quickly draws back in a surprise. “Where’s that coming from?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just been an odd week.”

  “I’d rather think about your cock in me.”

  “It’s already in you.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she says with a smirk.

  “Humour me.”

  She sighs. “… I don’t know. … You?”

  I shrug.

  “Not fair.”

  I look past her shoulder. “Guess what time it is?”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “Depends if you want me deeper inside you.”

  She wiggles closer to me biting her lip. She puts her hand on my hips and pulls me deeper into her. “Have me,” she says.

  “It’s just past seven.”

  “Seriously?”

  I nod a yes.

  “Crap! I need to go!”

  “I know.”

  She purrs and says, “I want to stay!”

  “Your husband doesn’t want you to.”

  She punches me softly. “Please don’t mention him.”

  My smile says okay.

  She moans in frustration and she says okay again and slowly pulls away and I slide out of her and she moans again and slowly gets out of bed and slowly dresses and says bye and I say I’ll walk you out. I pull my underwear and jeans on and we’re at my door and she’s putting on her shoes and we awkwardly kiss and say bye again and then I’m sitting on my couch and I don’t know what. I don’t know what the worst thing that has happened to me I s.

  I suddenly feel totally alone.

  13.

  A leaf passes past her head and twirls and descends and settles down between her feet. I take a picture. She’s five steps in front of me. I’m photographing her, trying to capture how she moves, the way of Cynthia. How she navigates through her days. There’s a rhythm and beauty in her hips that could not be taped to any walls.

  I take a picture of her blue shoulder bag tucked under her orange merino sweater clothed arm. I take a picture of her blonde ponytail sweeping back and forth against the base of her neck.

  “Smile!”

  She turns and walks backwards. I take a picture of her green shoes against the grey brushed concrete sidewalk.

  “You missed!” she exclaims.

  I take a picture, her mouth still passing out words. “No I didn’t.”

  We walk past stores lining the street then a gravel parking lot then a garbage bin at the edge of an alley then stores then.

  She says over her shoulder to me, “This city needs a better rhythm, more consistency in interesting buildings to admire.”

  I stop and look at my reflection in a store window.

  I take a picture.

  She adds, “Real buildings, buildings where the architect tried harder.”

  I turn towards her. She’s standing there, swinging her bag about in front of her.

  “What?” I ask.

  “This street bores me.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to come here.”

  “I know, and now it’s dead to me. Enough pictures of this place, this carnival-esque small town faux main street manufactured nostalgia.”

  “That might just be the greatest sentence you have ever formed.”

  She comes up to me and pulls my arm. “Come on, we’re out.”

  She tugs me towards the edge of the sidewalk. A teenager on a unicycle cycles by, cars parallel parked beside us. Traffic lights changing, pedestrian signals beeping, a lineup of people at a bus stop, listening to their music players, reading the daily paper, messaging, staring vacantly.

  Cynthia hooks my arm around hers, “Go time” and we walk breathing in the late afternoon air.

  I take a picture of a window cleaner’s soapy water bucket and the puddle of water between it and the window.

  We pass a disheveled man without legs sitting in a wheelchair watching a magpie perched on a chain link fence. He’s humming something, some unrecognizable tune, something on loop inside of his head.

  We walk.

  We wander streets trying to pull things apart by taking pictures of them, by talking about them.

  A girl in a harlequin print dress pushes a flyer at my chest. I take it. I read it out loud to Cynthia, “Jesus Our Lord and –”

  She laughs into my shoulder. I fold the paper in half and walk with it and drop it into a blue bin as we walk past.

  “If nothing else, He’ll be impressed you recycle.”

  “It’s best He keep a low bar for me.”

  She tucks into my arm. She watches our shadow bend and shape over cracks and patterns and a root pushing up under the concrete.

  “Did I tell you that I like this sweater?” she says.

  “No you haven’t.”

  “I do.”

  “Thank-you.”

  A newspaper catches the breeze of a passing car and lifts up and hangs the animate object posing. I take a picture.

  Cynthia lets go of my arm and walks around a bike locked to a tree. “I like this street.”

  “Why?”

  She points saying, “Take a picture of it for me.”

  I stop and raise the camera to my eye, she continues, “This city needs more of this. More streets with trees and street art by street artists and an eclectic mix of housing. More streets where cars are forced to do less than 40.”

  “More hot people,” I say with a smile.

  “Don’t belittle my rant.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  I take a picture, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

  “Nice cleavage.”

  She squeezes her breasts together. “With a little effort I can get something out of these double As.”

  I stick out my chest.

  “Don’t make me jealous, Shawn.
… Now, back to my rant.”

  “Please,” I say walking up to her.

  “There’s a town in the Netherlands that removed all of its traffic signs from its historic centre. The town basically created a sort of traffic anarchy. You are forced to pay attention to what you’re doing.”

  “God help us.”

  “Apparently road accidents are at a historic low.”

  “Damn those Dutch!”

  “Lofty bastards.”

  “Our culture of safety wouldn’t let that fly here.”

  “I like that.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe we’re a litigious society so we overly segregate function into constituent parts. We regulate our environment for the lowest common denominator.”

  “A city built for idiots. Well resolved, Cynthia.”

  “Did you know the city regulates sidewalk railings so that they can’t be climbed? That’s why they have vertical bars, so people can’t climb them and fall over into an oncoming bus or train.”

  “Safety first! Jez, I wonder when that was branded on our brains?”

  “There’s so much in our city that just sort of becomes banal, even before it was finished being constructed.”

  “A walk through a place should allow emotional and intellectual stimulation at some level.”

  “Agreed,” I add.

  She continues, “Forget destination and find the striations in city form, expose the stuff, find the unintended. Throw away your map and need to get some place. Fall in love with the city and just let go, unless of course you’ve been walking awhile and need a toilet.”

  I laugh and she gives me a what-did-I-say look and I say, “I heart cities.”

  “Meh.” She takes the camera from around my neck. “Do it.”

  “What?”

  “Fall in love. Do it.”

  “I don’t even know what that means!”

  She shakes her head. “Oh piss off.”

  She kicks me with the outside of her foot and I stumble and stop short of a girl walking her dog.