Quiet (387 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.13 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Daniel Dickinson (View user info) at 2009-04-02 19:20:30 EDT
Toby met this older woman, thirty something, at this pizza place where he used to work. They had an affair and she got pregnant, and he would say, "I think it's mine."
She was married and her husband was a manager of some sort of hardware store, a little fat and not particularly good looking, average maybe, not too smart, and she had a degree in Philosophy, but what the fuck can you do with that besides wait tables?
She worked afternoons and since Toby had dropped out of school, he worked there full-time and so they got to know each other pretty well.
Toby wasn't an idiot, not exactly a scholar either, but he had read some Nietzsche and occasionally wrote poetry and lyrics, and in this small town she didn't have anyone else to talk to, and she especially didn't believe in God, and besides being over a decade older, she liked him.
In college she had been involved in a bunch of different activist groups - Save the Children, Save the Environment, Save the Mountains and Save, Save, Save, and she had almost joined the PeaceCorps, but she met this business major and accidently got pregnant. She had just received her degree when she found out, so she decided to keep the child, because really, she had always wanted a child. While this guy wasn't exactly one to write home about, he was stable and reliable and would probably make a good father.
Besides that, she didn't believe in love anyway, at least that kind of love you saw in movies and storybooks. That was love you bought into, convinced yourself of regardless, emotional personification, a commodity sold to the masses, cultural mediation at its finest, bullshit. Real love was none of those things you were taught to believe. Love was commonness, nothing more. It was familiarity, making a life for yourself, sharing responsibility, depending on one another, mortgages and health insurance and balancing the checkbook - a body to sleep next to, someone to listen, to ignore the world with.
"She said I reminded her of this boy she like, loved, or had a crush on or something," and he would grin and say, "She wanted to lose her virginity to him too, but he just disappeared one day Senior year and she never had the chance."
Her husband had gotten this job managing this hardware store in this small town in East Texas, and so they moved from the city and into the sticks, and one day, a few months into the pregnancy, she began to bleed heavily and panicked and called an ambulance. But it had been too late, she had lost the baby, and now she was stuck in this small town with a husband who worked all the time and no one to talk to. They did keep trying, but they had told her that she might never be able to conceive again.
She had thought about leaving him for a long time, for years really, but he was a good man and maybe she just wanted a family. She did get depressed and she was on some meds, but she read a lot and didn't really mind waiting tables all that much. It was comfortable and quiet. She liked the quiet. It was soothing. And everything was quiet; their house was quiet, the town was quiet, that is, except for the occasional hum of a semi from the highway, and she would sit in her study, meditating, her eyes closed, trying to quiet her mind, to reach stillness in her body, controlling her breathing, focusing on her heart, just drifting between sleep and wake, and then for a brief moment she would find her center, feel this tingling sensation move through her body, from her stomach and up to her head, warming, like an orgasm. Then she would do some laundry or wash the dishes or make dinner or go to work or read more.
There had been no initial attraction, no, she had no interest in younger men, but often she would watch him as he washed dishes in the back between deliveries, occasionally singing to himself, and she would have to listen hard to hear the words, and maybe that was when she realized she wanted him. And this young man, really a kid, not even able to grow facial hair, did remind her of that boy from high school, with his leather journals and messy hair and that too-cool attitude.
And so they began to spend time together outside of work, occasionally sharing a bottle of cheap wine, listening to mix tapes, talking about the past, the future, regrets (to which she had a lot), wild stories, sometimes smoking pot, and generally rambling on about all kinds of different things under the sun.
And it just happened. Toby wasn't looking for an affair, he had a girlfriend, a sexy little thing, but this was a woman, or at least all the things he imagined a woman to be. They often kissed, and occasionally she would guide his hand to her breast and he would feel her nipples (one was pierced with a barbell) and this usually happened when they were drunk. But this didn't happen because they were drunk, it happened in spite of it, maybe because it was easier, because they had an excuse, a way of justifying their actions, making it feel less offensive in some way or another. And some time, maybe when her husband was away on a business trip or something, they ended up having sex and she ended up getting pregnant.
She never told Toby if it was his her not, and she never mentioned the affair to her husband (she didn't feel particularly guilty about it either), and they continued to see each other, albeit less, but they never spoke of the baby for it made them both ever increasingly uncomfortable. Even if it had been Toby's, she didn't expect anything from him, because anyway, he had nothing to offer her or a child.
For a long time afterward, occasionally he would say, "I'm pretty sure it's mine," and he usually said this when he was stoned or a little drunk and he would smile and think about how he reminded her of that boy who she had wanted to lose her virginity to but had never had the chance. Maybe in a lot of ways she finally had.
She also would think about Toby, and that while she had probably made a mistake, she would smile and began to realize that she had finally come to terms with her life, with her age that she felt had just crept up on her from the shadows, in this small East Texas town with her husband she didn't exactly love and with no one to talk to. But it was all okay. It was all okay - all of it. She had a child now and it was quiet.
User Reviews
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2009-04-03 16:51:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-04-03 12:29:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-04-03 08:09:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2009-04-03 04:35:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
its time to BARGAIN HUNT!
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2009-04-03 00:34:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-04-02 21:55:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You get stoned and philosophize with your philosophy degree.
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2009-04-02 21:09:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Really great.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2009-04-02 20:45:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shhhhhhhhhhhhhh -2 shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Submitted by HateMudkips (user info) at 2009-04-02 20:00:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-04-02 19:46:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by johnny.b.dumb (user info) at 2009-04-02 16:27:07 PDT (#)
Ranking: 1
good enough for east texas
~~~~~~~~
Indeed.
When I cross Texas on roadtrips, I do so under cover of darkness and keep the pedal to the metal till I am across the border....{California plates = "Get out of your truck and put your hands on the hood, where are your weapons and weed?"
heh
Submitted by johnny.b.dumb (user info) at 2009-04-02 19:27:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
good enough for east texas
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-04-02 19:26:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
"She also would think about Toby, and that while she had probably made a mistake, she would smile and began to realize that she had finally come to terms with her life, with her age that she felt had just crept up on her from the shadows, in this small East Texas town with her husband she didn't exactly love and with no one to talk to. But it was all okay. It was all okay - all of it. She had a child now and it was quiet."