Something I Can Never Have

By all accounts, John was a nice bloke. Not a very nice bloke. Just nice. Nice being the go to word for people who didn’t have anything else nice to say about a person. Using nice to describe someone was in itself not nice. It wasn’t just that there was a lacklustre laziness at play in the use of this go-to word, it was that the underlying meaning of nice was pathetically negative. By describing John as nice, a person was telling the world that they were bored with John. Never was there an excuse to be bored, and so this should have reflected badly upon the speaker, but that was never the case. Instead John drowned in a nondescript puddle of niceties, but only a part of him had the sense to die.

The part of John that died was his social-connector. He was left unable to connect, but this was not his fault. Not really it wasn’t. And John was not alone in his splendid isolation. There were millions of Johns out there in the world. Invisible in their apparent normalcy.

John was ignorant of his death and this caused him a considerable gang of problems. These problems mounted up and became an obstinate obstacle. This obstacle led to his being frustrated. And frustration is really rather good at brewing up a cauldron of anger that will inevitably bubble over in quite an uncomfortable and unsavoury manner.

Contrary to ridiculous popular belief, there is an instruction manual for being human. In fact, the abundance of instruction, knowledge and advice is almost overwhelming. Most of it walks and talks, but there are also actual books full of wisdom that lend themselves very well to leading a good life. But it isn’t just Dads that ignore instructions and forge ahead with the use of a thing. Everyone does it. This bad habit is formed from the cradle and can be taken to the grave. 

John was one of the lucky ones when it came to parents. His Mum and Dad continued to talk to each other after their divorce, avoiding any conspicuous acrimony. More than half the boys in John’s class at school didn’t have two parents living in their home. A singular home. None of these boys lived with their dad, but they were aware that this sometimes happened, although they never understood what dire circumstances could bring this about. A mother would have to be monstrous in order for a boy to be left in his father’s care. One of the boys in John’s class had an arrangement where he spent half of his time with his father. He was desperately unhappy due to the very obvious unhappiness of his warring parents. This was not a good ad campaign for equity and fairness.

John liked his Dad as far as he was able to. He spent every other weekend away from his home and his time on these sojourns was pleasant enough. If truth were told, he never understood the point of it all. The confusion of the originating fracture of his parents’ relationship never being reconciled in his mind or his heart. 

And so, John was unknowingly deprived of the comprehensive instruction required to do life. He was happy enough. An agreeable and pleasant boy. His troubles would begin as he struck out into the world and attempted to be himself. Then he would find himself to be a basic, old-school dalek, crashing into the very bottom step of the stairs of life wondering how he could ever reach the bedroom on the floor above. The bedroom that contained a rose petal-strewn bed, upon which lay his princess and his future. 

This was the dream. Within the dream was fulfilment and the culmination of a life well lived. He’d listened well to his dear Mama and he’d paid attention to all the pitfalls and failings of men. He was to be a nice boy at all times, and this he’d done with great success. All his Mum’s friends made a point of saying that John was such a nice boy. So why was he trapped downstairs when all the action was going on above him?

There was no rush. John had felt the urge to rush all the same. John had felt a great many urges. These urges took place in a heady cocktail of testosterone and youthful vim and vigour. He would go out with friends and they would all talk a good game. These were halcyon days. The sun shone and there were bags and bags of oats to be sown on the most fertile of ground. Everything was to be played for. Anyone could be anything. Dreams were big and they floated within easy reach.

A decade later, all the colour of those days had been bleached grey and John was left alone with the ghosts of what could have been. He felt tired and broken, but had no clue as to what had gone wrong or where it had gone wrong. It were as though he’d been dashed upon sharp rocks of failure, but he had no recollection of that occurring. But still he was left with the resulting pain and injury. The tragedy of it was that his inability to remember the terrible occurrence of his failure meant that he had no way of learning, so he had a terrible dread of his life heading further downwards and becoming even worse.

He was bright enough to know that his sadness and feelings of loss tinged with desperation were as far from an aphrodisiac as was possible, and so he put a brave face on it, smiled and did his best to be nice. He carried on being what he had been instructed to be, and he never once talked to anyone about how this wasn’t working for him. A determined moth crashing again and again against a burning false moon.

