I don’t know why I felt the way I did. Spring seemed to always depress me, and now it was spring—in the worst way—and I was feeling very low. Weather has always governed my mood and viewpoint, especially in matters that effect my ethical nature: my attitude toward work and love and mu self-concept. In the fall of the year, I am always full of vigor and optimism because of the cool weather. When everything is crisp and clear, or even cloudy, windy and cold, I have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. My English teacher says that my attitude is naturalistic, but I don’s know what that is, really. I am not an animal, I don’t think; and just because weather governs my mood, I do not think I am totally governed by nature. Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to tell you about. I wanted to tell you about this girl. Or was it spring?
Anyway, it was awful outside and awful inside the school. Outside it was raining off and on—what is that vocabulary word? Intermittent? Yeah—bad it was muggy, hot, steamy, and depressing. The trees and clouds and air just hung there, lifeless and sort of mashed against the sky. Occasionally, when the sun broke through, it did not help matters; it just turned everything into a steam bath. It had been raining this way for over a week and the creeks and glutters and sidewalks were swollen with Georgia red mud and water. The green stuff which was trying to make its appearance into the world was battered and bent over by the heavy rains.
Inside, the atmosphere was the same, maybe even worse. Schools never seem to have a pleasant atmosphere—have you ever noticed that? They are always hot, smelly, gritty, and loud. Ours was no exception. As I sat in Mr. Green’s history class listening to the droning of his lecture that came drifting, dryly and thinly out from between his yellowed old college class notes and his lowered spectacles: The words slid harmlessly past the ears of his dozing students and mingled imperceptibly with the hum of the fluorescent fixture overhead; I thought about the prospects for the afternoon, the night, the weekend, and the summer. Why is it, I wonder, when you are bored, that your mind always goes “this afternoon—nothing; tonight—nothing; this weekend—nothing; this summer—nothing; conclusion—NOTHING!”
Well, there was something, but it was getting old. Her name was Janice. Janice was pretty. Janice was sweet. Janice was on the drill team. Janice was smart. Janice had nice parents. But at that particular moment, Janice was about as exciting to me as dust on a windowpane. Back during the fall I had been thrilled with her. See, it all worked together like magic. We were “right” for each other and fell into the almost pre-arranged going steady bit as if society meant for us to be all along. It’s curious, but I guess Janice started it all by asking me to help her with her English homework one day exactly one week before the homecoming dance. I said “Yes, I would be happy to help you; yes, tonight would be fine; your house, fine; yes, no problem: I’d love to; about seven o’clock; good.” Well, from that point on—Oh, I don’t want to talk about it!
Janice met me at the locker as usual.
“Hey,” she greeted me, in that kind of voice that starts high and ends about one note flatter than it started, issued with a half-sigh, a twisted chomp of the jaw on the chewing gum, half-closed eyes, and a nonchalant, mechanical, fast twist of the combination lock on the locker.
“Hey,” I replied, disgusted at what I had observed in her behavior.
“How was history?” She asked.
“O.K., I guess.” Why is it, I was wondering, that conversation is so hard when two people become tired of each other? “Do you want to go to the mall tonight?” I continued. I was trying to be nice and to suggest something that I really hated to do, but she loved to do, in hopes that the being nice would spark some good vibrations between us that had been missing for quite some time.
“Maybe.”
Hmmm. Not much help there.
“You want me to call you?” I asked. I was groveling. I knew it, but I wanted to show some interest, thinking that maybe she needed a little push to come around. Or maybe I didn’t want to be the one that ended the relationship, preferring instead to grovel rather than face the prospect of a breakup.
“Yeah, if you want.” She slammed the locker and wheeled around and headed down the dark corridor as she often did of late, not even slowing her pace, but with her head held high and arms clutching her books, she scooted away from me. I was aware of a bead of sweat on my upper lip, and slowly I sneaked up on it with my tongue. It was as if she wanted to leave me behind. I knew, though, that if I let her go on ahead, it would make her mad, and she would turn around with her hand on her hip and jut her chin out and say, “Are you coming, or not?” So I quickened my pace—just enough to catch her, but not acting as if I cared. Damn, it was hot!
