The Last New Year (3 page)

 
the
day before.
4:34 pm, December 30, 1999

I push my way through the door to the coffee shop and am
immediately annoyed with the number of people milling around. I guess since
tomorrow is New Year's Eve a lot of people have off and have therefore decided
to spend some of their precious holiday time being places and doing thing
specifically with the purpose of making my life miserable. All I want is a hot
drink and a chance to read for an hour away from the distracting banality of
home.

I struggle through the throng of people taking up space by
the door, and I just keep smiling and nodding defensively. Hi, how are you?
Don't mind me, I'm just
gonna
slip past here. Whoop,
all right, let me just slip past
here
then. Oh hey lady, nice stroller.
It's especially nice how you've got it positioned right across the only open
space. Oh, wow, hello, sir, didn't see you there, you smell really terrible.

Eventually I emerge from between two almost identically
bearded and bespectacled bald men facing away from each other, talking
animatedly and looking as if they might be dancing to electronic music back to
back. A few feet from my goal, my foot hooks an ankle and I take several
stumbling steps and manage to get out a hand before I brain myself on the counter.
I struggle to pull myself back up.

I hear a feminine giggle over my left shoulder as somehow I
make it to a standing position.

The guy behind the counter looks at me without empathy.
Without anything.
It's creepy. "What can I get
you?" he asks mechanically. He looks very slightly too old to be working
at a coffee shop.

I squint at the menu. I know what I want, but I always
forget what it's called. "Could I please," I say, stalling,
"have one of those vanilla things? I got it last week. It had vanilla in
it."

A blank look.
I'll have to be more
specific.

"Or caramel," I say hopefully.
"One
of the two."
No good.
Still nothing.

I fumble through a few more flavors, and we work it out
eventually, though it takes long enough so that there are vague rumblings and
throat-clearings happening behind me. I take my change, dump it in the tip cup
and start to the waiting area.

I see the giggler, or at least I assume she is the giggler
as she is in the right position and seems to be quietly amused by her
surroundings—the same surroundings that have been annoying me to all hell for
the past minutes.

She looks to be about 5'6", shoulder length brown hair,
pretty in a kind of unorthodox way: long nose, full lips,
good
-natured
chin. She's wearing a ringer t-shirt with a band name on it, dark skirt, and
boots that seem neither stylish nor particularly functional.
A
ring with a bright green stone on her right hand.
Her purse is
distractingly large and flops gently at her side as she sways slowly to either
the piped-in jazz or her own internal soundtrack. I kind of think it's the
latter.

She reminds me of someone, but I can't really place it. It
should be obvious. She should remind me of a thousand other girls in this city,
young women who pay very close attention to how little attention they seem to
pay to the way they look and act and interact with the world.
Just too quirky for words, as my roommate would probably say.
These girls wear glasses with no prescription and pay lots of money for a purse
that looks like they found it in a dumpster.

Not that I'm one to talk, really. In my own way I do the
same thing. Most of us do, to some extent or another.
Right?
I mean, it's all about projecting to the world what we want it to see, what we
want people to think we are. Nobody puts on a pair of pants and thinks, "I
hope these project to the world that I pick my nose when I'm on the
toilet." I mean, I imagine the vast majority of people don't. I can't
speak for everybody.

Anyway, so about this girl: I should be able to lump her
right into this same group, but somehow I can't. Somehow the artfully
unfashionable boots look too comfortable, too right, to be affected. She just
looks like she is exactly the person someone else might just pretend to be. I
don't know how or why I feel this way, but I do. All this goes through my head
in an instant.

Suddenly she's looking right at me, so I smile in what I
hope is a charmingly self-deprecating way. She looks away, still smiling off
into the middle distance. Oh well.

She leaves my mind almost immediately as I press
myself
into a corner near the counter, open my book and wait
for my drink.

In the living room, my roommate is on the couch watching
TV. Zee is one of those people who
seems
to take up a
lot more space than the physical size of his body would indicate necessary.
It's as if his presence extends a good 18 inches from himself in all
directions, like he's wearing one of those sumo wrestler novelty costumes, only
invisible. In actuality he's about 5'10" and stoutly built, but not
particularly imposing at all. His nationality gives him a sort of nut-brown
complexion that women seem to either like or be afraid of. Not that it matters
to him at all.

