Hovering

Every girl I ever liked accused me of “hovering.” It was a fair accusation. I was. I was hovering, but there were reasons, and the reasons weren’t that Boyd was insecure and needed attention. I am insecure, but I hate attention. I hover because I need to know everything will be alright. I need to know I won’t fail in my obligations again. I need to know nothing terrible will happen—because it has before.

This has to be annoying. The most obvious response is “just because things went terribly with so-and-so doesn’t mean it will with me,” and yeah, maybe I should trust somebody if I like them, but the world is cruel, and often it’s not cruel to me; it’s cruel to the people I love. I’m not “hovering.” I’m staying close. Just in case.

My neighbor had a cousin from New York. She was so pretty. I never saw eyes that green. About all I knew about New York was that King Kong died there and sometimes Daddy went there. Let’s make up a name. Rachel. Rachel’s father was Jewish, so she was a practicing jew when she lived in New York. During the Christmas break in school, she came to Jackson to stay with her Presbyterian grandmother and be Presbyterian.

She liked to talk. She talked a lot. She knew everything about everything. Abba is cooler than the Beatles. Your clothes are ugly.

One day, she asked if she could see my closet. She went through all my things. Told me what went with what and what was just too ugly to wear. I thought that was strange. I must have been a New York thing. She never sat across from me like a normal person. She always sat next to me. and talked. and talked. Never looking at me, but never being more than inches from me.

I had a paint-by-number kit of The Phantom of the Opera. When I finished it, I tried using the paint to make one of my own without the printed lines. It didn’t turn out too bad. She said she liked it. What kind of girl likes Phantom of the Opera? This was before the musical. I suppose eventually all kinds of girls like Phantom of the Opera. As she waited for her grandmother to come and take her to the airport so she could return to New York, I ran over with the painting. “Here, take this with you.”

I’ve spent my life giving paintings to girls I thought were pretty. I’d like to do that the rest of my life, if possible. I don’t care if it is hovering.

When I got older, I began to learn that women speak in codes made of signs and implications. Very rarely were they like Katie who just said “I like you.” Most girls keep you guessing till you’re cold in the ground. Was Rachel sending me coded messages? When she came back as a teenager, she was just way too cool for me, and I think she was a bit shocked by how large I’d become. Really large fellas sometimes meet a bad end in New York.

When I started getting actual girlfriends, shit got complicated real fast. So complicated that I started not telling the current person what went wrong with the last five. Part of it, I think, was that I didn’t want anybody to think I was responsible for the terrible thing that happened. I wasn’t, but it sure felt like it.

One day, working with my psychologist, I flippantly said, “The next time somebody has a breakdown, it better be me!” IT took months to convince Doug Draper I was trying to be funny and not in any actual danger. I may have actually been in danger. When bad things happened, I didn’t let them go. I packed them inside me, packing new trauma on top of old trauma. “I’m strong. I can handle it.”

When I did start to break, it happened a little bit at a time. That way, nobody said, “Boyd, you better go to the doctor” or “we should put you in the hospital for a little while.” I got pretty good at denying there was anything wrong. Since I packed it in on top of each other, almost everyone could see only the top layer, so I guess they believed me.

There was a girl from Memphis. I wasn’t even in love with her. I just didn’t want her to be as sad as she was. I figured she didn’t deserve it. All she wanted was to make people laugh. I poured so much into that. She was so hurt, so broken, that she did some pretty terrible things. I forgave her, but I put a good bit of distance between us.

One day, I saw that she left a message on my machine. Worried that it might upset my wife, I didn’t call her back. Then she died. Maybe I should have hovered more.

The world is a fucked up place. It does fucked up things to people who don’t deserve it. I can take a beating like nobody’s business. Sometimes it helps if I put myself between somebody and the beating coming their way. Sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if I’m too far away to even try, though.

I met another girl who lived in New York. She was an actress. She was in pictures. She used to be big. It’s the pictures that got small. One day, she asked if I was married. When I said “no,” she asked if I liked girls. I guess in New York, you’re up front about these things.

“Yes, ma’am. I like girls fine.”

“How come you don’t have a girl?”

“I like girls fine. They don’t like me so much.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I dunno. I’m ugly, I guess.”

“You’re not ugly.”

“I appreciate you saying that. I don’t need a girl. I have amazing friends like you.”

I don’t think I’ll ever believe I’m not ugly. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the coded messages girls send. I paint pictures so I can give them to pretty girls. I hover. You don’t know what the world can bring. I’ve had a taste of how bad the world can be. It’ll have to go through me first. That’s just the deal.

“I