Our Story

[Raff]

This is the original excerpt from my journal. I wrote it a few months ago.

 

[ My Mom had a real sense of humor. She did. She had the audacity to name me Raphael. I am not Hispanic. It has always been my name I guess, and in a way it suits me, but I still can’t help but to think she was a little cruel in that decision.

The only relevance that has to this entry is this: I wanted you to know this because most people call me Raff. But one girl, Lily, called me Raffy once.

Lily is really cute, the different kind of cute if you know what I mean. She has a short black bob with short little bangs, like a twenties flapper. Her eyes are so blue, not just blue like blue eyes, but the clearest shade of blue that you could ever imagine. They are always wide with wonder of this strange new world she is discovering through her newfound womanhood. Lily’s skin is her biggest asset. Her parents must have foreseen their daughter’s future appearance, because Lily is the perfect word to describe her. Lily white skin, no flaws or imperfections. She reminds me of the moon, glowing white. Prior to her I was never particularly attracted to fair-skinned girls, but Lily has a glow about her like a beacon in the night.

That is what initially attracted me to her; her unique beauty. But as I came to know her more, I learned that she was also quirky, and very unconventional. She is the kind of girl that laughs at jokes only she gets. Her brand of humor was original. A real turn on for me.

I have done all of this rambling about Lily, and you are probably wondering why. Is she my girlfriend? Wife? Friend?

About two years ago I started playing guitar for the church worship band. I’m not particularly the religious type, but I do believe in God and I’m not exactly bad at playing guitar. Also, the church was desperate for a guitarist that they provided a healthy amount of compensation. It was a really comfortable agreement. After a few months had gone by, the people of the church really grew on me.

So, the pastor’s brother moved here from another state and brought his family with him. They too became involved in the church. He had five children, and one of them was Lily. She was very quiet when I first met her. The pastor had introduced them all to the band, and when she came to shake my hand, she cracked a smile and uttered a quiet “hello.” She only looked me in the eye for a split second before her eyes flickered down to her red sneakers. She was sixteen, and significantly cute. The funny thing about that is that I am significantly older than her. Not just a few years, several. So, feeling ashamed about my thoughts, I ignored her for a while. But she always seemed to appear everywhere I went after that. On Tuesday practices, she would come along and sit in a corner tapping her toes to the music. She never approached me. On Sundays she would sit close to the stage and watch us intently.

On a Sunday, it was just getting to be Spring I remember, I was packing away my equipment, and she sat there in the front row of the empty church watching the musicians. I felt an uncontrollable urge to go talk to her. So when I was sure my Ibanez was secure in its case, I went and sat next to her. I don’t recall our conversation verbatim, but my first words were, “You play?” She shyly smiled and shrugged. She said she was more of a poet but she played piano and a little bit of guitar. I was intrigued. “Yeah? Who do you listen to?”

“Aside from Bach, Beethoven and Chopin?” She giggled. “Someone of your skill probably will laugh at me, but I like the White Stripes… and my second favorite are the Violent Femmes.”

“I really respect Jack. He has a lot of skill but uses discretion with it. Most great guitarists just want to show off. Not Jack. I really love the Stripes, severely.” If you could have seen her eyes light up when I said that.

That went on to be a long conversation about the The Beatles, everything White Stripes, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, everything. She had barely scratched the surface of the music that I loved, but for a girl of her age she was considerably knowledgeable.

We talked every time we saw each other after that. She would ride her bike down to the music shop where I gave guitar lessons and buy strings and say hello. She would swap CD’s with me. I had to learn about underground bands like Blanche and The Muldoons in exchange for her learning about musicians like Cream and Stevie Ray Vaughn. It was interesting and fun.

We were professional about our friendship. I honestly believe that she was oblivious to my little crush on her. She was just impressed by my musical abilities, and looking for a friend in the world. She had just moved from her life-long home, and she didn’t know anybody. So I was there for her. Who could question that? I did start to worry though that people would get the wrong idea. A man of my age befriending a sixteen year old girl isn’t exactly a welcoming concept. I kept just enough distance so that people wouldn’t say anything.

But she intrigued me more when I saw her in the front row at church with a little journal, scribbling away. I asked her what she was working on. She was writing a poem! It was the most beautiful little poem that I’ve ever read. It was deep and introspective, yet vivacious and lyrical. I am not such a bad poet myself. I discreetly decided to try and woo her with my rhymes. Silly me. She loved my poetry. Little did she know most of my poems were about her. I have never seen a girl more enthusiastic about literature. She was a reading fanatic as well. The books that she had read at her age amazed me. More amazing was her comprehension of them.