Here's the thing about Zee: he always seems genuinely glad
to see you. You'll walk into a room and suddenly feel like the greatest person
in the known universe because it's easy to believe in his sincerity, and he's
absolutely free with his affection. He wasn't always this way—when I met him he
was kind of stiff—but he really found himself at one particular point. I take
at least some of the credit for that.

He's my best friend, of course, and since meeting in college
we've continually occupied the same general space, so by this point we're pretty
used to one another and our particular quirks of personality and behavior. I
give him his space, and he gives me a pile of small bills and change to convert
to his half of the electricity and rent and cable every month. It's a good
system. Or at least it's worked thus far.

But this morning I'm finding him somewhat inscrutable. He is
frowning and doesn't look up when I enter, nor does he wish me a good morning
in a loud, jocular voice, which is usual when he knows I have a hangover.
(Ah, the complex give-and-take of the very close in space and
relationship.)

The fact that he seems so taciturn registers as slightly odd
but I don't think too much of it. Everyone is entitled to an off day now and
again. So I don't attempt a flying elbow drop on him and instead wander into
the kitchen.

The TV volume is up really loud and although I can
understand the words being said, they don't have any immediate meaning to me.
I'm not really paying attention anyway. My mind is on more important things at
the moment, like my stomach, which is growling at me like a sour old man on a
porch swing.

I pour a big bowl of
Cap'n
Crunch
and then milk after a quick check to make sure the latter is neither sour nor
lumpy (not a mistake I am eager to make again). I flip a spoon into the bowl
and cram my hand into the box, swirling it through the cereal until my fingers
close on the crinkly bag containing the prize—which I see as it emerges is an
unidentifiable piece of green plastic.

Humming to myself, I step out of the kitchen and check to
see if Zee has gotten over himself yet.

He hasn't. I put the bowl down on the coffee table and toss
the prize at him. He doesn't move as it bounces off his chest down to the floor
and completely fails to amuse anyone.
Hm
: usually Zee
loves cheap plastic shit covered in cereal dust.
Curiouser
and
curiouser
.
I slide gracelessly onto the couch.

"Morning," I say, less of a greeting and more a
statement of fact.

"
Hrumph
,"
he
hrumphs
.

I shrug and turn my attention to the television. The images
look very similar to what Ape-head was watching across the way. It all looks
very dire and realistic whatever it is. A serious and haggard looking news
reporter stands in the middle of a war zone or disaster area, people running
all over the place and bits of debris either on fire or whipped up by some kind
of terrible wind. In the distance, a bright orange sheet of flame has replaced
the horizon, like a sunset gone horribly wrong.

"Is this that movie with the guy and the other guy and
the meteor?" I ask.

Zee doesn't respond.

I lean forward, pull my cereal onto my knees, take a huge
spoonful. A little milk drips down my chin and I wipe it off with the back of
my hand. I crunch on my cereal with determination (like a
Cap'n
!),
the reverberation in my head blocking out everything around me for the moment.
(This is the last moment of removed peace I am going to experience for quite a
while.)

I'm beginning to feel uneasy for some reason. It's something
to do with the movie: the images are a little too realistic, the movement of
the people too quick and clumsy to be the polished reactions of Hollywood
actors. A slow chill begins to move up my neck from between my shoulder blades,
the tiny hairs rubbing uncomfortably against the inside of my t-shirt.

"No, seriously," I say through the last bits of
cereal, "What is this?"

I suddenly realize why everything has seemed so odd this
morning. It's been quiet, unnaturally so, and the constant sounds of the
city—cars, people, general ambiance—that usually filter into the apartment are missing.
Something is wrong, but I don't know what it is.

Zee doesn't look away from the screen. I realize that he is
hunched forward and looking very serious and pale.

"World's
endin
',
innit
?"
He answers tonelessly.

Zee is Pakistani but he grew up in London. I feel it is
necessary at this point to explain that.

 
meeting
zee.
2:18 am, October 22, 1994

I collapse into an incredibly uncomfortable chair in the
dorm's common area, my head spinning in a way that approaches unpleasantness, eyes
closed and head tilted back. I begin to regret my last three drinks, which
happen to be all the drinks I've had over the course of the evening. I am 19
years old, and I am halfway through my first semester in college. I am drunk
off my ass after a badly crafted screwdriver and two cups of watery beer. I am
what they call a lightweight. I wonder if I will always be.

