Language of Lunacy

Just say it, you think. Come on, it’s not that difficult. People do this all the time. Just walk up to her and…say something. “Hello” would be an excellent start. You’ll regret it if you don’t try, just one more time.

You do the walking, nice even steps, good posture. Check. You get her attention with a half-wave, an appropriate signal that you would like the next slot on her proverbial dance card. Check. You wait with a polite, but not creepy smile. Check. She turns to you.

Just say it. Say it.

“Did you know a baby porcupine is called a porcupette?” No, not that. That was so not the plan. Big, red, honking X on that step.

The girl makes a face, looks over your left shoulder, and hurries off on the pretense of having spotted someone she actually knows. Perhaps it was one of the first three girls you “struck out” with tonight, to borrow an analogy from baseball.

“Parties suck,” you mumble. So does baseball, for that matter.

“Really?” a voice asks, floating over from somewhere to your right.

You barely turn, not in the mood for any more attempts at small talk, and practically snarl, “What? Parties? Yeah, they suck like Hawk Moths.”

“No, the porcupine babies. Are they really called porqupesque, porcupens...?”

“Porcupettes?”

“Yeah, that.” And this time you do turn. Standing in front of you is a girl about your height, dark hair, medium skin, probably tipsy, with the biggest eyes you’ve ever seen on a real person. Like, they’d almost be comical, cartoon-character material if she wasn’t looking at you so earnestly right now. She reminds you of a tarsier, little nocturnal primates native to Asia. Their eyes make up an extraordinary portion of their body mass. You make a note not to tell the tarsier-girl this.

“And what was that other thing? The Hulk Moth?” Make that definitely tipsy.

“Uh, Hawk Moth. Some tropical species have been known to feed on eye secretions. So, you know, sucking.” Tarsier-girl grimaces. You make another note not to bring up eye secretions with drunk people. Or girls. And especially not drunk girls.

“Um, you sure know a lot about animals.” Well, you’d better by now or this field zoology degree really has been the waste of money your uncle says it is. The tarsier-girl goes to take another sip of her drink but misjudges the trajectory of the cup and, instead, knocks it out of her own hand. You watch it fall to the ground, almost in slow motion, and already know it’s going to end up at least half on your shoes. Parties really, really suck.

***

Ten minutes and half a roll of paper towels later, you’re ready to duck out of this party and head home. Your daily quota of trying to “have some real college experiences,” as your mother likes to say, is officially filled.

However, just as you’re stepping out the door, a hand grips your arm. You consider just brushing off whoever it is and bolting but know that would be considered rude. Reluctantly, you spin around and come face to face with the same girl from earlier.

“I’m Jules—“ she starts, holding out her hand for a shake.

“Look, tar- I mean, Jules, I’m sure you’re very nice and maybe even intelligent, when you’re sober, but I don’t have time to play drunk girl babysitter tonight.” In retrospect, maybe just brushing her off would have been best.

You expect the “water works,” as your brother calls it. Or maybe a slap to the face (it wouldn’t be the first time at one of these gatherings). At the very least, you anticipate some yelling. It doesn’t come.

“I didn’t expect you to. And I am intelligent, actually, certainly enough to surmise that you wouldn’t have anyone to walk home with, since I watched four girls turn you down tonight. Just thought you might like some company. Guess I was mistaken.” Her speech is intentionally precise, but she seems much more sober and, dare you say, intelligent, than the last time you spoke. The boozy haze around her has lifted and you wonder if it was ever there at all or if you’d imagined it. Perhaps it was your own helping of “liquid courage” at work here, rather than hers. She pushes past you to leave, causing you to bump your “funny bone” on the doorframe (or, rather, your humerus bumps the door and twinges your ulnar nerve). You have a sudden memory of a writing seminar professor droning on about poetic justice and finally understand what he was talking about.

At the risk of looking like a “dangerous character” (mother’s words) or “hooligan” (father’s words), you hurry out into the street to chase after Jules. She lets you catch up but doesn’t acknowledge you when you do. That seems fair.

The thing to say now would be: “I’m sorry. I was rude. I would like the company.”

What you say is: “Did you know donkeys are misunderstood creatures? People think of them as stubborn but they are actually quite smart. They’re just easily startled and prefer to consider something carefully before moving forward.”

Jules half-smiles. “Is that your way of saying you were an ass to me earlier?” It was.

“You know, donkeys are also quite social. They have been known to remember other donkeys they’ve met before, even many years later.”

“So, you were at the party to make friends and meet people. Wasn’t working out, from what I saw. Sorry about that.” She got it. It’s like speaking in code but better.

