K Breese - Future Imperfect

“I want to see you.”

Vauxhall says, “Naughty.”

She invites me in and her room smells like sandalwood and vanilla. She curls up on her bed on a mound of beaded and tasseled pillows and I sit on the floor, legs crossed, just staring at her. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, she blows me a kiss and, head on her hands, says, “You were like a superstar tonight.”

“Thanks,” I say. “I felt really alive.”

“So, superstar, you ever dream about flying?”

“I used to,” I say. “But now it’s mostly swimming.”

Vauxhall thinks about that for a beat and then reaches into her nightstand and pulls out her video camera. I can hear it whir to life and then a green light comes on and suddenly the room is bright with neon lime.

I say, “I was wondering when that would reappear.”

Vaux’s like, “Tell me about the swimming dreams.”

The camera hums. It is soothing.

I say, “It’s swim practice. I just feel alive in the water. Must be because they keep it at like eighty-two degrees at Celebrity’s and it’s like swimming in a womb or something. These dreams, they’re mostly about me swimming in this shallow sea, like the Great Barrier Reef. You know, really super-clear blue water. Lots of fish too. Colorful fish. Some so big that when they swim beneath me it’s like the whole bottom of the sea is moving.”

As I talk my eyes adjust to the light from the camera. And soon I can see Vauxhall’s legs and chest and her feet and the top of her head, a beautiful green ghost.

Vaux asks, “In the dream, are you alone?”

“Yeah. Almost always. But in a very peaceful way.”

She asks, “Are you naked?”

“I don’t know.”

She says, “In all the dream books it talks about swimming meaning sex. Particularly if it’s in warm water. Supposed to be like your subconscious yearnings. Your desires. Do you feel like that means anything?”

“No.”

The voice behind the green light asks, “Why?”

“I don’t buy all that dream interpretation bullshit. Dreams are just what happens when I turn my mind off and let the screen saver play. Mine, it’s one of those tropical screen savers. Helps that I’m relaxed.”

“Want to know what I dream about?”

I nod and can only imagine that my eyes are reflecting in the green glow the way dogs’ or tigers’ do in those nature shows. The feral me sitting on the floor, ready to pounce.

Vaux says, “Lights.”

She says, “I keep dreaming about stars that are really high above me that drop lower and lower and then become the lights around the edge of a stage. I’m in the middle, standing there in all sorts of outfits, and the lights are creating the space I’m in. Outside of it, I know there’s an audience and I know I’m supposed to act, but I’m purposely not doing it. I’m purposely restraining myself from giving them the show they want. There’s this tension.”

I say, “You could read a lot into that.”

I can’t see her, but I imagine she raises her eyebrows.

Uncrossing my legs and leaning back on my hands, I say, “It’s like the universe has just come into focus. Like all the pieces are snapped together and everything’s quiet.”

Vauxhall turns the camera off.

She whispers, “Come here. I want to feel beautiful with you.”

I climb up onto her bed, the weight of me making it groan, and then I put my mouth on hers and my hands on hers and we just sink into each other and let our bodies do what they want.

Afterward, Vauxhall’s body shivers while she plays with the sparse hair on my chest and says, “It was really strange. Well, I didn’t see into the present like last time. Did you?”

“No,” I say, my voice crackling. “That’s odd, right?”

“I saw your past,” Vauxhall says. “But still no high.”

“Good,” I say, smiling, “Sorry.”

“Ade, your past. Your childhood. Everything before meeting me was like static.”

I take a deep breath and just let it sit inside me. I can make out the edges of the furniture in the room and the slope of her shoulders and the dune of blankets that her hips make. I realize I wasn’t really hearing what she was saying.

“What about my past?” I ask.

Vauxhall says, “It’s gone.”

Dear Mom-

Why I put this behind the crucifix on the back porch is because I knew you’d find it when you were gathering stuff for your Sunday Midnight Bible Class. You’ve never told me why you take this particular crucifix, but I figure we’ll have time to discuss it later.

First of all, sorry about the other night.

I’ve been going through a lot of changes recently and I’m guessing that most of them, probably 90 percent, can be chalked up to your average teen anxieties, but there’s a decent 10 percent that’s totally unaccountable.

I remember you telling me about how dragonflies change from nymphs. How when they’re young, they’re these underwater monsters with crazy snap-out jaws. Those nymphs, you said, are insatiable. They terrorize ponds and creeks. But then, for whatever biological reason, those monsters climb up out of the water and transform into dragonflies. Their skin cracks open and the wings pop out and then they fly off into the sunlight as some of the most beautiful things on Earth.

Lately, it seems like I’ve been doing something similar. Only it’s in the reverse. I’m a dragonfly that used to be all caught up in the clouds and the sky and whatever was blooming in the next valley and the next lawn but decided for whatever reason to climb back into the skin of nymph and go terrorize the depths again.

What’s really weird is that I’m content with it. It feels natural to me.

Is that a bad thing?

I’m not so sure. Sometimes, and I think this was another thing you said when you were telling me about dragonfly nymphs, the worst things that happen, the worst urges we have, are really just blessings in deep cover. I’m thinking, right now, that’s probably true.

Anyway, in case you were wondering, here’s what I’m doing: I’ll spend the morning with my girlfriend, probably have breakfast at Pete’s on Colfax, and we’ll go for one of those holding-hands walks in the park. Lunch will be with Paige, and then we’re going to the Mantlo football game. I know, what? Well, it just felt right to do something totally out of the ordinary on such a strangely momentous day. After the game it’s to the reservoir, actually the beach at the north end, and I will see if I can’t stop what I saw when we had that car accident a few weeks back. That’s it. If I’m not in bed in the morning, chances are good I’m in jail. So look for me there.

I wanted to end this letter with a quote I found that I thought you’d appreciate. Love you, Mom. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” And that’s from Matthew 6:34.

Ade

The football game happens, but Vaux and I notice maybe 10 percent of it.

Mantlo wins, apparently.

Vauxhall spends the game just people-watching and she’s convinced by halftime that there is no better place to people-watch. The mall has nothing on the football game. Here, the whole of the human race is represented. The good. The bad. The weird. The ugly. All of Mantlo’s various tribes and subcultures are on display.

Me, I try and remember my growing up. But oddly enough, I can’t seem to nail down anything clearly. Not school. Not my dad. Not even a single birthday party. I chalk it up to nervousness. I tell Vauxhall that maybe the first time we were together did something funky. I tell her that maybe memories and such got scrambled. I say, “I’m not worried.”