Week 46 - The San Diego Connection

The San Diego Connection

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Saturday Afternoon...

“What’s in San Diego?”

“Do you want to go to this party or not?”

“Just tell me what’s in San Diego and why it’s so important to you.”

“You don’t have to go to this. I can go without you.”

“It’s a girl.”

“It’s a party.”

“It’s a girl. Say it’s a girl. I know it’s a girl. Just say it’s a girl. Tell me I’m right.”

“Eddie...”

“Ramsey.”

“You are super annoying, you know that?”

“There are girls up here. There are girls all around. We don’t need to drive two hours to get you a girl. I can get you a girl with one phone call. Say the word and we’re set up. Tonight. Here. In town. No driving.”

“Can you be cool about this? Just for tonight. Can I trust you do that for me?”

“If you admit that I’m right. “Eddie is right.” Just say that. Once. You can whisper it if it makes it easier.”

“Why would that make it any easier?”

“I don’t know. I was trying to spare your feelings.”

“You are officially uninvited.”

“You need my car.”

“I need a car. I’ll call someone else.”

“No you won’t. Besides, you’ve already told me where you’re going.”

“Not where the party’s at.”

“Yeah, but we know all the same people. I’ll figure it out anyway. You’re not going anywhere without me. So you might as well tell me who she is and why.”

“Would you just be cool about this? Please? Just be cool. Be cool.”

“You’re a sucker. And this girl will own you after this.”

“Can we at least get moving?”

“You drive two hours for a girl in another city? She owns you. You are her possession.”

“I can see this is going to be an incredibly fun drive.”

“Oh, totally.”

It was a two hour car ride to San Diego. And that wasn’t accounting for traffic. It was going to be a long drive. But Ramsey had a lot to think about. He needed the time. He needed to make a few decisions. He only hoped that Eddie would shut up long enough to let him think.

Mandy Mandy Mandy... Eddie was right – it had all been about a girl. Amanda, but more popularly known as Mandy. Mandy lived just north of San Diego and Ramsey had met her one night when she had come north to attend a pub crawl birthday celebration for a mutual friend. Over the last few years Ramsey and Mandy had developed a fondness for one another that walked that thin line between friendship and sexual attraction.

There had been many nights when they had crossed back and forth, breaking that line many times. They had great conversations. They had great chemistry. They were old friends from the minute they met. But they were two hours apart and lived in different cities, and not much was going to happen when they only saw each other a couple of times a year. And so things remained casual and sporadic at best.

Because she was intelligent, attractive and funny, Mandy wasn’t often single. But when she was, she and Ramsey usually had an uncanny knack for running into each other.

Mandy had gone out of her way to tell all their mutual friends about the party this weekend without actually telling Ramsey until well after he would have already known about it. When she did call him, he of course already knew he was going. He could only assume that she already knew that he would already know and that he would have already decided whether to attend or not. He could only assume that she would have thought all this through herself and had some great reason for jumping through extra hoops. Why go to the extra trouble? Ramsey assumed it was possibly because she didn’t want to come right out and say that she wanted him to be there. Whenever he was there, they hooked up. Whenever she was recently single, she found a way to get him to San Diego. They didn’t ever come out and talk honestly or earnestly, but when they were in each other’s arms, they certainly behaved that way.

He was going to San Diego because that was what they did. It was their way.

But this time, Ramsey had a few extra thoughts rolling around in the back of his mind.

He was going to San Diego because he had decided he did indeed want to talk honestly and earnestly this time around. Mandy was far too fun and far too important to keep things going the way they were going. Ramsey didn’t know what he meant to do about two hours and one hundred plus miles, but he figured he would figure something out when the time came to make decisions.

Sunday Morning...

Ramsey sat down on the curb and allowed himself to reconsider his various woes.

It had been a long night. And incredibly short at the same time. Time flies that way. It was not at all what he had expected when he had set out the day before. Ramsey had come to San Diego seeking answers, but what he had found were more questions, more regrets, more angst. But he had more immediate problems to consider. He was one hundred and twenty-six miles from Los Angeles, it was mostly dark out, he had lost his friends, and had no idea how he was going to get home.

Where were his friends? He didn’t know. What was he supposed to do? Wait? The sun was barely up. Soon it would be morning. People would be out – walking their dogs, on their way to church, or brunch, or whatever it was that people in San Diego did on early Sunday mornings. But they would be there. And they would look at him and wonder just what was wrong with this poor man, sitting on the side of the road, all alone. He was hardly homeless and certainly didn’t fit the general beach bum stereotype, and yet that was what he had become. He didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to sit. What he really wanted was his bed and an extended amount of time so that he could sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. It was going to be a long day and his head hurt and he hadn’t slept. He certainly was in no mood to be judged by strangers. But what else was he supposed to do except sit and wait?

He couldn’t go back to the house. Not after last night. No. Not back to the house. That was not an option.

