Quixotic

My favorite photo of you still sits at the bottom of an old shoebox
beneath my desk. I take it out from time to time, but I don't bother to
brush the dust off the top. Every time I open it, I cough ever so
slightly. The dust itches my throat and is hard to remove. I forget
exactly where I put it, that photo, even though it's always at the
bottom; always has been. I suppose you could call that symbolic.
Really, it's just an excuse for me to look through all the other old
photos of you I have stashed away, read a few love letters here and
there, and truly and honestly wallow in my own pathos. Quite the hobby
I have, to make myself as sad as possible, as if feeling normal would
appear that much better. An addiction? I suppose. But any vice is
better than none at all.

There you are, sitting on a mattress with no bed frame, no box springs,
on the hardwood floor of the apartment we shared in the summer of the
year I graduated school. We called it a test-drive marriage, but deep
down, we both knew it was the keystone to a very unstable wall. Remove
it, watch it crumble. It's horrific, watching something fall apart
within your grasp, knowing you held it all in your trembling, sweaty
palms. There is a very "what have I done" feel to it, as if life is
fiction, and you just muffed the denouement. But in a picture, none of
what has happened matters, because there you are, a snapshot in the
past, harmlessly sitting cross-legged on the mattress, sweatpants
halfway down your ass, white panties showing, your head cocked, looking
at me, and you, you with that quixotic smile. It still baffles me how I
could do so little for you and still make you smile. I was your
anti-hero, your dark knight. I guess you have your vices, too.

I remember that apartment well, situated in the middle of the slums of
Durham, no air conditioning. We'd position a fan on us at night to
stave off the heat and humidity. The gentle hum and slight breeze kept
us semi-conscious throughout the night. I often tried to hold you, but
met with weary shrugs in the wee hours, you, stifled and agitated. We
weren't necessarily poor, simply young. But we lived amongst it, the
poverty and innards of social decay. You were odd, in a way. You adored
being pampered, the extravagance and elegance of wealth, but you seemed
to be happy living in pseudo-poverty. You would grumble about the
untidy, unkempt nature of the household, but you rarely uttered a word
when it came to the dust settling. I never got a read on which person
was the real you, but you were no open book. Relationships seem to
imitate that confusion, and likewise, I think, that while deep in
thought about who you were, I seemed to forget myself. It's the only
way I can explain why you never saw me in anything but
Technicolor.

"Those old movies they recolor are simply ridiculous, aren't
they?"

I seem to remember you asking me that once. At least I believe you
asked me that. So much time has passed, that I think I've managed to
convince myself that you said things I wished you had said, did things
I hoped you'd do, and nothing you ever did wrong happened. But what do
I know anyway? I told you I liked Technicolor movies, that their kitsch
appeal made me swoon. You told me that I never took anything of
substance seriously. I never realized how much foreshadowing we're
allowed. Things are just set up for you. If I could spend a day outside
my life, I'd be screaming at the screen for me to look behind myself,
so that when I returned to my sheltered cinema, I could look inside for
once.

And there you are.

My favorite memory of you is our trip to the sea. We stayed in a
modestly priced hotel. After a day on the beach, you got a case of
sunburn. That evening, I wanted to make love. You reluctantly obliged,
like you always had. When we stripped, sitting naked, we laughed at how
red we were in every place but those that mattered at that very moment.
It was painful, that sunburn, but you always told me, "pain only makes
the pleasure that much better." I wish I had page numbers to footnote
to prove it to you. Afterwards, I rubbed aloe vera gel on your back and
told you that you were everything I wanted, in a girl. Your shoulders
were hard as crags, and you said I was rubbing too hard. In retrospect,
I missed that nuance.

Later, we went out, got Thai food. The curry reminded us of our
sunburns. My forehead felt tight, but I'd never had a better meal. You
gazed over at me and I could tell you loved me. I really could. I wish
you could have said the same of me. We made our way down the strip
after dinner and played miniature golf. On the 8th hole, just after the
waterfall, and right next to the windmills, we were laughing and
talking. I looked at the windmills and suddenly, something I thought to
be very clever came to mind.

"You know, you're my Sancho Panza, through and through."

She laughed, and asked.

"How so?"

It caught me off guard. I hadn't been prepared to actually answer my
accusation.

"I... I don't know. You just remind me of him, I guess. Loyal,
trustworthy, always by my side, no matter how stupid I'm acting."

She smiled, that quixotic smile. "Yes, I suppose. But I'd wager that
poor old Sancho Panza, deep down, just got fed up sometimes."

I thought nothing of it.

And there you are.

My least favorite memory is something I have put out of my mind, but it
still haunts me from time to time. Was it what it really was? I find
myself asking that question often. What I often had trouble with was
the more important matter of, is it what you thought it was?

After we broke up, I remember holding on as tightly as possible, hoping
you'd reconsider, hoping you'd forget all the things I'd done or had
not done. I don't know how you did it, how you removed yourself from
your movie life and segued into reality. I'm envious, really.
Everything seemed so dreamlike back then, and in memory, even more
so.

I would often ask you for "just one last time," and you would
reluctantly oblige, as you always had. I counted exactly five "one last
times," so it wasn't completely unreasonable to expect just... one...
more...

I remember holding you, kissing you, but you didn't kiss me back. I
started to remove your clothing. You said no, but we had played this
game a thousand times before, where you were the victim. You loved
being the victim, you told me as much. But there we were, victim and
victor, and something just didn't feel quite right. I set you on the
bed and from behind, I embraced you. One. Two. Three. Done.

It had never been so sudden before, and I just collapsed, back hitting
the wall, dumbfounded and in disbelief. You, you lay very still,
huddled up, hugging yourself, crying softly. It took me a moment to
realize what was going on, and when I did, I rushed to your side. You
erupted, screamed and pushed me away.

"Don't touch me!"

I didn't know what else to do, so I started to cry. You always had that
effect on me. I had never wanted to be somewhere and leave it all at
once so much as at that moment. I felt contrived. I sobbed. I couldn't
bear to think of what had just happened. Was it what she said it was?
More importantly, did she really think it was? I couldn't process it
all. Nothing was Technicolor, just shades of gray and white. My mind,
at the end of its reel, spun in place, with a shuddering shutter,
flap-flap, flap-flap, flap?

When I stared at the back of my sweaty palms, darkness ensued. I could
see lines as deep as my regret, as cold as my guilt, and there were
still many years to go. There would be no sequel. I had slain my
windmills. And my dear, my tulip, wilted at the edge of the bed,
trapped in a wooden shoe.

A knock at the door. Wooden and hollow. Deep inside, I desire it to be
you. But I know better. It's just Mike. He's here to go out for the
night. I start to put the picture back in the box. I stop,
contemplating the dramatic act of destroying it. But reason seizes me
and I gently place it in its rightful place, at the bottom of the
shoebox. My palms will not destroy another photo. Instead, they close
the box.

And there you were.