Informer

One hot and stuffy afternoon, during time I should have been playing soccer, I consumed acres of literature instead. Skipping practice has always been a last resort, worst case scenario. That week, however, soccer fatigue had overwhelmed me. I stalled on a couch with literature.

Then I looked outside. Suddenly, or so it seemed, it had become late evening. I ventured off the couch towards the great outdoors; a walk would do me some good, an uneventful and utterly pointless stroll around the hood, for its own sake.

I hadn’t gone very far before things turned interesting. I met The Ex, apparently on her way home from work. As rock music fans like to say, I felt nothing. At first.

“You don’t look well,” she said, her eyes scanning mine.

“Football fever.” I wasn’t going to explain that. She knew me well enough to understand. “So we’re talking now?”

“I heard about you and Jennifer,” she accused, in her inimitable passive-aggressive manner.

That gave me a start, a rude shock. My heart long-jumped over a few beats, and then sprinted through the rest. “You weren’t supposed to hear,” was the best I could come up with.

“So it’s true! I thought she was making it up!” This exclamation of surprise accompanied the first manifestation of emotion on her face and tone.

“She’s the one who told you?!” I was as incredulous and as stunned she was.

She started to walk away, distractedly. From her studied expression, I could actually see in my mind’s eye millions of her mental cogs turning over the new information using a magnifying glass and a fine toothcomb. I discerned that this would be an optimal time to cushion the impact.

“Look, I’m sorry; I was angry and jealous. And I wanted revenge.”

As she turned to face me, there was more perplexity than anger in her face and voice as she replied. “You shouldn’t care, why should you care?” The finality with which she said that (while walking away I might add) essentially plugged my maw and made me think about it. Next I looked up, she was scratching her head as she turned a corner and vanished from sight.

I made a decision: the informer needed be answerable. Jennifer’s place was far, but I ran the distance. Incidentally, this helped to clear some of the lactic acid in my sore limbs. But we all know that was the least of my intentions for running. I hadn’t carried bus fare.

Luckily, I met her opening her door, just coming in from work. She considered me with a half-smile that I appraised to be merely diplomatic; on the basis of which analysis I replied her “Hi Antony” with “I can’t believe you told her.”

She looked like she was going to pretend to ask what I was raving about. And then she saw impatience hot on my face and looked like she thought better of it and made peace with the obvious. “Come in,” she offered.

“No.”

So she stood inside and I stood outside and we besieged the open door.

“It just came out, alright?”

“It was supposed to be a secret!”

“I know! I get it! But she’s my best friend, for goodness sake! I had to confess.”

My mouth opened, but I found I couldn’t argue with that, so I shut it.

“Okay,” I said, “Goodbye.”

And I jogged back home.

(The Ex was right: I shouldn’t care. I don’t even want to. But I can’t just seem to let this issue die a natural death before I hear the conclusion of it. As for feedback, I’m still waiting to see how things pan out.)

Emissary

Four pm.

I stepped out of the house for the first time that day, heading out to the highlight of my day: soccer practice. An impromptu meeting with Sister of The Ex interrupted my short journey to the bus stop.

“She has had enough time to decide what it is she really wants,” declared Sister of The Ex, without saying who ‘she’ is. I was supposed to get it automatically.

“If I had the choice I would choose her messenger instead.”

She averted her gaze. “You don’t have the choice.”

“Well played!”

“She wants to be friends. NOT pretend-friends.”

“The very fact that she sent you means she wants to be pretend friends.”

“Tony! Don’t be a hard man.”

“Me, a hard man? This is me giving her a break! She needs to take my break seriously.”

“You two are impossible. So? What do I tell her?”

“Let her tell me by herself.”

She paused reflectively. “You won’t even try, will you?”

“That depends. For you, maybe.”

“Please, do us all a favor? Never bring this up again.”

We laughed and parted ways.

I couldn’t help laughing quietly to myself throughout the whole journey to the soccer pitch. With her, it always feels like conversational chess.

