Left Like Yesterday Pt. 1

He always told me that the best way to grab someone’s attention is to give them the attention that they deserved. I guess it was true because if you watched him, especially in a crowd, there would be this presence about him that would take over people- that would make them gravitate towards him. You could see it in their eyes this general desire for him to look at them. For him to speak directly to them, directly about them- for his words to have to specific relationship with their words. And he was passionate. He spoke with his hands like they had a language of their own. It was as if you couldn’t separate his lips from the tips of his fingers, or else they would just fall deaf. Somehow, they had more propensity behind them when he spoke stepping into you, half reaching out, begging for you to understand, but all you could do is hold your breath and wait for him to slow down because you’re so caught up in his motions, you’re just waiting for the chance to nod your head and tell him, yeah, I understand.

Of course, if I knew then what I knew now, maybe things would be different. That cliché of hindsight is twenty- twenty, of age bringing upon us deep wisdom, and how we wish maybe we could’ve done this just so slightly different is always maybe the inherent downfall of the philosophical man. I don’t know. I just miss my friend. It’s not that I didn’t see it coming, I could’ve if I’d paid better attention, but we were both educated- in fact, even though my grades were better, there is no doubt in my mind he was smarter than I ever could be. It’s just I thought, who was I to judge? To try assemble this man’s life? I didn’t actually see the wreck, but they say car was barely recognizable. They say the rain washed the blood into the burnt orange grass of the October fields and made them pink. They said that he looked almost peaceful as water hit his face and how it was strange that sunlight broke through the clouds during the storm. They say it was strange how it almost looked like he was smiling. I just told them, it would be strange if he wasn't smiling.

I met Wes in college. The first time I met him, it was brief, and honestly, I was a bit thrown off by him. It was my freshman year, his sophomore year, and it was a kegger. Already, I could, just by watching him, as I stood in that corner, with my friend from the dorms, that he was popular and known. That people loved him. That he was above me. My friend and I stood there, awkward, chatting every once and while about how “cool” the party was, or look at that girl, but over all just staring silently into our cups. Every once in a while, I’d glance up and I’d see him in his dance, capturing people with his stories and humor. I’m pretty sure I saw at some point him ask someone to go get him a beer, and they left and came back in five minutes. It took me about twenty minutes to get a beer for me. Of course, I was drinking out of this regular plastic cup. He drank out of this huge, curvaceous beer mug with a four leafed clover on. I think everyone knew it was for him. I knew he was going to get laid that night.

I don’t know when it was, but it was some point in the night, I outside the house where the party was being thrown, fighting the cold a bit, smoking a cigarette, holding it in the same hand that my beer was in, talking to my girlfriend at the time who was going to college on the other side of the state on the cordless phone. We got into some argument. That’s really all I remember about that conversation about the conversation, or even really about that relationship, nowadays, other than it started in the summer after I graduated high school with some girl from the other side of the city. But, we’re fighting hard over the phone, when I hear behind me, “Dump the bitch.”

I turn around, and there’s Wes, lighting a cigarette, as casual as he can be, not more than five feet behind me. I have no idea how I didn?t hear him come this close to me in the snow. I almost forget about the girl on the other line. But then, I’m back in the conversation. And I’m about to speak, when all of a sudden, I hear- “Dump her, seriously.”

I tell the girl of the phone to hold on a minute and then I turn to him. Could you excuse me a minute, please?

This is what he does next. I swear to God, I almost didn’t believe it myself. He walks up to me grabs the phone from my ear, and starts talking to her. “Hello… Yeah, hi… This is Wes… Yeah, no… you don’t know me… No… I don’t know him… Yeah… No… No… He’s dumping... He’s… God-fucking-damn, shut the fuck up a minute, will you?” At this point he looks at me. “Does she always talk this much?” I’m too stunned to respond, but it doesn’t matter, because he goes back to talking to her. “He’s dumping you… yeah… He is… No… you’re not dumping him… He’s dumping you… Good-bye.” And he hangs up the phone and hands it to me and smiles. “Doesn’t that feel so much better?”

