works by w.pham

works by william pham, 2005-present

Arms Race

We leaned against the side of my car and smoked clove cigarettes and said nothing to each other. What was there to say? "I think your friend is dumb as bricks and you should probably stop hanging out with her because stupidity is infectious, like leprosy, and no one wants to be a leper." I mouthed the words, practicing the cadence. She turned, looked at me, and exhaled. I decided against voicing this particular opinion, even though this particular friend was so dumb it took an hour of watching a French new wave flick to realize that it was subtitled and that she wasn't just so stoned out of her mind that she couldn't understand the words.

I disapproved, to say the least. I had no idea what they talked about when they were together, just the two of them. They probably talked about me, but I couldn't be the only topic of conversation. There wasn't that much to say about me, except maybe I was an elitist asshole, but that only takes two words. Or five: "He's such an elitist asshole."

Done and done, mission accomplished -- conversation over.

I inhaled. I exhaled. The full moon was out, along with some stars, and a cloud or two. The park, mostly just some grass and picnic tables and a swing set, was empty, which made sense; it was three in the morning. I inhaled, and exhaled.

"What do you want to do with your life?" she asked. I turned my head to look at her, to really look at her: short red hair; her face was pale and hard; her eyes were gray. I wondered how she would react if she woke up one day to find that she was suddenly, completely, and irrevocably blind. Would she cry? Would she scream out for help, or become mute? Would she give up on everything, or fight for some small measure of happiness? Maybe she would buy a pet to keep her company: a bearded dragon, with a glass tank and a heat lamp as his home. She didn't seem the type for a guide dog.

I decided not to answer her question. She knew the answer. She didn't want to know the answer, but she knew anyway. What I wanted to do with my life was not have her in it. "What I want to do with my life is not have you in it," I said, tapping ashes into the gutter.

"That stings. It really does," she said. The worst part was that it really did. We all have our secret weapons, our Manhattan Projects, our classified biochemical warfare departments sequestered away in the dimly-lit parts of our brain marked "Do Not Enter." And it is so very easy to open these doors and insert these weapons into our conversations with the people we know. There's no joy in hurting a stranger, but besides that, we can't really hurt strangers the same way we can hurt those who are close to us. We know each other's weaknesses: we know the crevices in armor where we can slide our spears inside; the escape tunnels we can pour boiling oil into; the murder-holes for our arrows.

"It's nothing personal." It was completely personal.

"Sure," she said, and smoked her clove cigarette until there was nothing left. She didn't say anything for a long time.

It started to rain. I checked my watch. It was four in the morning. The black sky would turn blue-black soon. I looked at her again. Now her short red hair was slightly wet, and her mascara was starting to run down her pale cheeks. Had she been crying? There was no way to tell. "Have you been crying?"

"No," she said, but what she really meant was: "Yes, I've been crying. I'm crying not because you're leaving me, but because of the way you're leaving me. I'm crying because of how you have tried to not only end our relationship but completely invalidate the entirety of it. I'm crying because you're using the future to carve out the past, and I don't appreciate that kind of gesture, because didn't we have some good times together? I'm sure if you really tried, you could remember that, but instead all you can do is move further and further away from me until the day you actually get on a plane and you'll be gone forever, and I know we were only together for six months, but six months is a long time when you're twenty years old." And by that, what she really meant was: "You're such an elitist asshole."

And she was right, about everything. I felt sorry for her. But, come on -- a bearded dragon? That's the kind of pet for the tall, pimpled thirty-two-year-old guy who runs the comic book store and acts out Dungeons and Dragons with his other thirty-two-year-old friends and they wear parachute pants with black trench coats and dragon-emblazoned button-down shirts and think it's cool. I mean, parachute pants?

"What? I don't want a bearded dragon."

"Oh. My mistake."

"Why did you call me out here anyway if all you wanted to do was smoke a couple of cloves and be a complete dick to me?" Her short red hair was drenched now, and the mascara was tracing two erratic lines down both her cheeks, like the trails of a snail race, if the snails were both tripping hard on acid. But I guess acid would probably kill a snail, if they couldn't even handle a little salt. I guess she was still kind of beautiful, in a way.

"I'm leaving in two days. I wondered if you wanted to have sex. You know, for old times' sake."

"Fuck. That's what this was all about? You should've just told me to come over." She leaned her head back against my car and laughed into the rain.

"I knew you'd be a good sport about it."

I pressed my body against hers and kissed her open, laughing mouth. We tasted like smoke. I pulled her onto the grass and pushed her down and without pretense I fucked her in the rain.

Afterward we lay on our backs, on the wet grass. The rain had stopped. The sky was blue-black. The mascara was drying on her cheeks; the snail on the left cheek had won the race. We said nothing to each other.

Crevices in the armor, escape tunnels, murder-holes.

Spears, boiling oil, and arrows.

We know our weaknesses, and we know our secret weapons.