Just Vibe.

“The nerve in this guy…” He muttered under his breath. “If I’ve ever seen anybody with some nerve, it’s this damn guy.”

“Honestly man, I don’t see what your problem is with him.”

“You don’t - HA. You don’t see what my problem is? Just look at him. Look at the way he’s sitting, drinking from that god-damned glass. Just look at him, look!”

I looked. He wasn’t much to look at, really. He had a very plain face, as though most of his features had gotten poorly blended by a cheap eraser, and he was left with nothing but two eyes, a thin mouth, and a normal nose. He was the plainest person I’ve ever seen. I voiced this to El.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, brother.” I said. “Plain people hook up with plain people all the time. They are the only proper combination. You can’t have somebody that’s really special and put them next to someone that’s got nothing to them. It’s like trying to compare a blank canvas to… I don’t know, Mona Lisa. Oh - or a Gustav Klimt painting.” El looked just about ready to kill me. He rolled his eyes and fiddled with his pinky ring.

“You know damn well that she was anything but plain. She was the single most interesting and amazing person I’ve ever met. I don’t, I really don’t think anybody will ever top her.”

“El, she was only special because of you.” I took a sip of my beer. “You’ve got the Jesus Christ Complex, my friend. You can’t save every wreck of a human there is.” El immediately jumped to her defence.

“She wasn’t-” But he stopped himself. She was.

We sat there for a few minutes, looking at the guy. We had both gotten the chance of meeting him one night, at a get-together that Ada had brought us to, not too long before she slept with him. He was pretty hard-working. He was also an alcoholic. El on the other hand, well, my friend never was much of a drinker. In fact, it was that very night at this guy’s house, that El gave in to drinking for the first time in a very long time. And he drank, and confessed his love to everybody there, and confessed his love to everything the world had to offer, and confessed his love to God. And then he threw it all up. He threw up until his vomit was red-coloured.

Ada and I took good care of him. I think it was that night that Ada really proved how much she loved El - seeing him at such a low point. Never before had I seen alcohol turn a man into a helpless infant right before my eyes. All he wanted to do was love those around him - sure, an alcohol-fuelled love, but love nonetheless. And yet, it was in those moments, when El proved the weakest, that Ada herself revealed her true colours. She always looked up to him, I’d like to think. I mean, it was El that, in one way or another, was always there for Ada when she needed help - even with the smallest things.

Yet the fundamental difference between El and Ada laid in the fact that seeing Ada at her weakest point, brought out the best in El. Seeing El at his weakest point, brought out the worst in Ada.

I think that that night, Ada had the sudden realization that El was not as flawless and sturdy as she perceived him to be. Having realized that, she suddenly became uninterested, and began to perceive even the most imperfect, uninteresting people like the man at the bar, as being perfect. If not perfect, better [than El.] And as thus, somebody who has grown up with a very distorted notion of love, will likewise love in a very distorted way - as Ada did.

El does not, and I cannot stress this enough, he does not drink. Before that night, he had only been drunk about two times in his life, that I know of. What I mean by that is he will gladly enjoy a glass of wine with some good people around, but by his second glass, he begins to feel odd, as he put it.

“It’s a matter of pride.” El said. “I don’t drink, not because I can’t - hell, my great grandfather was the village drunk. I know damn well that I can drink. It’s in my genes. But it seems that although alcohol seems to bring out the most loving qualities in me, it brings out the most terrible attributes in others for some reason. I mean Ada says she was…”

“It’s a poor fuckin’ excuse for what she did, El.” I said. “Getting drunk doesn’t change your intentions, it doesn’t make you better or worse. It just amplifies what you already are.” I drank. “As does money, phew.”

“Well look at you getting all wise.” El said. “What is that, your third pint? Are you some kind of philosopher in reality, if this is just an amplification of it?”

“Have you ever realized that all humans can be characterized by a single word? I mean it varies from person to person, it varies greatly - but we can all be summed up with one word.” I said. I was feeling smart.

“What am I?” El asked.

“You, my friend… You’re a lover. Everything you do, you do out of love. You’re like powdered sugar. Even the things you hate, you hate them out of love for other things.”

“Well, I hate Ada.” He said.

“You wish you did, El. I wish you did too. But you don’t, and you know that damn well. If you hated her, we wouldn’t be sitting here, looking at this guy. We wouldn’t even be in a bar. Hell, you hate bars. We should be having coffee at The Nickel right now.”

“I’m never going back to The Nickel.” He said. “Ada’s ruined everything for me - everything in this town. It’s fucking cursed, I tell you. I look at the sidewalk and see flashes of her and I walking hand-in-hand. I try going to The Nickel and every sip of coffee I have there tastes like her fucking lips. I can’t even drive in my own car anymore. Why do you think I’m selling it? You know I don’t care so much for a convertible.”

“See?” I said. “Lover. Don’t worry, you’re damned, but not forever. You’ll be fine. And besides, you’ve got me!” I smiled and lifted my pint.

“What are you, then?” El asked.

“I’d like to think I’m somewhat wise.” I responded. “I like to dumb myself down depending on the people I’m with though, to see how quick they are to take advantage of that. It’s a little trick my dad’s taught me.”

“Go on, bust your own balls.” El said, laughing.

“Hey, I’m not bragging. You asked me, what do you think?”

“I think you’re consistent.” He said. “Through everything that’s happened, everything I’ve felt, and all that… You’ve been consistent with me.”

“Well, that’s because I love you.” I said. “Being consistent in the life of someone you love comes very easily. Being consistent in your own life, however… That’s a much harder feat. I don’t even think I brushed my teeth today.”

