Ho Ho Ho, Let it Snow

It occurred in his mind–the trail of light following everything that moved and every time he turned his head. 

Parker’s legs lurched forward with a drunken grace and stopped at a decorative, rather expensive-looking bench with cherubs and leafy vines carved into the stone. His feet swiveled. Objects in his view swirled with him, growing a diminishing tail of their residual image moving in 180 degrees with his sights. 

Parker sat down. 

Eyes shut–not his choice–and he twisted open the Desani and plunged the cleansing liquid down his gullet. After a few moments of shut-eye, deep, clear breaths, and allowing the water to digest in his belly, some human lucidity returned to the man as he blinked back into awareness.

Before him stood a tall, wall-like water fountain display–augmented by hidden projectors creating moving images against the cascade. 

Beautiful, thought Parker, as the large, murky visage of a peacock leered down at him with vaguely lustful eyes. Jets shot spires of colorful water before the colossal bird of light. Spears of red, purple, blue, green, yellow then orange sprung up almost like prison bars, matching the colorful spotted wings. 

The violet/azure bird persisted with its nearly human facial expression. 

Those eyes, Parker thought, so suggestive.

With sobriety gradually sinking in, he recalled that the people speckled about and generating that joyous background soundtrack were his coworkers and their ‘plus-ones.’

Near the star-shaped swimming pool, just past the jacuzzi, there was a flat screen television built into the brick just above the BBQ pit. Dude, Where’s My Car was playing at a rather low volume. It was there simply to add a sense of livelihood to the party, just like the faint curtain of music softly playing in the background, in the backs of everyone’s minds. 

This certainly was quite a swanky place to hold a party. That’s probably why his bosses always choose to hold the yearly Christmas celebration at their house. 

Yorba Linda was a magical area at this time of day. The jagged horizon comprised an enchanting ‘yin-yang’ of the nearby hills and the purple/black sky, salted with the occasional star. 

This place was almost too swanky, Parker thought. And as his head leaned back, the warm familiarity of Christmas lights graced his sights. Strung above him in a thin tree were those classic, large Christmas bulbs that generated a uniquely soft sort of illumination. 

The kind that inevitably conjured thoughts of his grandmother. 

Her face, her smile came into his mind’s eye. It struck him, he didn’t know why, that the last time she had talked to him when they had had lunch, she was talking about his grandpa, her ex-husband, like she missed him. It had been years, decades by now since he’d passed. And even longer since they divorced. Maybe she was trying to tell him something about how the heart works; love and its relationship with time. 

Parker was alone. 

At the party. At work. When he went home at night. In life. He missed having someone to love. It had been so long. He could feel her absence in him like there was some hole in his heart where she used to be. 

He glanced around at the various scenes of humanity, the many different cliques. There were couples joined at the hip, groups of friends gathered in a circle with drinks held out before each of them like some kind of inadvertent ritual of sacrifice, drunk people causing commotion (the usual suspects of course) and the more professional coworkers of his who’d arrived in business casual and could be caught having conversations about their many projects, things that affected the company’s bottom line, the relationships with some of their customers, and lighter issues like politics and religion. 

Parker could hear by the boisterous emission of affection coming from near the back gate that Goose and Maverick had just shown up. Parker turned to see their recognizable voices had both joined one of those hoity-toity, ‘American Psycho’ conversations. 

Their muscles protruded from the sleeves of their polos–just about as much as their voices did into the night air. 

Just as Parker’s brain was returning to the land of the living, one of his closest office buddies spotted him and began a confident, friendly stride in his direction. 

Before long, Randy, who sorta looked like a less-Italian Fonzy (down to the jeans and leather jacket) but wearing a stout brown beanie and a black T-shirt stamped with a prominent Mortal Kombat logo, was on the bench, inches from Parker. 

“Havin’ fun?” He asked. 

“Drank a little too much. Was having fun till then.” Parker said without much vitality in his tone. 

“Yeah, it happens. Hey, you know that new chick from H.R.? Well she and I just had some relations of our own. But don’t tell anyone.” 

Parker got concerned, woke up just a little more. “You mean like your girlfriend?”

“We’re not gonna be together much longer. I’m thinking of calling it quits.” 

“But why, man? She’s so cool. And hot.”

“It’s the little things. We don’t like a lot of the same things… anymore. And she eats like a little animal, it’s hard to watch. Plus. Her name is Gertrude. What am I supposed to do with that?” 

“My grandma’s name was Gertrude. Well. Actually it was my great grandma. I had a few grandmas.”

“I guess that’s why you’re such a nice guy today, eh Parker?”

“That’s right.” 

At this, Jennifer walked by, gave Parker the side-eye and held it for maybe a little too long as she passed. 

Parker noticed, stayed still. 

Then she was gone. 

“Maybe you’re a little too nice, huh?” 

“What are you talking about, Randy?”

“You just let her get away. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t even smile and wave. You just peeked at her then got shy right away. That’s why you’re sitting on this bench alone, man.”

“Get off my case, dude. Don’t you think you’re letting me have it a little too hard, here?” 

“Hey man, I’m just trying to help you out.”

“I don’t need to go chasing her or anything. If she likes me, she’ll let me know.” 

“She just did. Now it’s your turn.” 

“If she wanted me to run after her she needs to do a little more than that. I don’t want to be some creepy stalker on her. She gave me a look. That’s it. It could mean anything. You know I bet girls like her get really exhausted when guys approach all the time and hit on them. I’m trying not to be one of those guys.”

“You’re not, dude. Everyone here knows you’re a wimp.” Randy said with a smirk. 

