"Ya Snooze, Ya Loose." : An LMP Green Tale

Billy stopped dead in his tracks, his hand reaching out instinctively for her. They were walking around the small city garden of Diana’s new home. They’d gone outside to share a sneaky joint. They’d been friends since the 90’s, since high-school. Sure they’d lost touch, sometimes for years at a time but thanks to social media they managed to stay in contact. On the rare occasions where their paths actually crossed they always fell naturally into an easy groove of friendship. So here they were reminiscing at her house warming. 

Dianna felt somewhat put off at the neediness behind his sudden grasp, but a wave of sympathy welled up inside her as she realised she had just dropped a rather devastating truth bomb on her old friend.

“Don’t fuck with me Di.” Said Billy “Are you serious?”

“C’mon Billy, no need to freak out. We’re talking years ago. I mean back in high school.”

“But not Chloe, Di…Not Chloe,” 

“Yep Billy, I’m sorry to say, she had a massive crush on you.”

She’d expected him to laugh at the silliness of it and her sharing this with him. Especially as it was so long ago. She too missed her old confidante and best friend, but by his visceral reaction she saw there was more going on. Billy was struggling like hell to process this new information. Obviously as with so many truths in this modern age his mind cried out Fake News. On the other hand his gut was telling him what Di was saying was a stone cold fact…and his heart? Well, his heart was doing something that only teenagers allow themselves to truly feel, it was breaking.

He remained stock still, feet squarely planted, while his imagination drifted away like the smoke of the joint they were sharing. A fantasy 8 mm camera in his mind started projecting his memories against the drifting smoke. Once again he saw the familiar streets he’d walked to get to the bus stop. He heard his walkman bumping some NWA drowning out all the surrounding unhappy commuters. He felt the chaos of his school mates erupting around him as they rode the bus to his school. He remembered the metallic taste of anxiety and panic that always seemed to accompany him… until… Finally he smelt lilies. The reassuring scent was actually a popular teeny perfume in the 90’s. An image of one of the sweetest faces surfaced. Her lightly freckled round nose, those big brown eyes, full lips, thick curly hair, somehow tamed into white girl dreadlocks (so popular in the nineties). Her olive brown neck that lead from the bicycle accident scar on her chin down to her heavy chest that hid just beneath her Nirvana t-shirt. He remembered fondly all of her perfection. A perfection that was often the source of much laboured breathing and embarrassingly crusty bedsheets. Back then she’d made him ache in ways that would take years for him to truly understand. 

Chloe and Dianna were a year below them in school. One day they’d courageously come over to the smoker’s corner (their year was not supposed to go to the smoker’s area). The two had looked like lost babes holding hands, nervous. It didn’t take a millisecond before that loud oaf, Brady, was ragging on them. Di was quick to react and she said loud enough for all to hear, her famous line, “Shut your mouth Brady, the flies are starting to circle” That was all it took to put the smoker’s corner bully in his place and they were excepted to their exclusive circle. Di sauntered over and bummed a ciggy of Phil. Billy stood next to Phil playing it cool but he was focused. He noticed that Chloe was shyer than Di, but for him she shone. As the days passed he noticed her more and more. She shone like the North star. Unfortunately Billy though sighted didn’t posses the wisdom to follow her. Billy was all het up on his own arrogance and ego. He held forth on how the world worked. He recommended books, music, films. His inner circle of mates, Phil, Mark and Luke all just echoed him, the girls nodded and smiled. They were a typical gang of self celebrating, self serving, self satisfied teenage nerds. They were heroes in their own lunchtime. Billy particular enjoyed holding forth on the Beat Generation and Eastern Philosophy, ignoring Shakespeare or Kant. Other days he could be found criticising Jazz or Classical music and praising Grunge, HipHop and Indie. Clueless to all intents and purposes about the differences between subjective and objective reality and the mechanics of participating in society. The whole gang was always eager to defend their cluelessness to anyone who’d listen. 

A sudden memory popped up. Chloe surprised him once by piping up in the group that she couldn’t believe Ghostface Killah rapped the very first verse on the Wu-Tang album. The group characteristically agreed. Billy had been impressed, still he made no effort to show her how impressed he was. He felt a need to play it of. He didn’t read the signs. He couldn’t see beyond himself. A smile played across Billy’s lips as he observed his memories from 20 plus years ago. 

Christ what a useless arrogant wanker I’d been, and apparently all that masturbation had made me blind. 

“You are just messing with me Di, right?”

Di shook her head.

“Sorry mate but nope. In fact we both had a crush on you… Kinda… Though honestly I was more into Phil.”

She smiled as her own memories flashed across her mind’s eye. She saw her shy best friend hesitating for weeks and holding them both back. Saying they didn’t want to hang out with babies like them. Di felt similar but she saw Phil in his Body Count T-shirt long brown hair and bandana and something inside said I want that. She understood the longing look on Chloe’s face every time she looked over at Billy. Then one random Wednesday that same voice in Di’s head said fuck it. Something moved in her chest she squeezed Chloe’s hand and they wandered over to the smoker’s corner. Chloe had been shaking with embarrassment as Brady had told jokes at their expense. Right there and then Diana decided that dicks like this would never get in her way. She took him down with a quick quip and from that day on they were in. She remembered Chloe’s unspoken thank you as Brady went marching away and they strolled over to the other end of the smoker’s corner.

