The Art of Burning Bridges

         Audrey called my name but I allowed myself to sink further into the grass. It grew around me, masking me from the only person I thought possessed the power to break my heart.
         She found me anyway. “Are you coming?”
         I spotted my lighter out of the corner of my eye and grasped for it, ready to take another hit, when Audrey's tattered grey Converse came out of nowhere and kicked it just out of my reach. It was my favorite goddamn lighter, the one in the shape of a juke box with "Bob Marley - Smoke 2 Joints" written in tiny black letters across the miniature yellow screen, and she kicked it.
         "Give it to me," I said hoarsely, and I could no longer see where she was, but I heard her reply.
         "Get it yourself."
          I'd have been furious if I wasn't so high, but I figured if Audrey was cutting me off then I must've had enough, because she could toke with the best of them. She'd have put Bob Marley himself to shame, and as I thought this I felt a conflicting need to be stubborn though the truth was I wanted to give her a plaque, one that read, "In Honor of Audrey Cooper for Putting Bob Marley to Shame." I laughed out loud at this thought, and between giggles I told her to go fuck herself because, as I said before, if I hadn't been so damn stoned I'd have been livid.
          My laughter subsided as she came back into view. I refused to make eye contact, instead looking past her into the bottomless sky. I watched as it swallowed the clouds and the sun and I felt it swallow me, too.
         "I guess you're not coming." She started to walk away.
         “I would rather die,” I exhaled, and as I spoke those words my eyelids fluttered.
          I woke up hours later and she was gone; my world had changed. The grass that embraced me so protectively before now heaved under my weight; the sky had fallen and it was as if mine was the only life spared. I walked to the place under the boardwalk where Jane was meeting me and it was then that I realized I’d been wrong all along: Audrey wasn’t the only girl who had the power to break my heart. More importantly, she was the only one who knew how to fix it.



          I often found her in the attic in the sweltering heat, stripped down to her underwear and hunched over her old typewriter, deep in thought. She knew all the letters by heart – a good thing, as they had faded over the years from being left permanently in the tiny square of sunlight that the single window allowed into the dusty room. Audrey was a writer in every sense of the word. When she spoke I could see her mind working, carefully choosing each word, focusing especially on clarity and aesthetics. When listening she was just as meticulous, mentally taking down everything that was said and filing it away in her mind, ready to be reviewed when necessary, either for a future conversation or story. I could tell that this aspect of her personality – her quiet observations, her tendency to over-think, her desire to put people and situations and beauty into words – was something she considered to be a curse, a hindrance, though I knew she would never admit it. Her talent for expressing herself was, in fact, a talent for expressing everything but herself, and she did her best to keep it that way, though often her discarded work would reflect what I considered to be a piece of her, and I treasured it for what it was.
          Sometimes I would lay behind her reading comic books, angled in such a way that the light from the window came nowhere near me, as the heat was already unbearable enough. She criticized almost everything she wrote and it often ended up crumpled in the corner, no matter how beautiful or heartfelt or like her it was. Occasionally I’d be able to sneak over and salvage a piece or two of her work, and I would read it alone in my room, and Audrey was my favorite writer, no doubt about that.



          I’ve come to realize that it’s impossible, when you’re a seventeen year old boy man with no facial hair (and ribs that stick out), to get what you want. I mean, you can get what you want, but no matter how good it is or who it’s with, you’ll be second guessing yourself the entire time; and when you’re done you’ll beat yourself up over not doing one thing or doing something else too much, and you’ll wonder if you made funny faces and what she told her friends, or if Audrey will find out and what she’ll think if she does.



