Sundance Kids: Ambushed (570 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by TheSunGod (View user info) at 2006-01-30 00:12:35 EST
Hey guys, it's been a while. Pretty sure this could be my last post, not that any of you should care. I haven't been around much lately, because I've found out what life is like OUTSIDE of an office. Did you know that there's this big bright ball that comes out and shines in the sky every single day? It's pretty awesome, some of you should really check it out. Anyhow, I'm joining the Air Force, and have no idea how that choice will affect my time and ability to jump on a computer and play around. I just felt that I should finish this little story, otherwise I'd feel eternally dissatisfied with myself. If I never come back here, I wish all of you the best of luck. Except Shlongy. Is he still around? Fucking prick...
.........................................................
Jesus Christ on a holy stick, not another setup. Please.
His friends all feel it necessary to try and get him to move forward, to move past the past.
"It's why they CALL it the past, Jonathan. Because it's gone and done and tomorrow the sun is going to come up again. Whether you like it or not. So get moving, and get ready for tomorrow, and let yesterday deal with itself."
Fucking new-age quasi-psychobabble. Just as pop culture as Britney Spears, just as bubbly and obnoxious as Richard Simmons. Do they think he's stupid? He knows this crap already. But to him, giving up on her is saying that it wasn't right to begin with. It's weak and cowardly. If he just deals with the pain a little longer, she'll come back like she's said that she might, and then he'll show that he's been right all along by hanging on to dead memories. He'll be a hero, like in the movies. Persevering when any sane person would have packed up and gone home. Is eighteen months really that long to wait for love?
Remember the slow afternoon with the dust dancing in bars of light on her naked body? The pool, the laughs, the smile that makes him think of her as the Sundance Girl? Why give that up? They had had that one night together, long after things were over. That shows that things are still there, right? She still cares. He can see it in her face every time they are together.
Sure, they've thrown girls at him to break the funk, and he's halfheartedly fucked a couple of them. But it's closer to practice than anything else, really.
And then they walk into the pool hall, with the next most eligible bachelorette in tow. She's being led, and her eyes have that lost sheep look that the others have all had. Just doing what she's told, and hoping it works out...
So with a falsely enthusiastic smile and matching handshake, he introduces himself and racks the balls, and knows that she'll ask him to break as well. The girls always do.
But instead she slides a smooth 20-ounce cue from the stand on the wall, the stick he had planned on using, and scatters the balls like a pro. The two and seven drop in corner pockets.
"Nice break!" he says, and means it. At least she'll be entertaining.
"Thanks. I learned to shoot on my dad's table at the house, but I don't play much anymore. It got boring after a few years, so now I mostly just stick to fishing. Got a 12-pound red for second place in last week's tournament down at the Pass." As she speaks, the four, six and then three balls all find pockets before she gets stuck behind the nine and table scratches her turn out.
All he can find the strength to do is listen and watch her move, and has to ask if he's high balls or lows. A goddamn amateur question. She smiles wide, trying to blind him, and tells him to count the balls on the table. He'll figure it out from there, she says.
He plays well, if not distractedly, but can't overcome that lead. She beats him in two more turns with three balls standing.
"Play again? I'll get you this time. I don't lose twice in a row."
"I'll bet you don't," she says with an acid smirk that could etch glass. "But first, you can get me a drink. Meyer's and Coke, no ice. Tall."
It's when he brings the drink back to the table that he notices that she's taller than he is, and absolutely gorgeous. The hair, the eyes, the smile-- all of her, really-- but it's the confidence that crushes him. It makes him fidget and flail for things to say. She has a sarcastic wit that even exceeds his own. He's not used to anything but dominating the conversation, but neither is she. She wins out every time, in their talking and in their playing.
He forgets about being a wasteland, and about self-awareness, and wants only to impress her. He fails grandly.
They all go to dinner, the friends and the setup girl and himself, and he makes a realization. This wasn't a setup. It was an honest-to-God ambush.
He's been taken by surprise, knocked over, shaken down. It's over for him-- his next few nights will be spent hot under the sheets, trying to think of her before he sleeps so that she'll be there in his dreams.
He offers to pay for her meal, and she orders the lobster. He has a burger, and prays that there is enough cash in his wallet. He tells a joke that gets chuckles all around, and it reminds her of another that gets their table roaring. Even the bald man at the next table stifles a snort, trying to pretend that he hadn't been eavesdropping.
My God, she's beautiful. Her teeth flash like diamonds, and he can't hold up the weight of her gaze for more than a few seconds.
At the end of the night he shoots for a kiss which she deftly lands on her cheek, and asks if she'd like to go out again some time. Maybe without their friends?
The question hangs him for eternal moments, and he twists in the wind with the vultures waiting.
"Let me see your phone for a second," she says, and calls herself from his cell and saves the numbers on both phones.
"I'm not sure what I'm doing this week, but give me a call in a few days. We'll see what's going on. Maybe we can shoot some pool again, and I'll let you win."
He doesn't know whether to play it cool, or get on his knees and thank her, or jump up in the air and never come down. Finally he must have done something, because he is in his car and crossing the bridge that takes him home.
His bed feels warm. Sleep is coming easily.
And it's in those last barely-conscious moments before vivid and lurid dreams that he realizes it.
He hasn't thought of the sundance girl at all this evening. Not even to compare her to this new shining woman. He sees her in his mind's opening eye, waving from a place that is definitely the past. And then that place is behind him, and he can't see it anymore.
He doesn't mind at all.
User Reviews
Submitted by ruthless (user info) at 2006-01-30 11:49:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Please don't leave.
Submitted by BingBongBing (user info) at 2006-01-30 11:22:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Makes sense to me.... UP up up up in ya.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2006-01-30 06:39:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good length, good message, good read.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-01-30 05:09:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I fucking loved this. Do you hear? FUCKING LOVED IT!
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2006-01-30 04:50:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice story.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-01-30 01:39:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That was unreal. I'd feel like a fool even commenting on it.
(Oops.)
Submitted by GuinnessSince1759 (user info) at 2006-01-30 00:31:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good luck with the Air Force.