The Crush

Andrew, my nephew, fifteen years old, says he has fallen in love. I'd call it a crush, but he insists it's real. Like brand-name tequila. I was Andrew's age when it happened to me. I smothered my pillow with kisses nightly. Girls were goddesses. I didn't see where that highway led. Nowadays people travel such roads to oblivion. I always was ahead of my time. I had a crush, or two, or three, or a hundred. They were all alike. All I ever got was saliva on my pillowcases. I'm over it. My fantasies can't be realized. Women are human. They have wants and needs. I cannot, will not, fulfill their demands. I've found something better: alcohol. It asks nothing.

Andrew came into my study one afternoon and announced that love had struck him. He said it as if he had flunked a math test. But he came to me, his uncle, Chief Black Sheep, Misinformed One, Francis the Depraved, the Drunk, the Damned. He had come to me before, but always with questions about science that his parents, my sister and her husband, couldn't answer. Now this! Rememberance of my first crush crept over me like the chills before a bad cold. I knew why Andrew's eyes were downcast as he told me about June.

"June?" I mused. "I didn't think they gave girls names like that any more."

Andrew was silent.

"So you think you're in love with this girl?" I asked.

"I know so," said Andrew, sitting on one of the beanbag chairs in my study. The only real chair is the one I sit at. The rest are actually dog beds, for big dogs like German shepherds. I picked the bags up at some place whose name rhymes with "Smoky." Smoky the German shepherd. Maybe I should get a dog.

"What's she like?"

"Straight blonde hair and brown eyes, I think. No, blue sometimes, maybe, or gray."

"But you're not sure."

"No."

Like Rose. I hadn't known what color her eyes were even after having had a crush on her for months.

"But what's she like?" I asked.

"I just told you," said Andrew.

"You told me what she looks like, not what she actually is like, not the sort of person she is, you know, what color her soul is or whatever."

"I don't know her, 'zactly."

"Mmmm. Love from afar?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Is she pretty?"

"Oh, yes."

"Have you spoken with her?" I asked.

Andrew said nothing, looking at his shoelaces.

"Does she know you like her?" I asked.

"Doubt it," said Andrew.

This line of questioning was clearly not what Andrew wanted. I tried to put myself in his place. What words could have cheered me when I had gone to my mother about Ruth? Or Rose? Or Debbie? Or Peggy? Or Susan? Or Diane? Oh, God. When they would walk by, the grass would stand up straighter.

"What do you think I can do for you?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Andrew. He got up to leave.

"Wait," I said.

He sat back down.

"I had a crush on a girl ... a couple of them ... when I was your age."

"This is not a crush," said Andrew.

"That's what I thought too."

"This is not a crush."

"So you're really in love?"

"I think so."

"All right," I said. "Suppose you are. How many boys are there in your school?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" asked Andrew.

"Just answer the question, please, witness," I said.

"Yes, Your Honor," Andrew said. We had watched Perry Mason together often. We had discussed law as well as science and math. I'd once told Andrew that if I had any common sense, I'd have become a lawyer to profit from logic. "Yes, Your Honor. I guess maybe two hundred in my grade."

"Is June in your grade?"

"I think so."

"But you're not sure," I said.

"I think she is," said Andrew.

"Very well, then. Two hundred boys in your grade. How many of them do you think June has a crush on?"

"What's that got to--"

"Just answer the question," I said.

"Yes, Sir. I don't know. Maybe one. Maybe none."

"She got a boyfriend that you know of?" I asked.

"Never see her with a boy," said Andrew.

"So, none, probably, out of two hundred. Or maybe a secret crush on one, or maybe two. How many girls can you have a crush on at once?"

"I said, this isn't a crush," said Andrew.

"All right. I forgot. How many girls could you love at one time?" I asked.

"One. That's stupid. I'm no Don Juan," said Andrew.

"Okay. One. So June, being human, might be in love with one guy. But no more than one. Maybe none. But one, max. Right?"

"I guess."

"One out of two hundred. Do your math. How many percent is that?"

"Half a percent," said Andrew.

"Yes. So that is the probability that she is in love with you."

"You're a big help!" Andrew screamed.

"I say that for a reason," I said. "I never do or say anything without a reason."

"Except when you're drunk, which is all the time," said Andrew.

"Right. I always do things without a reason. I'm a totally unreasonable person. Anyhow, what I mean is simple. Just because you love June, it does not necessarily follow that she'll love you. There is zero correlation. Didn't Marie have a crush on you?"

"How'd you know that?" Andrew asked, sticking out his tongue and pulling on his ears. "Moonface Marie!"

"Never mind. Did that make you like her?"

"No."

"You'd never like her, would you?"

"I doubt it," said Andrew.

"Well, June may have a crush on you, but--"

"Love!"

"Sure. She may love you, but it isn't likely. In fact, statistically, the chances are oh-point-five percent. Slim. And actually, it seems that when one person has a crush on ... I mean, loves ... another, that other is put off by it. The thrill of forbidden fruit. Ah, but now I'm getting into theories too sophisticated for this discussion. Come back for Love/Hate 101 next semester."

"You really make my day, man," said Andrew.

"Well, you know, it's not any fault of yours. It's just the math, amigo," I said. "But that's not the worst of it. I think maybe of all the women out there, I could fall in love with one out of a thousand. One in a thousand! And I can't expect that any more than one in a thousand of them would fall in love with me. Probably a lot less. Pretty slim odds."

"That why you're not married?" asked Andrew.

"Partly," I said. "But getting back to the math, the chance of my loving someone who loves me is one in a thousand squared. Max."

"What?"

"One in a million, Andrew, my man. One ten-thousandth of one percent. And that's being optimistic about it."

"You are such a cosmic help."

"That's the math," I said. "No more than one in a thousand women could love me, and I doubt I could love one in a thousand of them."

"Yeah, you'd have trouble finding any woman who could drink like you," said Andrew.

"You're young and good-looking," I continued. "I'm getting bald, and I'm poor and fat, in a society that doesn't like bald people or poverty or blubber. For me, less than one in a million odds of a mutual, loving relationship with any particular woman."

"That's depressing," said Andrew.

"I wish I'd heard it when I was your age," I replied. "And I wish I'd had, when I was your age, what I'm about to give you."

"You're totally off of the world, you know that?"

"Could be. Not that I'm missing much. But there is one bright spot."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. What I'm about to give you. A cure."

"Maximal!"

"This will make you as cold as the most frigid ice goddess in the history of the world. Then no woman can harm you."

"You're going to get me drunk," said Andrew.

"Medicine for the lovelorn," I said.

"What's lovelorn mean?"

"You'll know soon enough, pal."

We walked to the dining room. I opened the liquor cabinet. There awaited a matrix of flasks in the laboratory of Dr. Francis, Th.C. There were imported vodkas and gins, vermouths and liqueurs. And of course tequila. All with a bite, like crushes, like love! The joy without the sorrow.

I took two wine glasses and filled them both with my favorite brand-name tequila. I gave one to Andrew, and emptied the other in four swallows.

"Love is only for a little while," I said as I watched Andrew take his first sip. He coughed.

"But tequila, my man," said Andrew, as the ethanol settled into my stomach, "for this kid, is never."

"Never say never," I warned.

Andrew, my nephew, fifteen years old,  closed his eyes and emptied his glass in three swallows.

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Francisco Carrera.