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History Repeats Itself (again)
For as far back as time was known to be time, history has been circular. An event happens. A mistake is made. A similar event happens. A similar mistake is made. Etc. And so on. Deja vu.
Edgar is older now, and wiser. He has learned many things. He rarely goes to the park, and when he does, he stays away from the merry-go-round. It is a source of darkness in his past. Instead, he swings on the swings or slides on the slides. Mebbe throws a baseball around with a friend. But never the merry-go-round. Some other kid, younger than him, sits there all day now, and this kid pushes the ride for everyone else. His old friends, they see him in the park on those rare days, and they tell him the rides aren't quite the same. Nothing is quite the same. Similar, but not the same. But apart from this darkness, Edgar's life has become quite light. At least, it was until he started thinking about it. Thinking about things always made them seem less wonderful than they originally felt. This was how his life was going: he got a new job. Now, instead of boring old filing for his mother, now he got to deliver papers.
Delivering papers was a great job. First, he got to see the news before anyone else. A few times he even was tempted to call a friend (at 5 a.m. Too!) and tell them about something he had read in the paper. But he didn't. He's not crazy. Really, the news wasn't usually all that amazing anyway. But his job was fun. That's what was important. every morning he gets to wake up, wrap up all the papers in plastic, put on rubber bands, and then toss them in his delivery bag. Then he hops on his bike and zips off bright and early. Usually it was so early that his mom's automatic coffee maker still hadn't kicked on. The sun was just beginning to yawn and rub its eyes as Edgar, full of energy, sped around on his new bike, his mountain bike. He had just purchased it with some of the money he had earned from his job.
Yep, tooling around on his new bike, wide awake before just about anyone else, he really liked his life. He liked where he lived, his neighborhood and his town, and he really liked it when everyone was still asleep. The streets were all his. No cars nudging him onto the sidewalks, no parents with strollers taking up the entire street, nope, just Edgar and the birds and the squirrels and mebbe a dog or two that had to do its business.
Just the way Edgar liked it.
Because usually he did prefer animals to people. He couldn't say why, exactly. He knew it had something to do with the way people looked at him, and the way animals looked at him. His dog, rex, would always bark when he came home. Rex would run right up to him and start jumping on him (causing his mom much grief) and lick his hands and his face. Edgar loved rex. And he told rex all the time. And when Edgar was sad, he could go lie on his bed and rex would jump up there with him (again making mom mad) and rex would kiss him a few times but seemed to understand that Edgar was sad, and Edgar could just lay there and pet rex and tell rex everything. Rex always listened, never interrupted (except to scratch a flea) and never judged. That's not what people were like, though. People judged all the time. Edgar could tell just by the way they looked at him. Like when his mom would have guests over, and Edgar, feeling silly, might start talking about something that interested him. Edgar might say something like, "isn't it funny how atoms are made up of mostly nothing (he had just learned this in science class) and that everything we see is made up of atoms, so really everything is made up of mostly nothing? isn't it amazing that we can see anything to begin with?" and they might laugh or chuckle, but always there was that look in their eyes, or that sidelong glance to their friends, that, "oh geez, what is this kid talking about."
Edgar hated those glances. He also hated it when people said things about him behind his back. Edgar had really good hearing, and sometimes people would say things, and Edgar could hear them perfectly well. Mean things. Nasty things. They made Edgar want to hurt them, hurt them or just run home and cry into rex's fur.
Riding around on his bike in the morning gave Edgar lots of time to observe. To observe and think. Usually Edgar was happy and would think happy things, things like, "oh, isn't the snow pretty today?" or "I bet I get my pay check tomorrow, and then I can go buy that new 'Calvin and Hobbes' book at Waldenbooks." Sometimes, as he was riding, he would pass a certain house, a house who didn't subscribe to his local paper but to a paper made in a city over an hour away, and he would think about the girl inside that house, a girl he used to like who perhaps liked him. Or perhaps she didn't. No matter, he didn't like her anymore, and that's what was important. He liked someone else. That wasn't really surprising, though, considering that Edgar was always bouncing around from one infatuation to the next, without anything ever coming of his puppy-loves.
It would usually go like this: he would like a girl, but she wouldn't really know him. He wouldn't know her, either, but from what he deduced, she was very likable. Then, after something happened (usually she would break up with her current "boyfriend") she and Edgar would become friends. Edgar, happy as a plum, would feel this fresh surge of energy, and he would want to spend time with her all the time. He would call her and talk to her and argue with her. And, best of all, he would write to her. He would pass her notes between classes, and by the end of the day, she might write him back. Then he would rush home and open the note and read it. Sometimes she just talked about her day, how boring Mr. Driver was when he talked about algebra, or mebbe she would talk about how much she liked Edgar's poem he wrote (this would make Edgar's head spin like a top) or mebbe she would say something about her old boyfriend, and after reading it Edgar would find his lips flattened and his eyebrows furrowed, and he would let the note drop to the ground. Later, he would pick it up, read it again, and then try to forget about it. But he couldn't, and it would stick, and Edgar would have to figure out what he was to do next: would he accept it, or would he not write her back, would he just move on to his next crush. He never knew what to do. Usually he just gave up. His old friend Kate, who had moved away, tried to convince him once that he was too cowardly and shy. She had said,
"Edgar, you have to be more persistent."
