10
Mr. Tambourine Man
===========DANNY==========
As the late afternoon waned to early evening, with the sun dropping and changing the angle and color of light broadcasted into my room, Mary and I spun through at least a quarter of my entire record collection and talked. Though I would put our ongoing conversation on hold during the important instrumentals or lyrics. Not to be rude or anything, just my music was an extension of me. Particularly during Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man."
Mary and I could talk about anything and everything. And we did. Music, pseudo-intellectual points about society, ancient aliens, childhood memories, and stories about people from our different high schools that, when mentioned, couldn't be placed to a face, but were talked about anyways. Mary did, though, have this unmatched talent of cutting me off. Like hands building one on top of the other in a team huddle, so did our conversations. Important thoughts, opinions, and questions had to be de-layered and traced back. More often than not, the once so important point got lost completely.
And to think the night before I thought she was a mute.
At times when Mary was speaking, I would be so mesmerized by the motion of her mouth, how certain words blossomed on her lips, that all I could think about was our kiss in The Alley. Screw me, right?
I had probably plotted a hundred different ways Mary and I would kiss again. Something like, I would tell her she had an eyelash on her face then go in for it. But I thought better of it. It was probably stupid, really.
Mom even came in at one point and offered us reheated veggie chili. Mary claimed that it was the "best thing" she'd ever tasted. Personally, I believe Mary was just trying to kiss ass to Mom. And by the way, how the heck did Mom even know who Biggie Smalls was?
Before we knew it, it was dark out and already a quarter past nine. And right when Peter, Paul, or Mary started plucking the guitar on "500 Miles" from their (Ten) Years Together album, Mary (the one sitting in my bedroom) insisted she had to get going. I didn't want her to leave, not yet; there were so many important lyrics on that record.
If you miss the train I am on / You will know that I am gone.
While on the drive to Mary's house as my car––The Stang––crawled through the back streets of Danae's Bay, my hands could barely find the strength to hold onto the steering wheel. Having thrown myself back against the seat, my fingers slid and clutched at the leather of the wheel for dear life as we died of laughter.
"Tha––Tha––" I stammered, fighting the folding-in of my entire body as I gasped for air. "That's so mean but so horribly true! She's totally a dare!"
Unapologetically, we were laughing our heads off about a girl I went to high school with, who, according to her social media, was hanging out with the New Jersey Devils. Although in Mary's opinion, was more likely the team's dare at last bar call.
For a second, before the laugh attacked again, as I gasped in embarrassingly high-pitched bursts, I blinked the tears out of my eyes and looked over at Mary—to you know, make sure she was actually laughing too. And sure enough, she was gasping in silent heaves. Her face pink and brighter than the concealer under her eyes. And as her mouth stretched wide, I noticed her crooked bottom teeth.
Through a deep exhale I managed, "I'll grab your bike for you."
When I flipped the headlights off, the blackness of the night quickly refilled the space where the light drove it out. And yet again, as I compressed the brake for the stop sign at Fisherman's Alley and Seadrift Drop, Mary told me to wait. She scooted out of my car, ran right down Seadrift through the streetlight, and disappeared out of sight. All I could hear was the flip and flop of her feet echoing through the night that had otherwise remained courteously quiet for the choir of crickets.
I pictured all those little bastards, the crickets and the frogs and the mosquitos, organizing a symphony. The frog bulging his throat, dropping the beat. The rest joining in as a grasshopper pinched a weed and conducted the choral. I should've written Silly Symphonies or something. God, I am sorta weird. The ambiance of the coastline at night began to overwhelm the sound of the fading, echoing footsteps until she couldn't be heard at all.
As promised, I began to unstrap the bungee cords that held Mary's bike in place in my trunk—Mustangs really aren't the greatest means of bicycle transportation. Her bike was possibly older than my car, I realized, when I lifted it onto the road and noticed foam sprouting from the tear in the maroon leather seat.
It was probably only a minute, maybe two, but it felt like Mary was gone for about seven hours. The whole routine of dropping Mary off on Fisherman's was getting repetitive and annoying, and I was never a big fan of mysteries. Above the buzz of the crickets, from a distance I heard the eerie chant of an owl.
Fed up, and terrified of the owl, I kicked my leg over the frame of Mary's bike, steered the handle, and pedaled down Seadrift, assuming that my roofless car would be all right amidst the sleeping streets.
