The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race (15 page)

Charlie shook his head. “I’m a loser,” he said. “I live in a basement.”

I reminded Charlie that it was in this very basement that he had space for a treadmill, a TV, and a mini-fridge. But these facts were cold comfort. He curled up into a ball.

“Will you stroke my hair until I fall asleep?” he asked. I knew the cause was lost.

“Sure,” I said, and did as he’d requested. However, as my own little treat to myself I pretended that it was not Charlie’s hair at all, but rather the silky, voluminous chest hair of a handsome Viking.

Charlie required a half hour of hair stroking before he fell asleep. As I’d been straddling him throughout that half hour, my hip sockets felt overstretched.

I dismounted, massaged my hip sockets, and decided to slide down the slide. I took off my pants before doing so, however, for I had Spanx on underneath, and I figured sliding down a slide in Spanx would facilitate a swifter and more adventurous descent.

The only problem with my plan was that I was now a larger lady on a baby slide. So once I was actually on the slide, I traveled mere inches before getting stuck. Nothing a little elbow grease couldn’t fix, of course, but I’d been wiped out by my self-administered hip massage. I decided
to stay where I was. I stared at the sky for a while. I thought about the Viking with the chest hair. I, too, fell asleep.

WHEN I AWOKE
the following morning, the first thing I saw was Charlie, who was perched at the top of the slide. He seemed to have pulled it together. His torso blocked the sun.

“Where are your pants?” he asked. “And why are you sleeping on the slide?”

“I wanted to slide down it,” I explained, “and I thought it’d be faster if I wasn’t wearing pants.”

I paused. Charlie said nothing.

“But then I got stuck on the slide,” I continued, “because, well, I’m fat.”

“
You’re
not fat,” said Charlie. “That bartender last night was fat.”

“
She
was morbidly obese,” I said. “And I am standard-issue fat.”

Charlie shrugged. “Here,” he said. “I’ll push you.”

Charlie pushed, although his doing so did not prompt the glorious descent I had imagined. I had to nudge myself the whole way down.

We reconvened at the bottom.

“Wanna come back to my basement?” he asked. “We can order in some Papa John’s?”

Strangely, I did not want to go back to Charlie’s basement and I did not want to order in more Papa John’s. The sentiment surprised me. For I loved Papa John’s. And while the same could not be said of Charlie’s basement, it could be said that I loved to be
invited
to his basement.

Prior to getting together with Charlie, all I’d wanted was a boyfriend. And then I got one. At a dog run. He’d offered access to his basement, coital time in which to pee and wash my face. What more could I want? What more
could I
need
? Why wasn’t it enough? Was I afraid? Was I a snob? Was I wrong to turn my nose up at a carpet in a basement?

I was, and had been, ambivalent where Charlie was concerned. And although ambivalence
will
grow into disappointment, the great thing about it is that it’s easy enough to ignore. At least for a while. You can distract yourself by eating. You can remember what it’s like to be alone. Such techniques are effective, but they are never foolproof. They will not, for example, hold strong for you through ecstasy. Lost endorphins are a pin to their balloon.

“I think I’ll skip the pizza,” I told Charlie. “I think I’ll just go home.”

Charlie shrugged. He said, “Okay.”

I said, “Okay.”

He said, “Do you want to put your pants on?”

I said, “Oh, right. Yes. Of course.”

So I put my pants on and Charlie and I walked together to the Long Island Rail Road station. We waited for the train. When finally it came, I said, “Okay, well …”

And Charlie said, “Okay, well …” and then we kissed good-bye.

I GOT BACK
to my apartment and lay down on my bed. Eight hours had passed since I’d taken the ecstasy. Now, suddenly, I felt awfully depressed. By which I mean I felt
so
depressed, and also that it was awful how depressed I felt. But it was only eight a.m. There was still time in the day to turn my frown (as it were) upside down. I thought maybe it’d be good to be alone in my apartment. I thought maybe I’d find joy in tweezing or watching TV. But sequestered as I was, I just kept feeling sad. I just could
not
get off my mattress. I did try a few times, to do some bare minimum activity. To get up and watch TV. The problem, though,
was that in order to watch TV, I had to get up and go to my couch. And I could not lie flat on my back on the couch
and
also see the TV.