I can’t think of anything other than “What the fuck?” to say.

“You should feel better.”

“Why? Why should I feel better?” I say opening the phone to call her back.

“Don’t call her back.”

“Why not?”

“Seriously, what are you doing? Why isn’t she here right now? She’s probably off fucking the guy right down the dorm from you right now.”

“She goes to State.”

“She doesn’t even go to the same university as you?"

“No.”

Wes just laughs to himself and turns around and starts walking inside. “You’ll thank me later,” he says, throwing up a hand like a wave saying good-bye.

At that moment, I wasn’t really so sure if I was going to be thanking him later on or now, but I will tell you this, Wes did have an uncanny ability with women. He knew when to dump them and when to be with them. It was the strangest thing though, his sense of morals when it came to the opposite sex. You could tell that through every core of his body that he was a flirt- that was what compromised his being. Yet, for some strange reason, he once you got to know him, he seemed to go home alone more often than not.

He called it his “bedroom eyes.” He said that he would talk to all women and would find the thing inside of them that would make them that made them unique among themselves. Then, he would play upon that, draw upon that until he could see in their eyes that he has them, that he could do whatever he wanted with these women- they are his. The bedroom eyes. I didn’t understand at first what he meant by all this, at least in the beginning, but once I hung around him long enough, I started seeing it. He would begin talking to a woman, and then there would be this thing in their eyes- something dangerous, like a wolf, a predator that really doesn’t know that they are the prey.

Then, Wes’ morals would come in. Something I never understood because if I had his ability, I would not believe I would have the constitution or the fortitude to uphold this almost self- righteous ability to walk away from these women. He told me he was looking for the women that, when presented with his own bedroom eyes (at this moment, I should explain that Wes believed that you can’t give something away that you don’t have. So for all these women to end with bedroom eyes, he has to have his own pair), would only show him a smile and a genuine interest in the words being spoken. He said, “That is the test of what a woman is in my mind. It isn’t Maslow and some sort of self- actualization of anything, it’s just a woman who has come into herself. Who has realized that bedroom eyes are really meant for the bedroom only, and that what we say really has deeper meaning than just the sounds.” I swear to God, I can’t make this up- he really talks like that.

The second time I met Wes was a little over half a year later, the beginning of my sophomore year. I was still living in the dorms at that time, but I had started coming into myself. I was single, but living the life of a single college man. I had friends that were dependable and there, and I was finding a routine between work, school, and parties that I was fitting in to. Essentially, I was living was could have been called the routine college life.

On this particular day, I was sitting with a few friends of mine from the dorm in the outdoor atrium that was fixed in the boxed-in area that was given to us by the large brick building that we lived in. There were two exits to atrium, or as we called it, the smoking area- one were the two large doors, fortified with plastic windows so one could go back inside the dorm. The other was a large archway down on the opposite side, parallel to the doors that carried you down a hallway and to the street where you were connected once again with the real world outside of the fabricated ones of the hallways and drama that came with the dorm life. Here, in the smoker area, were benches and tables, and trees and bushes. Chipmunks ran around in the usual mid-west fashion, lazy but quick, trying to avoid contact with us humans, but at the same time displaying a keen knowledge that they were very much used to our presence, and that they weren’t in our domain, but we were in theirs.

On this particular day, though, so I don’t get away from the topic, I was sitting with a few friends of mine in this outdoor atrium. Particularly, I was with my friend Tanya, with whom I’m still friends with today, but at that moment I was looking for a little more than just friends. She was, in my estimation, the most gorgeous black girl I had ever seen. Milky skin, not dark dark, but more like a latte, with brown curly hair that she let run wild down her face after it passed the afro phase, one of those large smiles with bright white teeth that killed me, and the best part, the part that I really loved, were these large green, and I mean bright green eyes, like leaves in summer, that squinted at you when she talked like she was trying to make you just a part of her season. I don’t know if that description did her justice- I’m not a writer. She just killed me, if you get me. But she was out of my league. I knew that, but some place in the back of my head, I didn’t really care. I still had this notion that maybe I could try, or maybe there would this movie-like romantic encounter where we would go to some party, and for some reason we’d both leave, and yadda yadda yadda… you know how it ends. I know it sounds really lame, but when you’re a sophomore in college, sometimes everything seems possible.

