I awoke in the shrubbery, mercifully undiscovered.
I saw the window of the church lit up and the three of them inside, laughing, as if reality were still intact.
Had I dreamed the hunchin’?
Was it simply one of my visions, which, already twenty-five years ago, had begun?
I had to know, and so here, at this time, I vowed to renew my observations in earnest as soon as I made it back to the dormitory to clean myself of the blood and vomit on my shirt.
I prayed my roommate would not be home, and, for once, my prayers were answered.
Thoroughly scrubbed with peppermint soap and a stiff washcloth, I breathed as best I could, and I plotted my course.
After a further week of observation, I reached a conclusion: that night I had indeed simply let my imagination run too free, for whatever “relationship” Corn and Rachil seemed to have secretly embarked upon, it was awkward and bumbling and, at first it seemed, free of penetration.
I noted many “inside” jokes and episodes of shrill, repressed laughter, but nothing more.
I admit, there was still cause for concern: Rico was noticeably more and more absent from the church, leaving Corn and Rachil alone.
Where was he?
At class?
At work?
No longer the sober Christian, he only appeared to sulk and drink at the church, then shuffle off to who knows where with his hippy friends, who were always stooped over some baggie of powder.
One night, Rachil cried to Corn about this distance and depression of Rico’s, and there at the church, in the gluey yellow light, they kissed—I saw it, outraged—but then, rather than sprinting off to the bedroom to hunch, their amour disintegrated.
“We shouldn’t,” Rachil said.
“You’re right,” Corn said.
“What about Rico?” she said.
“Oh, yes. Rico,” he said. “I worry about him so much.”
(Liar!)
She embraced him, snuffling and leaking everywhere. I thought I could detect a sly grin on his face as he patted her shoulder a bit too much.
Regardless, it was clear that Rachil felt sorry for Rico and Corn, and Corn clearly thought this pity would be enough to allow him to work his dark magic on her.
I longed for him to try to play her one of his ballads, for surely that would allow her to see the sad bastard in his true light, but he had evidently accepted her pity as enough of a kind of love, one that earned him a victory over Rico, and so, a few nights later, he tried to kiss her ears, to put his hands on her little thighs.
She squirmed, sighed, equivocated, made fun of his prim clothes.
Drank.
Corn was thwarted!
But then, weeks later still, I came to the window late after an altercation at the bus station (not worth going into). I saw her pale thighs exposed in the living room, barely a shy mouthful for the lunging Corn mouth.
My mind made a fist.
“Wait,” she said.
Withdrawn, his mouth dispossessed.
“Don’t,” she said, then giggled, pushing down her skirt. “Let’s skip it and go to the Boiler Room.”
I found I could breath again.
It was nothing.
Days passed.
The skirt stayed down.
But then I saw her again squirming away from his mouth, her hand covering her wet ear this time, and I wondered why these types of scenes kept happening—why didn’t she simply call the police?
“Stop,” she hissed.
He once more pushed his open mouth onto her taut lips anyway.
“Have you flossed?” she asked him.
Drooping back to the corner of the couch, he began to sulk.
“What?” she said. “It’s disgusting! I don’t want you slobbering all over my ears if you haven’t flossed!”
(Good girl!)
“Fine,” he said.
I know he hadn’t flossed.
I know his belly was heavy with desire, his head leaden.
He tried to stroke her leg with a feigned casual finger from across the sofa, but she withdrew.
“I think you should go.”
He rose to leave and I scrambled back to my spot in the scrub, delighted.
“I’ll see you at the Boiler Room. Later,” she said from the doorway.
“Fine,” he said, moping across the driveway.
He had no power. They both knew it. We all knew it!
That night, rejected Corn went ahead to the bar (I followed), and there he started drinking with Rico, who no longer seemed concerned about winning Rachil’s affection.
He spent quite a bit of time there at the bar, alone, his floral shirt gathering filth.
True, he had been in the hospital after complaining of auditory hallucinations to the student health center, and they sent him home to the church, where he cut his wrists with a kitchen knife.
Mesmerized, I watched the blood run over the white dinner plates he had set out on the table, but then I walked to a payphone and called the police so the plates wouldn’t get too bloody before the firemen showed up.
I knew they would get sticky, so I let myself in to wash the plates as the ambulance pulled away from the church. I left no note, not needing acknowledgment of my good deed.
Rico had been prescribed a full menu of medications, including clonazepam, which he now handed over to Corn.
I sat there in the bar, in the booth behind the two “friends,” taking mental notes and surreptitiously sipping gin from my thermos.
“As long as you don’t plan on getting lucky tonight,” Rico told Corn, his voice sluggish and detached, “you can take these and level out with no worries.”
“No chance of getting lucky,” Corn replied glumly, holding out his hand, “so, yes please.”
“I thought you two . . . ?” Rico said, shaking the pills into Corn’s palm.
“Nope. There’s no chance,” Corn said, though I noticed he had clearly flossed earlier. I saw the blood smeared on his incisors as he popped the pills into the back of his throat and washed them down with beer.
(Screenplay adaptation note: ROWDY MUSIC—BAR MONTAGE—THE CLASH—THE RAMONES—THE BAR PHONE RINGS—IT IS FOR CORN—A SMILE SPREADS ACROSS HIS FACE—FADE OUT)