I felt compelled to be flat on my back.

So I returned to my mattress. I put on a Jewel CD. I played it again and again, and as I did—as time went on—I decided to break up with Charlie. I felt it was time. I just felt
so
low. And if
I
felt so low, maybe Charlie did too. And if Charlie did too, maybe he’d break up with me. And if
he
broke up with
me
, well, I was not equipped to cope.

Charlie called me the following day. When he did, I channeled Jewel.

“These foolish games,” I said, “are tearing me apart.”

“What?” asked Charlie.

“The foolish games?” I said again. “Are tearing me apart?”

Nothing.

“Anyway,” I continued, “
since
they’re tearing me apart, I think we should break up.”

“Oh,” said Charlie. “Well. Okay.”

“Okay?” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

We shared an awkward pause. We both hung up the phone.

It was summer at this stage, and I lay sweating on my mattress. I took off my Spanx, wiped at my brow, and with the dandruff that accumulates from a week without a shower, formed little thoughts to myself on my mattress, impermanent letters of note.

Dear drugs, please stay away from Sara
.

Dear Sara, you must now stay away from drugs
.

On the path toward artful, attractive rebellion, one must consider a tattoo. Tattoos give their owners a new energy, a sexier aura. Tattooed women have an air about them that says, “I have lived.”

We all have, of course, it’s just that my unexceptional variation on the verb involved frequent masturbation and a deep-seated fear of throwing up. My history was written in my arch-support sneakers and boot-cut jeans. A tattoo would be a counterbalance.

The impulse to get a tattoo did not come about easily for me. As a child, I found tattoos repulsive. They struck me in much the same way a meth den strikes me now. That is, when I’m watching
Breaking Bad
.

They seemed foreign, dirty, and depraved.

I
think
that about meth dens. I
thought
that about tattoos.

If, as a child, I saw a tattoo, I saw its backstory. I saw the victim strapped into the awful chair, staring down the awful needle. That a person would voluntarily subject herself to such a thing seemed entirely psychotic, and for years I struggled to trust the people who had them. For years, I found these people filthy.

As I got older, however, I outgrew the opinion. I began to feel less afraid of both tattoos and
the tattooed
. This was due in part to the fear swap that occurs as you pass from childhood into adulthood: You get better with things like monsters, the dark, the sense that tattoos are disgusting. In their place, though, comes a flood of other issues: how you’ll afford it, that thing on your toe. I went from thinking tattoos were disgusting to thinking they were not so bad to finding them attractive.

There was not a specific moment in which the shift occurred. Rather, there were a few occasions wherein I enjoyed riotous intercourse with gentlemen who had tattoos. This helped me form a new opinion. I began to think tattoos were sexy, and then, eventually, to think that
I’d
be sexy if I had one. Some residual horror surrounded the actual application process, but I chose to ignore it. I thought it’d be worth it for the increased desirability. For
my
increased desirability.

I decided I would get one. Before I did, though, I had questions.

What might I get?

And where might I put it?

And where might I go to get it put?

Because I live alone and am often described by friends and family as “challenging; but not in the way that’s that
rewarding,” I have on various occasions been encouraged to get a pet. People think a dog or cat would do me good, to which I respond, “If by ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ you mean ‘affordable cleaning woman’ or ‘Djimon Hounsou blow-up doll,’ then yes.” Otherwise, I’m not in the market for things that can’t converse yet whose vomit I’m expected to dispose of.

I do, however, enjoy animals when they’re part of a design aesthetic. Anthropologie sells beautiful bird-shaped coat hooks, for example. A friend’s kitchen features swaths of owl-themed wallpaper, and every time I see it I think, What a charming and whimsical touch!

It therefore stood to reason that an animal etched on my body would deliver unto me a vibe that was equally charming and whimsical.

