How To Disappear Completely Read online

  I realized then that I hadn’t been off the barstool since I had gotten there at 5 and was more drunk than I realized. The dangling Christmas lights mixed in with the neon beer signs and danced together with the beat. I looked over to Nicole, who was clearly in her own world, uncaring of everyone around her and I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous of being so care free. After a second, I let the alcohol finally take the wheel in my head and I started moving. “Yay!” she exclaimed as I bounced my legs. After the alcohol got used to controlling the movement of the legs, my arms started swirling about. Piece by piece, I was letting go of my body parts, succumbing to the capable but awkward force of the sauce.

  Song after song we danced. It was something I had never done before and something that she was clearly an expert at. Eventually, after some more 80s classics of Genesis, Tears for Fears, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Paula Abdul, Gloria Estefan, Journey, and Modern English, my bladder was screaming for my attention like a child that wouldn’t be ignored. “I’ll be right back.” I tried to say over the music.

  “Ok.” She replied melodically in sync with the music.

  The room slid slowly back and forth as I walked as if I were on a large boat floating on the sea. Arrghh, I thought as I pushed open the door to the bathroom with a hooked index finger. Public restrooms are one of my least favorite places. Surrounded by men with their pants down and their dicks hanging out like a shady porn theatre with sticky floors. That’s the image that always comes in my head as I wedge myself into a tightly packed line of urinals.

  After a shake or two and a shiver that ran briskly down my spine, I washed my hands and left the theater. I made my way past the businessmen, college girls, and the rockstar wannabes back to where Nicole was dancing. I paused a moment, made sure I was is in the right spot, furrowed my eyebrows and started looking around. I stood on my tippy-toes trying to get a better view but couldn’t find her anywhere. I walked back over to Bolo and asked, “Hey have you seen the Buttery Nipples girl?”

  “I don’t hear that nearly often enough,” he smirked hoping for some recognition or return joke. He noticed my lack of interest in and finally said “I haven’t seen her since you guys went over to dance. Sweet moves by the way.”

  “Thanks.” I paid my tab, ran outside past the bouncer who was surprisingly small and looked around hoping to see her somewhere. Twenty minutes ago I could have cared less about this girl, but somewhere between A-Ha and Fleetwood Mac something happened. I walked around the block once just for good measure before giving up completely. I walked home that night trying to make sense of my life. I’d always known the epithet ‘when it rains it pours’, but it rarely rained over me. It felt as if I was suddenly walking around in wet socks, weighing my feet down as if two kids were sitting on my feet with their legs wrapped around mine.

  At least I could walk. The wonder of Boston, as a 20-something, is that you don’t have to drive anywhere and probably wouldn’t even if you could afford it. Drink and drink and then just walk home. My feet slowly started to lighten up as I started to let everything go bit by bit. I ran up the stoop to my apartment, opened the door and fell face down onto my bed. It’s amazing how a bed feels more like a home than any other part of a house.

  That night I dreamt of Nicole. Her hair the color of a Strawberry-banana smoothie, her eyes the dark blue/grey of ocean horizon after it rains over the sea. It’s amazing how fast it can happen. Infatuation should be prescribed as a drug for the sullen or depressed. What a job that would be, to be the object of affection for the troubled. It’s one of the few feelings that instantly makes everything else in the world seem trivial. Love doesn’t even quite compare. There are so many degrees of love that sometimes it’s just there in the background like a jazz guitar player riffing standards in the back of your mind. Sometimes you notice him as he plucks out a tune you actually recognize, but the rest of the time he’s just kind of there.

  In my dream I saw her walking down Massachusetts Avenue toward Cambridge. She was smoking an Ultra Light and bobbing her head to the sounds of her iPod. The dream zoomed in closer to her and I could hear her listening to what was probably her favorite Mayday Parade song–I had a dream last night we drove out to see Las Vegas. We lost ourselves in the bright lights, I wish you could have seen us. I couldn’t have imagined anything else for her to listen to–just obscure enough to be cool, but well known enough for others to know how cool.

  I just floated above her for a while and watched her, trying to figure her out. There is no greater mystery than a love interest when you first meet them–so much to learn and so many unknowns. What’s her favorite food? What’s she into? All the things that would eventually be made known in a relationship. (I knew everything there was to know about Allison, and though there’s certainly something great about that, I realized that I missed the mystery.) I followed her all the way over to the MIT campus before I woke up to my bladder elbowing my insides reminding me I had to go. I was still in my clothes from last night and most likely in the position that I had fallen into when I first got home. Now that’s sleeping, I thought.

  A quick flush and I plopped back down into bed. Reaching over to my nightstand, I looked at my cell phone and saw that Allison had called a few times the night before. I played the message back on speakerphone as I rolled out of bed again to brush my teeth. “Hey Josh, it’s Allison. Hey I just was wondering if maybe we could talk some more. I feel like things have been left on a weird note and I was hoping that we could work things out. Give me a call when you get a chance. Bye.”

