Requiem for a Scoop

will -
yeah, but this girl is like, you know, beautiful. she's smart. she's funny. she's different from most of the girls i've been with.

sean -
so call her up, romeo.

will -
why? so i can realize she's not that smart, that she's fuckin' boring? y'know--i mean... this girl is like fuckin' perfect right now, i don't want to ruin that.

sean -
maybe you're perfect right now. maybe you don't want to ruin that. i think that's a super philosophy, will, that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody.

- - - - -

i suppose idealism is like that . once you eat a big three dollar slice out of that forbidden pizza (with extra garlic), you can't help but step back and wonder why you were so hungry and so eager to order in the first place.

its no wonder why some people would rather admire new friends or new more-than-friends from afar than really get to know someone... allowing idealism to fill in the gaps keeps whoever you are fixated on perfect... they can never be "fuckin' boring", even if you aren't as sure as matt damon was that you score a ten in interestingness and your newfound buddy, dream girl, or whatever, can only muster a five.

"nobody understands me." people say this all the time, and this perplexes me. i'm pretty sure if you really know how your mind works, and you tell someone of comparable intelligence in a detailed and articulate way how better to "understand" you, he or she easily would. are you really in possession of such immeasurable depth of character that only an elite few are even granted the opportunity to "understand"? i'm sure some people are, but i don't need to be some sort of authority on social interaction to know everyone isn't will hunting.

so then the question is, why do people say this? aside from the proving you are deep thing, maintaining a mysterious and inaccessible surface naturally makes people idealize you, generating instant attention and constant interest. consciously or subconsciously, most people want to be hard to really "get". want to be courageous? make your pizza convenient and fifty-cents per slice. see who likes the taste, not the idea of what it would taste like.

My stomach grumbled. Time to go eat, I thought.

Only on the way from my room to the elevator did I realize I wanted to be a detective. Not for life, but for a few minutes at least. With an easy precision only a detective could manage, I pressed the button deduced to be the one that would summon the elevator that would go "down."

I was correct in my deduction, and quickly was on my way down from the thirteenth floor. The elevator stopped. The little display read "ten" except it was numerical. So it read, "10." I mentally prepared myself for whoever would step in.

Whoosh, I thought when the doors opened.

A normal looking male entered. Brown hair, brown eyes, Caucasian. He was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and slippers. He was carrying a bottle presumably filled with laundry detergent, and laundry bag presumably filled with dirty laundry.

There's only one way to end this mystery, I thought.

"Are you going to do laundry?"

"Yes."

"Are you a robot?"

"No."

I eyed him suspiciously.

Sounds like something a robot would say.

Mike suddenly realized that his clothes had been done twenty minutes ago. From this realization arose two fears: first that his clothes would be too wrinkled, and second that someone would cast them aside to use the dryer he had improperly hogged for so long. Both fears were irrational and quite pointless, but they made him nervous anyway, which led him to the following exclamation.

"Shit!"

"What?" his roommate Will asked from his desk.

"I need to do my laundry. Want to come?"

As soon as Mike extended the polite invitation, he regretted doing so.

"No, I'm really busy right now. But my laundry's down there in the wash. Could you do me a favor and put it in a dryer? I'll pay you. It's washing machine C5 or C7 or something. If you're not sure, look for some really ugly orange sweatpants."

Mike was now caught in a moral dilemma that further delayed his errand. Will was always asking for favors. It would be obnoxious to refuse, as loading a dryer is simple enough a task. However, Mike concluded that the blame fell squarely on Will's shoulders, as the inconsiderate request should never have been posed. It was time to take a stand.

"Ass," Mike said.

"What?"

"Load it yourself. You're always so lazy. It'll take like five minutes."

"But.. but.. I'll pay you extra if you want," Will pleaded.

For a moment Mike considered his offer. The college student mindset almost prevailed, but the "if you want" sealed it. Will was again pushing the moral responsibility away from himself. By forcing Mike to ask for extra payment, Will was turning himself into the victim. Mike could see it now: "my roommate forces me to pay him for little favors, what a jerk!" Will would say.

