I saw him, the ex, the former love, the former fellow co-torturer, at the Bunsen Honeydew show last night. In fact, he was the first person I saw as Jiverson and I strode by the Continental to meet Bonnie and Esther at St. Mark’s Bookshop. There was no one else outside but him and his friend Zeke. I opted for the say hi attitude and walked on.
Inside the club, I encountered John. “All my ex-boyfriends are here!” I exclaimed. Ebin, being an ex-housemate, bought me a Bubweiser, which I gulped down with alarming speed. Bonnie, Esther, Jiverson and I moved toward the front to see the band. We ended up near him, his girfriend right next to me. Small, dark hair. He leaned over her and tugged at my sleeve.
“Remember the last time we were both here?”
It took me a minute, but I remembered. I had written about it once.
I met him at a rock show, we were both friends of the band. Packed tight into a room with 70, 90 other girls and some boys, I pressed myself up at the foot of the stage to dance hard at the singer, who wore tight vinyl pants and had decorated herself with slim red star tattoos over her forearms that grew with each stroke on her guitar. After the show, he offered to drive me and some girlfriends home. I was sixteen, I couldn’t drive yet. He insisted that we inscribe our names and phone numbers in his sketchbook, lingering as he passed the pen to me. Out the car window, the scenery was unfamiliar, Brooklyn a dark urban mass between us and our homes.
Last time we were both there, that was the start. Esther and I had stopped at the diner on the way home for pie and coffee. “I think he likes you,” she’d said. That was eight years ago.
We talked and joked, if only briefly — there was no melodrama. I saw him again later, at Atlas cafe, he was coming in as we were going out. I made a snide remark, kidding, something resembling what I’d said eight years ago when I felt like he was on my turf. He laughed. It was a relief, to remember a shared past without rehashing it, without delcarations of lost love and heartache. It would appear that we have both moved on; it was a bittersweet moment.
Our dance around each other in this city will continue, I’m sure, but perhaps more elegantly now.
bumping into the ex is the scariest thing ever. it can be particularly traumatizing if you look like shit that day (i’m speaking from experience here). and pretending you are ‘glad’ to see that he’s happy with his new girlfriend must be one of the more difficult things in life, methinks.
hey fran, i have a small espresso just like the one on your wishlist. email me your address and i’ll send it to you. i’m graduating this year and am trying to get rid of stuff that i don’t want to have to pack.
It went well enough, I guess. I’m glad it’s over with though.
I will email you re: espresso thingy.
why don’t you drop the zero and get back with the hero? what r u afraid of?
Hurdygurdyman, what are you afraid of? I’m very happy with things as they are.
Yeah, after all, I know how much Fran loves heroics. Sometimes in her sleep, she’ll yell out things like, “Thank you, Dragon Slayer,” or, “Sock it to me, Superman.” A guy like me simply cannot compare.
Sorry for responding to this, but it was “2 funny 2 B ignored.”