Sadly but inevitably, the time came when the church could no longer afford me. It was a major bummer. I would have continued playing, but I wasn’t financially in a position to invest that much time unless I was getting paid. I went back to my solo act. I played at local coffee houses and places where I could recoup in tips. I did what I could to invite Lily, but she seemed to take it hard when I left the church. I’m not sure if she was mad at me or what, but suddenly she didn’t visit me at the shop or send me adorable little rhyming texts. I was bummed, but there really wasn’t anything I could do about it.

The whole thing just depressed me. I felt so ashamed of my feelings towards the kid, but I couldn’t seem to rid myself of it. I recall listening to the “I want you” by The Beatles repeatedly because that was exactly how I felt. It was insane because once I had left the church I didn’t have a legitimate excuse to see her anymore. I couldn’t get rid of her face. I went through a faze of whiskey, cigarettes, and late night poetry writing. It was like death. I wanted time to just go by, so that I could forget about her, but time went by agonizingly slow. I thought the whiskey would make me feel better, but I just ended up lying on the living-room floor staring at the ceiling-fan, thinking about Lily. I felt so alone because I hadn’t told anybody about her because of the substantial age difference and thereforee couldn’t spew my anguish. I was a wreck. Unshaven and dirty. The guys at work gave me a hard time saying, “Dude, you look like you just got dumped.” I felt like it too.

After about two months of this nonsense I started dating this girl named Christy. She was a real pretty girl. She was very intelligent too. She was a high-school teacher, about my age. While I thoroughly enjoyed her company, I didn’t feel satisfied. It was like trying to feed a smoking addiction with some other whimsical habit. I mean, if you weren’t a smoker it would be a totally awesome habit, but you just couldn’t replace it with smoking. I stuck with her because I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to dump her. That was a really big mistake. She tried to come into my apartment, real tipsy like and tried to seduce me. Well I had to send her home in a cab, long story short. I felt almost disgusted by her forwardness. I ended up breaking up with her. She didn’t really understand, but I made it worse by saying, “It’s not you, it’s me.” I have the worst luck when it comes to women.

One night, in a drunken tantrum, I made a promise to myself that if I didn’t see Lily again I would shoot myself. So, for the sake of my sanity and the fate of my eternal soul, I decided to start attending church again.

My heart fluttered with excitement upon seeing her up in the front row, scanning the stage and the instruments. Her black hair was curly on that day. I think she has naturally curly hair. Anyway, I wanted to surprise her, so I sat in the row directly behind her and took a seat. I sat there in silence staring at the back of her head for a whole five minutes. I had arrived early, so service wasn’t going to start for about fifteen minutes. I finally summoned the courage to put my hand on her shoulder and say, “Long time no see.”

(Again, I can’t recall what was said verbatim, but this is pretty close.)

She turned around and looked at me with her doe-eyes. At first there wasn’t a trace of happiness, but eventually those perfect little red lips curved to form a grin.

“Where have you been?” She said softly.

“Busy.” I tried to be aloof. Someone somewhere said that a mysterious man is a sexy man. I don’t know if that is true, but I thought it was worth a try. “Where have you been?”

“Where do you think?” She was somehow different, but good different. She was funny in a caustic way. “Look, you’d be so proud of me,” she began. “I have a gig next Saturday at a coffee shop!”

I was excited for her. I wanted to go.

I did go. I fell in love with her music. She wasn’t incredibly skillful at guitar, it’s true, but she was good enough to win over my heart with poetic and captivating lyrics to her original songs. While she played, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her voice is indescribable. It is unique like Jewel, but rough when she wants it to be and sweet when she wants it to be. It sounded delicious. The girl has real talent. I wanted her so bad. She was like a drug. After the gig, I couldn’t help myself. I gave her a hug and a friendly peck on the lips. Her reaction was a mix between excitement and embarrassment. Her family was unable to attend so there was nobody there to judge me. I played it with sangfroid, like the kiss didn’t mean anything. She was distant for a few minutes, but then played it off as if it hadn’t happened at all.

It was really great after that. She didn’t even seem mad at me for leaving so suddenly before. Things went back to normal. She came to see me at work daily and texted me her cute little rhyming texts. Life was like that with her for a while. I would see her at church and at work. We exchanged CDs and talked music as usual. In order to avoid being called pedophile, or freak, or any other of those names associated with our delicate situation, I chose not to do anything stupid. The night of her gig was pretty foolish, but it was a small incident. I suppose I was just happy to be with her, and that was enough to satisfy me.

