On Adam & Eve and the fall of man; also about Holden Caulfield and thunderbirds. Mostly about this girl named P****, though
I.
In native North-American mythology lightning flashes from the eyes of these really big, Roc-like birds every time they wink their eyes. The birds- thunderbirds- are sort of like agents of the Great Spirit upon creation.
And then I'm at this hot-dog place near my home a few evenings ago...
But ah, I'm getting ahead of myself.
II.
I had been thinking of this specific girl I’d known since I was seven, see, for a couple of weeks now, even though I really hadn’t heard of her ever since I kinda screwed things up back in ’99. She sort of had this mild crush on me ever since ’87 (!) but I never really gave it much thought. I was, after all & as usual, too busy being myself to care about anything else.
Thing is, I sort of met her once again once High School was through and we’d both come to São Paulo. We met for the last time in ’99 and she was dating this friend of a good friend of mine. I told my friend, “I’m going after this girl, see,” and he said, “Dude, don’t you know she’s going out with Ivan?”- I said, “Like I cared” and went to talk to him.
My friend ended up feeling guilty about the whole thing, so he told his friend about what I was trying to do and his friend was all, “I’m gonna bust up his ass” and stuff. To which I replied, “Like I cared.”
Needless to say there was no ass-busting that day, but I also never got even close to getting the girl.
So back to the other night at the hot-dog place- She’s there, out of the blue, and for no specific reason whatsoever I’d been thinking of her for the past two weeks, trying to come up with a plan in order to find her, maybe the Internet…?
And then she’s standing behind me, really, like lightning, as if the Thunderbird had just blinked…
III.
I once said that, given enough time and a decent word processor I would end writing about everyone I ever knew and I really wish this post would be about P**** exclusively and not about my own dysfunctional ramblings.
What baffles me the most about this girl is that I’m not able to glimpse the tiniest bit of darkness when I look at her. Into her.
Every time I look at someone I automatically look for his/her rotten core and 99% of the time it’s there, shining in ebony for anyone to see. But this girl, P****, she doesn’t have it and her smile is just ghost-white, the color of honesty.
Do you even remember what honesty looks like?
It looks like the color of her smile at this pool-party at Andrea’s back in 1994 and P**** kept trying so hard to push me into the pool, clothes on and everything. I came this close to kissing her that afternoon, only I didn’t.
We were fourteen years old.
IV.
Have you ever sold you soul, L****?
It works like this: You can get anything you want, period. Tricky bit is, you have to really want it or otherwise you don’t have a chance in hell of getting it.
V.
So she’s there standing in line behind me at the hot-dog place and the way she’s smiling back at me reminds me not of Nietzsche and his "abyss gazes also" line, not really, but more of Adam and Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost; the fall of man after attaining the forbidden knowledge of good & evil from the tree & its fruit and so on, and I’m thinking that maybe the whole “fall of man” thing should not be taken under a theological light but more of a coming-of-age aspect to it, kind of like The Catcher in the Rye: Adam eats from the apple and knows stuff. He’s thus banished from Paradise. He’s thus become Holden Caulfield (for chrissakes, etc).
I’m thinking maybe I’m still such a sweet kid in her eyes but I have grown up to become a cynical asshole in mine. I’m thinking that going through all the bad stuff after High School was definitely uncalled for and despite coming up for air a lot smarter afterwards, is knowledge of good & evil worth getting kicked out of Paradise for?
VI.
Jesus Christ, L****… all the drama-queen routine for one lousy apple, you know?
The worst part is, if given the chance of going home I would simply give it a half-smirk and say, “Hell, no.”
The worst part is, simply put, I don’t regret anything I might’ve done despite its toll upon my not living in the “garden of earthly delights” anymore and all that crap.
Maybe I do regret not kissing her by the swimming pool back in that sunny Saturday in ’94, but that’s all.
VII.
…What was that again?
Oh, sure. Of course she’s got a boyfriend now. Geez it took you this long to ask me that?
You know me, man: Whenever I get all emotional and stuff and begin throwing JD Salinger and John Milton in the same sentence it’s because I’m kind of pissed that they’ve got boyfriends and their boyfriends usually look like total morons to me…
Hey I’m that shallow, what can I do…
Blame it on the Kali Yuga and the color TV, really.
