A Study of the Variance in the Sexes, Conducted in a Most Unprofessional Manner

The problem with Garfield James (besides the fact that his parents thought it would be clever to give him the inverted name of an obscure 19^th century US president, even though this act, in practice, only resulted in relentless teasing and emotional abuse from the ages of 7 to 13) was that he knew next to nothing about women.  Garf, as his friends (rare though they were) called him, had a fair enough grasp of the basics, to be fair.  He knew that women were anatomically constructed in a similar fashion to men, but varying in several key features.  He knew that, societally, there were often different expectations in women’s versus men’s behavior and dress, and he was vaguely aware of the fact that a good number of women took it upon themselves to challenge said expectations.  These same women, he had had experience to prove, were also more likely to take offense to the expression of those expectations in any context not purely academic.  But understanding the “why” of women – here, Garf fell miserably, and sometimes painfully, short. 

                To illustrate the point more finely, allow me to draw your attention to October the 24^th, 1995: a Tuesday.  At approximately 12:57 pm, one would find (were one looking, and no one ever was) our specimen-in-question proceeding through the second floor hallway of Pope Clement IV Catholic High School from 5^th period Chemistry class to 6^th period French class.  Looking southwardly from, say, locker 2648, one would have quite a clear view of Garf as he turned the corner to make his way toward classroom 204, where Mrs. Eisenreich had decorated the walls with cartooned baguettes and pastries and berets, so as to better facilitate her instruction of students in the French language at the first, third, and fourth levels.  Were one gazing out from the aforementioned vantage point, one could not help but notice the pile of moving denim-and-concert-t-shirt topped by what was commonly referred to as a “bowl cut,” a hairstyle owing its name to its uncanny resemblance to a bowl placed upside down on the head.  In Garf’s case, the unfortunate manner in which his hair decided to part itself on the crown of the head lead to a different effect altogether, one that earned him the less-than-enviable nickname “ass head.”  While Garf himself was mildly buoyed by the fact that such a nickname entrenched his peers in intellectual pursuits well below the musings of his own mind, calls of “ass head” on a more-than-daily basis did leave their stings. 

                Much more intriguing to the interested observer (of which, again, there were few if any) was the face located between the neck of the “Presidents of the United States of America” t-shirt (referencing a passably popular rock band whose music was not necessarily attuned to Garf’s tastes, but whose name, in conjunction with his own, offered an opportunity to garner a measure of “cool” in the form of cleverness amongst those who would admit to being his friends) and the previously referenced “ass head” haircut.  Its features were rather standard on the whole – brown eyes, sparse sideburns, the faintest suggestion of a mustache, a healthy sprinkling of acne – but those features were aligned in that particular moment so as to imply an intensity of feeling in direct contrast to the apathy and malaise evidenced by the remainder of his person.  Following his line of sight, it would not be terribly difficult to determine the inspiration for such intensity.

                Corinne Faber-Lewis, wrapped in faded, frayed jeans, the cuffs of which just barely flirted with her blood-red Dr. Marten’s boots, and an army green tank top, tucked a chunk of her manic panicked hair behind an ear with half a dozen piercings while smiling (but trying to look like she wasn’t smiling) at Jeff DiLorenzo, who walked around all day with a guitar pick in his mouth.  And herein lay Garf’s fundamental flaw in the field of female familiarity.  While Jeff’s actions and attitudes were, to his mind, of the transparent and rather pathetic sort, it was apparent that Corinne interpreted them quite differently, and Garf could not, even after hours of contemplation each day, determine the reason for that.  He’d inspected the issue from as many angles as he could conceptualize, and repeatedly came up empty-handed.  Approaching Corinne, he slowed his pace and viewed her out of the corner of his eye, at which point he blurrily witnessed Jeff lean towards her, remove the ever-present guitar pick from his mouth, and proceed to kiss her directly on the lips. 

                Garf’s stride did not break, but our anonymous observer would have to have been temporarily blinded to not see that his heart did. 

Digression: Years later, in therapy, Garf would point to this moment as the first in which he became aware of the frequently insurmountable burden of depression that he would carry for the rest of his life.  In fact, he would admit to his therapist (and his therapist, being a rather poor therapist both in the moralistic and professional sense, would admit to many others after drinking inadvisable amounts of tequila) that it was of that moment in particular, and that woman in general, that he was thinking when he carried out his ill-fated, ill-devised, and ill-executed suicide attempt, consisting of a feet-first leap from a second-story window into a mulch bed, and a note, the text of which read,

“To whom it may concern,

I would prefer not to live.

Sincerely,

Garfield James”     

Turning away from the scene of his true love being slobbered upon by a lesser man, Garf made his way into classroom 204 and slid into an institutional-green desk chair with non-descript tan top, upon which, in ballpoint pen, were a number of inappropriate and lewd drawings depicting acts the physics of which Garf was still not entirely clear.  He lay his forehead down on the cool surface of his notebook and exhaled as if he might find peace in the bottom of his lungs.

                Raising his eyes again, Garf didn’t realize that he was following Corinne’s entrance into the room until she sat next to him and slowly turned her head in his direction, in response to the continued stare of which he was still, unfortunately, unaware.

                “Um, hello?” she said, her face displaying every possible angle intended to communicate displeasure.

                “Bonjour,” Garf replied in a voice that was barely there, and that cracked somewhere in the transference from the first syllable to the second.

                “Did you just say ‘boner’?”

                In the eruption of laughter, Garf felt himself slowly and inexorably drowning, dragged down by the weight of the knowledge that the only way he would ever get his true love to smile would be by sacrificing himself to the cult of the cheap laugh and adolescent shame.