The Incredible Beauty Of An Ordinary Life

e was six years younger than she and yet in many ways, he seemed much older. She watched him tramp slowly down the hill toward her. He looked at the ground, a sneer gripping his upper lip. Why was he always so unhappy?
“B-O-B!” She loved his name.  It was an acronym.  He refused to say what it stood for.  Brother Of Beelzebub?  Boy Orbiting Bees?  He said one of those was partly right, which one he wouldn’t say.  She figured it was ‘orbiting’.  That sounded most like him. 
“Hello Trini.”  BOB looked up finally, gave her shoulder a squeeze.  “Ready?” He could tell she was.  She was wearing her new jeans, a shirt he hadn’t seen before.  Her hair needed combing, but it always looked that way.  Something about her efforts to please touched him, made him smile. 
“Let me just say goodbye first.”
“Of course.”  He followed her into the house and said hello to her mother while Trini said goodbye.  Maria Elena was nearby, busily teaching the dog a new trick.  BOB watched with interest while the old dog snuffled and yawned for a biscuit.  Maria Elena did not cave easily. 
“Sit, Hucho, sit up!”  She waved a biscuit menacingly.  “Up!  Up!”
“M-E,” he spelled to her, “How old is Hucho?”
“Never mind,” she replied, not looking at him.  “He can learn.”
“I don't’ think he wants to.”
“What’s that got to do with it?  Do you only do what you want to do?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Maria Elena!” Trini stood with her hands on her hips.
“Well, he is. Sometimes.”  She looked at her sister with an odd expression, one Trini had never seen before.
“Let’s get out of here Trini, before ME lassos us into her school of tricks!”  BOB laughed and held open the worn screen door.

They were going to a movie at the Playhouse and afterwards, dinner at a Lebanese restaurant.  Trini was thrilled.  It was just the kind of evening she enjoyed.  Finally, a boy, a man who liked what she liked. It was a thirty-minute drive to the city.  Trini put on the radio and settled back, enjoying herself already.
“Mind if I smoke?”  BOB pulled out a Marlboro.  He lit it before she could answer.  She didn’t mind of course.  She liked the smell and besides, it made him look mysterious.
She smiled out the window.  “Don’t you know by now?”
“What the hell!”  BOB slammed on the breaks and stuck out an arm to break Trini’s potential crash into the softer dash.
“Whoa--what--?”
“Jerk!”  BOB blared his horn three times and pressed hard on the gas as if to make up for lost seconds.  “You okay?”
Trini patted her hair.  It made no difference.  “Of course. What’s wrong with you?”
“What are you talking about?  That guy coulda killed us; passing on a curve with a double yellow--”
“Not that.”
“What then?”  He stared hard at the road.
“Well, you always act like someone just pissed you off.  I mean, sure just now, but even when you first get to my house or in the middle of a movie or when you’re eating a sandwich or something.”
“Yeah?  What do you want? Howdy Doody?”
She laughed.  “Hardly.  But isn’t there something between Howdy Doody and deathly miserable?”
“So now I’m deathly miserable?”
Trini sighed.  “I don't’ want to start a fight.”  She hesitated.  “I know we haven’t been dating that long but I don’t feel like I’m getting to know you.  I don't get what makes you tick.  We have a good time when we’re together, but when I first see you, you’re always in this kind of funk.  And I have no idea what goes on when we’re not together.”
“So, what do you want to know?”  He still stared blankly ahead.
“What makes you happy?”
“You. “
She smiled.  Too easy.  “What else?”
He thought for a minute.  “A good movie.  A great book.  A newspaper article with no grammatical errors. When my socks have no holes.  When my burger is pink but not bloody.”   He threw his cigarette butt out the window.
She nodded.  “And what makes you mad?”
He raised an eyebrow.  “That’s harder, Trini.”  She loved the sound of his voice speaking her name.  “I have to find a way to make it in the world. To be a man.  Have integrity.  So, here I am, writing, working in a bookstore, letting my grandmother’s place go all to hell because I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a house.  I can hardly even afford to take my girl out.”
My girl? “Go on.”
He grabbed her hand.  “I just don’t want to end up like everyone else.”
Trini flashed on her twenties, wanting to be different, not knowing what that meant, angry and not even realizing that she was…  Very gently she continued, “And how’s that?”
“I’m not gonna give up my dreams.  I’m gonna work like hell to write my book and when that one’s published, I’ll write another and another and somehow the truth people finally recognize will—“
“Will change the world?”
“You’re mocking me.” He let go her hand.
“No, BOB, no.  You don’t understand.”
He stiffened.  “Understand what?” 
“You can’t change a thing until you become a part of it.  And the funny thing is you already are part of it. You just don’t see it yet.”  She sat back and looked out the window.  Let this sink in.
“So, if I’m part of it already, whether or not I see it, I can still change it. The world, I mean.”
“Forget the ‘aha’ and listen to what I’m saying.  What’s your definition of reality?”
“My definition--?  What’s reality got to do with it?”
“Nothing.  Everything.” Trini took a deep breath.  “You’re not really any different from anyone else, but that’s okay. You’ll find out.”
“Find out what?”  BOB lit another cigarette.
“You’re young--”
“You’re not so old.”
“But I’m not angry anymore.  There’s this thing about conforming, about obedience that ‘s actually very liberating.”
“Oh, sure.  That’s what all the conformists want you to think. Be like me!  Be safe!  Belong!  You hear that from Ken?”
“I didn’t say being a blockhead is liberating.”
“Sorry.”  He grabbed her hand again.  “I should be glad you were dating an idiot.  Makes me look good by comparison.”
Trini laughed with him.  They were coming to the Fortieth Street Bridge now, an old but impressive structure that would carry them across the Allegheny River.  The city skyline in the distance looked magical.  Like Oz.  She cast about for another way to explain.
“BOB, one day you’ll realize the incredible beauty of an ordinary life.  Your success will be measured by how well you struggle, how you choose to please God, not by the victory itself.”
“Oh, it’s God now, is it?”  He drew hard on his cigarette and pressed his foot to the gas.
Trini looked out the window again.  The evening sun sparkled on the water. “Everything is, eventually, no?”
“You sound like your mother.”
She laughed again, determined not to take offense.  “I once heard a professor say that reality is rooted in agreement with absolute truth.  And joy is living in conformity with that truth.”
They entered Lawrenceville and turned in the direction of Oakland.  BOB remained silent.  He wouldn’t discard information which may be valuable, but he wasn’t ready to concede anything either.
“Conformity doesn’t leave much room for ego though, eh?”
“Isn't’ it easier that way?”
“I don’t like things easy.”
“I know. “ She faced the window; whispered,  “Neither do I.”  They were almost at the theater.  “What movie are we seeing?”
“’Purple Rain’.”
Trini nodded.  I’d Die For You was her favorite song.