2002-06-17 - 10:34 PM
Paper Playgrounds And The Boy Chaser (Suteki Da Ne)
Something's special about the park by my house - well, it's a school, but with a public playground, basketball court, and field. Nonetheless, something's special about it - Lawrence Brook, that is. Whenever I go there, I don't want to leave. It just sucks that I abide by the standard rule that holds over that domain now, which is, sun down, gotta leave. So because the sun was dipping and dying as such behind the faulty lines of this faulty earth, I found myself leaving the place I wanted to be, heading towards the place I left. I didn't want to be home, but I had to go somewhere. So I just kept on keeping on - walked around until my ankles started to give, burnt the dial on my phone from calling so many people who didn't pick up. With elbows on knees, I sat on the curb, tried very hard to make out the stars in the sky. I wondered if that cliche was true - could there somehow be, the chance that I could be looking up at the same star as somebody else, wishing on it as they were doing - and maybe, just maybe, I knew that somebody else. Maybe one night in Texas, Spazznut'll look up and find that one star, that "lone star", and I'll be gazing the same exact one - and maybe we'll wish something that might very well come true. Maybe we'll wish for a billion dollars. Maybe for a wedding. Maybe for happiness. In any case, it intrigues me to think that that cliche could somehow happen, and perhaps to me. So I hope it does. I pray it does. It'd be something quite nice, to happen to someone quite nice. Dontcha think?
Her, not me, now that I think about it. Heh.
...
Back at the playground, when the sun was still a little bit awake, I fell into something strange. Not literally. Not literally at all. I was sitting on a tire, weaved together with other tires in a sort of rubbery web or a net. I dropped into that hypnotic trance that you get into at the most random moments of your days - staring into space like daydreaming in school. But I wasn't really daydreaming about anything. And now that I think it over, I wasn't really staring at one thing either. So maybe this was different from those normal and ordinary hypnotic trances. Fact is, I was just sitting, staring at the many different things going on - taking everything in, absorbing it all like a sponge.
Almost dead ahead of me, there was a small Chinese boy, inching up one of the wooden structures, making his way to the top of this mountain (one of the many scattered around the woodchip terrain). When he had finally made it to the top, he stood tall and proud, hands on hips, arching back to get in a full belly of air. And with his enormous pocket of breath, he let out his powerful yelp, screaming, "HELLO, EARTH CREATURES!!!"
"Cute," I remarked.
I looked on over to the teenage couple rocking back and forth on the bench-swing, leaning back to skygaze. I remembered bringing somebody to that same spot, in what seemed like decades before. I watched their legs swing lazily to and fro, very gently - making the moment a very gentle moment. I imagined them whispering their love to each other, underneath their sweet breaths. I missed feeling the way they must've felt at that instant. I envied them - bitter I became when my heart got used to breaking.
I saw an older couple - a much older couple, probably in their sixties or seventies - walking hand in hand all around the grounds. They were walking with the same strides, same feet forward and all, crossing over balance beams in exactly the same way. Every dozen strides, they'd look to one another and smile, talking all along the way. That's what I hoped to have in my wiser years - somebody who'd still love me, still look at me in that way, who would still interest me - who somewhere along the way, fell into a stride with me. Somebody who'd enjoy an evening in the park.
I saw a mother fixing up a scrape on an elbow - her son holding in his tears as his face flushed in red. Something like that always will remind me of my childhood - the scrapes, the pains, the holding back of the tears. Every now and then, I wish there was a band-aid large enough for my problems.
Over to my right, in the soccer field, there was a father, strong Irish accent, teaching his son how to kick the ball. Their dog was a few paces away, lying on his stomach, tongue out and panting - very well trained. Why couldn't Bruno be that way? In any such case, I was wishing my dad had been around to do that stuph with me growing up. You know, do all that fatherly crap like take me fishing, teach me about cars and sports - tell me the truth about girls. But it's okay. No need to place blame on anybody or anything. It's the way things went. I accept it. I just imagine that this kid'll grow up feeling loved.
Then I saw these two girls chatting away, side by side - attractive in a conventional way. Senor Pepe was telling me to let him out of his zipper cage and let at them. But I really couldn't. Besides, while I was debating on making any sort of move or just sitting on my thumb, these two bumbling idiots came out from behind a wooden wall and tagged along behind the females. The boyfriends, I assumed - quite automatically, they became fuckheads in my eyes, mostly because they had gotten in the way of my option of making a move. But that's okay. Quite automatically, people become fuckheads and "jerk of all jerks" in our eyes, for very stupid reasons, and for many reasons that we will never readily or willingly reveal to ourselves.
Such a human tragedy.
And then, careening through pillars and tires, was a young girl, age six or roundabout I presume, being chased by a boy of the same age. Game of tag, cat-and-mouse, I concluded. After a few minutes of watching in amazement at the dazzling energy of children, the girl ran behind another youthful boy that I guess I hadn't noticed. The chaser stopped, and then what went into play next, astonished the living hell out of me. The heaving boy, out of breath but with fresh eyes full of life and wonderment, took one last deep breath before exhaling something that almost made me cry. With all that was in him, he exhaled,
"Love me?"
The girl, vocally strutting in her reply, answered, "NO! I can't - this is my boyfriend! NO!"
The little boy chaser looked down and let out a disappointed "okay" before turning around and being on his way away. The "boyfriend" looked back at the girl, in as much of a puzzled way as a six year old can manage. She answered the look with, "I was only joking!" Then she looked in the general direction of said sad chaser and yelled after him, "COME BACK!"
And so goes, the cycle and strange torture of relationships. I couldn't believe it was starting so soon in their lives. Stupid and moronic mind games - deceit and disappointment. Such a human tragedy. Why couldn't I sheild the boy chaser from that snobby little bitch of a six year old? Damn it. One day she'll love you, but you'd have moved on, little one. Don't worry - hopefully things'll turn out well for us nice guys in the end. Hopefully.
But until then, I, with you, shall keep on asking that same God forsaken question we're destined to question, over and over again --
"Love me?"