He had called cellphone after cellphone, but it was early and no one was picking up yet. Asleep probably. Or otherwise occupied. And knowing the sort of old and tired battery he kept, he didn’t want to make too many calls anyway. Better to sit and wait and have an option of making another call rather than sit and wait with a dead battery. He didn’t carry change. Who carried change anymore? And even if he had, were there any payphones anywhere anymore? He didn’t know.

Maybe he would have to sit and wait all day.

He should have driven. He should have had a car. It was ridiculous that he didn’t. LA was a driving town and SoCal was a driving lifestyle. He should have had a car.

Maybe he could walk somewhere. He knew there was a train that ran from San Diego to LA. He had no idea where the stations were. But maybe he could walk somewhere and find something. But he didn’t know where he really was right now and the idea of walking somewhere seemed ridiculous.

Somewhere in between...

Ramsey sat on the back porch with Mandy. Somewhere in the night they had both consumed a great deal of alcohol. Somewhere in the night they had gone to the beach and there had been a bonfire. Somewhere in the night Eddie and several other friends had disappeared with several of the women who had been at the party. Ramsey wasn’t entirely clear on all the details. That was happening a lot when he went out partying with his friends. More and more often. Another problem to consider on another night. Tonight, when he could, he was focused on the girl in front of him.

They had talked. She had offered him a drink when he first arrived, along with an awkward hug. She smiled and looked happy, but she was nervous. Ramsey didn’t know what it meant, but maybe she was feeling what he was feeling. Maybe she wanted something more as well. Maybe the extra libations were one way to cut through the nervousness and not have to face reality with full focus.

“Should we kiss? For old times’ sake?”

“Or for future times’ sake.”

“Maybe we should just kiss and let the time work itself out.”

They both leaned in. Ramsey told himself he was going to enjoy the hell out of this. It was what he wanted. It was all he had been thinking about. It was a first step, an open door, the beginning of something bright and new and special.

That was what Ramsey wanted. That was what he was hoping for. That wasn’t really what he got.

There was something perfunctory and routine to their kissing. They had kissed many times before, and he would have never thought of it as routine or perfunctory before now.

He wasn’t sure what was off. He told himself he had been building things up too much. He had been putting too much pressure on this moment to deliver, to be important. He was nervous. She was nervous. It was a nervous, passionless kiss. It was impossible to get lost in. All he could do was think. And so he thought. He always thought. Too much. He couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t shut it off.

Ramsey knew a little too much about Amanda. And a little went far too far sometimes. He knew her last three boyfriends. One of which was formerly a very good friend of his. That was problematic. Ramsey didn’t like to think about such things, especially at times like these, but he couldn’t help himself.

Kissing Mandy was like pressing pause and being forced to think about all the men she had ever kissed before him, before this moment. That was not a pleasant thing. Suddenly they weren’t a cute couple. They weren’t beginning things. They were just links in a very long chain. A chain of pain… A chain that linked to too many places and too many other people. Suddenly there was nothing romantic about the moment or image of her at all. His imagination cut both ways and right now it was making a mockery of his hopes and dreams.

Back to Sunday Morning...

It was an unsatisfying morning which fit perfectly with the unsatisfying night he had just had. Ramsey couldn’t sleep. And he couldn’t stay in her house. He had been drunk and disappointed which ended up making him frustrated and upset. He couldn’t stay in the house. Not after all that had happened. So at some point he got up and started walking. And he had ended up here. He didn’t know the street names. He vaguely knew which way was the beach and which way was the highway. He wasn’t exactly clear on much else.

Mandy had been nervous all night. He could tell. He just didn’t realize what it meant. He was nervous because he wanted to talk to her about something. He had assumed she was nervous for the same reasons. In a way, he was right – she was nervous because she had something to tell him. But her message couldn’t have been further from his.

There was no goodbye. There was no need for that. Ramsey shut up and shut himself off and went through the motions. There was no value in spending one last night with her, and yet that was what he found himself doing. A painful masochistic act, killing his emotions inside, and shutting himself down inside and just letting his body take whatever it could get. If he thought about it, he would be embarrassed, so he tried not to think. A week ago it would have been fine. A month from now, it might not hurt. But right now, right when he had wanted something so different, it was like stepping on a little bit of his soul. And he had done it. Willingly. Because it was all he could get and if that was the case, then why not take it?

But somewhere in the early hours of the morning, it had been too much. Broken inside, crumbling emotions, exhaustion kicking in, but unable to sleep, and delirious from too much poison, he had climbed out of bed and wandered off into the night. He couldn’t stay there. It hurt too much to look at her. It hurt too much to think.

Eddie was nowhere, but somewhere else. Ramsey didn’t know how he was going to find him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. If only he had driven. If only he had a car. Then everything might have been different. He certainly had no desire to sit for two hours and recount his evening. He had no desire to talk to anyone at all. He just wanted to be home.

Ramsey thought about walking somewhere, anywhere, but knew that wasn’t going to be an option, realizing he had no idea where his left shoe was...