Once I knew a boy who owned a skateboard
it was a few years ago and he was a cute guy from my high school who I'd always thought was a bit of a dumbass but he was popular and all the ladies loved him and I couldn't figure out why.
we reconnected while I was sitting outside having a beer with friends at the Toad in the Hole and he went by on his skateboard and we started chatting and didn't stop for the next month or so. most of our correspondence was veiled jabs at one another because we clearly both came from different worlds which didn't collide nicely.
I think he thought I was stuck up which I was and I think I thought he was useless, which he was.
he picked me up once in a beatup old red car wearing a fluffy plaid parka and a toque even though it was only early fall. there was no radio and he had groceries from his mom's kitchen in the backseat. he held my hand because it was colder in the car than it was outside. at his place we tried to watch Brazil but his pirated copy didn't work so we watched Bronson instead and made out on his couch, interrupted only once by his lesbian roommate who made a point of talking about how she was a lesbian which I thought was overcompensating a bit.
the apartment had walls of either wood panelling or brick, and the furniture were all scruffy antiques except the shelves that housed his record collection, which were 2x4s held up with cinder blocks and covered in paper doilies probably stolen from somewhere. at one point we listened to Bob Dylan, sipping cheap beers and listening to the freezing rain.
it was like being in a Wes Anderson movie.
but when I got up to use the bathroom I walked by his bedroom and saw the mattress on the floor with the dirty sheets and the pile of car tires that he was going to sell at some point, or so he said, I knew that it was over.
I was too much of a snob, and he was too useless for us to be anything but offensive to one another.
but sometimes when I hear Visions of Johanna I remember the time I let that boy who really wasn't good for me at all put his hand up my shirt while the record skipped and the rain came down, even though I knew I shouldn't have. I knew it was over and I knew it was useless but I think I kissed him harder and enjoyed the moment more knowing that once it ended, that was it.
so we kissed like we didn't mean anything to each other, which we didn't.
and that was alright.
