Grace Coates

Changing Levels

He smelled funny. I couldn’t help but scrunch my nose and flutter my eyes at the smell. His jeans sagged awkwardly and made me scream “Belt! Belt! Belt!” loudly in my head. Furthermore, he wore an oversized white t-shirt that looked more like a wedding dress calamity, and I couldn’t help but feel like one of his bridesmaids. As if that weren’t enough, he spoke in a murmur that was so indecipherable one had to move close to him to hear his words and as a result would fully absorb his mysterious smell.

But something about him drew me in. Maybe it was his smooth swagger or the way he so calmly accepted everything that went on around him. Not once did I see him panic or become agitated, even when the lighting technician told him that the center stage light was broken on opening night and that there was no fixing it. He coolly shook his head and promised the technician that the light would be taken care of, that the show would go on. And even though he was never less than ten minutes late to wherever he was expected, earning the nickname ‘Molasses’ on the set, he always showed up and followed through with ease, understanding and near silence.

My last boyfriend, Jared, smelled like the kind of cologne every man wants to smell like – exquisite without effort and full of sex appeal. Jared wore his clothes with perfect execution and delivery on account of each zip, buckle, and button. He spoke with elegance and a projection, which threatened men and wooed women. But nothing about Jared told me that by being his girlfriend I was experiencing something no one else ever faced. Jared was no secret. He was just as much mine as he was yours.

Molasses, on the other hand, didn’t belong to anyone. He didn’t converse with any of us on the crew unless he was talking about something tech-related or answering a brief question. On a few accounts, he managed to engage in conversations with break-dancers and other performers in the shows, but I was never close enough to hear what was discussed. Other than that though, Molasses maintained a reputation as being sluggish, distant, and strangely mysterious.

Because his lazy eyes read, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” Molasses was often nagged excessively by the crew to do the necessary tasks, for they worried that if no one bothered him the job wouldn’t get done. But at the end of the day, Molasses did exactly what was asked of him and so no one saw any reason to fire him.

I had been working as a sound technician at the theater for a couple of months when Molasses started as an assistant technician. Our encounters were scarce at the beginning and I hadn’t planned on making them abundant. But by the third week of his employment, I had realized that he was the secret I’d been searching for. He was the mysterious entity that I needed to feed my hunger for the obscure.

One evening, during one of the Latin dance shows, I went to take a bathroom break when I found him sitting there in the lobby, looking out of things to do. The boredom in his eyes, my curiosity, and my newfound confidence all allowed me to approach him forthrightly.

“Hey,” I said. “Why are you out here?”

He slowly looked up at me and yawned.

“Tired?” I asked.

“Oh, no, just, you know,” he muttered.

“Yeah.” I didn’t know.

“Why are you shouting?” he mumbled.

“Why am I shouting? I’m not shouting,” I giggled.

“What? No. I said, why are you out here?” he said, correcting my misunderstanding.

            “Oh. Uh, pee,” I stuttered.

            He laughed. I’d never seen him laugh. This awkward gap in our dialogue caused me to frantically find any means of getting away from him.

            “Well, I’m gonna go to the bathroom. See ya’ out there,” I said. Out there? I thought. Where’s out there? That’s the kind of thing you say to a teammate when you’re gearing up to play on a field and “out there” signifies “field”.

            My plans to approach Molasses with confidence and ease not only had failed, but I felt that in his eyes such plans had turned me into a graceless, urinating disaster.

In the following weeks I found myself attempting to talk to the mysterious slacker like a normal person, but such attempts only resulted in brief encounters that echoed, “Give up!” in my ears. My search for a mystery turned out to be more difficult to solve than I had predicted.

As time went on, I became more and more quiet, introspective, and ill equipped to appear confident. My babbling mouth ceased and seemed only to become active when eating. I ultimately prohibited myself from initiating pointless conversations with Molasses, giving up with a tablespoon of disappointment and a pinch of exhaustion. At this, he approached me.

One evening, as directed by my boss, I stayed late at the theater, adjusting and testing levels in the sound booth to ensure a flawless night of music for the upcoming show. Suddenly, I heard a tap on the door. I invited the knocker in and, to my surprise, in walked Molasses looking more alive than usual.

“Coral. Hi,” he began.

“Molasses, what’s up?”

He ignored my question and instead sighed, “You know, you’ve been changin’. You used to be like everybody else around here, tryin’ ta’ talk to me, and tryin’ ta’ get me talkin’. But somethin’s different now. You know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”

I frowned with my eyebrows. “What? What are you talking about?” I stammered, shocked by the assertiveness in his startling declaration.

“I think you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. You’re calm, collected now. You don’t bother me with dumb questions anymore. What happened? Somethin’ happened.”

I could understand every word of his all too well. I chuckled nervously.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, knowing full well that I had changed, that, in fact, he had changed me.

“Yes you do. You know exactly what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”

I blinked.

“Well, I like it,” he said, saving me from a silence that expected me to speak. “I like it a lot,” he repeated.

My heart raced as I searched for the appropriate response. A ‘thank you’ wouldn’t do it. My search for words was met with a disconcerting supply of vocabulary so I decided to fidget with the controls on the soundboard, hoping he would once again save me from silence. A few moments passed and the silence was not filled by either of us. Just as my fidgeting began to feel unbearably unnecessary, I felt Molasses’ cold hand press against my neck. I squealed as a shiver ran up my spine and I whipped quickly around in my chair to see his surprisingly handsome face so close to me I could feel his breath.

“Whoa, you startled me!” I exclaimed.

“I’m sorry, didn’t mean to.”

He paused, then resumed.

“I like you, Coral. Ever since you, you know, left me alone, you’ve been all quiet and mysterious. Did you do it for me?”

I began to feel interrogated. “Do what for you?” I asked.

“Change,” he said as he pushed my bangs out of my face.

“I didn’t change. You, you, uh, you just made me nervous so I, I stopped trying to talk to–”

Molasses put his hand over my mouth as if to hush me, and drew me in to his face. He held my head with both hands, massaging my hair with his fingertips. Before I could grasp what was happening, he pressed his lips against mine and tightly held our faces together. My heart palpitated, telling him to keep the intensity going, but telling me to get away fast.

            I pulled away from his grip and softly pushed his chest away from mine. The confusion in his eyes told me he was not expecting my rejection and was hoping it was some kind of joke. The look in my eyes let him know I was equally confused. I noticed that this encounter felt like sign language. After a moment of silence and no withdrawal of my decision to pull away, Molasses realized that there was no joke being played on him. I smiled lightly and took a breath before trying to explain myself even though I wasn’t sure what I would say. But before I had a chance to conjure up an incoherent excuse for my actions, Molasses interrupted the silence. 

            “I thought we were on the same page,” he said, asking for clarification without actually posing a question.

            “No,” I said, realizing the truth behind my actions. “We’ve always been on two completely different pages – I guess that’s what intrigued me about you.”

I looked at him as he struggled to make sense of what it was I was saying. Suddenly, he closed his eyes, paused, and reopened them widely as if to say he was done with our encounter. I sat motionless as I watched him straighten his back and tuck his long, oversized t-shirt into his pants. By squinting my eyes and furrowing my brows, I asked him what he was doing. But without saying a word, Jack neatly combed his hair back with his fingers and walked out of the sound booth in a swagger-less march. Then he turned back to me before shutting the door and cleared his throat.

“I guess change is something you can’t truly do yourself,” he said, and then he quietly tiptoed out of the sound booth, leaving me to adjust the changing levels.