  So much has happened since I saw you last, I thought. Less than 24 hours ago I had a job and wasn’t hopelessly infatuated with another girl that I didn’t know if I’ll ever see again. I’m a different person entirely. A brief look outside told me that it was going to be a nice day and dammit I was going to enjoy it while I could. I put on some clothes, grabbed my bag, some tunes, a book and walked out the door.

  Chapter 4

  When you have no specific goals for a day, it’s amazing what you can come up with to do. I’d been so conditioned to the routines of work and life with Allison, that being free of both of those things (Allison pending) was kind of like a snow day. I felt like I could do anything and was probably going to try. I decided to take a leisurely walk down Newbury Street, something I hadn’t done in a long time because Allison hated it. I thought about what else I could do now without Allison dictating our agendas as I passed by my favorite local homeless man. Just before rounding the corner, I walked past Sweet & Nasty, a specialty adult toy and cake shoppe. That place always gets me–I should work there, I thought as I turned onto Newbury. I popped into Newbury Comics to check out some new records. After you haven’t been in a record store for a while (because you buy all your music on iTunes), you suddenly remember why record stores are so great. Everyone is there for one purpose: the music. Whatever your musical tastes are you can find something that you’ll like and most likely someone else there who likes the same thing, no matter how bizarre it may be.

  The line at JP Licks had died down a bit after I left Newbury Comics with nothing but a slight contact high, so I moseyed on in and got an ice cream cone. The guy at the counter kept looking at me, clearly thinking that I was cute and that maybe I’d be interested in him, but hey, it’s Boston and I was pretty used to it by then. I loved to toy with gay men. I’d speak very clearly in a straight tone, but would occasionally drop in mumbles of obscenities, just quiet enough that it wouldn’t be understood. “Here’s your change.”

  I browsed my iPod for the perfect soundtrack to this walk. Scrolling past the classic life-soundtrack tunes of Radiohead, Sigur Rós and Yann Tiersen, I felt like I needed something a bit more obscure. Ah, there it was, Trentmøller. Nothing like some weird electronica to add a mood to life. You know how sometimes when you find the perfect soundtrack to life, you actually feel like you’re watching it instead of living it? That’s exactly what it felt like as I paraded down the street. I disappeared an
d in my place was my understudy, and an HD camera with a soap opera filter on to make it all feel even more ethereal. I just sat back with some popcorn and watched as life around me buzzed with caffeine and lust.

  This street was amazing, how could anyone not appreciate it? It had everything. The chic flares of expensive grub, hipster shops, bums chanting for change, $20 parking, art galleries, Skate shops, Asian markets, you name it, it was there. It was always good people-watching as well. All the girls who wished they were high fashion broke out their D&G garb and kicked it with their huge sunglasses and tried to look like someone famous.

  Eventually I made it down to the Commons and browsed around the local Frisbee players and hippies, who are usually the same, but not in this town. I sat for a while and let my camera-self pan across the landscape, immortalizing each Frisbee toss and kiss for posterity. The spring in Boston was unlike anywhere else. There was a certain magic in the air. After taking in all the scenes that I could, I headed back up towards Newbury to check out the other side of the street.

  When I finally made it back to Mass Ave I stopped and looked around, wondering where to now? I turned right and headed back towards my apartment. Instead of going home, though, I kept going until I hit the Charles River and the Longfellow Bridge. About halfway down the bridge, on the other side of the street I saw a girl walking with strawberry blonde hair, bobbing her head as she walked. I squinted a bit to try and get a better look, but I knew it was her. I didn’t have enough time to see her face as she passed me going the opposite direction. I couldn’t believe it, it had to be her. A second later I had a déja vu to end all déja vu. The feeling hit me so hard I stopped for a moment, almost saying ‘ow.’ I disregarded all traffic that may have been coming and ran across the street. I was about 20 feet from her. She was wearing those tight jeans with no back pockets. God bless the person who invented the back pocket-less jeans.

  I toyed with the idea of catching up to her and tapping her on the shoulder, but we were halfway across the bridge and she probably would have either maced me in the face or kicked me in the groin. Either way I would have most likely fallen over the edge into the freezing Charles to a slow, frigid death. That was out of the question, so I just stayed behind her a bit trying to think of what the chances were that it was actually her. It had to be an absurd a million to one chance. There were 590,763 people in Boston and the area of the city was 89.6 square miles. The chances were too small, I thought, but it has to be her. We finally cleared the 2164.8 feet of the bridge and she turned left and across the street toward the Esplanade.

  Again I was struck by a déja vu so hard it broke my stride.

  I started to wonder how I could approach her without being creepy or having to say that I’d been following you for about half a mile. I decided to alter my route and walk away from her a bit hoping she’d stop somewhere. About a quarter of a mile down, she sat on a bench looking out over the Charles, right as the song I was listening to came to a final pause. It felt as if time stopped for a second. I couldn’t just walk up to her now, I had to either wait a while or walk right in front of her and have her see me. I surveyed the situation to formulate a plan.

  There was a small dock leading out over the river right by her bench. Perfect, I said to myself moved forward. Keeping my head down as I walked, I slowly walked past her and got aboard the dock. It seemed more like a raft that was attached by a single rope to the brush than a dock, but I had a plan. I sat down and peered out over the Charles. The college crew teams were practicing their ancient exercises. I wondered how the coxswain was chosen. He didn’t have to do anything but yell at everyone else to do the hard work of rowing. How does someone get that gig?

