Fourth Comings (29 page)

seventy-six

P
erhaps this is something I should have said earlier:

Last Saturday I left your room and walked the twisty, half-mile path that led to the Dinky train that led to the bigger Northeast Corridor train at Princeton Junction that led to Penn Station, NY, that led to the 2/3 subway that led to the Grand Army Plaza stop that led to the ten-block walk that led to my home sweet subterranean home. More than two hours, point to point.

As I sat alone on the Dinky train, I thought about all the smart people in this town, in the world, and wondered when someone would use his brilliant mind to invent a teleportation technique that could reduce the Princeton–to–New York travel time from two hours to the blink of an eye. The very notion of the long-distance relationship wouldn’t exist. If I had instantaneous access to you, and I didn’t have to give up my life in New York, would I have tried to end it? Would you have asked me to marry you?

I looked at the ring on my finger to confirm that this had actually happened. I wiggled my fingers in front of me, as countless brides-to-be have done with blindingly new platinum-and-diamond showpieces. Only my ring was hammered by your hands out of an old quarter. I used to wear this ring on my fuck-you middle digit. It was too big for my ring finger on either hand, and yet now it fits perfectly. This was not a miraculous sign. This was nothing more significant than hot weather and water retention. Or so I’ve been telling myself for the past week.

I was about to take it off when a five-pack of young men and women came staggering through the train car. At first I thought Dude and his preppy posse had met and mixed with Marjorie (how’s Marjorie?) and the volleyball groupies, and I squirmed at this unnerving coincidence. Then I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that this was an altogether different but totally identical group of Princeton undergrads. They were very intoxicated, and Ivy League intellectual drunk tends to be a very pretentious form of drunkenness. That is, when it isn’t a totally imbecilic kind of drunkenness.

“I’m telling you,” said one of four guys wearing fitted polo shirts, long khaki shorts, and flip-flops, “everyone wants to be happy, but no one even knows what happiness means.”

“Happiness is a warm gun,” interrupted another guy, who distinguished himself from the rest by the radical degree to which he was red and gleaming with perspiration.

“Happiness is a warm puppy!” chirped the cutest girl. She was also wearing a polo shirt collar up.

“Happiness is a warm body!” shouted Red-N-Sweaty as he grabbed the cutest girl, who shoved him off just because she could.

“Happiness is a cold beer!” the other, less cute girl suggested. And they all cheered.

Then the tallest male with the thickest neck said, “Happiness is not having to listen to you fucktards wax pseudo-philosophical about happiness.”

I quietly nodded in agreement because Thick Neck was sort of right. Studies have shown that happy people do not spend their hours contemplating the nature of happiness, because they are too busy being happy. The unexamined life, apparently,
is
worth living. Very much.

“Seriously,” said Pseudo-Philo Fucktard. “Why are we all trying to achieve this state of happiness when no one can even define what it means?”

Red-N-Sweaty placed a firm, friendly hand on his shoulder. “I can’t tell if you’re too drunk or not drunk enough.”

“The latter!” said the rest of the group in unison, which sent them into paroxysms of laughter.

Their conversation was interrupted by a cell phone. The ring tone wasn’t a tone at all, but a young woman’s voice chirping, “Jeff is
so hawt
right now. Jeff is
so hawt
right now…” And the conversation that commenced was not unlike any number of overheard cell-phone conversations in which the overheard half is a priceless parody of postmillennial conversational strangulation, in which the speaker seems incapable of putting together a single sentence in the subject/verb/object tradition.

“Yeah…The fuck?…Aw shit, dawg…”

This was the guy who was just waxing philosophical about the nature of happiness? As inarticulate and seemingly pointless as it was, the call lasted for the five-minute duration of the ride to Princeton Junction. I hopped to my feet before the train even screeched to a stop and I was the first passenger out the sliding doors. I strode quickly through the dim underground tunnel that brought me to the eastbound side of the tracks, where there were already clumps of passengers waiting to board the next train to Manhattan, mostly middle-aged couples heading into the city to catch dinner and the latest must-see Broadway show. They were paunchy, gray-haired men in rumpled suits talking about golf and the stock market. Their well-preserved wives wore too much makeup, shiny evening fabrics, and showy gold jewelry. They discussed sending the kids back to school and what the humidity does to their hair.

