"PAUL WESTERBERG"-PART ONE "THE BLIZZARD" (second section)

"PAUL WESTERBERG"
PART ONE: THE BLIZZARD

TRACEY

     She gathered her things and sauntered over to me, her smiling, cutely crinkled face behind smart glasses and curls of auburn hair. She’s cute. Really cute. And she’s quick with a quip¼always a draw as most girls I have known are too self-conscious to even think of attempting to be funny. Was she possibly flirting with me? Don’t know. I’ve never been terribly astute when it comes to things like that. I never have been. I just don’t know or understand all of the signals I’m supposed to be reading or the games I’m supposed to be playing and frankly, I really don’t want to. I wish, however, that I did understand those signals and games. I wish that I could carry myself with an edge, a mystery, something that might make the signals and games less relevant because girls would be busy enough trying to crack the enigmatic case that is me! But I’m not enigmatic. Not in the least. I’m just the same chump who hates being late but nonetheless arrived just a few minutes too late. I never heard the rules and no one is terribly anxious to give them to me. And still, this girl is coming over here anyway.

     She set her travel bag on the ground softly, and allowed her backpack to slide from her shoulder, down her arm and settle on the ground next to her travel bag just as softly. With a slight sigh as she peeked out of the window at the snow, she looked at me, smiled again and slid down the wall to the floor, parking herself directly next to me. Whatever confidence I thought I had possessed I could already feel was slipping away from me when she smiled at me (again!), held out her right hand and introduced herself.

     “Heather Harrison,” she said.

     “Um¼hi,” I slowly responded as I took her hand. “I’m Tracey Wolf.”

     And then, we shook.

HEATHER

     I have to say that I was surprised to feel how soft his hand was. It really was a trick in my mind since his grip was so firm. Those two observations were pleasing but not nearly as seeing his brown skin, his just flawless brown skin (not one blemish anywhere that I could tell) up close. Phew!!! Calm down, girl!! Cool it and just talk to him.

     “I like your name.” Ugh!!

     “Thanks,” he said. “I like yours too. ‘Heather Harrison’! That has a certain¼ZING to it¼it almost sounds like you’re a news anchor or an ace reporter for a giant metropolitan newspaper.”

     I laughed heartedly at that remark. Hopefully not over-emphatically as I don’t want to raise any red flags. So¼rebound, rebound! “Umm¼are you from Chicago?”

     “Yes!’ he answered with obvious pride. “The south side—Hyde Park actually. How about you?”

     “Well, shudder to say, I hail from the northern Illinois suburbs, most specifically, Northbrook.”

     “No need to shudder,” Tracey said. “That’s ‘John Hughes Country’!”

     “How astute of you!” I said, very impressed as I happen to be a true devotee and tremendously passionate fan of the work of Mr. Hughes. You know, I wonder if Tracey likes John Hughes too. There’s no need to try and get close if he’s just going to ridicule me. “Do you like John Hughes?” I asked tentatively. He didn’t answer me, which at first made me worry that he was going to shun me publicly over my adoration for the cinematic philosopher of adolescence. But, he then began to reach into his back pack, pulling out a large notebook-presumably what he uses every day in class-and then, I saw it.

     It was a sticker. Slapped dead center in the middle of his notebook cover was a sticker that featured a miniature version of the one-sheet poster for “Some Kind Of Wonderful.” Before I even began to realize it, my face softened even more, eliminating any supposedly sophisticated veneer I thought that I was carrying and showing off. I felt my face completely transform into the warmest gaze and I could not have stop smiling even if I had wanted to.

TRACEY

     If I had known that pulling out a notebook with a “Some Kind Of Wonderful” sticker attached to the cover would’ve made her smile like that, I would have brought it out much sooner!

     “That’s my favorite one!!” she practically gushed.

     “It is?” I asked, honestly surprised and not because I would have expected to hear something like “The Breakfast Club” or “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” But entirely because “Some Kind Of Wonderful” is my favorite too.

