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Outside the Quotes
by Matt Muilenburg The clothespin dangled from my backpack like Cupid’s last resort after discovering he’d forgotten his quiver in the closet. I didn’t see it until after class, the clothespin’s wooden teeth biting my strap like a ravenous lover. I set the backpack on my dorm room floor, plucked off the clothespin, and read the name written on it—“David.” The “i” had been dotted with a black heart, its insides colored in with zig-zags that looked like scars, like the heart had been broken before “David” drew it. “David” hid his name in quotation marks, sketching his phone number below. There was a message on the opposite side of the clothespin, five words free of poetry, ambiguity, or constraint, a circumcised screed of solicitation capped by neither question mark nor exclamation point, but by two male symbols: “Call me if you’re interested.” I was flattered by the gesture—more than I realized at the time—but wasn’t interested in the things “David” offered, namely facial hair and a penis. Beyond that, on a much deeper level, “David’s” self-assurance unnerved me, the confidence he owned akin to that which I pretended to possess. I had dated and propositioned plenty by then with all the bravado of a freshly-dipped Achilles, but did so knowing that the biggest inconvenience I faced was one syllable in length--No. I needed neither map nor guide when I explored, but “David’s” compass didn’t allow him to navigate that way—it had a question mark-shaped needle, one which pointed at each male it came across without giving direction. “David” faced the kind of rejection I will never understand, risking not just the denial of sex, but the denial of hope. I can’t imagine what that must have been like, to be attracted to someone but not be able to express that feeling without fear of recourse, to affix my yearnings to a clothespin. I had known only acceptance, not necessarily from the girls I pursued, but from the society that forced “David” into using clothespins. I should have called "David" to let him know that my desires lied elsewhere, but I didn’t. Instead, I stood there for a moment squeezing the clothespin, its mouth opening and shutting like it was trying to tell me something, begging me to understand its pleas. I couldn’t comprehend the language, however. So I left. When I arrived in the lobby of the girls’ dorm a few minutes later, I read the same sign I had read dozens of times before, a sign that had but two decrees: (1) Stop at the front desk and (2) Call a resident to check you in. I didn’t stop though, not at the desk nor at the phone on the table by the door. I dropped the clothespin in the trash, turned the knob, and went in. Then, as was custom, I explored. |
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