"Persistent?" Edgar said. "I hate that word. I'm never persistent."
"But you have to be persistent, Edgar, if you really want a girl to like you. You have to go after her."
"Why?"
"Because. Because that's how it works. You can't get something if you don't risk something."
"How do I know if it's worth risking for?"
"You don't know. You never know. But if you're wrong, you'll realize it and move on."
"I don't know. I'm never sure. I wish I could just be sure. If I was sure, then I wouldn't be scared. But I'm never sure."
"At some point you just have to try anyway. You won't know for sure until you try."
"I don't like it."
"Do you like being alone better?"
"No. I ... I don't know. I guess so. I guess I'll be alone my whole life."
"Don't say that Edgar."
"I can say it because it's probably true."
"Shh..." Kate said, and she hugged him, and he let her hug him.
But now Kate was gone, and he didn't even like the girl they were talking about any more. So he was right, somehow, he supposed. And, in a way, since he always ended up not liking the girl he liked, he figured that mebbe he never would meet one he really liked.
He pedaled on his bike. It was cold today and the wind blew down past his throat hitting him in the chest. He shivered, and zipped his coat up to his lips. His lips already felt chapped even though he'd only been outside for five minutes. He grabbed a paper from his pouch and gently tossed it toward Mr. Hinkley's front porch. It landed perfectly, bouncing once then sliding right up to the screen door, but without banging the door. Edgar briefly smiled. Then his lips flattened.
Kate had asked him once, a week before she left, she had said, "Edgar, haven't you ever loved someone?"
And he wanted to say yes. He wanted to say he'd loved many girls, and that they had all loved him back. But he knew it wasn't true. Instead he said nothing, and Kate let it drop. The truth was that Edgar had gotten to know many girls, and some he became closer to than others, but none of them qualified as "love." Edgar knew this, and he didn't try to delude himself.
Edgar turned left onto mulberry drive and thought. Without thinking about things, Edgar had been enjoying himself. He had found a new girl to like, and she, as always, seemed better than anyone he had met before. He liked talking to her, writing to her, spending time with her. Of course, he had liked her for a long time, but through most of that time, she had had a boyfriend, and so Edgar minded his own business and acted no further. But a few months ago, she and her boyfriend had split up (who knows why, probably because all relationships seem to end or be bitter, Edgar thought) and then Edgar got to see her a whole bunch. And at first it was great! it was like taking that first bite into a warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream melted just right on the top. After the first bite, you think, "man, I could eat this pie forever." But eventually you start getting full, and he supposed that was what was happening now. He had eaten too much pie. It didn't taste quite as sweet, and when he realized it, his mouth became bitter like full of lemons. His lips flattened and he rubbed his tongue across the bottom of this top front teeth. He honestly just wished everything could be perfect and that everyone could be happy. He knew most people were happy, most of the time. Just about all his friends had found happiness with someone else, at least for a while. So why couldn't he? he didn't know, he never knew, but he figured it was just a defect or he lacked a certain gene or mebbe he was just crazy. Mebbe he would just go crazy. Going crazy didn't sound so crazy, when you looked at the alternatives. Because Edgar was a hopeful boy, and now, after many years, and now that Edgar was older and wiser, he didn't feel so much like being hopeful. He felt like he'd given hope a fair shot, and that hope had let him down. To heck with hope.
Walking back home, pushing his bike, Edgar clenched his jaws. The more he thought about how unsatisfied he was with his life, the more he clenched his jaws. He wanted to go home and break something of his. He wanted to break everything of his. Who cares about physical objects anyway?
But when he got home, quietly seething, he would not break anything. He would get back into bed. He had an hour before school started. He would sleep, despite being so angry. Despite the fact that he truly and honestly felt that nothing he had ever done in his life ever mattered. He knew he was still young. But he wished that there was at least one point, one instance where something had happened, a connection had been made, a breakthrough had occurred, something, anything, that he could think of to justify his existence. But there was nothing.
An hour later, Edgar would wake up.
He would not feel angry.
He would think: something is missing.
His anger had dissipated, but the only thing that replaced it was emptiness.
Feeling empty, Edgar would get out of bed, start his day, his jaws unclenched.
As he leaves for school, he mom would see him. She wouldn't say anything, but she would notice his expression.
She would see his eyebrows furrowed.
She would see his lips were flat.