This second group reminded me of my parents, so much so that I suddenly got this strange idea that any two of these anonymous fifty-somethings could have been my parents out on a date. I had actually looked forward to presenting this as evidence to my sister that my mother wasn’t going to leave my father after all. I did a double take, and my heart sank when I realized that I could do a triple, quadruple, and quintuple take and I still wouldn’t see them actually socializing together in public because they never do.

“OW!” squealed Other Girl after a skin-on-skin smack. “You suck!”

The Princeton Tigers had made their way to the platform, and they were passing the time by playing slapsies.

“If I suck, then why”—
slap!
—“do”—
slap!
—“I”—
slap!
—“win”—
slap!
—“every”—
slap!
—“time?”
Slap! Slap!

“The alcohol has dulled my reflexes!”

“Admit it,” Thick Neck said, “you are the fairer but weaker”—slap!—“sex….”

Other Girl lived for stealing attention away from Cute Girl. A lopsided smile was barely hidden behind her fake frown. I started to feel sorry for Other Girl.

“I’m telling you, no one even knows what happiness means,” insisted Pseudo-Philo Fucktard, still not giving up.

Then the Northeast Corridor train pulled in with a piercing squeal that mercifully drowned out the rest of the undergraduate conversation.

I could’ve helped them out if I had wanted to. For
Think,
I kept up on the science of happiness because most people, but Americans in particular, want to be happy. I know that people are unhappier about the opportunities they pass up (saying no) than those they accept (saying yes), even if the opportunity doesn’t turn out the way they hoped it would. I also know that people are happier when they set a short, strict time limit for decision-making (one week) and that married couples are happier than singles. (Well.)

Are these the reasons I didn’t come right out and reject your proposal last week?

No. I think it was something else entirely, like the temporary amnesia brought on by your kisses. Sexual arousal releases oxytocin, a hormone that turns on the body and shuts off the brain.

Basically, you kissed me out of my right mind.

And I cannot let you do it again this afternoon.

seventy-seven

H
ere’s another story. One I started—but couldn’t finish—from the Care. Okay? party:

“…Eurocock,” said Cinthia.

“Who’s having Eurocock for supper?” boomed a voice from behind. And before I could turn around, I was attacked by a flock of wild purple ostriches.

“Dah-ling! It’s you!”

“Royalle G. Biv!” I spluttered, spitting his boa out of my mouth.

“Where’s the Buddhist?” the drag queen asked, readjusting his spangled cleavage. If the average anorexic starlet got a boost in her bra from those silicone chicken-cutlet inserts, Royalle G. Biv must use two Perdue Oven Stuffer Roasters.

“Not here,” I said. “And he’s not a Buddhist. He’s a Deist who practices Vipassana meditation.”

“Say no more!” he said, making an exaggerated lip-zipping gesture, which was funny because it was a perfectly appropriate gesture for describing your practice.

“Royalle G. Biv!” Dexy shrieked. “I love you! I’m your biggest fan!”

“Not possible,” he said.
“I’m
my biggest fan!” He waited for the laugh, then said, “Listen, doll, I’d love to tawk, but I’ve got to bring down the howse.”

And he pranced away as only a seven-foot drag queen can prance.

“This should be good,” Dexy said.

“Get ready to cry yer eyes out,” Royalle warned the crowd, pulling a chiffon scarf from his ballgown for effect.

And right before the background track started up, I thought about how phenomenal it would be if Royalle broke out into a Barry Manilow song. You were returning in less than forty-eight hours, and I wasn’t any closer to knowing what I’d say to you when I saw you again.

I needed a Sign. I was begging for a Sign. I was willing to shed twenty-two years of agnostic skepticism if God or a higher power came through with a Sign. This was His moment to wow me, win me over. I would spend the rest of my life as a missionary turning doubters into the devoted with my astonishing conversion story.

“And then when I had lost all faith, I got a Sign, and that’s when I knew I had to say yes….”

I pressed my palms together under the table, praying a seven-foot drag queen named Royalle G. Biv would act as the voice box of a higher power, spreading His message of hope and love by performing a number by none other than Barry Manilow. Perhaps the appropriately titled “Could It Be Magic”:

Baby, I love you, come, come, come into my arms

Let me know the wonder of all of you

Or “Daybreak”:

We’ve been runnin’ around, year after year

Blinded with pride, blinded with fear

Or even “Copacabana,” for Christ’s sake:

They were young and they had each other

Who could ask for more?

