As soon as Nick attempted communication, something short-circuited. His tongue swelled or his back twitched and he had to scratch something under his arm. His gestures, in other words, fled. They evacuated his body and left him a blubbering blob of communication-less flesh. At first, the soupy concoction of his liquidated linguistic skills amused people. But eventually, he had to retreat into the solitude and silence of darkened barroom corners, of next to the television at house parties. He hid in plain site next to the kid that everyone thought was mildly retarded. Or alternatively as far away from the booze as possible. Sometimes he even stood directly next to the keg and pumped for people. They talked and he listened, not attempting to speak a word.
“Hey it’s Keg Guy!” someone would shout to him, as he stood in a shadowy corner behind a couch or an armchair.
He would raise his beer and open his mouth, but he knew on these occasions that if he attempted sound, nothing but a long and twisted JFeoiwfjWEFOIJFjeijwf would come out. So instead he drank from his raised glass and went over to the bookshelf to see if he had read any of the same titles as the hosts.
By not speaking, he learned a lot about Antoinette’s eating disorder (really, it was more of a workout disorder, she confided). He found out that Greg planned on breaking up with Heather, but felt he needed to wait until after the holidays for reasons that he did not quite explain. One time, at Amanda and A-J’s place, he learned a recipe for pork chops, handing Amanda spices that she couldn’t reach and sipping his wine instead of answering questions. He shrugged a lot. The meanings afforded him seemed at first astounding. What people really seek in conversation, he realized, was just a mirror, an impulse to speak more. Almost without exception, they didn’t care what you were planning on saying.
Part of this realization made him feel an emptiness. A hollowed out spot in his gut that stood in for the gulf between people that he now realized had never talked to each other anyway, and operated under conditions of mutual suspicion about the motives for whatever conversation.
One time he made out with a girl, having done nothing but stare at her from the other side of a couch for an hour.
“Okay, I’m down,” she had said to his utter confusion and amazement.
Insinuation became his pickup line from then on. Squinted eyes inducing feelings of concern and interest his poetic form of engagement. He challenged himself to go longer and longer in a one-sided conversation before his interlocutor realized that he had been silent all along. The conversations got more involved as he fine-tuned his arm crossings and feet plantings. He shifted his weight flirtatiously, or nodded and put his hand on shoulders comfortingly. He became the understanding, well-liked life of the party and kept it all to himself.
