Cult Classic(10)

“I’m of the belief that our kind of love, the six-hour-phone-call kind, melds into the other kind of love. And the second kind is more important. Agreed. But for whatever reason, we only had the intense kind. I couldn’t reach the second kind on your timeline.”

“We dated for years. Literally. Years.”

“It’s no one’s fault.”

“Is it not mostly your fault, though?”

The man at the end of the bar read with his elbows spread out in front of him, as if we were in a library with a liquor license. Perhaps my generation made not enough of selecting jewelry but too much of selecting a partner. Perhaps the internet had spoiled us more than we suspected and we already suspected quite a bit. Why couldn’t I just mate with this guy at the end of the bar? Why couldn’t we be happy? What difference would it make?

“I’m saying every relationship needs both kinds of love to go the distance,” Amos said, trying to catch my eye. “A galvanizing agent.”

“Like acid to the face.”

“What will you remember when you and this dude are seventy?”

“And by ‘this dude,’ you mean my fiancé?”

“You have to remember the passion. You’ll have decades to go back and forth and swim all the laps you want, but everyone needs to start by pushing off the side of the pool. Really shoving off.”

I slugged the rest of my beer.

“Love is not a race, Amos. Or a competition. This is your problem. It’s why you refuse to ‘swim laps’ with one woman.”

“I’m not talking about racing, I’m talking about not drowning.”

“And you know all this because of your vast experience with monogamy?”

“I take offense to the accusation that I’m unevolved, especially coming from you. The idea that you have to have had a long relationship to know what makes a good relationship is a lie propagated by society to make men settle down and women settle. It’s also a capitalist boondoggle to get the masses to pay higher insurance premiums. What kind of failure of imagination does the world think I have? Why assume I have no idea what it might be like? I’ve never drunk my own piss, for example, but I’m pretty sure I know what it tastes like.”

“Because you’ve drunk other people’s piss?”

“Don’t be clever.”

“Five seconds ago, you liked that I was clever.”

“My point is I couldn’t see into the future. You wanted someone to have an archetypical life with you and it wasn’t gonna be me, and great, maybe now you have it.”

“Fuck off.”

“It wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t true.”

“Oh, so we’ve never heard of slander, I guess.”

The man at the end of the bar looked up from his book. The bartender turned on the music, the kind of droopy tune that makes you want to cry on trains. I had not noticed the silence before. What would have been a welcome part of the atmosphere when we arrived now made me feel estranged from the moment, as if I’d been enjoying the wrong thing. Like when you’re already halfway done with your pasta and the waiter comes over and offers to grate cheese over it.

Amos saw his opening.

“Just tell me about him, then.”

I knew it was wrong to talk about Boots with Amos, like feeding a beloved cat to a lion. So I decided to tell Amos a safe story.

“We met at a surprise party, actually. My friend who I was meeting there was adamant that I arrive early so when I thought I saw the birthday boy crossing the street with me, I darted out of the crosswalk and nearly got hit by a bus. Like I felt the wind of the bus. I could even see a couple of the passengers, all shaken by a potential suicide. And out of nowhere, the guy rushes over, yanks me toward him, and escorts me out of the street.”

“The birthday boy?”

“No, different guy. You all start to look the same after a while, you know that? Anyway, we were both so high on adrenaline, we couldn’t stop laughing the whole night. Then he asked me out. Now one of our jokes is about that time I flung myself into traffic to avoid him.”

“You were in shock.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Why isn’t the joke that he saved your life?”

“I don’t know, Amos,” I said, folding my fingers together. “Maybe we’re both waiting for the day I turn around and say, ‘That’s right, asshole, I did fling myself into traffic to avoid you.’ I’m joking.”

“Are you?”

“Am I?” I mimicked him. “Should the day come when you manage to face-plant yourself into a relationship, you’ll find there are certain fragile truths every couple has. Sometimes I’m uncomfortable with the power, knowing I could break us up if I wanted. Other times, I want to blow it up just because it’s there. But then the feeling passes.”

“That’s bleak.”

“To you, it is. But I’m not like you. I don’t need to escape every room I’m in.”

“But you are like me. You think you want monogamy, but you probably don’t if you dated me.”

“You’re faulting me for liking you now?”

“All I’m saying is you can’t just will yourself into being satisfied with this guy.”