You Might Never Be That Happy

"The most important thing a boy can know how to do," your father had told you, "is how to ice skate backwards."

You had asked your father why. Your father had been teaching you how to skate backwards, and had stopped to make this pronouncement. There was a pond in the field behind your house, one that froze almost solid in the winters. It was small, and it froze rough and warped, so it wasn't good for skating. But it was good for learning where no one could see you fall, and try, and fall again, and try again until you were so numb and sore you couldn't try anymore. And you would go out again the next day, and do the same thing, until you were a good, strong skater.

"Well, a lot of reasons," your father had said, the words curling out of his mouth into the cold like smoke, "First, it will impress people. And twirling is for girls. Skating backwards gives you style. It means you can talk to someone who's skating forward face to face, and that's just polite. But mostly," you remember that the skin around your father's eyes had crinkled up, "mostly it's so you can teach a girl how."

You don't remember what you had said to your father then. Probably you had said that you didn't want to teach any girls. Whatever you said, it had made your father grow almost stern. His dark eyebrows had drawn together, you remember that. Your father didn't talk often, but when he did, it was in speeches. "Trust me. One day you'll like some girl. You'll see her skating, and you'll think she's the most beautiful girl in the whole skating rink, in the whole world. She'll be skating like a deer runs, with those long, smooth glides. And you'll skate up beside her and you'll talk. And you've seen her in school, maybe, but never like this, with the snow in her hair and some red scarf, shining like Christmas with the cold. You'll talk and she'll tell you she can't skate backwards, like it's a secret, like it's shameful -- and you won't make fun of her at all, you'll just offer to teach her, nice and casual. And she'll say yes and you'll know when you put your arms around her, and start to skate backwards with her, real slow, that you've never been so happy. That you might never be that happy again."

You remember sometimes what your father had said, and you remember how it had felt to have your arms around that girl, to be guiding her. And you think how your father had been right: the most important thing a boy can know how to do is how to ice skate backwards.

The bath's a broth.

The bath's a broth.

The tub's the porcelain spoon that scoops me up

and suds and slipping soap and droopy, dripping cloth,

to prune.

And I only even miss you just a little.

The truth is, you were missing a long time before I missed you. When I did miss you, I thought back, and realized that I had been missing you for a long time, though I had only missed you for a very short time.

If I had been reasonable, I would have said See? See how long I've gone without missing you? You have been missing all this time, and I've just now missed you. And I only even miss you just a little.

But I wasn't reasonable, and I didn't say that. When I did miss you, and realized that you were missing, though you had been missing a long time, I started to hunt and hunt for you, to think where you might me, to ask my friends and family about you, even though it wasn't until I realized I was missing you that I missed you, even a little.

He Said, She Said

I.

"I read this article," she said, "about H.L. Mencken."

"Who." he said.

"H.L." she said. "Mencken." she said. "You know. The journalist. Wrote funny stuff."

"Not really." he said.

"Anyway. It doesn't matter." she said. "The point is," she said, "is what this article said---"

"What did it say." he said.

"I'm telling you." she said. "It says about him, about Mencken, you know, H.L. Mencken, that, listen, it says that 'When he attacked'---Mencken---'when he attacked----'"

"He attacked." he said.

"You know." she said.

"Verbally." she said.

"Don't be stupid on purpose." she said.

"I'm not on purpose." he said.

"Don't attack me either like Mencken." he said.

"He didn't attack people. Just, you know, verbally." she said.

"Because he was funny." she said.

"What's your excuse." he said.

"That's not funny." she said. "Not like Mencken. He would be mean but funny." she said.

"Just let me tell you my thing." she said.

"Fine." he said.

"It said---if I can even remember it now---something like 'When Mencken attacked, he left no survivors, but when he praised, it was like Christmas morning.'* That's what it said." she said.

"Okay." he said.

"So." he said.

"That's like you." she said.

II.

"How am I supposed to respond to that." he said.

"I'm just telling you something I thought of." she said.

"Why would you say something like that." he said.

"Look." she said.

"Don't get upset." she said.

"It just struck me." she said.

"How am I supposed to take that." he said.

"Look." she said. "It just reminds me of how you---like, how you make people feel sometimes."

"Are you wanting to tell me something." he said.

"Is this your way of wanting to tell me something." he said.

"I didn't think I was telling you anything." she said.

"Nothing you didn't know." she said.

"Well, I didn't know you felt that way." he said. "And it was rotten of you to bring H.M. Mencken into it. To use some funny guy to tell me."

"H.L." she said.

"What." he said.

"H.L., not H.M." she said.

"As if that mattered." he said.

"As if that were any kind of the point." he said.

"What does that even mean." she said.

"Don't change the subject." he said.

"I'm trying to understand the subject." she said.

"No." he said.

"Look---" she said.

"No." he said.

"Fine." she said.

"Fine." he said.

*

fragment #2

"It's like I can hear her typos." Tim said, leaning back in his chair. "Like I can hear she can't tell the difference between the two 'your's---you know, 'you are' and the other one, the possessive."

"No one can when you're talking," Jo said. "They're homophones."

"You're a homophone," Tim said.

"Don't be an idiot," Jo said.

"I'm totally serious though. I know I can't actually hear the difference, but there's something in the way she talks. Like, she obviously wouldn't write grammatically."

"Does she speak grammatically?" Jo asked.

"I'm telling you," Tim leaned forward suddenly, slamming down the two front feet of his chair, "I can tell it from the way she talks---I can hear that she would confuse her 'to's."

"Like, too, to, and two?" Jo asked.

"I can tell she would confuse them," Tim said, growing emphatic, "And don't even get me started on her 'there's."

"You're crazy," Jo said, and, after a pause, added, "and you're probably trying to sabotage this whole thing with her."

"Why?" Tim said, "Why would I? I want it to work. I want to be with somebody."

"But not with Leigh."

"Yes with Leigh!"

"Not if you're imagining typos when she talks," Jo said.

"Well, why not? What does it mean, the typos?"

"It means you don't think she's smart enough for you." Jo said this looking down into her coffee, blowing on it, waiting for it to cool.

"Well why does it matter if she's smart enough?" Tim leaned back in his chair again. "Why can't she just be her?"

Jo snorted. "Good question," she said.

They sipped their coffee for a while in silence.