Things were fantastic between the two of us. That is until little miss blue-eyes went and got herself a boy-friend. He was a smart ass. I really didn’t like him. He too was a musician, but the kind of musician with his head so far up his ass it was unreal. For example, he was the type that claimed to love rock n’ roll as if he was a born to be a rock star, but backed up the claim with bands like Green Day and Metallica, and then some little European Goth bands. No offense to Green Day or Metallica, because I love both of those bands, but that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of rock music. The kid was obviously a phony. You should have seen this kid too. He had black hair with little bleached highlights precisely styled to look like a little punk. He wore Freddy Mercury tight white pants and Rolling Stones t-shirts and such. Yet when asked his opinion about a Stones song, he would say, “Sorry, don’t know that one.” Lily would blush and scratch her head in the cutest little Lily fashion. He pissed me off. Not just because he was dating Lily... well, partially, but the kid was so annoying. She brought him around too much for my liking. He came to the store with her, and played our Gibson acoustics and Taylors. My boss was getting frustrated with me because somehow he was “my company”. The kid couldn’t play if his life depended on it. He butchered “Seven Nation Army” but barely pulled of “Brain Stew”. The * * * * * * * insisted Seven Nation Army was played on a bass. No way. Even Lily told him to shut up about it. She was adorable. She said something like, “Sweetie, Jack plays it on his Kay hollow-body and uses an effects pedal to make it sound like it’s an octave lower. He doesn’t play it on bass.”

Lily was disappointed when I had to ask him to leave the store under direct orders from management. I wasn’t exactly stoked either because she left with him. I was willing to tolerate him just as long as I got to see her.

I will never forget going to church on a beautiful Sunday morning in the Fall, and witnessing this most horrific event. I had to use the restroom, but the front restrooms were always too crowded, so I went to the back church offices to use the staff restrooms, and saw the kid with his filthy hands all over Lily, as they were making out. They didn’t see me, but I had to stop it.

“HEY!” I shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

The kid almost * * * * his pants. You should have seen his face. I’m not a small man. I’m six feet, three inches tall, and this kid was only a little taller than Lily, who was perfectly the height that a lady should be. Lily looked down at her red sneakers and tucked her hair behind her ear. She blushed immensely. The kid took off down the hall then Lily broke down. A tear rolled down her blushing cheek.

“Lily?” I was unsure of what to do. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t tell my dad. He’ll kill me.” Her voice was shaky. She was struggling not to start bawling.

I got down on my knees and took her hands. “Sweetheart,” I began. “I’m sorry if I startled you. It’s just, you startled me and that was my immediate reaction. Really, it’s very natural for a girl your age to… um…” I started to feel uncomfortable. Open mouth, insert foot.

To my relief, she laughed and sniffled. “I’m so embarrassed. I want you to know I’m not like this. I never do this. I’ve never done this”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I didn’t see anything.” I smiled to try and comfort her.

She wrapped her lovely little arms around me and gave me a warm hug. We were so close. For that split second I got such a rush from her body being next to mine. I was close enough to smell her sweet perfume. I don’t know what perfume she wears but it drives me bananas. “Thanks.” She whispered.

I was so amazed by the fact that she cried from the embarrassment. It made me want her even more.

She kept the punk boyfriend around. I will never understand her judgment, but she was kind about it after the little incident. She didn’t bring him to my store anymore. He came with her to church sometimes, but he stayed clear of me. It’s a good thing. I wanted to bash the little bastard’s head in. I know, I need a therapist.

We kept our normal contact for the next few months.

I was terrifically surprised to receive a two AM phone-call from her on a Friday night. It is still a vivid memory that I don’t want to forget. I was sleeping, when my cell phone starts ringing from my dresser. The dim light from my phone made an eerie shadow on ceiling from being underneath my lamp. It took me a minute to realize what was happening. I lethargically rolled over and snatched my phone. I was really pissed until I saw that it was her. I caught her on the third ring.

She was crying violently. I could hear shouting in the background.

“Go! Get away!” she would sob. My heart jumped. A thousand questions jolted through my head in torrents. Was she being robbed, raped, mugged? What was happening? Is she okay?

“Lily? What’s going on Lily? Talk to me sweetheart.” I tried to stay calm, even though I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck raising.

“It’s just…” her voice was weak. “I feel horrible for calling you, but I need a ride.”

“Of course, and don’t feel bad at all. Where are you? Is everything okay?”

“No. Just hurry.” She told me she was at a party. She told me where it was and emphasized for me to hurry.

