The Undergraduates

by Steven Snell

  “It’s inspired by a Group of Seven painting.”

  “I have no idea what that is.”

  “I guess it’s a Canadian thing.”

  “Is it an interior design thing?”

  “They’re a collection of artists.”

  “Oh, then we can pick other paint colours,” she said.

  I look at the empty wall beside the front door. I pulled down all the pictures the day after she left. I didn’t want to look at “sunny and beautiful” things. I didn’t want to look at her things.

  The holes are still visible from where the nails were. I think about filling them in and returning to the Group of Seven colours scheme that she never got to completely painting over.

  I turn on the TV and watch the news.

  I wasn’t aware of it, but I am now in a shit mood.

  I sit on my couch in this shit mood and watch the shit news. A commercial. More commercials. Another program. I’m just staring blankly at the screen.

  My phone beeps. I stand up and retrieve it from the kitchen counter. It’s a message from Beth.

  I met her when I was with Gabriella. Gabriella thought we should move out of my old rental apartment and invest in something. We drove around to a few different neighbourhoods and on our way back home we decided to have a look at the model suite for the building going up across the street from us. Beth worked there as a sales agent. Gabriella and I didn’t like how the place felt. We left. I was walking home from the train station a few months later, Gabriella and I had broken up. I was walking past the building and a woman called to me and I looked around and she was standing with a coffee and smiled and asked if I had found anything yet – asked if my fiancé and I had found anything. I said we hadn’t, that there wasn’t a we anymore. We started talking. She asked me out for a drink. I don’t know why but I said yes. We’ve been caustic for each other ever since.

  Her message says, “Come over”

  I write back, “Cant”

  A second passes. “Why?”

  I reply, “Busy”

  “Change ur plans. Im alone”

  “Sorry”

  “UR no fun”

  “Dont I know it”

  A minute passes. She writes, “Get OVER HERE”

  I respond, “Enjoy your evening!”

  She writes, “Being sarcastic?”

  “Maybe”

  “UR an asshole”

  “Yawn”

  She doesn’t respond.

  I put my phone back down shaking my head and wonder why I sleep with her. What function is she filling? What function am I filling?

  I return to the couch and return to staring. I stare and stare. I’m fucking lonely. I’m bored and fucking lonely. I think of Beth. I picture her. Maybe I should go over. I can say my plans have changed. I picture her naked. I picture her kissing me. I hate when she kisses me. Fuck it. I turn off the TV and put my sweater on, grab my keys and exit my apartment. I descend the three flights of stairs and wonder if I’ll bump into Vanessa from the floor above me. I take my time going down. I want to see her. Maybe just a hug. Maybe she’ll invite me in. I want to see her but I don’t see her.

  I go to the corner store and buy a can of soup. I return home and hope to see Vanessa. I don’t and return to my apartment and turn on the stove and start to heat up the soup.

  I scan through my catalogue of CDs. What mood am I in? Something simple and melancholic. Something just for me. I pull out a disc and slide it into the CD player and press Play. It starts. Just vocals and a guitar. I feel the music and slowly nod my head to it.

  I pour the heated soup into the bowl and take it out to the balcony and sit down on the single chair and put my feet up against the railing. I lean back in the chair and watch the grey clouds and wait for rain. I listen to the music and the sounds of the street and eat my soup.

  My mood. It isn’t sadness, it isn’t depression, it just is; just not happy or content or –. I wonder if it’s the meds still flushing out of my brain. I eat my soup and listen to the music and like a minute hand sweeping past VII, VIII, IX, X, my mood descends. I sit here and let it.

  I sit here for a long time, my empty bowl of soup on the concrete floor beside this chair my shit mood ass sits on.

  The CD finishes and my apartment behind me is silent. Empty. I’m empty. I need something in me. A presence. Fill in the silence.

