Wouldn't It Be Nice?

I feel like I've had some sort of a summer romance or fling every year of my life. I guess it used to just be an innocent summertime crush of sorts.

There was a thread on the Japan message board I subscribe to about "the one that got away." Who was the woman in my life that I most regret not getting to get? Who slipped through the cracks and leaves me, well, not brokenhearted, but more so regretful of what could have been a fulfilling fling?

I'd have to go with Jenny--my short-lived summertime romantic interest at the ripe age of 22.

Interestingly, I've realized by listening to a mix tape that I made about a month and a half ago that I'm a total asshole. In telling a story like the one of Jenny, I'm making it seem like I'm the victim. I'm a Michael Cera character that has a good heart and can't quite cash in on the brassy babe because I'm too nice and dorky. This isn't the case.

I made Aimee a mix CD after we went out twice. I made myself a copy as well. Upon listening to this CD, I remember driving around and being on cloud nine that I was dating her. A few weeks later, and I'm content to never speak with her again. I avoid her like the plague until she takes the hint and asks me if something is wrong. Then I still act like nothing is wrong, yet I avoid her further. Finally, I grow a pair and tell her I'm not interested anymore.

This puts the most sincere moment in our relationship in perspective.

I took her to the California Clipper for drinks on our first date. She drank too much and got very excited when "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" by the Beach Boys came on the juke. Her arms were raised above her head and she danced in the booth. I couldn't get this image out of my head for weeks. I drove around listening to that song over and over feeling a sense of euphoric early love.

This all died fairly soon after she made it clear that she drove around and thought of me.

It has been said over and over again, but the most awful part of humanity is that we find those that love us repellent. We love those that ignore or loathe us. Maybe it's just me.

Jenny came out of nowhere. She appeared in a hazy cloud at a bar that summer. That was the summer. A summer of living at school, taking easy classes, drinking hard with Nagle every night, loping around from pool to pool. making new friends, and being somebody on campus. I was always a face in the crowd at Miami, but over the summers, I had features. People recognized me because I was out nearly every night. There was far less game in town, and it became easier to score.

I hadn't really scored much at all. At all. Jenny was a petite brunette with a micro-dress on. She had striking features--like she was made of part porcelain and part silly putty. There were no flaws, yet most men would ogle her only for her petite ass, not so much her face. I'd imagine she looked quite different without makeup.

A little bit of a PJ Harvey look alike? Yeah, I guess I said it.

The details of that night are foggy. That whole summer is foggy. Aside from about four moments (excluding the ones I'm about to retell) I have no idea what happened. I just remember being on a cloud.

Four memorable moments from the summer of 1999:

1. Tragedy often strikes in swimming pools for me. This time it was a hot tub. I had had a few sporadic flings with a dopey looking blond that was just plain and simple total trash. She appeared and reappeared semi-frequently. Sometimes out of nowhere at my door at four AM. I'd always wanted to be that sort of guy that would have girls come over out of nowhere. This time, though, I wasn't so happy because I'd wanted someone that was better, less crazy, more attractive, and not quite as strange looking.

In a hot tub, Delanie (worst name ever) went around to every guy and sat on his lap. She did this to me, but I apparently didn't pass the mustard. So, I watched her go over to another guy (there were about ten people in the pool, male and female) and have sex with him in front of me. Now, we weren't dating, but... well, I got a little bit of a lump in my throat. I watched their faces squirm as they both tried to pretend that nothing happened.

2. Nagle had his friend Bobby Jo (best name ever) in town. We celebrated a birthday--Jamie's 21st. Cloudy. Outside some bar (cloudy), we jumped in a dumpster and frolicked. Yes, dumpster frolicking. Never going to happen again.

Back at the homestead, "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane was put on immediately upon arrival. Ah, this is one of my favorite memories of a young Nagle. We acted like we were GI Joes, crawling with our elbows on the filthy fucking floor. Then we smashed a chair--I threw it against the wall and it (being round) reflexed and hit me right square between the eyes leaving a gash that my unibrow has since covered up. Video games and my Vaselines CD were put in the blender. At one point I (tried to?) stab Nagle, but his thick armor wouldn't let the night end that way.

I was forced to listen to Nagle moan and groan with Bobby Jo that night. Alone and desperate (as often defines my life and especially my summers) I stared at a pile of what used to be a furnished apartment wondering when it was all going to happen for me.

3. I smashed a pool cue at Balcony over my knee. Actually, I don't remember doing this, but the people at the bar told me it happened. Enough people said it for it to be true. It remains the only time I've ever blacked out in my life.

4. The unfortunate incident--well, two unfortunate incidents that happened that cannot be discussed. I guess I remember five things. Two of them, I'd rather have blacked out for.

Jenny. I fall into this shit more than most people do. Definitely more than most males. But she appeared like a leviathan. And she was interested in me. We talked at the bar about music, books, writing. God, she was on the level. And she gave me a look that I wouldn't really be familiar with until I was in my mid twenties. She was interested in me.