But we’re sitting outside, Tanya, me and a couple of other people, and I’m listening to Tanya talk about this guy named Weston that she met that she’s absolutely crazy for, and I’m just smiling and nodding, trying to be the sensitive friend, being like I’m so happy for you, I’m glad you met someone, the whole while thinking fuck this guy, but I can’t really do anything about it. Anyway, the more Tanya talks about Weston, the more I get this sinking feeling in my gut like I don’t really like where this is going. I already knew that she was beyond my league and that I was already in that “friendship” phase, but something really struck me as odd. I’ll tell you right now what was kill me was that I wasn’t putting together was that Wes, during his junior year, decided it would be deemed “cool” to be called by his full name, Weston. Of course, I didn’t put two and two together. I only met the guy once.

So when I look down the archway, and I see Wes swaggering down the hall, smiling to himself, ashing a cigarette as he walked, my heart dropped. Since the first time I met this man, I built this impression in my head that here was the Casanova for the whole 734 area code district. My first instinct was just to think, no this is just a coincidence- that’s Wes, she’s talking about a Weston. But I knew the truth. Soon, I started panicking, but I’m good at covering the truth- at least within myself. That’s why when he came smiling and laughing, throwing his arm casually around Tanya’s shoulder, I didn’t do anything other than just look down at my pocket where my hand was digging for my own cigarettes. The whole time I’m wondering if he remembers me. I’m wondering if he remembers how he talked to that girl of mine on the phone as we stood outside and how he said I would be happier that he did what he did. Of course in the long run, I can’t really be so sure. Maybe it was just a fantasy in my head that I played out- him asking me, hey, don’t you feel better now, come on, you can be honest. And I could respond, hell, I don’t even know what you’re talking about- you’re not that important to me.

But he didn’t remember me, and when Tanya made the general introductions, he shook my hand with the general unfamiliarity as he did with the rest of the crowd around us. As we talked, and I sat there, trying maintain my composure, the Midwestern weather began to become more demure. The sun that once existed in the day soon started to give way into the grey of clouds, and the chill of autumn’s breath as she gave way to night made us search for a place indoors. That’s what led us to Wes’ house and that’s what led me to find that stupid painting.

Wes’ place is very much like how I could picture it. It is slightly messy with beer cans on the table in the living room, and some plates on the table in the kitchen, implying that college boys live here, but not so dirty to imply that these people are animals. There are posters of New York (Wes’ home town) in black in white framed behind the white leather sofa, and old, creaky wooden floors. The lighting fixtures seemed to be permanently turned off except for a lamp covered by a red porcelain bowl. His bedroom was up the stairs and small, barely fitting all of us in (Tanya, Wes, and me, plus two more). His bed was no more than a futon lying on the ground with one black comforter covering it, and there were no decorations on the wall. An old guitar leaned in one corner- two strings were missing, and it obviously had not been played in some time. It just seemed to add to the ambiance of the place. The only truly interesting thing about his room was the record player and his collection of vinyl (mainly jazz). As we sat in his room, which was lit by three bright red lights placed in a corner, we passed a joint to the rhythm of John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk.

