An emo band is blasting onstage and there\u2019s this beautiful woman across the bar, wearing a cocktail dress and gold hoop earrings. Her hair is dark red, a different shade from my soon-to-be ex-wife\u2019s.<\/p>\n
I am an irresistible sex machine.<\/p>\n
I go and feed her the line. She just blinks. The guilt and self-hate ball up in my stomach, but I keep it down, away from my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
I say the line again, trimming some of the modifiers because the emo band is now caterwauling. She leans close to my ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cUm,\u201d she says, rattling my eardrum, \u201cI guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
I buy us vodka tonics even though she\u2019s not quite done with hers.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you like this band?\u201d I scream.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo!\u201d she shrieks back.<\/p>\n
The place is popular, new, and people keep bumping into me. I can smell everyone\u2019s shampoo and cologne.<\/p>\n
I say, \u201cAfter these drinks let\u2019s get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nods, finishes her first drink, and starts the one I bought for her. Big freckles line her arms and she has fine, soft hairs\u2014nothing like my ex-wife. Patty grows no hair on her arms, is so afraid of the sun and more freckles that she cakes herself with sunblock every day. When I did the laundry her shirts always smelled like the beach.<\/p>\n
The beautiful woman and I sit on stools, not really saying anything, not just because of the noise but also because speech might make us think more darkly of ourselves. She looks down, touches the screen of her smartphone. I have a dumb phone. Her phone makes me feel empty and inadequate inside. When she goes to the bathroom, I realize I haven\u2019t even asked her name.<\/p>\n
The band crashes and bashes through their loudest songs for the finale. The strobes flash and people up front lose themselves in the spectacle, but back here we are missing the point of it all.<\/p>\n
The beautiful no-name woman doesn\u2019t return. The band throws guitar picks and drumsticks at the crowd. I finish our drinks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In<\/em> a drink, I think. Why in<\/em> a drink? I sit at the bar and can\u2019t get it out of my skull. It\u2019s as if I\u2019m asking the beautiful woman to step with me into a Jacuzzi-sized martini glass. I think about how John Eagan, author of How to Pick Up Beautiful Women<\/em>, puts B.A. after his name on the cover of his book. I have an M.A. and teach composition at Southeastern State Community College. The grammar in Eagan\u2019s pickup line is wrong, wrong like my life.<\/p>\n After a few vodka tonics, two blonds and a brunette walk in and take a booth. I look around and a couple guys, one in a plaid sportcoat and the other swaying drunkenly on a stool, instantly bird-dog these girls. I decide to act. According to Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Keeping the Love You Find<\/em>, I must work on my action<\/em>. I\u2019ve got thought<\/em> and feeling<\/em> down. It\u2019s sensing<\/em> and action<\/em> I need to work on, so I\u2019m across that room like a spider monkey on angel dust.<\/p>\n According to Eagan, when there are several women, you must buy them all drinks. It costs, but so does life. You\u2019ll lose more money than drink money in your life, especially on something like a divorce.<\/p>\n I deliver the first sentence of the line. Then I say, \u201cMay I join you for<\/em> a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n They look at each other and laugh. I\u2019ve got a new black dress shirt tucked into my jeans. Chest poked out, shined leather shoes. I know<\/em> I look good. I am<\/em> a sex machine.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you buying?\u201d asks the one I want, her lips shiny with gloss, her pushup bra displaying gravity-defying cleavage. Like the bras Patty bought from Victoria Secret, the ones that could not help her.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n They giggle in unison.<\/p>\n \u201cSit,\u201d she says, and offers her hand. Her name is Marley. \u201cMy mom liked reggae,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Marley\u2019s hair springs from her scalp in long, tight braids. She\u2019s a nurse at the children\u2019s hospital but wants to be an actress. In fact, she\u2019s acting in a few plays across town. She aims her body at me when she speaks. It\u2019s a good night to be alive, in the company of beautiful women.