“I’ve been with plenty of girls before, Randy. I know what I’m doing. There are pros and cons to going around chasing women like that. I guess you’re more likely to get your dick wet that way. But you’re also more likely to be considered a creep. What kind of person goes out fishing for women like they’re tonight’s dinner?”

“Okay. I’m just saying girls like to be chased.” 

Written in the water fountain, the peacock had taken flight into an orange sky.

Parker went on. “It’s okay when a guy demonstrates that kind of confidence out of the blue. It’s probably going to impress girls. Some people are better at playing the game that way. Some people are better at allowing things to go at a natural flow, allowing a girl the time to discover for herself that she likes the guy (however fast or slow that may be) and that’s just how it is; two different ways to play the same game. It’s important for the people better at plucking women off the streets with their confidence to also be the kind of person that’s worth knowing in the long run. And they should also be cognizant not to be too aggressive and almost ‘hold women hostage’ with their imposing approach. At the same time, it’s important for the people better at approaching things more naturally to also have the courage and confidence to talk to strangers if the chance should ever arrive. Confidence–’manliness’–can go a long way in determining how a life is lived. How we treat the people around us–men and women.”

In the distance, Goose made an impressive ‘trick shot’ in his highly-spectated game of beer pong. The crowd went wild. Goose and Maverick got even louder. They jumped, bumped chests, then gave each other such a mighty, manly high-five that Parker wondered why the nearby windows didn’t shatter. 

Parker went on. “I love my grandpa, my dad’s dad. But the last time I had lunch with him he demonstrated something unbecoming, but also revealing in a certain way. I (only temporarily) demonstrated a lack of knowledge about something, and his response was to change his tone and facial expressions to lightly taunting ones. There was something wrong, childish, in how he chose to get on my case for not knowing what he was talking about right away. It was surreal. But it also explained a lot of things. I understood how my grandpa’s petty one-upsmanship affected my father negatively. Like a cycle of insecurity that traversed generations. 

“Men are weird things. Inside, we’re a mixture of confidence, strength, and the will to survive. We all have these at different levels and they determine how we face the world. And, I don’t know about you but those things in me change from day to day. Having the balls to walk up to a girl and initiate something out of the blue, maybe even artificially, might say good things about that man to the woman, but it’s not the only thing she needs to be concerned about when she’s considering him as a partner. There are a lot more important things to be concerned with, actually. And in that moment when her eyes are sizing up some stranger, she knows exactly what I’m talking about.” 

“That’s a good point. Sort of a ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ thing, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Well I’ve got one more bombshell for ya. Girls like to be chased–”

“You already said that, Randy.”

“But it makes them feel special–desired or something. It’s also a natural part of the process to make your girl feel pretty. Some girls like to hear it in different ways. Even if that means making yourself look like a total goober by walking up to her. Which even I’ve done before, if you can believe it.”

“You? But that’s your whole game.”

“My game doesn’t work every day.”

“Well I’ve got one more bombshell for you.” 

“Lay it on me, big man.” 

“My brothers and I are all good-lookin’ fellas. We used to hang out with this beautiful girl named Natasha. Of course we all thought she was really pretty. But of us, she kinda liked me. You know why?”

Randy shook his head blankly. 

“Because I played it cool. I didn’t dote on her. I was aloof. I didn’t shower her with affection or ‘those looks’ or whatever. I just let her be a person and there was something she liked about that. Also, I mean I think I kinda have ‘it’ if you know what I mean.”

Randy raised an eyebrow. “Nah man.” And he socked Parker’s shoulder playfully. They both laughed. 

Parker finished up the last of his water bottle, tossed it into a nearby bag. “I guess when it boils down to it, the ‘it’ quality is all just about attraction. Personal attraction. If a girl is gonna like you, she’s gonna like you. I don’t think you can force her into something she doesn’t want to do. Or, if some version of that is possible, you don’t want to be ‘that guy.’ And if she likes you, if you have that ‘it’ quality for her, and it’s just not happening and she wants it enough, she’ll find some way to shake the dude out of his apathy. Hopefully a healthy way.”

“Girls can be a bit of a coin-toss sometimes.” Randy looked like he was getting up to leave. 

“They’re only human. I guess that’s the tricky thing about freewill.”

Randy was now standing “oh yeah, that thing.”

“Haha, yeah. And I don’t even know what to do with my own freewill.”

“I do. I like to fuck.” 

“I know you do, man.” 

“Speaking of which,” and Randy was eyeing the new human relations girl from a distance. She returned the gaze. “I’ll seeya later, dude.” And he was gone. 

Freshly alone, Parker said “okay” to himself and got back to slowly reclaiming his sobriety. 

To his right, projected upon the fountain light show, the peacock from earlier had found a pink mate. Together they swayed their elaborate tail feathers, walked off into the sunset together, then the whole show started all over with a close up of the peacock’s too-human facial expressions of desire. 

To the left and farther off, Maverick was engaged in an epic arm-wrestling match with Michael, one of the young bodybuilders who worked in the warehouse. Those beefy biceps glistened under the Christmas lights, twitching in the struggle. 

At last, Maverick swung his arm over decisively and defeated his hulking opponent. Michael stood, adopting an ‘aww-shucks’ smile and joined a group of his friends. 

Maverick jumped in triumph, turned to give Goose a thunderous high-five, then the two large men started kissing–really tongue-wrestling hard for all to see. Then they walked off somewhere, grabbing each other’s asses. 

Still alone on a bench, Parker caught sight of Jennifer–on her way back from wherever she had just gone, but this time she was alone. 

As she got near, Parker stood, raised his hand just a bit and said nothing but “hey” with a friendly and normal smile. 

Jennifer smiled back, looked Parker up and down, and in a bit of body-language induced telepathy, Parker could see that Jennifer was flipping a coin in her mind. 

END