Cheeseburger Subversive

by Richard Scarsbrook

  I flick the coin from my thumb. It defects off Tristan’s forehead and disappears through the heating grate on the floor. Oops!

  Tristan sighs.

  “You never take me seriously.”

  A few days later I catch Tristan practicing his unusual personal religion. He is asking questions, it seems, to the tiled ceiling of our dorm room, while flipping a coin onto his bed. He says each word slowly, deliberately, as if English is the ceiling’s second language. I watch with both horror and amusement through the crack I have opened in the door.

  “Does she love me?” he intones.

  The quarter lands tails up on his neatly made bed. He looks disappointed.

  “Okay then, is she in love with me?”

  Tails again. He snatches the coin from the bed and tries again.

  “Is she falling in love with me?”

  Tails.

  “Will she probably fall in love with me in the very near future?”

  This time, the coin comes up heads.

  “Ya-hoooo! She’s going to fall in love with me! It’s going to happen!”

  He dances around like somebody has just tested jumper cables on his privates.

  A-HA! This explains everything! Perhaps Tristan isn’t a complete lunatic after all. He’s IN LOVE!

  “Hi, Tristan!” I bark happily as I shove the door open and throw my knapsack onto my bed.

  He stops immediately, frozen in an unnatural position like a mannequin at a lingerie boutique.

  “Cajoling the predictive forces of the time-space continuum, were you?” I ask.

  “Whadda you mean?”

  “So,” I ask, grinning, “if you ask the forces of the universe the same question enough times, do they eventually get fed up and give you what you want?”

  Tristan does not laugh.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Dak. I asked a different question each time. You’ve got to ask very specific questions because you can only get a yes-or-no answer. There’s a difference between loving someone, being in love with someone, falling in love, and being about to fall in love!”

  He slumps onto his bed, and buries his face in his pillow.

  “What can I do?” comes his muffled cry. “What can I do to make her fall in love with me sooner? I can’t wait forever!”

  Poor Tristan. I feel bad for him. I’ve been through this sort of hell before, too.

  “What’s her name, Tris?” I ask sympathetically.

  “Her name is Veronica.”

  Veronica, eh? The name of a comic book girl, if I’m not mistaken — the type of comic book girl with anatomically impossible breasts. If I remember correctly, she dates a comic book dork named Archie, a character with whom Tristan shares more than a few physical characteristics. Interesting . . .

  “Does she know you like her?” I ask.

  “Like her? I love her! I hear her voice in gurgling tap water! Cracks in the pavement spell out her name! I see her face in the bark of trees!”

  “Um, you told her all of that?”

  “Everything.”

  “What, um, did she think of all of that?” I ask, while wondering if she has called the police yet.

  He sighs.

  “She says she thinks I’m cute.”

  “Well, that’s a good sign, I suppose . . . ”

  Tristan frowns.

  “There’s a major problem: she’s already in love with another guy.”

  “Oh, come on, Tristan!” I say, “I’m sure he’s no match for you!”

  He sighs again. It is becoming a reflexive action for him, like blinking or breathing.

  “She’s in love with Kurt Cobain,” he mutters.

  “The dead rock star?”

  “The same.”

  Oh dear. This IS bad news for my batty roommate. Dead rock stars are pretty tough competition because they do not tend to make the same clumsy mistakes which we living men are inclined to commit, such as jokingly referring to a girlfriend’s special prom night hairdo as Eva Braun-esque. Or backing a girlfriend’s father’s Lincoln Continental into Sammy’s Souvlaki Hut. Or projectile-vomiting on a girlfriend’s prom dress after delivering a lengthy speech on one’s masculine ability to stomach great quantities of cheap contraband liquor. But I digress. This is Tristan’s story, not mine.

  “Love is hell,” moans Tristan, pounding a fist against his pillow.

  “Buck up, Tristan!” I heartily bark, “there are plenty of fish in the sea!”

  These were the exact words of wisdom delivered to me by my father on the night Zoe dumped me. Unfortunately, they are as calming to Tristan as they were to me.

  “I don’t want any other fish! I want Veronica!” he wails, “She’s the only fish for me!”