<\/p>\n Her blond friends, Sidney and Keeley, go sit at the bar where other men buy them drinks.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have great friends,\u201d I say. \u201cThat says a lot about you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo where are your friends?\u201d<\/p>\n I consider this. \u201cI\u2019m losing most of them in the divorce.\u201d<\/p>\n Then I have to do a lot of talking. I talk about the separation and Patty sleeping with her boss. I don\u2019t talk about the heartbreak and the loneliness. That pain belongs to me alone and, besides, I want to have a good time. Marley\u2019s body language never closes up. She listens. I think maybe there\u2019s hope out here in the world. Maybe there\u2019s life after losing so much.<\/p>\n Pretty soon her friends want to go. It\u2019s late. They work early in the morning.\u00a0 There\u2019s a long drive home. There are a million reasons to say goodbye to the night.<\/p>\n \u201cGive me your number.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she says. \u201cGive me yours.\u201d As she puts my number in her phone, I ask her why. \u201cI don\u2019t date married men,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we can be friends.\u201d<\/p>\n The wind gushes out of my lungs. I hang in there, though, smile on face, showing the teeth.<\/p>\n We shake hands goodnight. In that dress, from behind, honest to god, she looks like a violin, a Stradivarius, a work of art. Another beautiful woman walks out of my life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have fifteen-minute conferences with students about their personal narratives. The author of the narrative about a highway patrolman carrying nunchuks walks in. She has curves I\u2019ve never seen in class because, until now, they\u2019ve been hidden beneath ballooning t-shirts. She\u2019s made up her face and is wearing a low-cut top.<\/p>\n I smell a setup.<\/p>\n But wait!<\/p>\n Maybe she\u2019s my Imago<\/em>, Dr. Harville Hendrix\u2019s word for my romantic match.\u00a0 Maybe she can help me resolve conflicts with my parents and how they fell apart. Maybe it\u2019s only incidental that she\u2019s my student and I\u2019m her instructor. More mysterious things have happened in the world, have they not?<\/p>\n I look at her paper and ask about the nunchuks. She giggles and flushes red.\u00a0 \u201cI have to be honest,\u201d she says. \u201cI made that up.\u201d She leans forward so I can look at the goods. I don\u2019t. Or at least I\u2019m not obvious about it.<\/p>\n \u201cWell,\u201d I say, \u201cit\u2019s good writing, but I don\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t think the nunchuks add tension?\u201d She pulls out her notebook, licks her fingers and starts turning pages, red nails on white paper. \u201cBecause, Mr. Little, you told us last week that every narrative needs tension.\u201d<\/p>\n I go into my lecture voice and tell her it is the right detail in the right place, blah, blah, blah, that makes a good narrative. While I talk, she unsheathes a lollipop and wraps her lips around it, pushes and turns it against her tongue. In this moment, I realize I have been visiting too many porn sites and my sex drive is off the charts. Those images burn into the crevices of your brain, by the way. At the end of my screed I\u2019m almost babbling, but she isn\u2019t listening anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s why nunchuks<\/em> has to go,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n She replies, \u201cI\u2019ll do whatever you want, Mr. Little.\u201d She crunches down on the red lollipop.<\/p>\n I realize she has said my line to me with her eyes and body and I am the one being picked up. This beautiful woman knows a sex machine when she sees one. She understands that I am worthy of love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This beautiful girl is at the coffee shop, wearing a tank top and jeans, nothing I would call stunning. She\u2019s got big green eyes, nothing like Patty\u2019s brown ones. At this crucial moment, Patty calls me. We\u2019re trying to be friends, but I no longer like her.<\/p>\n \u201cWill, we need to talk,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to talk about everything,\u201d I say. \u201cLife is short.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cConnie says you\u2019re out every night going to bars. Do you have any idea how sad that is?