     “Yes, it is my favorite,” she said. “Certainly with no disrespect to Mr. Hughes’ skills as a director because his skills are peerless as far as I’m concerned. But there’s something about how Howard Deutch handled the story that the movie just¼it just really moved me. It felt really soulful, you know? Truth be told, I cried¼and I never cry at the movies.”

     “Me neither,” I admitted truthfully.   

     “Watts is my hero!” Heather gushed again but with a simultaneous seriousness that let me know that she was not the least bit facetious. “Man, do I wish that I could play the drums!”

     “Are you a frustrated drummer?”

     “Absolutely,” she said with a throaty chortle that made my heart bounce a little. “In my mind, I am Elvin Jones. But, in reality¼I’m Shirley Jones.”

     If I had been taking a drink at that moment, I would have spat it out all over myself as I unexpectedly exploded in laughter. The sharpness of that remark, complete with that perfectly timed comedic beat combined with the mental image of Mrs. Partridge desperately trying but miserably failing to play a drum set, flailing all over the place, just floored me. After the initial blast, I quickly quieted myself while looking around to see if the entire Union had been disrupted. Thankfully, it hadn’t but I was happily taken by the sight and sound of Heather’s loud, melodic laughter.

    Watching Heather Harrison laughing is something that I guess could be described as “intoxicating”¼although I’m not entirely certain what something intoxicating would be like. I know that regarding Heather in a state of laughter is something I want to surround myself with. I am taken with the sight of how Heather’s eyes close, how her nose scrunches, and the wideness of her mouth as it is opened in joyfulness. I am enchanted with the motion of her head, complete with that shoulder length auburn hair, and how it moves backwards and upwards while her hands and arms crisscross over her outstretched legs. I have to figure out how to keep this girl laughing.

HEATHER

     God, he’s just staring at me! He’s probably looking for an escape hatch and I am just certain he thinks that I am long overdue for a spell of solitary confinement. But...he’s not leaving. He’s not making any movements that suggest that he wants to leave. All I can see is this–I don’t know–this dreamy, faraway look in his eyes.

TRACEY

     I am about to make what I think is essentially a small movement, the ramifications of which could be considered either emotionally courageous or brazenly stupid. Here goes...  

     “I love your laugh,” I said. “I really love your laugh.”

                                                                     HEATHER

     Oh boy...

                                                                      TRACEY

     She quieted down, relatively quickly as she cleared her throat and demurely smoothed out her clothing from her sleeves to her outwardly stretched legs. She soon became still-unnervingly still–suggesting that my conceived “small movement” did indeed land me into the reject pile of the brazenly stupid. She slowly looked upwards from her hands, which rested softly on her lap, all the way over to me, her green eyes glistening yet piercing a hole in my face. She stared at me with such forcefulness, I dared not to look away for fear that if I broke her gaze something awful would happen–something akin to my head splitting in half. She stared closer, tighter and more seriously than ever, making me fear that I had not only crossed some invisible boundary line of which I did not know its location but that she was dangerously ready to haul off and let me have it and then some.

     The intensity of her stare was discomforting to an extreme. Her sudden silence defiantly jarring, so much so that I began to slowly place my notebook with the “Some Kind Of Wonderful” sticker back into my backpack. If there was ever a non-verbal signal urging me to vacate the premises, then this stare from the hard gaze of Heather Harrison would be the template. And then...she exploded...

                                                                     HEATHER

     I just couldn’t hold it in any longer and I really don’t think that I’ve laughed that hard in too terribly long. “I’m sorry!” I barely choked out between bouts of laughing gasps. “I really had you going! I’m not mad. Really.” Oh no! He’s looking at me as if my face is about to split in half. So, I reached out, touched his arm, just underneath the elbow and gave him a soft squeeze, hopefully signaling to him that I was indeed joking, but most of all, I wanted him to stay.

     “Look, I was really just playing with you,” I said. As tenderly as possible, still attempting to stifle a few stray chuckles that were terribly insistent. So, each one I silenced by smiling, a tactic that seemed to work successfully, based on how his face relaxed and also how he stopped trying to put his notebook away. “It’s just a staring contest I played–I guess I still play it with my brother.” Sensing a lingering scent of skepticism, I continued. “Tracey Wolf, please allow me to offer you a window into my world. You see-when I was little, I was very shy. Now, I don’t mean the standard, run of the mill, everyday style of child shyness. No. I was so shy that it actually worried my parents to the point where they almost had me go see a person that they called, ‘The Feelings Doctor’.”

