Freddie threw her across the room. Luckily Pam didn’t get too busted up. It just made a racket as she knocked over a small table with some 'family' photos of the couple and their friends. She was uncannily lucky that way. Rarely ever got hurt. The impact surprised and shocked her at first, but then felt kind of good, tingly all over. She felt like she’d just awakened from a dream.
Her whole life she’d gotten what she wanted, Pam had. She'd done what she wanted, gotten away with almost anything she did. For a few seconds now, she felt she’d arrived at the station, actually stopped in the middle of the room, instead of passing by on the train, while others had to stay behind and live their lives slowly and deliberately.
She was good at almost anything, and popular as well. Since she improved any situation with her presence, most people thought she was there just for them. And that was true. She liked pleasing people, but it wasn’t really her. Alone, she was lost. She needed something to match, something to adorn, in order to be something herself.
She took this jolt from Freddie to be a sign. Someone had been watching, and now she was in for it. But that didn’t happen. Freddie apologized profusely, and Pam had the upper hand again.
Just like always.
They had quarreled before, but only when things got too strained for Freddie to remain physically passive, which was work for him. He was a man of raw emotion, not a lot of detail. That’s why Pam loved him, because Freddie was exactly in her opposite terrain. Pam had complex emotions, but she hid behind the detailed analysis game, picking apart an event, looking at things objectively, until she convinced himself, and almost anyone else, that she was right.
“It’s tough being a chameleon” she thought. “No one understands you because they can never really know you. And even you can only guess what your next move will be.” Pam used to have a dream where she was in a play and forgot her lines. We’ve all had that dream. But she’d learned to make them up as she went, and pretty soon, just flowed into any situation as if she created it.
While Freddie retreated, Pam sat there on the floor, thinking. She could just keep going with the flow, the usual, and use the new power she had over Freddie to get more out of him, or she could try something new. She opted for newness, which didn’t surprise her actually. Pam thrived on chaos. It’s so pregnant with possibility.
After a pleasant night out for the magical Don Quixote and the dinner, they had bickered about her tendency to forget Freddie's birthday, or any other important day for him. She tried to remember, but couldn’t see why it was such a big deal. This time she got defensive. She told him he’d have to get used to it, to anything she did, without recourse. After a venomous exchange, Freddie’s animal temper flared, and he picked her up, and sent her flying.
In a strange, masochistic way, Pam hoped for another pounding. The first one woke her up, so the second might enlighten her. What happened next blindsided her.
She went into Freddie’s room. They sleep in separate rooms, to keep things more exciting when they fooled around. He was reading a magazine on antique cars, his passionate past time. Freddie is a gentle giant, a brute with a heart of a kitten, just Pam’s type, masculine but malleable, a macho votary.
He’s sprawled across the bed on his stomach, clad in only brown plaid boxers and a white, ribbed T-shirt. He’s no model to look at, but his strong, modest body emits animal vibes. Pam couldn’t help but be aroused by his innocent power. And she wanted to be taken now, to be shown who’s the boss.
Her plan was to tell him she wanted out, to leave him high and dry. Pam paid for most of what they had and most of the rent, so she figured Freddie would do whatever she wanted.
“Hey Freddie, I really need to talk to you.”
“OK…”, a little too naturally.
“I’m sorry about our fight. I don’t’ know who’s fault it was. I don’t think I got too hurt, by the way. But…I’ve been thinking… maybe it’s best for us to, you know, split for awhile….”
“OK.”
“?”
Pam stood there, like someone who can’t remember her lines.
“Uh, OK Freddie. I guess you agree with me.”
Silence. Deafening silence. He’s just looking at Pam, patiently. But there’s no anger, no hidden confusion, nothing readable. It’s eerie. The silence tells her to leave.
Pam is stunned. “He’s never done this before. Usually he sees my reasoning and we talk things out, with me doing most of the talking. Usually it leads to making love. What do I do now?”
At this point she couldn’t lose her pride and tell Freddie it was just a ruse to get him in further emotional debt. The only choice was to follow her own twisted plan and move out. Change to fit whatever scene you see yourself in. On to the next scene.
(weeks later)
Pam calls Freddie every day. One thing about her is her stubbornness. If she can figure someone out, she’s over them. If not, she persists until she knows what makes them tick. Freddie answers the phone most of the time. If not, he answers when Pam calls back. He listens, saying little. Pam talks. She talks about how strange it is for her, being so skilled at fitting in, how easy it is to get lost in that. She tells him about her struggle with intimacy, how important freedom is to her. Freddie listens. But he never invites Pam back.
This continues for months. They speak regularly. Freddie is always polite, and listens. Pam fills the space with her words. He’s barely aware of all she says, since he floats through most words and situations with little memory, just filling up space.
Pam begins to feel different. She’s never done anything so regularly before. But it comes easily, naturally. Calling Freddie is her structure, her meditation. The rest of her day drapes around those 30-some minutes daily talking to Freddie. At times, her own circular talking begins to bore her. But her stubborn nature persists in calling. Pam wants her way. She sees no other option. The scenery shifts through these days, but she feels like she’s standing still.
At the same time, she notices changes in how others around her behave. Her co-workers seem to smile more, open up to her. Her family tells her she sounds and looks happy, centered, engaged. She begins to see peoples faces as she bustles along busy sidewalks in the drizzly morning rain on her way to work. She sees lots of eyes meet her's, unusual for a big city. They aren’t always friendly, but they contact him, pass messages on, maps to treasures, their hidden secrets no one else knows of. One man, who could have been Pam’s twin, tall and thin, stared passively into her, searching, reading something there, until they passed each other. There was a faint, knowing smile behind his mask.
She begins to wonder if everyone else knows something she doesn’t. It’s as if they are showing her patience and compassion in her vulnerable state. But she hasn’t talked to anyone about it, except Freddie of course.
It's somewhat like that patient who wakes up after a major surgery to reconstruct her supposedly hideous face, and finds the whole world peopled by hideous faces, while the failed surgery on her 'normal' one is considered hideous by them, she feels. So they pity her and it drives her insane. Pam wonders if they are all laughing at him. She feels naked and vulnerable, but keeps blending in. Yet she’s unsure what to blend with.
Freddie keeps listening, daily, patiently. Pam has new respect for him. It seems he’s more of a 'chameleon' than Pam thought. He changed to fit her situation, to balance Pam’s manipulative style. He blended into the background just when Pam thought she had him pinned.
It dawns on Pam that most people are chameleons, constantly adjusting to those who are presumptuous enough to think they know it all, absorbing their hubris without reflecting it back at them. They smile when they’re sad or lonely, they work hard when they’re tired, they care for loved ones when they’re stressed or depressed, who stay positive when the chips are down. Most people shift identities all the time. Waves of molecules, like the pigments on a butterfly’s wing, adjusting to what’s around them, trying to reflect a brighter light.
Pam always thought she was the only one. She feels her heart beating as she opens the door to a gray windy day and steps out onto the dusty, mottled sidewalk..
Posts