“The problem was you guys! After school you were always running off somewhere getting stoned, being to cool for school. Honestly we were bursting to go of with you, but you never invited us. We were just silly girls.”

No,No,No!… Was I that stoopid!

“But you were both so young.”

“Jesus you’re still so naive Billy boy. Younger girls are kinda into older guys dude.”

“Yeah older guys with cars and money and shit”

“Christ! Older guys full stop. If they happen to be interesting, make us laugh and have a mysterious air about them, all the better. We really thought you just saw us as dippy little girls. Dude I remember Chloe read every Juice article about the Wu-Tang. I mean it, she did her homework. Then along came Sasha he showed a little interest and she figured, why wait? Billy obviously doesn’t like me.” 

Billy gasped and looked confused. 

“Don’t you get it Billy? Him making a move, confirmed what we both thought. Guys make the first move.”

“No!”

“Billy, you are so dense, most times it hurts to just look at you.” 

She smiled to herself at her roast of him and drew deep on the joint. She let the smoke out expertly and looked critically at him. 

“C’mon Billy! You didn’t find it suspicious how we were always suddenly turning up? Nowadays its called stalking dude. You didn’t catch the weird stalky vibe?”

“No,” he said dejectedly “No I hadn’t.” But he'd secretly hoped. 

Billy distinctly remembered talking to Mark a week later about Chloe. Mark was the one closest to him. He confided in Mark that never in his wildest dreams could he see a goddess (his actual words. Pretentious bugger) like Chloe giving him a shot. They’d puffed some Durban poison and Mark passed on a truth that Billy vaguely remembered. Mark told him he’d been reading Prometheus Rising and that he was coming to the conclusion that all their coolness was a disguise. A way to bury their uncertainty, fear and insecurity. That if they ever wished to evolve they would need to shed the disguise and confront that emotional guff. Billy remembered how Mark saying guff had cracked them both up. They'd laughed so hard. Unfortunately Mark lost the thread of his thought and instead blurted out to Billy that Phil was thinking about asking Di out. Billy said right there and then if Phil did it he would do the same. But Billy choked. That memory was locked away. He tried now 20 something years later to remember it, but it would not surface. The emotions though, they sure as hell were there and in order to avoid them and re-focus, he sipped on his white russian and said,

“I remember watching Phil go off with you and then watching other random guys, starting with Sasha, walk around exchanging kisses and holding hands with Chloe. Man that killed me a little.”

He grew silent and his old friend squeezed his hand. 

In fact that was the year Billy discovered that rationalisation and compartmentalism were going to be his most effective forms of psychological defence. In those moment when he watched her in the smoker’s corner laughing at some other guy’s jokes he told himself it didn’t matter that he'd choked. Chloe was way out of his league and just not interested in him like that. Now the lid had been blown of that treasure chest of self denial. Now he felt a thin crack, an ever widening gap on his heart’s surface. The chance had existed. Things could have been so different. 

After he failed to hook up with Chloe he made an unconscious decision to not take that risk again. Billy threw himself deeper down the well of weed and literature. In fact its was only after graduation, getting out of his hometown and going to Uni that he re-invented himself and found the confidence to talk to women. Billy would never admit it out loud but at his core he was a hopeless romantic. Once he started getting into conversations with women he always held out a hope to meet “The One”. He spent many years pursuing this fruitless goal. He managed to convince himself he’d come close a couple of times. Tonight in his friend’s garden, drunk and high, he realised he’d been looking exclusively for her. Now one of his oldest friends was confirming what his gut had always told him, “He’d stood a chance”.

He swigged hard at his white russian.

“You still in contact with her Di?”

Diana snorted looked at him in bewilderment and checked him playfully with her shoulder.

“C’mon Billy I mean this weed is good and all but please tell me you aint that high. Dude she’s been married, like 10 years. She has kids. You don’t need to go backwards. Besides and this stays just between you and me” her voice sank to a whisper. “She kinda got fat dude.” 

They both broke out in weed fuelled uncontrollable giggles. Neither really knew why, and for completely different reasons, both were madly missing their childhood friend. They somehow managed to get themselves back under control and they sat in friendly silence for almost a full minute. Diana cleared her throat.

“I know this for a fact. The pair of us found you hot Billy, but you know, you were always of with Mark, or Phil or Luke. Off to the park to get stoned, philosophise, listen to music. I mean hell, I’m glad Phil asked me out. Hated how he then broke my heart. But what the hell we’re still Facebook buddies. Chloe never got you man. She always felt you saw her as a silly young girl. Somedays she’d get so mad at you especially when some other bum was breaking her heart or just being a shit. But at the end of the day mate, you never let her know what she meant to you. She never felt accepted… Damn shame really… At the end of the day my dude it all boils down to this…Ya snooze, ya loose.”

They clinked glasses and arm in arm they wondered back to the kitchen.