     “What was going on with you?” asked Tracey, who thankfully latched onto the bait of my story slash explanation.

     “Well...I wasn’t talking.”

     “You weren’t talking?” Tracey repeated as if he was rolling the concept in his mind. “You mean...not at all?”

     “Let me clarify. At home, I was naturally pretty quiet anyway, especially since my brother Paul kept speaking for me all of the time. You know, it’s really funny when I think about it. Well…it’s not funny per se. I mean–it’s just peculiar...odd. Look, I know that this is not making much sense. Let me try it this way. Have you ever given much thought to why we are who we are?”

     “Do you mean like why some people are Type A people or extroverts and things like that?”

     “Absolutely!” I said, perhaps a tad too excitedly. “How astute you are,” I added with a slight purr and from where I do not know because I didn’t know that I had anything like that in me. “Well, anyhow, as I was saying, I really wasn’t talking when I was little. I would squeak out some words from time to time but I essentially said nothing until I was in the 1^st grade.”

     “Really?!” Tracey asked me with latent concern, so sweet, especially since it was in regards to a part of my life long gone and obviously, I survived.

     “It’s true, but it’s not like I had nothing to say. And I guess that this is the strange part because I can vividly remember having thoughts where I was really talking to myself and asking myself questions. Like there was this other voice, this more reasonable, sensible, calmer mature voice engaged in a conversation with me.”

     “So, you’re saying you were a little kid hearing voices,” he dead-panned.

     “Yes, but not quite. It’s one thing to talk to yourself. It’s a whole ‘nother set of psychoanalysis if you answer yourself!”

     “Yes,” said Tracey with a chuckle. “But you said that your parents wanted you to see ‘The Feelings Doctor’?”

     “Yes, but I’m getting to that.”

     “Oh, I’m sorry.”

     “No worries whatsoever. Well...like I said, I was a very sensitive kid. Actually, I suppose I still am based upon my performance earlier. But, when I was really little, like in Kindergarten, I was so...touchy, I suppose. I wasn’t unhappy or anything like that. When I think about it all, I had a happy childhood. I just didn’t talk much at all and I was prone to bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. That’s mostly where that voice inside of my head came from. I can easily remember moments from Kindergarten where one minute, I was fine and then, the next minute, I was inconsolable. And then, that’s when I would hear this serene sound asking me, ‘Why are you crying?’ or ‘Why are you so sad?’ But, as I said before, I never answered myself, so don’t worry,” I concluded, adding a smile to take the weight out of the conversation. “So, everything eventually came to a head in, of all places, McDonald’s.”

     “McDonald’s?” asked Tracey. “What happened? Did you throw a fit? Did you not get a Happy Meal or something?”

     “Oh, I only wish that it was something like that. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It had nothing to do with a Happy Meal. But, it did have to do with a culinary delight that is more of a rarity and therefore, highly coveted. And that object, my new friend, was the Shamrock shake.”

     “Shamrock shakes!” Tracey said, allowing a nearly glazed over, dreamy expression to fall within the deep, succulent brown of his eyes. Whoa! Calm yourself, girl! “May I offer a hair of a digression before you continue with your story? And trust me, I do want to hear your story.”

     “Certainly,” I replied.

     “I don’t know if you are much of a fast food eater but if you are, have you noticed how amazing McDonald’s tastes after having experienced the pseudo gourmet selections of our illustrious dining halls?”

     “YES!!” I practically shrieked. “But, oh my God, McDonald’s is so bad,” I said, sneaking a quick touch of his leg as I laughed.

     “It is and I don’t eat it like I used to. But after a few months of the Shed, McDonald’s is seriously like Five Star Dining,’ he laughed. “Anyhow, Shamrock shakes just take me...back! Nectar Of The Gods, I tell ya. Nectar Of The Gods!”