          Who the fuck invented shoes with no backs and when did I decide they were practical enough to invest nearly one hundred dollars on? I fumed as I made my way through the warm, murky puddles of a late July thunderstorm, my Birkenstocks filled with water, and my socks and feet drenched. Audrey will get a kick out of this, I thought.
          I was right. I arrived at her front door and slipped the second I stepped inside, grabbing a hold of her and pulling us both to the ground. It wasn't the fall that made her laugh, but the offensive smacking noises my shoes made as we went down.
         "Sounds like sex," she giggled, and I would've laughed too, if her (accurate) observation hadn't set off a string of startling thoughts, the most prominent being, Who is Audrey sleeping with?
          Rather than voicing this thought I replied, "Abstinence is the only form of birth control that's one hundred percent effective."
         "Come on," Audrey said, leading me to her parents' bedroom. "Let's get you a dry pair of socks."
          I stood awkwardly in the doorway as Audrey rummaged through her father's top drawer. I watched her through my wet, blond curls, and it occurred to me how long it had been since my last haircut. Too long, I supposed, as my vision was effectively obstructed.
         "Will you give me a haircut?" I asked as Audrey placed a pair of grey wool socks in my hands.
         "I most certainly will not," Audrey replied. "I like your hair the way it is. If you want it cut that's fine, but I won't be a part of it."
         "You like it?"
         "Yeah. You’ve got beautiful hair."
          I shrugged, unsure if I wanted beautiful anything, but despite the feminine connotation associated with the word, it was a positive one. "Okay. Maybe I'll keep it awhile longer."
          As we made our way to her bedroom to play Monopoly I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and almost laughed out loud. I'd turned into one of those kids, the skinny ones that wear Birkenstocks and neutral wool sweaters, the ones who are vegan and read Karl Marx, the kids that spend their lazy summer days surfing and smoking and sleeping. I'd spent the better half of my high school career looking for ways to separate myself from those kids, but it was futile. I'd been one of them since the day before my 11th birthday, when I took my first hit with Audrey's dad and he lent me a book on veganism, which I promised to read when I finished The Communist Manifesto, and I told him I was in love with his daughter and always would be for as long as I lived. I held the book in my hand and I said those things, and as I spoke the words I cried, partly because the pot made me emotional, but also because Mr. Cooper had said my name in such a way that it had never been said before, like it was safe in his mouth. So I cried and he hugged me, and he said I was the only person in the world he would even consider giving his daughter away to.
          I'd been one of those wool-wearing kids ever since, and as far as I knew at 17, I'd be that way for the rest of my life.



         Did you ever get an idea in your head and once you realized it you felt as if it might come true? I was sprawled out in my backyard one afternoon and listening to Mozart when I suddenly got the idea that I might die during the night. Just, you know, have an aneurysm in my sleep and not be found until my dad came home from work the next day. It frightened me, but not because I think death is scary - to tell you the truth, I find it to be one of the least frightening concepts imaginable. It also wasn't the fact that I'd feel as if I'd be missing out, or that I have so much to look forward to, because honestly, I've experienced a good amount of luxuries in my short life and have found very few of them to be anything worth caring about. What I feared most was that, in death, I would never see Audrey again and to me, that would be hell. I was afraid of hell.
         Upon further contemplation (and I don't know what it was about Mozart, but I found that I was incapable of anything other than deep, profound thought while listening to him) I realized that true hell isn't being without her in death, but being without her in life. I imagine death to be a different state of being altogether, one where there's no wants or needs or missing people, just being in the most basic sense: a numb, blissful float through existence. Life, on the other hand, is full of emotions and hard reality - mindless existence is only achievable by a lobotomy and nobody even near their right mind would voluntarily get one of those. The problem with me is I'm always thinking, and not just thinking like, Oh, maybe I'll get real high tonight and fuck around and play Nintendo. Instead, I'm constantly going through a struggle of finding myself, is there a god?; what makes people evil?; global warming is going to kill us all; what is the deal with destiny and fate, anyway?; when the hell did Jesus find the time to be a carpenter?; and if I string a bunch of random words together, am I bound to eventually come up with a combination that has never before been used in all the Universe, therefore leaving an invisible mark on history and being one hundred percent, completely unique and original for just a fraction of my life? And it's this kind of thinking that made me realize that I wouldn't die in my sleep but Audrey would die in hers, and I'd be forced to live through hell because I'm too sane to get a lobotomy but not sane enough to realize this thought process is irrational. This, I decided that lazy afternoon, must be what those Buddhists are always going on about.
          That night I snuck into Audrey's room while she was asleep and watched her breathe. She didn't falter for a second.