The day he met Sally he knew things could be different. Supressing the familiarity of this certainty, he mustered up all his energy and forced it into an enthusiasm that was neither genuine or wise. Sally was the one. She had to be. The premise for her being the one was that John wasn’t prepared for any other eventuality. This time it was shit or bust. He’d waited too long and this time would be different.

Sally was unaware of the desperation that John was nurturing, but she knew it was there all the same. Below that which we consider to be our self is an underground river of knowledge and understanding. We know and understand more than we give ourselves credit for, if only we’d drink freely from the spring water that feeds that river.

On that first day, there was an exchange of pleasantries and in amongst the pleasantries there were smiles. Smiles mean nothing and everything. Sally would remember that John was a pleasant man, but beyond that there would be no abiding memory. He remained a face in the crowd. Nothing set him apart.

For John it was different. What he saw in Sally’s smile was a world away from where she and that smile existed, and that was where John wanted to be. He was sick of a world that treated him like he was expendable. He had had enough of being overlooked. It had taken him an age to realise that he wasn’t even average, for if he’d attained those heady heights then he’d have the girl, not just a crappy car and a job that encouraged him to go through the motions and nothing more. He wasn’t even a cog in a big machine. All he was, was sand on a forgotten shore. A tiny part of something that had once been great.

He saw something special in Sally’s smile and that made him feel special for the first time in a long time. Possibly ever. Oh, his Mum had made him feel special, but that form of special only worked in the confines of their home. The power of it waned as he stepped over the threshold of her home and the border of her kingdom. The magic of childhood held no sway in the land of men.

John would never understand his exile. He had played the game the way he’d been told to play it and all he’d won was rejection. All this whilst watching toxic males sweep the girl off her feet and carry her off to his cave. Women didn’t like nice guys, John had learnt that from bitter experience and through that bitterness was a willingness to show what he was really made of. He could be nasty when it was called for. He had plenty of nasty available to him these days. He would show them. He would prevail. He wasn’t like the others. He was better than them. 

He was better than the rest and he deserved better. In Sally, he saw his prize. Sally was his salvation. Things were going to turn out alright after all. Now that John knew Sally was in the world he felt happiness. He wasn’t happy, but he sensed that happiness was there for the taking. That it was waiting for him to do his thing and then he would be granted his prizes; everything that he’d been deprived of.

“I’ve met someone,” John told his Mum.

“That’s nice, dear,” his Mum said without looking up.

John bit his tongue, they’d played this scene out any number of times and it had never ended the way it was meant to. 

“You don’t seem…” he began. He thought he knew what he was going to say, but a serpentine queue of words and meanings were vying for a position in that sentence.

Happy for me

To care

To want me to be happy

To think I can do this

To want to let me go 

These and many other words and meanings swirled around in his head and his chest. There was pain here, where there should only be love. There was something wrong in this house. Something not right between them. He didn’t want to worry at it too much, but he couldn’t help it. He looked at his Mum and he no longer wanted this. That seemed to be a natural conclusion, but it felt awful. He could not bring himself to read the words that were pulsing like a livid red tumour in his mind…

YOU DON’T WANT HER

He felt nauseated by this thought. Of course he didn’t! She was his Mum! He didn’t want her like that. But he knew that wasn’t the intent of this thought. He also knew why he was being confronted with a glimpse of the truth that he would have to embrace were he to be with Sally.

Sally wasn’t like his Mum. 

And yet he wanted Sally with every fibre of his being. He wanted to be with Sally and he knew his Mum would not approve. With a shock, another morsel of the truth hit him and hit him hard. His Mum was never going to approve of anyone that John met. That was her position, always had been and always would be. She was fine with things how they were, thank you very much.

“I don’t seem what, dear?” asked his Mum.

John eyed his Mum for a moment. He wanted to say something. He wanted to ask her what she really thought. He wanted to understand her in a way that she had never allowed. They talked. They could talk for England. There wasn’t much that between them, they didn’t know about film. They had such an easy way about them as they watched a film each evening. They exchanged banter peppered with their favourite quotes and lines. There were some half-decent impersonations along the way too.

John remembered an oft quoted piece of advice; if you can make a woman laugh, you can win her heart. The only woman he was certain he could make laugh was his own mother and he was beginning to think that that didn’t count. It didn’t count because they didn’t make women like his Mum anymore. And it didn’t count because he didn’t want a woman like his Mum.

