She unlatches a flat of plastic dividers and begins selecting beads from its compartments, careful not to drop them through the slats of her table out here, the one she knew better than to have purchased at IKEA, the one she bought on her very first visit out here, when both of them were formally attached not to each other, the one she asked him to hide in his garage and then shed and then garage again and then storage facility and then other garage and then same storage facility again, kept sealed in its thin, worn cardboard wrapper. She's sworn him not to open it until she had arrived here for keeps, and he was fatally incapable of telling her no.
To say that she enjoys watching the birds assail the sidewalk and whomever might be unfortunate enough to traverse it at those most unfortunate of times wouldn't at all be correct, because in her heart of hearts she just isn't geared that way. This never stops her from laughing when she sees it happen, though. And that's probably why karma is such a bitch, for this is when she's most likely to lose a bead to the table's maw, and this is usually a cause of great concern/expense/danger. For it is certainly one thing for a bird to evacuate its bowels from such a height so so far above the concrete/asphalt/steel of this gentrified nightmare of a neighborhood, but it is quite another to have a ceramic/ glass/nylon pebble plummeting from that same height, falling and spinning with enough velocity and friction for it to pockmark anything it touches before shattering into a furious little puff of something no one below could have ever seen coming.
This, of course, is easily the best way to describe their relationship: an asteroid or errant comet from deeper space, a fragment or shard from something larger that has existed in another universe for forever and forever and is only now hurtling through our atmosphere, scorching everything it touches. Because as calm as they currently appear, as serene and satiated as they seem when they aren't sharing the exact same physical space, the simple truth of the matter is that they are literally burning for one another and have been for aeons.
For your consideration: the constant mess left on the massive red couch she'd bought at Pottery Barn, the one purchased when she formally purchased their condo and hired a small army of people to grunt everything up the 10 flights of stairs, the same couch stained with little oil slicks from their buttered popcorn and sticky from grocery-store-ready tubes of unbaked cookie dough.
For your consideration: the never-ending parade of sheets washed/dried/stretched daily onto their king-sized bed, draped in a goose down comforter that rarely sees the top of the headboard because he is constantly kicking it up and over the footboard, his scrawny ankles working feverishly to scrape the heavy fabric off the legs and the feet where for years she's kept little reminders of him under skin with permanent ink.
For your consideration: the dual heads installed in their stone-tiled shower, the one upgraded with the largest and most expensive water heater that keeps the red-hot rainfall running for well over an hour easy, because this is where they enjoy each other's company more than most places, because they don't feel compelled to utter even a single syllable here when they are together, the morning sun sneaking through the one thin window and spilling onto the floor, waiting quietly for them to step out and dry their toes without thinking about anything except the slapping their skin makes, the sound still echoing inside long after they leave the room and take their places here past the sliding glass door on the patio overlooking the world they've built here together.
On purpose.
For each other.
Forever.
Listen. I moved out so I could have a secure, private place to masturbate. I told the children it was because I “Couldn't Do It Anymore,” and I left their mother to parse my pronoun usage. I rented a one-bedroom apartment a block away from where my family lived, using an alias and a Gold's Gym membership card set to expire exactly one month into the future from the date I signed the lease. I did this to do the necessary thing.
When the children's mother asked me how long I thought I'd be gone, and how long before I'd be back, she honestly thought she was asking me two separate questions. I responded flatly and fatherly with one answer. “Until it's done.” Her reply was her typical reply. “Of course.”
I requested a specific apartment for this and did it a specific way. I signed the lease sight unseen. I sent an assistant to do the walk-through. He set up my space with the basics I would need to be done: a dresser, a bed, a futon and an armchair. Some of this furniture had already hibernated at my former residence, but I liberated and repurposed it, much to the surprise of the children's mother, who figured I would buy all new because I always insisted on buying new simply for the sake of being able to do so. The children's mother and I had built a comfortable life together and each of our seven children had a sizable segment of our 15,000 square foot house to merrily label “My Room”: seven doors adorned and complete with seven separate ceramic name plates, each indicating which child belonged behind which of the seven doors designated for this particular habitation process, wherein a parent (usually the children's mother) points in a general upward direction with an outstretched finger and says, “Your Room,” and thus begins a long game at tug of war wherein the child and parent(s) negotiate via a wide spectrum of hard and soft terrorism and threats as to what exactly can, should and will be done with and in the child's designated space.
Listen. I've been called plenty of things. Selfish is frequently one of them. Does my awareness of this fact about myself and my declaration of same give me permission to do whatever I want? No. And I will tell you why, but not right now.
I specifically targeted an apartment complex that only used letters to designate and separate its units. My assistant looked all over the city for an Apartment M; he had specific instructions to find something as far away from the children's house as possible. He failed. My Apartment M could not have been closer, despite his insisting every complex in the city with lettered units was occupied and locked down in leases that were at least 18 months away. My assistant is in desperate need of being fired. Some more. I spared him this again by reminding myself that it was the letter that mattered most, not the distance. It was the letter that would keep me on task. Keep me focused. Remind me why I was there before I turned the single key in both of the doorlocks.
I have lots of spaces to keep track of, see. The only space with a number is the children's house, and it's 7 digits long. Listen, I read. And what I read tells me that contemporary psychology proves that the longest list of things most people can recall on the fly is a list that has no more than 7 items. What I read calls this the “Magical Number Seven,” and uses quotation marks and capital letters to say it. This is what most people's brains top out at, 7 items. The children's mother used to ask me about having an 8
th
child. I always said no. Not because I don't want an 8
th
child. Not because I couldn't support an 8
th
child, or 9
th
, or 10
th
, or 20
th
for that matter. I always said no because I read. The children's mother asked about having an 8
th
child because she watches television.
