Not That Dude

"I'm not that dude," was a troubling form of punctuation that Diane had heard Connor use on several occasions. Usually the conversation would be about some vague scheme with unclear motives, such as "I could be on the news any day of the week, but I'm not that dude." Diane never asked him to go on, would usually mutter something non-committal like "Uh-huh," or "Yeah," as a new red flag silently joined the others already residing in her brain.

Of course, this didn't stop Diane from answering his late-night texts, and it certainly didn't stop her from "dropping by" Connor's house on Brierwood Lane Friday evenings after work. She'd usually arrive at dusk, armed with a six-pack of Rolling Rock or a fifth of whatever was cheapest that week at Turnstile Liquor. Conner would open the door without saying hello, and she'd kick her shoes off just inside his front door, already anticipating the inevitable escape she'd pull off before the sun would rise on Saturday.

It was on one such Friday night that Diane pulled her blue Civic up to Connor's curb. She never parked in the driveway. She did at first, but Connor was picky about how people parked, so she started parking at the curb to avoid the topic altogether. She grabbed a plastic Turnstile sack from the passenger seat and walked across his lawn, perfectly manicured as ever despite the trademark shittiness in every other aspect of Connor's world.

That includes you, you know, she thought.

"Oh, right. I hadn't thought of that," Diane said to no one as she pressed the doorbell. Reflex caused her legs to feel as though they would carry her inside almost immediately, like the ghost of a Panama City undercurrent tugging on her ankles after a long day in the ocean.

The door stood closed. Diane pressed on the doorbell again just as she heard shouts erupt from behind her. She scanned the neighborhood and saw Connor across the street, struggling to stand in the front lawn of the house that faced his own. His shirt was ripped at the collar and there was a bloody spot near one of his eyebrows. Connor was yelling at a man that Diane had seen before, a neighbor, though not one that lived in the house across the street.

The man stood tall and shirtless from the front porch. Connor attempted to walk up the porch stairs, maybe to go back inside the house, and the neighbor effortlessly shoved him back. This caused Connor to careen backward off the porch and land on his shoulder with a thud on the grass. Diane gasped, though it was obvious that the push wasn't the first of it. Through the house's open front door, she saw pieces of broken glass glint up from the carpeted floor inside.

It took a few attempts, but Connor eventually picked himself up and staggered away from the house across the street, back toward his own place. He shot his middle finger upward as he walked, which almost caused him to trip on the curb. The man watched him get as far as the street then went back inside. Before the door closed, Diane saw a woman hand the tall man a beer and smack him on the ass. It sounded like they were listening to disco music over there.

Connor continued across the street and noticed Diane's car before he noticed Diane. He leaned against it and pulled a flattened pack of cigarettes from his jeans. Diane walked to him. Connor put one in his mouth and fished around for a lighter somewhere on his body, but couldn't seem to find one. His eyes, glassy and bloodshot, crawled up Diane's body and found her face.

"Got a light?" he muttered. Diane wasn't sure if he was drunk or on something, but it was definitely one of the two. Probably both.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked him.

He sighed and put the bent cigarette behind his ear.

"Who was that guy?" she continued. "Are you in trouble?"

"Don't worry about it, 'kay? Just some stuff." He grabbed Diane's hand and began to pull her with him as he started toward his front door. "C'mon," he said. "You know I'm not that dude."

Diane jerked her hand away from his and stood her ground on his lawn, waiting for a real explanation. Connor slowly turned to look at her. The blood was now rolling from his brow down to his cheek and he looked tired, but nothing in his eyes seemed to register that something was wrong. He shrugged and stumbled into his house. After a moment, Diane plucked the plastic Turnstile bag from Connor's perfect lawn and joined him inside.

Several hours later, she was back in her blue Civic, pulling it away from the curb and down Brierwood Lane. It was time for Diane to be home, not for any reason other than that's where she wanted to be.

Diane didn't live far from Connor, only a five minute drive from his house to her apartment on Ash Street. It was exclusively within the span of that distance on these dark, early Saturday morning drives that Diane would wonder what Connor considered their relationship to be, or if he considered what they had to be a relationship at all. For her part, she tried to not think of it in those terms, though she recognized that wondering was usually the first step.

If she really had to admit it, either to herself or to anybody else on the planet that wanted to know, she hoped Connor wasn't that dude.