Helping Hand

I bet Karen was the kind of girl who would do to Cafe Descartes because she thinks it's cute and the atmosphere is nice. I bet she goes to the top floor of the Harold Washington Library Center when no one is there but the janitor. I bet she goes to the Metro every Saturday and is a regular at the Encyclopedia Show. I bet she goes to the Art Institute every Thursday and Friday at five to stare at impressionist paintings and discuss the complexities of modern art with strangers.

What a bitch.

Then again, maybe I was being the bitch. I was so uppity about the whole thing when I know better than to let it bother me. I know how to let things go. I can deal with the deaths of fish and family members. Why couldn't I deal with a girl?

Because she's a cunt.

I had to have been wrong. About the cunt thing, that is. I didn't know why I was so hurt. Look, I'm a big boy. I can deal with rejection. I'm not going to cry of spilled milk. But I'll tell you what I will do: get fucking angry. Jake was the first to notice.

"What the fuck crawled up your scrawny ass and laid eggs?" he asked, very eloquently, I might add.

I made some mumbled excuse about "a bitch of a pussy" and he slapped me on the back to show that he, in all his thick-brained wisdom, understood. Ah, the bonds of brotherhood.

I really like my friends. They're fun and we share interests and they make sure to always get the best weed. But I couldn't let them know about Karen. It was a fluke, I guess. If they ever found out I could lie easily enough. Oh, that Karen King? Yeah, she approached me and was, like, all over me. Who the fuck does she think she is? But I thought better of her. She couldn't have been a cunt or a bitch or whatever stereotypical derrogatory name I could think of. I knew that, to her, I must have been a simple-minded, popular jock. And I am pretty simple, jockish, and, okay, I'm popular and I know it. But I had to have a little more faith in her than my friends did. I had to have a little more faith in everyone than they did. The moment I took my eyes away from Piaget's development stages and placed them on Karen, something had to happen. Something about us had to change, and I think she knew it as well I knew it. Maybe she was in denial?

Or maybe I just had a big mother fuckin' ego.

But why was it that someone who always looked so lonely didn't want company? Or was it just my company? I couldn't decide which. I didn't want to believe it was the latter. I had a way with people, I knew I did. I had the right smile. I knew the right things to say. I was charming to everyone - parents, kids, and especially girls. I kind of liked the fact that I knew people liked me. I relished it in a way. Maybe all my life was was a popularity contest, but I was happy with it. I liked being liked. And I could handle rejection of colleges, but I couldn't handle the rejection of Karen. That was it on the most basic level: I didn't like the idea of someone not liking me. Because, let's face it, I tried kind of hard to be liked sometimes. Not all the time. It's a pretty easy thing, getting people to like you. People are easily fooled. And while it was good to have an obstacle to overcome in my gatherings of approval, I wasn't prepared or entirely sure I wanted to overcome a mountain. Buried two feet deep in snow. With a raging blizzard.

What bothered me most was that she was always close. She was in the hallways, in the library, in the cafeteria. Had I chosen to talk to a person in the library I would never see again, it wouldn't have made nearly as much of an impact on me. But here was this girl, so close. Close enough to see my smile and my efforts. Close enough to at least feel my charm. Close, and still stone cold. Why was she so determined to not like me?

I finally settled it. Conclusion: bitch.

I was firm with my beliefs, that is, until I was in the library again. For a while I hardly ate lunch, and settled for going home afterschool and raiding the kitchen like it was nobody's business. Finals were coming up, and I had to brush up on my Nietzsche. It had been about a week and a half since I approached Karen, and my eyes were focusing and unfocusing on the phrase "All beings so far have created something beyond themselves." When they refocused, a ripped piece of paper consumed my vision. Written in a curvy style, like the penholder's hand was fighting between cursive and print, was the word "sorry." I looked up, then to the right and saw Karen.

"Okay," she started. "So, maybe I think you're an asshole, kind of. Maybe I think you're awesome. How would you know until you talked to me? More importantly, how can I give you the satisfaction of talking to me when it so clearly irks you that I won't?" I opened my mouth to deny that, but she shook her head and kept on going. "But, what the hell? I mean, my whole life is kind of ruled by impulse. And you were sort of caught up in it, and I couldn't keep it on my conscious to deny and un-enlightened young soul like yourself from discovering the wonders of unpredictability? That, and the fact that it was just bad karma."

I could have said something snarky. I could have told her to screw off. I could have done a lot of things, but, after what seemed like forever, the thing I did say was, "You know, that's not so much karma as it is the just-world phenomenon."

I knew our interactions could have just ended there. She was giving me a second chance of sorts, or maybe the benefit of the doubt. And I could have won her over, and she would like me, and that would be that. I would never have to talk to her or contact her ever again. But I already knew, in a small way, that I didn't want that.

Karen seemed like she was worth just a little more than that.