Polite Bondage

It was nice out---nearly ice cream truck weather---and I finally got around to doing something I'd been putting off for a while. I went over to his house to pick up my bike in the middle of the afternoon. I walked across town to get there, down different streets, some alleys, through a couple of parks. I walked by the church where I had my first kiss and past where I'd walked that girl home after. A new family came out her old front door. I'd only ever gone inside twice. Once because I was badgered into meeting her psychotic, phone-sex-voiced Belgian mother in order that I receive a preemptive lecture on the parameters of dating her daughter and the second time, far more frightening, at the request of the daughter with her mother away, ordering more than requesting: "I want you to come over right now and fuck me on my mother's bed." "Actually, I'm not too crazy about this one, Suzy." "Just get over here." "This one reallllllly doesn't appeal to me." "Get over here. I left the door open." "Suzy..." Click.

I kept going along the sidewalks that girl used to take to meet me halfway, or at least until our specks could be identified. I remember how her walk would change a little after she saw me and that was always my cue to know the little speck was her. Mine must've changed too, I couldn't wait to set a collision course.

It only lasted a Spring on that street because she got a car. But we had cherry blossoms lining both sides of the street, first above our heads, then paving the sidewalk and streets like cherry frosting.



I kept going till I was past all that. Climbed a hill until I could see his place next to the hospital. Stopped a couple times to meet some neighborhood cats and tried to convince myself I was taking my time but I knew I wasn't. Found a curb and read a few pages of Mr. Richard Yates. Saw a sexy girl who looked a bit like Penelope Cruz smoking and I bummed a cigarette off her. She lit my cigarette while I tried to make her smile talking Spanish and struck out. "Unlucky" was teetering on the brink of "bad luck".

And then when I saw him I didn't have luck, of any variety, anymore.

"People who count on luck don't last long in the business of defusing bombs and disarming land mines, and that is what my business seems to be. It helps to know these things. Muhammad Ali was not lucky. He was fast, very fast."---Hunter S. Thompson

What's the smallest group of people you need to have it statistically probable that two people share the same birthday?

How many people would you need in there to make it feel spooky if you found out you blew out your birthday candles on the same day?

The answer's 23. 51% chance somebody there has dibs on your birthday.

Here's another one that I was considering standing there in his foyer:

"What's a safest hour to drop in on somebody who you haven't seen in a helluva long time without them being on their way to a drink, coming back from a drink, recovering from a drink, or in the act of drinking?

Answer: 2pm seemed a safe bet at the time.

Question: Are we taking bets?

Answer: On what?

Question: You know what.

Answer: That?

Question: Uh huh.

Answer: Whether he'll die before he gets around to doing anything about this?

Question: That's your crossword puzzle. But what I'm a little curious about here, with your brow like a broken windshield and all, is whether you're deepdown chalking this up to bad luck, or coincidence, or just an ugly set of stacked odds against you?

Answer: Or whether I'm getting off on it as material.

Question: I take that angle for granted, fucko.

Answer: Listen, if you've got all the answers why is he pretending *not* to be drunk?

Question: To fuck with you. Why are you pretending to humor him about it?

Answer: I don't know what else to do. This is Mexican TV movie material.

Question: You could be honest with him. You could leave.

Answer: That would hurt his feelings.

Question: Well then, Mr. Considerate Chickenshit 2004-2009, best of luck when he interrogates you about the book in your back pocket? You're well aware of the warm friendly tradition of happy hour literary discussions. He'll ask you if it's true Revolutionary Road is really Gatsby for the 50's.

Answer: Do you think he remembers when he told me about Gatsby for the first time?

Question: Now or in general?

Answer: I'm the one expected to keep a straight face here. Confronted with this Nixon-like egregious evasion of the demonstratively obvious subject matter only to point 10,000 fingers at the truth.

Question: Wasn't Yates going on about something along those lines in the book?

Answer: Yeah, but I can't remember the exact quote.

Question: Try remembering it from the movie.

Dad: Are you liking what's his name, you know, Reactionary Road? That guy. My writer friend Michael Leone's guy. Norman Bates. Richard Bates. Bill Gates. What's his name?

Brin: Richard Yates.

Sara: Leave. You don't need to see this. And you're gonna be bummed out for a week over this.

Question & Answer: She's right.

Dad: You were saying it, what's it called again, Reprobate Road, is a bit like Gatsby. High praise. Is it?

Sara: Take your bike and go.

Question & Answer: Enlighten him on the similarities. Go on. Enlighten *us*. Make us your groupies. We long for that throbbing thrust of the noble autodidact's uncontaminated insights into things. So pure...

Dad: "Oh yes---before I forget---and what's this your mother tells me about your harsh judgments concerning my alcoholism?"

Sara: 32 DD

Brin: ?

Sara: I'm trying to distract you.

Question & Answer: We'll try and help her too. We were wondering what it meant about you and her when she told you she wouldn't like to play on a cheap piano and you admitted to us, in strict confidence of course, that you wouldn't like to play on an expensive one.

Sara: Is that true?

Brin: Uhhh...

Dad: "Strong judgment, your mother said. Stronnnng judgement."

Question & Answer: He's in a playful mood.

Brin: ...

Question & Answer: Just wanted to posit that we're amused you've 3rd personed yourself. Taking this shit on first person getting a little much, is it?



Sara: Here's something for you to think about instead. It's my pie chart for moving there.



(Continued) Sara: 80% of it love. Only a sliver for Alanis Morsette, cute Olympic stuffed animal mascotts, wine at the Sylvia with you...

Question & Answer: Alanis?

Brin: I know.

Dad: Come to the living room and we can chat.

Brin: I'm gonna go. I just came to get my bike.

Dad: I knew there had to be another reason besides a visit. My ulterior motive driven son.

Sara: 32 DD. You weren't a breast guy before me.

Question & Answer: This is crass manipulation of a girl you're in love with.

Sara: And you love it, baby.

Dad: Come on, let's go to the living and sit for a moment than you flee.

Dan Starling: Don't worry, all my paintings are in that living room we'll have him out numbered.

Sara: When I move there can we find some way to have Dan Starling live next door to us?

Brin: Okay, just for a minute.

Now what was that quote. Fuck. Fuck. I can't remember. Something like, "That's the great thing about the truth, you always know what it is. No matter how long you've been without it. You never forget. You just get better at lying."

Or something close to that.

I think...