Jamie was there that night as well. For once, I had made new friends, and they weren't crazy about old Nagle (usually it was the other way around). They told me that I should come over, but they didn't want "crazy vein in the forehead guy" to join us. Could I ditch my best friend and roommate for the summer without telling him? Fuck yeah. I was out all stealth and shit before he could say, "long island iced tea".

I saw him outside the bar looking pissed off--looking for me. We were driving off and everyone was laughing. There was a look in his eye--an anger mixed with sadness that I'd only seen a few times. He only does this look when no one is looking. I felt like an asshole and told them about it.

In the car were four people. Jenny and I were in the back. A chunky girl and her freak show boyfriend were in the front. Chunk and freak were an item. They talked about their sex life openly and awkwardly.

Back at Jenny's place. She put on Jane's Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual--but she didn't listen to it; she lived it. We were all totally ripped--in a cloud--but we were talking and things were nice. Jenny put her hand in the air for "Three Days" and literally head banged. We were in mid-conversation, and she turned up the volume to max and slammed her head back and forth. "EROTIC JESUS!" I sort of tried to mime her, but failed miserably. I decided to just watch.

"At this moment, you should be with us." Those words never felt so right.

It was like after so many years of hanging out with the wrong crowd, I had fit in to the right crowd. But it wasn't the crowd. It was Jenny. I was falling in love after knowing this girl for a total of about an hour and a half.

She had The Theban Plays by Sophocles on her table. I foolishly used it as a coaster because I was trained by my mother to not create condensation rings. She sort of freaked out. "My friend from Ireland loaned me that! I promised I wouldn't mess up his book." His book. His fucking book. I knew it was over at that moment. That little his is always slipped in and leaves me silent.

Whenever I found out a girl I liked had a boyfriend, I always stopped talking to them completely. This time, though, I vowed that I would make Jenny mine. "If you want something badly enough, you can go and get it." I'd heard that somewhere, and I decided to believe it--for once. Jenny would be mine.

So, I remained cool and spoke of a subject I knew well. Oedipus, Antigone, Tieresias, and the rest of the happy Theban crew. I could wax poetic about that shit for hours. She knew little to none of it. She'd probably sat there wasted out of her gourd trying to figure that shit out for hours. It was easy pickins.

"You know, I've always felt like Tieresias--like I see so much without seeing anything at all."

Cloudy... but corny.

Things got back on track. I learned that she did have a boyfriend (not Irish guy), but she said she didn't like him and was thinking of breaking up with him. I was ecstatic, but hid it. For once. I also learned that she didn't believe in wearing underwear. The dress she had on seemed to be creeping up toward her earlobes simultaneously.

But it was time to leave. Nothing would happen that night. I got lost on the way home humming along to "Classic Girl," dreaming of love.

Quite some time passed before I ran into her at the bar again. Wow, she was really excited to see me. "I've been thinking about you." Numb. I'd been thinking about her constantly for the two weeks or so since I last saw her.

She came over to my place this time. We talked late into the night, listening to music. She left. Nothing happened.

This time I got her phone number and spent ever free moment staring at the beautiful handwritten digits on the crumpled receipt. I would take it into the bathroom with me during breaks in classes and stare at it. I created a question that I asked every single acquaintance that I ran into. "How long should I wait before I call her?"

No one offered me much advice. I kept waiting.

Nagle and I stayed up late most nights. We were both shirtless one night watching bad television when there was a knock on the door. I peered through our hippie tapestry curtain and saw that it was Jenny. My first reaction was to desperately try to get a shirt on, but she had seen me through the window. I remember the sun was coming up.

"Oh, hey. Come on in."

She did the six AM drop in. This was a classy lady.

She sat, we talked, I eventually put a shirt on. I begged for Nagle to go to bed, but he lingered. She left. Nothing happened.

Sleep was out of the question. This girl liked me! How could this pantie-less PJ Harvey look alike find anything redeeming in me. Yet, I was bothered by the fact that I always chickened out on making a move.

I called her soon after that and we decided to watch a movie together--with Jamie. She picked In the Mouth of Madness--a movie that became my second favorite horror movie of all time (behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). I own this movie. I watch it semi-frequently. I always think of Jenny when I do.

The movie was totally outrageous and mind-blowing. Jenny set the precedent for my love of girls that love horror movies. She was a real aficionado--she even read horror books almost exclusively. We sat semi-close on the couch, but something kept anything from happening. It would have to happen sooner or later, right? Sometimes not, though. Sometimes the girl just gets bored waiting for the pansy ass to make something go.

Before she left, I remembered that--we were all sort of drunk--and Jamie picked her up, as he often did to girls. She tried to pull her dress down, yelling, "I don't wear underwear," but it was too late. At that age, I think I called it the "bearded taco." And I saw it.

Things calmed down. We talked. She left. Nothing happened.