  Four days have passed since Tristan’s revelation of undying love, and I have acquired a headache at least as intense as the pain in Tristan’s heart. Perhaps the throbbing in my brain has been caused by the lack of sleep resulting from the ghastly three AM shrieks of “Oh, Veronica!” There is also the possibility that in some subconscious way, I empathize with Tristan’s predicament. Whatever the reason, I have become determined to help Tristan win the hand of his wayward beauty before he dies of heartache (or strangulation).

  There is only one problem: I am not exactly a Rhodes Scholar on the subject of what attracts women to men. After mulling the issue over thoroughly in my mind (and having consumed three cans of Guinness), I decide to go right to the source: I will ask an actual woman! Specifically, I will call my ex-girlfriend Zoe.

  Maybe, somehow, my wanting to help another person will warm her heart, and maybe she will forgive me for what happened. And maybe if I flap my arms hard enough, I’ll be able to fly to the moon. But, anything is worth a try. I would rather know that she is completely finished with me and get all the misery over with at once, rather than clinging to the faint hope of reconciliation for the next four years of living on the same campus. I wonder if she enrolled at the same university just to torture me.

  So now I am holding the receiver of a pay phone against my cheek. My throat is dry. The phone on the other end of the line rings four times, then there is a click, followed by short, quiet hum. Damn. It’s her answering machine.

  “Hi there!” says Zoe’s recorded voice. “I’m not able to take your call right now but please leave a message. Unless this is Dak, in which case you can hang up immediately. And never call me again. You prick.”

  Beep.

  “Zoe! Listen to this message! Please please please! I really, desperately need your help! This is not another scheme to get you to be my girlfriend again, I promise! The happiness of another human being is at stake here. My roommate is in a desperate situation! I can’t save him without your help!”

  I am about to hang up when I think to add something.

  “Please, help us, Obi-Wan. You’re our only hope.”

  I am hoping that this quotation from Star Wars will soften her a little. I used to do it all the time when we were in high school. She thought it was cute. Well, at the time, anyway.

  The phone line continues to hum indifferently. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I am such a buffoon. I’m just about to hang up when Zoe’s voice (the real live version) comes through the receiver.

  “This had better be good, Dak.”

  When I am finished explaining the situation to her, there is a protracted silence.

  “Okay,” she says finally, “I’ll try to help you with this guy. But I’m not making any promises.”

  “Aw, thanks, Zoe!” I gush, “you can’t imagine what this means to me. I love you for doing this! I could kiss you!”

  “It’ll be a cold day in hell before you ever kiss me again, Dak.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Will you still help me?”

  “I’ll meet you at the Elbow Room at 8:30. You can buy me a drink and we’ll talk about it.”

  She hangs up.

  It is nearly midnight. Tristan, Zoe, and I are huddled around a table at the Elbow Room. Tristan and Zoe
have been discussing in great detail the things a man should do and not do when pursuing a potential mate. My role in all of this has been to keep quiet, pay for the drinks, and to accept an occasional cold glance from Zoe whenever she mentions one of the things a man should not do.

  “Thanks, Zoe,” says Tristan, his chest swelling, “I’m ready to go claim Veronica as my own!”

  She shakes her head.

  “No, Tristan. Nobody can claim anyone else. All you can do is offer yourself, and hope that the other person accepts.”

  He deflates.

  “What if she doesn’t accept? I’ll die!”

  “Well, if you really like her that much, try again. You might endear yourself to her.”

  “Does that really work?” I pipe in.

  “Not in your case,” she says.

  Tristan digs a quarter from his pocket. He looks up at the smoke-yellowed barroom ceiling.

  “Will Veronica be mine by the end of this evening?” he moans like a magician uttering an incantation.

  He flips the quarter into the air. It lands with a plop in my half-drained beer glass. He grabs my beer and peers into it with one eye.

  “Yes! It’s heads! Yes!”

  Tristan goes prancing out of the bar like a kid in a playground who has just won the big marble. Zoe is smiling.

  “Boy, you weren’t exaggerating! He’s absolutely mental!”

