backseat type
2007 💘
I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, maybe I did. I was 16 and always up to something unsavory. I had the mind to me that year, my junior one, to do something new – do someone new. I set my sights on Jay: dreadlocked, full lips, tall and athletic — a popular football player instead of a DnD player (my usual). I figured I’d step out of my comfort zone and go for what nerdy girls seldom got because we were excluded from social life, our shoulders seemingly velcroed to our ears.
I was bored. History class was the worst. For weeks, I sat across the room watching him, and every so often, maybe biweekly, I’d move a few seats closer. He never noticed; I mean, he was a boy – too deep into the workings of his phone. I remember his hands vividly. They were so big; a real man, I thought. He clicked on that little bead of a phone, cradled in his baseball mitts. It was comical, really. He would stare at the screen with his mouth open when he typed. One could imagine a glide of drool slipping down if he wasn’t careful. He looked dopey, and I wasn't that attracted to him, but like I said, I was bored and wanted to see if I could do it.
After a half-semester of musical chairs, I finally ended up next to him. My teacher, Mr. Gangster (who let me call him that because he liked me), strolled by and told me that wasn’t my seat. I was feeling defiant and said, “I know.” He smirked but let me carry on. A true homie.
Anyway, I was next to Jay, who was as confused as everyone else about why. Not coherent enough to tell me to go away (probably stoned), he let me sit next to him and his boys: rowdy football dudes who made me deeply uncomfortable. I didn’t know their language. I wasn't their type. They liked fast and slick, and I was slow and unsure. They liked hoop earrings and soft curls, the kind where baby hairs were a given, not a morning styling decision.
The details of my infiltration are blurry, but eventually, I told him I thought he was cute and asked for his number. In retrospect, he gave it to me out of pity — the little hanger-on with bad eyebrows and worse posture.
I texted Jay from the confines of my childhood room, under the covers, typing conspiratorially. I timed my texts like girls do, not to make him regret giving away the key to the T-bird. To my surprise, he responded quickly and asked where I worked. I thought this was a good sign.
A few days later, I was at said work, the bookstore, stocking shelves and listening to the Smashing Pumpkins when Jay texted. My heart dived to my crotch. “U at work rn?” I said I was, and he immediately followed up by asking if I would give him head in his car if he drove over right now.
Shocked but not quite appalled, I played it cool. “Maybe. But you know I like you, right?” He e-laughed and told me I was cool, but he was taken. Oh, how the plot thickens. I told Jay that I couldn’t believe he was asking me to run him some head while his girlfriend (one of the hottest cheerleaders in our grade) was in the picture – probably off doing popular girl stuff like driving a Camaro with the windows down or buying Victoria’s Secret body spray.
But I quickly moved past that detail and considered his request. Like I said, I was 16 and always doing something unsavory, and that means I had never been a prude – I just looked and acted like one. I wasn’t entirely opposed to the suggested arrangement, this stint of prostitution – I just wanted to know what I got out of it.
I told him I would think about it and turned off my phone, gleeful in the act of leaving him hanging, leaving him to think about himself. By the time I got home and decided I would tell him to come over instead (I was only a mild slut, not a backseat type), his text came through from hours prior, “You’re cool, but I can’t come. I can’t do my girl like that. Sorry. We can’t talk anymore because she checks my phone.” Poor Jay, under lock and key, we see.
Fury ran through me and made my ears all hot. Part of me was relieved, and part of me was very annoyed – I may never have gotten him to be my man, but I was close to getting something (that’s how I thought when I was a kid, not realizing what I was about to “get” was used).
Although I didn’t have the best intentions, his rejection still hurt my feelings. By Monday, I was back in my assigned seat, and Mr. Gangster seemed pleased. Jay seemed pleased, too. He didn’t look at me anymore. I wasn’t welcome next to him and his boys.
2017🥤
En route to my best friend’s house, I stopped at Sonic for cherry limeades and whatever sugary fare our hearts desired. It was hot out – steely and brutal. I looked fucking good. I had stopped by my parent’s before that and they even told me so. My hair was in a sleek bun, I had on big sunnies — golden brown skin in a sundress, elbow on the window seal, my world expanding. La da-de-de-dah.
I ordered a whole bunch of shit and pulled up. Good googly-moogly. Look who it was. Jay looked older, what one could call slightly defunct, the way most elder millennials do. Not graying, no dark circles, not entirely out of shape – but the light behind the eyes is no more. You get that downtroddenness when life has beat ya good for a decade, but you still have a decent collagen supply. Jay’s hair was no longer dreadlocked but closely shaved, and his big, loose mouth still hung open as it did back then.
Initially, his eyes were bright with recognition, then quickly (annoyingly) slipped into lust. He leaned out the window like he had game or something, “Whatchu up to? Where you been?” he asked. Stupid ass questions with a million potential answers. I quickly jogged my mind – how much did he deserve to know? I told him I just graduated from college and lived in the city. I had recently bought the car I was sitting in and had a big girl job. I looked past him into the dirtyish confines of the Sonic, “What about you?” I asked, not once removing my shades. He said, “Chillin’ ya know, doing my thing. Whatchu up to later?”
You know that moment when you check your DMs and see the type of fools trying to hook up with you? You know that grossed out feeling running through your veins like slime? Yeah, I was getting that feeling badly. “I don’t know, but I’m in a hurry,” I coughed to clear my disgust. Jay said, “alright” slow and cool like black guys do, closed the window, and got my order. When he reappeared and handed over the food, I checked the accuracy of the contents and saw the receipt. He’d written his name and under it, his number. I let him watch me look at it. I wanted him to see my expression, my displeasure. I said, “Hmm, okay then,” and rolled up the window of my new car, afforded to me by my career and schooling: the fruits of the nerdy and unsocialized path.
I drove away thinking of what Jay and I had become in all those years. I was the hot one now, with the power to pick and choose — and he, who held that position before — had been swallowed up by our nowhere hometown. It was pretty sad but karmic around the edges. I've heard it said a few different ways, but my favorite is: the turn in fortune is often swift, and soon the pauper will be king. The last laugh poured over me, thick and so delicious. I took a fry from the bag, cranked the A/C, and turned up the music; it was a Lil Wayne song, an old school track, something from high school, probably around 2007.
— M