Jamie and I went over to Chunk and Freak's apartment one night to taste their homemade beer. There was a discussion of how they wanted to purchase a "sex swing" while George Clinton sang "Sloppy Seconds" in the background. I giggled slightly. Eventually we found a pool to jump into--illegally. I don't know how to swim, and Jenny told me that she would teach me. I feared that I was coming across as the biggest pussy of all time, and I'm sure I was. Sometimes girls like Jenny find that appealing, though. They find it appealing until they realize they aren't turned on by men that aren't really all that manly. I worried constantly, though times were good and fun. Everything was sort of right; we were all getting along, but nothing happened.

As all moments with great build up fail, alas, so did mine. It failed in the form of a pool party.

Jenny invited me to a pool party at her apartment. ALL her friends would be there. I don't do well with ALL the friends. I managed to be cool with Chunk and Freak, but I couldn't possibly pull off "cool" with twenty highly confident and highly sexual people.

The call of "Marco... Polo" is what echoes through my head. It was played late into the night. I had to hang by the side of the pool in my white boxer shorts--in the water but never under the water. Jenny was very nice and often hung close to me.

All the guys were sort of messing with her--they were messing with all the girls. Sort of grabbing them, calling them sexy names, and degrading them proper. I might have tried to chime in once or twice, but I failed. The worst part was that there was this guy that I worked with at Pedro's Cactus Cantina (a fellow waiter) that was the hit of the party. I never really talked much to him, so conversation was forced and awkward. And I knew the evening's events would get back to the people at work.

Soon, most people left, the sun started to rise, and the depantsing began. Pedro's guy got depantsed by his sort of girlfriend. She and Jenny grabbed him and yanked his underwear off. Then they threw it over a fence.

Only four of us remained in the pool. Jenny's friend wasn't about to try to depants me--you can't depants someone at age 22 if they truly would be traumatized by it. Surely a girl couldn't do it to a guy. So Jenny led the charge. I fought her off for several reasons. At one point, as her hands went all over my lower half, I figured I should try to depants her. After one quick grope, I realized I couldn't do it.

Pedro's guy and the girl watched. They didn't laugh for a second.

Jenny wouldn't let it go. This went on for about twenty minutes. Finally, she won. I relented and took my hand away.

I realized that it's worse to be the guy that refused to be depantsed than the guy that humiliated himself by getting depantsed. I've questioned this theory repeatedly. With the events that followed, I'd have to say that it would have been better to have not been depantsed--I should have kept my chlorine soaked white boxers on by any means necessary even if it meant that I punch Jenny in the back of the head.

Those boxers had to come off, though. Their removal was like a band-aid being removed from a hairy forearm. The pain would come swiftly, and all this... love would come to a quick end.

She threw my white boxers over the fence. They landed near Pedro's guy's shorts.

Pedro's guy said he had enough of it. The nearly eternal display of my depantsing must have been enough for him. He got out of the pool.

Out of the pool along with him appeared to be a Johnsonville Italian Sausage dangling on a string. I watched his massive cock flop around as he hopped the fence in one swift motion. He grabbed his shorts, rehopped the fence, and told his girl that he was going inside. The motherfucker left my boxers on the other side of the fence.

I put it off as long as I could. Eventually I had to do the drowned rat march of shame. Having been in the pool for several hours, I was pruney beyond belief. The rising sun revealed my horribly awkward body through the pool in blurry crossed lines. The water was cold, and my body reacted as bodies typically do (except for Johnsonville, apparently). The two girls watched me get out of the pool naked, and make my way for the fence. I sort of ran, but I didn't flop. At one point, I heard a giggle.

Not only did I not learn to swim, but I also never learned to climb a fence. Some people blame their fathers inappropriately for their shitty lives. At that moment, I realized that the fact that my father never taught me to swim, climb a fence, ride a bike, drive on the highway, and make my dick look big after leaving a pool completely ruined my life. Big Mike fucked me over royally.

I put one naked leg on top of the fence and contemplated how I could get the second one over. I imagined the view I was giving the girls. There were no more giggles--just eyes that I refused to look back at. Eventually, I sort of rolled my body over, scratching my stomach hard. I pulled the boxers over my body and looked back. A lump formed like no other lump I'd ever felt. There was a whole lot of silence on the other end of the fence.

You know how I know that there is no god? I couldn't get my way back over the fence. Sure, the Holocaust happened, but how could a god allow me to take another ten minutes to get my way back over the fence?

I dried off, dressed, said good-bye, and walked home. Of course, nothing happened. "Classic Girl" didn't play in my head anymore. A classic girl would never have depantsed me in the pool. I thought about her the whole time, though. I got lost again.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is the perfect summer anthem. "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn't have to wait so long?" Yeah, we all create the perfect ideal out of summer romance. It's all so simple and right--until either they turn out to either like you too much or depants you in a pool. These things never seem to work for me. I guess that's why the song will never get old.

I saw Jenny about six months later at a loft party. We were both once again wasted. She looked at me and turned away quickly. I'm guessing she didn't want to remember the sight of my naked body trying to make it over the fence. I looked at her and wondered if she were wearing panties. But, goddam, I was sad while I was wondering it.