2/15/2011

Clio,

So sorry to do this. Last night, I tried calling you because I was in a bathroom in Kingston, flailing in the stall and crying my eyes out over your darling soul sister and I wanted you to tell me to be sensible.

When she came over yesterday morning, she had "the talk" with me again, how she stacks the deck against me by telling vapid Bard kids - including Julia, I take it - that she is thinking of breaking up with me (because they don't know me, they don't know *us*, and they fully take this as Melanie offering herself up to them so they egg her on every time she sees them). She also has told her mother, who responded that Melanie will be traveling this summer and isn't it about time that she get rid of me anyway? She doesn't talk to you about this, she admits, because you know me, you know us, and you will give her a measured and thoughtful response. Also because she knows you and I talk and assumes you are more my friend than hers to the degree that, if she leaves me, you will stay my friend and not hers. I told her this was insanity and that she really ought to talk to someone she actually respected. (Also that, if she leave me, you plainly fall into her custody. Daniel is mine, I think.) She admits that she doesn't do this. She keeps me segregated away from her Bard friends, aside from you, because she doesn't want those worlds melding. (She also asked me not to come to her graduation for this very reason. I told her that I wanted to come because I have followed her through this journey.) Eventually, she relented that she liked me well enough to continue this relationship for now, with the warning that she will forget all about me come Monday and this will start anew. Daniel then came over - she didn't mention to him how long she had been over and what had been going on when he arrived - and we went down to Peekskill to meet with our (Daniel's and my, not Melanie's) friend Suzie and see the Oscar nominated animated shorts. I did not have time to properly feel Melanie out and was stuck in this social situation where I had to be upbeat, though at one point, when Melanie was getting milk for her tea, I leaned over to Suzie and explained that Melanie had tried to leave me again. Suzie expressed incredulity that she would try to leave me just before going to visit with friends and asked if I wouldn't like her to bludgeon Melanie. I said I would love if someone would, with words. I told Melanie that she suffers from a very limited perspective. She is only getting advice and encouragement with people who never surpassed the genital stage of development, ignorant hipsters who believe Bard is their world and who will end up surly baristas at Starbucks. Throughout the movie, she cuddled against me and not merely because the theater was freezing. I kept looking over at her and almost resenting how much I love her.

Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled and gifted. He is capable of crossing one eye, raising one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings. He likes when you comment.