“Basically we’re over the hump now, we’re in the door here so we can pretty much be guaranteed a good life, I’ve always…”
“What makes you so sure of that.” The young woman from across the room interrupted the guy talking. That was the first time I saw her. No lightening struck, no sweaty palms, no erection I didn’t even register her as attractive in that first instance. But then it was not a highly eroticized moment. A small room in University halls, the bizarre anachronism of this Edwardian building full of kids in Billabong hoodies smoking dope; except for me of course. The best I could manage was a fruit of the loom t-shirt.
“Cause we’re made, like f*****g Joe Pesci…” snorted the vaguely obnoxious mole hunched up against the radiator on the other side of the room. Of course it is only with hindsight that I would categorize him thus, in the sick desperation of the opening weeks away from home a young mans brain could not identify the failings of anyone or anything. Limbering up to be filled.
“Didn’t he get shot in the back of the head at the end?”
“Shut up Frank.”
“I’m just saying,” the young woman continued, “you’re assuming a lot about the way you’re life is going to pan out for you. What if you lose an arm, what if there’s some gigantic economic crash and you’re dad’s business goes under what if you’re f*****g mom dies?!”
The temperature in the room changes, mentioning the death of a parent amongst people of this age is a social faux pas. It is widely regarded as off limits as anyone who actually has suffered this unspeakable loss will have their self-esteem crushed by the mere mention of the concept. This is the popularly held belief as far as I can interpret from the social order.
I cannot decipher if the Americanized inflection on ‘mom’ was intentional or if it was an accidental accented slip. Her speech up to that point was neutral southern England, perhaps a satellite town of London.
“Don’t be ridiculous” the mole piped up, “my family’s finances are secure from any kind of economic debacle, have you heard of globalization by any chance? A portfolio that spans continents dear, and as for my mother’s health well…” he tails off.
“I bet your MOMS got f*****g cancer…” the young woman cackled as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. I think from that point on I was besotted with her, if I had to narrow it down to a split second. It would be the second she said cancer.
Morbid you think, perhaps the beginnings of depressive’s tendency to align oneself with destructive characters in order to expedite ones own destruction? It would certainly appear to be the case but as I have said already hindsight can afford you these glorious epiphanies. To expect the younger me to extrapolate alternative outcomes from the datasets provided in real time is a flawed methodology. Once can not rise above the system until all the parameters are understood, she was just one variable.
But sometimes one variable can corrupt the entire equation.
