Sanity Scars
by Rasmenia Massoud
The way we meet is, he pushes me up against a wall at a party. Not an assault push, or an I-like-beating-women push, because I know those. This is an urgent push. An earnest, burning push. An I-need-this-now push.
“I love you,” he says.
His nose smashes up against mine. I can’t see a face, just an enormous blue eyeball looking at me. He takes a step back. One blue eye looks right at me, the other looks off somewhere else.
“I really love you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“So. I know I love you.”
I’m supposed to be afraid of this. Strange, crazy-eyed men who introduce themselves with space-invading proclamations of love are not sane.
I know this.
I do.
“What happened to you?” I take a sip of my beer.
“Someone tied me to the rear bumper of their car and dragged me down the road. I almost died. It’s not a glass eyeball. It’s a real eyeball, but it doesn’t work very good. I like you. Go on a date with me.”
“You’re insane. You’re making this up,” I said.
“No, it’s a true story. I still have bumps on my skull. Here, feel.” He takes my hand and puts it on his head.
His blond hair is soft and clean. I run my fingers along his scalp, the lumps and bumps are there. His damaged cranium fascinates me, so I set my beer down and put both hands on his head, feeling the terrain of his skull. That’s when I notice how hard my chest is thumping. That’s when I notice I really want to kiss this insane, broken stranger with his banged-up head in my hands, but I don’t.
I don’t, because I’m supposed to be afraid of this. A normal woman would be afraid of this.
“Does it hurt?”
“Nope.” He smiles and gets nose to nose with me again. “I like the way you touch my head bumps. Please go out with me.”
“I don’t know you.”
“I’m Ben. Now you know me. Please go out with me. I lived through being dragged down the road behind a car, but I don’t think I will live if you don’t go out with me.”
Before I can answer, he kisses me. Not an insane, inexperienced slobbery kind of kiss, but a love-flavored, wake up Sleeping Beauty kind of kiss.
The next night, we go to a movie. He holds my hand, smooshes his nose against mine and kisses me. Then kisses me again.
He bursts out singing at the top of his lungs in the middle of the film, and I flinch with surprise. The popcorn I’m holding, it’s gone, up in the air, then it’s raining down on us like salty, buttery confetti.
I know that sane people don’t act like this in movie theaters. Other moviegoers turn and glare, their annoyance and confusion coming at us through the dark. A sane reaction. So I start laughing. I don’t know if that’s sane or normal, but I laugh until I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating, making these mousy-squeaky noises.
Ben, he looks at me and smiles like he’s showing me a winning lottery ticket. Sane or insane. I can’t even tell. I don’t want to know. Instead of trying to figure it out, I lean over and kiss him. It’s greasy from chemicalicious butter, but it’s still an I’ll-go-anywhere-with-you kind of kiss.
That night, when we’re alone, I’m expecting quick. I’m expecting selfish grunting, thrusting, panting then snoring.
What I get is one good eye looking right into mine; interlocked fingers and whispers. This isn’t normal. I don’t know what to do, so I almost start to panic. Not screaming and ranting kind of panic, but quiet, shaking on the inside kind of panic.
When it’s over, he doesn’t say anything, he just keeps smoothing my hair away from my face with his fingers while I run mine along the lumps on his head.
“Damn… I’m shaking,” he says. “I can’t stop shaking.”
“Me either.” Before I can say anything else, he’s nose to nose with me.
“That’s because you love me too,” he says. “You do.”
“C’mon. People don’t know things like that inside a 24-hour time frame.”
“Not most people. Most people are weirdos who spend days and weeks and months or years trying to figure out things they already know. They think they have all the time in the world and that’s sad, because we don’t. We don’t.”
I move my hands along his back and his shoulders, feeling the thick, deep scars there. “Why did this happen?”
“Why did I get drug behind a car, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t very good at being a human being. But now I’ve had my brain knocked loose on the asphalt and I’m a little better at it. I love you. Let’s get married and make babies.”
The way we get married is wearing togas that we made from the bed sheets because I find myself agreeing when Ben points out how ridiculous and uncomfortable it would be to get married in a dress and a suit.
It only happens once that Ben interrupts the judge because he bursts out singing. I know this isn’t how sane people get married. Sane people waste time planning dresses and tuxes and cakes and flowers that all mean nothing.
Ben, he looks at me and smiles like we’ve successfully robbed a bank together. Sane or insane. I can’t tell. Whatever. I move toward him and kiss him in that you-may-now-kiss-the-bride kind of way, even though no one has said that yet. I put my fingers in his hair, running them along the dents and bumps, the dings and lumps. I wonder how we can tell if people are good when they have no scars or visible damage.
I’m supposed to be afraid of this, but I’m not. Strange, wounded, crazy-eyed men who introduce themselves with space-invading proclamations of love and slip into spontaneous singsong at the altar
are not normal.
I know this.
I do.
Rasmenia Massoud is from Colorado but lives in France where she spends time confusing the natives by speaking French poorly and writing about what she struggles most to understand: human beings. She is the author of the short story collection, “Human Detritus” and her writing has appeared in various places such as Girls With Insurance, The Molotov Cocktail and Metazen. She lives at http://www.rasmenia.com/, where she doesn’t take herself too seriously.