by Monica S. Kuebler

Fantasia Queen St. Brampton. Just another night in June. June 1996. Cake Bar. Coffee House. Cafe. Another night out of history and something (someone?) tells me that we are all so old now... we are reminiscing. She is writing a paper or is it a magazine article? She is asking me questions; This is an interview. She is asking me about him. You.

I almost forgot about you. Or maybe I just wished that I could. My parents brought it up over dinner, said that you had a baby with your wife. I try to remember her face. I wonder why they brought it up at all but I can't blame them for what they never knew. I can't blame them for all the things we were and all the things we weren't. I still can't remember her face. And you couldn't possibly make a good father. I thought I remember someone telling me you left her abandoned at the alter but I suppose she actually managed to chain the wild beast. I wonder what potion you drank from because as I remember monogamy was never part of your vocabulary. However you knew the words cheat, fuck, and love all too well and you also knew that in most cases they could be interchangeable.

She asks how it felt? How it felt?

How does it feel? Sometimes I think you took some masochistic pleasure in ruining me. You made all the clean things dirty, you made all the pure things bitter. At ten you taught me how to kiss, at ten most girls were still skipping rope and playing with Barbies. You taught me how to kiss while your sister was upstairs getting kool-aid. You were twelve. At fourteen you taught me how to fuck. I don't think I loved you, at fourteen I didn't know what I wanted. At fourteen you taught me to fuck and I wasn't even in high school. At sixteen you taught me how to hurt, how to feel shame. At sixteen you taught me confusion. You were eighteen then. You denied me, yet you came back again and again saying all the words you knew that I wanted to hear. And I thought if I listened, if I understood, if I behaved, you would treat me better. Always hoping you would take me to the movies. You promised. But you never did. You fucked around with me and then took her, one of my best friends.

So I asked if you liked me. And you said that you did. I asked you if we might ever have a real relationship (can you blame me for wanting something besides an occasional fuck when my father was working midnights?) And you smiled and said we might. You kept me hanging on like some two-bit whore but I was just a little girl who still believed that fucking might somehow equate to love. But apparently fucking didn't even equate to dinner and a movie, however you gave me another hit of acid and made me into a plaything in front of your latest conquest. And you married her. No, I am not bitter. I am free but I still think that you owe me an apology. I bet you you didn't even tell her about us. And what if your parents had found us in bed instead of you and her, would it have been scandal? Would it have been romance? Would they have sent you racing off to confession? Would it even have mattered?

She keeps prying deeper and deeper with her questions, it is like some sort of sociological examination. A once over to see if I'm in a proper mental state to perform my duties as a responsible citizen. I am twenty now. I hesitate to ask her again what magazine this is for, it is hard to suppress the giggles when I think that you might read this. Revenge? No, I think it would be more like long-awaited justice. She wants to know what was going on inside. I am just sitting here wondering why we are resurrecting ghosts.

So as I was saying they brought you up at dinner. You were home in January. I wasn't. I don't think that we would have a hell of a lot to say to one another anymore, what with you being 22 now and me being me. You just keep coming up, sort of like the morning after mixing hard liquor and a six-pack on an empty stomach. Pretty accurate analogy, we used to drink a lot even back then. You always liked to get me drunk and then spend the rest of the evening trying to feed me various little pills: uppers, downers, you name it and you kept the little childproof bottles lined up on your headboard like a hundred toy soldiers on some strategic mission. Maybe you didn't keep me around because I just wouldn't swallow on demand. I was your slave but not as much as I assume you wanted me to be. Strong-will is a dangerous thing in youth. My parents always taught me to say no but all I ever found myself saying was yes. For some reason yes always felt better. However after you, after us, I learned to say no a lot more frequently. You made me want to die, you made me throw chairs, you made me hate, you made me lose control, you made me lose myself, you made me into nothing so that I might kneel upon command. You broke me and I cried. You courted her and made her hate me and you watched as she ridiculed me. You pretended to stand by me as they stoned me on the public stage but really you were smirking, celebrating victory in the creation of my anguish. You made everyone hate me but you kept right on fucking me and saying all those one-liners that you knew would keep me in my place beneath you. I would cry myself to sleep at night because you made me hurt. I was sixteen and you drank up my sweetness and left me bitter and hollow and doomed.

