Splendid Isolation

The three of us sat in the living room. The lights were dim and romantic, warming the atmosphere. It was nice, and it had been a long time since I’d had a nice night. They seemed to be getting harder and harder to come by. I sat on a broken reclining chair with my hands folded above my head. Across from me lay Neil, spread out on the tired couch like he was born there, cigarette in one hand and oddly oblong head perched precariously in the other. Throughout our conversation with Dawn, the owner of the small ranch-style house we’d been lounging in, you could catch Neil flashing this grin of his. He may only have been seventeen, and sometimes naïve in a way that irritated me, when he grinned like that you started to think he knew something you didn’t. Every now and then you run into someone like that; there’s these little moments when something somewhere inside them shines through, and it’s all you can do not to dive in and find out what’s hidden in there. The thing that bothered me about him, though, was that you could also tell that he desperately wanted to appear cynical, maybe even to actually be cynical, but he just didn’t have it in him. He was too young, or had it too easy or kept too many friends or something like that. You could see it in the way he smoked that cigarette; pinched between thumb and index finger, eyes narrowed, but eyebrows high and a bit of a smirk on his face.

         Dawn sat in the other chair—the still-functioning one—with her legs tucked up under her ass, in typical female fashion. It also occurred to me the audacity that was involved to sit in a perfectly good reclining chair without reclining, after watching your friend struggle with the faulty one. She was smoking, too. But she did it differently. When she smoked it almost seemed like it was out of spite. She had this intense look on her face, and took a hit like she was sucking the soul out of the damn thing. I guess it made sense; she always thought she had so much to be angry about. I knew she didn’t, but I never told her that. Some people like to hold on to their tragedy, even if they have to imagine it. Her smoking was still new to me then, but it shouldn’t have been. Realizing I was the only one without a smoke, I almost asked for one. But then I remembered I wasn’t drunk.

         Dawn’s phone rang and she left room. I know both Neil and I silently pleaded for her to stay, for no two men wish to be left in a room together, alone. But now Dawn was off in her bedroom, arguing with her newest great love, for the better part of an hour, leaving the two of us in the living room. When she left, Neil shot himself in the head with his fingers, and we both laughed even though it wasn’t funny. We knew it wasn’t funny, but we also knew if we didn’t laugh there would be just that much more silence hanging there between us. I also knew exactly why he’d made that little gesture, even if he wasn’t aware of this. I could be quite good at reading people when I wasn’t involved, and from what I saw Neil had pretty considerable feelings for Dawn. Whenever she brought up a problem, Neil was right there by her side, providing her with logic to support her side, never uttering a word against her. So when moments like this came around, as they often did, I’d search his face for the frustration I knew he must be feeling, and I usually found it. How irritating, I would think, it must be to be so wholeheartedly devoted to a person to never want to cause a second’s harm, and sit by and watch them choose unhappiness with someone else over you time and time again. I thought this because I knew this.

         “And that’s why single people live longer,” I finally said after trying and failing to eavesdrop. Neil chuckled and nodded. The silence became unbearable so I played Splendid Isolation on the computer.

I wanna live all alone in the desert.

I wanna be like Georgia O’Keefe.

I wanna live on the Upper East Side,

And never go down in the street.

Splendid Isolation, I don’t need no one.

Splendid isolation.

         “Isolation drives me crazy,” I heard Neil say. Clearly he was missing the point.

         “I think it’s good,” I told him. “Peaceful, quiet, and nobody to worry about but yourself? Hell yeah.” I didn’t try to explain it any further. He wouldn’t understand the grand simplicity of splendid isolation. He wanted love, the kind you saw in the movies. Someone to have and to hold from this day forth, through good times and bad, farts, rancid breath, jealousy and irrationality. He wanted someone there when he woke up, someone to hold him while he slept, to make sure the toilet paper was rolled the right way and his room was nice and tidy. He wanted to grow old and rot right alongside someone else—if they made it past cabin fever and infidelity—and he wanted to call it love.

         Me, I figured out what I wanted a long time ago. I wanted to be free. To go it alone and have a goddamn good time doing it, and die before my eighties caught up with me. I wanted nice warm girl occasionally, and a nice cold—not to mention stiff—drink with my meals. And in between. I wanted to be Mr. Bad Example.

         I was thinking about these unfortunate differences when Dawn came back in with a dampened face and a burning fury. She fucking hated him, she told us, and she was sick of having a boyfriend. But we all knew she’d forget she even said that by morning, no matter how desperately Neil wished she meant it. Apparently he’d taken a long nap when he was supposed to be with her, or he’d shopped too long or had a very time-consuming meal. It’s hard to remember which one it was that night. 