I narrowed the vast kingdom down to one: the dolphin. I liked the dolphin’s reputation for intelligence, as well as the fact that they always look as though they’re smiling. But then I voiced my idea to various acquaintances and learned the overriding opinion is that dolphin tattoos are moronic.

“Why not just write ‘ANUS-FACE’
on
your face?” asked one. “That sends a subtler message.”

Another told me I’d be better off shaving my head.

“Really?” I asked, and felt a flutter of excitement. “Would I look like I had cancer, do you think?”

But the friend just shook his head.

“No,” he said. “You weigh too much to look like you have cancer. My point is just that a dolphin tattoo is deranged. So if you want to look deranged, then why not shave your head? Aesthetically speaking, it’s less of a commitment.”

My brother Sam offered yet another perspective: “If someone says ‘dolphin tattoo,’ the first thing that jumps to mind for me, personally, is a condom.”

“As in, you’d find it attractive? You’d want to have sex?”

“No.” He shook his head. “More like, ‘Dirty hippie. Wrap it up.’ ”

So I dropped the dolphin idea and went a different route entirely, designing a hieroglyphic-like entity comprised of my mother’s initials, L.H.B. It sounds extreme, I know, but at this stage I was willing to do whatever I could to offset her guilt trips:

“You don’t call.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No. You don’t. You do not call
enough
. And on those rare occasions when you
do
call, you never talk to me about my health.”

“About
yourself
?”

“About my
health
.”

“You see a doctor a week, Mom. I just can’t keep up.”

“And you never visit, either. And
when
you visit, you never rub my feet. You used to rub my feet when you were little. You never do that anymore.”

I was at a breaking point, forced to wonder whether etching her initials on my person might not be the way to go. Might not stave her off for a while, express devotion in a manner
not
involving foot rubs.

It seemed like a good idea to me, and so I shared it with my friend Amanda. I’ve known Amanda since college. The first time we met was in a dormitory hallway and she was wearing a nightgown she’d fashioned into a viable dress with a belt and a series of brooches. Holistically speaking, Amanda is/was informed and creative in the ways of fashion. I did/do value her opinion.

“I’m thinking of getting a hieroglyphic-y tattoo comprised of my mother’s initials,” I said.

Amanda furrowed her brow.

“Did your mom die?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“
Did your mom die
?” she repeated.

“No,” I answered. “You
know
she didn’t die. You saw her last week. You told her she needed new jeans.”

“She does,” said Amanda. “But my point is that you—that
one
—can tattoo someone else’s name on your body if and only if that person has already died. Or, alternately, if that person has frequent exposure to gang-related activities.”

“What? Really?”

“Yes. Really. Furthermore, you may
not
tattoo someone else’s name on your body just because she pays your health insurance bill.”

“It was more, like, to get her off my back. She says I don’t rub her feet as much as I used to.”

Amanda sighed as if to say,
Whaddya do
.

“Regardless, Sara, the bigger issue has nothing to do with gangs, or alive-versus-dead, or foot rubs or whatever. The bigger issue—the
biggest
issue—is your whole my-mom-is-my-best-friend routine.”

And therein lay the point. The real point.

I am loath to endure the company of individuals who describe their parents as best friends.

My mom and I are just
so
close. She is truly my best friend
.

These declarations seem always laced with undue pride, always rife with subtext.

“
I
value
my
family,” says the subtext. “
I
bridge generation gaps.”

I’m supposed to be impressed. But I am always unimpressed. If I hear a mother’s a best friend, I don’t think, Wow. That’s just so lovely. No. I think, Find someone to like you who doesn’t
have
to like you. And Amanda’s point, I guess, was that a person who espouses such beliefs has no business etching her mom’s initials on her body.

I decided Amanda was right, and dropped the idea of the hieroglyph just as I’d dropped the idea of the dolphin. I spent the next couple weeks backing and forthing on various other options. I considered the Chinese symbol for “Alone,” as well as the Palestinian flag. However, nothing so eccentric seemed to suit me. So I tried thinking in terms of something more basic. Something more steeped in tradition.