Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (9 page)

‘The door tells the whole story.
MEN
. I haven’t seen him since 1978 and I know he’s still there, all in white, standing. Averting his eyes to preserve their dignity. But his own? His own five senses? What are those three monkeys’ names? His task is to stand there as if he were not there. Not really. There’s a trick to it. A special nothing you look at.’

Q.

‘I didn’t learn it in a men’s room, I can tell you that.’

Q….

‘Imagine not existing until a man needs you. Being there and yet not there. A willed translucence. Provisionally there, contingently there. The old saw
Lives to serve
. His career. Breadwinner. Every morning up at six, kiss us all goodbye, a piece of toast for the bus. He could eat for real on his break. A bellman would go to the deli. The pressure produced by pressure. The rich belches of expense-account lunches. The mirrors’ remains of sebum and pus and sneezed detritus. Twenty-six-no-seven years at the same station. The grave nod he’d receive a tip with. The inaudible thank-you to the regulars. Sometimes a name. All those solids tumbling out of all those large soft warm fat moist white anuses, flexing. Imagine. To attend so much passage. To see men of substance at their most elemental. His career. A career man.’

Q.

‘Because he brought his work home. The face he wore in the men’s room. He couldn’t take it off. His skull conformed to fit it. This expression or rather lack of expression. Attendant and no more. Alert but absent. His face. Beyond reserved. As if forever conserving himself for some ordeal to come.’

Q….

‘I wear nothing white. Not one white thing, I can tell you that much. I eliminate in silence or not at all. I tip. I never forget that someone is there.

‘Yes and do I admire the fortitude of this humblest of working men? The stoicism? The Old World grit? To stand there all those years, never one sick day, serving? Or do I despise him, you’re wondering, feel disgust, contempt for any man who’d stand effaced in that miasma and dispense towels for coins?’

Q.

‘…’

Q.

‘What were the two choices again?’

B.I
. #2 10-94

C
APITOLA
CA

‘Sweetie, we need to talk. We’ve needed to for a while. I have I mean, I feel like. Can you sit?’

Q.

‘Well, I’d rather almost anything, but I care about you, and I’d rather anything than you getting hurt. That concerns me a lot, believe me.’

Q.

‘Because I care. Because I love you. Enough to really be honest.’

Q.

‘That sometimes I worry you’re going to get hurt. And that you don’t deserve it. To get hurt I mean.’

Q, Q.

‘Because, to be honest, my record is not good. Almost every intimate relationship I get into with women seems to end up with them getting hurt, somehow. To be honest, sometimes I worry I might be one of those guys who uses people, women. I worry about it somet—no, damn it, I’m going to be honest with you because I care about you and you deserve it. Sweetie, my relationship record indicates a guy who’s bad news. And more and more now lately I’ve been afraid that you’re going to get hurt, that I might hurt you the way I seem to have hurt others who—’

Q.

‘That I have a history, a pattern so to speak, of, for instance, coming on very fast and hard in the beginning of a relationship and pursuing very hard and very intensely and wooing very intensely and being head over heels in love right from the very start, of saying I Love You very early on in the relationship, of starting to talk future-tense right from the outset, of having nothing be too much to say or do to show how much I care, which all of course has the effect, naturally, of seeming to make them truly believe I really am in love—which I am—which then, I think, seems to make them feel loved enough and so to speak safe enough to start letting them say I Love You back and acknowledging that they’re in love with me, too. And it’s not—let me stress this because it’s the God’s honest truth—it’s not that I don’t mean it when I say it.’

Q.

‘Well, it’s not as if how many of them I’ve said it to isn’t an understandable question or concern but if it’s all right it’s just that it’s not what I’m trying to talk to you about, so if it’s all right I want to hold off on things like numbers or names and try to just be totally honest with you about what my concerns are, because I care. I care about you a lot, sweetie. A whole lot. I know it’s insecure, but it’s very important to me that you believe this and hang on to it all through our talk here, that what I’m saying or what I’m afraid I might do to in any way end up hurting you doesn’t in any way lessen or mean that I don’t care or that I have not meant it absolutely every time I’ve told you I love you. Every time. I hope you believe that. You deserve to. Plus it’s true.’

