[Stylist] miscommunication

Fri Oct 4 22:54:50 UTC 2019

I am no good at critiques etc, so all I can say is that I enjoyed the story and didn't see the denouement:  mind you!  I wasn't looking for one.
Referring to Ken or Bill's hair style and his father's manner of making a buck:  Would I be wrong in thinking that K or B was his, "Daddy Dearest's"principal model?
An aside:  I put Daddy Dearest in quotes because of having read the book "Mummy Dearest" which was written by one of the unfortunate adopted waifs and strays of the abominable movie actress:  Joan Crawford.

         Jewel

From: Chris Kuell via Stylist 
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2019 6:42 AM
To: 'Writers' Division Mailing List' 
Cc: Chris Kuell 
Subject: [Stylist] miscommunication

Here is my prompt response. All feedback is welcomed.

Chris

Miscommunication

It was the late 80s and I was in grad school, synthesizing novel antitumore drugs in hopes of making the world a better place and obtaining my Ph.D. Typically, chemistry grad students work 12 hour days, but since I was approaching the end of my fourth year, mine were closer to 14 hour days, followed by a wind-down libation at my favorite pub, 'The Other Place', which was a mere 58 steps away from our apartment building.

On this particular night, I was mentally writing my thesis, analyzing experiments, deciding what still needed to be done. I needed a break, some down time or else I knew I'd lay in bed thinking, thinking, thinking. I'd tried meditation without success, but discovered fortuitously that a few cold ones usually did the trick. I stepped out of the brisk Vermont night's air into the warmth of the pub, laughter and conversation washing over me like a warm blanket fresh out of the dryer.

I made my way around a few tables and up to the bar. I ordered a beer from Noel the bartender and said hey to Brad, a long-haired, long-bearded frequenter of this particular pub. He had husky-blue eyes that were both captivating and a little creepy. I'd seen him playing his beat-up acoustic guitar and singing on a street corner late on a Friday night and thought if he wore a toga and sandals people might mistake him for Jesus.

I bobbed and weaved with my pint and settled in at a small table to sit, sip, and eavesdrop. The atmosphere was energetic and comradely, such a welcome change from the solitude of working late by yourself in a research lab.

A guy in his early 20's, carrying a pitcher of beer and an empty glass asked if I minded if he sat with me. The pub was fairly crowded and I'm generally a fairly amiable guy so I said sure. He filled is glass before he sat, then topped off my beer from his pitcher.

"Thanks," I said, taking a sip and assessing my new drinking buddy.

His hair was bleached an unnatural blonde, and consisted of maybe a hundred little tufts twisted loosely into points, as if he'd made a hundred little pony tails, but got tired so he did a half-assed job. He was Caucasian, had four or five little hoops in one ear and a safety pin in the other. He wore a beat up leather jacket and a white tee shirt decorated with lots of small knife slits. In short, he made me think of a guy who was about 8 years late to the Ramone's concert. Caught somewhere between true punk and the alt goth of the late 80s.

He said his name was Ken or Bill or something, he was in his second year at UVM, a psychology major. He came from New Jersey and his father had made a bundle of dough doing hair transplants. We laughed about this and finished his pitcher. I went to the bar to get another.

We talked a bit about music, naturally. I remember he was into the C bands of the time-The Cure, The Clash, the Carnivores. I told him that a song or two of that head-banging music was okay with me, but I certainly didn't want a steady diet of it. We agreed that U2, a relatively new rock band from Ireland,  had a great sound and probably would be around for many years to come.   

When we finished that pitcher, Ken or Bill went up to the bar and got another.

We talked about how cold Northern Vermont winters were, and I regaled him with a story about the time my brother came up and we went ice fishing on Lake Champlain. It was 27 below zero, we weren't catching anything, and I bet him if I spit it would freeze before it hit the ground. I won and we left.

He told me that he and some of his dorm buddies had taken a pair of jeans last winter, soaked them in a bathroom sink, wrung them out and brought them outside. Within 60 seconds they were frozen solid enough to stand up on their own, as if a ghost or invisible man was standing there in them.

He bought us a couple of shots of Jameson and I got us another pitcher. Our talk turned more philosophical as it tends to do at this time of night with this kind of blood alcohol level. 

We talked about God, and he said that he didn't believe in the old man in a white beard pulling strings like a puppet-master kind of God. God is energy, he said. There's a positive kind of energy, and a dark kind of energy, and humans are wired to tap into either one or the other. You can change your frequency, but it's not easy to do, so most people don't.

I told him my happiness theory, that happiness is a simple equation: Happiness equals reality minus expectations (and here I mean personal expectations, not societal expectations). If you don't set your expectations too high, you'll be happier more of the time. He argued, correctly, that you shouldn't set your expectations low, that was jackassery. We agreed you needed to set them high sometimes, and not so high other times, and disappointment was a necessary state when living on the spectrum of human emotions.

I finished my beer and announced that it was time for me to go. Ken or Bill leaned over and quite unexpectedly put a hand on my thigh.

"Do you want to come home with me tonight?"

I have to be honest-I did not see that coming, and since I've never been too good at hiding my emotions through intentional manipulation of facial expressions, I assume I telegraphed my shock.

"Nope." I said. "It's late and my girlfriend is at home waiting for me. Thanks for the beers, though."

We probably said something like catch you later, but I can't remember that. I just wanted to get out of there, breathe in some fresh air and sober up as best I could during my 58 step walk home.

As I walked, I tried turning things over in my mind. Had I done or said something to indicate that I might be interested in Ken/Bill? I didn't think so. I just talked to him like anybody interesting I might chat with in a pub. Should I have picked up that he was gay? Not sure what to say about that one. Some folks claim they have some sort of gay-dar, but obviously I don't. The truth is, I just don't think about which team people might play on or not. That's their business, not mine, so I don't waste any time thinking about it. 

As I fumbled to fit my apartment key into the lock on the door, I just wrapped it up to a matter of miscommunication. However well intentioned, it happens, and in this instance no harm was done. Ken or Bill didn't get lucky that night, and I'm sure he was a little disappointed. Perhaps he should set his expectations lower.

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