         "Baseball coffee cup stapler underground."
          Audrey took a long drag from my pipe and let it out as she shook her head. "You have to be more original. Your chances are better if your words aren't so...everyday."
         "You think of something then," I snapped, but I was smiling. I was stoned out of my mind.
         “I'm still thinking. Go again."
          I sighed and dug my hands into the grass. The sun was rising and the sky was perfectly clear - it had rained during the night but let up by the time Audrey and I toppled over into the green and the dirt and the life, too tired to sleep but too alive to subject ourselves to the infomercials of late night television.
         "Deranged mountain lion overhead projector."
          She shook her head again. "Nope."
         "Give me my pipe."
          She giggled as I tickled her face with a blade of grass and she scrunched up her little nose. Her freckles spelled out "I love you." I was going to ask her to marry me when she finally handed me my pipe. "I got it, Sammy."
         "Go ahead."
         "Kerouac disallow oblongata zygotes."
          I snorted. "This isn't Scrabble."
         "What are the rules?" She asked, turning to face me. "What are the rules?"
          I inhaled deeply. "There are no rules," I admitted, becoming cross-eyed as I watched the smoke escape from my lips. "There are no fucking rules."
          And it was the fourteenth of July in my seventeenth year, at seven forty-two in the morning, that Audrey made her invisible mark on history. I was only sorry that nobody else had been there to witness it.



          My Birkenstocks took a few days to dry. When they finally did, they were a little smaller than I recalled them being, but I ignored this fact and also that it was eighty-six degrees outside, and I put on a pair of thick wool socks and forced my feet into the most impractical of shoes.
          The forecast called for rain.
          I had a baggy of marijuana stuffed in my back pocket as I made my way down Beachview Street. I refused to look at the road sign as I approached it, wondering who the hell came up with such an unoriginal name, and is he proud when he drives past, knowing that a piece of himself is on display for anyone in the world to see, so long as they’re willing to come all the way out to Southern California just to be unimpressed? I also wondered if there was anything in the Guinness Book of World Records for the least spectacularly named street ever to exist. I doubted it; these kinds of things are hard to gauge.
          To justify my negative thoughts, I stopped on the sidewalk between 1360 Beachview Street (the Stevens’) and 1362 Beachview Street (the Johnsons’), turned so I was facing West, and stepped off the curb and onto the road. I looked up. Yes, it was true. As it turns out, I did, in fact, have a view of the beach from the street. Really, whoever came up with such a name is a fucking poet.
          Ashamed of mankind, I continued on my way, making a right onto Hilltop Avenue – again, avoiding eye contact with the road sign – and forcing myself to think of something else.
          My feet were sweating and I was tempted to take off my socks, but I hate the feeling of wearing shoes with no socks on, not to mention the smell that goes along with it. Still, it was a dumb idea to wear wool socks on such a hot day, but I figured if I was going to be one of those wool-wearing kids, I might as well run with it. However, I realized, even the wool wearing kids probably stop wearing wool in the summer, and with this thought I was back where I started. I said out loud, “Wool socks was a dumb idea.”
          It wasn’t until I actually heard myself say the word that I made the connection. Wool – it comes from sheep. I went to all the trouble to buy vegan Birkenstocks – I had to wait six weeks for the store to special order them – and I counteracted it by wearing wool socks! I was able to calm myself for a second, because I figured the sheep are just getting shaved, they’re not necessarily getting hurt. But then I felt like a hypocrite, because as a vegan I refused to eat honey, though bees aren’t hurt during the process of obtaining it. That’s different, though – the bees are being stolen from, that’s psychological abuse, which is factually more damaging than physical abuse. Of course, I realized, if I were to be taken into a field and fully shaved – in front of other people, no less – I’d undoubtedly need to take a few mental health days. And the wool! Oh, the farmers steal the wool and sell it for their own profit, and I learned in my ethics class that profit is stolen from the laborer, which I would consider to be the sheep for growing the wool, and not the sick fuck responsible for shaving them. My throat felt dry and I thought, sheep have less rights than women.
          Disgusted with myself and once again ashamed of mankind, I stopped right where I was and removed my socks. I felt sick, holding them in my hand, so I threw them down a sewer and, less than a second later futilely reached after them, not wanting to litter.
          It had started to rain, but I sat on the curb for a few minutes and went over everything in my wardrobe that I’d have to throw out. Most of my sweaters, a really cool pair of pants, plenty of socks. I also made a mental note to finally throw out the down jacket given to me by my father; I’d been meaning to get rid of that for months.
         And what would I be now, if not one of the wool-wearing kids? An imitation-wool-wearing kid? What was imitation wool? Knit cotton, I supposed. All attributes of the wool-wearing kids would apply, except for the endorsement of raping sheep.
          I got to my feet, the weight of my body causing water to seep out of my shoes like a sponge. I was going to need new ones very soon.
          It was less than a minute until I reached Audrey’s front door, and she answered it, smiling, holding a book of short stories close to her chest. Her long, brown hair was wavy – it was always wavy when it rained – but that detail was negligible to me at the time, for after 13 years of friendship I’d just noticed there was a honey colored tint to her hair. I thought to myself, that’s a color I’ll never taste again.
          She said softly, “You’re shivering, Sam,” and I stood before her in the pouring rain, drenched from head to toe. I thought about all the things I wanted to say, things about wool and the rights of bees and uncreative street names; and that, more than anything else in the world, I wished to be unique and original, even if just for a second; and I wanted to kiss her. In my mind I imagined it to be an epic gesture of love, but I knew if I stepped forward to press my lips upon hers I would trip or slip or fall or cry, and the potentially perfect moment – that first kiss with my true love in the summer rain – would be forever ruined and I’d never be able to get it back.
          I said, “Sheep have less rights than women.”
          Audrey laughed. I hadn’t meant to be funny.
          We were silent for a few moments before I shifted, turning away from Audrey, who was warm and dry as she stood in the doorway. I left with little explanation, simply tossing her the bag of pot and formulating a broken sentence that was meant to resemble an excuse, but it lacked both verbs and a subject noun. Audrey probably thought nothing of it; she accepted my eccentricity as I accepted hers, and she didn’t notice the tears running down my cheeks because the rain washed them away faster than they could come.
          Animals were being tortured and children were starving as I walked through my wealthy neighborhood, having ruined my ninety-six dollar shoes and knowing it was just a matter of time before I got another pair, ruined those, and the cycle continued. Distressed and guilty, I knocked on Jane’s front door. My throat nearly closed in on itself because, for the first time in thirteen years, Audrey was no longer the person I needed most.



