The Greatest Lover of Last Tuesday

by Neil McKinnon

  “That’s not the same thing at all. You’re mixing grapefruit and mangos. Think about it. A Japanese can’t become a Yugoslav.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you that.”

  “But what if one of your parents is Irish and one is Japanese. Then you could be Buddhist or Catholic as the spirit moves you. Isn’t that the same?”

  Benito shrugged his shoulders, signalling boredom with the direction of our conversation.

  We agreed to disagree. I stayed to see his show again and he reluctantly began my lesson. Afterwards, I went home to bed where I dreamed that I was a Yugoslavian Buddhist.

  Adriana stopped me. “I didn’t know that you had grazed in that pasture.”

  “You may not believe this from someone whose cargo of virility threatens to spring its lid, but I can kick a soccer ball with either foot, my personal ship has listed to both starboard and port, and I can sit anywhere on the bus — the destination doesn’t change.”

  “But I see no evidence that you adopted that lifestyle. I’ve never seen you in a cardigan, your shirts aren’t pink and you hardly ever wear tight pants.”

  “That’s a stereotype I never adopted. However, I did apprentice for a while.”

  “Did you tire of Benito?”

  “No, it was he who tired of me. He met a policeman from Texas and moved away. I didn’t know how to find another playmate so I abandoned the effort. Besides, I had been much more attracted to Barbie than I was to Benito. I guess I just wasn’t a good student, the experiment didn’t work. I figured out that I belong on the traditional side of the divide.”

  Adriana pursed her lips. “What do you mean? There is no divide. You sound like one of those idiots who spouts invective from the safety of a pulpit. You have learned little about human sexuality.”

  “No divide? Even Benito said you are or you aren’t. You must explain yourself, my preachy pontificator.”

  “It’s impossible to categorize. Human sexuality is on a continuum from absolute heterosexual to absolute homosexual. Everyone fits somewhere on that continuum and every space is filled. The only way to make a category is to create a stereotype and once you accept a stereotype, then you are less than a millimetre away from being a bigot.”

  “Are you saying that categories are useless?”

  “Not at all. I’m saying that there is nothing traditional about any sexual role.”

  She yawned, again signalling that it was time for me to leave. The path home was lit by a pale moon. Adriana had a point. What we call tradition is simply a way to classify past behaviour, in many cases condemning us to repeat the intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry that, long ago, should have been consigned to a historical incinerator.

  Words Can Make You Happy

  THE TILES ON ADRIANA’S PATIO WERE still warm from the afternoon sun and a rising moon had given them a rose glaze. I had exhausted her tolerance for my story and my own tolerance for hers. We sipped expensive brandy and settled into a comfortable silence, listening to the night birds and the raucous music of summer cicadas. Adriana closed one eye and squinted at me through her glass. “Are you happy, old man?” she asked.

  A personal query that isn’t followed by an insult is unlike her and for a few minutes I was unable to reply. A small fruit bat, more shadow than substance, fluttered by barely visible against the black bramble hill that rose behind Adriana’s house. I hesitated because the question was not flippant and deserved a serious answer.

  “Well, are you?” she repeated.

  “I’m considering my reply. I haven’t thought of happiness in a long time. Let me tip the hammock and ask you. Is your existence satisfactory? Do you ache for that which never happened?”

  I removed my sandals to feel the warm tiles and leaned back. She had started us on a new path and I intended to enjoy the outing.

  “I asked you first,” she said.

  “I’m thinking, my demanding diva. I’m thinking that you must first tell me what you mean by happy. It could be anything. Do I have enough to eat? An adequate dwelling? Enough money? Am I free from sickness? Am I pleased with my role in life? Do I have friends? Have all my love wounds healed? Your question begs for definition.”

  I took a satisfied breath. I might not be able to stop Adriana’s mental horses but often I can slow them down.

  “I agree that happiness is a less than rigorous term,” she said. “How would you define it?”

  “Perhaps it’s found in leading an easy life — one with no difficulties.”

  “Not so,” she answered. “I once thought I’d be happy if I had no problems.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “When the lucky day arrived, I was bored to silliness. To put flavour into my life I began to create predicaments.”

  “Such as?”

  “It started when I introduced a gentleman of my acquaintance to the young lady who was my hairdresser. They fell in love, married and began raising a family. He was a barber and together they opened a salon which did very well.”

  “It sounds idyllic. What caused your predicament?”

  “I took pleasure in the fact that I had introduced them and considered what it was that made them happy. I determined that it was their common interest in hair.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I believed that I had solved the riddle of attraction and love. The key was to have something tangible in common. To relieve my boredom I started a match-making service. My approach was very scientific.”

  I refilled my glass and settled in for the duration. She had flown to another story and I had soared after her like an airplane chases its propeller. “Tell me,” I said.

  “It wasn’t complicated. I created random lists of words and then asked each client to select the ones that had meaning or held interest for him or her. Then I matched individuals on the basis of the common or related words they chose. For example, I introduced people who had picked words like style, gown, soiree, tuxedo, fashion, chic, elegant, flair, and so on — you get the idea?”

