Crazy Read online

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Sunday, September 11—9:44 PM

  Subject: Re: Question

  Isabel,

  I feel like I need a mustache and leather pants to say something like that. It works on a theoretical level, I suppose. But why do I feel so weird about it? Why do I feel like I’d be taking advantage of her, even if she agreed to it?

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Monday, September 12—11:28 PM

  Subject: WHORE

  Dear Connor,

  My friend, we are talking about the Virgin-Industrial Complex. What is that, you ask? Well, let me tell you. It is the insidious system of oppression that denies girls of their sexuality in an effort to keep them “pure” and virginal. But what is pure, exactly? Are you expected to be pure? Are boys expected to save themselves for “the right one”? Is your sexual activity automatically pathologized? If you decide to be sexual, do you only have two identities to choose from—Victim or Slut? Either someone’s forcing you to do it or you’re an out-of-control nymphomaniac. No decent, wholesome, sane girl would ever choose to have sex. Well, who decided that virginity was such a hot commodity, anyway? And who, exactly, are we keeping ourselves “pure” for? God? Jesus? Our future husbands? What if we don’t believe in any of those guys? Who then?

  You automatically assume that your wanting Emily makes her a victim. Don’t you trust her to make her own decisions? Or do you think she’s too weak and too vulnerable to fend off your manly advances? That’s not giving her much credit, is it? You’re infantilizing her, Connor. By trying to “protect” her, you’re turning her into a helpless child.

  That’s my two cents. I say go for it. She doesn’t have to be The One for you to justify hanging out with her. Don’t you think The One would be pissed if you didn’t get any practice before meeting her? I say go forth and learn how to kiss!

  Team Captain of Team Connor Getting Laid,

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Tuesday, September 13—7:32 PM

  Subject: Re: WHORE

  Isabel,

  Why do you assume I don’t know how to kiss? I’ve had plenty of practice kissing. For your information, I am actually quite a catch here on Bainbridge Island. Maybe I’m not tall and brooding and covered in tattoos like all your hunky mainland guys, but I’ll have you know that I just so happened to have had sex with TWO different girls, thank you very much, although one was, of course, a lesbian, and the time with the other girl was never technically “completed” due to the arrival of a parent’s car in the driveway sooner than expected.

  I’m skeptical of your theories, but I’m keeping my mind open. I’m going to ask her out, and who knows, maybe I’ll discover something fascinating about her that I never even suspected. That’s the point of dating, right? To see if there’s anything there to keep your interest? Also, I don’t think I’m infantilizing Emily (is that even a word?). How is caring how she feels the same as treating her like a child? Sometimes I think you don’t really believe the things you say; you just like the sound of yourself having opinions.

  Real Team Captain of Team Connor Getting Laid,

  Connor

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Friday, September 16—11:07 PM

  Subject: Hey

  Hello?

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Monday, September 19—7:16 PM

  Subject: HELLO?!

  This is getting annoying.

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Wednesday, September 21—8:52 PM

  Subject:

  Isabel,

  I have news. But now I’m not so sure you deserve to hear it.

  Bitterly yours,

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Friday, September 23—11:04 PM

  Subject: dust

  Dear Connor,

  Forgive me for my absence and my silence and for not spending this time congratulating you on your potential sex life, but I’m in one of my lonely moods again. I asked Trevor when he’s going to come up to Seattle next, and he accused me of being needy. Is it needy for a girl to want to see her man more than once a month? Is it needy for a girl who lives in Seattle to get sad sometimes that her lover lives in Portland? “Lover” is such a bizarre word, but it’s sadly more appropriate than “boyfriend” in this case. Have I told you that Trevor refuses to call me his girlfriend? His definition of whatever we are is simply that we’re “hanging out.” For nine months, we’ve been “hanging out.” I try not to think about the millions of groupies who are no doubt throwing themselves at him wherever he goes. I try to be evolved and not jealous and all that. But it’s hard. It’s impossibly hard. Is it too much to ask for some kind of definition?

  Remember how at camp there was that unspoken divide between the cabin counselors and everyone else? No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew it was there. We didn’t have to wear their stupid preppy-rich-kid uniform and we got to hang out with the people who actually had interesting stuff to say. We were all just a bunch of misfits doing our own thing, with no need for any centralized government. But the counselors took it all so seriously, all their official and unofficial hierarchies, like they brought their titles of “school president” and “debate club captain” with them to the middle of the forest. And we just watched their little soap opera, how they worked so hard to make sure everyone knew their place. Did you ever notice that certain camp songs were only ever led by certain counselors? Like everyone knew those were their songs and no one else was allowed to sing them.