At Janice’s class, I did not turn off toward the door, but rather kept my body headed down the hall, turning just my head toward her as she moved toward the class. I merely said, out of the corner of my mouth, and in a routine manner, “I’ll call you tonight.”
Lowering her head, she said, “I , uh, might go off.”
I was totally unprepared for this!
“With who!” I demanded. I was no longer headed down the hall. I frowned and leaned forward, and I guess my voice was rather loud, because a little eighth-grader looked up at me through his dirty glasses and stared in awe, with his buck teeth, braces, and freckles all registering a kind of terror at this thunderous voice.
“Jan, maybe, I don’t know.” She was fidgeting.
Jan was the girl from California that had come to our school recently, and everybody was excited by her beauty, money, and liberal attitudes. I was getting angrier, and the sweat began to pour.
“Well, do our want me to call or not?” I wasn’t going to mess around anymore. I was tired of this game. I had tried to communicate, but to no avail. The bell rang.
“Whatever,” she said, with that same flippant tone, and turned to go in to class.
I shook my head and made my way down the hall. This whole situation was a mess just like the weather outside: our relationship was a sticky, vague, noncommittal exercise carried on by two bored and restless people. If you can be this way, I was mad and apathetic at the same time. There was nothing going on, no way to prove yourself, and I couldn’t stand it.
It was one of those deja vu things, really. As I was walking down the hall, it being late and I being preoccupied with my problems, I was staring. I must have been staring for four or five seconds before I realized that I was staring at a girl; and she was staring at me. I hadn’t even been aware that I was staring, and when I finally realized it, I felt like I had been here before, doing this same thing, with her there, and me here, walking down the dark hall. But unlike the feeling that I had been here before, something else was trying to signal my preoccupied brain. It was the way she was looking at me. From the onset of puberty my eye had trained itself to catch even the slightest hint of feminine beauty: a graceful curve, awless skin, the smell of perfume, or those quick, darting glances that flicker just a hint of interest in you. But this was different. This girl with no business in the hall was staring at me and she was beautiful. She wasn’t smiling, just staring, open-eyed and honest, head tilted forward so that she had to look under her brows, lips poked out in a kind of thoughtful gesture, with just a hint of hopeful sadness in her expression.
I was struck. I don’t remember if I kept walking, whether I stopped and gawked with my mouth open or what. I remember only thinking about those eyes: they were riveted to mine. It’s funny, but at first it’s the eyes that get you. They reach out and grab you, and hold you long enough to give the other charms a chance to swarm in from the peripheries of your eye and reluctantly draw your glance to themselves, leaving momentarily and regretfully the glance of the admirer. That’s all there was, as far as I can remember; but sitting in my class the last hour of the day, all I thought about was those eyes.
As soon as class was over, I raced to the spot where I had seen her, but she was gone. Dejectedly I strode to my car in the parking lot, opened the door and was met by the blast of steam heat from inside the locked up car. The vinyl of the seat covers was scorching, and I rolled down the windows, cursing the heat and glare. Blowing a breath forcefully from under my lower lip in an attempt to stie the mask of perspiration that was forming on my face, I pulled out in the long line of cars ad turned my radio up full blast. As I listened to the heavy rock music, I slipped back into my self- pity again. I looked around at the waves of heat rising from the asphalt and blinding glare that turned even the blue sky and green trees into o shades of white and silver and thought: God, how wilted and sterile and dead everything is. Just then a small, refreshing pu of fresh air came whirling through the open windows; and, as I turned my hot face to accept its cooling caress, there they were.
Those eyes! As I lost myself into them, I felt the tingle run up my backbone and spread across my shoulders and settle under my earlobes. I vaguely remember seeing her lips move. I had to shake my head rapidly to recover my wits.
“Huh!” I said.
“I said,” she purred in an understanding way, as if she was pitying me for being so startled by her approach, “can you give me a ride?”
My breath jumped up under my ribs and my heart took one of those little half-beats and I almost knocked her down pushing open her door.
“Sure, Jan,” I said, racing my motor.