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Chapter Thirty-Six - The Aftermath - |
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That poor bastard. Trapped eight hours a day, five days a week, in a room with me. Tall Straight Assistant had no choice but to listen to me whine about my problems, rationalize my actions, and hypothesize about The Breakup. It got folded into his job description on the DL, QT, and sly. That meant the HR Witch never got a memo detailing the added responsibilities and TSA never received the commensurate salary bump. He took it like a champ though, lending a sympathetic ear and even offering his own theories about 4’s erratic behavior without passing judgment on mine. Well, he did pipe up once somewhere around the thirty-seventh time I went over the sequence of events and let it slip about D-Girl. “Wait a minute. You did D-Girl?” “Uh-huh.” “And your Asian Fuck Buddy?” “Yeah.” “And 4?” “Yes.” “All in a two week period?” “Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I haven’t been on a date in over two months, and I didn’t even get laid then. Exactly what is your complaint, again?” When you look at it from that point of view, he may have had a point. “Yeah, but...” Tall Straight Assistant threw me a look that dared me to challenge him. I conceded the match and gave him an hour off. From then on he searched high and low for Things I Had To Live For, knowing that delivered just so, they would shut me up if only for a little while.
•••
It was still about the choices. I chose to date 4. I could have chosen not to. After all, it was a pussy she held to my head, not a gun. She suggested an ‘affair.’ I’m the one who blew it up all out of proportion. She so much as told me how long the affair would last: three months. Shouldn’t I be grateful that I managed to hang in there a month longer than the others - proud, at least? Odds were against me and I beat them. If she were a blackjack table at the Flamingo, I’d be celebrating my good fortune with lap dances at the Crazy Horse II now.
•••
I also chose to let my co-workers baby-sit me. It was never much of an arm twist to get someone to catch a beer after work, but after a few therapy sessions, even alcohol wasn’t enticement enough to sit through my endless blathering about what went wrong - And I was buying! Perhaps it was hard for them to watch their friend spiraling into depression. Or maybe I was just plain boring them to death. Why couldn’t I snap out of it? So I was nursing a broken heart compounded by the ghosts of my life’s failures and the onset of middle age - It’s not like I had a terminal illness, or I was a P.O.W. facing daily torture and beatings - nothing serious like that. But when you’re in the middle of a crisis, the weight of your problems relative to the rest of the world isn’t the issue. At that moment all that concerned to me was the water I was drowning in. As my problems pulled me down and the water rose above my eyes, most everyone faded from sight, with one or two exceptions.
•••
I blamed Very Dear Friend for the whole mess. “It’s all your fault, you know.” “My fault?” “’Go for it,’ you said. And you didn’t wear black, by the way.” Very Dear Friend was unwavering in her .
•••
“Are you all right?” Ex-Ass draped her arms around my shoulders gently. “I’m okay,” I fibbed. When it felt socially proper, I started to pull back, but she held close. It was a lopsided exchange, me absorbing the sweetness of her comfort, feeling I’d betrayed her by dating 4. “If you ever need someone to talk to,” she offered. She didn’t know the half of it. I relaxed into her arms. “I’m not feeling very social yet.” That was a lie of omission about my returned phobia of being alone that had once again sent me out into the streets nightly, reliving my heartache to close friends and casual acquaintances alike, poring over details the same way my mother filled any available ear with the most comprehensive account imaginable of her latest aches and pains. I couldn’t lie about the insomnia the result of sitting up all night revisiting the ordeal by myself. The evidence of that came in the deep black/blue crescents under my eyes. But Ex-Ass’s time and comfort wasn’t to be squandered in these early stages, not if I wanted anything more of her. You haven’t completely wrapped up one failed relationship and already you’re planning to get into the next. Someone stop me. “Call me when you feel like talking.” She pressed her lips to my cheek and didn’t react to the young skin of her mouth scraping on my stubble as we let go of our hug. “Hi, there.” I had no idea how long D-Girl had been watching, but there she stood, a stark reminder that I’d twice betrayed Ex-Ass. “Hello and goodbye,” I said. “I have to get back to my office.” D-Girl frowned. I finally let go of Ex-Ass’s hand. “Thanks.” Just as I settled into my desk and a pile of phone messages, D-Girl rang. “You two set a date yet?” “She’s just being a good friend.” “I suppose now you owe her one, too.” “Not one like that.”
•••
Somewhere between the time my baby sitters discovered that rectal exams were far more pleasant than entertaining me, and the time that I began spilling my guts to any stranger passing on the street, I found myself sitting at the bar at the Coronet next to the Projectionist that 4 dated before me. I had resisted speaking to him about her, but there was no one really who might better understand what I was going through. He had, after all, been privy to those sides of her that she reserved for those she felt close to and trusted. Hadn’t he? “The thing that gets me,” I told him, “is that I’m sure she was about to make a huge leap forward as a person. I was really looking forward to being there for that.” “What do you mean?” “You know, leaving some of her immature behavior behind. And not just because of the money.” “What money?” “You know, her trust.” “I didn’t know about a trust.” “It’s unimportant. I’m talking more about her growing out of some of those ideals and values she was holding on to. I think it had something to do with her getting over that thing that happened in college.” “What thing?” “She didn’t tell you about her graduation party, and all the weirdness?” “No.” He shrugged his shoulders and sipped his beer. “It sounds like she opened up a lot more to you than she ever did to me.” “Huh.” I looked at him blankly for a few seconds wondering why she did.
That sucked. If I was just another guy she dated, why did she tell me all those things and not him? And if I wasn’t just another guy, why the hell were we not together? The next day, she and I passed in the stairwell alone. I told her I’d spoken to Projectionist. “Were you afraid of getting too close to me?” “No.” As if that was the most ridiculous thing in the world. “Then why did you tell me all those things you didn’t tell him?” “I don’t repeat every conversation with every guy I date. You just asked the right questions, that’s all.” “So you didn’t feel any closer to me than any other guy you’ve ever dated?” I’d pushed too far. Up went the wall. “Look, I can’t do this now.” I wanted to ask her when she could do it, but I knew better.
•••
Jesus Christ, I got it all wrong. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing and had no business entering in to a serious (for me, anyway) relationship without more actual experience under my belt. Fuck Buddies added nothing to my palette of social skills nor did they give me any sense of boundaries. 4 gave me an inch and I took a mile of her. But I didn’t ask anything of her I wouldn’t give of myself. Maybe me on a silver platter wasn’t the slickest approach in the world. If only I’d remembered my Gang Of Four pal Chuckie’s sage advice -- “Girls like assholes.” The simplest truths are always the most profound. Girls do like assholes. I knew that. I treated Best Friend like a queen and she’d have nothing to do with me. 3a, who I dumped all over, couldn’t get enough. It was such a basic truth, why oh why did I forget it with 4? Sadly, it doesn’t work in reverse. Treating me like shit wasn’t 4’s ploy to lure me in. She just didn’t like me anymore. She doesn’t like me anymore. She doesn’t like me anymore. She doesn’t like me anymore. If I say it enough times, it will sink in.
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