It was in some point of this, where I was too high to really think, and everything was spinning that I needed to piss. I asked where the bathroom was, I went, I did my thing, and left, and on returning, walked into the wrong room. The room I walked into seemed to be studio of some sort. A tripod for paintings stood right in the middle with and empty canvas balance on the beam that runs between the front two legs. Then, leaning against the back wall, I saw it. This painting. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Not because it was the best made painting I ever made. I mean, it was abstract and you could see where some of the water colors faded and ran over each other. And you could tell that the painter couldn’t really do any precise sketches. But there was something about it. It was earthern tones. Dark green. Brown. Black. It was a forest, growing out of a field of black. But the trees, they had no design to them. No structure. They stemmed out of nowhere. Here and there they sprouted up, and the branches and leaves sometimes, somehow, seemed to not always be on the trunk. But this forest, it seemed to go on forever, disappearing into blackness- an abyss where nothing existed. Almost depressing. But there was this one tree, right in the middle. It was almost perfect. It sprouted from the ground, its roots firmly planted, digging deep into soil only implicated to exist. Flowers blossomed off of the trunk. Branches banked in a deep arc and leaves hung proudly. A golden halo gleaned off of the whole contoured silhouette as if this tree found the sun in the night. It was as if this painting was made around the tree. Or this tree was made around the painting. But somehow, something had to do with the tree.

I don’t know how long I stared at this painting, but it must’ve have been a while. I realized, after sometime, that someone was behind me. Leaning into the doorway was Wes. There was something serious about him, something I never expected to see. And I wasn’t high anymore. He was looking at me, but somehow, he was looking at the painting too. I felt, to some extent, as if he was looking at the painting through me. “You like it?” he asked me finally.

“Yeah,” I respond dryly, choking on my words as I realize I need something to drink. “I need something to drink.”

He just looks at me for a moment. A small smile creeps up on his lips. Finally, he lowers his head, shakes it a moment, and motions it to the stairs. “There’s beer in the fridge.”

“Thanks.” I walk downstairs and I hear him follow me, but I don’t turn around. I walk to kitchen, grab a beer, and start drinking, reading some poster on the refrigerator door: The Top Ten Worst Party Foul List. “This is pretty funny,” I say not looking back.

“What do you think about it?” he responds almost instantly after I’m done speaking.

“About what? This?”

“About the painting.”

“I liked it. It was interesting. Did you paint it?”

“No. What did you really think about it?”

I turned around. “I don’t understand your question.”

“It’s not a hard question. I’m not asking you to explain a theorem or some shit. What- did- you- think- about- the- fucking- painting?”

“I liked it. Depressing, somewhat impressionistic, but I liked it.”

“Impressionistic?” He let that word roll off of his tongue followed by a short laugh. “What are you, an art critic? Come on, be honest?”

“I told you what I think and you’re giving me shit. What’s the big deal?”

“I saw you sit there and stare at it for a long time. You got to have some thought on it.”

“I’m high, man. Give me a break.”

“No. You just said it was impressionistic. Come on. Tell me. What does that mean?”

“I don’t fucking know. I liked it. It was dark. I liked the tree in the center and the way how everything seemed out of place, but at the same time clicked. I like the contrast between the dark forest and that tree in the middle. It felt like it meant life in the middle of death. Like we walk through death to find life. Pain through suffering. I ching kind of shit. I don’t know- why does it matter.”

He raises his eyebrows and blows air dramatically. “I was just curious. I saw you standing there staring at it, maybe I thought ‘hey, this guy might have an opinion on this.’ I just wanted one different than mine.”

“And what’s yours.”

“That it’s a piece of shit.”

I didn’t see that coming. “Who painted it?”

“My mother,” he says, walking away.

I didn’t really know what to say. I wondered if him walking away was intentional as he said this, as if he wanted some sort of dramatic effect to be produced by me having to stare at his back as those words floated harrowingly in the air. But I chased after him, and softly put my hand on his shoulder before his foot hit that first step. “Hey,” I almost whisper. “I didn’t mean to bring anything up.”

“Don’t worry, you didn’t.”

“I mean,” and he turns around at this point. He’s got this look on his face, like I’m missing the punch line of some joke and I don’t get it. I stutter. “I mean, I didn’t want to bring up bad memories.”

