Life After Dinosaurs

4 - Pact

I looked out atthe party. They had blocked off the entire beach and set up trailers across the sands.All around I could see people lining up for churros, snow cones,slushies, and smoothies from Jamba Juice. All of it free. Insidethe trailers I saw rooms made for sitting, karaoke parlors, places that looked like portable clubs, and video gamerooms. Out towards the beach, bon fires were already getting startedand a large portion on the far end had been squared off for dunebuggy racing.

As much as Ididn't want to notice the girls it was impossible not to. They wereall wearing the latest fashions with creative geometries showing skin. Therewere cute girls, girls-next-door, popular girls, and even some nerdy girlswith glasses here and there in the mix to appeal to the librarian types. None of them really screamed, 'I'd rather bedoing math'. It was enough to make me think that Rodger might have apoint. Maybe it was time for me to get a girlfriend.

As if Rodger couldread my mind, he suddenly stopped in front of me and put a smellyfinger in my face.

"Dude when oneof these girls starts touching you and running her hand through yourhair, don't freak out, don't tell her you love her or anything, justkiss her and enjoy it. You're not here to get a girlfriend, you'rehere to have fun," Rodger insisted.

I rolled my eyes.

"Rodge, you toldme we were here to have fun, not 'hook up' with some random girls,"As much as my libido was yelling at me, my sense of outrage wasyelling louder. "Do you really expect me to just grab some girl andstick my tongue down her throat?"

Rodger shook hishead. "No man, I expect some random hotty to do that to you.Remember, you're a baddass, just act like one."

After that Rodgerstarted walking away from me in some arbitrary direction. I followed.

"Rodger, don'tditch me! I don't want to-"

He turned aroundand pushed me.

"Quit worrying!"He said so seriously that I blinked to brace myself for a punch."We're sixteen, Ian. This is the last time in your life that you'llhave the time to go out and have fun. Real fun! You're alwaysworrying. You never just shut up and enjoy yourself. Once Highschoolis over you're going to go to Princeton or Yale or something, andyou're going to study your ass off. Do you really think you're goingto have fun then, or in law school, or wherever you're going to go?"

I almost told himthat I was thinking about going into paleontology, but it didn't seemlike the time. Instead, my eyes stayed low on the foam pads laid over the sand to make walkable pathways from each of thetrailers. An expense that was as extravagant as it was practical.

"We're bestfriends man," Rodger said in a soft tone. I thought he might startcrying. "Sometimes best friends have to push each other."

"Does it have tobe literally?" I mumbled and rubbed my arm.

"It does today."Rodger held his fist out towards me. "Goout there and have fun. You don't have to get laid, you don't have tomake out with anyone, but you've gotta relax man."

I sighed andlooked up at Rodger. He looked surprisingly mature in that moment.There was this sort of sober serenity in his eyes that I hadn't seenin him since he had grown up. I hoped that he would be like this nextweek. I slammed my knuckles into his.

"Okay," Iagreed.

Rodger gave onefinal nod before he left me there standing on the black tarp.

For some reason, Ifelt compelled to stand there and watch where he went. The sea ofteenagers walked past him and he disappeared into a wave of doppelgangers. I sighed and wandered the beachside. The sun was juststarting to make its final descent, so I was thankful for mysunglasses. They let me look out at the countless organisms fighting for dominance.They would kill their prey and fight their rivals and the strongestwould get mating rights.

--

It's really difficult for me to talk about the themes of this work. Maybe that's a large part of why I needed to write it-this isn't easy for me. This is something that my brain was chewing on and is still chewing on. Shame is what keeps me from speaking about this, but it isn't even really shame, it's like pre-emptive shame or a fear of embarrassment, admonishment, and ostracization. Still, the more vague I am, the more a reader could interpret any number of things from my noncommittal words.

As much as an author can be read into a body of work, I put a lot of my fears and insecurity into this work and I don't like what I see reflected back at myself. In that some characters become idealized versions of authors, I find that my monstrous self-hatred frequently leads me to doing the opposite. I strive for perfection of mind and purpose and always come up lacking. So when I type to exorcise my demons, they appear vivid, evil, and familiar.

Here, Ian is looking over "age appropriate girls" and finding himself a slave to his desires. It is not only the location and quantity of women that cause Ian to objectify them, but also the framing they're in. In a situation like this, where all are gathered to be show pieces for a celebrity's vision, all attending are willingly entering this lens of beauty. They want to live up to an unachievable aesthetic and objectify themselves to get there. For Ian, and for young boys in general, he's raised to see women this way. The voice of Rodger is one of many and is quieter than the nonstop narrative of masculine success that opposes his sense of propriety and chastity that's instilled into him with an equal measure of propaganda.

Yet, the objectification that Ian actually DOES engage in is casual enough for Ian's conscious mind to ignore it. Here he's surrounded by some of the sexiest teenagers he's ever seen and cannot openly lust after them. Instead, that lust and guilt manifest in him looking to the feminine population with an objective eye-one that isn't satisfied to view any as a potential partner. And if they couldn't be his girlfriend, why should they be a fling?

In the end, Ian's desire to be moral does nothing to keep him from objectifying women or from changing the narrative around masculine success. He resists his setting and the expectations thrust upon him only enough to appease his conscious. Once that's done, all the familiar trappings are still there. It's just that the ugliness has been scrubbed down into some palatable shape. He can swallow down the misogyny, and thus it's enough for him to believe that it isn't even there.

The contrasting urges that Ian fights with are constantly at odds with his sense of identity and they define a large portion of the work to come. Yet, in this section here I feel like I may have been the most on the nose about that conflict within himself and the well meaning advice from a friend who has unapologetically ingested the male directed propaganda. Of course, I'm saying that only partially remembering what is to come. This conflict in Ian's heart is the soul of this story. I hope you gain something from its telling, dear reader.