  “Yes I do. Did it work?”

  “At first all went well. Then I began to encounter problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “It began simply enough. My first complaint was from a female athlete, a long distance runner.”

  “Yes?”

  “She had chosen from a list that contained words like foot, socks, running shoe, insole, sneaker, high heels and hosiery. I introduced her to someone who had selected similar words. It worked perfectly. They hit it off and, for awhile, they were inseparable.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Unfortunately, he turned out to be a foot fetishist.”

  “I see. Did he spend all his time caressing her feet and getting her to model for him in high heels or white rubber boots?”

  “No, that wasn’t it. She could have lived with that. It wasn’t her feet that sparked his interest.”

  “You mean she had a rival?”

  “Yes, she did. His obsession lay elsewhere.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple. Of the billions of people in the world, he was fascinated with only one.”

  “No wonder your match didn’t work. He was already in a relationship.”

  “Yes, he was … and a very peculiar one, too.”

  “What do you mean, peculiar?”

  “Of all the feet he could have chosen, he was attracted to only one.”

  “One person and one foot. Different … but it doesn’t sound that peculiar.”

  “You don’t understand. The relationship was with his own foot … the left one. He worshipped it and wrote poems to it. He often left home wearing only one shoe.”

  “Why only one shoe?”

  “He felt secure when he could glance down and see his beloved at the end of his left leg.”

  “No wonder they broke up.”

  “It wasn’t that. She said she could have borne the embarrassment of going dancing with someone wearing one shoe.”
<
br />   “What then? What caused their break up?”

  “Her athletic training began to suffer and she started to lose races.”

  “Aha … I understand. It must have been psychologically damaging to play second fiddle to a left foot. She would be unable to concentrate on her training.”

  “Wrong again. The reason she lost races was because of pulled muscles.”

  “Pulled muscles?”

  “Yes, pulled because of the position she assumed so he could caress his foot as they made love.”

  “I see.”

  “They split up and I was forced to give their money back.”

  “Your idea seems good. Did you encounter other setbacks?”

  “Many of them.”

  “What happened?”

  “I analysed the situation to find out. I determined that it was because I was using only nouns on my lists, words that didn’t necessarily have much to do with human affairs. So I created other lists — lists that used more appropriate words — words that had to do with relationships and emotions. I reasoned that a common interest in these types of words would bring together people who were compatible.”

  “Your approach sounds reasonable.”

  “I ran into trouble when I introduced Felix and Katrina, based on that approach. They started well but they grew to disagree on almost everything.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither did I. So I questioned them. I discovered that not everyone interprets words the same way.”

  “For example?”

  “One of the words was vulnerable. When I asked what the word meant to her, Katrina said that she felt vulnerable when she opened herself completely to another person, as she had done with Felix by disclosing the inner recesses of her heart.”

  “I see nothing wrong so far.”

  “Hold on, my impatient imbecile. I questioned Felix separately. He said he felt vulnerable whenever he bet on a strange horse.”

  “So they didn’t see eye to eye on one word. Surely they agreed on others.”

  “Not many. They both chose the word pleasure. Katrina felt pleasure when she had the opportunity to luxuriate in sensuous surroundings. To Felix, pleasure was pizza and a cold beer.”

  “Are there others?”

  “Many! Take communication … to Katrina it meant sharing her most profound feelings and emotions. Felix had difficulty with this one until I reminded him that intimacy is impossible without communication.”

  “Everyone communicates. Did he give an example?”

  ‘Yes, he did. He said that he had once complimented Katrina on a personal level, and though her response had been intimate, it had also been unorthodox.”

  “What was the nature of his compliment?”

  “He told Katrina that, viewed from the rear, she wasn’t all that much larger than his last girlfriend.”

  “You say her response was intimate?”

  “Yes it was. She kicked him in the testicles.”

  “I understand the problem that might cause.”

  “You haven’t heard half of it. Another word was entertainment. Katrina considered herself entertained if she attended a good play or movie, or if she heard a great tenor.”

  “Surely Felix didn’t disagree with that.”

  “No, he didn’t disagree. He said that was fine, but to him entertainment was having a front row seat at a strip club.”

  “Interesting. Tell me more, my miscast matchmaker.”

  “Feelings. How could they not agree on feelings? But they did. Katrina said her feelings were an expression of her innermost state. Felix said his feelings were what got hurt when his friend didn’t buy the next round.”

  “Surely that’s all.”

  “No, I’ll give you one more. Fear was a word on my list. Katrina said that her biggest fear was that Felix would leave her for someone else. When I asked Felix what his greatest fear was, he said, ‘Spiders’.”

  “Enough! I see your problem. Did you quit the business? Did you learn anything about happiness?”

  “Yes to both. I learned that the absence of difficulty in life can cause us to create predicaments, and that perhaps the key to happiness is not a problem-free existence but how we respond to problems when they arise.”

  “How we respond doesn’t matter if there is no positive effect.”

  “Maybe and maybe not. Suppose the response to a problem is to live in denial. That could have a positive or negative effect depending on circumstances. Maybe there could be short term denial for long term gain.”

