[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.We would do this more than once.Several years into our beautiful friendship, Al and I went to a wedding reception where, even though it was a cash bar, I got drunk, and I am not a graceful drunk, I’m not sly and articulate and able to conceal that I’ve been drinking.The bartender was a former English composition student of mine—a kid who must’ve been happy with his grade, since he poured me three glasses of red wine for every one I paid for—and, pie-eyed, I started up, reliable as a Buick, asking Al wouldn’t it be nice to have someone living in the house who could fetch you a roll of toilet paper from the linen closet during times of emergency? Yes.Hadn’t the three of us become a family? Yes.What time did he want to come help me pack? He said he’d been thinking about it, he was thinking about it still, he’d think about it some more.“Baby, you just take your time,” I told him.“I’m not going anywhere.”The next morning, I woke up in Al’s bed, my contacts still in.I was wearing pantyhose, and my blue silk dress was bunched up around my armpits.My mouth tasted sticky, I was thirsty.There was a red splotch across my pillow.My head pounded, as if two little boys, one behind each eye, were clashing cymbals, and the room was spinning, and what was that red splotch?At first I thought maybe I’d hurt myself somehow.Maybe it was blood from a head injury.But it smelled.Sour.Fermented.Like red wine.I’d thrown up in bed.I thought: I will never be more disgusting.I thought: Didn’t Jimi Hendrix die from throwing up in his sleep? Didn’t he choke to death on his own vomit? I am lucky to be alive.I thought about what I was (a sloppy drunk, a puker-in-bed, an obnoxious insecure egomaniac who cheated at Scrabble and believed a man could be nagged into falling in love) versus what I wanted to be (good, nice, normal, reasonable).I vowed if Al would let me move in with him, I would make a bigger effort to become all those things.I thought: I barfed in bed.If Al sees this, he will never let me move in.Not in a million years.He was snoring beside me.I flipped my pillow over and waited.Hours passed before he stirred, stretched, before he slipped out of bed and headed to the bathroom.In the time it took him to wash his face, brush his teeth, and pee, I stripped the sheets, I had them soaking in the washing machine, I smoothed the wrinkles out of my blue silk dress.I got the coffee dripping, I pulled some chicken out to defrost for supper later, I was fluffing a feather duster across his windowsills.“Whoa,” Al said sleepily when he saw me.“You’re ambitious this morning.”I asked if he was impressed.I told him if he let me and the boy move in with him, it would always be like this.I said that letting us move in would be the best decision he’d ever make.It would be the best thing that ever happened to him.He would be so happy.I would see to it.Okay, okay, he sighed.Sure, he said.Okay.Fine.Why not.I said great.“You won’t regret it,” I told him.Then I excused myself, I went to the bathroom, I threw up some more.It was, of course, terrible.We argued.Not a lot, but enough, and when we did, it was bad enough to leave me breathless, wondering why I’d ever given up my apartment.We never raised our voices.We never raised our hands.We never fought about the things one might consider worth fighting about.Not God.Not money.Not sex.Any one of our arguments was so petty and absurd it was hard to believe we were having it.We argued about whether or not eating hot soup in the summer makes you feel hotter (he says no; I say yes).We squabbled about whether or not purchasing holiday wrapping paper to wrap Christmas presents in is a waste (I say no; he says why can’t it be whatever wrapping paper you have on hand, even if it’s got canoes and mallard ducks on it, isn’t the fact that it’s wrapped what counts?).We quarreled about whether or not ketchup is an appropriate condiment to slather over a charcoal-grilled porterhouse steak (I say don’t you dare ruin that piece of meat; he says try and stop me).Once, a friend of ours asked me what we were bringing to the potluck.When I said green bean casserole, she said bleck.I thought her response was rude, Al said it was just honest, and for hours, we bickered about whether it was better to be polite or honest.One argument began innocently: as a discussion about the identity of the Most Beautiful Girl in the World.While we offered up possibilities—Lana Turner or Veronica Lake; Wilma Flintstone or Betty Rubble; Stevie Nicks or Linda Ronstadt—Al stirred the enormous pot of chili he’d made to take on his camping trip.He’s proud of his chili, he believes it’s the best chili you’ll ever have because it’s the best chili he’s ever had.He figured he’d freeze this batch until time came for it to bubble over a campfire.He had an industrial-sized plastic Miracle Whip container to put his chili in, courtesy of an elementary school lunch lady he knew.Al and some of his friends took this camping trip every year, and though I myself didn’t care to sleep on rocky ground in a tent or pee in a hole where thousands before me have peed, I didn’t begrudge him going.In fact, I always sort of looked forward to it, the space it provided, the chance it gave us to take a break from each other.Al looked forward to it because he liked to sit in a lawn chair drinking beer, fishing for trout, and eating his chili.We took our debate into the living room where the television was on some talk show.Renée Zellweger happened to be a guest that day, and before changing the channel, Al said Renée Zellweger was the Most Beautiful Girl in the World.I urged him to put some more thought into his choice for Most Beautiful Girl in the World.I said the only reason he said Renée Zellweger was because he’d just seen her on television.I thought he needed to think about it a little more.It was an important title to bestow.I smiled at him, raised my eyebrows, tossed my hair.Think carefully, I said.Take my choice, for example, I said.I gave my choice a lot of thought.Al asked who was my choice for Most Beautiful Girl in the World; I said it was me.He said he was sorry I felt that way.Something clicked.Something turned.Something crashed.A moon rock to the earth.A bird against a window.A car into a building.We were arguing.One of us said why do you have to be so emotional while the other said why don’t you have any emotions.One of us said you’re hotheaded; the other said you’re cold-hearted.We both said we were just kidding, why do you have to get so mad; we each said the other wasn’t funny.One of us said you’re full of shit.One of us said fuck you.It was me.Al returned to the kitchen where he ladled hot chili into the plastic Miracle Whip container; I followed him.One of us said you’re really immature.The other said no, you are.Then we started to argue about the boy.The day before, the boy had been running in the backyard, he tripped and fell, gouging open the meaty part of his palm on a tiki lamp.I thought he needed to go to the emergency room, he needed stitches; Al thought I was overreacting, just squirt Bactine on it, some Neosporin, wrap it up, he’d be fine.I turned out to be right.I reminded Al of this.He tightened the lid on his chili.He put it in the freezer.He said, “I don’t have to listen to this.I don’t have to take this baloney from you,” and I said, “Well, I don’t have to take this baloney from you,” then he walked away, and it didn’t take long for a basic scientific principle to do its thing: The lid that trapped the hot air inside the container blew off [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]