  Zoe has a wonderful smile. I’m staring at her. I can’t help it.

  “Stop it, Dak,” she says quietly. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  So I stare at the quarter at the bottom of my glass, only sneaking a couple of glances at her when she isn’t looking. That harvest-time wheat coloured hair of hers is longer than ever. It’s pulled back in a pony tail revealing her perfect cheekbones, her cute little nose. God. She’s a full-grown woman. She’s beautiful. She’s amazing. And I’m an idiot.

  My brain works furiously on how to deal with this crushing silence. Jokes? No, she’s too angry with me. Charm? Ha. Good one. Send flowers? Get real. You’re in a bar, stupid! Besides, it’s far too late for flowers.

  My eyes are flitting desperately around the room now, looking for any diversion to end this quiet hell. But just as I feel like I might implode, a dozen or so young women wearing black W.I.C. T-shirts march through the entrance to the Elbow Room. A few of them are carrying signs, hand-lettered with such slogans as Pornography Equals Disrespect! and Shame on Speaker’s Corner! Yes! The diversion I was hoping for!

  W.I.C. stands for Women’s Issues Commission, and the issue in question, of course, is the sale of Playboy from the racks of Speaker’s Corner, the overpriced convenience store located in the basement of the university community centre. Apparently, the W.I.C.s (who seem to be mostly sociology majors) think that the sale of soft-core pornography within the hallowed walls of an academic institution is wrong. Fair enough, I think. Can you imagine what Tristan would be like if, instead of anatomically ridiculous comic book illustrations of women, he had access to nude photos of real women? They’d have to cart him away in a white truck!

  The W.I.C. protesters have procured a large table near the bar. They have ordered a tray of draught beer; apparently, temperance is not part of their mandate. I like them already! Also, contrary to the stereotypes perpetuated by The Bolt (the underground newspaper run by mostly male engineering students), the majority of the protesters are cute, perky-looking undergraduates. Some of them wear makeup, and those in skirts possess recently shaved legs: hobby protestors!

  The presence of the W.I.C.s does not present a sufficient diversion in itself, though. However, six male engineering students have entered the bar directly behind the W.I.C.s, wearing Hugh Hefner-style smoking jackets. They are singing the engineering student theme song, which goes:

  “We are, we are, we are, we are, we are the engineers We can, we can, we can, we can demolish forty beers!”

  “How?” I wonder aloud. “By dropping the bottles out a fifth-storey window?”

  Zoe resists the urge to laugh.

  The engineering students have positioned themselves at a table adjacent to the young female protesters.

  “Hey, boys!” hollers the loudest of the engineers, “you know what ‘W.I.C.’ stands for? ‘Wish I had a cock!’”

  Three of the his colleagues erupt into laughter; the other two cover their faces with their hands and shake their heads.

  A thin, pretty, black-haired girl at the W.I.C. table turns towards the Hefners and says, “Then I guess you boys should join up, eh?”

  Ooh! Good one! I’ll have to give her two points for that. Hefners – 1, W.I.C.s – 2!

  “Hey, baby,” snorts the head Hefner, “that was a pretty good one for somebody who is against the freedom of expression!”

  Uh oh. I don’t like the direction this is heading.

  “First of all,” says the black-haired woman, “the term ‘baby’ really doesn’t apply to anyone over the age of two. But never mind that. Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Fire away!” says the guy.

  “Suppose you got drunk and passed out here, then I stripped you naked, stuck a cucumber up your ass, took a picture of you, and then pinned copies of it on the walls all over campus. Would that be okay? Would I be free to express myself in that way?”

  The head Hefner steps towards her.

  “I liked the part about you stripping me naked!”

  “Dream on, asshole,” she replies.

  “Veronica!” comes a voice from the other side of the bar.

  It’s Tristan. He sprints through the room toward the black-haired debater.

  This is the girl Tristan has gone mental over? This is Veronica? Wow. Tristan suddenly seems more real to me.

  Veronica looks at Tristan. Her expression mellows.

  “Hi, Tris.”

  “I called your place, and your roommate said I might find you here.”

  His expression turns to panic.

