2007.02.24 Another Night
Night time.
My time.
I watched a bad movie at the theatre, by myself. Or, rather, only with strangers. Giggling, snickering, rude teenage strangers. It added a pleasant tang of malevolent consideration to the ordeal of the movie. I thought about saying something - twice, actually. The first time, I imagined holding up my hand and moving it as if it were a puppet facing them and saying, "Hey, look at me, I'm an inconsiderate fuck too!" But I didn't really want to ruin their fun that much. The second time, at the end of the movie, I stood up and looked at them to put faces with voices.
It's a conceit of mine that I imagine my humourless smirk and burning eyes is what cowed these kids into being uncomfortably quiet all of a sudden. More likely, they were just caught off-guard by my invasion of their little bubble of sociability. I thought about saying, "I'm going to kill one of you. You get to pick which one."
This might have been funny, considering that we had just watched a movie about the genesis of a fictional murderer famous for his dry humour. Perhaps "might have been" is being too generous; I'm never as funny out loud as I am inside my own head. Also, truth be told, there was a facet of me that wasn't really joking. So I said nothing.
The kids did though. After I broke hypnotic snake-charming stare and turned to leave, one of them said, "Shit, it's Hannibal!" and they all burst out giggling. I nearly did too.
Outside, in the hall, I paused for a drink of water from the fountain, and watched to see if the teenagers would emerge. They didn't, and I smirked to myself some more.
I walked outside, and wondered what would happen if a few of them chased me down to attack me for my insolence. In all fairness, this is a thought I have pretty regularly. Call it a well-engrained remnant from my formative years. I found myself welcoming the thought, both because I gauged my odds as being pretty favourable overall, and because some crazy sensation-seeking element in me was hungry for poignant reminders that I'm alive.
Fortunately, and unsurprisingly, I was left entirely alone as I walked down the full length of the parking lot. I went to the furthest, most obscure corner - where I had parked. Richthofen crouched there, a shiny shadow basking in the night, and I swung in with a sigh.
My Porsche slid into the traffic arteries like a needle, and measured out a dose of adrenalin. This was the night, the first night where I could feel every outer edge of my Porsche. It has taken a month, but my understanding and perception has finally filtered through the extents of the chassis and wept out along the edges of performance. I didn't do anything foolish, or excessive - I didn't need to. I just exulted in being who I was, what I was, where I was.
I arrived home all too soon, but satisfied. When I got out and buttoned up Richthofen, I looked up and seemed to recognize a Rorschach-like impression of the state of my soul painted across the night's sky. I have to admit that I really do like the dark bits.