If Thanksgiving Eve is the night when all the college kids come out to play, then Black Friday must be the day when all the crazies come out to play. The one day each year when all courtesy goes out the window, all couth gets lost in the holiday shuffle, and all sense of normalcy disappears with the Thanksgiving decorations that get replaced with inflatable snowmen and multicolored strands of miniature lights. I’m not against Black Friday, or “Death Friday,” as I like to all it, but I certainly do my best not to get trampled to death when the doors swing open at one of the biggest electronics store in the world.
Standing in line outside of the megastore at 11:00pm Thanksgiving night on a bitter 37 degree day is only the beginning of one of the strangest days I’ve had in a long time. I thought the deep depression that I slipped into back in June was pretty dark thanks to Jessica ripping out my heart by means of banging my cousin Chris but I think today has that beat.
Lucky for me, there are only a handful of crazies waiting in line with me at this time. Maybe you have to be some variation of “extra special crazy” to wait in line the day BEFORE Death Friday but until the store opens, everyone is rather friendly.
Patiently waiting behind 25 people with no one behind me, I decide to take a seat on the near ice-cold pavement and lean my back against the wall. It’s not exactly the most comfortable position but I can only stand to stand for so long. It’s roughly three and a half hours before anyone joins this lonely crowd and I couldn’t have been more taken back by the person who walked up behind me.
Although she is bundled up like a child building a snowman for the very first time, I instantly recognize her facial features. We spent years together and so much time exploring each others bodies that I could probably pick her out of a crowd in the middle of Times Square on New Years Eve. But this crowd was tiny and she was standing next to me. Attempting to ignore her, I stand up, turn my back, and face the 25 crazies in front of me. My attempt at being someone else is worthless.
“Keith? Is that you?”
I miss her voice but I pretend like I don’t hear it. She asks again.
“Keith? Keith Dawson? Is that you?”
Again, I try to ignore her but she isn’t the type that likes to be ignored. At a Yankees game one night, she ran onto the field and slapped third base coach Willie Randolph’s ass because he wouldn’t turn around and say hello to her. Then I feel the inevitable tap on the shoulder. This is my living nightmare.
“Keith! It’s me, Jess!” she says, as if she forgot that she decided to take a night off from me and spend it on my cousin. She gives me a hug as I remain frozen under the four layers I’m wearing tonight.
“Hi Jess,” I say in a flaccid, less than enthused voice.
“How are you?! It’s been, what, six months?!” she says without a hint of contrition in her voice.
It feels like we are old friends, but we aren’t and I’m trying to convince myself not to be polite. She’s the enemy. She was ‘THE one.’ She was the girl who was supposed to have your babies in the next few years. She was the one who you were supposed to smile at as she made her way down the isle. She’s the one who wasn’t supposed to fuck your cousin and then blame it on you for not being there when her grandfather died.
I recap of all these things in a split second. I also remind myself that I was in love with this girl for over three years; that thought lasts much longer than a split second.
“Yea, it’s been a while. I’ve been good. Just sort of doing my thing, same shit, different Black Friday,” I say as I try to think about all the things I’ve wanted to say to her at this exact moment.
“Don’t you mean ‘Death’ Friday? That’s what you’ve always called it yet you’re still out here with the crazies,” she says.
Why does she have to do that? Why does she have to remind me that she knows me so well? Maybe she is trying to be friendly. Maybe she wants to be friends again. She never even apologized. She sent me a fucking text message detailing where she was moving so I could box up all her shit and mail it to her. I received her text less than 24 hours after I walked in on my cousin, Chris, bending her over the leather couch that my grandma gave to Jess and I after we moved in together.
I respond with a simple, “Yea” and turn back around. My gesture probably drove her crazy.
“What’s wrong, Keith?” she asks as if I’m inconveniencing her.
“Nothing,” I say, lying to her face. “Just waiting in line for a new big screen, freezing my ass off, on my day off.”
“Don’t say ‘nothing,’ that’s bullshit. I know when you’re lying.”
Of course she has to remind me, yet again, that she knows me better than anyone and this makes me angry.
“What do you want me to say, Jess?! It’s great to see you? You look amazing? I miss you so much that the words themselves sound incredibly pathetic? Thanks for fucking my cousin on the leather couch that my grandma gave us? What?! Tell me what you want me to fucking say Jess!”
My voice is raised but I don’t even realize. The crazies are looking at me now as if I am disrupting some sacred ritual. Jess’ head is down, eyes fixated on the cold slab of concrete at her feet while her mind wanders in a field of regret.
“See? You can’t even look me in the eye. You broke my fucking heart and now I have nothing more to say to you except I hope you have a great life with whatever the fuck it is you decide to do.”
Jess starts crying. She is alone on Death Friday, yet surrounded by what seems to be close to 100 people now.
“No, you’re not allowed to cry. You don’t deserve to be upset. You were wrong when nothing was wrong and you have to fucking live with it. I won’t give you the satisfaction of apologizing now.”
“What do you want me to do, Keith?” she says, choking on most of her words.
“I was miserable in our boring relationship. The idea of settling down and that being the last relationship for the rest of my life scared the shit out of me. You’re such a good person and I never meant to hurt you, Keith. I just felt trapped and didn’t know who to turn to.”