  “Hey. Who’s this guy?”

  The Hefner wannabe smirks.

  “Hey, babe, it’s no wonder you don’t like men, if this friggin’ geek’s your boyfriend!”

  “I’d like to be!” says Tristan.

  “He’s got a better chance than you do, jerk!” Veronica barks.

  “I do?” coos Tristan.

  “Aw! She must be a lesbian!” says the guy too loudly. His compatriots no longer seem to find any of this very amusing. Dressing up in funny outfits and drinking beer is one thing, but demeaning cute young women — potential dates is not what they had in mind.

  “Yup,” says Mr. Charming, “I think she’s a rug-muncher!”

  Veronica flushes. She glares at her nemesis, throws her arms around Tristan, and locks onto his face with one of the most vacuum-intensive kisses I have ever witnessed. When she finally pulls herself away, Tristan is cross-eyed with elation. Veronica wears a tight-lipped smile.

  “Wrong guess, asshole,” she says to Mr. Charming.

  “Bitch!” he spits.

  Tristan’s expression blanks, and he does something that approaches the Humphrey Bogart level of coolness. I am totally amazed — maybe he has learned something from all those comic books!

  “Wrong again, buddy,” he says. “That’s zero out of two. Shall we try for three?”

  He launches a fist in the direction of his beloved’s nemesis. Tres cool, Tristan!

  Unfortunately, his aim is poor and his punch glances off the guy’s shoulder. Mr. Charming socks Tristan in the eye, sending him crashing into an onlooker’s table.

  What the hell am I doing? I’m on my feet. I’m sprinting towards Mr. Charming. I’ve got him by the shoulders. I’ve spun him around. I’ve got his arms behind his back. I’m pushing him towards the door.

  Where did I learn this stuff?

  “Out!” I bark, as I launch him through the door, his ass via my foot.

  Back at the other side of the bar, the remaining engineers are apologizing profusely to the more attractive memb
ers of the W.I.C. contingent. Veronica and Tristan are now sitting together in a dark corner. She is dabbing at his eye with an ice cube. Tristan wears the expression of a heaven-bound soul.

  “I thought you were in love with Kurt Cobain?” Tristan sighs.

  “Only in theory, Tristan,” Veronica says.

  Zoe joins me at the exit.

  “Your lip is bleeding,” she says.

  I touch my fingers to my lip. Yep, it’s blood.

  “Geeze, I hate violence,” I gripe.

  “Except at hockey games, right?” Zoe says.

  “I’m not so crazy about it when it involves me personally.”

  Instinctively, I put on my Don Cherry impersonation voice.

  “Let this be a lesson to all you kids out there — keep those sticks down!”

  Zoe’s face. Is she grinning? Yes, I’m sure of it. A grin! But now it’s gone.

  “Well,” she says.

  “Well,” I reply.

  “See you later, I guess . . . ”

  She turns, pushes the crash bar of the exit door, and she’s gone.

  I nearly follow her but it occurs to me that Mr. Charming could still be out there waiting to put my teeth into my digestive regions. I opt for the back door.

  I catch Tristan’s eye as I pass. He gives me the thumbs-up sign as Veronica whispers in his ear.

  I sit on the curb behind the Elbow Room, leaning against a plump garbage bag. I’m thinking about the Valentine card I made for Zoe in grade six. On the back of it I wrote, “I want to be Han Solo to your Princess Leia,” then I promptly ripped it up to avoid being taunted by the other boys at school. I’m thinking about our first car date, when I blew up the engine in my doomed old Pontiac trying to race a guy in a Camaro. I’m thinking about when we used her pantyhose to fix my old Ford truck. I’m thinking about how she wiped root beer from my eyes after my disagreement with a McDonald’s counter boy last year, and about how she wiped blood off my lip after I got punched on the school bus in grade six. I’m thinking about the time in grade eleven, when she wasn’t speaking to me, and I wrote a poem for her and read it out loud in class and didn’t care if anyone laughed. I’m thinking about how I discovered later that she retrieved that poem from the classroom garbage, smoothed it out, and put it in a pewter frame on her bedside table.