         Although Jane was only good for one thing (well, two things, but my hand got the job done when she wasn’t around), it was something that I couldn’t get anywhere else, not from the kids at my school, not from a teacher, not from Audrey’s dad, and especially not from Audrey. She suffered almost as much as I did and could’ve really benefitted from a talk with Jane, but Audrey’s always proven to be a stronger person than I, and when things get especially hard she can write about it. Turning her feelings into something tangible makes them somehow easier for her to cope with; I’m sure she’s written pages about me since our last encounter.
          I’m not normally attracted to blondes, but Jane was very appealing to me because she was different than anybody I’d ever met before. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it came to me soon enough, and it was only a matter of time before I was absolutely enthralled by this girl who lacked all feeling. She approached me just in time, too, after school on the last day of our junior year, just as my worrying reached its peak and the pills Audrey’s dad had prescribed me weren’t working anymore. I didn’t really mind so much because I had a lurking suspicion that they were tested on animals. Mr. Cooper insisted that, even if they were, it was for the betterment of mankind and I asked him, “What the fuck kind of vegan are you?” He then sat me down and explained the difference between being a vegan and an overzealous animal rights activist, and that some things can be justified, not everything’s black and white, and the pills were supposed to help me let things go. I told him to take another look at his daughter, the bleeding-heart liberal, and prescribe her a thing or two, but he wasn’t worried because she was able to sleep at night, unlike me who would lay awake, unable to suppress my thoughts of nuclear war and homeless people.
          My arrangement with Jane ended up being more helpful than anything else, because, unlike the pills or therapy, she tied up all loose ends. Once you learn how not to care, it doesn’t matter if the pills you once took were tested on animals or if Audrey won’t talk to you anymore, because nothing matters but yourself, and you no longer feel guilty about using others as a means to an end. That doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, it just means you’re smart, as I learned quickly enough. And Audrey was smart in every possible way, except for the fact that she was always honest and true to herself, and she cared enormously about people and animals and all her bleeding-heart liberal causes. Because of that, she had no means of protection when, inevitably, the truth – which is that people are selfish and nothing actually matters – finally dawned on her.
          Jane was smart where it counted. She got good grades and had a natural curiosity about the world which led her to seek out knowledge, but her real intelligence – sheer brilliance, in fact – was proven by the fact that she didn’t care. Not about her friends or family, not animals or the environment – only about herself. She was nice, though, and she had a lot of friends, she was good to her parents and her little brother, she obeyed laws and volunteered at a soup kitchen; but unlike Audrey, who was motivated by her sheer love for helping others, Jane was motivated only by prudence.
          I called her out on that the first time we talked, back when my heart was bruised and battered from being worn out on my sleeve all the fucking time, and Jane looked up at me, blinked, and replied, “Of course, Sam. What other motivation would there be?”
          I was incredulous. “Oh, I don’t know. The feeling of being a good person, perhaps?!”
          She paused, calmly, and said, “I am a good person. There’s nothing you can say to prove otherwise.”
         “But...” I was baffled. “But you don’t care, not about anything or anyone!”
         “That doesn’t mean I’m bad.” She leaned in and lowered her voice, as if she was telling me a secret. “It means I’m smart.” It came out as a whisper, and as we stood there in the courtyard on the last day of school, surrounded by our giddy classmates, her words should’ve been drowned out amid their cheers and shouts, but it was the loudest statement I’d ever heard in my life.
          I opened my mouth to tell her she was wrong, that caring about other people and things was not, in fact, emotional suicide, but no sound came out. I had a lurking suspicion that she was right.
         “Come home with me,” she said cheerfully. “Eat dinner at my house tonight.” She smiled at me and I thought to myself, she looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