  I think about Gabriella again. We ended our relationship. I ended it. She said, “Don’t you want to fight for us?” Her car was packed. I didn’t say anything. She left and drove home, two days home. She stopped at a friend’s place in Vancouver. A couple of days later she called me from her bedroom in her parent’s house. She said I was weak. She said she was angry. She talked and I said nothing. She started to cry. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to talk. I knew if I talked I wouldn’t be able to hold my voice and I’d cry. I didn’t want to cry. Then there was a long silence. I pictured her shaking her head. She said, “No words. No words, Shawn. Sometimes I just needed to hear how you felt. … But maybe I built you up more than I ever should have. But that’s only because you didn’t let me get to really know you. You didn’t let me get to know you. I built you up. … And I’m sad now. I’m sad we can’t talk. I’m sad we didn’t talk our way through what we had. … You’re weak and I wanted to fight and you just shut down. … I could have dealt with whatever our situation was because I knew I loved you. That Shawn, that was enough for me. I loved you. I don’t need to question everything. You don’t need to question everything! … and … and I don’t need to feel like a stranger is waking up beside me. I loved you even though I didn’t really know who you were. Fuck I love you and Christ that hurts and I hate myself for it.”

  My phone rings. It snaps me out of my thoughts. It rings again and I tilt forward the chair and stand to get my phone. It’s Jacob.

  “Hello?”

  “Shawn, it’s Jacob.”

  “Hey.”

  “Should I be worried about you?”

  “What. Why?”

  “You seemed off today.”

  “… Maybe, I don’t know.” I shrug.

  “You’d tell me if you were feeling fucked off?”

  “… Probably.”

  “Good.”

  “If feeling fucked off is good, sure.”

  I stop talking. There’s a silence on the line, maybe an awkward one. Jacob breaks it. “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”

  “Ha. Funny. Not ha ha funny, but funny.” I’m not laughing, just making a laughing sound.

  “What?”

  “A few days ago I asked The Wife the same question.”

  “Really? I thought you two didn’t really talk.”

  “We don’t.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “I guess so.”

  “… So?”

  “What?”

  “The worse thing?”

  “I don’t know. … I’m not sure if there’s one thing. You caught me at an off time.”

  “They happen often?”

  I shrug. “What’s often?”

  “Good question. Maybe looking back on an X period of time, that day, that week, that year, and when you think about it, what were you thinking?”

  “I feel,” I take a long draw of breath in, I scratch my temple, “I just don’t get things.”

  Jacob doesn’t immediately reply. I change the phone in my hands. “You?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me? … I gave up trying to figure it out.”

  “Gave up trying to figure it out?”

  “I’m aware that I’m losing the feeling of giving a shit.”

  “I never would have guessed.”

  “Thank-you.”

  “Thank-you?”

  “That I hide it well.”

  “And that’s good?”

  “Sometimes not everyone needs to know my drama.”

  “Some people should.”

 
“Maybe.”

  I hesitate. I say, “Not giving a shit?” I inflect ‘shit’.

  “Right.”

  I nod. “Hmm.”

  “Hmm, what?” Jacob asks.

  “I haven’t thought about it like that before.”

  “What’s that?”

  “… Being numb.”

  “No, it’s not numbness. I feel … I’m just trying to accept a less romanticized version of the world that we grew up bathing in.”

  Our conversation continues, but we don’t say much, just fill in the blanks. We say bye. I press End on my phone and put it back down on my counter and lean back looking out into the grey night. Saturday ends, the hour hand sweeps past XII.

  Then Sunday ends, and the following week too.

  I submit to routine.

  Eat. Work. Sleep. Work.

  The rain stays. It stays all week.

  Work. Eat. Sleep.

  Cynthia calls. Jacob calls.

  I don’t answer, don’t listen to their voicemails.

  I go to work. Another day.

  I try to chat up the girl at the coffee shop. Just another day. She says she saw me riding my bicycle a week ago. I ask her if she’d like to see me ride it again. She looks surprised and goes to help a customer. I leave.

  I return to work. Another day.

  Another day.

  I listen to the voicemails from Cynthia and Jacob.

