Page 22 of Two Marlboros

I sighed. It would have been enough for me to greet him politely and tell him politely that I was expecting a guest.

“Well, look who’s here. What a coincidence, isn’t it?”

Politeness had decided to take the first flight to Hawaii. There was little I could do: that boy had the power to awaken the sourest part of me. It was almost cathartic to pour out on him whatever negative feelings I had in my body, and for a moment I wondered if it was right, but the thought quickly vanished. He however burst into a thunderous laugh, which I did not catch.

“Ah, you’re being shy!” and he barely nudged me on one arm.

He had touched me.

How many people had done that since that day? I felt like I couldn’t breathe anymore, because I knew there was a remote possibility that touch represented more than just a pat. The concert, all that noise, that conversation. Nothing made sense anymore. Humanity itself seemed to have no meaning anymore, to me. Estranged from reality once again. Again, the desire to be saved by Oliver.

A second touch curbed my thoughts, before the unbearable ones came. Breathing returned to normal. Everything regained its reason: I was at the concert to try to make sense of my life again, and although at that moment it seemed to me that it didnot have it, I would soon find it again and pursue it, as I had done for the past twenty-five years. I would be back to normal.

“Sorry, but I’m not following.”

He laughed again, less loudly than before, until it subsided, a dumb grin on his face. He stared at me, perhaps trying to find a solution to the reasoning animating in that little head of his.

“How witty you are,” he affirmed hesitantly. “You invited me to the concert.”

I frowned and tried to remember when I could have committed such folly. I shook my head because the search had borne no fruit.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t invite anyone at all. Rather, someone should be here shortly...” and there I had a lightning revelation, “...Ashton.”

I rolled my eyes. I suddenly understood why he had given the tickets to me instead of bringing them himself. And the card on the desk: that’s where it went! I shook my head, and a heavier than expected sigh came out.

“Ashton? What about Ashton?” he asked, then frowned, and tried to express more doubts, but the words died in his throat. “...Oh. I get it.”

Nathan kept his eyes downcast and the smile on his face disappear to give space to a more serious expression.

“Sorry,” and his gaze began to wander from me to the asphalt, “I thought the invitation was yours.”

I thought about the lecture I would give Ashton. Or how I could get back at him. Had he really set me up on a blind date?

“I’m going home, then,” Nathan continued, his eyes resting, still, on me, then on the asphalt; a little more me and less the asphalt. I scratched my forehead, undecided what to do. Did I really have the courage to send a person away like that?

Yes, he was an idiot, while I was too good. Besides, it didn’t seem nice to Ashton to throw away two tickets like that, althoughhe owed me a moral debt. He had really studied everything in detail.

“Well, I’d say we’d better attend the concert, at this point. What do you say?”

He barely nodded, with a sketchy smile on his face.

He was no longer looking at the asphalt.

We went through the entrance gate and into the main clearing of the arena. There was a hell of a noise, a thousand voices overlapping each other, women and men ready to join the event. Next to me there was a small group of young boys, among whom stood a girl with a high ponytail, long black hair, marked lipstick, eye shadow covering her eyelids in pitch black, short, plaid skirt, studded shoes. They waited anxiously for the concert to begin, amid shouts, cackles and excited shrieks. So, I thought of me: simple man, almost anonymous, dressed in a shirt and jeans, so different from that girl, that youth.

Nathan, on the other hand, seemed at ease. He stood beside me, saying nothing, probing the situation in front of him. That silence between us seemed unnatural and annoying; at the same time, however, I felt that I could break it whenever I wanted, without giving the impression that I was trying to fill a void.

His attention had not been captured, as mine had been, by the studded girl; he merely scanned the crowd, gathered in front of the building’s entrance.

“Listen, I’ll go have a cigarette.”

A start. In some remote area of my body. A dirty thought I wanted to get rid of.

“If you walk away now, I don’t think we’ll meet again anytime soon,” I retorted.

This could have been my chance to get rid of him, to return to the quiet and solitude of my apartment, but it seemed cruel to hope that he would walk away anyway.

“Come with me, then. It will take forever here anyway.”

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