The Enigma's Anomaly

I Fucked Up

"Yo dude, why are you walking in the middle of nowhere?" A voice asks and I turn to see a red pickup truck with two men. The car has slowed to a snails crawl in time with my steps.

Both are wearing white T-shirts, and I suspect they've got ratty jeans. They're both plain looking. One of them is butch and heavy-set. The other is, the one behind the driver's seat, coltish. The only thing that really distinguishes their boring faces apart is that one has a pervy mustache, and the other has a baseball cap.

"Just out on a stroll, in the nice... humidly disgusting weather," I say absently. I want them to go away. I don't want to talk. I want to mope. I want to kick myself for saying those things to Gerard, but some of them were true, so I just don't know what to think.

"Crying?" The baseball cap guy says. The driver is the one with the mustache, and if I had to choose the uglier one I'd say it's the mustache.

"Not crying. Just releasing an aqueous solution of liquefied particles from the ducts in my eyes," I say feeling vexed.

"So, crying then," the mustache says. Oh how dull, their voices are even the same. It's not that they actually look all that alike, but you see enough of these jaunty muscled fellows who reek of chewing tobacco and they start becoming insipid.

"You could make that argument. If you'll excuse me I'd like to get back to my ambling, so move along."

"Well what're you doin' all the way out here, boy?" Oh the mustache is southern. Isn't that wonderful.

"Please go away," I say assertively, and I come to a halt but so does their car.

"He asked you a question," the baseball cap says.

"I'm having a barbecue with my many friends," I gesticulate to the trees around me, "can't you fucking tell?"

"Why're you cryin'?" The mustache asks.

"Because I'm really emotionally traumatized by the state of affairs in our country's ongoing fiscal crisis!" I say, and I am so far beyond trying to be polite. I want these fuckers to get the hell away from me and drive.

"I don't know what the hell you just said, but I know that ain't why yous cryin'."

"If I tell you would you please just go away?" I ask.

"We'll consider it," the baseball cap says.

"I had a fight with my significant other," I say.

"Out here in the middle of nothing?" baseball cap asks.

"Well, no it was indoors at the time."

The mustache laughs openly at me, and then spits out of his side of the truck which is, thankfully, nowhere near me. The other one just gives me this weird face that looks like an attempt at a knowing smile.

"I hear you boy, them bitches is always causing trouble," the mustache says.

"Okay, first of all, how dare you refer to women as 'them bitches' in such sexist a manner? And second, ew."

"Why's that?" the baseball cap asks.

"Because," I shrug. I'm not really keen about explaining my life story to a couple of annoying guys whose husky car is definitely a sign of overcompensation.

"Hold on, boy. You meaning to tell me that yous into guys?" The mustache asks, and the way that the baseball cap looks at me tells me that being gay is not something that they are okay with.

"I never said that," I say defensively.

"Ya didn't not say it."

"That was a double negative, sir. You might want to consider taking a class at your local elementary school to remedy that," I say, and even I can hear how pompous I'm sounding.