But, alas, Royalle opened his huge red mouth and began to sing a power ballad I didn’t recognize until it built up to the torrid chorus.

“I WAH-NT yoooooou, I NEED yoooooooou,”
Royalle belted.
“But there ain’t no way I’m EVAH GONNA LOVE you….”

Not Manilow, but another overwrought late-seventies balladeer. Meat Loaf.

And as much as I hate to admit it, Royalle’s diva delivery of this over-the-top song hit me where it hurts. It was a performance for the ages, and I was mesmerized. Granted, at that point I had worked up to a solid drunk, and I was certainly susceptible to the
boo-hoo-hooze.
But Royalle’s performance, though not a Sign of the divine, was a smashing success on another level. His melodramatic lament beamed a spotlight on my own version of this troublesome triangulation, which I will come right out and reveal right now. And it is this:

I love you.

And I want you, too.

But.

However.

Unfortunately…

seventy-eight

O
f course, I got your message, too, which came after Len’s. It was so strange to hear your voice.

According to your message, the kiddies are calling you Rodney. That’s a pretty clever nickname, but if those Princeton Tigers really wanted to impress me, they would have called you Thornton, which is the senior-citizen college freshman character Rodney Dangerfield
plays
in the movie
Back to School.
But Rodney is a pretty solid nickname. Solid. A nickname like that could very well stick for the next four years. I knew I’d be right about the nickname. I just knew it, and see, you weren’t giving me enough credit for knowing such things. But I can hardly blame you. I wasn’t giving myself much credit, either….

I can’t stop thinking about Driver, the MILF’s kid with “modulation issues.” I’m sure you escaped this diagnosis only because it hadn’t been invented yet. I can totally see this kid madly spinning around in circles as a way of trying to calm himself down because he can’t handle all the noise and hubbub of the classroom. And the wilder and faster he spins, the more out of control he feels. It’s a self-defeating coping mechanism. But he’s four. He doesn’t know any better.

Since I’ve known you, you’ve been spinning and spinning and spinning into all these various personas, and none of this self-exploration and experimentation has given you a sense of peace. I’ve known you for six years, intimately for four, and I still have no idea who I’m in love with. When we first met six years ago, you were Marcus Flutie, notorious burnout and sly defiler of underage women. After a mandatory stint in rehab, you became Marcus Flutie, sobered-up genius whose rebellious history made you all the more intoxicating to an unsullied goody-goody like me looking for a little corruption. After a few semesters at the un-accredited Buddhist college in California, and a few months at the experimental school in Death Valley, you became Marcus Flutie, non-sectarian practitioner of Vipassana meditation.

This minimalist philosopher is less or more the person who knelt on the floor and asked me to marry him last week. But I understand that being here in this new place will inspire you to shape-shift into somebody else, someone unknown to me right now: There will be a fourth coming of Marcus Flutie. Followed by the fifth. And the sixth. And so on. How can I possibly promise to love you
FOREVER
when I don’t even know who you’ll be by the time you get this notebook? Who is at the heart of Marcus Flutie? What is the essential part of you in every new incarnation?

Is that what you’re trying to find there, on the floor of your closet? You want to be still and quiet and look inward, and I fully encourage you in that quest. But I’m afraid that you’ve twisted so far inside yourself that I can’t help you find the way back out. And I’m not willing to go in there with you. Maybe there’s someone else out there who will. Someone who isn’t necessarily a better woman than I am, but better for you right now.

That’s one thing that hasn’t changed in a week: You, Marcus Flutie, are still an all-or-nothing proposition for me, and as much as I’d like to tread that middle path with you, I don’t know how. (You must have seen this yourself, or you wouldn’t have considered breaking up with me.)

I was just reading this study for work about how the happiest couples are those who sacrifice their own wishes so their partners can achieve their dreams. It makes perfect sense. And yet I know I’m too young, that we’re too young, for me to live my life only as it relates to you. If you had asked me to marry you the night you first told me about your acceptance, I would have embraced Princeton as part of a larger plan that involved me. I probably would have reacted differently.

I might have even said yes.

Alas, you didn’t ask me then. You made plans for your future without me in mind. And that’s okay. But how can you now ask me to arrange my life around you?