I'm generally not aggressive. I don't like to mope or impune anyone's sunshiny smile. I know that sometimes I look pissed off when I'm begging for love. But when you enter my domain, don't belittle me with your thoughtlessness. You ask me, "What's wrong? You look pissed off?" And every fucking time I answer with the same response, "It's just the way I look." And then you laugh. That contagious, artificial, lengthy laugh. Never has a persons happiness made me more sick to my stomach.
I am at war with your laughter. When we first befriended one another, I omitted the redundancy of this cheerfulness. Maybe you just had a killer week and everything from the call of a crow to a pink umbrella made you gloat; your belly rumbling, your smile tattooed on your unaffected face. Then a week turned to two and your laugh would expound from your silly mouth to things that weren't funny. When I would admit my frustration with you, you'd simply laugh. But I wasn't joking. I began to wonder, how could you ever tell what was real and what was fake? And were you being real? Or being fake? In any conclusion, you were, and probably are, happier than I. Well, fuck you for that. You are now my enemy.
So how would I retaliate? No matter how many times I set you up and have you laugh at unfunny things right in front of our peers, nothing seemed to phase you. Or them. Was I crazy? Hardly. You would unintentionally threaten me with your midnight phone conversations, always interrupting the most crucial parts of my movie. Goddamn you, you win even when you don't try. I hate your laugh. I was convinced that maybe this was all part of your master plan;, to drive me nuts, straight to the loony bin, while your conniving laugh haunted me for the rest of my life. Well, that's not gonna happy fun guy. You're laugh is in grave danger.
Could I pull a Poe? Maybe instead of extracting his eye, I'll rip the vocal chords from his throat. But then the laugh would surely haunt me. I'll threaten him with a livid battle cry, just so he knows how serious I am. But his laugh is powerful and established, while my cry is still in its beginning stages. I wonder how many people he's expelled from his life because of this laugh? Maybe, just maybe, I could out-laugh him? That was it! Fight fire with fire and kill laughter with laughter.
I'm generally not aggressive, but when I am it's balls to the wall. I waited for him to arrive while I lounged on my couch watching Arrested Development- my ammunition. All of a sudden I heard a fumbling at the door, keys were wresting with the lock- a vision of what was about to come. Then he entered and stared into my brazen eyes. Only, his eyes were more visceral, like a sword against my dagger. Rattled, I fumbled the controller and set my attention toward the television, laughing at the most unfunny part of that particular episode. The man said nothing to me, no attempt to gaze into my challenging eyes. My opposition didn't even dare oppose me, maybe I was winning? But that wasn't the case. He walked into the kitchen and into his room where he slammed the door.
I sat alone. He didn't laugh. The one time I wanted him to laugh, he refused. He played my game without signing up. I tried to laugh louder and harder in an attempt to lure him out of his room, but to no avail. Finally I gave up and slouched on the couch. I was angry and unsettled, until an hour later I heard it. The laughter, and it made the hairs on my skin crawl and curl. Not only did he defeat me, but he was kicking me while I was down. That son of a bitch.
My hands turned to fists, and I could feel my face turning red. Just as I was about to pry myself off the couch and to his room the door burrowed open and he appeared in the living room. "What's up? You look pissed off?" ARRHGHGHEREIHREOGH! Shit, what a fucker!
"This is just how I look!"
Laughter.
My stomach felt ill.
"You looked pissed off, what was wrong with you!" (playing his own game)
"Oh, well I had a shitty day at work. But I'm over it."
"That fast?"
"Ya, hahahahaha." What was the goddamn reason to laugh? Why couldn't this man be serious. Ever. And then I realized that laughing was his vice. His way of not facing the shitty day...of just forgetting it ever happened. It's his shield, his fortress against all my attempts to put him down. And it works. His laughter will never subside because he won't ever face reality without it. And the reason I sometimes look pissed off is because I don't have a shield. I let reality get to me, I revel in it. If I had a shield, his laughter wouldn't pierce my soul. People's subtle perversions wouldn't irritate me and I'd be a much happier person.
I deal with the laughter. We aren't friends, but not mortal enemies. Sometimes I just have to laugh it off when inevitably he out laughs my laugh, and I just leave it up to him. Because, well, it's what he does best.
