"So I just don't understand what you're getting at." Her voice was tinged with tension and drama; she was performing and she knew it.

    "Nothing. It's nothing." Deep, male voice. Disinterested.

    "No, seriously. I thought we were gonna talk about this stuff tonight. What are you saying."

    "It really doesn't matter. It's, it's just like irrelevant."

    "Fine, whatever. Jesus. What the fuck. It's just... eh... no."

    "What."

    "I just get frustrated whenever we try to talk about this sort of thing, we spend the whole time just like, just not saying anything like, and you never understand what I'm saying to you."

    "What? What do you mean? What do you mean I don't understand? What do you mean?"

    "Well --"

    "What do you mean?"

    "Jesus, give me a second! It's just that like, I feel like whenever we have a conversation, fifty percent of the time, fifty percent of what I say, I'm just motherfucking explaining shit to you. And I'm tired of doing that. I'm tired of --"

    "What do you mean explaining shit? What do you mean explaining?"

    "Nothing, nothing. You just don't, like, y'know, it's gonna sound so stupid and cliche but really, y'know, you just don't get it. So I have to explain everything like twice, and --"

    "Oh, I just don't get it. OK."

    "Oh shut up! Stop that! That wasn't really what I meant, it's just... God. You know, this argument, this specific issue is just totally not important, this is not what we need to be talking about right now."

    "I thought this was what you wanted to talk about. I thought you wanted to talk about everything."

    "I don't really, I don't care about this, this thing isn't important. There's other stuff to talk about."

    "You brought it up, so y'know, I just assumed you wanted to talk about it."

    "I didn't mean to bring it up, I was just pissed off, OK? Forget it. Let's talk about something else."

    "Fine, whatever. Where'd all the condoms go?"

    "What?"

    "Where were all the other condoms?"

    "What the fuck are you talking about?"

    "You bought that big fuckin' box of condoms like two weeks ago and now half of them are gone and I've only seen you like three times."

    "...what the fuck."

    "..."

    "No, what the fuck. Are you fucking accusing me of cheating on you? Because that's bullshit."

    "..."

    "That's such bullshit, you asshole. You total asshole."

    "I mean, what, did you give them to your roommate or something? What, just tell me, just give me something."

    "Oh my God, you bastard. I am not fucking cheating on you, you bastard. I can't fucking believe this."

    And just then, Andrew slipped and knocked his head against the wall with a resounding thud.

    The four of us lunged backwards off of Kelly's bed, narrowly avoiding cracking our skulls on the bunk above. We stifled our anxious laughter and waited in hushed silence for a roar of reprisal from the other room, waited for Arnold to charge into the room screaming with fury, swinging his fists and breaking everything in his path. He didn't. We laughed again, and felt a little guilty, I think, or at least I did; and we stayed quiet. Carol went back to her computer and idly checked her e-mail. Kelly leaned against her bed-frame, smiling nervously. Andrew put his ear to the wall again. I remember that his face had a goofy expression on it from being pressed up against the plaster so hard; his mouth was agape and his eyes were a little scrunched. He paused to push the plastic cup Carol had been using to listen -- she'd seen it in a movie -- off of the mattress, and replaced his ear against the wall.

    "Arnold's been trying to break up with her for weeks," he said. "I'll bet he totally made up that shit about the condoms."


originally posted February 26 2002

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