\u201d<\/p>\n Constance is Patty\u2019s best friend who also lurks at the law firm. Phil Grill\u2019s law firm. Grill and Sprinkle, Attorneys at Law. Those are action<\/em> names. My last name is Little, an overused adjective. I wrack my brain but don\u2019t remember seeing Constance anywhere. Perhaps it\u2019s because she\u2019s not a beautiful woman.<\/p>\n I say to Patty, \u201cDo you know how sad it is for a forty-year-old born-again virgin to go to bars and be up in my business?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t make fun of Connie,\u201d she says. \u201cShe\u2019s only looking out for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Blood rushes to my face. I think of Patty sprawled on Phil Grill\u2019s desk, white garters on her thighs, though, to my knowledge, she\u2019s never worn such undergarments.<\/p>\n \u201cWas she looking out for me when I would call for you? Was she looking out for me when she would lie and say you were in a meeting?\u201d<\/p>\n Silence.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re changing the subject,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n I hang up. She calls back. I press reject<\/em> and erase the voicemail without listening to it.<\/p>\n The girl with the big green eyes is still waiting. I hold the words of the pickup line in my mouth, tapping them against my teeth. When I begin to move, a man in overalls slips into her booth and grabs her hand.<\/p>\n Stunning, I think.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nunchuks and I schedule a special midnight study session, with drinks. She gets dressed and we shake hands like it\u2019s business. She opens my office door to go.<\/p>\n \u201cListen,\u201d she says, \u201cI\u2019m going to be out of town for the rest of the semester. Do you think you could use your knack for detail and specificity to imagine my future papers into existence? I\u2019d appreciate it.\u201d<\/p>\n I look out the window. Not even the stars can watch this.<\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d she says, smacking the back pocket of her jeans for emphasis, \u201cand it\u2019s A for ass.\u201d<\/p>\n Her heels snap down the long empty hallway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A typo? Are you kidding me? These are the most important words of a three-hundred-page book, and he decides to misspell one of them. I begin to wonder if I\u2019ve taught Eagan, if he\u2019s been in one of my composition classes, writing it\u2019s<\/em> for its<\/em>, then <\/em>for than<\/em>, effect<\/em> for affect<\/em>, accept<\/em> for except<\/em>, lose<\/em> for loose<\/em>, quite<\/em> for quiet<\/em>, and there <\/em>for their <\/em>and they\u2019re<\/em>.<\/p>\n I go to the club in search of the king of dress. She is nowhere. My imagination is too blank to conjure her. My hand picks a bottle of Wild Turkey from behind the bar. I stand in the alley with it before great darkness descends and wipes my memory for a few hours.<\/p>\n Next thing I know, cars line the curbs along both sides of the street. In the blinding porch light, silhouettes hold solo cups. People talk loudly in drunken deafness and stare at me as I stumble up the sidewalk. I don\u2019t recognize any of the shadowed faces but keep moving toward the front door as if I have some purpose in this world.<\/p>\n A clutch of drunks on soiled couches in the living room, tapestries on the walls and sheets over the windows, CDs and DVDs spread on the floor beneath the TV like humdrum offerings. I find the keg in the kitchen where a tall drunk kid in a baseball cap offers me a yellow cup from a stack. He pumps the tap and ice water rattles in the garbage can as I aim the spout.<\/p>\n I kick aside some trash and go out onto the back porch where a bare bulb illuminates gray decking and a few feet of grass beyond it. There is nothing out here but squirrels and birds huddling in the live oaks. The back door opens and out comes a powerfully built kid with another bottle of whiskey. He has on a tight undershirt and jeans, no shoes. Someone has smeared lipstick on his face. He passes me the bottle without speaking. I take it, unscrew, drink, re-screw, and pass it back.<\/p>\n He nods. \u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been reading Shakespeare. \u201cFalstaff,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n He laughs and passes me the bottle again. \u201cWhatever.