I burp and my throat catches on unexpected liquidity. I hack
loudly, dangerously close to heaving everything up, but after a few minutes the
coughing subsides, my stomach unclenches, and I am left with watery eyes and a
beery sniffle.

"Rough night?" says a voice.

Surprised, I look over and see the owner of the voice: a
tall, slope-shouldered, slightly chubby guy with thinning black hair. He appears
to be Indian (I mean Asian Indian, as opposed to the other Indian, like Squanto
or whatever. Wait, I think they're "Native Americans" now, right?
Because of the confusion or that Columbus was an asshole? Anyway, I'm drunk).
He looks at me expectantly over his wire-rimmed glasses.

"What?" I ask, inanely.

"Only," he says, putting his book down and taking
off the glasses, "You look all in. I was asking if you've had yourself a
difficult evening, which would account for your state."

He's got a British accent, which sounds strange to me,
sitting in a college dormitory on a weekend night in the Middle of Nowhere
College Town, USA. It makes him sound very smart and cultured and I am
immediately smitten with him and want to be his friend.

So I say, "What?" again. I am very drunk.

He chuckles, puts on his glasses and goes back to his book.

My head starts to settle down a little after a few minutes
of staring blearily around the room, and I pick up the thread of things.

"No, not really," I say.

He glances over. "Well, that's good. Been to a
party?"

I nod. "Yeah, over at
Danchester
,
at a guy's place.
Named
Thacky
or
something.
He had a beer thing."

"Keg?"

"Yes, Keg," I say.
"A beer
keg.
His name was
Twackle
I think."

"
Thwacker
.
Yes, I know him.
Short chap."

"Chap." I respond, nodding, tasting the word.
"Short chap named
Thwacker
."

Seeing that I am actually engaged in the conversation, the
Indian guy puts down his book and glasses again. He stands and comes over to
me, holding out a hand.

I blink at the hand. "It's ok," I say. "I can
get up on my own."

"No, shake.
Like in a greeting."

Oh. I take the proffered hand and shake it. He has a firm
grip. His hands are cool and smooth.

"I'm Zed," he says.

"'Zed's dead, Baby,'" I say, and giggle.
Pulp
Fiction
had just come out a couple of weeks before.

He sighs, taking back the hand. "Quite," He says,
"It's short for Z_____, and I am so utterly grateful for that awful film
making my name into a catch phrase."

I shrug, "We say 'Zee' here anyway. Not that it
matters." And then I tell him my name. He says it's nice to meet me and
sits back down.

"Why are you up so late?" I ask.

"Why are you?" He raises an eyebrow.

"I
dunno
," I say,
"I'm drunk and I was at a party and I wanted to think about some
things." Before he can apologize for interrupting as it looks like he is
about to do, I say: "It's ok, I was probably about to pass out on this
uncomfortable chair having thought about nothing but whether to puke behind the
chair or try to find a bucket or something."

"There's the bathroom right across the hall
there," Zee says helpfully.

I shake my head, "I don't think I would have made it. I
was fixated on 'bucket.' I know me. I would have wandered for an hour looking
for a bucket and not even considered another option."

"That's an oddly inconvenient way to approach a
problem."

"Yeah."
It really is. I
suffer from massive tunnel vision a lot of the time. Once I get fixated on
something nothing's going to divert me. Which explained what happened at the
party, I suddenly realize.

"A girl," I say, answering the question I know
he's about to ask.

"What were you going to think about?" He asks.

I shrug. He shrugs too, and says, "It's always that,
isn't it?"

"Generally, yes." My toes are starting to feel
numb for some reason. I scrape off my shoes.

"Was it a fight?" Zee asks, "Or just the
pining of unrequited love?"

"Not a fight," I say, "but
not the latter really either.
Just your basic lust
story with an unsatisfactory ending."

"Ah," Zee scratches his nose thoughtfully.
"You know your feet smell, don't you?"

They do. Not terribly, but the vague
swampiness
is noticeable. I'm not sure what to do about it, so I just scrunch up my toes
defensively.

"If you had your bucket you could wash them in
it."

"If I had my bucket there would probably be puke in it
and that would smell worse."

"Touché."

