The Couch

Dinner was better than I expected, nothing fancy but filling and satisfying in a wholesome way I haven’t had for a while. My mother is actually a good cook, and I’d like to think I am too. I learned from her mostly. When I was little I would hang around the kitchen and watch. I was home-schooled for a two years when I was little so I was home a lot. Even now my mom and I talk about food and cooking quite a bit. She’s always giving advice and telling me to eat healthier. The truth is I eat plenty healthy. She just wants be motherly about it. I let her It’s one of the few things she knows about and is good at so she feels more comfortable with it than when the conversation veers off into the real world. I helped rinse of the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. For a brief moment I felt like part of the family, but then I didn’t know where to put away the lid to one of the pots. Jimmy ran back off to his room as soon as he was done eating. I think he’s supposed to be doing his homework but I doubt he is and doesn’t look like Emily feels it’s her responsibility to bother him about it. We sorta drifted over to the living room and now I’m perched on an old couch that’s on the verge of being raggedy.

“... climb to a high of about 50 degrees with a bit of cloud ...”

“I always watch tv around now, I hope you don’t mind”

“... get to see the sun.”

“I don’t know if you have plans or something but you’re welcome to sleep on the couch tonight. Our parents went to a wedding and won’t be back till late tomorrow.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t expecting any of this, but definitely. Luckily Emily doesn’t seem to expect much of a response from me; she’s busy flipping through the channels. I could be gruff and mysterious and walk off into the wilderness with a mumbles no thank you. I’d need a cowboy hat to pull that off I think, and the couch is starting to feel really comfortable. The remote seems to be missing so Emily is standing right up by the tv mashing the buttons. I think every single show on tv is some sort of police procedural or crime drama.

“Look,”

There’s no good way to sit when you’re talking to people sitting on the same couch as you.

“I have tons of questions but I don’t want to be impolite so if you don’t want to answer or feel like it’s an interrogation or whatever just say so and I’ll totally understand and shut up and just let you have a quite relaxing evening which is probably what you want after all that walking and stuff.”

I think she did that all in one breath. I don’t think I’ll have answers to her questions. I barely understand what I’m doing. I’ll probably pontificate and B.S. and sound magnificent and all knowing and like a very together kind of guy. That’s how I made it through life so far. Once in high school I was talking to my English teacher and was totally winging it and talking big and I even think I completely reversed my position on something but she just ate it up and thought I was a darling smart little thing. Usually nobody catches me but this time one my best friends was standing next to me – she was the smartest kid in school by far and everyone knew it even though she didn’t have the highest g.p.a. because she took unweighted non-gate classes like art for the fun of it – and she could barely keep herself from laughing because she totally saw what I was doing even though the teacher didn’t. I loved her because she was one of the few people who saw through my bull shit. There were others who tried to call me on it. They could tell I was just flinging up a smokescreen of words but they couldn’t actually see through it so even though they tried to call me on it it was never hard to just keep talking. This friend of mine though just ignored my nonsense, wasn’t phased by it at all. She always brought me back down to earth when I was in danger of believing my own pretentious lies. There’s no reason not to be dully honest with Emily but it’s pretty clear she’s expecting and wants cool answers, and I just hate sound banal.

“So talk!”

“You didn’t ask me anything” Unless I zoned out and she did and I didn’t hear her in which case I’m just came across like an even bigger freak than I actually am.

“Well yeah, but you know.., I’ve never met someone who’s out walking like you are. I don’t really know what to ask. I just want to understand what it’s like and why you’re doing it. I guess, just tell me your story.”

I’m trying, I really am. I think about what I told the therapist but none of that seems to fit here. I give the facts of the matter but they sound hollow and lame. There isn’t that much to explain. Somehow though Emily seems satisfied. She accepts that I just upped and ran. The tv is still on in the background. Commercials ad lib the gaps.

“I don’t really know what else to say.”

“I’ve thought about running away sometimes. Everyone wants to get out of this town though. It’s one of those small towns everyone is escaping from you always hear about. It really is like that. We all hate it, except for Kyrah – she’s our local and stereotypical little miss popular with just enough of a bad streak to keep everyone interested. She’s always going on about how much she loves it here. I’m pretty sure she’s lying. She just says that to be different.”

If this were a day dream we’d make out right now but instead we just pretend to be fascinated by an ad for deodorant. I think she’s waiting for me to ask her something. The only thing I can think of to say is “Do you have any plans, you know, for the future?” I hope that’s right.

“Do you have any plans, you know, for the future?”

“Yeah, well I’m taking classes at the city college. You know how that is, it’s more a glorified high school than actual college. Everybody from high school is there, except for the kids you didn’t talk to anyway because they were smoking out in the parking lot. I want to transfer somewhere far away and study psychology. Everybody says they’re going to transfer but only like two or three ever do. It’s a big joke but the grown ups like to pretend and we all go along with it.”

I don’t know what to say next. I went straight to a four year. I grew up in a smallish town but I was so out of it, so in my own world, that I didn’t even feel part of it enough to feel alienated. I could invite her to come along with me but I don’t want to.

“Hey, it’s getting late and you probably want to get a good night’s rest.”

I instinctively look up at the clock and she’s right. Somehow we’ve been talking for a couple of hours. It turns out the couch pulls out into a pretty comfortable bed with sheets and everything. I always have trouble falling asleep in a strange place. I’m pretty sure everyone does. It should all look the same when you close your eyes. But I haven’t closed my eyes. They’re roaming the room trying to pick things out in the dim light.

“Good night.”

“Night”

I still wonder what Emily was thinking when she invited me over like this, what she was hoping to get out of it. I also wonder what Jimmy was up to in his room all night, even though I know it doesn’t matter at all. And I wonder what he thought of his sister inviting me in. I’m just full of wonder tonight. Maybe I’ll ask her again in the morning. How do you say goodbye to someone who fed you and let you sleep in their home but you hardly know? Especially when you’re not getting in a car or on a train but just walking away. That’s really affected how I arrive at and leave places. It’s so slow and lingering. To really get away you have to stop paying attention for a while and then later suddenly notice you’re miles gone. It’s not that different from falling asleep in that sense, except that right now the blinking lights on the dvd player are keeping me up. I’m half inclined to program the time so it stops blinking. I ought to find a way of thanking Emily. I’ll say thank you of course. In my imagination drifters leave little gifts, like something they carved, behind as a token of their appreciation.

There. I programed the time on the dvd. It’s not a little carved mockingbird maybe but it’s all I got. I hope she notices it, though I’m pretty sure she won’t. Maybe a few weeks from now she’ll suddenly notice and go “Huh, who programed the time on the dvd? Ya know, it must have been that travel kid. Well isn’t that sweet. I knew he was good kid. I’m glad I let him sleep here that one night. I hope he’s doing all right. Maybe he’s made it up to where he was going by now.”