Pale Pink, Arctic Blue
(Wolfgang's point of view.)
Synopsis:
Wolfgang couldn’t get the color pink out of his head (and other life tribulations).
✷✷🚬✷✷
HE COULDN’T GET the damned color out of his head. Pink notebooks, pink hearts, pink chocolates, pink balloons. Turn around a corner and there it was: a poodle with pink ribbons. The other day he even saw someone selling pink fucking lemonades. Valentine’s Day was hitting the town and Wolfgang was trying so hard not to hurl.
“Wolfgang?” a voice asked, sounding half-annoyed. “Dude, are you even listening?”
Wolfgang took a deep drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke into the air. It wouldn’t be a huge shock, he supposed, if even his vomit turned out to be pink. Hell, knock his head around for a bit—maybe his blood would be pink. This was ridiculous, he wanted to say. This was the most ridiculous thing he had ever experienced. But all he said was, “Fuck no.”
“Come on, man.” This came from another member of his gang. Wolfgang didn’t know for sure what his name was. Not that it mattered much anyway. “You’ve become kind of boring lately.”
Wolfgang paused from taking another drag, studying him. “Boring?”
“Yeah, man.” The girl beside him elbowed him, but he slapped the hand away, jutting his chin with challenge clear in his eyes. “You’re boring now. You used to take us around to kick some asses, but now we’re just sitting here doing nothing while you’re moping around.”
“Me?” Wolfgang asked carefully, putting his cigarette off, and was that a bit of pink in the midst of the dying embers? Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. “Moping around?”
“Dude, shut up,” someone else hissed.
“What? I’m saying the truth for all of us.”
“Speak for yourself, you moron.”
“Yeah. Shut the fuck up or leave, man, Jesus.”
“But we really haven’t been doing anything! Come on, guys. This isn’t the same gang that we—”
“What,” Wolfgang cut off, “exactly would you like us to be doing?”
“Ignore him, Wolfgang,” the girl implored. “We don’t mind hanging out.”
“Yeah,” another guy piped up, “this is pretty nice and chill.”
“What the fuck? What’s going on with y’all?”
“No, no.” A smile curled at the edge of Wolfgang’s mouth. “I’d like to hear it. Go on.”
That challenging jut of chin again. Absently, Wolfgang wondered what it would feel like to bash that chin with a block of cinder. “Well, for starters we used to, I don’t know, shoplift stuff. You know? For the thrills.”
Wolfgang nodded. “True, true.”
“And we used ditch classes, right? Then let some nerds do the assignments for us. And not even the professors could stop us.”
“Good times, I agree.”
“We went to the pub on Fridays. How come we never do that anymore?”
“Valid concerns, all of those.”
Apparently confused by Wolfgang’s easy acquiescence, the guy frowned. “So why are we not doing those anymore?”
Wolfgang was tired by this useless conversation already. He pulled another cigarette out of his leather jacket’s pocket. He said, “Don’t feel like it, is all.”
“What?”
“Dude, just let it go already.”
Ignoring that other gang member, the guy continued, “No. What the hell? We don’t do anything anymore…and that’s because you just don’t feel like it?”
Wolfgang lit his death stick then shrugged. “That’s right. You’re all allowed to do whatever you want, honestly. I don’t give a single fuck.”
The guy laughed. It didn’t sound happy to Wolfgang’s ears. “Holy shit. You really don’t, do you?”
“Is this a problem?”
“No. No. Oh my god. Wow. Wait a minute, let me guess—you don’t even remember my name, do you?”
What the fuck was this guy going on about? “Why? Are you the next mayor?”
Everyone in alley laughed except that guy. Rapidly, his face turned pink. And holy fuck, was Wolfgang ever going to be freed of this curse? “You’re such an asshole.”
“Yup.”
“You—how could you do that to me and not even remember—you—”
Blowing another smoke, Wolfgang studied him closer, then a lightbulb turned on. The guy, if he looked closer, could be considered pretty. “Ah,” Wolfgang smirked, “we’ve fucked before, yeah? Right before new years, I think.”
Another raucous laughter. The other guys and girls were teasing him and slapping at that guy’s back, trying to get him to laugh with them. But the guy must have had a huge stick up his ass because he just sputtered. If anything, he looked even angrier. “Cut it out,” pretty guy shouted. “This isn’t funny!”
“It kind of is,” a girl countered with a laugh.
“Yeah,” another one added, “to be honest I didn’t think you’d go after a guy, Wolfgang.”
“Are you stupid? Wolfgang was after that guy from Criminal Justice for awhile, remember?”
“Criminal Justice—wait, Mallory is a Criminal Justice major? Whoa. Talk about a whiplash.”
Wolfgang paused, staring at the red-headed guy who had just spoken the name so casually. “You know him?”
The red-head blinked then smiled. “Mallory? Of course. Who doesn’t in our university?”
The pretty guy—the challenging jut of chin guy—snorted. “Yeah,” he muttered nastily, “but only because he’d fuck anyone for twenty bucks.”
Then silence. So sudden and so abrupt you could almost hear a gasp. There was, Wolfgang noted, putting out his cigarette on the concrete wall behind him, a horrified quality to this silence. As though they were in a funeral, the room was hushed except for the sounds of people sobbing. Until, suddenly, they heard someone laughing. This person, he laughed and laughed and laughed and it was so loud, so out of place, that everyone just wanted him to shut up already. The collective embarrassment. So unbelievable in its existence you couldn’t help but say: “Can you repeat that?”
“What? That he’s a slut with a loose assh—”
Wolfgang didn’t remember swinging, but he must have, because for a moment there were only movements and goddamn, this February had been colder compared to last year’s. The clock was ticking and he heard, as if from a distance, a sound of something breaking. It reminded him a bit of when he was twelve. His father had given him a bamboo sword for his birthday present and he had been over the moon—a gift from the man who never looked his way once in the decade he’d been alive. He was so excited. He couldn’t believe his luck. It was only later on, when heard those cracking sounds, just the endless crack crack crack of them and the excruciating pain that came with them, that he deeply regretted the gift. That he wanted to hand it back, just take it all back, please, as long as it would make the pain stop.
It felt like hours. Then, the night was quiet again. Although, Wolfgang considered to himself, clenching and unclenching his bruised fists, wiping blood off his knuckles onto his T-shirt, although he supposed there was no more of the previous horrified silence. Now, as everyone was circling him, watching as the scenes unfolded, Wolfgang could only feel the undercurrent of respect. No more questioning his judgments. No more questioning his abilities.
Lots of things had changed, Wolfgang thought, thinking of platinum braids tipped with pink hair dye and calculating arctic blue eyes. Yes, lots of things had changed, but something remained the same: Wolfgang was still the one calling the shots around here. So, now that it was clear, once again, he asked to everyone in the alley, “Well? Are we heading to the pub, then?” and everyone chanted his name like he’d just won a war instead of beaten someone to pulp.
Patting his dusty jeans, Wolfgang’s eyes caught the blood stain at the seam of his T-shirt. The color turned dark pink under the dim streetlights.
And Christ, he thought. He just wasn’t ever going to be free of that damned color now, was he?
✷✷🚬✷✷