"Hell no. You come down or your laundry stays in the washer. I'm going, you had better come too."

"Fine, let me get dressed. Get the elevator, I'll be right out." Will moved towards his closet.

Victorious, Mike happily headed out the door and to the elevator. He pressed the button. Still excited over his victory, Mike almost did not notice a figure coming down the hallway. It was the hot girl from down the hall. She made little heat lines in the air around her. She was wearing loose fitting sweat pants that tightened around her hips, and a casual but distinctive top. She carried detergent and a laundry basket. Mike had seen her before, and relished the opportunity of an elevator ride with her. She pressed the already lit "down" button. Mike was still trying very hard not to stare when the elevator opened. He got in after her, and the doors almost closed when he remembered he had to hold it.

"Shit!" Mike thrust his arm out and stopped the doors. "My roommate is coming, sorry." He exited the elevator, his arm still preventing the doors from closing. The girl frowned a bit but waited.

And waited. The next half-minute crawled by. Mike nervously glanced down the hall. No sign of Will. "Get the elevator, I'll be right out," he had said. "I'll be right out," he had said. "I'LL BE RIGHT OUT."

"He'll be right out," Mike said. The girl nodded.

Silence.

Silence.

Mike was sweating. He had to say something. The void had to be filled.

"What are you going downstairs for?"

"Uh, to do some laundry?" She was not smiling.

"Cool." It was definitely not cool. It was actually the dumbest, most awkward, most uncool question ever. Mike began to sweat.

Silence.

Silence.

With one last, defeated look down the hall, Mike finally caved.

"You can go down first, I guess."

"Thanks," She said. For added emphasis, she pressed what he could only presume to be "door close" repeatedly. The doors closed with her hot, hot body inside the elevator. Outside, Mike vented his frustration in a series of curses.

Will chose this time to emerge from his room. He walked down the hall and pressed the "down" button.

"Ass," Mike said.

The beeping would not stop. Midterm in thirty minutes. Today, the only reason he got out of bed was for the smell. He was thoroughly addicted. A purist, he had his black with nothing added. Recently he's switched to decaf, with hopes of ridding himself completely of this rather expensive dependence.

Ten minutes later he stood in the elevator on his way down to the café.

Julian, his coffee buddy, was there. Both of them arrived everyday between 9:15 and 9:18, with sufficient overlap so as to never miss each other.

"Hey," Julian said as he stepped out of line to greet him.

"Hey," he said, ordering decaf. Except it wasn't decaf--he could tell right away. His facial expression did not go unnoticed.

"You're not going to tell them their pots are switched, are you?" Julian smirked.

"Why not?"

"It's to our advantage not to tell."

"How so?" It was too early for this.

"We have a test today. People that stayed up late studying need more coffee. If you keep your mouth shut, they won't get the usual caffeine dosage, so the curve may be improved. It's a possibility." Julian seemed impressed with himself--he was always quite competitive.

"It feels immoral. Deceitful. It's really unlikely that it will have an effect anyways."

Julian continued to press. "Then why not? You'll feel quite a bit better on the outside chance of an 'A' showing up atop your midterm".

"I'm not a choir boy, but it wouldn't feel like we earned it."

"Firstly, we'll never know this action led to our grades or not. It's just in case. Secondly, how is recognizing an opportunity and capitalizing on it not 'earning'? We were sharp enough to pick up on the altered coffee and smart enough to say nothing. That qualifies us to deserve any possible rewards. And how is the omission of information evil? It's not like you poisoned the the pot."

"What if the clerk asks me whether I think there's something wrong with the decaf?" He knew this would never happen. He was arguing just for the sake of arguing.

"You say, 'no comment.'"

"And that doesn't count as lying?"

"I don't think it matters if it 'counts' or not. If he asks you that question, odds are he doesn't need any more information."

He watched Julian start walking out of the store.

"You're not getting a cup?"

"Not today." Julian's face was icy.

