Mixed Signals

"So you guys all work on the farm?"

The diverse crowd of young farmers, a term I never knew existed until I hooked up with one of them, stare at me flatly. I wasn't aware this was something you could study in college, let alone make a career of. The closest I'd been to farm life was a field trip in 2nd grade, but even then I was loathe to feed the unsanitary "cute" baby goats. One of the farmers speaks up.

"We work at different farms."

I pause for a moment, replay the inquiry in my mind, and realize how ridiculous it sounded.

"Ah, right, because there isn't one monolithic farm...that farmers...everywhere...collectively work at..."

They chuckle politely.

They're passionate about what they do, but their shortcoming lie in the fact that they can't relate it to the bigger picture. I indulge their conversations about fruits and berries, but I don't care. My sole interest is in fucking the girl with the athletes body. I excuse myself to go find her.

* * *

I stand on the balcony of the apartment with farmer girl.

“I don't want to send mix signals...” she says.

I'm under the impression we're out here to make out, but her averted eyes and trembling voice give the implication that the faggot she spent isolated moments with earlier was of some emotional consequence.

“I think you're great...”

Why is this whore that sucked my dick twice sitting here telling me we're just going to be friends. Why is my time being wasted? She rattles on with a few more euphemisms for, “I was drunk when we hooked up, it was a bad idea, I still want my boyfriend.” I tune out her apologetic soliliquoy and stare down at my car across the street making sure it hasn't been compromised in this gentrified low income neighborhood. However, being ever the gentleman I snap back to her words.

I simply nod and say, “Hey, we can still be friends.”

On my way out to my car, I notice a young Lou Diamond Phillips doppleganger playing the mandolin on the sidewalk. The cinematic nature of the scene I'm walking through aggrivates me further.

Drunk, angry, and baffled I drive home at 60 miles an hour hugging the corners of the winding roads of Pleasant Valley, New York. Genuinely indifferent to living or dying, I feel the impulse to swirve off the road into someone's house howl through my nervous system. Not despair, but not euphoria either. Simply a zero sum equation. Regardless, I think about the frakas that'd occur in the aftermath of my death and decide against it.

-- The Commodore