  Here we go again, I thought. Out loud I said, “Give me an example, my dim darling of definitions.”

  “You’ll identify with this one, oh limp lever of love,” she said

  I refilled my glass. From the corner of my eye I saw the fruit bat making its return trip.

  “One of my husbands was well under-endowed. Living with him was like having an extra little finger with no sense of direction and the consistency of spaghetti, if you know what I mean. However, he had other qualities, not the least of which was that what he lacked in certain departments was more than compensated for by the size of his bank account. Besides, I cared for him and he for me, a situation so rare that I determined to do everything I could to make our marriage work.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I lived in denial. I pretended and then eventually convinced myself that he was the best lover on the face of the earth. It was a form of self-hypnosis. Of course reality hibernated under the bed and I was frequently frustrated.”

  “That doesn’t sound good. Where’s the long term gain in that?”

  “He was a sensitive, intelligent man and he determined to do something about his problem. He embarked on a rigorous learning program. His ultimate goal was to acquire a degree in love with a major in Adriana. He proved a magnificent student and graduated magna cum laude. I won’t elaborate except to say that he would have made a wonderful doctor — he knew enough to treat the whole patient.”

  “What is your point, my little pleasure pot?” I asked.

  “The point, my inept idiot, is that denial paid off and I ended up with a great lover.”

  Great, but not the greatest, I thought. “Where is he? Surely you didn’t leave him.”

  “No, I didn’t, but I made a grievous error. I told my best friend and she told her friends. The next thing I know, I’m engaged in a frantic competition, the intensity of which has never been equalled at an Olympiad. My best friend won and she ran away with my husband.”

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me. We can set up defences to preserve our well-being but they’re no good if they spell ruin rather than redemption.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “I think our lives exist on a spectrum that runs from miserable to elated and there is a happy point on that spectrum where each of us is most contented. When we are pushed away from that point in either direction, we take the action necessary to return. Sometimes we overshoot. Moving back and forth helps clarify our self-image, much like adjusting binoculars clarifies the image we see through the lens … and remember, our adjustments also range from bad to good.”

  Now we’re adjusting binoculars, I thought. The way Adriana’s mental kite spins in the wind, we could end up flying a jet aircraft. Aloud I said, “Explain yourself, my ill-focused fiddlehead.”

  “It’s like piloting a fast plane,” she said. “Everything must be kept in equilibrium. Any adjustment we make could be balanced and mature, but it could also be psychotic. In between those two are all manner of possibilities.”

  “Such as?”

  “There are many ways human beings adapt to a situation. Paranoia, hallucination, passive aggression, hypochondria, fantasy, repression, humour, planning, and denial are a few. People use them all trying to return to their happy point. The key is to choose the healthy adaptation to any problem.”

  ‘Yes,” I said. “But your denial did not solve your problem. Instead, it seems like it solved a problem for your fri
end.”

  “Yes, I lost my husband but my loss was due to flapping gums, not denial.”

  “All right,” I said. “Based on that, how would you evaluate your life? Would you say that, overall, you’ve been happy, my immature malcontent?”

  Adriana waved her finger at me. “If you recall, I asked you first,” she said. “But I’ll answer anyway.”

  “Of course you will, but before you do … you must realize that your question is foolish — like asking someone if they are well-fed, or if they have a satisfying sex life. Queries of that nature are always answered in the moment, but they make sense only when viewed through the filter of time. During a life one will be satiated and go hungry many times, just as one’s sex life will vary from wild pleasure to extreme disappointment. The highs and lows must be averaged to determine the answer to your question.”

  “Explain yourself, old man.”

  “For example, if I haven’t eaten since yesterday I won’t think I’m well fed, and if I’ve just recovered from an earthquake-like erotic encounter then I will answer yes, I do have an incredible sex life, even though that might be the only libidinous experience I’ve had in years. So the answers can be deeply misleading and the question, are you happy? can be the most misleading of all. Do you understand?”

  “Of course I understand. We must look at our whole résumé. A snapshot at any point can be wrong. The reason I asked is that you and I can look back at almost an entire life to make our assessments. The question of happiness is meaningless when put to a young person. I admit that the answers make more sense as we age, but only if we have enough sense to consider our entire span. Eighty years of experience is more meaningful than three years of angst.”

  I had her and I pounced. “But that’s theory, my puerile prognosticator. In reality happiness does not always dwell in old age because some tend to become unhappy as they contemplate more limited capabilities.”

  “That has nothing to do with it,” she said. “When I recall the highs and lows of my life, it is clear that happiness is somehow tied to human relationships. The times when I have been most happy or unhappy have been as a result of my relationships with those who are closest to me. I think the key is not in how well-fed we are or how often we reached orgasm last Tuesday, but whether or not we have personal relationships that are satisfying, close and meaningful. It matters little with whom we entwine our lives — a lover, a sibling, a parent, or a friend. The point is that for happiness to exist, our lives must be entwined. In other words, our degree of happiness corresponds directly to the degree that we have achieved intimacy in our personal lives.”