My Funny Valentine

Later, after dropping my school stuff off at home, and leaving my parents a note saying that I was spending the night at Jon's house, I headed to the train tracks. I walked today, so it was taking me longer than usual to get everywhere. But I really didn't mind. I have a car, a fairly nice one at that. Mercedes something or other, if I'm not mistaken. But I don't like to drive it much. I feel too pretentious. Too much like my father, if I'm being honest.

By the time I got to the tracks, the smell of pot already hung lightly in the air, and the sun was low on the horizon, shining through the open cars taht sat motionless on the unused third rail.

"Jon..?" I called cautiously, not wanting to startle him. Jone, though a normally mellow person, is a little more.. over-reactive when he's high. Trust me. One time, I thought would be funny to sneak up on him in a gorilla mask after he both got stoned on Halloween night, and I ended up with a broken nose and a very strong lesson learned. All because he thought I was, and I quote, a "bloodthirsty, banana-mongering ape coming to claim his soul."

"Bren? That you?" I heard Jon's voice call from somewhere off to my right. I turned and called in that general direction.

"Jon? Where the hell are you?"

I heard him giggle childishly. "I can seeeeeee youuuuu!"

"Jon, come on man, where are you?" I turned around in circles, looking for him, but not finding any glimpse of movement.

"Ohhh, no no" he said tauntingly "What's the password?"

I groaned and shook my head. After the gorilla-mask incident, Jon came up with a password to make sure it was really me that I had to use whenever he was high.

"Seriously, Jon? You can already see me.." I whined.

"Say it!"

"... bananamongering."

"Yay! It is you!" I was all of a sudden tumbling forward as a body jumped on my back from behind.

"I got some new shit that will blow your miiiiind, man!" He said, drawing out his vowels like he always does when baked. He jumped off my back and led me to a vacant train car. We both sat down, getting comfortable before he pulled a blunt out of his pocket and handed it to me.

"Ladies first" he giggled.

I mumbled the best "fuck you" I could manage with the blunt between my lips as I fished my lighter out of my pocket and lit it up quickly. Sometimes, it seemed like these friday afternoons were the only thing in my life that actually meant anything.

_______________________________

Three hours later, after the initial high had worn off, we were both left in my favorite state of mind, where we both turn off the filter in between our minds and our mouths and talk. Our words fill the vacant train cars, and lace around their wheels, hoping that maybe they'll get somewhere better than this nowhere-town. Usually, we talk about nothing, but it still seems like the most meaningful part of my routine-driven life.

A train sped by on a parallel track to our stagnant car, and I could feel the slight breeze the speeding locomotive created on my face.

"That could be ours, man" I said, wondering if he could hear me over the rushing sound of metal-on-metal.

"Could be" He said, and then paused suddenly distracted by the seam between the canvas and the rubber sole of his right shoe. But I knew Jon, and I knew he was working up to say something important, so I waited, making patterns in the dust coating the wall of the train care with one finger, and watching how the fibers caught the light of the late afternoon sun, as they danced in the wind of the speeding train.

"Do you ever what it is we're trying to get away from?"

"Just.. all of this shit" I said, motioning to the barren landscape of out town just beyond the tracks, searching for just what I meant, and hoping the words would pop out at me from between the silhouette of two buildings. "Our parents, their lives, the lives we're trying to make.. But we don't really want it. I don't, at least. College, all of that. It doesn't mean shit to me. I just want to live a life that means something, you know?" I said, aware of my rambling, but unable to stop talking.

"Yeah" He said, but his eyebrows were still knit. "Do you ever think there's something wrong with us? I mean, why won't our parents' lives make us happy, like everyone else's will?"

"Something wrong with us? Fuck no, man. There's something wrong with them. I wanna get out of this fishbowl as soon as I can."

And then we were quiet. Two hours of talking about everything and nothing had tired out my brain and my mouth, and I could feel the high slowly leaving my body as I inhaled and exhaled the stale, dusty air.

And then I saw it, the silhouette on the horizon. His arms were extended, held unevenly as they tilted back and forth like a see-saw. He was even more beautiful than he was recumbent in a desk chair, and I longed to see how the sun would play against his gentle face in the now setting sun. And as it turned out, that wasn't that irrational of a desire. Because the track he was balancing on was headed right for our car.