For Christmas, my ex-girlfriend gave me a subscription to one of those phone call therapy services. She’d been making offhand remarks about the betting for weeks, so I guess it was technically a gift, but I was smart enough to see the ultimatum in it. I smiled real wide and nodded kind of sad, and then I chose Dr. Lacy Taglione because I liked how her name sounded. I pictured her hot. The first thing I said, after all the bullshit intake stuff, was, “Hi, I’m Landon. My girlfriend thinks I have a gambling problem,” and she asked me if I thought she was right. Her voice was raspy, maybe a little rusty, and I appreciated its softly mechanical lilt. It sounded like one of those digital assistants, if she also bartended and then danced on the side.
“Depends on how you define problem.”
“…”
“If we’re talking about amounts and genuine financial jeopardy, then no fucking way, but if it’s about secrecy and dopamine and recognizable compulsive patterns or whatever, then, okay, yeah. Maybe.”
“Define it for me then.”
“Define what?”
“What, for you, would constitute a problem?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I meant it. It probably had something to do with impulsivity, with lack of control, with various forms of life interference, none of which were even negligibly present in my case, seeing as I only ever bet to piss this ex-chick off. That’s putting it too bluntly, probably. It was more like catharsis, doing something I knew her guts would despise. Like, she would spaz about something nutso, how I’d gotten the wrong flavor of sparkling or whatever, and then I’d go take the over on the Packers game rather than fight back. It was an effective system for a long time. We stayed together for nineteen months. We didn’t even break up because of the betting, either, it was because she found some other dude who was easier to boss around, and I think they started fucking before we even broke up. I never spoke about that with Dr. Lacy. Our therapeutic relationship only lasted three months. Mostly, we talked about communication.
She said, “So you sublimate your feelings into sports?”
“Who doesn’t?” I said.
“A lot of men do, I concede that.”
“I can see the condescension dripping through my screen.”
“Go on.”
“A lot of men, you say, like women don’t have any unhealthy sublimations or whatever you called it. Shopping and makeup and redesigning rooms for the sake of having something to do.”
“…”
“I mean, everyone says they want men to express their feelings, but the thing is, no one really does. This is a fact.”
“Everyone has unhealthy sublimations, I concede that too.”
“Think about it. My honest feeling is, yeah, I’d like to have lots more sex. But if I say that, then it’s like I’m some kind of typical simple asshole who only thinks with his dick, see? There’s no way to express that feeling in a way that doesn’t sound reductive and probably sexist, maybe even borderline predatory and manipulative, especially if I get all withdrawn and forlorn and invoke the word ‘intimacy’ while I’m saying it. You get where I’m going with this, yeah?”
“…”
“Or if I do get seriously depressed or lonely or whatever and then try to sublimate that feeling into the fact that the Brewers actually and routinely break my physical heart by amplifying all the pain of existence, then that’s just, like, childish or whatever. To say: we lost a decisive Game 3 by blowing a two-run lead in the ninth, and now it feels like my brother’s dead. People get the sentiment, but deep down they’re like ‘this guy has no idea about death…or life.’”
“You seem to be awfully focused on how your actions or comments will be perceived.”
“Because even real masculine pain is always easy to dismiss, and sometimes what Georgia actually wants is for me to suck it up and deal with it so that she can be the one to primarily express everything she’s feeling, while also encouraging me to express my feelings (and complaining about it if I don’t), but only so long as those feelings fit into defined bounds of appropriate emotionality, which, by the way, if anyone tried to tell a women that her feelings didn’t fit into the ‘bounds of appropriate emotionality,’ whoa boy. Lights out, motherfucker. So what’s the point of saying anything at all?”
“…”
“But feelings MUST BE EXPRESSED, all you assholes say, and you’re not wrong, exactly. I mean, all the rage and fear and shit has to go somewhere, so why not opt for an exploitative sportsbook or a barstool or a muscle car or younger chick or whatever because, frankly, there isn’t a lot of space for other forms of masculine expression, is there? I mean, if you’re not rich or famous or powerful, then you’re just you, the guy nobody wants to hear whine.”
“Do you feel lonely right now?”
“And Christ, Lacy, who doesn’t care about what other people think? Are you, like, fucking inhuman?”
“Landon, do you feel lonely right now?”
“Lacy, are you a fucking robot?”
“…”
“You sound like a fucking robot,” which I almost even believed.
“I’m a real person. I menstruate, and I once sent a naked picture to my boyfriend, which he then never replied to, and I haven’t heard from him since, and no robot would ever get anywhere near anything that taboo, so that should be proof enough.”
“…”
“I asked if you were lonely.”
“Only way to really prove it is to make a deal with me.”
“…”
“I lose I answer the question.”
“State the terms.”
“I win, you meet me somewhere, here, in Milwaukee.”
“This is coming up against all kinds of ethical guardrails.”
“Just choose any bet on offer at BETsmART. Anything relatively even money. Let’s say up to -150. Could be Polish fucking ping-pong for all I care, okay? Pick something. Anything.”
“…”
It probably sounds like I wanted to see if she looked like all the Google image searches I’d done, like this was some elaborate pickup con. Maybe it was. Maybe I’d fallen in love with my therapist like every other middle-aged asshole going through couples counseling. Maybe my love was real. You tell me. All I know is she picked soccer, and she lost. She lost bad, bad enough it could have been on purpose, and so one week later I went to the lakeshore, eleven in the morning, as we’d agreed. For an hour, nobody showed up. Then, this lady in hip jeans and heels sat next to me on the bench. I said fuck all. She never turned her head. Her heat was crowding me, wind playing with my skin, fish smell everywhere. We watched a pelican diving toward the water and coming up with something silver and flashing, and I felt aroused. I felt confident. The thing had food, and Lacy and I were connected and understanding. Both of us eyed the feast between us. We knew, inside, there was nothing left to be saved.
