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He's No Mel Gibson
by McKenzie Livingston It happened while I was making a peanut butter and honey sandwich. A slightly overripe banana was smashed between the two slices, smashed like I was when your name appeared on my phone. Have you ever seen the movie Signs? There’s a scene where Mel Gibson is summoned to the scene of a crash, and the victim happens to be his wife, who is wedged between a tree and a truck, pinning her like a tack to a board. I can only stand to watch this scene for precisely one minute, when she is speaking to him and looking him in the eye, telling him things she doesn’t want him to forget. The love between them is palpable, I can almost reach through the screen and pull it out, it would fit nicely in my hand I think. There are tears in her eyes as she tells him goodbye, and there is no question of its finality. I think of this scene now while you are on the other end of the telephone, my heart a shivering muscle inside of me, telling me to stop, stop, please. I know that you do not love me, and while this thought hangs over me like a scythe, I don’t stop, I don’t disconnect the phone. I listen. The sandwich remains uneaten on the counter. It has been a solid two weeks since I spoke to you, since I told you not to talk to me again. As you speak, I concentrate on the small petal of peanut butter that is stuck on the back of my thumb. You’re stumbling over your words like someone’s holding a gun to your head (maybe it’s you), but this is just how you talk, and I forgive you for that because I know it’s just “who you are.” I forgive you, even after only knowing you for eight weeks, twelve days, 22 hours, and these past 5 minutes on the phone—they pass like a kidney stone. I can feel my legs giving out like every parking garage in Los Angeles circa 1992. Weak in the knees, ha. You make me forget I have knees at all. You start to say things that sound like apologies, like things I only imagined you could say, and you hang up asking if we can speak again. How strange it is to end a conversation asking if it can continue. I could never figure out where my feet were planted with you: friends or not, dating or not, on speaking terms or…yes, okay, we’ll try speaking terms, I decided. But I’ll do all of the speaking. A month later, it happens, finally, while I’m sitting on the couch in my room, you sitting next to me and holding my hand, which makes me laugh pitifully. Because now I’m Mel Gibson’s wife pinned against the tree. But you were never Mel Gibson. I never had anything more I wanted to say to you at the end of it all. You held my hand and your voice shook, but I knew. My last words to you were, “I think you should go now,” which can sometimes be mistaken for I love you or I’ll miss you. Sometimes. |
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