“You could have turned to me! You could have fucking talked to me about how unhappy you were, Jess. Instead, you took the fucking easy way out because you are a fucking coward. You know what, I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation with you right now. You didn’t even deserve a ‘Hello.’” I turn back around. Jess is still crying.
“You’re right, Keith. It is all my fault and I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done to you. I guess I was just pushing you away. In my defense, I did tell you that’s what I do to guys. They get close, I push them away. They get close, I push them away! It’s a vicious cycle and it also happens to be the story of my life.”
I turn around very slowly, letting her to stew in anticipation.
“Wait. Did you just try to defend what you did? Oh I’m sorry, it’s MY fault that Chris came over to fuck you because I’M the one who got too close! That makes perfect sense now! All this time I was wondering what I was missing from the ‘Jess fucked Chris and dumped me’ puzzle but now I’ve finally figured it out! This whole time I was blaming you when I didn’t even realize that it was ME who forced you to run in the other direction, accidentally bumping into my cousin’s cock on the way out!”
“Would you keep it down, Keith, everyone is looking at us now,” she says in her characteristic way of diverting the conversation. She does that when she knows I’m right.
“Fuck you and fuck everyone else,” I say, extremely annoyed.
“You don’t have to be rude, Keith.”
The words coming out of Jess’ mouth are pissing me off almost as much as finding my cousin balls-deep in the girl I thought would share my last name one day.
“Maybe I should just go. I can always come back to the store at another time,” Jess says, feeling sorry for herself in a way that’s beyond dismal.
“You don’t see me standing in your way!” I say, hoping to slip one last sarcastic dig to feel triumphant.
“No, you know what?” she says, “I’m not letting this get the best of me. If you’ve got a problem with me being here, you can leave.”
“I don’t have a problem! I was standing here, minding my own business until you decided to fuck with my night,” I say, once again turning around to face the crazies.
“Fine. We can pretend like we didn’t fall in love almost four years ago,” she says.
That one hurt but I know how manipulative she can be so I ignore it.
It’s getting colder as another 45 minutes pass. I’m searching through the advertisement that was handed out to everyone in line, trying to forget who is behind me. I’m here for the 32-inch Samsung 1080p LCD that’s on sale for $299 but I may decide to pick up a few other things too. I’ve wanted a wireless keyboard for a while and I’ve been meaning to get a new set of speakers for my record player. The irony is that if I actually had someone to shop for, I wouldn’t even be here.
“Hey hunny,” I hear that sweet voice say behind me after an hour of silence. I’m nervous to look but I’d rather get it out of the way now because we are going to be in line for a while. I glance behind me, making eye contact with a tall man.
“Keith? Keith Dawson, is that you?” I hear him say.
I turn around before Jess has to get involved.
“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me,” I say under my breath when I recognize the very familiar face staring back at me, North Face earmuffs wrapped around his oversized head.
“It’s been, what, six years since I’ve seen you? You look exactly the same! How are you, buddy? How did Penn State work out for you? You applied to a few other out-of-state schools, right?” he asks.
The man is not my cousin. It is not the familiar face of Chris Dawson all grown up after stealing my girlfriend, but I’m not entirely sure if this is better or worse. Mr. Davids was my high school guidance counselor. He was a rookie when I was a junior so he is only about five years older than me. Jess went to a school in another district so he wasn’t her guidance counselor and we didn’t date until college so he probably had no idea about our past. Jess knew about Mr. Davids long before he ever got a chance to be inside of her. I used to sing his praise for helping me get into Penn State and really helping me focus during my junior and senior years. I held Mr. Davids in such a high regard that Jess always said, “Besides Ernest Hemingway and me, I think you’d fuck this Mr. Davids guy if you ever had the chance.” My, oh my, how bullshit comes full circle.
“I’m good Mr. Davids, how have you been?” I say politely because he didn’t do anything wrong. Granted, he’s probably fucking the brains out of the love of my life but I’m a man too so I understand the carnal desire. Plus it’s not like he knowingly stole her from me.
“I’m great, Keith, thanks for asking. I want you to meet my fiancé, Jess,” he says, as he puts his hand on her back and pulls her in close.
My mouth must have dropped to the concrete like a side of raw meat at the butcher. Of course I didn’t notice a ring because she is wearing the black cashmere J. Crew gloves that I bought her last Christmas. Of course I didn’t notice her possibly genuine apologetic tone earlier.
“Jess, show Keith the ring,” he says excitedly.
Jess pulls the glove off her left hand and shoves it right into my face. It feels like more of a shot to the heart but I keep my composure.
“Wow, it’s, uh, beautiful, Mr. Davids,” I say. “Congratulations.”
“Oh Keith we’re all adults now, you can call me Steve, but thanks!”
Jess remains silent. I’m screaming on the inside and I’m sure she can tell.
“So what about you, Keith. Special girl in your life these days?” Steve asks.
“Nah. I had a great girl for a while but you know how love works. One minute you have it, the next it slips right through your fingers.” I glance at Jess.
