Dave Barry's Homes and Other Black Holes (15 page)

I had to be helped off the field. I was in considerable pain, and I was obviously not going to be able to walk right for weeks. I felt pretty stupid. Fortunately, Beth was sympathetic.

“You
idiot
“ she sympathized. “What on earth did you
think
was going to happen? You’re forty-five years old! You didn’t even warm up!”

She didn’t understand. But the guys in my office did, especially Tom, who took the time to call me at home, where I was sitting with an ice pack on my leg and twenty-three Advil in my bloodstream, so he could express his concern.

“Just remember,” he said. “
You didn’t beat my time
.”

There are countless other examples of guys rising to meet pointless challenges. Virtually all sports fall into this category, as well as a large part of U.S. foreign policy. (“I’ll bet you can’t capture Manuel Noriega!” “Oh YEAH??”)

This is not the same as saying that guys are bad. Guys are capable of doing bad things, but this generally happens when they try to be Men and start becoming manly and aggressive and stupid. When they’re being just plain guys, they aren’t so much actively
evil
as they are lost. Because guys have never really grasped the Basic Human Moral Code, which I believe was invented by women millions of years ago when all the guys were out engaging in some other activity, such as seeing who could burp the loudest. When they came back, there were certain rules that they were expected to follow unless they wanted to get into Big Trouble, and they have been trying to follow these rules ever since, with extremely irregular results. Because guys have never
internalized
these rules. Guys are similar to my small auxiliary backup dog, Zippy, a guy dog
⁵
who has been told numerous times that he is NOT supposed to (1) get into the kitchen garbage or (2) poop on the floor. He knows that these are the rules, but he has never really understood
why
, and sometimes he gets to thinking: Sure, they
ordinarily
don’t want me getting into the garbage, but obviously this rule is not meant to apply when there are certain extenuating
⁶
circumstances, such as (1) they just threw away some perfectly good seven-week-old Kung Pao Chicken, and (2) they are not home.

And so when we come home, our kitchen floor has been transformed into GarbageFest USA, and Zippy, who usually comes rushing up to greet us, is off in a corner disguised in a wig and sunglasses, hoping to get into the Federal Bad Dog Relocation Program before we discover the scene of the crime.

When we yell at him, he frequently becomes so upset that he poops on the floor.

Morally, most guys are just like Zippy, only taller and usually less hairy. Guys are
aware
of the rules of moral behavior, but they have trouble keeping these rules in the forefronts of their minds at certain times, especially the present. This is especially true in the area of faithfulness to one’s mate. I realize, of course, that there are countless examples of guys being faithful to their mates until they die, usually as a result of being eaten by their mates immediately following copulation. Guys outside of the spider community, however, do not have a terrific record of faithfulness.

I’m not saying guys are scum. I’m saying that many guys who consider themselves to be committed to their marriages will stray if they are confronted with overwhelming temptation, defined as “virtually any temptation.”

OK, so maybe I
am
saying guys are scum. But they’re not
mean-spirited
scum. And few of them—even when they are out of town on business trips, far from their wives, and have a clear-cut opportunity—will poop on the floor.

This is an aspect of guyhood that is very frustrating to women in general, and my wife in particular. I’ll be reading the newspaper, and the phone will ring; I’ll answer
it, listen for ten minutes, hang up, and resume reading. Finally Beth will say: “Who was that?”

And I’ll say: “Phil Wonkerman’s mom.”

(Phil is an old friend we haven’t heard from in seventeen years.)

And Beth will say, “Well?”

And I’ll say, “Well what?”

And Beth will say, “What did she
say
?”

And I’ll say, “She said Phil is fine,” making it clear by my tone of voice that, although I do not wish to be rude, I AM trying to read the newspaper here, and I happen to be right in the middle of an important panel of Calvin and Hobbes.

But Beth, ignoring this, will say, “That’s ALL she said?”

And she will not let up. She will continue to ask district-attorney-style questions, forcing me to recount the conversation until she’s satisfied that she has the entire story, which is that Phil just got out of prison after serving a sentence for a murder he committed when he became a drug addict because of the guilt he felt when his wife died in a freak submarine accident while Phil was having an affair with a nun, but now he’s all straightened out and has a good job as a trapeze artist and is almost through with the surgical part of his sex change and recently became happily engaged to marry a prominent member of the Grateful Dead, so in other words he is fine, which is EXACTLY what I told Beth in the first place, but is that enough? No. She wants to hear
every single detail
.

We have some good friends, Buzz and Libby, whom we see about twice a year. When we get together, Beth and Libby always wind up in a conversation, lasting several days, during which they discuss virtually every significant event that has occurred in their lives and the lives of those they care about, sharing their innermost thoughts, analyzing and probing, inevitably coming to a deeper understanding of each other, and a strengthening of a cherished friendship. Whereas Buzz and I watch the playoffs.

This is not to say Buzz and I don’t share our feelings. Sometimes we get quite emotional.

“That’s not a FOUL??” one of us will say.

Or: “YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT’S NOT A FOUL???”

I don’t mean to suggest that all we talk about is sports. We also discuss, openly and without shame, what kind of pizza we need to order. We have a fine time together, but we don’t have heavy conversations, and sometimes, after the visit is over, I’m surprised to learn—from Beth, who learned it from Libby—that there has recently been some new wrinkle in Buzz’s life, such as that he now has an artificial leg.

(For the record, Buzz does NOT have an artificial leg. At least he didn’t mention anything about it to me.)

I have another good friend, Gene, and one time, when he was going through a major medical development in his life, our families spent a weekend together. During this time Gene and I talked a lot and enjoyed each other’s company immensely, but—this is true—the most intimate personal statement he made to me is that he has reached Level 24 of a video game called “Arkanoid.” He had even seen the Evil Presence, although he refused to tell me what it looks like. We’re very close, but there is a limit.

You may think that my friends and I are Neanderthals, and that a lot of guys are different. This is true. A lot of guys don’t use words at
all
. They communicate entirely by nonverbal methods, such as sharing bait.