BROKEN MUPPET

Something I Wrote.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:58:30 -0500

ONE. Some things in life are hard to forget, moments that are doomed to play over and over again in your head for the rest of your life. Like the moment I decided to be a writer. Maybe I was in first grade. I was looking out the window at the blooming flowers on the willow tree and picturing myself sitting under it with Brandon Green, his blue eyes looking into mine. I imagined him giving me a kiss on the cheek before I snapped back to life. My teacher, Mrs. Levine was handing back our stories to put into our first grade notebooks. My story was titled “My Little Brother.” I still remember it word for word to this day.

His name is Maty. He sometimes hits. He has brown air and he is tan. He likes to mess me up. He is two. Story By: Ellie Banks.

He likes to mess me up. I was born to write.

TWO. I slammed myself into my apartment door jamming the key into the lock and jiggling it a little to the left. I rammed my shoulder into the door expecting it to fly open like it normally does. No dice. I tried it again. Nothing. I tried it a third time but this time it flew open and I fell onto something that seemed like a wall. I looked up. Bright green eyes stared down at me. Tossled brown hair. Topless. Man-sweats, you know, the manjamas that show off the package just right. Who was this person in my apartment?

“Who are you! Why are you in my place!?” I babbled, tipsy, incoherent. Thinking quickly, I looked around. I realized that I was actually at the apartment across the hall from my tiny studio and I’d never seen this gorgeous man standing in front of me in my life.

“Uhm, I believe you are the one banging down my door?” The man said with a smirk. Maybe man is not the appropriate word. Maybe supermodel would be more adequate.

“I.. I…….” I turned around ripping my key out of the lock. I wondered immediately how I even jammed it in there. I could feel the blood rushing to my face.

“Can you get it?” He asks as I struggled to put my key in the right door this time. I jiggled, rammed, pushed… I was in. All I could do was give him a wave and a weak smile and close the door behind me. I slumped down onto the floor just as my cell phone buzzed. A text from Andy, “Hope u got home ok. Love you.”

Christ. This is one of those moments.

THREE. Headache was all I could think as I opened my eyes the next morning. I looked at the clock, 9am. I couldn’t sleep past 9 on a weekend anymore if I tried. I was sprawled out on my bed, fully clothed. I could feel the indentations of the remote on my forehead. Then I remembered the night before like a bolt of lighting. The eyes, the smirk, the manjamas, the text. I grabbed my phone, still in my jeans pocket from the night before and dialed Cole.

“El, what… is.. it.” She barely got out the words, she was sleeping.

“Breakfast, one hour, my place.” I said with a sense of urgency I knew Cole would respond to. We had been friends since the 6^th grade and if anyone knew me better than I knew myself, it was Cole. I hung up and flipped on the TV. I couldn’t stop thinking about Manjamas. When did he move in? How did I miss it? Was I gone that weekend and his presence completely slipped by me? When was the last time I was gone for a weekend? I guess he could’ve moved in mid-day, and not had a ton of stuff. But wouldn’t I have noticed boxes outside or, maybe that the whole hallway didn’t wreak of that disgusting curry…. Now that I actually thought about it, the hallway had been pleasantly less smelly over the past few weeks. I figured out a time frame, he could have moved that weekend I went to Montana with Andy to meet his parents, or it could’ve been just last weekend when I trekked back to Long Island to visit the parents. Whatever the case, he couldn’t have been there more than three weeks. Why was I obsessing over this? I love Andy. Andy. Andy. Andy.

Well – after really thinking about it, Andy wasn’t my whole life. We barely hung out anymore, and I rarely thought about him. It was happening again, the whole cycle. See – I go through these weird cycles, I’ll date a guy for a year, suddenly decide its not working out for one reason or another, drop him, and lo and behold a month later a new knight in shining armor comes waltzing through the door to sweep me off my feet. Commence vicious cycle.

I sat up and decided to wash away these thoughts with a nice hot shower. Most of my best thinking gets done in there anyway.

FOUR. My first kiss wasn’t all that memorable. It was the summer before 8^th grade, and I was at Maty’s little league baseball game. I was always the one to take Maty to his games, my parents were always doing something around the house, or away for the weekend and he never really played anyway. I was sitting on the bleachers with Cole, who I dragged along with me just so I didn’t want to gouge my eyes out trying to watch these 8 year olds catch the damned baseball. We were sipping on one of those Big Gulps from 7-11 and talking about the usual – boys.

Ronan was the new boy in school. He moved to Woodbury from Brooklyn, which automatically made him cooler than 90% of the boys in our school. Most of them had never even been to Brooklyn let alone lived there for most of their lives. Ronan played guitar, wore his hair in his eyes, and had pierced ears. He was tall for 14, and definitely looked much older. He wore flannel shirts and baggy cargo pants and listened to Nirvana. I heard a rumor that he’d been smoking cigarettes since he was 11, and hung out with some of the Bloods and that’s why his family had to move.