          Her ‘67 Chevy Malibu Convertible was nice, I guess, but I’m not really a car guy and I never have been. I asked her how many miles she got to the gallon and she shrugged; I shifted uncomfortably on the leather seats. Moo, I thought. Dead cows eat petroleum. Surely her father could’ve afforded to buy her a Hybrid.
         “Why do you think everyone’s obeying the speed limit?” She asked me as scenery flew by.
         “Uh, because if they speed they can more easily lose control...and people could die.”
          She laughed, but not in a cruel way. “I didn’t ask why you would obey the speed limit, I asked about everyone else.”
         “So that’s not why?”
         “Prudence, Sam.” She gave me a sideways glance. “They don’t want to be pulled over.”
          We were silent for a moment, then she asked, “Why do teachers teach? Why do doctors save lives? Why does your father go to court every day to defend criminals? Does he truly believe he’s doing the right thing, or...?”
         “Prudence,” I replied. “But surely not everyone’s like that.”
         “Oh, of course not. Everyone can’t be all selfish, or we’d never survive. There are exceptions to every rule.”
         “So who are these exceptions?”
         “You,” she said earnestly. “You certainly are an exception. Audrey. Mother Theresa.”
          I laughed. “You can’t put me in the same category as Mother Theresa.”
         “Can’t I?” She paused, thinking. “I’ll bet you’ve never had a bad thought about anyone or anything in your life.”
         “Sure I have.” Surely, I must’ve.
         “Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “This thought has to be completely unjustified, completely selfish. I’ll bet you haven’t.”
          I considered that for a moment, then told her I’d have to get back to her. She smiled and said not to worry about it, we were at her house and I had my whole life ahead of me to think selfish things.
          Her mother greeted us at the door, a woman made up entirely of blonde curls and pearls. She and Jane exchanged kisses and then she turned to me, smiling warmly, and asked what I’d like to eat if I was staying for dinner. She didn’t even flinch when I said vegetables only please, no butter, but if she has soy milk a glass of that would be great.
          Jane led me upstairs and when we passed her brother’s room, he raced toward her and flung his arms around her waist.
         “Hey, Quinn,” She said kindly, kneeling so they were eye to eye. “I stopped at the bookstore on the way to school today and guess what I picked up!”
          He gasped, bringing his little hands to his mouth. “Did you–?!”
         “I did!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of The Odyssey.
         “Oh, Jane!” Quinn was obviously infatuated with her, as was I.
         “So tonight we’ll finish off The Iliad and start on this, okay?”
         “Okay! And then when we’re done with this...” He said excitedly, “When we’re done with The Odyssey, Jane, let’s read Agamemnon, okay? Okay, Jane?”
         “Sounds like a deal to me.” She handed him the book. “You put this away. Sam and I are going to my room.”
          He looked up, seeing me for the first time.
         “Hi,” I said.
          He took a sudden step back, averting his eyes. “Hi.”
         “Be nice, Quinn,” Jane said softly.
          The little boy took a deep breath and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Sam.”
         “Nice to meet you too, Quinn.”
          We shook, then he said, “Enjoy your afternoon,” and disappeared into his room.
         “How old is he?” I asked, shocked, as Jane got to her feet.
         “Ten,” she replied. “He’s brilliant. I’ve been reading to him since he was a toddler, now we take turns. He loves Greek literature.”
          I looked at Jane, speechless, and I thought, If there is a god, what in the hell could he ever condemn her for?

To be continued.