Baby Britain

Baby Britain – Elliot Smith (listen in new tab)

K sits across from G.T. on the subway. G.T. stares into space across from him. His eyes shift left-right subtly, following lazily the passing lights of the tunnel. They’re headed south, rounding the cape of Union station, on the way to King.

The rumble, the air crushed and sliding between the train and the tunnel walls. The thin metal and windows rattle loose, as if every piece of the train can’t decide if it loves or hates the piece next to it. The rivets play match maker.

K can hear the tinny hiss and whisper from the white earbuds hanging from the ears of the teenager next to him. She bobs her head slightly. Her jet black hair (dyed) falls in a 45 degree angle across her forehead. Thickly applied eyeliner makes her look sullen as she texts someone somewhere. Her thumb moves with blind practice.

K knows what song it is. Later, when they’re up on the surface, K still hums it. He do-do-do-de-doos along in his head; his hands shoved deep into his windbreaker’s pockets. The thin red nylon catches in the wind. The sky is dark on dark, lit by the city from below.

The street they’re on is almost empty, except for a few small groups of people waiting for cabs to take them to higher end clubs and slow couples walking expensive dogs with cups from expensive coffee chains.

As they walk, they talk. The bar had been too loud, and the fresh air had loosened their tongues. Maura’s been weird and distant. She didn’t return his calls today. And yesterday. And Shannon. He hadn’t expected to see her, hadn’t expected to ever have his sense of “overness” tested. And how the hell do you know that anyways? And work. Oh, and the library. His contract is almost up with no signs of renewal. And Ulysses’ and where is that headed. It is K’s litany for the night.

His friend’s response is supportive, but not clarifying. He is not pro-relationship tonight. It doesn’t help that Brae had ditched him, too. Everyone has their own problems.
Claire will help. She’s better at this sort of thing. When she’s around.

G.T. shrugs: “I dunno. I guess she’s seeing some rich guy.”

K: “Hence the party.” He points down the road to a large warehouse-cum-condo. Full of what looks like two story lofts. One corner, high up looks brighter, fuller than it’s neighbours.

G.T.: “Hence the party.”

They now walk along quietly.

Nothing in K’s mind feels discrete. Everything is cross-referenced ambivalently. A crammed drawer of ramshackle links between memories, feelings, and on-going debates.

He thinks about his first kiss with Maura, but then he thinks about his about first kiss with Shannon. The sad part about first kisses is that they are always so full of promise that subsequent hurt, lies, or whatever cannot wholly overwrite them. The memories live on, like erased pencil in the margins of old books. The dark grey smudges always outlast the words themselves.

He remembers kissing Claire once. Outside the Fisher King, while waiting for a ride. They were standing beside his Cavalier. The poor car had broken down outside the bar. When their lips met, it was awkward, dry, cut off quickly as Shannon rolled up in her parents’ car (that old grey VW).

K rode in the back. Watching Shannon’s green eyes in the rear-view mirror, he made a joke about his Cavalier giving up its ghost (happily, it would be revived the next day), and Claire laughed. Shannon suggested he get a better job so he could afford a car that worked every time. It seemed to be reasonable advice.

This was what Shannon was like back then. Everything about her when they started dating was reasonable, measured, locked down against some imagined storm always coming. His chest hurt slightly with a familiar welling disappointment that his most emotive, open time with her was after she came back from Paris.

Now he wondered about this new Shannon that had met him outside the library. He runs downs the details in his mind. She was not someone better. Maybe someone who so herself better. But, not someone he was sure he could be attracted to or not attracted to.

They went for drinks after the library. And they talked for a long time, mostly about people they knew and old times. The recent past felt like a mine field. Except, Shannon let slip that she had heard about Maura from Claire. K didn’t dodge the topic, but he was cursory, found himself scaling back his feelings.

Out of consideration for Shannon’s? He hoped.

Shannon didn’t try anything when K hugged her before she went down to the subway. Her body, her chest against his chest, his arms crossed around her, hands flat on her sides feeling the soft cotton of her hoodie. Her arms around him warm on his back. Lucently familiar and inscrutably new.

He tried to call Maura the next day. But, she apparently wasn’t taking calls.

The trees rustle in the wind. Their new leaves flittering light and dark in the street lights. K could tell they were turning over, opening their underside for what was on the rising breeze.

K: “It’s gonna rain.” He stops out side the condo. In the lights that some of the original façade had been preserved. He can barely make out the faded white paint. “O’Baird Shipping Co.?” He read it out loud without meaning to. “Is this the place?”

G.T.: “Looks hoity-toity enough.”

K: “Oh, totally.” He walks ahead, runs his fingers along the list of names in the foyer. “What’s the name we’re looking for?”

G.T.: “Gloucester. Got your gaiters on?”