“Maybe you are wise.” El said. “Hey, what do you think Ada is?” He asked.

Ada was a girl with many qualities. I noticed this from the day El introduced her to me. She was very attractive, physically speaking, but I could see why El was deeply attracted to her - she challenged him. Not only was she smart, but her genius, her beliefs, her upbringing, went against everything El knew. To him, she was a treasure that nobody had discovered. A tree of gold in the middle of a forest scorched by flames.

However, I was surprised to find that El’s parents hated her, and I never could put my finger on why. Boasting this way of my wisdom, and feeling ever superior as I did back then, I was inclined to believe that his mother was simply jealous of Ada. Her features stiffened at the sight of the framed picture of the two of them, in El’s room. Ada held El as though there was nobody else for her in the whole wide world. As though El was wholly hers. He was.

His father on the other hand, well, when I asked him about it after going over to El’s place, he simply said “She just looks so plain… Like flour. Soft, dry, tasteless. My boy can do better.”

“Ada is plain.” I said. It was how our conversation had started. “She’s like flour.”

“Flour makes bread.” El retorted.

“Flour alone can’t make shit. Sugar by itself is still sweet. Flour is useless. Its whole existence is defined by the things it becomes combined with.”

“Huh.” El said. “I mean I don’t know that I’d call Ada that.”

“She broke your heart, El.”

“Yeah, but I still don’t know that I’d call her that. She was more like… like water, you know?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, water is still tasteless.” He said. “Odourless, colourless. But it gives life. You know, where things need to grow, you just… pour a little bit of water.”

“That girl - Jesus, dude. That girl was literally a magnet for bad luck. Name one good thing that’s ever happened while you were with her. Go on.”

“She won the jackpot at the arcades this one time.”

“Yeah, and it was such a big deal to you that you went on and on about it for weeks. Anything else?”

“We saw a UFO. And we were not even together back then.”

“You saw an airplane, El.”

“Hey, fuck you man!” El raised his voice a little too loud. The conversations in the bar dimmed down for a few seconds. “I know what I saw, alright?” He said, under his breath now. “She was the only one that ever believed me because she was the only one there. Had I been alone, I’d probably have forgotten about it by now.”

“So it’s that then. The jackpot and the UFO.” I said.

“Well -” he paused. “How many people can say that they’ve seen a UFO with someone they love?”

“Whatever you saw, was purely circumstantial, El. It wasn’t a sign from God, it wasn’t any of the things you imagined. It was just chance.”

“Can we be quiet for a second?” He asked. I nodded. I watched El’s eyes drift over to the guy again. He was burning with hatred for that man. Yet, even El, in all his clouded thoughts, knew that he couldn’t blame him for something that was Ada’s fault. He had chosen to trust her, and she had chosen to break his trust.

“Listen, there’s no point in being insecure.” He explained to me a few months ago. “If someone is going to cheat, they’re going to do it whether you stress about it or not. Stressing out won’t alter the circumstances. Why not just vibe?”

“Just - Vibe.” Those words rang in my ears whenever I found myself losing control. Words lacking in any kind of logic, science, belief, wisdom, lacking in advice, really. It had always been El’s answer to everything. It was the main lesson that he preached, what his many analogies and sermons came down to, like branches from a tree, all joining with the same trunk.

Ada had helped El become a much better giver of advice. Ada never did listen to the advice he would offer, but it was practice nevertheless. Seeing as there were constant problems, El could constantly learn what to say and do; depending on the situation. A magnet for bad luck, I’m telling you.

“Would you like me to run you over everything bad that’s happened since you started seeing her?” I asked.

“I would like you to shut the fuck up for a few more minutes.” El responded. Point taken.

I suppose I could have tried putting myself in El’s shoes, and tried to see what he saw in Ada. But from an outsider’s perspective, it simply made no sense. El was infinitely better than her, and yet it was her that held all the power.

Being able to manipulate knowledge is a strength. Being able to manipulate people that hold the knowledge, is a superpower. It’s what Ada did to poor El - and he was wrapped around her finger for so, so long, that his identity became reliant on hers. Her flour had engulfed his sugar, and there was no longer any sweetness - just a great mound of white powder with a cocaine-like feel and effect.

The guy got up to leave. El got up at the same time, and I grabbed his shoulder.

“What are you doing? Sit down.” I told him.

“I just want to talk to him.” El said.

“There’s nothing to talk to him about, El. He did nothing wrong, he’s not your friend, he owes you nothing.” I said.

“He knew me and he still fucked her. And I bet you anything it was more than once too.”

“So what?" I said. "You knew Ethan when Ada kissed you that night. You knew him a whole lot better than this bastard knew you, and you still did that to him, when Ada was technically seeing him. The ground rule is that if a person leaves somebody else for you, they will eventually leave you for somebody else. Women turn men into beasts, El. This guy owes you nothing.”

“The motherf-” El bowed his head and sat back down. The guy had left.

“You’re directing your anger at the wrong person, El.” I said.

“I don’t want to hurt Ada.”

“Good, and you shouldn’t. You’re a lover, alright? You need to find someplace to direct your anger, and get rid of all of that. And then there’s gonna be waves of sadness, and you need to get rid of those too. And you’ll doubt yourself, and write her a new letter everyday, and never send them, and you’ll suffer. But in the end, you’ll learn how to vibe again. Just vibe.” I said.

“It’s not that easy.” El said.

“You’ll live.” I raised my thumb and my pinky, and shook my hand a bit. “Just vibe.” I said.

“Just vibe.” He responded with a smile.

He finished the rest of his pint, and we left.