I realize this conversation is going nowhere. My
Introduction to English Literature class would no doubt consider it to be
pointless and meandering and certainly not some of the author's best work. So I
decide to steer it in a direction that will actually accomplish some character
development.

"Are you from India, Zee?"

He
purses
his lips.
"No," he says, testily. "England."

"Oh, well, yeah, obviously.
Accent
and all."
I say. Then: "Why did you say that so testily?"

He grins, showing white, even teeth. "Did I? I suppose
it's because I get tired of the question. Where are you from?"

"Spokane."

"Oh?" He leans forward, squinting a little at me.
"Not Ireland? France? Belarus? You've got a little bit of an Eastern
European look to you.
Slavic tilt to your nose."

"OK, I get it."

"Anyway," he leans back in the chair. "My
parents are from Pakistan. Faisalabad."

"Oh yeah?
What's that
like?"

"Oh, you know, just your normal place. Chief exports:
cotton and wheat. Center for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, soap, chemical
fertilizer, textile machinery, bicycles, hosiery, vegetable oil, flour,
sugar—"

"Bicycles!"

He shrugs. "I
dunno
, mate.
I've never been. Obviously it wasn't that great because my parents left. I was
born in St. Thomas's in London."

"Do you drink a lot of tea?"

"Not really."

"Do you call the bathroom 'the loo'?"

"I used to, not as much anymore."

"Do you play Cricket?"

"Some," he says. "Not well. Always a bit of a
sticking point between my brothers and I, that."

"How come?"

"
Dunno
. Just not athletic, I
suppose. My father was a big fan of sport, but I was always sort of the odd one
out when it came to it."

I nod, understanding. Not living up to expectations is
something I get completely, as I've spent most of my life to this point just a
shade under accomplished. I strive for mediocrity, but never seem to be able to
come out from under the shadow of "potential".

"You could do so much better than this!" my Mom
would always tell me. "You've got so much
potential
!"
Which is a stupid thing to say, really.
A Hitler had a lot
of potential too, but we'd all have been better off had he stayed in Art
School. I am not Hitler, of course, nor do I think my potential would have the
impact his did, at least not purposefully. But that doesn't change the fact
that it doesn't have to be a good thing to live up to it.

I lean forward, reach out, and take his book.
"
Whatcha
readin
'?"
I say, fully comprehending how obnoxious I sound. Zee doesn't respond. He seems
to be caught up in his own thoughts.

It's a book I've never heard of, by an author I've never
heard of.
Some kind of philosophical treatise near as I can
tell.
It doesn't really interest me, so I open to a random page and
stare at it like
its
fascinating. The page crawls with quasi-mathematical formulas which make
absolutely no sense to me.

"Ah," I say.
"Thought-provoking."

Zee comes out of his
revery
.
"Isn't it just."

I check to see if I'm looking at it upside down. I'm not, so
I put it back on the table and slide it back to Zee.

"So what about this girl, then?"

"What about her?"

"What happened that makes you so introspective?"

I sigh.
"Nothing.
Nothing
happened. I'm a coward and I will never be anything other than a coward."

"I see. Didn't get up the nerve to talk to her?"

"No I did. I totally talked to her."

"Oh. She told you to get stuffed."

I shake my head. "Have you ever met someone, and knew
instantly that this was the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life
with?"

He considers. I don't let him answer.

"You haven't.
Because it doesn't
happen.
They say it does but it doesn't. All there is
is
this stupid climb up an emotional mountain to get to
know another person who you will probably end up getting sick of or who will
get sick of you. And then do it again."

"That's very cynical for such a young man."

"
Which is why I am a coward.
"

He raises an eyebrow.

"Because I keep doing it anyway.
Tonight, I decided to give up, to say to hell with it. I wanted to just have
sex with this girl. That's it. To just step in, charm her up, enjoy myself, and
step away. But no."

I put my face in my palm, miserable.

"We're going out for coffee sometime."

Zee laughs. "Going up the mountain again, eh? Strapping
on your boots, sharpening your ice ax, hiring a
sherpa
? Ah, well. Not all of us are meant for a
shallow existence, mate."

I say nothing, but I appreciate the sentiment. I wonder
briefly if this oddly charming (or charmingly odd) guy is going to become my
best friend.

"Well, if it helps any," Zee says, collecting his
book and getting up to leave, "a coffee shop is a terrible place to start
a relationship."