     “Excelsior!!” I said, raising an imaginary goblet in solidarity and afterwards, I added, “Make Mine Marvel!!”

     “You like comics?”

     “Actually, no. Not really but my younger brother Seth is crazy over them and I would overhear my brother Paul reading them to him all of the time, so I suppose by osmosis Marvel and DC are ingrained into my sub consciousness.”

     “I see. Look, I’m sorry to keep running the train off of the track in regards to your story.”

     “Again, no worries whatsoever. Nothing is derailed. I knew we’d get back here eventually. Shamrock shakes, right?”

     “Right.”

     “OK then. Well...one day, I was out with Seth and my Dad running errands or grocery shopping or something like that–oh, I was six years old, by the way–and on ur way home, my Dad asked us if we wanted to go to McDonald’s. Of course we did! But I remember beginning to feel anxious because Paul wasn’t there to tell the cashier what I wanted. Paul was the best big brother I could ever hope to have and he still is too! I know that he just seemed to be better in tune with me, and he was so patient with me and he never got mad at me. If anyone could make me laugh or even feel the safest–even more than my parents–it was Paul. But, on this day, when we went to McDonald’s, he wasn’t there.

     “So, we get inside and get into the medium sized line of people and I looked up and saw a picture of a Shamrock shake and I just knew then and there that that was all I wanted. Now, as I am most certain that you can imagine, if I am uttering not much more than a peep at home, I am essentially saying nothing in public, especially in restaurants, where I would basically whisper to Paul what I wanted and then, he would order for me. Needless to say, what was barely tolerated by my parents had grown into serious worry for my Mom and more than a little frustration for my Dad. And as we stood in McDonald’s, I could just feel it seething from him.

     “My Dad ordered his food and then, Seth walked right up to the cashier and gave his order. I was so jealous!! Just green!! I could not understand how my little brother could do something like order his own meal in public and I couldn’t. And still, I couldn’t get a word out of myself.

     “When the cashier leaned over the counter a little and asked me what I wanted, I froze. For the life of me, I could not get the words, ‘Shamrock shake’ out of my mouth. I remember that the cashier was very pretty–I mean, really pretty! The kind of pretty that is instantly magnetic and you feel yourself trying to almost study the person–like a person has never been pretty in that specific way before and it is of such exclusivity that you want to burn it into your memory forever. Sigh...Well, to my six year old eyes, this cashier looked like an angel and I still couldn’t speak to her. And that’s when I heard the voice in my head.

     “It–or she, for that matter–sounded so clear and again, so calm and even somehow older. She said to me, ‘Tell her what you want.’ And I just couldn’t. This voice said it one more time, ‘Tell her what you want.’ I tried but I could not get words out to save my life, which was beginning to be a possibility as my Dad’s face was growing redder by the second. He crouched down and began to order me to tell this cashier what I wanted or we would just leave and I wouldn’t have anything. When I still didn’t speak, my Dad told me to hurry because the line was getting longer and that I wouldn’t get anything if I just didn’t say something.

     “And then, I started to cry. Not just any old disappointed kind of cry. Not anything petulant or pouty. It was a ‘hurt child, convulsing, hold your sides while you’re losing your breath and your nose is running’ kind of crying. I was beside myself and I just could not even begin to explain it to myself either. The voice inside of me asked me, ‘Why are you crying?’ And I remember thinking for the longest time, ‘I don’t know!’ And then, I started to say it too...as I was crying!

     “Of course, my Dad had no idea of what I was talking about and as I think about that time right now, especially as I was the kid that I was, I’m certain that my Dad must have been terrified. Hmmm...I should ask him about that. We’ve never talked about that time. I think that may have been a period he wants to forget about. I mean–in the whole grand scheme of things, an essentially non-verbal but otherwise healthy daughter is nothing. I got over it in time and I only really had a couple of sessions with ‘The Feelings Doctor.’ And then, it ended before I could really gather a full opinion of them. All of that being said, my Dad has never spoken about that time and believe it or not, I have never had a Shamrock shake since that day. The mere thought of one just makes me sad.”

