Couples are crazy. I always forget how crazy they are when I'm part of one, but given the mirror of single reflection...yeah, I see crazy like a kissing butterfly Rorschach with 11 toes and 3 breasts.
See, coupes spin around each other. There's this odd dynamic oscillating between intuitive and self-absorbed. It's a whirring motor that hums on it's own frequency; nobody on the outside can duplicate, but for those inside, it's the song of life.
Case and point. That's what I do to couples now. I case them. I follow them through the mall and hurl popcorn, laughing the maniacal laugh of the sea ravaged pirate, mouth full of buttery puff-lets, pointing the stump hand of contempt at them. That's my hook. That's how I draw them in.
"What are you laughing at?"
"I am a uncoupled love mariner, and I stoppeth both of thee…"
"Freakin' weirdo!"
"No, you're supposed to call me a grey beard loon. It says so in the script..."
"Whatever, c'mon honey…"
See, that's my job. I warn love-blind sea farers to avoid the treacherous waters ahead. If I save one couple from their vows of doom, my own suffering will be vindicated.
That's what brings me to my usual coffee shop. Either that, or it's the loving-duo mob burning torches of hate for this single observer. Don't get me wrong. I love couples. Like I said, I once moored myself into the safe harbor of husbandom. Only that's just the siren's song illusion. It's not a safe harbor, it's hungry craggy rocks ready to churn you into chum. Call me chipper pirate Robbo!
Last Friday the mobbed love-birds almost got me. I peg-legged it to the sanctuary of the coffee shop and into the consoling arms of young single busty barista babe.
"What'll it be tonight, Rob?"
"Arrrggghhh! I dunno, lass. Perhaps the white maple mocha latte. What say ye?"
"$3.95, Rob. The white maple mocha latte? Isn't that a little too latte for a pirate?"
"It's never too latte."
She doesn't reply beyond an open sigh, and an outstretched palm. She's never been married. She doesn't know the horror. I've tried to regale my sea chantey to her, but she always pretends to be too busy blowing foam from the espresso machine.
She'll learn. Someday she'll learn…
I peg, step, peg, step over to a seat by a single girl writing college papers. She's built a three walled cell of children's books and digs keystrokes marking time into a laptop.
I stare--only a moment. I know that college reading requirements have loosened, but the abusive subtext of Hop on Pop seems far too fluff, at lest to this hopped up non-pop. Sometimes a hop is just a hop and a pop is just can of soda; sans curly hair.
"Can I help you?" The girl seems to have mistaken me for a care starer. She leans over to a stack at her feet and piles her Seussian-wall fortress higher between us.
"Arrrgghh! Uh-uhm, I mean, No. Sorry I was just looking at your books."
"They're right around your reading level, you should pick one up sometime."
I could make her walk the plank for that, but I sip my latte and shuffle my foot and peg in anger.
"Wench," I mutter in my cup as I sit. Looking around I see all the couples. No torches burning between them. That's sad, but at least the won't try to torch me. This place is full tonight.
"Hey it's me, where are you?" It's the Seuss wench of the West. She's on her phone. "Home? I'm at Borders. Could you come here…Because. I need to go to the bathroom and all my stuff is laid out. I don't want to pick it all up just to go, you know. Yeah, you can grab a magazine or something while I go. No, you don't need to stay long." She looks up at me, "I don't want anybody stealing my stuff." Message delivered, her eyes go back to her stuff.
When she's done, she announces to me, "That was my fiancé." I only shake my head. Way to take one for the team, dude…
Ten minutes later she's dancing in her chair, and her white knight arrives. He looks like a guy who used to play football just cuz he was big, and now is a security guard because he can't be a cop. I'm not saying that is who he is, I'm only penning observations. He could be a Nobel Laureate.
"Yo, babe! I ate the rest of the cold pizza.'
Or maybe not…
"Did you go to the jewelers today?"
"No I'll go Monday."
"Well you know you need to pick up the ring."
"It'll be there Monday. I was busy today."