  I looked left with my peripheral vision to see her out of the corner of my eye. She was still there, curled up with a book, reading intently. I wondered if she had seen me, or if she would have cared if she had seen me. I have to at least talk to her, I thought. I grabbed my bag and prepared myself as best I could. I’m certainly not an outgoing person and I was even less so with my confidence nearly at empty.

  I took a big breath, stood up and looked around. Still there? I began walking back toward the sidewalks and tried to think of something to say. Closer. Closer. Stop. I squeezed my face into my best inquisitive look and said “Nicole?”

  Startled, she looked up. “Oh, hey.”

  “What are the chances, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I had never felt silence as awkward as this. The air was suddenly tinged with a strange feeling, clinging to every breath I took. I almost choked on it.

  “So what happened last night? I came out of the bathroom and you had left.”

  “Oh, yeah, well I just had to leave. Sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind anyway.”

  I was choking on the heavy air, the words getting harder and harder to get out.

  “Actually I was having a great time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I mean you got me to dance, right? Who else could have done that?” I did a few moves with my arms to jog her memory.

  Finally a smile.

  “Look, I’m really not very good with guys, you know? I just got out of this bad relationship and I’m just not sure I want to do that again just yet.”

  “I certainly understand that. I don’t really want to get into anything big either. I just asked my girl to marry me two days ago and she said no.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  She looked at me for a moment. I could tell she was sizing me up: Was this guy worth continuing a conversation with? “You want to sit down?” she finally said, tentatively.

  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  We sat on that bench for a while talking about the things you do when you first meet someone. I told her all about my struggles with Allison, the ring, her stupid dog, the carnival proposal, and my recently lost job. I could tell she was judging me a bit about the fact that I had no real career. “So then what do you really want to do?”

  “I’m not really sure yet.”

  “Don’t you think you should think about it, especially now that you lost your job?”

  She had a good point. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Well what do you like to do?”

  “I like music, writing, and walking around.”

  “What do you write?”

  “Mostly just little stories, but I try to write a lot of different things.”

  “What about music reviews?”

  “I’ve never thought of that. I guess it would make sense, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Well, you should figure that out.” She smiled with the same expression that I remembered so fondly from the night before.

  After our short analysis of my life, I found out she attended MIT and was studying biological engineering. She tried telling me about what that actually meant, but I got lost before we got very far and made a note to myself to look it up. She was in her 3rd year of school and was trying to plan what she may want to do after school. I had never met anyone like her before. She was so completely different than everyone else in my life that I was a little nervous. It felt disorienting, the way it feels when you wake up and it takes a second to realize where you are. She told me all about the relationship she was just in and how it affected her.

  She had recently gotten out of a relationship that was very taxing on her life. “He never hit me,” she explained, “but I actually lived in fear that he might. For a while I was too scared to even break up with him.” She went on a bit more before she stopped suddenly and asked to change the subject. I obliged, feeling weak from just listening to her story.

  We chatted for a while and then she said that she had to go to class. “I’ll walk you back up to the bridge,” I said, trying to be a gentleman. On our short walk we made plans to meet up later that night for dinner at the approachably stylish Redline, at 7. Right before we made it to the bridge, she asked, “Why did you wait so long t
o talk to me after you saw me?” I was dumbfounded. “I saw you and knew you were following me from the moment you ran across the street.”

  “Oh I just… I’m not very confident sometimes. I didn’t want you to think I was following you.”

  “But you were.” She smiled a devilish grin and looked up at me as a strand of her hair tickled her eyelashes before she slowly brushed it away and back behind her ears.

  Chapter 5

  When Nicole left, I just stood there watching her walk away for a moment. Nothing creepy, just watching her go. I was trying to take in as much of her as possible before she was gone, even though I knew that I was going to see her again that night. When she was finally out of sight, I turned the other way and started walking home. Basking in her glow, I made it halfway to my apartment before I had a thought that didn’t involve her.

  I realized then that I had dreamt about her the night before and saw her walk across that bridge just as she did. I made a note to remind myself to ask her what she was listening to. If it was Mayday Parade, I was going to lose it. I hadn’t actively thought to walk that way either. I just did it as if my dream slid into my conscious mind and nudged a few synapses to fire and get my feet moving in the right direction. Then I remembered the dream I had about the carnie massacre and got so creeped out that I stopped walking and some guy ran into the back of me saying “Hey watch it asshole.” If we had been driving, he would have gotten the ticket for following too closely, but somehow I was the asshole here.

  I’m not really a huge believer in the paranormal or premonitions or anything like that, but two very detailed dreams ended up coming true and it was enough for me to start to believe, or at least to think about believing, that something unusual was going on here. I decided to make a few more stops before I made my way home, to kill some time. I desperately needed some food and decided to get something new to wear for that night. Eventually I made it home and ran up my stoop while trying to get my mind back on Nicole. I threw my stuff down and plopped into bed. I looked at the clock for some reassurance, but only realized how long I had before dinner. Ugh.