They Laugh At Tragedies

“Hipster, much?” I hear Dante’s voice above the din of the students before I see him.

I look up from my book, shield my eyes from the sun and stare at him, waiting for him to elaborate onto his completely random statement.

“Sorry, you’re reading a James Joyce book and—look at your freaking t-shirt,” he says, pointing a long finger at the shirt I’m wearing—a vintage Velvet Underground tee.

“Screw you,” is my extremely witty reply.

“I dare you,” he replies without missing a beat, grinning boyishly.

It takes me a moment before I get it, because I’m just so naïve like that. When I do, I scowl at him.

“That was kind of lame. And I don’t see how you can accuse me of being a hipster,” I say matter-of-factly, looking back down at my book.

Dante plops down next to me. His leg brushes against mine casually. I stiffen slightly, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s clad in all black, as usual. He somehow seems to pull this off as not goth, but stylishly grungy. He’s wearing faded grey jeans, combat boots, a fitted white tank top which shows quite a bit of his tattoos off and a large black trench coat. I can’t help but ogle.

“Well, for one thing, I don’t think many normal teenagers listen to the Velvet Underground. For another, I don’t think many normal people in general read James Joyce books for pleasure,” he explains, smirking at my annoyed expression. Fucking prick.

“Au contraire, my dear friend, I know many people who listen to the Velvet Underground.” I didn’t.

“And,” I continue before Dante could interrupt, “I have met many great geniuses like myself who highly enjoy reading James Joyce.” I haven’t.

“Sure…” he says slowly, making sure I know one-hundred percent that he doesn’t believe me one bit. “Anyway. What’s up?”

I give Dante a weird look. “…what?”

He stares at me amusedly. “What. Is. Up.”

“Har har. Nothing’s ‘up.’ Although I did almost get fired ‘cause of some real stupid customer yesterday…” I trail off, recalling yesterday’s events.

For some reason, Dante seems interested. “What? Where do you work?”

“Oh, you know. Local diner,” I reply disinterestedly.

“What happened?” he asks curiously.

“This annoying girl—regular customer—seems to have some huge vendetta against me. She always wants to pick some kind of fight with me, even if it’s about something as trivial as what day it is. I really don’t know why she hates me, nor do I care. But I might’ve swore at her quite a few times…and it just so happened to be in front of my boss. The rest is self-explanatory,” I finish, staring at my nails.

“What does she look like?” Dante asks.

The question throws me off guard for a second, but I answer anyway. “Um, light brown hair—always in two braids—real dorky glasses, kinda skinny, kinda not—oh, and her eyes are very squinty. Why, you know her or something?”

“Nope, just curious…” he replies vaguely.

Dante has a bizarre, distant look on his face that kind of freaks me out. Sort of like he’s plotting a murder or something. Whatever.

* * *

“I have a question.”

I am sitting with Vincent on his front porch. It’s 2 a.m. We’re both wide awake.

“Shoot,” I say, although I can’t help but feel slightly apprehensive.

“Your mom’s dead, right?” he asks bluntly.

For a moment I am shocked. People aren’t usually that blunt with me; they’re either too intimidated or there’s the much less likely prospect of them just being too polite.

Vincent seems to notice my shocked expression, and I immediately wipe the shock off my face. Instead, I adopt a complete poker-face.

“Yes…” I don’t say anything else.

“Hm,” is all Vincent says. I turn to look at him. He has this sort of faraway look on his face.

“It’s okay. She will always remain in my heart,” I say with sincerity.

“…and in her grave,” I add randomly.

He stares at me weirdly. “What?”

“Huh?”

He gives me a long—looong—stare before speaking. “You’re really fucked up,” he tells me.

“Not really,” I say, staring with a sinister kind of fascination at the upside-down caterpillar that’s trying so desperately to turn back upright.

Vincent follows my gaze and looks at the caterpillar for a few seconds. “Right,” he says after looking back up at me, smirking.

He reaches out and turns the caterpillar back upright, which then proceeds to scurry away with a speed I didn’t realize caterpillars could really manage. I could just imagine its squeaky little thoughts in its squeaky little voice while its scampering to his little caterpillar haven. “Wahoo! Hallelujah! There really is a god! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzz—” And then, of course, it’d proceed to get stomped on ill-fatedly by a clueless human just passing by. And that would be the end of The Chronicles of Cornelius the Caterpillar.

“—Alexa. Alexa. Alexa. Earth to Alexa…” I look at Vincent, who’s waving his hand in front of my face.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“Nothing. You just seriously spaced out there, that’s all…” he trails off, staring up at the sky.

I don’t think I’m the only one spacing out.

“Whatever.”

* * *

When I go to work the next day, I’m surprised to see Dante. Let me rephrase that; I’m completely shocked to see Dante as a waiter. Serving Cynthia. Out of all the people on this gargantuan planet, he serves the devil herself.

Okay, so maybe devil’s a bit of an overstatement…

Or not.

As he’s walking away from her table, he sees me and smiles hugely. It creeps me out. He walks towards me.

I’m about to ask what the hell is going on, but he opens his mouth first. “I’ll explain later,” he says. There’s a devilish undertone to his words.

All I do is nod before proceeding to work. He said he’d explain later. I’m holding him to that.

* * *

I wait for Dante outside the diner, carving random crap into its grimy brick walls. Apparently it’s quite a popular thing to do. Various couples have already carved their initials on it—things like “N.F. + C.B.” or whatever.

It seems that the filthy outdoor walls of a diner are quite a romantic place to profess your undying love to each other… The world really is a strange place.

I hear someone clearing their throat behind me just as I finish carving something into the wall and turn around, coming face to face with Dante, who has a small, amused smirk on his face.

“‘A.H. is cooler than all of you,’ huh? And I’m presuming A.H. stands for Alexa Hannagan?” he inquires, quirking an eyebrow at me.

“That would be correct. Now why the hell are you working at this shitty excuse for a diner?” I ask.

“Straight to the point, huh?” he asks. When I don’t reply, he chuckles

“One word: Revenge,” he says simply.

“Revenge…?” I ask hesitantly, wondering what the hell he’s going on about.

“Yep. That girl you were talking about, I figured she needed a lesson taught to her, and I knew you weren’t going to do it—you’re too fucking apathetic.”

“Wait, Cynthia?” I ask skeptically.

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I kinda…went all Tyler Durden on her,” he says, grinning slightly and scratching the back of his head.

“You spit in her food,” I state simply.

A slow grin spreads across Dante’s face. “Hey, you got my reference!”

“Duh.” I roll my eyes. “So do you plan to keep working here until her whole digestive system is filled with your spit, or something?”

“I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. It’s kind of fun, actually. Especially when you’re exposed to how annoying the customers whose food you’re spitting in are,” he replies, a silly grin on his face.

“Right…” I say slowly.

Dante chuckles and slings his arm around my shoulder. I’m sort of used to his forward-ness by now, so I don’t react. He starts walking.

“Dante, where are you going?” I inquire apprehensively.

“I don’t know,” he says vaguely, shrugging.

“Yeah, well, I need to go home, so unless you want to…accompany me on my arduous, boring walk back home, I suggest you let go of me,” I say as tactfully as I could.

“God, Alexa, you don’t have to talk so formally; it’s not like I’m a college professor,” Dante mocks.

“You changed the subject,” I state impassively.

Dante rolls his eyes, taking his arm off of my shoulder. I think I hear him say something that sounds suspiciously like, “Debbie downer,” but I can’t be too sure. After all, who says things like that?