In a battle of wills, the biggest loss is time

05/05/2001

By / The Dallas Morning News

Before we even get into the car, it starts.

How does it start?

I can answer that question, but only later – a day or two, after I've thought it through. That is, I cannot answer until it is too late: to avoid it, to go back and fix it.

Now I can tell you. It began as a hybrid of stress and exhaustion. We are both artists, both with day jobs, both at a juncture where art and grunt work tug at us, demanding we sacrifice much sleep at anxiety's altar.

By accident, I score excellent tickets to see his favorite band. We agree to find more time we don't have, sacrifice more sleep, to see this show.

The day of the show, I push aside tiredness and put on something nice. I check details. I look good, I smell good, I have the tickets right here.

He arrives. How are you? I ask. Stressed, he says. Get over it, I say. I'm kidding. It doesn't matter. Never tell a stressed person to get over it.

He snaps something back, clearly irritated at my imperative. I can't hear his words. They are lost in his sharp tone, a tone I am severely allergic to.

Because I am allergic, I have a reaction. I grow furious. Look at all this trouble I've gone to, I think. And you, you – wrecking it! I don't say this out loud. I just replay it over and over in my head. Out loud, I say nothing.

We get in the car. He's not stupid. I'm not subtle. He smells my anger like a fat man smells the Hot Donuts Now sign. "You want me to just get out of the car?" he says.

No. No I don't. I want you to stay here. I'm not finished with you.

There you go, that's how it started. Two people, who love each other, who love their plans, suddenly miserable.

Here's the weird part: We aren't dating. But we are close, close enough to push us to a place that at this moment, in this car, looks a whole lot like romance – on a very bad day.

He attempts to salvage, providing a running hysterical commentary as we drive. Too late. Every anecdote smacks hard into my stonewall silence. It's hard to make me really mad. But when I get there, it's hard to bring me back.

By about LaGrange I break the silence. I'm mad, I say. I'm really, really mad.

Don't start, he says. Don't. Start.

I push him. Come on, let's start. Like my father, I am a fighter. My anger blinds me – to the love I have for my friend, to the jeopardy in which I place our friendship. I will not, will not, will not be treated like this.

Like what? Looking back (as I will the next day, and the next and the next) it will be hard to see any major anything that caused this. But right here, right now, I feel caged in by some perceived injustice. And so I rattle the cage, bang words upon it like fists.

One last poke, just the right word, and I get him going. Now the words pour out. I can see them almost, as if materializing in the small space between us, chasing each other around, until finally they take shape.

I have seen this shape many times before. The name of the shape is argument.

The shape of argument is something uneven, unmanageable, contorted.

"Dammit, you're ticking me off!" he says. My ears hear yelling. My ears hear a thousand past arguments with a dozen past boyfriends. This man saying these things to me now – he is not my lover, yet this argument resembles a lover's spat. We are close enough to know right where to go to find the worst respective hurts.

So we do.

I feel three distinct responses. One: I worry, think we need to fix this. Two: I imagine my fingers in my ears, me taunting, "I can't hear you!" Three: I feel an urge to laugh a sort of funeral titter – this can't be an argument, must be a parody.

Parody, that's it. Because despite the real hurt that is really here, so much of this is just unnecessary repetition. Us imitating what we learned as children. Us imitating past fights with old ghosts, past loves.

It's like doing the chicken dance at a wedding, when really, you always hated the stupid chicken dance. But someone drags you into it and yes, you know the steps, and there you are, like it or not, chicken dancing away, feeling like an idiot, flapping seemingly against your will.

We stop arguing long enough to enjoy the show. On the way home, somehow the angry switch gets flipped back on.

But by La Grange, we are tired. From a long week, a long day, a long and mostly stupid argument. A truce is offered – how I wish I could take the credit for that. He tells one of his endless amazing-dad stories.

Listening, loosening, I wonder: Why do any of us ever do this to each other?

I can't answer that question.

Spike Gillespie is an Austin free-lance writer.