“You got anyplace to be tonight?” Jules asks, already changing course away from the dorms. You shake your head, no code necessary.

“Alright, Animal Planet. Let’s go wild.”

***

“Go wild” was apparently also a code. It meant: let’s break into the library. Or, sneak in, you suppose. The library is still partially open for a few more hours, but this portion of the stacks closes at midnight to anyone without keycard access. Jules has a keycard but, judging by its picture of a bearded and bespectacled man, the card wasn’t really hers.

You’ve never been in the stacks when they’re all dark like this. It’s spooky, like a horror film setting, but also strangely beautiful. It reminds you of that trip to the Galapagos Islands with your evolutionary bio class a few years back. You spent the whole trip wishing you were a photographer or an artist, instead of a scientist. That’s what you wish now, too, as the moonlight streams in and the bookcases cast geometric shadows on the floor.

“I wasn’t really that drunk.” You look up. Jules is standing in the middle of one of the rows with what looks like a Zippo lighter, the tiny flame illuminating her face.

“I know.” It’s a lie. Or at least it was. Now that you think back, you do know. She really wasn’t acting drunk, per se, just like you thought in the doorway as you watched her walk away. But she was...off. This feels like something you’re supposed to know but don’t. Like something obvious.

“My boyfriend dumped me tonight,” Jules says and you know that’s bad. You remember when you were six years old and mom said dad was going to stay in a motel for a while, her eyes ringed with red. She looked like something in her chest had caved in but was trying to pretend it hadn’t.

Jules doesn’t look like that now. Maybe marriage makes it different. Still, you know what you’re supposed to say: “I’m sorry.”

This time, you say: “Only about 3% of known mammal species mate for life. ” And you don’t even feel bad because “I’m sorry” wouldn’t have sufficed anyway. And Jules seems to get it.

“Don’t be sorry. He’s why I was drinking though. Or trying to be drunk. That’s what you do, isn’t it, when your heart is supposed to be broken?” You shrug. You’ve never broken up with anyone. Or dated anyone.

Jules has wandered over to the other side of the nearest bookcase now and, in the low light, you can just barely make out her form between the shelves. It reminds you of confessional, when you were still young enough to have mom make you put on scratchy pants and pull you along behind her to church. You’d sit there next to a screen, which was next to a priest, and tell him that God probably wasn’t real because life could have evolved all on its own and also wouldn’t God have wanted dad to come back so mom would stop crying? Eventually, mom stopped bringing you to church, but the crying kept on when she thought no one could see.

“I’m scared,” Jules whispers through the screen of books. Somehow, you doubt that. “I’m supposed to be crying right now. It’s supposed to hurt. But it doesn’t. I’m supposed to miss him. But I don’t. And I can’t help but think, what if I just didn’t love him? What if I just don’t love?” You can’t imagine a girl with eyes that big being unable to love, but that thought doesn’t make sense. You don’t know anything about love or what it has to do with eyes. It must be the moonlight. They used to believe it could make people crazy. That’s why craziness is sometimes called “lunacy.” Focus. You know you’re supposed to be saying something comforting.

“You know, scientists have done brain scans to determine that dogs actually love us back.” To your surprise, Jules laughs.

“Is that your way of saying I ought to have my head examined?” It wasn’t, but brain scans are always informative. You decide not to tell her that.

“Let’s run.”

“What?” you say, alarmed. Jules must have heard someone come in. You’re graduating in a month and really can’t afford disciplinary action right now.

“There’s no one here, come on. Let’s run!” She comes around the bookcase, grabs your hand, and then, you’re running. It’s like the world’s simplest and most complicated maze. Every so often Jules will spin or pull you a different direction, never letting you get quite comfortable. You wonder if that’s part of who she is.

And even when you look back on this night, you’ll never really know what possessed you to do it. You find yourself stopped in front of a floor to ceiling window looking at the girl with the most beautiful eyes and you mean to say, “Would you like to go for coffee tomorrow?”

Instead: “Let’s howl at the moon.” And you do. Jules breaks out into a grin and then she’s howling, too. The two of you race through the stacks and down the stairs, howling all the while. You howl in the stairwell, where it echoes like mad. You howl as you pass the circulation desk, where you get a very stern warning. You howl as you wander the winding paths of the quad arm in arm until the sun starts peeking over the horizon.

***

The next day, you do go get coffee with Jules, after all. Instead of good morning, you say: “Wolves are one of the rare species that often do mate for life. I just thought you should know.”