If Only Every Moment Was Black and White

Author's Note

If Only Every Moment Was Black and White

A John Black Story

Keith Soares

Bufflegoat Books

© Copyright 2015 Keith Soares. All rights reserved.
 

First electronic edition May 22, 2015

Original publication date May 22, 2015

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Also from Keith Soares

☄

The Oasis of Filth

Part 1 - The Oasis of Filth

Part 2 - The Hopeless Pastures

Part 3 - From Blood Reborn

John Black

For I Could Lift My Finger and Black Out the Sun

The Fingers of the Colossus
(Ten Short Stories)

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Me again. Hi. You might have read my story — the one about Sol, or maybe another — and thought,
Come on. This guy’s a teenager now. Where’s all the lusting for girls?

Gotcha covered.

I mean, I was filled with alien thorns and unable to be hurt and could push people’s minds, but I was still
human
, for God’s sake.
 

So, where was I? Oh yeah, girls. The little alien thorns in my cells changed a lot of things, but they didn’t block hormones. Might have even amplified them.

Marjorie Green was about
the
most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She wasn’t just popular in school, she practically dictated fashion and taste at Thomas Edison Middle.
 

Yes, I went to a school called
Thomas Edison Middle
. Can you imagine the jokes the teachers and administrators would tell any time they turned on the lights or played a movie? No? Well, fine. Let me tell you, it was a flippin’ riot. Ah, institutional humor.

Anyway, Marjorie Green. This story isn’t about her. Are you joking? I was a big time nerd. I seriously doubt Marjorie Green knew I existed. It’s not about her.
 

It’s about Carolyn McGregor.

You may recall I had a little thing for the redheads, right? So, not surprisingly, Carolyn’s hair was red and curly and, well, super Scottish. Put the girl in a tartan and we’re talking stereotype city. I can hear the bagpipes now.

Of course, my only experience with Scotland was a yearly parade of kilt-wearing men in my town. They made it a heritage-fest kind of thing, but Sam Morrison marched in that parade wearing a kilt, and I’m pretty sure he was like Persian or something. Scottish was just an idea.

But Carolyn, or Carrie as she liked to be called, was a pale redheaded beauty. Plus she had these eyelashes. Some people said,
she has eyes like a cow
.

What?

Is that
not
supposed to be an insult? I mean, say what you want, a cow might be cute as a button. But if I went up and called a girl a cow, I’d be lucky to have all my teeth by evening. Ditto for all other farm animals. Not a good idea.
 

Carrie’s eyelashes were long and heart-stopping. Why do I know that? Because when she fluttered her lashes my heart nearly stopped. Q.E.D.

Anyway, we sat next to each other in Honors Science.
Honors
. Sounds important right? Yup. Except it was the same as regular science but you had to make an exhibit for the county science fair. And guess what?

Our teacher, Mr. Arbogast, made us team up. I mean, it was simply due to the seating chart, okay?
 

Or maybe I slipped him a fifty.
 

Kidding
.
 

Where the hell would I get a fifty? I was fourteen and unemployed. Yeah, this happened about the time that Bobby ran away from home to meet up with Sol. So I had some time to focus on other affairs, since I had politely decided to ignore my friend’s peril for a while. Ahem. Anyway, I didn’t have any money. So it was luck, not bribery.

Carrie and I were set to be partners for the county science fair.

Never on God’s green Earth has there been a more momentous pairing. It was fate. It was destiny.
 

It was worth 100 points toward our grade that semester.

This shit was important.

I was sweating.

Carrie wasn’t Marjorie, and that’s no slight or insult. Where Marjorie was bold and forward and a leader, Carrie was quiet. She was happy to be in the background. Let other folks (such as Marjorie) dictate school fashion. Carrie was a lot more down to Earth and humble.

Which is exactly what tricked me into thinking I could ask her out.

Thomas Edison Middle has three dances each year. One near the beginning of the school year, called the Social, one toward the middle, called Winter Fest, and Prom at the end of the year. In my opinion the first two dances exist solely to allow nerds like myself time to think about the idea of asking a girl out. We have to work through the mental block twice before we can do anything. I’m relatively certain that not a single nerd attends the Social or Winter Fest. Anyway, it wasn’t until the Prom that I had the courage to ask Carrie out.

