Ziam a.k.a. X

I was packing all my things back up. Ashlee has more than enough space in her living room for my bike and all the gear I spread out, and I was stepping back and forth through the detritus, trying to put things away after a three-night explosion. I had my toothbrush over here and my money over there and Bonney's charm in the pocket of the wrong pants. All this time, I hear the booming of soulful music outside. It gets so loud, I feel compelled to check. It's like the music is on the porch. Ashlee's apartment is on the ground floor, and I flick aside the blinds to look outside into the parking lot, expecting to see somebody in a car with the lights on. Behind a car, there. It looks like a couple dancing? Their movement is fluid, the way I remember it being when you push into someone who pushes into you. No, it's a person walking, very slowly, very deliberately, like they're caring a heavy load. No.
It's a person in a wheelchair, struggling to get up the slope. He cuts left, then right, tacking like a sailboat.
I have about five seconds of indecision. I don't have my shoes on, my phone is dead on the floor, and it's not my neighborhood. But I'm on the ground floor and i know where Ashlee set her keys. I jump over my sleeping bag and peanut butter and grab the keys. I lock the door on my way out and I jog over to the man in the wheelchair.
"Hey, I'm Robby. You want some help?"
"Yeah, much appreciated."
"How far are we going?"
"Oh, all the way down there."
"Alright."
He has on a black shirt and hat, and the hat has an embroidered circle with an x of negative space in it. His wheelchair has two bike bottle cages on the front, and the bottles have ice, but no water. His phone is attached to the right arm with a high-quality car mount and somewhere on the contraption there's a speaker booming out some modern-sounding soul throwback sounds. I grab the handles on the back of his wheelchair and he lets off the brake.
Ten seconds later, we hear a distant squeal and crash. It sounds medium-sized, like a car hitting an empty dumpster. It's away on our left, and I stop and turn him around.
"From over there," I say.
He peers out through the half-lit parking lot labyrinth. "Sounds like it's right over there."
"I think it came from further away, though. It sounded like it could have come from the light."
"No. No, it's over there." I push us back to where we can see around the building, but there's nothing obvious. I see a man walking around. I point it out
"I bet he'll take care of it, or I hope so, if it is right there." I don't have my phone, and I'm not going to push this man all the way over there unless he asks. I pause just long enough and then turn.
"I hope you didn't park over there," he says.
"Oh, nope. I'm on a bike; I'm going across the country."
"Where from? Where to?"
"I started in Massachusetts. It took me two weeks to get here, and I want to get to family by Thanksgiving." I'm getting tired of saying the same spiel again and again. I can't even imagine how Peter Jenkins must have felt after years of it.
"Well, how can you afford to finance that?"  We're to the top of the hill, now. The man turns a little, and looks at me. "I can make it from here."
I stop pushing and walk around to answer his question.
"Well," I begin, a little embarrassed. "My wife was a nurse, and I was a teacher. We saved up and paid off or debts. Then, she left. We didn't have kids or nothing, so I just saved up to do this." It's the truth, and I tell it, but it feels so cut and dried. I'm honestly not sure how I can afford this.
"Well, if—she didn't explain why she was going? I would at least think you deserve that." He's not quite looking at me, so all I can see is the brim of his hat and his greying beard. He has an accent like a black man from Virginia or further north.
"She tried to, but it wasn't good enough for me. She said she felt trapped, like she didn't want to be in the marriage anymore."
"Trapped?" That one bit him. He is ready to figure this out, or at least bite back before he admitted that there isn't an answer for my situation.
"Yeah. We were young, but it's her decision that trapped her in. It takes two to tango; it takes two people to get married. And I was happy."
He settles back a little. His hand comes up to stoke his beard. "I've lost some people in my life, and it wasn't ever worth it."
"Well, with the way she left—I decided I didn't want to love anybody who didn't love me. And ain't nobody who loves me can do what she did."
"Now, I used to be an intellectual. I used to have an answer, an opinion, a thought or a science fact for everything. But I learned, a while back, from an old relationship, sometimes things gotta be simple. You know? I used to think too much, and I would think myself into problems. You know what I'm saying?"
"I think so."
"I dated this Russian girl, for a while. And I wasn't good enough—I wasn't doing enough for her. And I thought too much. I liked her a lot. But I thought too much: got myself into problems. And now, I guess I miss her. She lied to me, she cheated on me, she stole from me." He taps his fingers, listing her crimes. He finally looks up from under the brim of his hat. "But I still feel for her. She's with somebody, now. She has a kid, I know that much. I don't know why that guy won't marry her, but that's something else. I'm saying that even if she hurt me, I just want her to be happy."
I can feel it. In my chest, there, underneath the ribs, between my bones and my heart. The ache begins to thrum behind my breathing.
"Are you in contact with her? You talk?" He leans forward a little.
I throw my arms out into the night air, desperate, confused. "I wrote her letters. I know where she lives. But she hasn't written back." The ache threatens.
He settles right back. I don't remember if he said anything to that. He's got his answer. I think maybe he knows how we both feel: he's certainly got me pegged. It feels like a good stopping place for the conversation, and so I stop it. I have to sleep sometime.
"Uhh," I offer, as I stretch out my hand. "Like I said, my name's Robby. I've gotta get back. I'm glad I could help."
"No problem. Name's Ziam, but people call me 'X,' " he says, reaching up to tap the x on his hat. "So just call me 'X.' "
"Alright, X. Glad to help."
"Thanks, Danny. Good luck on your trip."
I walk away, and he rolls away. Danny's as good as Robby.