"Really? What did you do?"
"Chuck stopped by. We worked on his car."
"Oh. Well let me get you a magazine."
"I can read one of these." He picks up a literary classic: Fox in Socks.
She pushes away from the table, "No, let me get you something better, then I'll go to the bathroom."
She disappears into the bookstore bowels. I look over at him, and he looks at me. We're both running threat assessment protocol. Mine's done. So long as I move slow and don't look at his girlfriend, there shouldn't be a problem.
I don't see a problem. He's still thinking. He's also staring. I'm doing my best not to notice. If we lock eyes, I'll be forced to speak, and then abandon all hope all ye who enter here…
Girlfriends back. I'm buried in my notebook grasping for my latte. "Here you go honey." I can't see what literary wonder she's brought him, but if I look up and see Highlights, I'm gonna lose it. I'm clutching at latte straws as it is.
She's gone again.
It's silent--too silent, then he does it: the one thing, my worst fear. He laughs. I look up. It's a reflex. I'm a moth to the funny flame. I'm gonna burn up.
He's got a GQ in his hands. Our eyes meet. "I can't believe the crap these guys wear." he says in his pin-striped sweat pants and Misfit's skull concert tee. He's displaying the picture like a kindergarten teacher at story time.
"Aye! I know." is all I can say. In nod too. What made her think he'd like that? Is she trying to shape this guy?
I have to admit. As a couple observer, it's the most common thing I see. One person trying to shape an other into some person they're not. "I'll change him!" is the flag flown over oblivious jolly Roger. Only once the smoke clears and the maiden's been boarded, nobody's changed. That's when you have a mutiny. Remember the whirring motor of coupledom? Yeah, "Change him" mutiny is the sand in the motor that grinds to a stop. Things no longer hum. There's only smoke and flames and the ship goes down.
"So you're getting married, huh?" Maybe I should tell him. Maybe it's time to tell the story. Warn him of the albatross, the fates, the emotional dehydration in the sea of marital bliss. The last gasp of liberty scrawled to an etched note on a torched harbor goddess: "Bring me your poor bastards yearning to tie the knot…" Never to see the open sea again.
"Yeah. She's great. She puts up with me."
I nod. That is a plus in her column.
The girlfriend returns, and suddenly he's forgotten I exist.
"Thanks for bringing me this," he says to her, holding up the magazine.
"I know you love to laugh at that stuff."
Wha? I pulled up my eye patch and put on my glasses: this I needed to see.
"You're so sweet." He says. There's a weird nuzzling motion that I can't convey, but it must be what akin to Toni Tennille's "Muskrat Love." Where's a rat zapper when you need one?
My eyes! My eyes! I drive my fists into the sockets trying to jolt the Strawberry Shortcake love fest off my retinal stage. They're still talking.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"I wuv whoo."
Oh…I'm gonna be sick. That's it! Abandon ship! We're going down! I'm spitting foam and latte from my lungs. The barista eyes me as if to say, "I am not giving you mouth to mouth. You'll just die there, Rob."
"Hey," fiancé-man says. "I'm gonna get me an iced coffee. You want something to drink."
"No," she giggles, "I've had plenty already. Besides, you don't need to stay if you don't want to. Thanks for coming."
"I want to stay."
Fine! I stand up, and swig the rest of my coffee. There's nothing I can do here. I'm floating on the wreckage of marital voyage, and they're sailing into the sunset.
I smile at them, drop my pirate persona and say, "Congratulations. I wish you guys the best."
"Thanks,"
"Yeah, Thanks."
They're holding hands across the table, and her Seussian wall is in tatters. My grinch heart is growing three sizes, cuz I really do wish them the best. See, I may have missed the boat in my own marriage, but if these guys can keep it together, there's hope for people like me.
It means there's a pirate queen with all the swashbuckle and luster of bounty and booty. Our ships just haven't crossed yet. Until then I continue to rebuild my ship. I'm not a land locked pirate, just harbored for repairs.
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