“How could you bring up bad memories? I’m an orphan. Never met the woman.” I’m sure he could see the puzzlement on my face as I’m trying to figure everything out. He laughs and starts walking back to the kitchen. I just follow. “I did, I guess, what a good deal of children in the foster system do- look for their biological parents. I quickly found that my father died in a car accident while my mother was pregnant with me. I’m sure that’s what led to my mother giving me up. Tracking my mother down was a bit harder.” At this point, he hands me a beer from the fridge that I’m not sure I want, but I take anyway because I’m not paying attention to what’s going on other than an interest in his story, and he takes two out for himself. He chugs one quickly, and then opens the other one, suppressing a burp. “I finally found her, and not surprising to me, for some reason that didn’t really actually make sense, she’s some good old drunk going in and out of treatment centers. That’s how I found her. I tracked her down to a six month treatment center for multiple offenders. She was working on her third DWI and that was her way out of doing a long time in prison with a felony charge. I thought about visiting her, but instead, I sent her a letter. Do I get one in return? No. Instead, I get this painting, and a note attached to it saying ‘I’m sorry.’”

I stayed quiet for a moment, trying to see if he was going to speak again- if there was more to this story, but this anticlimactic ended was all that he gave me. Finally, I had to ask: “Why do you keep it?”

With a very dramatic sigh, he leans back into the island in the middle of the kitchen, crosses his arm and looks to the ground as if investigating the tiles will provide him with the answers. “Well, that’s a good question. Maybe I keep it so I know that at least I tried and I succeeded. But, really I don’t think that’s it. I think I keep it really so I can know where I came from. I came from something very dark. I guess it’s an inspiration for me to not stay dark, even if I’m covered in that dark, you know what I mean?” I shake my head. I had no idea what he meant. “Maybe it means that being fucked up, sad, and depressed aren’t the same thing and I have to remember that. Does that work?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, that’s the best I can explain it.”

“It seems to me you get a purpose, an inspiration, out of that painting.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then how can you say it’s a piece of shit?”

“I think that’s more a bit of my resentment towards it coming out,” he says with a smile. There was another long pause. And then he looks are me hard, and then smiles. “So, did you ever get back together with that girl, or did you take my advice?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. We didn’t go back upstairs. We stayed in that kitchen, Wes and I for hours just talking. I told him about my inhibitions my freshman year, talked about growing up in Detroit- he told me about the Bronx and how happy he was when he got put in a foster home in Manhattan. I listened to him talk about growing up, ever intrigued about his life, and his stories about high school and the things he did, and somehow he dug things out of me. He made me tell him about my little brother and his autism. He made tell him about my parents and their divorce and my mother’s remarriage. I told him about running away from home when I was seven and all that stuff, and yet he was the orphan and he was telling me stories about parties and girls and shows and cracking me up all night. Yet, in the back of my mind, I kept wondering about the depth of that statement he made. What did it mean? Being fucked up, sad, and depressed aren’t the same thing. I had no idea what it mean, and I maybe still don’t today.

The thing that separates my friendship with Wes and almost everyone else’s is that when you ask someone about Wes, they’ll you about what a nice guy he is, and how much of a party guy he is and how fun it is to be around him. And if you ask them about his talents they’ll say, he’s great at cards, and he tells great stories and jokes. If it’s a girl they might even tell you how attractive he is. I mean, all these things are true and great, but not many people got to know Wes. Later on, when everything happened, no one was there. It was pathetic. If you told someone about how Wes had to call me up sometimes at night when he was trying to sleep because he couldn’t, because he was so used to staying awake so he could wait for one of his foster fathers to come home, so he could run away, so he became used to being up most of the night, he became bored and called me to talk. If you told anyone that, they wouldn’t believe you.

Wes once told me that he will only look in the mirror when he brushes his teeth because he can’t look at the eyes that once look upon the damage that he once wrecked upon the world. That once looked upon the wreckage that he saw caused upon the world. He told me that the most beautiful thing he ever saw was an old man, sitting by a grave, just staring at it, and he could see in his eyes, the old man’s eyes, the old man saying, don’t worry, I’ll be with you soon. This is the other side of Wes that I think he released every time he made someone smile. It was almost a redemption for the fucked up sad part of him that was depressed.