Brigade by T. R. Pearson

Author:T. R. Pearson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barking Mad Press
Published: 2019-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

~~~

I had instructive personal history on the virtues of keeping life simple, and in the middle of all that mess, I was reminded of sweet Amanda.

We were in college together, and Amanda had stepped in as my backup girlfriend when Cheryl, the girl I preferred, threw herself at a boy in my botany class whose deepest personal asset was the dimple in his chin.

So I opted instead for Amanda who was a Presbyterian and optimistic about life for no rational reason at all. She was pretty like a girl who could have maybe won a pageant as a child, but she’d made some poor hair choices since and hadn’t shed her baby fat. I’d danced with her once at a big campus do but only because Cheryl was taken, and it was a slow dance so I’d groped her a bit. This was college after all.

Amanda had decided my pawing was meaningful, convinced herself we had a connection, and I let Amanda think she was right. She wasn’t nearly enough of a Presbyterian to be chaste and wholesome, and I needed the sort of outlet Cheryl wouldn’t let me have.

I can block out almost anything. It’s been a lifelong talent of mine. I still look attentive, but I’m elsewhere while you’re talking to me, off working through problems I’ve run across and life issues I need to solve. I make conversational noises often enough to sound engaged, and I even look right at you while you’re rattling on, but for me you’re hardly there.

Somehow Amanda, who was clued into precious little, had a nose for those moments when I wasn’t listening to her. She could tell I’d gone in my hole, she called it. “Honey, come out,” she’d say.

When I’d object, I’d get, “Come on. Out here in the sun with the rest of us.” And she’d never let it drop until I was well and truly peeved.

We were an appalling match, thrown together by proximity and convenience, and I intended to walk away from her, but I knew she’d come apart, and I’d have to comfort her for probably a month and make noises like I wanted her for a friend. I had papers to write and exams to take, and I had my eye on a brunette by then.

She had an iron cross neck tattoo and rolled her own Navy Cut smokes, and this was well back before even your wrinkled grandmother had a dolphin inked onto her ankle. This girl was exotic and angry, seemed incensed about half the time.

So Amanda and I were finished, and I took her out canoeing to tell her. I’d decided it’d be best to confine her in a boat so she’d be right there where she’d have to hear me, couldn’t go all jolly and frantic and launder my clothes or hoover the rug.

We were on a lake, had it all to ourselves, and once we were well out away from the shore where Amanda could pitch a fuss and go unnoticed, I told her everything I’d decided to say.

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