“Oh I’m sorry to hear that. I know what you mean though. I had a similar experience just about 8 months ago. I was dating this really amazing woman. She was an English teacher at another school in the district. I really thought she was ‘THE one’ until one day I came home and she was gone. She left me a note on a post-it. Can you believe that? After almost five years of being in love, getting ready to get married and start a family and without notice, it was reduced to a tiny, yellow piece of paper with the words, ‘Sorry for breaking your heart’ scribbled on it. I never thought I’d recover and then about a week later, I met Jess here at the mall and as they say, the rest is history.”
Now, I may not know the first thing about advanced calculus but if my math is correct, Jess and I broke up six months ago, almost to the day.
“Oh wow, that sounds pretty bad. And you said you met Jess when? Eight months ago, is that right?” I say.
Jess’ face was bright red. I can’t tell if it’s from the glacial temperature outside, or because she is the devil.
“Umm, yea almost eight months ago to the day. Actually April 2nd, so yea, it’ll be eight months in December,” Steve said.
I stare at Jess. My fingers are numb but my blood is boiling. I try to think of something to say but I’m at a total loss. I thought Chris was the worst of it but apparently she was getting filled out like an application before bouncing to another branch in my family tree; or should I say ‘bouncing on.’ Thoughts are racing through my mind but the only logical one is, ‘I fucking hate this girl, I fucking hate this girl.’ Jess stares at the ground when she realizes that I’ve figured out her little secret. I’m not going to ruin this though; I’ll let her do that on her own.
“Keith, are you okay there buddy?” Steve asks, giggling at my silence.
“Yea, yea I’m sorry Mr. Davids. You getting engaged, being in love, the ring. Just makes me think about my last girlfriend. I thought she was ‘THE one’ but I guess it turns out that she is more than likely ‘THE one’ for someone else.” I look at Jess. She is still staring at the ground.
“Oh, well it’s her loss, bud. I’m sure she didn’t deserve someone like you anyway,” Steve said. He just turned into guidance counselor Mr. Davids for a minute.
“Yup. It’s definitely her loss. I think she may have been cheating on me, too. Pretty terrible,” I say, twisting the knife into Jess as hard as I can.
“Oh no, really? Did you ever find out who the guys was?” Steve asks.
“Yea as a matter of fact I did,” I say. I can see Jess trembling but not from the cold.
I hesitate because Mr. Davids is a good man. Although I want to save him from the succubus that is Jessica Jones, I can’t bring myself to make this encounter any more uncomfortable than it already is for me.
“He was an older guy. Someone I knew a few years back,” I say.
“Oh man, I’m sure you wanted to kill him, huh?” he says with a sympathetic tone.
I stare at Jess. Now she is staring back at me.
“I honestly don’t even know what I’d say to him. I’d probably just have a regular conversation to be honest. He didn’t know that she was cheating on someone when she was with him. Not his fault.”
“Well you’re a better man than I am, Keith.”
“Look! They are opening the store early!” Jess says, once again doing her best to divert a conversation that she wants no part of; ‘The Jessica Special.’
“Thank God,” Steve says. “It’s freezing out here!”
As we approach the glass sliding doors, quickly getting ready to dive head first into the madness, Steve says, “Well good luck today, Keith. I hope you get what you came for.”
“Oh I definitely did. I mean, I will. You know what I mean. I think I’ve got a good shot at that big screen,” I catch myself.
“Well it was great to see you, Keith. Have a good holiday. Take my card, I’d love to catch up,” Steve says.
“Will do, Mr. Davids.”
“Steve!” he yells jokingly.
“And it was nice meeting you too, Jenn,” I say.
“Jess,” she says, thoroughly annoyed.
“I’m sorry. Jess. Right. It was nice meeting you and congratulations on the engagement.”
“Thanks, Keith. It was nice meeting you, too.”
The store was mayhem and the crazies came out of the woodwork as if you left 1,000 pounds of meat in the middle of the Bronx Zoo. I still can’t figure out what happened on that particular Death Friday. I’m not sure if it was the worst day of my life or in fact, the most relieving conversation I have ever had. I beat myself up over my breakup with Jess, constantly questioning what it was that I did wrong, when all this time, it had nothing to do with me. I’m sure in a few years when I’m back in line for the Death Friday sales, I’ll see Jess again, with a different ring on her finger and a different last name to sign on grocery store receipts. I wish I could warn the universe about girls like Jess. I wish I could send a notice to every man past, present, and future, warning them about the infamous Jessica Jones. I want to make ‘WANTED’ posters advising everyone that she isn’t an outlaw, but a thief. ‘BEWARE of the sly Jessica Jones; she’ll rob you of your hope, faith, love, energy, and roughly 25 pounds. She’ll send you into the deepest, darkest holes known to the human psyche, making it almost impossible to recover. She will force you to regret even introducing yourself to her in the first place, let alone falling madly in love with her. ‘
In time, I’m sure I will figure out if that Death Friday was the best or worst thing that’s ever happened to me. The one thing I know now is that I feel a slight flicker within my soul again. I’m not sure if it’s the feeling of closure or the reinstallation of hope. Then again, I’m not sure if I would recognize the difference.
ronmottola 