I know what X is saying, about being too clever for your own good. I don't mean brag about myself, but I tend to intellectualize my faith and my relationships. Sometimes it doesn't go as well as I want.
When Kayla and I were dating, things got slow and sad toward the end. She didn't like being around me anymore and I was trying to figure out what I could do to salvage what was left. I didn't want to end the relationship without fighting for it. It seemed worthwhile. I read the little book about Love Languages that seemed to be making the rounds and I loved the simple way it talked about love: input received denotes output generated. Love language quality time + time spent together = stronger relationship. It was so clear. I endeavored to determine what exactly i could do to fetch our relationship from the pits it lived in.
I bought a smoothie and offered it to her out of nowhere. She didn't want it and wouldn't even come out of her dorm to see me. Gifts and quality time turned down. I sent her a little note that pointed out some good things about her. She didn't even text me about it. Kind words dead. I called her and opened up about how I felt about my grandfather passing away, and she said so what? And she sure didn't want anything from me. I started to get desperate and confused. I wandered the campus, trying to think about my next move.
Maybe this is the conundrum of a manipulator who finds themselves rebuffed. Maybe this is the sign of an intellectual who doesn't understand humanity's complexities. Maybe this is the sign of a child who doesn't want to admit he has some growing to do. But that day was the first time I ever thought about hurting myself, in any way. I've never had those kind of thoughts even occur to me. I'm not that mentality, and I'm lucky for that. But that day was different.
It was the middle of the day in early fall. It was still hot, this being Southern, and I didn't have any classes. I walked behind the Village Market to the footbridge over the creek. I threw my legs over the side and sat there, swinging my feet. Standing up on the handrail, I looked down on the runners on the path, on the cars in the parking lot, on the trickling brook below me. And I focused on one rock. I thought to myself: "If I jumped from here, I could fall right on that rock. I could cut myself really bad. I don't think I would die, but it would show her how much I hurt right now, because she doesn't get it. She doesn't know how much she's hurting me."
Well, that thought freaked me right out. I practically threw myself back into the bridge and down the path. I didn't go back to that bridge for months. Since that time, I've only ever wanted to die once. And that memory waits to be told, maybe. Maybe it will wait forever.

X probably knows what he's talking about. Stop thinking so much about Delight, about why she left, about where she's going. It hasn't helped me yet and it may not help me ever. You know about the leopard who tried to change his spots? We'll see if I stop over thinking this.