Cole and I were instantly obsessive. More so me than Cole, she was more of the lacrosse player type, her crush Gregg, lived 5 houses down from her since kindergarten and she wouldn’t budge on him. He was playing lax for the high school in 7^th grade, due to start on varsity in the fall. He was out of her league, big time. I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

On that sunny Saturday, Cole and I were focused on getting out of there. We had some major malling to do, and we weren’t going to let Maty’s stupid game stop us. That is, until Ronan showed up, little brother in tow, dropping him off 20 minutes late to the game. It turns out his brother was on the opposite team as Maty. He made eye contact with us instantly recognizing someone his age. I just thought he was happy he wouldn’t have to suffer through the game alone. Cole smacked my arm.

“Did he just smile at you?” She was bubbling with excitement and took a huge gulp of the slushie. Her lips were turning blue. “He’s coming over here, quick how to I look?” she asked.

“Fine, fine, what about me!” My heart was bursting.

“You look amazing, tan, skinny, amazing.” Cole was already a size 8 by the time she was 10, she was always jealous of my straight body – until I never changed, and she blossomed into a curvy bombshell.

Ronan sat down next to me.

“I’m Ronan.” He said and held his hand out. I took it, warm, soft, not at all clammy like most boys.

“I know.” I said. And then realized I had never actually spoken to him. Cole gave me a glare.

“I’m Cole,” she held out her hand “and this is Ellie. Don’t mind her, she’s a little sunburned.” Sunburned!? That was my excuse? I had to redeem myself.

“Hi Ellie” he said and smiled wide. I knew at that moment that I was madly and irrevocably in love with him. I smiled back. Cole slurped her slushie and turned back to the game.

“El, look at your brother” she pointed into right field. Maty was sitting on the ground picking four leaf clovers.

“MATY! Get your head out of your ass!” I yelled. Ronan laughed, and pointed out his brother was up to bat. His brother wacked one right over Maty’s head. Maty looked, and went back to picking clovers. “Maybe we should go,” I turned to Cole “It s not like he’s having any fun.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She stood up. Ronan took my hand. It was sweatier than before. Cole saw this and took the hint with absolute perfection. She ran to tell the coach we were pulling Maty out.

“When will I see you again?” Ronan asked, like it was the end of the world.

“I don’t know. School?”

“Schools over,” Of course, the dumbest answer I could have given. “Let me call you.” He produced a notebook out of his cargo pocket. I gave him my number, thinking about how many other girls numbers he had written in that little book.

“I gotta go, Cole’s waiting.” I started to stand up. He tugged me back down and leaned in. Unsure of what to do, I kind of just sat there expressionless, motionless. He kissed me right on the lips. I kissed back of course, and after about a second, I stood up and bolted towards my brother and Cole.

“Ooooo Ellies got a BOYFRIEND!” My brother yelled so loud I was sure everyone in the park heard him.

FIVE. Cole unlocked my door an hour and a half later.

“What happened!” She produced out of her Mary Poppins bag 2 bagels and fresh orange juice and dropped it on the futon. My apartment barely fit a full size bed let alone a table for eating purposes. The futon was a dining table, couch, and laundry bag all at once. I tossed a pile of clothes to the floor and plopped down to tell the story of the evening.

“MANJAMAS! AHHH!” she was getting overly excited. Cole didn’t have a boyfriend, and frankly didn’t want one. She was a cynical single, one of those girls who thrived on the perfect man. She always had her sights set on someone completely out of reach, while being pursued by numerous guys she refused to settle for. I envied her ability to decide what she wanted, and not let temptation take hold. She thrived on things like this and didn’t even think twice about considering Manjamas for herself.

“Shh! He’s right across the hall! These walls are thin man!” I was getting more paranoid by the second. I pictured awkward run-ins in the elevator, or seeing him randomly at the grocery store. I hoped he would just forget about last nights difficulties and not remember who I was, although this scenario was extremely unlikely, especially in New York. “I’m never leaving the apartment again. I swear to God, I will only leave at awkward hours when I know he won’t be there”

“What about work! You can’t let one weird incident ruin your life. Besides I’m sure he thought you were cute as hell all tipsy…” Cole tried to make light of every situation.

“Yeah right with eyeliner and mascara smeared all over my face and me smelling like the east river.”

“I’m sure he thought it was cute, only in New York ya know?” She was right, I couldn’t sit here forever. Just then, a knock on my door. I practically jumped out of my skin. It had to be someone in the building – there is no way to get in otherwise, unless you have a key. Who else has a key to my apartment besides Cole and my parents? No one. It had to be manjamas.

“Shit it’s him.” I quickly thanked God that I decided to take a shower.

“No way! Why would he knock on your door?”

I tiptoed over to the door to check the peephole.

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