Episode 02: Chuck

Have you ever met someone so nice you just wanted to suck their dick? When I see Chuck ten years after our last encounter I still get that dumb gassy school girl stomach flutter that makes me feel exhilarated and defeated all at the same time. He’s taller than I remember and I notice myself averting eye contact, talking super fast and giving him a weird sideways hug. The last time we met I was under him making out on a cat haired pull out couch while Memento played in the background.

You see it had been our first physical interaction in my almost twenty year long crush on him. I was in a bar with friends over some holiday gathering. We had all left the proverbial nest less than five years ago so sitting there as new city folk in our old stomping grounds was as nostalgic as it was exciting.  “Isn’t that Chuck?” I was nudged in his direction and one PBR led to another when suddenly I was hitting on him asking for a ride home, which led to a detour to his apartment which led to a fulfilled childhood conquest.

Now we are standing in a coffee shop in my hometown and  I’m trying to make small talk wearing a silver dress and blue eyeshadow thinking WTF am I doing. I feel like I’m in highschool again, just a girl standing in front of a boy and asking him to makeout with her. 

I think I must have been about 15 when I first met him. My best friend at the time was a music genius who could hold her own with all the references of High Fidelity and college boys who thought they were better than everyone because they listened to Gram Parsons and had original presses of 70s Aerosmith albums. She introduced me to the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springstein and Pavement. Her dad’s record collection and prank calls kept us occupied from the time school got out till the time I had to go home for dinner.. 

We were freshman at the time and Sarah had a friend named Kerri who was a Sophomore. She was meek with a pageboy haircut and looked like she came right out of Ghost World but acted like she went door to door selling bibles. She had a car and cool ideas one of them was doing a radio show at the local college down the street from my house. I started going to the Sunday meetings because of course, I wanted to do a show if Sarah was doing one. 

That’s where I first saw Chuck.  He was the tallest lankiest guy in the room and seemed to apologize for his height through hunched shoulders and meek smiles. He wore glasses and band t-shirts that seemed too small for him. As soon as I saw him I decided I wanted to make out with him or fuck him or just talked to him all night on the phone. 

Through our sleuthing and casual radio station conversations we found out that Chuck worked at the bookstore down the street from our high school, lived downtown with an ageing mutt terrier and was 31. 

I wanted to get to the  bottom of my infatuation. What did he think about me? What did he think about black girls? But mostly what does he think of me?