I'm pretty sure what I'm saying is pretty clear here, but I'll say it anyway: I pride myself on being a good father. I remember dates, names, and the faces they are all attached to. But this has limits. Imagine being the 8
th
child, and being the reason your parents can't remember not only
your
name, but all your
siblings'
names before you. And it's not your fault, you didn't ask to be 8
th
. You probably would prefer to be 2
nd
or 7
th
, occasionally 1
st
or 4
th
, but you're not. You're 8
th
.
My assistant, by the way? I'm pretty sure he is an 8
th
child.
And being the 8
th
child means you bear the special designation of being the demarcation point for when your parents hit their capacity to snap recall your name and not just your name. All the other names, too, all in a jumble.
Listen. It's not that they can't remember your name and all the other names
at all
. It's that they have
to stop
and
think about it
. Your parents, they actually have to look at you and sometimes do some math as well. If they speak before they think, they will jumble all the names, call you someone else's name, a lot of times call you several other names before successfully arriving at the one they gave you. And speaking of the name, again it's not your fault. You didn't choose the name. And they didn't as much
give
it to you as
brand
you with it. And sometimes, 8
th
child, you might even feel it would better for them to literally heat a piece of iron in a red-hot fire and sear the skin above your eyebrows with it, so they could simply look at you and call you the right name. But that wouldn't do any good, see. Because most times when your parents are talking about you, you aren't present. You aren't anywhere around. You could even be dead. And they would have scarred you for nothing. Because even if
they are
looking right at the long wart of scar tissue on your forehead, their brains are already beyond capacity and will hiccup. And you're the reason. Your existence, I mean. 8
th
child.
So yeah. Each time I stepped into the 670 square foot space of Apartment M was pretty much like the first time. I can tell you about that one. The key loose in the doorknob, the door itself heavy and designed to automagically close without anyone having to pull it shut behind them. Big and green, the door. Chrome knob, brass deadbolt, rainbow-colored key from one of those grocery store key-cutters. My assistant, he said the girl who cut the key for him, she got her hair caught in the machine. The machine that makes the keys. He said he had to wait until a department manager came. No. He said he felt
obligated
to wait until the department manager came, who used an orange-handled pair of tin snips to free her hair from the bristles of the key machine. That the manager cut her hair in spite of him saying he would never do it, that her hair was too long and beautiful, saying this over and over again as he repeatedly leaned into her, over and over again, crotch to ass, crotch to ass, that she was trapped there, bent over the counter, hair wound tight into the bristles and spokes of the key machine after dropping the freshly-cut key on the floor, that the girl kept looking at my assistant with her liquifying eyes, saying things with them she didn't dare say out loud, but what she did say when she said something out loud was intended for the manager, but directed towards my assistant, and it was this: “Cut It Cut It Cut It Cut It CUT IT!”
And later, he said, after he'd been given the rainbow key gratis and a bonus 10% off next purchase coupon for having to witness all that, the girl, he put her probably no older than 18, she stood there with her lopsided head of hair and her blue polyester smock and her embossed nametag with her name in all caps embossed in it and said the only reason the manager grabbed the tin snips was because he was married. Whatever that meant.
The big green door. It slams shut pretty hard on its own because of the weight. I never let it shut on its own on purpose. I don't like things to do stuff on their own. Not doors and not key machines and not even people if I can help it. Underscore the
if I can help it
part. There is only so much one person can control. I may be selfish but I'm not a control freak. I know that sounds weird. I know those things usually get grouped together, and maybe they do get grouped together with most selfish people, but I'm totally serious when I say this. Meaning I believe what I'm saying. I'm called plenty of things but liar isn't one of them. That doesn't mean I don't tell lies, because everyone tells lies. No one can tell the whole story of anything. Not even God. God chose certain stories to tell. He didn't tell everything. In fact, he didn't tell
most
things. That's why there's a God at all. I know this because I read. I try to read everything I possibly can, but that doesn't mean I succeed. I never succeed at that. Reading everything, I mean. I succeed at a lot of things, but reading everything isn't one of them. No one can do that. No one can read everything. Because no one can tell us everything. Not even God. I know I said that already, but this really does bear repeating.
You want an example? I'll give you an example. When's the last time I jacked off and said “Oh God!”? Never. Not one time have I said that when I've jacked off. And I don't think I'm alone or unique in this by a long shot. I'll bet almost no one dead or living in the entire history of the universe has said that when they've jacked off. Men and women both. I definitely mean both here. Because women jack off. They do. Listen, I read. I keep saying that, but my repeating it doesn't make it less true every time I repeat it. And what I read tells me women jack off. What I read tells me half of women ages 18â50 have jacked off during the previous 90 days. What I read tells me one-third of women ages 60â70. Yes, what I read tells me men jack off way more than women. That isn't the point.
Here's the point. I never say “Oh God!” when I jack off because that's something you say in the presence of someone else. You say it for them. It's part of the story you're telling them. The story isn't necessarily a lie, either. I mean, it can be. But it doesn't have to be. And most times it's not. Most times you are telling them because you believe what you are saying. And what you are saying is this: God is here, and he is here because I'm saying so. Not because he
is
here, but because
I say
. What you are saying is this: this is the story I want to tell you, and I want you to believe it as much as I believe it. You don't have to believe it very much, by the way. You can believe it as much as you want. But when you say that, when you say “Oh God!” in front of someone else, you are imploring both them and yourself to believe. That's why it hurts some people as much as it does when they find out the other person is faking. It's about God. About not being able to tell us everything. About telling us to ignore all the things that are happening except this one simple thing. And that thing? It's that we aren't alone. We speak God's name, say it out loud, to celebrate not being alone.