He took another sip of his strange tasting decaf. Julian was almost out the door.

"Julian!"

Julian turned around. "Yes?"

"You didn't poison the coffee did you?"

"No comment."

He wanted the train to come not because he was late, but because his ears wanted to be warm. Impatiently, he glanced both ways down the track, even though he knew it always came from the right, silently promising himself he would not look left next time. His mother had branded a look-both-ways-before-crossing-the-street mentality into him, even on one-way streets. The train finally arrived, and he stepped on.

The habitual eighty-seven minute train ride to school was bland as usual for him, though he considered it better than lectures and study. He plopped down in the first seat available, to the dismay of a middle-aged passenger. Noting the man's displeasure, he briefly considered finding another seat - perhaps even a cute girl to sit next to - but had long ago arrived at the conclusion that only ugly, bitter people rode this line. All the attractive people sat together, or occupied their train time with ipods or newspapers. If he was attractive, his certainly would find music or newsprint easier to stomach than whoever was sitting next to him. He glanced at the passenger seated to his left, and it only verified his thoughts: balding, crooked nose, overweight. He covered a smiled when the man's attempt to stow his briefcase under their seat was thwarted by the lack of space between his belly and seat in front of him.

The first twenty minutes passed rather slowly. He slept until the leg of briefcase man brushed up against his own. He frowned. This was one of those awkward moments where nobody knows what to do. The space was rightfully his, and though it was a two-seater, and the man was slightly larger than normal, these facts did not give him the right to take unmerited leg space. Despite the protests of his now cramped legs, he waited, and was rewarded when fatty struggled to exit the train at the next station. He was glad to see him go, and his legs happily stretched out.

He was about to doze off again when an attractive, graceful girl entered the car. Eyebrows raised, he nodded, impressed, but unhappy that there were three available seats before his row. He also noticed that he was sitting on the outside of the seat, and slid over to make room for her as best he could without being seen. She seemed to be preoccupied with herself, and smoothly sat down next to him - her ass, he noted, made no sound at all upon hitting the seat. She turned and looked through him, out the window. Blushing, he waited until she looked away and glanced over at her. She had on a small, nice looking red shirt and semi-baggy yet sleek looking sweat pants, and wore her clothes with an elegant confidence that he was envious of.

His initial reaction was one of admiration, but he did not stare, for fear of being noticed. Should he say something? Start a conversation? Would a girl of such perceptible quality want to talk to an uninteresting, insignificant boy? His palms became nervous and sweaty; his heart beat faster. She fell asleep. Letting out a sigh of relief, he relaxed and cautiously looked her over, as if staring too hard would wake her up. She had a silky aura that was terrifically attractive to him. If she woke up before his stop, he wanted to be ready with something tremendously witty, so as to captivate her with his intelligence and charm.

After ten minutes or so, he had mapped out exactly what he was going to say, and anticipated every common question she could ask, every typical response she could give. To avoid the awkward silence that inevitably befalls two strangers who run out of things to talk about, he thoroughly examined her clothes, hair, and bags, brainstorming a formidable array of backup questions to ask just in case. After letting his mind stray onto some possible but unlikely situations, like her offering him money or stripping naked, he was finally ready.

Unfortunately, one does not easily come out of sleep. He tried coughing, shaking their seat, and answering a make believe cell phone call, but she stubbornly stayed asleep. Exasperated, he saw no other solution except to touch her. Deciding that a double-tap would be best, he aimed his trembling hand at her shoulder closest to him. With obvious reluctance, he painstakingly inched his hand closer. He paused a few centimeters from her shoulder, exhaling deeply. His hand stayed there for a minute or two, easily rebuffing his mind's commands. Defeated, he withdrew his hand.

Brow still furrowed due to his appendage's disobedience, he failed to notice the conductor walking down the aisle collecting tickets. He had already flashed his yearly pass at an earlier conductor, and it did not occur to him that another would come to collect tickets from the new passengers. Her subsequent awakening happened very quickly. She was roused by the conductor, handed over her ticket, and turned. Suddenly she was looking at him. His entire being screamed for him to say something, but all the carefully planned words he was supposed to say vanished. His mind melted under such a gaze, and mouth decided to take matters into its own hands, spewing forth an incoherent, garbled mix of sounds.