Q….

‘But what it is is that it seems as if for a while everything I say and do has the effect of pulling them into thinking of it as a very—a very serious relationship and almost you could say somehow like
lulling
them into thinking in terms of the future.’

Q.

‘Because then the as it were pattern seems to be that once I’ve
got
you, so to speak, and you’re as much into the relationship as I’ve been, then it’s as if I’m almost constitutionally unable somehow to push all the way through and follow through and make a… what’s the right word—’

Q.

‘Yes, all right, that’s the word, even though I have to tell you the way you say it fills me with dread that you’re already feeling hurt and not taking what I’m trying to say in the spirit which I’m trying to talk to you about this, which is that I honestly do care enough about you to share some honest concerns that have been troubling me about even the possibility of you getting hurt, which believe me is the absolute last thing I want.’

Q.

‘That, from examining the record and trying to make some kind of sense of it, it seems as if something in me goes into a sort of overdrive in the early intense part and gets me right up to the point of yes of commitment, and then but then can’t quite seem to push all the way through and actually make the commitment to do a truly serious, future-tense, committed thing with them. As Mr. Chitwin would put it I am just not a
closer
. Does any of this make any sense? I don’t feel as though I’m saying it very well. Where the real hurt seems to come in is because this inability seems to kick in only after doing and saying and behaving in all sorts of ways that on some level I surely must know are leading them to think that I want a truly committed future-tense thing as much as they do. So, to be honest, this is my record with this sort of thing, and as far as I can tell it seems to indicate a guy who’s bad news for women, which concerns me. A lot. That I seem to maybe seem like a woman’s completely ideal guy up to a certain point in the relationship where now they’ve dropped all their resistance and defenses and are committedly in love, which of course seems to be what I had wanted right from the beginning and had worked so hard and wooed them so intensely to get them to do and just as I know all too well I’ve done with you, to get serious and think in terms of the future and the word
commitment
and then—and sweetie trust me this is hard to explain because I far from fully understand it myself—but then at just this point, historically, as best as I can figure out it’s as if something in me as it were kind of reverses thrust and now puts all its overdrive into somehow pulling back.’

Q.

‘All I can really figure out is that I seem to sort of freak out and feel I have to reverse thrust and get out of it, except usually I’m not totally sure, I can’t tell if I really want out of it or whether I’m simply freaking out somehow, and even though I’m freaking out and want out I still don’t want to lose them, it seems, so I tend to give a lot of mixed signals and say and do a lot of things that seem to confuse them and yank them around and cause them pain, which believe me I always end up feeling horrible about, even while I’m doing it. Which I’ll tell you the truth is what I’m freaking out about with you and me, because yanking you around or causing you pain is the absolute last thing in—’

Q, Q.

‘The God’s honest truth is I don’t know. I do not know. I haven’t been able to figure it out. I think all I’m trying to do here in our sitting down and talking about it is really care about you and be honest about myself and my relationship record and do it in the middle of something instead of the end. Because my record is that historically it seems to be only at the end of a relationship that I seem to be willing to open up about some of my fears about myself and my record of causing women who love me pain. Which, of course, causes them pain, the sudden honesty does, and serves to get me out of the relationship, which then afterward I worry might have been my subconscious agenda all along in terms of bringing it up and finally getting honest with them, maybe. I’m not sure.’

Q….

‘So anyway the truth is I’m not sure about any of it. I’m just trying to look honestly at my record and honestly see what seems to be the pattern and what’s the likelihood of my continuing this pattern with you, which believe me I’d rather anything than do. Please believe that inflicting any pain on you is the last thing I want, sweetie. This pulling-away thing and inability to push through and as Mr. Chitwin would say
close the deal
—this is what I want to try and be honest with you about.’

Q….

