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He kisses my cheek chastely and looks back at the screen, but he seems off. Fidgety and tense. Did I offend him?
I’m still wondering when the movie ends. The end is actually really beautiful, with the sounds of a riot at a zoo and the only thing on the screen a puzzled ostrich’s head bobbing back and forth seeking out the sound.
As we walk out, I cast a look at Rex. He doesn’t look mad, I don’t think, but he’s got his fists jammed in his pockets and he’s staring at his shoes.
“Weird movie, huh?” I say stupidly as I start the car.
“Yeah. So,” Rex says as if to change the subject, “ready to learn how to bake?”
“Sure. What are we making?”
“Do you like gingerbread?”
“Yeah, I love it.”
“Great.”
He sounds cheerful, but his knee is bouncing and he’s holding on to the seat with both hands. I’m not that bad a driver, I don’t think. Although, I’ve never driven with him before, only ridden in his car, so maybe this is how he always is as a passenger.
“I googled the director before the movie,” I say. “I didn’t realize he was the one who made this famous short movie with Salvador Dalí in 1929. The one where they cut open a woman’s eyeball?”
Rex doesn’t say anything and I find myself rambling on in the silence of the car.
“I loved the end. And the thing about the inversion of consumption and evacuation at the dinner scene was really interesting. I mean, that’s culture, right? Just a set of customs that tell us it’s polite to shove food into our faces in front of each other but not polite to take a shit. And it could just as easily go the other way, like in the movie. It makes total sense, you know? Like, what’s so special about the things we hide away anyway? Would they become unimportant if we just did them out in the open? And vice versa the things we think are fine. It doesn’t actually take that much for something to become taboo. Or, at least for us to stigmatize things and give people total complexes about them.”
I trail off as we pull into Rex’s driveway. Rex unlocks the door and as we walk inside, he sighs.
“You hated it, right?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Well, then what did you think.”
“It was interesting,” he says vaguely.
“Okay….”
He crouches down and pets Marilyn, who trotted over when we walked in.
“Okay,” I try again. “Well, I’m sorry if you didn’t like it.”
“I liked it fine,” Rex says, standing. He definitely sounds mad now. “I just don’t have a thesis about it to tell you, okay? I don’t have a clever theory to share or anything. All right?”
Where the fuck did that come from? Jesus, I must have sounded like a total pretentious asshole in the car to have pissed him off that much. That’s the problem with nervous rambling. People think you’re attached to the things you say rather than talking out of your ass.
“Jesus,” I say, putting my hands up. “I just meant that you didn’t have to pretend to like it if you didn’t. I was just trying to do something you’d like. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
Rex doesn’t say anything.
“Oh, right,” I continue. “There are no rules. Well, that’s fine for you. It’s really easy to throw the rules out if you already know them. But I don’t. Anyway, if you hated it, it’s fine, but you don’t have to be such an asshole about it.”
“All I meant—”
“Oh, I know what you meant! You think I’m being the pretentious professor who thinks he’s so fucking smart. Well, screw you. That’s not what I think.”
“You don’t actually know everything that I’m thinking, Daniel,” Rex says, his voice scary. “You can’t read minds! I know you think that you can just look at everyone in this town and know what they think about you or about politics. But you can’t.”
“I don’t think that!” I say, furious and frustrated. “I’ve never said that. Is that what you fucking think of me? That I think I’m smarter than everyone else? That I think I know everything? Because if that’s what you think you had better say so right now.”
Rex says nothing, the look on his face unreadable.
I storm into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine from the bottle on the counter. Am I supposed to leave now? Is that what you do when you have a fight with someone who you can’t hit? Fuck! There’s another rule that doesn’t exist, I guess. So, then, how am I supposed to know what to do?
Rex comes into the kitchen.
“I don’t think that,” I say to him again, leaning on my elbows on the counter. How can I make him understand? This is what people always think. My brothers, my father. That I think I’m better than everyone just because I went to grad school. But it isn’t what I think. I just like talking about books and movies. And I notice when people look askance at me for it. That’s all.