Arrested Development breaks out of Mental Jail!

I was there when the violins in my head went silent on The Ex.

The dramatic soundtrack in the background suddenly stopped. In the silence, I realized how ridiculous I’ve been about the whole thing. Without weepy strings accompanying the thought process, logic shines through.

Worst part: in my head, I had elevated the young lady to a demi-goddess of a sort. I had lost sight of my independent value.

Sure, she real attractive, but a little perspective was necessary. 

Sure, I liked her a lot, wanted her back sometimes, but that ship sailed – too bad. 

Sure, single life sucks, but it could be worse!

Besides, over the years, we had been developing on separate spiritual wavelengths. I ought to have started looking for a better fit a long time ago.

So I decided she wasn’t going to be a problem any more. It was the most liberating decision in my life for two years. The kind of experience one tends to remember.

I can’t fully explain it but I have this THEORY. Maybe I suddenly attained the threshold of life experience at which a young man sees the bigger picture, a woman’s place in it and the kind of woman required for the role. Juvenile, Hollywood perspectives on “love/romance/The One” become an ill fit under such insight.

As it were, I remain single - but everything has changed, along with my perspective. Violinists best vacate my head and relocate to the opera. I wouldn’t bet on their chances during this recession.

Difficult Working Conditions

If I thought The Ex and I were going to compose music together without it getting complicated, I had another think coming.

 

To start with, I learned early to watch where I left my phone lying, and later I learned to hide it altogether, with the SIM card, battery and "motherboard" securely divorced in three separate secure venues.

But before I internalized that lesson, she would frustrate the buttons on the device while exclaiming wicked things like "All your messages are from Safaricom!!!" And then she would laaaaaaauuugh.

"Look here," I would say, and leave it hanging, to undertake the menial task of chasing her arms around to recover my cellphone.

This circus never really ended, because I would have to urge her, repeatedly urge her, to focus on the music business while she often reverted to mocking me about not getting any.

Suddenly, I got fed up. "It's none of your business!"
"No, seriously, this your case is extreme." Straight sombre face.
"Still not your business."
"You need to loosen up a bit." Concerned face.

Silence is golden.

"Just don't be giving people handshakes…"

I don't know why I put up with this.

Rapprochement

After a particularly raw encounter with The Ex, which went without response on my end, I resolved in my heart to respond to her unreasonable ad hominem attacks with even more unreasonable ad hominem attacks of my own invention, and see how far that would get her.

Thing is, I'd learned a valuable lesson a few weeks before, from a matatu tout.

You see, no one argues with touts, because when they talk back they say whatever the irreverent hell they feel like saying, relevant or not. A tout will tell you. And he will say it badly. Like, one day, some hapless passenger was refusing to pay the new fare after rain had nudged it up by hundreds upon hundreds of percents. He happened to be sitting next to his girlfriend as he valiantly argued against the injustice of being made to pay more just because it was raining. But the tout didn't answer his concerns, rather, casually urged the disgruntled passenger to just pay full fare so that once he and his woman got home they could have sex! Rrrrrrridiculous! All of us - the whole bus, the driver and the girlfriend - laughed helplessly for the remainder of the journey, dude therefore had to shut up and pay forthwith. From this I learned that good sense and logic will not always win an argument.

So I was ready to temporarily shelf my erstwhile pacifist rational methods and get down and dirty for once. But Sister of The Ex intercepted me en route to speaking my uncensored mind, and she managed to realign my course of action with good sense.

She said, "Give her time. It's been hard. Go easy on her," etc, to say nothing of sickening  innuendos about romance. I took a series of deep breaths and considered her peaceable suggestions rather reluctantly.

By the time I met The Ex later on that day, I was calm, transcendentally understanding, willing to absorb infinite ad hominem attacks without complaint - in fact I was inwardly braced for actual bodily blows, and armed with the fortitude to absorb them quietly.

But The Ex was supremely sorry for last time. She apologized profusely, even before she greeted me. So we agreed to forget it and work on all future music in serenity while keeping it businesslike.