  Jacob’s message, “This is me not worrying again.”

  I delete the message.

  Cynthia’s message, “Voicemail number three. If you’re dead, know that you’re a beautiful corpse. Call me. Love you. Bye, gorgeous.”

  My face cracks a smile. I can’t remember the last time I smiled. I save the message. I smile.

  It’s Saturday. My orange wrist band silver watch reads 9:17; 04:17 GMT. Saturday night. I go to bed. I turn off the light. I’m in bed, alone but I’m smiling. I love you too, Cynthia. I love you Jacob.

  18.

  Cynthia calls.

  “You haven’t been picking up your phone or responding to my voicemails.”

  I know I tell her. I tell her that I’ve been in a funk and moody and out of place and humourless and not feeling right about anything at all. I tell her that I feel lonely. Even at work around people I feel lonely. I tell her I sleep with people and feel alone. She listens and I talk. I tell her how I’ve been thinking about Gabriella. How I miss attachment. How, I don’t know.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “Complain away. Sometimes it’s needed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “… Maybe you need to move on.”

  “I thought I had.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean … time not being with someone.”

  “I just told you that I feel alone.”

  “I know … it’s just that … I don’t know.” She continues, “… You’re never out of anything, just moving through things Maybe take a break from being with someone.”

  “… Maybe.”

  It’s Sunday morning. Cynthia rang me from her bed across the neighbourhood. Then she got up. She went about her apartment as I went about mine. We talked as we went about. Then she sat down at her kitchen table; I sat at mine.

  I hear her move the receiver away from her mouth and yawn.

  She says, “Let’s do less phone talking and more in person talking, yes?”

  “Agreed,” I say pulling my hand down my beard.

  “Good, I’ll meet you in front of the library in a few.”

  “Need time to shower?”

  “No, I don’t believe in showering on Sundays. Just don’t get too close.”

  “Noted.”

  “Enema, brush teeth – wait, enema, wash hands, brush teeth, get dressed; see you after.”

  “Nice routine.”

  “I might smell a bit.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Okay, you’re right, I won’t.”

  “Like a portrait. See you soon.”

  “You will.”

  “Good. Bye.”

  “À plus tard,” she says.

  I push End and put the phone down. Cynthia. I smile. She’s my Anaïs Nin, my Henry Miller with a vagina.

  A few months ago her boyfriend came to visit her for two weeks. They had sex every day: in the morning, after lunch, evening showers. Two Mondays later she drove him to the airport before evening rush hour. She cried at the airport. She cried driving home. She said she had gotten used to the routine, used to being in bed and having a body beside her, used to laughing with the man she loves. She got home and her apartment felt empty, alone, alone and empty in her apartment. So James was invited over and she made him hold her until she fell asleep and then woke up and got him off and asked him to go. Two men. One she loves. One away. One warm. One there. Both something. Both in the same soiled sheets under a green corduroy covered comforter.

  She’s sitting on the bench in front of the library. Her legs crossed, her fingers clasped on her lap. She’s wearing fitted orange slacks and tan boots zipped up over them. She’s wearing a checkered blue doll dress and a grey loose cardigan overtop. A scarf wrapped around her neck checkered darker green, blue and orange.

  She sees me and smiles and stands and we kiss on the cheek.

  “Hey.”

  “Salute. Where to?”

  “The usual?” I ask.

  “You’ll never talk me out of a coffee with lots of cream.”

  “Done.”

  Downtown is quiet as it tends to be on Sunday mornings. There’s a jogger in short shorts, a long sleeve shirt and gloves. There’s a girl walking with a yoga matt talking on her phone. There’s a taxi at the curb waiting for a fair or taking a break or –. There’s a queue of people lined up beside a giant rooster outside a breakfast place. Everything else is stationary, except for the clouds. They are low, bulbous, white and moving along with the upper winds.

  Cynthia hooks my arm with hers and we walk, the only people in the world, alone, just me and her and Sunday.

  “So?”

  “Buttons?” I ask.