  But we had more fun than them, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how many times I came across a huddle of lower-tier counselor girls crying by the bathrooms after the campers all went to sleep, weeping about how all the boys liked Annie, and how Annie’s cabin got all the good time slots at activities. For your information, I have declared war on all Annies of the world. Did you ever talk to her? Her cabin came into the Craft Shack once on your day off, and she talked my ear off for an hour about how her dad wanted her to go to Yale, and her grandma wanted her to go to Stanford, and she wanted to go to Brown, and oh my god, what a fucking tragedy! She certainly wasn’t charming, and she wasn’t even that pretty, but she felt entitled to have someone listen to her, even if it was just the crazy Craft Shack girl in the fishnets and flannel shirt. She was just one of those girls who grew up with everyone telling her how pretty and perfect she was, so she ended up believing it, so everyone else believed it too. Oh, Annie, how I despise you and your inflated self-esteem!

  Anyway, where I was going with this was that I was thinking about camp and how fun it was, and how I’m convinced we had way more fun than any of those boring douchebags. Were they friends with the townies who knew all the cool places to go? No. Did Roger the Repair Man tell them where the secret beach was? No. If he did, those three idiot counselors from Bellevue could have gone there to smoke pot instead of behind the lodge, and then they wouldn’t have gotten caught and kicked out. Did Hippie Erin from the farm share her prized blueberries with them? No. Did Townie Dane take them on a midnight hike and show them which slugs make your tongue numb when you lick them? No. Not everyone is worthy of that kind of information.

  My theory is that heaven is different for everyone. It’s based on your best memories, and you just get to relive them over and over again for eternity. Same with hell, except the opposite. Like, my version of hell would be the time I found my brother OD’ed in his bedroom when I was eleven, then had to spend the next three days in the hospital listening to my parents fight about whose fault it was that he turned out that way. Except in hell, my sister wouldn’t be there to hold my hand and tell me it’s going to be okay. It would just be me and my parents and al
l the sad people in the waiting room, and no one would be telling me anything.

  But heaven for me would be summer camp. God, I’m so childish. You’d think I’d pick someplace exotic like Venice or a tropical beach in Belize, but I’ve never been to either of those places, and the truth is I don’t have a lot of truly happy memories. Think about it—camp really is perfect. No parents, no homework, they feed us pretty decent food, and we get to make art and hang around kids all day. But only for an hour or so at a time, because just as they start to get annoying their counselor takes them away, and we’re left to go hiking and lick slugs or whatever we feel like. We get to breathe the sea and can see all the stars at night and no one is really around to tell us what to do. Do you realize it’s never going to be like that again? Never in our lives are we going to be that free. Pretty soon we’re going to have to take care of everything ourselves, we’ll have to get a crappy job to pay for a crappy apartment, and we’ll spend the bulk of our days doing something we hate.

  If you wanted to run away and live in the forest, it would not be that hard to convince me to come with you. I got pretty good at the bow and arrow this summer, so I could do all the hunting.

  Landlocked,

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Sunday, September 25—5:35 PM

  Subject: Re: dust

  Dear Isabel,

  It surprises me that you believe in heaven. You always struck me as the non-believing type. But I guess I should stop being surprised every time you do something surprising, since that seems to be the norm more than anything else. Like this sudden wave of nostalgia. Do I detect a tone of sentimentality? I will never figure you out.

  So, I took your advice. I asked Emily out. I regretted it almost immediately. She started freaking out about how she’s had a crush on me since freshman year, and she has the perfect idea of what we should do on our first date, like she’s been planning it for the past three years, and I can plan our second date, and then she can plan our third date, and isn’t that just the perfect plan?, and I have the sneaking suspicion she’s already planned our wedding and named our babies.

  I was hoping I was wrong about her, but I don’t think I am. At first glance, she seems like someone who might be interesting. But you look a little closer and realize she’s concocted her outfit based on what she can find at the Hot Topic in the Kitsap Mall and what she sees in music videos. And the stuff that comes out of her mouth is like a commercial on that radio station you have programmed in your car but never listen to, the one that calls itself “alternative” but never plays anything but the same ten horrible songs and the occasional Nirvana classic. The entire evening consisted of her saying “Do you like ______? I totally like ______.” Then I would give her a blank look and she’d say, “Yeah, you’re right, it’s totally stupid.” I would try to tune her out and just focus on her lips, and then I’d realize I was objectifying her and my mom’s voice would come in loud and clear: “Connor, why are you leading this poor girl on?”

  Emily took me to this little hidden beach by her house that has a great view of Seattle, and I have to admit it was a pretty awesome spot. Except it was like fifty degrees and drizzling, and she was determined to have a picnic, but the baguette was soggy and the cheese was so hard we almost couldn’t cut it. She presented me with a pipe and said, “I have weed,” like I should be proud of her or something, but when I told her I don’t really like weed, she was like, “Yeah, me neither,” but I could tell she was disappointed, like that was supposed to be her ace in the hole, like she was counting on the weed to make the date a success, and because that didn’t work, she was out of ideas. And I just couldn’t handle that look on her face, the one where you can just tell she’s beating herself up inside, so I panicked—I didn’t know what to do, and what’s the best solution to hanging out with a girl you don’t like who likes you and is now feeling bad about herself? Kiss her, of course. What the hell is wrong with me?