'How did you ever survive?' she wonders out loud. How did I? This isn't something that is rehearsed nor is it something born of instinct. I start to think that maybe this interview has gone too far. Screaming in blackness, the memories can pour back something fierce.

We spent our last night on the imitation grass of a local mini-golf course, we had been drinking all day, all day on your front lawn. I don't remember how long we stayed there or what we did. I think my heart was set on leaving but I didn't know how. I didn't know that this would be our last night together. You didn't say that you were leaving. I just decided not to call anymore. Maybe I just decided that I had enough of false promises, of being stood up on my sweet sixteenth. I think I just had enough of being the other girl, the secret girl, one of the three. I think I was the first but for all it mattered I might as well have held any of the other positions. I think I just had enough of your shit. So you were the first boy on my street with purple hair, that doesn't mean we ever had a future. You just led me to believe we did so you could use me. I didn't say good-bye, neither did you. We didn't talk after that. A couple months following I heard you moved with her to another province (later I heard about the wedding.) She was one of the three too. I think that you were just running. It proves that we are all running from something. I am twenty now. I am not married. I am not fucking anyone. Nor do I even think of fucking anyone much anymore. You corrupted that for me, you taught me that sex was a form of domination. You taught me fucking did not equate to love, now I never want to fuck the ones I love. I don't even think I wanted to fuck you. Now after all these years I am still running and it seems that maybe you have finally stopped. But everyone is always running. Fight or flight, it's human nature. You couldn't possibly make a good father.

She looks up from her scrawled notes and asks me if that is the end of my story? I wonder if it is too. I don't think about you much anymore and I truly hate it when someone brings you up at dinner, I almost lose my appetite. Your name is almost enough to send me rushing off for a face to face with the porcelain throne. But I am not about to make any confessions. I am done paying for your crimes. I still can't picture you married. It's a little unnerving that I can't remember her face.

She asks how my life has changed since then, I don't answer her question I just say, "completely". As history stands you were the first boy to ever break me and I have been kicking down doors ever since so that I might get something of myself back. I was fourteen and you taught me how to fuck. You had me fucking before I was reading Shakespeare. She wonders how I will ever forgive you. I smile and say, "I already have." You may have fucked me and fucked me up simultaneously but now you are the one who is married with a newborn infant, living on welfare with only a high school education. And I am still kicking down doors with that same determination, someday I am going to get it all back. Maybe I already have but four years and one month later it doesn't really matter anymore. She wonders if I mean this. I say, "I might."

I finish off my chocolate cake and drink the rest of my now only luke-warm over-sweetened coffee. Her tape recorder clicks as the cassette reaches its end. She has stopped asking me questions and is now busy perusing her notes, I ask her how all this will be pertinent to her research and she says that she is not sure yet. A waiter comes and removes our dirty dishes, I forget to leave a tip, so does she. It is just another rainy night in June as we leave the Fantasia cafe, the story of you and me has been for the first time committed to paper. I am twenty years old and as long as no one brings you up at dinner again I think that it is safe to forget you, us, then.

Queen St. Brampton. June 1996. You are a million miles away and several years buried in my past. I start my car and drive into the night. Somewhere in the distance your baby is crying, I can almost hear you yelling at your wife. I am instantly reminded of how much I hate children and as I shift into second I silently celebrate that you chose her. I can't imagine being barefoot, broke and pregnant. I smile and turn onto the onramp, I suppose some things in life are just and reality has its own perverted sense of justice. The baby screams a little louder.

monica s. kuebler is the author of Legacy (and other short fiction), which can be ordered from Burning Effigy Press & Productions, via mail-order for $4.00 ($3.00 + $1.00 postage and handling). All cheques or money orders MUST be made out to: monica s. kuebler. Please send payment and orders to: Suite 408, 117 Gerrard St. East, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2L4.