Barricaded by a yellow steel divide, Seadrift ended at a cliff overlooking the ocean. I rode right up to the dead-end and looked down at the crest of the bay. A quick and easy passage to Heaven, I thought.
I hollered Mary's name. All I heard in response was the frog's bass line. Mary had literally vanished like she had the night before. The waft of seaweed and salt carried through on the wind smelled familiar, almost purifying. It didn't matter that from where I lived I was only a ten-minute car ride to the beach, the myriad of oceanic elements never lost their novelty on me. The sea possesses an unmatched charm of captivation; I could've sat and watched the steady crest of the waves drift in and out with the tide all night.
While pedaling my way back to my car, assuming she had to re-enter this dimension at some point to claim her bike, I looked to my right down a street named Bayview Avenue. Several houses down on the left, exposed in the wash of a stern yellow light, a girl in a pale orange tank top jerked a doorknob, tugging on it with all her strength, before pausing and trying again. Unsuccessful once more, she took a seat on the top step of her porch.
I biked down Bayview.
Bayview Avenue was a funny street. To my right, the side backing onto the ocean, stood marvelous homes of East Coast heritage and post-modern design. Gardened with all the expectations of the million-dollar mansions that ornamented the Jersey Shore.
And then, to my left, a makeshift collection of homes were compacted tightly together. Gravelly driveways stretched out of some. Others were kept enclosed by rusted fences. Signs forewarned Beware of Dog. From what I knew of Gilmore Park's history, Danae's Bay was the neighborhood for the dockworkers at the old, now closed, Carraway's Port, before it became a beachside "resort."
Two different worlds were brought together on Bayview and were divided by the asphalt that paved the lane between them.
"Mary?" I said, rolling up to her house and clasping the handbrakes.
"Danny?" She jumped to her feet. "What the hell? I told you to wait." Mary marched down the steps. "Go back to the car. Go."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm great," she said, walking my way. "Go back to your car. I'll be two seconds. Ashley has my house key."
"Oh, Ashley lives with you?"
"No? Er—yes. I'm waiting for her."
"Did I drop you off at Ashley's?"
"No."
"Then where are we?"
"Fuck off."
Mary stomped back up the steps.
With her back turned to me, her head tilted against the wooden-beam, she said, "Thanks for my bike or whatever. Have a good night."
From where I stood, leaning on the handles of Mary's bike, her head blocked out the yellow porch light. Silhouetting her in its gleam. Past her head, bronzed numbers read 22.
22 Bayview Avenue.
It had the typical look of a dockworker's house: a raised bungalow in need of a major renovation, or straight-up demolition. Brown crud and algae splodged the white vinyl siding that was weather-worn and splintering. Lichen and all other stuff of the sort made frequent appearances on the front porch that matched the size of the house. And the white paint, which I had imagined stood clean and bold when freshly coated, had long since withered away. Like the face of a once snow-white girl now wrinkled with age.
"Are you locked out?" I asked, after a long while of just staring at her back.
"I'm just waiting for my dad to get home with the key."
When I asked if there was a back door, she told me she'd already tried it. We were thwarted into peril. Before, all my wits and sly remarks were just for charm, for show. Right then, I had a chance to be something more than a Nice Funny Guy. I wanted to be able to do something of importance. I wanted to be the someone who, if she fell, would be there standing strong to hold her.
As Mary leaned against her porch with her skinny back facing me, staring at the screen door—as if anticipating some ghost to come open it—I realized I was losing her. Up until then, I was a gum-collector off the supermarket floor, a last-minute ride home, a jean jacket in the cold. Now, I was just another loser unable to offer anything when it really mattered.
"Mary."
She turned around to look at me. She seemed suddenly older, more tired. Her eyes that usually spiraled with life and light were drifting, dark. Disengaged. The harmonious crickets continued to sing as the rest of the night held her breath.
Then, out of nowhere, I suggested, "Do you want to stay at my place?"
Mary's eyes were locked elsewhere. On a thought, or on a twinkling star shining above the mansions dominating the bay. Maybe she was staring up at a light from a window across the street.
"I swear I'll be wearing my onesie all night," I promised, voluntarily launching myself into a permanent position in the Friend Zone. "I couldn't get outta that thing if I tried."
Her hair swung over her chest as she broke with a laugh. "Are you sure? Like, would that be okay with your mom?"