\u201d<\/p>\n When I pass it back he sets it on the rail and pulls a smartphone from his pocket. A pale, blue light shines on his face. It\u2019s an expensive one, with internet and everything the world has to offer. He can use it to check out of life whenever it bores him. I think of Patty scrolling through sexts and emails from Phil Grill, big smile on her face. Scrolling and smiling, treacherous and banal.<\/p>\n In the light, his jawline is illuminated distinctly. My first instinct was thinking<\/em>, but I\u2019m sure this is the time for action<\/em>. He is too preoccupied to see me rear back and take aim. I miss his face completely, fall and bang my head down the steps into the yard, my feet catching at the top, soles skyward. I remain conscious long enough to hear the entire house party come to the rail and laugh.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Were <\/em>instead of are<\/em>, as if beauty fades with time, which is not what you want a beautiful woman to think about when you are trying to enter her life. You don\u2019t want her thinking about death the way you do. That\u2019s no way to find your Imago<\/em>.<\/p>\n Ice in a ziplock bag against my swollen head. My skull isn\u2019t broken, but an enormous broken-blood-vessel bruise at the temple lopsides my face. The pain of it almost makes me forget my hangover. As it loops in my head, Eagan\u2019s our time more agreeable <\/em>sounds like poetry.<\/p>\n The house smells like last night\u2019s chicken bucket. I click an email from the chair of my department. It seems Nunchuks has been arrested for drug-running in El Paso. Her parents are furious. The chair would like me to come in immediately to explain how Nunchuks has maintained her stellar average from such geographical distance.<\/p>\n I get dressed and make myself presentable if presentable<\/em> means looking less like a corpse. I smile in the mirror. Somehow all teeth are still present.<\/p>\n The sun beats through my sunglasses. I manage to get out of the car, through the parking lot, and into the building without vomiting. The chair\u2019s office door is wide open. Her assistant waves me in like an air-traffic controller.<\/p>\n \u201cWilliam,\u201d the chair says, getting up, her face clouding with concern. \u201cAre you under the weather?\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s wearing a cream-colored blouse and rouge on her cheeks. For a split second, I think about my Imago <\/em>and how perhaps I\u2019ve been looking at this meeting all wrong. Maybe this is the time for pickup lines. I try my own.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just fine, Ruth. You\u2019re looking lovely today.\u201d<\/p>\n She nods and sits, so I do the same.<\/p>\n \u201cI know you\u2019ve been going through some trouble lately. Of course, I heard about Patty. But this is something else altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n She tells me Nunchuks\u2019 father is a big donor and that the provost has spoken and now is the time is for decisive action<\/em>. My contract won\u2019t be renewed. I\u2019ll be relieved of my classes and have to adjunct elsewhere. Everyone is very sorry for these unfortunate circumstances.<\/p>\n I start zoning out, thinking about life and my place in it. There\u2019s a pause and I realize she\u2019s expecting me to respond.<\/p>\n I say, \u201cI thought we might spend our time more agreeable.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I should stay home, but there\u2019s this voice inside saying whatever will fix my life is not at my house. The fix isn\u2019t inside me, either. It\u2019s out there, running through magical fields with the beautiful women.<\/p>\n Down by the beach there\u2019s an old bar where tourists flock for the holiest of Gulf Coast holidays, Spring Break. Luckily it\u2019s the offseason and there\u2019s time and space to think. I go out looking for the most beautiful woman I\u2019ve ever seen. I don\u2019t want to lie, so she at least has to be in the ballpark of the most beautiful woman I\u2019ve ever seen. Maybe just in the same zip code.<\/p>\n The place serves crab. There\u2019s a constant fishy odor and the reek of beer-soaked floorboards. The one woman in the bar is wearing a strapless linen dress with turquoise bikini straps on her browned shoulders. I sit down next to her and see that her face is lined from decades spent sunning. But, yes, it is quite possible that twenty years ago she would\u2019ve been the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.<\/p>\n For a moment, I don\u2019t think I can go through with this but I snap out of it. This is what single people do: they deliver the lines. I give it to her and she smiles, she absolutely beams at me. I\u2019m instantly sorry that I have stolen the line from Casanova, B.A. and that I couldn\u2019t make her smile by my own wit.