Meet George Jetson

I met you when we were twenty-one. Well, actually you may have been twenty-two, I have never been particularly clear on your birthday, and you never wanted anyone to celebrate it.

I fell in love with you immediately. I don’t know why, you were sitting there leaning back in a chair that was not meant to lean. You stared straight ahead, chewing on a rubber band. You didn’t make eye contact when we were introduced instead you stared at the TV screen, The Jetsons. As I walked behind the curtain, that pretended to create another room, I saw you lean out and look at me.

I left the apartment. It’s an odd shock to suddenly be living with a person you are attracted to and I thought you were an anomaly. As I walked down the street I reintroduced myself to the city I had left a year before. Taxis, piles of trash and in this neighborhood many women wearing black slacks and penny heels. I walked to the café and ordered myself lemonade. Happy to find they had not sweetened it I sipped it slowly while pulling out my journal. I wrote that I found you obnoxious and that you needed to take a shower. But I was simply over-reacting to my gut instinct to go back to our apartment and sit on you, Forcing you to put all four feet of the chair on the ground. Forcing you to if not look at me or at least to slide your hands down to my sides. Forcing that rubber band to drop to the ground and making it easier for you to focus your mouth on something else.

But I finished the lemonade and did not see you until the sky had turned that color that I feel insecure calling purple. We made plans to make millions and teased each other’s histories. You explained how to give the perfect blowjob and I listened. We talked about Dogs and how great they were. We pondered why anyone would ever want a cat. We talked about our love of music and compared favorites. After a couple of drinks we both admitted we liked top forty, but more than that we liked top forty country. It was the only time in our friendship that you admitted to me the fear you had for your father. You told me about that one night when he approached you in bed to hug you goodnight. The night you thought he might hit you, so you wet yourself and your starwars sheets. I told you my hospital stay. I told you my heart stopped for thirty seconds and that I was so unafraid that I woke up believing all religion was fraud.

Our night faded and became day, as nights like that do when you are twenty-one or twenty-two. We ambled home drunk and happy, when we got to the door you leaned up behind me as I turned the key. I could smell the beer on your breath, I didn’t mind. You had taken a shower, but the night was humid and you smelled like yourself again. I could admit at the moment I loved it. The pressure behind me immediately heated my face and I waited. Your knee bent out in front of you and tucked under mine.

I was on the ground. You were laughing and inside. Our roommates were laughing too I had forgotten they were there.