I wasn't deluded though. It wouldn't be a fairy tale. I'd seen the preview.

What have you done with The Ex?

Sunday Afternoon

Hours of digitally composing instrumental music with The Ex went surprisingly well. After a number of false starts, we made progress on her love song, especially when she eventually consented to unplug MY headphones and involve me in her labors. We entirely forgot about lunch in the subsequent hours that crawled or flew by - it didn't occur to us at all. Just like before, I thought, in the good old days, when fruitful times like these were commonplace enough to be taken for granted.

Alas, I had sighed nostalgically too soon.

The tipping point: her phone rang. Her metal rock ringtone (overabundant with dissonance) cured the epidemic of harmony prevalent in the room. She ran all the way outside to receive her phone call out of my earshot. Must be her man calling, I figured.

But when she returned, gone was the congeniality that characterized our initial hours together. Her temperament had suddenly and irreversibly deteriorated. Cranky, spoiling for a fight, distracted, in a decidedly belligerent mood - I had never seen her like that before in all my life.

Heat-seeking ballistic rage tantrums suddenly flew at me in quick succession for the least significant non-reasons. She had always been sarcastic, but now she was plain nasty, bent on giving me hell and picking a fight in the process.

I'm practically harmless; I don't thrive in confrontation.

The Ex had lost her old sweet self. It was depressing to see. But she seemed to exult in sinking my capsized spirits into an even deeper trench of the Ocean of Despond. Clearly frustrated about something else, she was taking it out on me by pretending to be railing about the music. But I was watching her, trying to understand why her outburst against scattered minor fixable peeves and volume levels seemed to be gaining momentum without really getting to any point.

She eventually came round to attacking my person and character venomously and directly. Luckily, a few minutes into it, her sister arrived unannounced and saved me from total annihilation. As she came in, I left to go swimming, excusing myself with a heavy sigh of relief straight from the bottom of my heart. 

 

***

Besides gaining weight, the Ex had become a fragile, neurotic mess, and I blamed her boyfriend Bryophyta; I always had a sneaking feeling he was the type who systematically undermine a girl's self-esteem in order to cover their own insecurities.

It's a cruel world, and I'd found myself on the receiving end of bad karma. You can bet I was tempted to pass it on.

I really showed that swimming pool who's boss.

Soccer Love

That evening, soccer practice was taxing and injurious as usual. I wasted a free kick spectacularly because I figured I knew exactly which direction the goalie would dive; so I thought to smash the ball past him before he got there. Tough luck. Coach didn't like that stunt, so I got subbed out for it and subbed back in again when someone pulled a hamstring. And the ref was high on fiery spirits, the type whose exhaled vapors can corrode metal. He flashed me a red card when I pointed this out. We lost the match.

While I trudged home after practice, sweaty and tired after a hard evening, I saw The Ex from afar, walking towards me. Upon eye contact, a momentary attack of high blood pressure inflamed my insides - which surprised me, that I still felt raw and red towards her. I had a mind to turn around but that would be, to quote my brother, "too manual." Still the option remained open to walk past and openly refuse to acknowledge her presence while glaring right into her eyes.

As it turned out, I couldn't keep a straight face. (I can't act to save my life!) My glaring was out of character and she knew it. So she lured me into laughter, and when I was caught in the thick of it, she suddenly pulled on what my brother calls a "stone face" and abandoned me in mirth alone. So sudden was the transition from smile to scowl on her face that I laughed some more. You see, until that point in my life, I'd sincerely believed that only clowns could do that.

But while I was still laughing, she did to me the very thing I had plotted against her: glaring straight into my eyes and walking away. The soccer equivalent is having your penalty kick saved ad immediately conceding a goal on the counter-attack.

Thus I learned that I hadn't hardened all the soft spots for The Ex as well as I thought I had. That little fact made me miserable, despite knowing that I fully wanted to reject her and never have anything to do with her again. But all it took to upset my inner tranquil was to spot her.