One

Wheel Keep On Turnin'

[TODAY]

"… but I never said I loved them, not once!," I say in a croak loud enough to make the old woman next to me yelp, and she recoils a little when she sees me spasm in my seat for a moment. Then she stares me down until I look away.

Even though I'm dressed up in a nice suit and carry a nice leather attaché case full of important contracts, and the old hag is wearing about four threadbare sweaters and carries a couple of bulging plastic grocery bags, I'm the one who feels ridiculous and stupid. Why should it be so?

(because only crazy people go around talking to themselves)
(wait… who the hell am I talking to, right now?)
(what?)

I guess I also realize that this is not the first time I spaz out during this subway trip. It takes me about forty minutes to get from my job at the bank down by Reforma avenue to my small condo in the East side of Mexico City. And lately I spend most of those forty minutes remembering my last year in college, reviewing the memories over and over.

(and blurting out your thoughts)
(and doing the spastic thing)

Whatever… So I got my degree at an American college. That is the reason why I have a nice job at a transnational corporation, and that's why I can have a nice little condo, a nice suit, and a nice attaché case. It is not because I have better training that any other of the Business Analysts who studied in Mexico, but because I have a diploma written in English, and I can speak English fluently. And it still makes me feel like a poser to know that some of my assistants are more knowledgable about the ins and outs of the banking business but I'm their superior only because of a piece of paper…

Anyway, even though I do well enough for myself, I still spend day after day reviewing in my head every single thing that has happened since that day, that goddamned day during my last year in college, when all the tragedy started in my life. In all of our lives.

Suddenly, I feel the

(crazy)

need to turn around and tell the sweater lady that it wasn't really my fault, that I didn't mean for any of the awful things to happen, that I would've stopped it if I could have, that I never said I loved them because it would've sounded fake and stupid, it would've been just empty words, you know? Sometimes words cheapen feelings, they say. Don't they?

Then again, the sweater lady would probably be scared of the spaz in the suit, and call the cops on me; so, no, I won't tell her anything. Instead, I turn and stare out the window at the train that is passing us in the opposite direction. The subway trains here in Mexico City have rubber wheels. That makes me wonder how long they can go before those tires wear out. Well, it actually makes me wonder about all sorts of things, like all those things that last forever and all those that don't. Like money, which doesn't last very long; or some so-called friends, that are gone the moment said money runs out. Or that there are true friends that stick with you forever, because there is love among you all, because love actually is infinite. And you shouldn't fuck around with the infinite.

I don't know if there's such a thing as being at peace with oneself. All I know is that this obsession with my memories is probably just another way to punish myself for not having any courage to change anything. All I do is feel sorry for myself while I remember these things, and suffer again every time I bring them up. That's why I do it, I think. But I wonder how to find the moment of causation, how to pin down the one place where things go wrong in my history. I think that—

[FIFTEEN YEARS AGO]

"— I'm gonna talk to Rob tonight, and just tell 'im that it's over, for reals, this time," Courtney shrugged her shoulders, pretending that it was no big deal.

"Well, good for you!" I tried not to sound too sacrastic, I swear, but it was hard keeping the edge out of my voice on this one.

You see, Courtney here had been going out with my best friend Rob since they were in eighth grade, and about half of all that time she had been cheating on him. I always thought that Courtney must've been some sort of super-freak in bed for Rob not to care. Or maybe he never noticed, but I don't think so. I don't think anyone could be so naive or pussy-whipped. Maybe. Actually, now that I think about it, I talked to Rob once and told him flat out that Courtney was sleeping around. He said he didn't believe me. What a dork. And it's not as if she was stealthy about the whole think, you know? I mean, everyone knew about it.

Maybe Courtney didn't know how to break up with Rob or didn't want to watch him crumble to pieces if she ever told him she didn't want to be with him anymore, and so she just kept trying to mess up so that Rob would be the one dumping her and then she could pretend to be the victim, or something, I don't know.

So maybe she had found herself somebody new, someone whom she thought would make her forget all about Rob in no time. Who knows? Chicks like that are really quite unfathomable to me.

"I think it might actually be a good thing for both of us, you know? I just want what's best for Robbie," Courtney said, apparently still temporizing.

"Yeah, whatever… But, look, Courtney, I gotta ask, I mean, did you even love Rob, I mean, like, ever?," I still couldn't keep the accusatory tone out of my voice.

Courtney surprised me: Instead of answering with an easy lie, she just bowed her head and started sobbing away. Clumsily, like always, I just fiddled with a couple of paper clips on Courtney's desk for a few moments, in silence, trying to wait out the tears. When a few seconds had passed I tried to calm her down.

"Aw, shucks, c'mon, don't take it like that. Turn off the waterworks, alright?," I said while patting her shoulder in a half-embrace.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but smiled a little bit grudgingly.

"Yeah, okay, I'll be fine, don't worry… It's just that I'd never thought about it in those terms…"

"Oh, okay, then. You done for today, right? Want me to walk you to your car?"

"Yeah, okay. I just need to clock out. Hold on, I'll be right back…"

Well, maybe these guys seem lame to you, but they were my very best friends, and I thought the world of them. We all went to college in the mornings and worked part-time in the evenings in order to help our parents pay our way through college.

Courtney was a Fine Arts major and worked as a receptionist in the Registrar's Office at the University's campus. She was one of those girls that you could tell right away she was gonna be trouble, and looked so hot that you wished you could get in trouble. But she was always affectionate and caring with us, her friends. Rob, her boyfriend and my best friend in college, was an Accounting major and worked as an accountant aide at the local newspaper. We also hung out with Zoë, who was a Sophomore, undecided, but we didn't hold that against her. She was one of those girls who seemed plain at first sight, but that had a sort of scrubbed-face quiet beauty that shined best whenever she's quiet. And she was quiet a lot of the time. Actually, it was strange to see her hanging around with us, because we were usually boisterous and loud, and she would just tag along and be with us, and just… be there. She would look at us doing our nut and smile a little. She hardly ever said anything, but whenever she spoke, we all listened, because she was the voice of reason in our group.

And then, there was me. I majored in International Business, but so far the only jobs I could get were in restaurants and mall shops. I was the current delivery boy for a pizza joint. That was cool, because every other day or so someone in the Administrative Offices would order a pizza and I would get to deliver it and hang around a few minutes with Courtney or Rob or Zoë, if I found them wandering around at the U mall.

Now that I think about it, maybe we were good friends because we all were weirdos when it came to relationships. Like Courtney and Rob, with their unfaithfulness thing. Or like Zoë, who always tallied up the good and the bad qualities of her prospects and ended up finding too many faults with them. I suppose she wanted to find the proverbial knight in shiny armor, or something, but no one seemed good enough for her. Maybe she just didn't want to get hurt, ever. Or me, with this torrid affair I had going on with a local girl. Well, not really. I had nothing going on with her, except that she would call me every so often and we'd go out and get it on. I guess I was her bootie-call. Whatever. I mean, she wasn't the kind of girl you introduce to your momma, you know? And maybe that's why I kept picking up the phone whenever she called.

Anyhoo…

So I was walking Courtney to her car in the parking lot, and I noticed that she seemed kind of depressed, so I gave her a good squeeze of the shoulder and a side-hug. I said:

"Look, I think that—

[TODAY]

— it all started right there and then, because the Universe seems to be organized in cycles. Things start and things end. And, if you're lucky, the good things in life start over again after ending. But in all probability the only things that will keep turning up forever are the shitty ones.

D