In native North-American mythology lightning flashes from the eyes of these really big, Roc-like birds every time they wink their eyes. The birds- thunderbirds- are sort of like agents of the Great Spirit upon creation.
And then I'm at this hot-dog place near my home a few evenings ago...
But ah, I'm getting ahead of myself.
II.
I had been thinking of this specific girl I’d known since I was seven, see, for a couple of weeks now, even though I really hadn’t heard of her ever since I kinda screwed things up back in ’99. She sort of had this mild crush on me ever since ’87 (!) but I never really gave it much thought. I was, after all & as usual, too busy being myself to care about anything else.
Thing is, I sort of met her once again once High School was through and we’d both come to São Paulo. We met for the last time in ’99 and she was dating this friend of a good friend of mine. I told my friend, “I’m going after this girl, see,” and he said, “Dude, don’t you know she’s going out with Ivan?”- I said, “Like I cared” and went to talk to him.
My friend ended up feeling guilty about the whole thing, so he told his friend about what I was trying to do and his friend was all, “I’m gonna bust up his ass” and stuff. To which I replied, “Like I cared.”
Needless to say there was no ass-busting that day, but I also never got even close to getting the girl.
So back to the other night at the hot-dog place- She’s there, out of the blue, and for no specific reason whatsoever I’d been thinking of her for the past two weeks, trying to come up with a plan in order to find her, maybe the Internet…?
And then she’s standing behind me, really, like lightning, as if the Thunderbird had just blinked…
III.
I once said that, given enough time and a decent word processor I would end writing about everyone I ever knew and I really wish this post would be about P**** exclusively and not about my own dysfunctional ramblings.
What baffles me the most about this girl is that I’m not able to glimpse the tiniest bit of darkness when I look at her. Into her.
Every time I look at someone I automatically look for his/her rotten core and 99% of the time it’s there, shining in ebony for anyone to see. But this girl, P****, she doesn’t have it and her smile is just ghost-white, the color of honesty.
Do you even remember what honesty looks like?
It looks like the color of her smile at this pool-party at Andrea’s back in 1994 and P**** kept trying so hard to push me into the pool, clothes on and everything. I came this close to kissing her that afternoon, only I didn’t.
We were fourteen years old.
IV.
Have you ever sold you soul, L****?
It works like this: You can get anything you want, period. Tricky bit is, you have to really want it or otherwise you don’t have a chance in hell of getting it.
V.
So she’s there standing in line behind me at the hot-dog place and the way she’s smiling back at me reminds me not of Nietzsche and his "abyss gazes also" line, not really, but more of Adam and Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost; the fall of man after attaining the forbidden knowledge of good & evil from the tree & its fruit and so on, and I’m thinking that maybe the whole “fall of man” thing should not be taken under a theological light but more of a coming-of-age aspect to it, kind of like The Catcher in the Rye: Adam eats from the apple and knows stuff. He’s thus banished from Paradise. He’s thus become Holden Caulfield (for chrissakes, etc).
I’m thinking maybe I’m still such a sweet kid in her eyes but I have grown up to become a cynical asshole in mine. I’m thinking that going through all the bad stuff after High School was definitely uncalled for and despite coming up for air a lot smarter afterwards, is knowledge of good & evil worth getting kicked out of Paradise for?
VI.
Jesus Christ, L****… all the drama-queen routine for one lousy apple, you know?
The worst part is, if given the chance of going home I would simply give it a half-smirk and say, “Hell, no.”
The worst part is, simply put, I don’t regret anything I might’ve done despite its toll upon my not living in the “garden of earthly delights” anymore and all that crap.
Maybe I do regret not kissing her by the swimming pool back in that sunny Saturday in ’94, but that’s all.
VII.
…What was that again?
Oh, sure. Of course she’s got a boyfriend now. Geez it took you this long to ask me that?
You know me, man: Whenever I get all emotional and stuff and begin throwing JD Salinger and John Milton in the same sentence it’s because I’m kind of pissed that they’ve got boyfriends and their boyfriends usually look like total morons to me…
Hey I’m that shallow, what can I do…
Blame it on the Kali Yuga and the color TV, really.
posted by 186282mps at 8:07 AM
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