I quickly got dressed and hurried to go find her. I didn’t have any trouble finding the place. Once I pulled onto the street you could see it was littered with cars. Lights and noise came from a somber looking home at the end of the street. I could see Lily standing there with her fluffy hoodie up, head down, arms crossed. She was dressed drastically different. She wore black fish-net tights and a plaid mini-skirt. She must have been freezing. I pulled up and honked.

She lifted her head and peeked at me from under her hood. She immediately began running to my truck. She got in without hesitation. “Her face was blotchy from crying.

“Do I get an explanation?” It looks like a rude thing to say but trust me, I said it nicely.

“I should have never dated him.” She shook her head.

“AH. I see.”

“He tried to…”she put her face in her little white hands and started sobbing.

I started driving. This girl needed to go home. She was shaken up pretty badly. Half of me wanted to kill the punky boyfriend, but the better half wanted to make sure Lily was okay.

“Did he hurt you Lily? “

“No, but I was really scared he was going to. If I hadn’t called you he probably would have.” She has such a beautiful cry. Not an ugly cry like most girls. Lily’s cry is soothing. “Where are you taking me?”

“Home.”

“Please, I know I am already imposing, but can we wait a little bit, I need to clear my head. And anyway, I smell like tequila.” She cracked a smile. She did smell like tequila. And by the way she was talking she was obviously somewhat intoxicated.

I sighed. I was weak. “You want to go see a movie?”

“Is there anyplace that shows movies this late?” Her cry was fading. She was left with the sniffles now.

“When you’re as old as I am, you know about places. Ever heard of the dollar theater?” I was proud of how cool I sounded.

“Oh… yeah. I’ve never been though.”

 

That night was magnificent. It was like a dream and I couldn’t even believe it really happened. It was like being trapped in one of those little snow-globes; our own little bubble of escape from reality - glitter dancing up in the air around us. Pure magic and ecstasy. I took her to go see a comedy. She leaned on my shoulder the entire movie and even locked arms with me. She laughed at all the right parts. I gave her my jacket because her legs were cold. By the time the movie was over it was early in the morning and she was pouting about going home. I caved. I really did. I told her she could stay with me only for a few hours to get some rest. Her parents were under the impression that she was at a friend’s house – a notion that wasn’t completely untrue. We got to my place and she was really cute about it. I’m not the most organized person, and my apartment isn’t the cleanest. She giggled at my mess. I scrambled to pick up my crap, including stories and poems I had written about her. Man that would have been embarrassing if she saw any of those. She needed something to sleep in so I gave her a pair of my boxers and a t-shirt. She looked so adorable. I gave her my bed to sleep in. She crashed within minutes. As she laid there on my bed, curled up in a ball, my heart just soared. It was an indescribably feeling. She was so perfect, even when she was half drunk and past out in boxers and a t-shirt. I kissed her on the fore-head and turned out the lights.

 

The next morning, I woke up at ten, and did some more cleaning. She seemed to sleep forever. I made her some coffee, the only remedy I could think to concoct for the hangover she probably had. When she finally awoke, she was really confused. She knew where she was, but I think she was a little startled in her soberness. She sat down and drank the coffee quickly. She relaxed a little after that but then continually thanked me and apologized. I just kept saying “No problem.” That was a lie. Man if anybody found out about this, I thought to myself. I made her promise not to tell anybody. She was cool with it. Who would she tell anyway? I just prayed nobody would find out.

She had to go home, so I brought her home. I talked to her on the ride home about what happened at the party and she insisted that no harm had been done. The sweet girl kissed me on the cheek when she was getting out of the car. She hugged me. “Thanks Raffy,” She said.

 

She came into my store everyday after that until she turned seventeen. She eventually started dating another kid I didn’t approve of. They were really sweet together though. It was hard for me to be upset about it when she was so happy. She started coming to my store less and less until it was maybe once every couple of months she stopped in for strings. She still texted me cute little rhymes every now and then.

 

I am writing this because I just received a text from her saying that she is engaged to be married. I don’t really know the guy, but he sure is lucky. She is nineteen now, and as cute as she was then. I see her at church. I feel so depressed about it because she is the only girl I’ve ever felt passionately about. I had to write about this because aside from my fantasy poems, I have never written the exact events of our relationship, if you can call it that.

It’s probably for the best. I know I have a special place in her heart, and you can see in her eyes that she knows I love her. The thing is, people wouldn’t understand it if we were together. My questions are: Is it too late to do anything? Did I ever have a chance? Am I crazy (was this all a figment of my imagination)? Does the world watch me and laugh? Was the idea that I loved her just an illusion? Do you think she ever considered being with me? Am I too passive? Too obsessive?

So many questions are bogging me down right now. I feel sick to my stomach. Well, it’s been a rough night. I’d better go to sleep.]