By that time, we had attained somewhat of an understanding of each other. She and I had worked for over a month on our science fair project — The Effects of Salinity on Freshwater Fish. The topic was my idea, and somehow she went for it. But you know what? It was really stupid. The primary effect of salinity (salt) on freshwater fish was this: they died. That’s why they were freshwater fish and not saltwater fish — they couldn’t live in saltwater.

We killed a lot of fish.
 

We practically had to set up an account with the pet store. Mr. Jarvis was a little skeptical. “How come you keep buying these little guys?” he asked as he rang up another purchase of goldfish in a plastic bag of water. “Got a big tank to fill?”

“Not really,” was my reply as I smirked and left the store.

Our hypothesis (my, doesn’t that sound important?) was that if we introduced the salt gradually, the fish would get used to it. There is some basis in fact for this. Saltwater mixed with fresh is called brackish water, and there are fish that thrive in that environment.
 

What we found is that pet store goldfish are
not
one of the species that thrive in that environment.

So there we were, killing goldfish on a regular basis, sitting in Carrie’s room. She kept the fish tanks at her house. And of course, I went over to
check on the fish tanks
whenever possible. My friend Steve Martucci uses
checking on the fish tanks
as a euphemism for meeting up with girls to this day.
 

The experiment was intended to last eight weeks, so we had a lot of time together. And after a while our conversations became more than just the necessary recording of this data or that count. We joked with each other. We talked about Mr. Arbogast and how one collar always stuck up, no matter what he did. We talked about other teachers, how Mrs. Penderson was really strict, and the gym teacher, Mr. Julian was really weird. Was Julian his first name or last name? The other teachers and administrators just called him Julian, so who knows?
 

In other words, we built up a bond. We were clicking. I could feel it.

Sure, I was nervous to ask her out, but only because I’d never asked anyone out before. But the outcome? That was certain. She’d say yes. How could she not? We were on the same wavelength.
 

Finally, a day rolled around and I went knocking on Carrie’s door, asking about the fish. She answered the door wearing a university sweatshirt, oversized, probably
borrowed
from her older brother. Her red hair was pulled back in a pony tail. To me, she looked amazing. In retrospect, I imagine she would’ve called these her bumming around clothes. We hadn’t prearranged my visit, but there was only three more weeks before the science fair, so it wasn’t completely absurd that I should show up unannounced. (Believe me, this was the subject of more than an hour of internal debate before I finally decided to do it.)

Carrie shrugged and said, “Come on in.” There were two guys with tools banging away on the roof of the house. I guess they were getting shingles or something. It only registered as a lot of banging and some inarticulate shouting once in a while. I had other things to think about.

She led me back to her room. You know, so I could
check on the fish tanks.
Exaggerated wink.
 

I’ll pause here to note that inappropriate behavior was about the furthest thing from my mind. Not that it was something I hadn’t thought about. You know, at the dance, maybe we’d hold hands. Slow dance. Might even be my first kiss. My palms would sweat just thinking such things. I wondered if it would be Carrie’s first kiss. But I digress. First things first. I had to ask the question.
 

Carrie’s mom was home, but by this time she was pretty used to seeing me, so other than a casual
hi
and wave, she hardly noticed I was there. Still,
I
didn’t know that. I assumed her mom was eavesdropping on every word. And if Carrie’s mom heard me ask her daughter to the Prom, I was pretty sure I would immediately die of embarrassment.

So, in Carrie’s room, I committed what is known as a
faux pas
. “Faux pas” is a French phrase literally meaning “false step.” Well, I took a step that was all sorts of false.

I closed the door.

It seemed so innocent, you know? Like, hey, I just wanted to say something to you with a little bit of privacy, ’n’ stuff. Two finger pistols and a wink. Too cool for school.

But that is
not
how it came across.

“What’re you doing?” Carrie said, turning around when she heard the latch click.

“Huh?” was my eloquent reply.
 

“Why did you close the door?” She looked concerned. That should’ve been a clue. To any guys who might be reading this, working up to your first date, take note. If the girl looks concerned,
bail out
. It will
not
end well.

No one had told me that advice.

I proceeded.

“Oh, I just wanted to ask —” That’s as far as I made it before she asked again.
 

“Why did you close the door?” By this time, Carrie looked
very
concerned. This would have been a
very
good time for me to open the door and apologize.

But I didn’t. I pressed on.

“I just wanted to ask if you were going to the Prom,” I said, stupid grin on my face that I assumed looked dashing and handsome. Little did I know that it looked vaguely terrifying to her at that time. Possibly psychotic.