She raised her eyebrows, her widened eyes taken aback. He sat, frozen in all eternity, shaken to the core at what his usually reliable mouth had uttered. The ensuing second went in slow motion, and he pondered all her possible reactions to his buffoonery. Her expression changed, and finally the silence was broken by a delightful giggle. This was the one response he was not prepared for, and was mentally incapacitated by it, mouth agape. Clearly amused, she began to converse with him.

The next thirty some odd minutes compromised his shortest train ride ever. They spoke of their faults and ambitions, of their futures and destinies. He found out quite a bit about her, mentally engraving these details into his memory. Everyone else on the train faded to black and white. Their seat alone was in bright neon color, the fourth seat from the front of the sixth car on the first peak time train into the city on the third day of fall of his twenty some odd years of existence. These facts he remembered as vividly as her flawless features.

He was so enraptured with their dialogue that he almost missed his stop. As he stood up to leave, she almost looked as if she would have preferred him to stay. He squeezed into the aisle, relishing the fleeting physical contact he felt with her. She smiled and said that she greatly enjoyed talking to him, throwing a wave in for good measure. With apparent reluctance, he tore his gaze away and exited the train, an arcane smile plastered onto his face.

He studied very hard that day. The train encounter was his source of motivation, and his thoughts dwelled happily and unceasingly on her, and of what could have been. His was not an obsession with the person, but with the idea that someone who he clearly thought was better valued him as an equal. This experience was divine to him, mushrooming into the turning point of his life.

He slowly built his confidence, and became charismatic and ambitious. His studies were no longer boring and worthless, but rather were valued by him as an opportunity to prove his new found self-worth. Finishing school, he took a low paying internship, and worked his way up to an executive position of midsize technology corporation. He eventually fell in love, married, and lived contently in the suburbs, cheerfully taking the train to work every morning.

Looking back, even he thought the ninety-minute train ride an unlikely candidate as the turning point of his life, but he was reminiscing as a confident, successful man, not as a depressed, antisocial boy whose life, up until that point, held no light or direction. His wife was confounded by it as well, and perhaps a bit jealous of this girl who her husband put on a pedestal so long ago. He stared into space, and thanked this mystery girl, now a woman, for all the happiness she brought to his life, and wished her the same.


* * * * * * * * * * * *

She walked briskly onto the platform, just as the train arrived. Tossing a half empty cup of coffee into the garbage, she peeked at the cell phone in her pocket, wondering to herself why her boyfriend had not called yet. While the train slowed to a stop, she considered calling her many friends to tell them where she had gone; they had wanted to do something tonight, and their plans would be ruined without her, but she decided against it, in case she received an incoming call.

She boarded the train. Her attention still directed at the phone, she casually sat down, glancing past the young man next to her and out the window. She wondered if a t-shirt was appropriate, even though this season was uncharacteristically warm. Bored, she quickly fell asleep, dreaming about what she and her boyfriend would do in the city - perhaps go shopping, or just hang out at his dorm. He did have a test the next day, and for that reason she decided to decline his request that she stay overnight.

Awakened by the sharp click-click of the conductor's hole puncher, she searched and quickly found her round trip ticket. After giving her ticket to the conductor, she had a nice chat with the boy next to her, and stepped off at the next stop. Why hadn't her boyfriend called yet? Didn't he care about her? He would receive an earful when she arrived at his dorm. Still upset at the lack of ringing from her phone, she scowled and ambled into the crosswalk, inadvertently into the path of an oncoming taxicab. It had a small dent in its left rear door, a slightly deflated right front tire, and poor acceleration. Nevertheless, it hit her at a speed of at least thirty-five miles per hour, and she died in the hospital the next day. Her boyfriend had not called her yet.