Did that make him obsolete? Had he been made to perform a function that was no longer needed in this world? Was that why he hadn’t found his true love? He was being naturally deselected. His genes, now surplus to requirements, would end when he ended. 

“You don’t seem your usual self,” said John, the lie coming too easily to him.

“How so?” asked his Mum.

“Tired,” ventured John.

His Mum nodded, “yes, I do feel tired,” she agreed.

John knew she would. His Mum was always tired. When he was younger, he’d beaten himself up about how tired she always was. Been all too aware of what a burden he was. How difficult it was for a woman to bring up a son on her own.

“So this woman, Jonnie?” asked his Mum, smiling at her little boy.

John shrugged, no longer wanting to talk about it, “it’s early doors,” he said, “we met through work,” he added, wanting to shut it down.

His Mum looked at him appraisingly for a moment, “well take your time. Don’t rush things, OK? I rushed things with your Dad, and look where that got us.”

John nodded, but said nothing.

That night, after his Mum had gone to bed, he did what he always did. He opened up his laptop and he went on an online quest. He was a lone knight in search of his lady. For years he had trawled the infinite expanse of the web. Dating sites. Social networks. Search engines that opened up onto layer upon layer of one dimensional worlds. String after string of ones and zeroes. A fifty/fifty chance of striking something of value and always he’d hit zero.

But now he had Sally.

Even online, Sally was different. Special.

Sally had been so difficult to track down. Harder than all the rest. But knowledge, John knew, was power. And John knew how to acquire knowledge. He’d had a lot of practice. It was a good job he enjoyed these late night forays. Couldn’t get enough of them. Sometimes he wondered whether he was addicted to his nocturnal hobby, but even if he was, that was fine by him. His was a noble pursuit. To acquire knowledge was to grow increasingly wise.

When he next saw Sally, she would be impressed not only by the knowledge he had of her, but also his resourcefulness.

“No one else would do this for you, my love.”

He said this to Sally’s image on the screen. An image of her sporting that smile of hers. The photo had been taken a few years earlier. Sally standing on a beach and holding aloft a cocktail. John knew the cocktail was a screwdriver, her favourite. He smiled back at Sally, the unnatural light of the laptop bathing his face in the truth of his state. A truth John could not see, but the world around him was all too aware of.

“Soon,” John said dreamily, as he closed the lid of his laptop and slipped into a deep slumber that could only last for three hours, his alarm waking him noisily, jarring him back into consciousness and making him feel sick to his stomach thanks to the ongoing pattern of sleep deprivation he was subjecting himself to.

But John no longer cared. He wouldn’t have slept much in any case. The excitement of his anticipation was building and soon enough his life would never be the same again. He’d found the woman of his dreams and she felt the same way. He was about to make The Grand Gesture and then he and Sally would be together. 

Forever.

That was how these things worked. This was how it was meant to be. Everyone deserved their Sally. Or their John, he thought to himself as he damn near skipped to work.

It wasn’t the next time John saw Sally that he did the deed. He wanted one more time in the work setting to be sure of his ground. To be sure of the love that was blossoming in his chest. He was rewarded with that smile again, and that was all he needed.

That Saturday he walked the half mile to her home, taking a detour to buy the biggest bunch of flowers that he could carry. The florist asked John about the lucky girl as she prepared the flowers.

Lucky girl.

Yes, she was going to be very lucky indeed! 

John floated the rest of the way, ignoring a nagging panic that was threatening to ruin his moment. A moment that had taken such a long time coming. 

Suddenly, as he heard the echo of his knock on the door, he felt small. He was a little boy and all alone in a world that he’d never belonged in.

He heard steps along the hallway and he wanted to run. The only reason he didn’t was his legs betrayed him. Turning to jelly as the door opened.

“John!”

The exclamation was not one of delight. There was surprise, but Sally’s face told John all he needed to know. She was aghast, and of the smile, there was no trace.

“I brought you flowers,” he said meekly.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she hissed, “I only see clients in town.”

“Sorry,” John said feebly, doing his best not to burst into tears.

“How did you find this address?” she barked.

But John was shaking his head, his preprepared grand declaration of love dying in his maladapted heart,  “sorry, I should go.”

“Yes, I think you should,” Sally agreed, “and John?”

He turned, no hope left within him.

“I don’t ever want to see you again.”