  “You’re a quick study.”

  “You’re a good teacher.”

  “… I have a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You got me thinking … does knowing someone intimately matter for you?”

  I think about her question for a few paces. “I don’t know. Depends what you mean by matter. Without history – which to me is intimacy, having created a story together – there’s less to worry about while you’re rolling over and under each other. … Wow, that sounded asshole.”

  “Meh, not really. Sounds practical and honest.”

  “So it matters in a certain context. It depends what you’re looking for.”

  “I get that.”

  “… That being said, I can’t say that sex with, well, someone who is effectively a stranger has been terrible. Mind you, I could sleep with someone for months and not know her. … I just can’t compare it to sex with someone I care about.”

  “Yah, sometimes finger painting just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes I need the weight of someone on me.” She let’s go of my arm and holds my hand. “Mind you, if a guy can stay hard for six or seven minutes, I can shake an orgasm out of me and sometimes that’s all I need.”

  “Thanks for the mental image.”

  “It’s nothing,” she replies pulling me in jest. “But a lot of guys are intimidated when a girl wants to start on top, and when I’m on the bottom they often don’t hit the right angle to get at my G-spot, even with a pillow under my ass.”

  “Nice.”

  “True story.”

  “I was with a girl last month, it was terrible. We weren’t connecting. When that happens all I think about is head, but I would never dare to ask.”

  “For head? Oh, that’s one of the good things about being a girl. We can ask for face without feeling weird about it.”

  “Bitches.�
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  “You have no idea. Having a string of bad sex, are we?”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  She states pedantically, “There’s utility in it.”

  “In bad sex?”

  “Naturally. Think about it. Bad sex is something of a rite of passage. It’s like a public ceremony or ritual recognizing that you’re evolving and making a transition from one group or situation or being to another. It’s a realization that your world view was too narrow and local and the way out is drinking an herbal concoction prayed over by a tribal elder.”

  “So it’s not so much bad as it just doesn’t work for you anymore, like acne.”

  “Exactly. We all get it.”

  “It happens.”

  “Like for me, getting pre-mature ejaculation.”

  “Yikes.”

  “It happens to the best of them.”

  I give her a sideways glance.

  She pulls me in tight smiling. “Good sex is very postmodernism; it’s the structural reversal of Fascism and unitary domination.”

  “You sound like Jacob.”

  “How is he? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

  “He’s back.”

  “I saw that. He’s good?”

  “I think so. More or less. Taking a break from being in his head.”

  “Good. Tell him I say hi, and that we should all catch up.”

  “I will. … Sex …?”

  “Right. Where was I?”

  “Postmodernism.”

  “Right. Right. See, bad sex is very Modern; it’s very bureaucratic and structural. Good sex is relative to your experiences – it’s po-mo.”

  Cynthia’s face is straight; she could be talking about gardening or paying her bills. “Bad sex is like the United States after World War Two. It was left unscathed, comparatively to the European countries, and could therefore pursue economic, political and cultural agendas more aggressively.”

  “Bad sex is economic expansion and cultural absorption?”

  “Duh! With hegemony The States quickly established a global presence. Modernity, there’s just no sensitivity in its motivations.” She yawns into the back of her hand. “I need a coffee.”

  “Yes please.”

  We continue along, aiming for a coffee shop a few blocks down from the library. This isn’t the first time we’ve used modern versus postmodern as a metaphor for our sexual experiences. Cynthia thinks modernism is the root of all evil, very financial globalization. It’s expansion, conquest, adding another partner to your list. She’s postmodern. The meaning embedded in her sexual experience is not stable; truth as orgasm is replaced by interpretation and subjectivity, random access to random sensations. Sex is more about catering to some need than a man above her. She took her sex life and framed it within what she calls a post-Fordist mentality – a marked change in production, from mass consumption of typical men to niche men of specialization – a guy who gives head; a guy who wants a finger up his ass while her lips hold tight to his cock; a man who believes in discovery, not normality, not the missionary position.