Usually, Norma ate pizza on Friday nights.
But it wasn’t the norm that she ate it in a car, as she was doing now, next to
her friend Beatrice. Bea had convinced her to do some spying, as she thought
her boyfriend was actually not in a “football party” with his buds, but with
another women. She was sure of it and had been nagging Norma about it for at
least two weeks. So she finally came up with the idea of following him all
around town if it was necessary in order to know what was the truth. Norma had only
convinced her to take a tomato and cheese pizza with them and at least let her
hear some music from time to time. She loved Bea and would never leave her
alone but Friday nights were sacred, no matter if it was pizza in bed or
partying till dawn.
Anyway, they parked outside his house and
followed him once he got out of there. He took the bus a few blocks away from
his home and then they had to follow the bus, which was the most annoying thing
ever as it had stops every two blocks and apparently the route was very long.
Bea just kept saying she didn’t know any friends of her boyfriend that lived
around there, but Norma didn’t really pay attention. She just enjoyed her pizza
and the fact that she had found a really good radio station, with every song being
amazing. When the boyfriend got off the bus, they followed him for four blocks
until he entered a building and there was no way to seeing him for some time.
Bea decided to call him right then.
Norma, bored out of her mind, look around the
neighborhood. It wasn’t the nicest place on Earth but it wasn’t too bad to be
honest. There were some people walking around, mainly couples, possibly walking
to the subway or the bus stop in order to get downtown, where most of the clubs
and party places where. Norma didn’t really like to go to clubs unless she was
feeling really depressed or something. Otherwise, it was too loud and too
“happy” for her. Then, she saw a man sitting on a bench, a few meters behind
them, talking to himself pointing at things that weren’t there and looking very
worried about something. The guy was actually rather young and not ugly at all.
Bea scared Norma with her elbow, trying to get
her attention. Her boyfriend had told her he was at his friend’s house and that
the game was about to start. She was holding her cellphone very tightly and
asked Norma to look for games that were happening that night. She needed to
know if that part was a lie or not. Norma complied but, once in a while, she
looked outside to the man talking to himself. After not finding anything about
a game, she told Bea she was thirsty because of all the slices of pizza she had
eaten so she needed to get to a supermarket or something. Bea looked at her
with annoyance but Norma told her she had seen a store a few blocks back so she
could go in a second.
After stepping out of the car, Norma felt the
night was warm and just perfect. Summer wasn’t in yet but it could be felt in
the air. She walked slowly, having no urgency to get back to the car. She
passed by the man talking to himself and stopped right there for a moment,
hoping to hear what he was talking about but it wasn’t very clear. He said
something about an animal, some kind of farm animal, and then he switched to
bombs and nuclear warfare or something like that. Then, the man kind of jumped
in his seat and turned around, looking at her. He kept moving his head and
hands but didn’t say a word as he checked her out. Norma just turned around and
walked a bit faster towards the store, only thinking about the beautiful chestnut
colored eyes that crazy guy had.
The store was very empty and only a young
Asian woman was there as the cashier. She was reading a magazine and the TV was
turned on somewhere in he store. Norma walked around slowly, as she didn’t want
to go back so soon. Bea could really get annoying with all of her boyfriend
stud and Norma had no opinion about it all. So what if he was cheating on her?
It wouldn’t be the first time a guy does that to a woman. And besides, they had
just being together for six months. It was better to find out now that in two
years or something. Norma was just a good friend but sometimes being that good
was a very demanding job.
She kept walking through the aisles until she
remembered why she had come in for: something to drink. So she grabbed a bottle
of ice tea and also some gum, hard candy and a women’s magazine if the night
turned to be one of those long evenings with her best friend. When she was
around the ice-cream freezer, the door of the store opened but she didn’t
turned around to see who it was. However, the cashier was apparently not very
pleased to see that person come in because she was telling him to leave and to
get lost and many other things. He had a bit of a stutter, trying to respond to
the woman, and Norma realized who it was: the guy from the bench, the one of
the chestnut eyes.
She walked up to the cashier and asked her to
let him in, as she wanted to help him by buying him something to eat. The
cashier looked at her as if she had become insane in front of her eyes but
finally complied. Norma bought the man one of those microwave noodle soups. She
heat it up on the machine behind the cashier and then paid all of her shopping
and, with difficulty, she got out and walked up to the crazy guy and gave him
the soup. It was incredible to see, as she got her stuff in order, how his eyes
had lit up just because of some soup. It was boiling hot but he ate fast and
she was surprised to see a smile when he was done. Norma smiled back.
She then tried to get her name but the man
wouldn’t say a word. It was hard to know if he couldn’t say anything or if he
didn’t wanted to, but anyway, the soup had been a nice gesture and Norma was
glad she could do that for someone. She turned around and started walking to
Bea’s car but then the guy took her arm, a little too strongly, and started to
tell her about nuclear bombs and how the world would end. He was talking so
fast, it made her a little bit dizzy and the fact that he was pressing on her
forearm with such strength was nothing to be amused by either. Like out of some
kind of hypnosis, Norma pulled her arm out of his grip and told him to be nice
or she would call the police. Then, as if that had been a code of sorts, he
looked at her and begged her not to call the police.
His voice right then was calm and rational.
His eyes, hands and body in general had stopped moving awkwardly and he was
just staring at Norma. She told him she wouldn’t call them but that he needed
to learn not to treat people like that, especially when they have just bought
him some soup. He asked her for forgiveness, as most of the time he was not
really in control of anything, not his body or his mind or his mouth. He had
lost control over himself long ago and now he just drifted around the world,
trying to make sense of a life that seemed like a dream. He spoke so
eloquently, that it was difficult for Norma not to walk up to him and just look
at his face with a bit of regret.
She then asked why was he living on the
streets. Again, his face seemed to change in a second but his words kept their
sense and she could understand everything he was saying. According to him, he
had been a very good student in a physics laboratory not very far from there.
He had helped all his teachers in various experiments and had even done some
research on his own theories too. But then some guy, some teacher that was
supposed to be his mentor and a great mind in the scientific community, he just
stole every single idea his student had come up with. And as he was such a
brilliant guy, every single one of his theories was proved to be right and it
changed a lot in their field.
This kept going for a while until the student
accused the teacher to the board of the institute but they wouldn’t hear him.
They thought it was one of those young people that are so obsessed with
discovering something or being important, that they would invent anything in
order to be considered into the scientific community. This had a very bad
effect on the student’s mind, as he was already a patient for a number of
mental illnesses. He wasn’t well at all and even confessed to Norma that he
should have never being there in the first place, but life always has its ways.
Suddenly, Norma’s cellphone rang. It was Bea, nothing had happened and she
wanted to leave.
Norma promised the guy, who said his name was
Stuart, to come back and help him some more, with anything he might need. He
told Norma that she had already done enough with the soup and by hearing his
story. They shook hands and separated. Norma thought of him all the way to the
car and more than night. Bea didn’t ask her where she had been; she just
theorized what her perfect boyfriend was doing in his football party. As they
drove away from the building, on a way of the fourth floor, it was clearly
visible how the boyfriend was there all right, but naked and having sex with
his friend. The game was on the screen.