<\/p>\n Turns out she is a good person, with ideas, a heart, and a mind of her own. On her smartphone, she shows me pictures of her children and it doesn\u2019t make me feel inadequate. They are in college, smiling, happy. She tells me that their father is no longer with us. I don\u2019t pry. Death is not the path to sex.<\/p>\n I tell her about my ex and how she wronged me. I tell her I\u2019m still doing the job I lost. I talk about how I\u2019ve been going to the gym to stay sane and get my body together. I\u2019m not fit, just gaunt with stringy muscles, but I offer my knobby biceps to feel, my budding, angular pecs.<\/p>\n \u201cWow!\u201d she says, genuinely impressed. \u201cSo strong! So full of life!\u201d<\/p>\n After laying hands on me, she doesn\u2019t take them off again. She squeezes my knee when she\u2019s telling a story. She touches my shoulder when she laughs. It almost creeps me out, but I understand she\u2019s taking action<\/em>.<\/p>\n When we leave the crab place we are hot for each other in the alley. Our hands are wandering, searching for the parts that will stave off the loneliness. Her place is close, on the beach, but we drive my car to get there faster. I think maybe all this work, this devotion to and study of beautiful women will finally pay off. Someone will appreciate and validate who and what I am. I am more than an ex-composition instructor. I am a sex machine.<\/p>\n Inside her condo the first thing I notice is the mechanical hiss. She tries to kiss and moan over it. She is telling me how incredible I am, how special and kind. She won\u2019t flip on lights and is trying to pull me down the hall. But I feel the switch digging into my shoulder blade and flick it. There, in the dining room, is her husband, a husk of a man hooked to tubes, tanks, and a breathing machine. He is preserved by the respirator, yet lifeless as a dining room table.<\/p>\n She sees the look of horror on my face. Her mouth starts shaping words a few seconds before anything comes out.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t go,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI really should,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, you shouldn\u2019t.\u201d Her eyes are wide and electric with longing. \u201cIt\u2019s okay. Stay here with me.\u201d<\/p>\n The hissing fills the space between us. We try to hold our breaths but the machine breathes for both of us. There are people lonelier than we are. There are lives more ragged and actions<\/em> more desperate than anything Harville Hendrix could imagine. There\u2019s no pick-up line for this.<\/p>\n She places my hand over her heart. She holds it there, almost trembling.<\/p>\n Lonesome is a world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Were instead of are, as if beauty fades with time, which is not what you want a beautiful woman to think about when you are trying to enter her life. You don\u2019t want her thinking about death the way you do. That\u2019s no way to find your Imago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1336,1695,1386,92,1694,1692,1693],"class_list":["post-14765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-bad-men","tag-beautiful","tag-divorce","tag-drinking","tag-nunchuks","tag-self-help","tag-sex-machine","writer-max-hipp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14765"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14821,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14765\/revisions\/14821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“I\u2019m not trying to be rude or impolite, or invade your space in any way. I just wanted to know if a lovely girl like you can use some pleasant company?” (Ibid.)<\/h5>\n
“Hi, I just wanted to tell you that what you are wearing looks stunning on you.\u00a0 May I join you?”\u00a0(Ibid.)<\/h5>\n
“I was intrigued by your beauty and grace, and I just couldn\u2019t keep myself from coming over. May I join you in a drink?” (Eagan, 202)<\/h5>\n
“Hi, I\u2019ve seen that king [sic] of dress on other women, but none of them looked as great as you do in it. Do you mind if I join you?” (Ibid.)<\/h5>\n
“As I was standing there, I noticed how beautiful you were. I thought perhaps we could spend our time more agreeable together. May I join you?” (Ibid.)<\/h5>\n
“I\u2019ve never really said this to anyone before, but I just felt I had to tell you\u2014you\u2019re the most beautiful woman I\u2019ve ever seen.” (Ibid.)<\/h5>\n