     “Why is that?” Tracey asked softly.

     “I guess when I think about it, I hate the thought and image of a little girl being so afraid to speak up for herself that she denies herself the simplest things. No one should ever be that frightened, especially over nothing important.”

                                                                      TRACEY

     Heather Harrison was a storyteller unlike anyone I had ever known. As the snow continued to fall and get deeper and deeper, all the way to the point were the entire surface looked like it was enveloped by the world’s greatest down comforter, I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that two and a half hours had passed! Under normal circumstances, being forced to wait for an exhaustively exorbitant amount of time due to events that are drastically out of my control, there would have been trouble. Now, don’t think that I would have burst through my clothing and the mocha shade of my skin would have transformed to a fluorescent, luminous green. I’m not one to act out. But, what I would’ve done was to fume, stew and seethe in the most repressed manner, possibly all the way to Chicago and if that does not sound like much of anything to you, then you fully underestimate the amount of energy that is expended and how detrimental it is to one’s constitution. Thankfully, and despite the weather, the situation was made into an experience that I was beginning to wish would last, at least twice as long. And it was all because of Heather Harrison.

     We talked about seemingly anything and everything that popped into our heads. Well, almost. It wasn’t as if I told her in a flurry of emotion how attractive I found her to be and how increasingly attracted I was becoming and I just have to say right now that this is precisely the type of game that makes me crazy. Why couldn’t I just tell her what I was feeling? Why is that considered to be a bad thing? Why is that we all try to conceal aspects of ourselves when it all comes out anyway? Even Heather herself has upended a piece of the person she wanted me to see. She first tried to wave away the understandably embarrassing circumstances of our meeting as not being representative of her “personal style,” but then she tells me the story of her non-verbal childhood and subsequent Shamrock shake meltdown—a situation that had to be an essential part of her foundation, let alone any sense of “personal style.”

     I’m no better, by any means. Just look at me, fumbling my way through trying to appear cooler or more attractive than I feel. Or really am. And somehow, does any of this, these games, perceptions and even facades, mean anything when I find myself lost in Heather’s smile, her exquisite laugh or her stories? Maybe they do, as I want to be around her for as long as possible. But, what if I’m trying too hard?

     Excusing herself to go to the bathroom, I promised to keep a close eye on her space and belongings, a gesture she said that she would return. By the time that I returned from the Men’s Room, I saw Heather completely bundled up, packed and obviously ready to brave the elements. I noticed also that she was gathering my belongings together as well.

     “Our chariot has finally arrived,” she said as I approached. Looking out of the Union doors, I could see that our snow entrenched chariot, otherwise known as Greyhound, sat at the Langdon Street crosswalk like a battle scarred warrior returned from the front lines yet ready and armed for more.

     “I hope you don’t mind that I’m moving your stuff,” she said. “The bus just pulled up and I thought I’d get our things together so we could get seats before the mass exodus to the arctic.”

     What? Does she want to sit next to me? Uh…I’d better ask. “Ummm…Heather?” I began, more tentatively than I had hoped to sound. “Um…you know how these long bus rides are—and it’s obvious that this ride is just going to be that much longer, not to mention that it’s also going to be PACKED too…and…um…with so many people riding…I mean—you just never know who just might end up next to…”

     What was wrong with me?! It was like I had never spoken to a girl before or even had a date. Truth be told, I haven’t had the good fortune to have had that many dates but I’ve had my share as well. Furthermore, I am not one of those people that fall in love at the drop of a hat. But, like I’ve told you before, she disarmed me and all I wanted in that moment was to spend as much time as possible with her. I was just afraid that she wanted the opposite and the idea that perhaps I didn’t carry the same appeal that she more than had over me really made me doubt myself.

     In a very small way, I think that I’m beginning to understand what she may have been going through with her Shamrock shake story. The idea of not just coming out and saying what you want. Why couldn’t I just tell her that I like her? Or at least ask her to be my traveling seat mate? It’s just so stupid. Just ask her.

     “Heather, would it be alright if we sat together?”

     She stared at me with a soft, warm gaze and said sweetly, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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