  And now I feel like a terrible person because even though I don’t really like her, even though I would be perfectly happy never talking to her again, I can separate that from the kissing, I can think of her as just lips that I want to keep kissing and a body that I want to keep touching. Why did I ever think I was any better than this? Because my mom thought she raised me to be something better? Well, obviously it didn’t work and I’m just an asshole like all the other men in the world.

  At least I was sort of honest. After we kissed for a while, she sighed and whispered, “This is nice,” and it sort of made me cringe. So I did what you said and told her I’m not really looking for a relationship right now and is that okay with her, and she said, “Sure, fine, whatever you want,” but it felt like she was lying, almost like she was begging somehow, like really what she was saying was, “I’ll pretend to be okay with whatever you want because I don’t think I deserve any better.” And even though I knew that was the truth, I kissed her again, and I kept kissing her, and I didn’t stop her when she took her shirt off, and I didn’t stop her when she started taking my pants off. And even though it was freezing and raining, I let her get on top of me; I looked away when she pulled the condom out of her pocket. It was too easy to close my eyes and pretend she was someone else.

  So what’s your great advice now, Isabel? What am I supposed to do when I know the girl is lying, when yes really means no? Is it my responsibility to decipher this code where words don’t really mean what they’re supposed to mean? What do I do now that I’ve had sex with this girl I don’t even like? Is it even possible for me to not hurt her?

  I don’t believe you, Isabel. Maybe you’re right that there are some people who just want something physical, but I don’t think you’re one of them. You can pretend all you want that you’re a tough chick who would use a guy for his body, but I think really you’re a closet romantic, and something like this would hurt you really bad. You act like you’re invincible, but I know deep down you want someone to hold your hand and buy you flowers and look you in the eye and tell you you’re his soul mate. You want someone who will love every piece of you, even the pieces you can’t love yourself. You at least want Trevor to call you his girlfriend, right? You said it yourself. Maybe you say all these things because you’re trying to convince yourself you’re okay with the way things are between you and him. But really you’re not. Deep down, you know he’s not what you want. Deep down, you know you deserve better. What’s making you settle for him? Don’t you realize you could probably get any guy you wanted? Don’t you realize you’ve probably left a trail of guys wherever you’ve gone who are madly in love with you and would give you anything you want?

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Thursday, September 29—10:43 PM

  Subject: Re: dust

  Connor,

  Is there anyone in particular you were pretending she was?

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Saturday, October 1—10:51 AM

  Subject: Re: dust

  Isabel,

  What the hell kind of question is that? I barf my heart out all over the place, and that’s all you have to say?

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Saturday, October 8—3:18 PM

  Subject: nightmares

  Dear Connor,

  I’m sorry. I really am. I’m feeling selfish and broken. Do you think anyone’s ever gotten dehydrated from crying? Like cried so hard all the moisture just drains out of them and their cells shrivel up like tiny raisins until all that’s left is a leather-covered skeleton in the fetal position, the skull twisted into a tortured expression of the worst pain in the history of the world? What happens when you can’t stop crying? What happens if the calm after the storm never comes? What if it’s just storm after storm after storm, hurricanes and tornadoes and every other possible kind
of weather, with no end? What if everything’s ripped out of the ground until there’s nothing left, not even tumbleweeds? What then? What do you do with nothing?

  I had a dream last night and it’s not gone yet. In the corner of my eye, it is still playing out. I look around my room and everything seems different, like someone came in while I was sleeping and moved things around. Not too much, though, just an inch here and there, just enough to make me feel crazy. I’ve managed to pee and have a little breakfast, I’m sitting up in bed and I’m writing to you, but I’m still not convinced it wasn’t real, that this is real. Maybe this is the dream and that’s the awake and you’re just a figment of my imagination, something I created to make me feel less alone. You weren’t in the dream, Connor. There wasn’t even a memory of you.

  It’s not Seattle. Maybe it’s New York, Chicago, or Boston, some cold city that could be any city. I am older. I can feel the wrinkles around my eyes. I can feel years of my life wasted. I am working at some cheap restaurant that could be any cheap restaurant, the kind with mismatched silverware and fading wallpaper, the kind where men in tattered jackets buy cups of coffee and stay all day. There are some regulars who tip pretty well if I lean over and let them look down my shirt when I deliver their food. The restaurant is in a neighborhood like any bad neighborhood, the kind where crazies come in and hassle the customers for change. On the coldest nights, sometimes they just walk in and stand there until we kick them out. There’s one guy who comes in sometimes and just starts screaming. He never hurts anybody, just screams and screams until we give him a cup of coffee and guide him out the door. He likes me the best. He calls me Mary.