         She continued on her diatribe for some time, and I drifted in and out of focusing on what she was actually saying. Glancing at Neil every now and then I could tell he was listening intently, hanging on every word, thinking of insightful and elegant things to say. But it was late and I’d done more living than he had, and I could respond more effectively without effort. Most of the time I zoned out, found myself looking at her chest. She’d been leaning forward in the chair and her shirt was quite low cut but I think she must have forgotten that fact somewhere in the passion of her anger. I was grateful for that. I then began to notice her curves, and the longer I looked and the less I listened the more inviting it all seemed to me. I didn’t care that Neil loved her but she didn’t love him back. I really didn’t care that she was involved. But I did care that they were in the midst of a rough patch, because that left an opening.

         Some people think we should live our lives selflessly and with great concern for others, less concern for ourselves. These people are full of shit. Your life is just that; it’s yours. Don’t try to live someone else’s for them and damn sure don’t make yours less enjoyable out of fear of what it will do to someone else. When you’re lying in the hospital bed dying of cancer or on the side of the road bleeding out from a gunshot wound, you are not going to care whose feelings you hurt five years ago. You’re going to want to be damn sure you had all the fun you possibly could before the cold Otherworldlies took it all away from you. I will never compromise in this. Anyone who does is a coward; don’t let them fool you.

         It was almost three in the morning and my ability to remain conscious was rapidly diminishing, but I only had to stick it out long enough to beat Neil. He had to work the next morning (technically, that morning) and he’d have to go eventually. At least, that’s what I thought. Then Dawn asked us to stay. Both of us. I made a face like I was considering it, and Neil said, “Sure. As long as someone can take me to work tomorrow.” I pretended not to hear him.

         “I’ll do it,” Dawn answered. Well, shit. Now what.

         Neil stayed on the couch when we went to sleep, too shy, probably, to take the floor next to Dawn. I was emboldened by bitterness and fatigue, so it didn’t bother me. Eventually they both fell asleep. I waited until I heard Neil snore for about ten minutes. I ran a hand across Dawn’s face, mine inches away from hers when she opened her eyes. At first she was startled, but when that faded away it gave rise to intrigue and mischief. My favorite facial expression.

         “What about Neil?” she asked. I could hear in her voice that she didn’t really care. That’s when I knew once and for all she was just as immoral and sentimentally bankrupt as I was. We were in it for ourselves.

         “Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “He’s a heavy sleeper. If you have to, just put a hand over your mouth.” A sound similar to a growl came from inside her throat, like moaning at the provocative sound of it, and I knew I had her. Soon we were in the bedroom, our clothing marking the path we took to get there.

         After a night of silent ecstasy we awoke to find Neil already gone. Her bedroom door wasn’t locked, or even closed all the way, and neither of us felt very good about that. We decided he probably slept in and left without waking us; his job was within walking distance. She made us both some tea and she lit a cigarette. She asked if I wanted one.

         “You got something for me to wash it down with?”

Smiling, she popped the stick out of her mouth and jabbed it toward the fridge, blowing the smoke in my face. There were two bottles of vodka in there. A half hour later we were outside chain-smoking and she was bitching about her boyfriend again. I cared even less than I did the night before.

         But it wasn’t long before it all faced me head on. The little red sports car (a bit less than masculine, if you ask me) sped recklessly down the quiet neighborhood street and screeched to a halt in front of us, half in the road and half on the sidewalk. The boyfriend. Nice. Needless to say he was pissed in a way I myself probably couldn’t even fully fathom, and you could see it in his face. That face… it was ridiculous really. More comical than threatening. But the night’s events and the morning’s substance abuses had made me arrogant and apathetic. He made a beeline for me without closing his car door while Dawn kept yelling his name and telling him to stop. I don’t know which one of us she was concerned for and I didn’t really care. I still had a cigarette in my hand.

         “What the fuck?” he said when he was within arm’s reach. I took a drag on the cigarette, held it up to look at it while I blew the smoke in his face.          

         “Hm,” was all I said. Then I drove the cigarette into his neck. He yelped, jumped back, holding his new burn wound. The look on his face was full of jealousy, rage, and indignation, and I hated him for all these. I also wasn’t very pleased with Neil; clearly he’d told on me. Child. Both of them.

         I swung at him, forgetting how much I’d had to drink. The blow didn’t even come close. I tumbled forward and he drove his knee into my face. Hit me in the jaw, scraped my teeth together. God, that was an awful sound. But I didn’t feel much of it. The rest of it’s kind of a blur. I remember laughing as some of the blows hit and as I fell on the ground, after I’d caught my breath. I remember the sight and sound fading away, leaving only the dull ache in my body. It could never defeat me, however; I’d already felt the pain no fist could ever match.

         I woke up home in my bed with fire in my bones. In my head. In my heart. The door was closed and the room was dark and the air was silent. Not a soul or sound to be heard. I groaned, stretched, looked around a bit and smiled. I got my isolation, but I’d have to wait on the splendidness of it. Until my nerves stopped screaming.