Blind hearts-ManxMan-boyxboy

Dude, where's my car?

 His words were astounding, quite simply. Alex did not know whether to be amazed that his father finally opined on his life or be impatient with the discolored peas on his blackened chicken breast.  Something possessed him to say, “It’s all right. I decided on Irvine.” And then after losing against a slab of supposedly rare steak, David asked a waiter for the check.

For days afterwards, Alex wrestled for peace on his decision. Was it duty to idea of family or acquiescence to the idea of family that had moved him? And through the freshmen experience of a theatric cast of friends, drunken sex in a closet, losing meanderings at the investment club, the question had long been irrelevant. He forgot about a time when he wanted to escape the igloo of his house and the undeniable tingle when he gazed upon Frank’s chin.

 And under the heaven of dim stars, his car nowhere in sight, he was still stumped over the question.  He sallied another block, passing by the regular poles of parking meters and those parking signs that read like an SAT logic test. His phone was buzzing in his pocket. It was a text message from Frank.

2morrow, free GOOD food at Malibu.  1 pm?

I dunno Frankie boy. Mom’s going berserk with ur evil capitalist influence.

Shucks, all women f**king hate me. What did I do to ur mom? I luv ur mom.

Alex swayed his head at the careless truth of it. Of course Frank would love a woman who wasn’t his mother, or someone in whom he had no sexual interest whatsoever. Alex clucked, surveyed un-seriously across the street the empty parking spots and one or two cars dissolving into the blue night.

He replied. She smells u being fake a mile away.

Fake, that’s a new one.

Telling her quilting is stupid is kinda stupid.

I was sixteen! I’m allowed to say stupid s**t. Anyway u can tell her that my evil capitalist dad got me a shining job in NY. Consulting. It seems I’m obligated to do it, if I don’t want to knife Mom with a heart attack. Yeah, I luv women, esp moms.

Suddenly the skies were falling around Alex. These messages, these calls… they were darts shooting from an unseen direction and impaling his heart.  Like the call he had received at the end of freshmen year of college, one fine Sunday during another damned lunch with David, reminding him of an existence he had so painstakingly tried to erase.  

Frank had whinnied something about a hot girl and poker before Alex had the presence of mind to drop the phone and mind David slicing a disc of ham like it was a stubborn cow, and slicing still until the knife screeched against the glass plate.  He remembered David’s glassy stare that needled him to say quickly, “Oh that was Frank. He wants us to learn poker together.”

David wiped his moustache like he was looking for something in its thick ledge and murmured, “You’d be good at it. You think well under pressure.”

Looking across the table to a steel shine of the diner counter, he thought ruefully that Frank would concur with his father. Thinking led him to picturing the stocky bastard lounging on a pool chair, the sun strong on his brow, and hairy paws just below his navel and guiding him to the hairy trail that disappeared under the much too tin creases of his swim short. He gulped, cursed inwardly the runt for disturbing his life. Then he came back to his table, to David’s intense stare, which bumped him fully over to unease.

“Yeah well. Poker sounds like an expensive hobby,” The hot air was rising rapidly through his lungs, “Maybe for fun. Certainly have no money waste on it. Frank doesn’t mind funding me. But that’s just sketchy. Would make Mom go apeshit—sorry about my language … I’d have to spend a whole summer working to blow off money on poker. … seems something… Mom wants me to do volunteer work, says it’s great for med school application … Poker sounds more fun, playing poker with Frank sounds more interesting that running a soup kitchen…”

 With a lapse of his mind engines, he was able to notice David exhaling for far too long, then he promptly shut up.

“Oh I remember Frank,” David said solidly, “I remembered you liked him.”

“Of course I like him, he’s my buddy.”

There was slight twitch in David’s lips for just one moment before he, as if reclaiming a dry aura, bent over his plate and began the surgical task of dividing a black burr from the cream white potato, and the wrinkly potato skin.  Alex imagined him a toddler separating the green peas from orange carrots. A low noise wafted from David’s downturned face; Alex did not care to ask him to repeat himself. But the noise still worked through his eardrum and snagged on the stubs in his brain. “I meant you liked him.”

Alex’s fingers went slack, clinking his fork over his plate. Immediately, he regained control of the fork, but his muscles clenched over it. His thoughts chased after Susan’s words, hunted for clues of her understanding, as much David seemed to. But he came up with nothing, just more of her nagging on the classes he should be taking, the men he should stop f**king.  Incensed, he glowered at David’s fingers, thick and hairy, still precise over the damn spuds. He thought if his feelings were this transparent to dull David, then he must become an act of God to vanquish them. 

An Act of God … Alex sneered, staring at Frank’s text message framed within blue border.  U coming to Malibu 2morrow or what? A truck came barreling past him, its triumphant roar of its engines, the acrid void of its exhaust. In its wake, powerful feelings pumped him.  He smashed a yes reply to the message and checked for other messages from an odd assortment of previous lovers. And then it was back to the question at hand: where was his f**king car?