"Oh yeah," I said. "My mom always wished she had another girl in the house." Because Mom did wish that. But I still got the impression Mary wasn't convinced.
Regardless of whether she believed me or not, Mary removed her hand from the screen door and let it slam shut. I leaned her bike against the mailbox nailed haphazardly onto the railing, and started walking back to my car. Mary walked down the porch steps, glanced up at her house one last time, and then followed behind me.
So, for the second time that day, Mary and I somehow ended up on the bed in my room, huddled in for the night and talking. Mary was flabbergasted that, when I intruded on my poor mother reading some book about California, she not only agreed to let Mary stay the night, but also made an offering of a toothbrush and some face wash. From my closet I pulled out a baggy sleeping tee for her, the classic Rolling Stones lips and tongue.
Speaking of lip and tongue, I didn't get any of that.
Mary was persistent about reading more of my lyrics, but that case was long closed. She'd ruined her chances. Instead, I rifled through the bookshelves across from my bed and pulled out a sketchbook. Some silly, childish doodles drawn in marker took up the first few pages. Drawing was never really my thing. But Mary took up the pencil, said, "Me first," and went at it.
"You're surprisingly good, Mary," I said, looking down at the pencil in her hand as she cross-shaded the rings of a lead-designed eye. "I haven't drawn in forever."
Etching in a precise detail, head down in the transfixed state of an artist at work, it was a moment before Mary answered, "I like to draw."
I found the constant sound of the sketching pencil soothing. My lamp flushing its golden light out from underneath the shade added an intimacy to my room and threw an obtuse form of our shadows against the wall. For a while, and without even getting bored, I watched her go at it. Mary took to the task with the intensity that made me think of a little kid. A juvenile artisan discovering for the first time that what's seen in her mind can flow unconsciously into the hand. Mary would be pinching the tip of the pencil, scribbling in the shading, and then pull her hand away. The shadow of her forearm would cross the page as she studied it. Make a decision. And the shadow would shrink as she went back at it. All of that, to be free to openly admire her as she got lost in her art; then to get lost wondering what she was wondering, felt like an accomplishment.
Whatever filled the air, be it her sunscreen, shampoo, or Beach Baby perfume, intoxicated me. At one point Mary's shoulder fell against mine. I'd never been so aware of the nerves her warmth evoked beneath my bare skin. I could feel her muscles play as she sketched. My body raced with a physical anticipation that I couldn't quite acknowledge or, for that matter, ignore. I had to hold her, kiss her. Something. Or I would die.
"Danny," she said, putting her pencil down and moving her shoulder away from mine.
My heart skipped a beat. She knew what I was thinking, desiring. Through the thin ends of my hair, I watched her eyes study mine. Mary stared right through them, right into my ambitious mind. Maybe she wanted what I wanted too?
I prepared for a kiss. If there was ever going to be a perfect moment, it was right now and it was mine. When her fingers grazed my temple, I began to float my hand up to hold her cheek. She then brushed the hair off my face.
"There," she said, backing away.
"Uh," I dove my floating hand counterclockwise behind my ear to scratch a nonexistent itch. "Why'd you do that?"
"Your hair wasn't bad. It was cute. But it's a shame because you have such a handsome face."
Using her fingers, she lifted a few stray ends. The graze of her nails against my scalp felt like heaven. Mary then pouted, as if extremely embarrassed, and went back to her art. After a few wordless minutes she said, "Maybe if you're lucky, I'll do your eyebrows next."
Eventually we turned out the light, and from a sleeping bag on the floor, I whispered, "Goodnight."
=========Author's Note===========
Thank you for reading this chapter of "Some Place Better Than Here"!
Writing this book certainly wasn't easy by any means. It was an honest-to-God from the bottom of my heart labour of love. And so, if the writing has touched you in anyway, please share your thoughts in the comments or vote on a chapter that you particularly liked!
Sharing a little bit of love back really helps me grow my platform as a writer so I can continue to publish great works for you and I both to enjoy !
Also, if you enjoyed SPBTH please check out my latest project "The Roar of Andora," a explorative fantasy that will be told over a three-part anthology.
https://www.wattpad.com/611263651-the-roar-of-andora-book-one-prologue-the-boy-king
Thank you for reading "Some Place Better Than Here"!
All Social Media: @ Landen Wakil