‘And the harder and faster I’ve come after them at the beginning, wooing and pursuing and feeling completely in love, the intensity of that drive seems to be directly proportional to the intensity and urgency with which it seems I then find ways to pull away, back away. The record indicates that this sort of sudden reversal of thrust happens right when I have the sense that I’ve
got
them. Whatever
got
means—to be honest I’m not sure. It seems to mean once I know for sure and feel that now they’re as into the relationship and the future tense as I am. Have been. Was. It happens that fast. It’s terrifying when it happens. Sometimes I don’t even known what even happened until after it’s over and I’m looking back on it and trying to understand how she could have gotten so hurt, was she crazy or unnaturally clingy and dependent or am I just bad news as far as relationships go. It happens incredibly fast. It feels both fast and slow, like a car crash, where it’s almost more like you’re watching it happen than that you’re actually involved in it. Does any of this make any sense?’

Q.

‘I seem to need to keep admitting I’m really terrified you’re not going to understand. That I won’t explain it well enough or you’ll somehow through no fault of your own misinterpret what I’m saying and turn it around somehow and be hurt. I’m feeling unbelievable terror here, I have to tell you.’
Q.
‘All right. That’s the bad part. Dozens of times. At least. Forty, forty-five times, maybe. To be honest, possibly more. As in a lot more, I’m afraid. I guess I’m not even sure anymore.’

Q….

‘On the surface, in terms of the specifics, a lot of them looked pretty different, the relationships and what exactly ended up happening. Sweetie, but I’ve somehow started to see that underneath the surface all of them were largely the same. The same basic pattern. In a way, sweetie, my seeing this gives me a certain amount of hope, because maybe it means I’m becoming more able to understand myself and be honest with myself. I seem to be developing more of a sort of conscience in this area. Which a part of me finds terrifying, to be honest. The starting out so intense, in almost overdrive, and feeling as if everything depends on getting them to drop their defenses and plunge in and love me as totally as I love them, then the freaking-out thing kicks in and reverses thrust. I admit there’s a kind of dread at the idea of having a conscience in this area, as if it seems as if it’s going to take away all room to maneuver, somehow. Which is bizarre, I know, because at the beginning of the pattern I don’t
want
room to maneuver, the
last
thing I want is room to maneuver, what I
want
is to plunge in and get them to plunge in with me and believe in me and be together in it forever. I swear, I really almost every time seem to have believed that’s what I wanted. Which is why it doesn’t quite seem to me as if I was evil or anything, or as if I was actually lying to them or anything—even though at the end, when I seem to have reversed thrust and suddenly pulled totally out of it, they almost always all feel as if I’ve lied to them, as if if I meant what I said there’s no way I could be reversing thrust the way I’m doing now. Which I still, to be honest, don’t quite think I’ve ever done: lied. Unless I’m just rationalizing. Unless I’m some kind of psychopath who can rationalize anything and can’t even see the most obvious kinds of evil he’s perpetrating, or who doesn’t even care but wants to delude himself into believing he cares so that he can continue to see himself as a basically decent guy. The whole thing is incredibly confusing, and it’s one reason I’m so hesitant to bring it up with you, out of fear that I won’t be able to be clear about it and that you’ll misunderstand and be hurt, but I decided that if I care about you I have to have the courage to really act as if I care about you, to put caring about you before my own petty worries and confusions.’

Q.

‘Sweetie, you’re welcome. I pray you’re not being sarcastic. I’m so mixed up and terrified right now I probably couldn’t even tell.’

Q.

‘I know I should have told you some of all this about me sooner, and the pattern. Before you moved all the way out here, which believe me meant so—it made me really feel you really cared about this, us, being with me, and I want to be as caring and honest toward you as you’ve been with me. Especially because I know your moving out here was something I lobbied so hard for. School, your apartment, having to get rid of your cat—just please don’t misunderstand—your doing all that just to be with me means a great deal to me, and it’s a huge part of why I really do feel as if I love you and care so much about you, too much not to feel terrified about in any way yanking you around or hurting you somewhere down the road, which trust me given my record in this area is a possibility I’d have to be a total psychopath not to consider. That’s what I want to be able to make clear enough so that you’ll understand. Is it making at least a little sense?’