Miserable Love Stories

by Alex Bernstein

  But I like her.

  I’m on a John Wayne kick. I’ve got to see every John Wayne movie ever made. I just read an article about “The Conqueror.” John Wayne plays Genghis Khan leading an army of Huns. It’s supposed to be one of the worst films ever made—not just because it’s purely bad—but because it was filmed on a former A-bomb test site which eventually killed Wayne, his co-stars, and several crewmen via cancer. But it’s unintentionally hysterically funny, highlighted by the moving love story of Khan, formerly known as “Temujin,” and his Hun gal, Bortai. We stay up late into the night watching and talk about it for days afterward.

  At a concert. We’re all here as friends. I’m here and she’s here and her friend’s here. Sitting up on risers. Just hanging out, having a drink. I’m sitting up on the riser next to her, my new roommate. She’s relaxed—she’s got a drink—having a good time.

  Her knee touches mine.

  Her knee. My knee is frozen. I’m touching her. I don’t pull away—or apologize. I let it happen—this knee-touching thing. This body-contact thing. It’s natural. It just happened. It’s the first time we’ve physically touched. It doesn’t mean anything. She probably doesn’t even notice that physically we’re touching. And I can’t hear the concert. I’m alone in the crowd—frozen—just me and her and my knee and her knee. Touching.

  This is a major change in our relationship. No, no, idiot—your knee is brushed up against hers at a rock concert! Stupid, stupid. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s an accident. No—there are no accidents. Yes, yes, of course there are! But it’s still there. She hasn’t moved hers. Maybe she’s too drunk to realize—no . . . the knees . . . they’re . . . they’re just languishing there—

  What does it all mean?

  I call her Bortai. She calls me Chimuga. (Neither of us can remember Temujin.)

  I’m carrying a television down the street, to Soho. I always seem to be carrying furniture down the street. Manhattan is too small. No need for cars and vans and pick-up trucks, much less hiring actual movers. So, I keep carrying furniture back and forth, back and forth—from here to her new apartment.

  Her new apartment—it’s smaller than the old one. The one I still live in. It’s about half the size, if you can believe that, but it’s a single—a one bedroom.

  It’s for the best. We agreed. The apartment was too small. Too small for two people who are involved in the kind of relationship we’re involved in. Too close, too much, too soon. We both needed space, more space. We agreed. It’s mutual. Of course, it is. Nothing is changing, really. We’re going to have the same relationship. We’re just not going to live together. It makes sense. Of course.

  Nothing is changing.

  It seems like we’ve already had the baby. He’s been such a part of our lives now for eight-and-a-half months—especially the last three. We’ve taken every birthing and childcare class imaginable. I could probably teach a class on breast-feeding at this point, or maybe not. I knew tonight would be the night. I knew from the way she was pounding on the dummy at the CPR class earlier this evening—that we would be here, now, doing this. Another surreal moment. Anxious. Exciting.

  New apartment. Bigger. Transitional and in the suburbs. It’s almost like a real home with a built-in dishwasher and usable garbage bins outside. Holy crap. Am I domestic?

  I think one of the rocks over the fake fireplace looks like a bear’s head.

  Our picture taken on a beach.

  Eating Mexican food.

  I love the arcade. I’m way too old for this, but the little boy in me loves it. When I was a kid, it was all pinball machines and ski-ball and air hockey. Now, it’s all video games. Actually, the ski-ball and air hockey are still here and even a couple of the pinball machines. So, really how much has changed? Credit the town for trading in on nostalgia, for realizing that folks want the fifties-era beachside resort community to remain a fifties-era beachside resort community while the planet’s still spinning. It’s certainly what I want.

  I know she hates the arcade, but she smiles anyway, and I let her know she gets huge points for humoring me and catering to the whims of my inner eight-year-old. She’s already humored my eight-year-old several times this trip. We ate breakfast at the restaurant with the giant taffy pulling machine in the window. We went to the newsstand and bought “Hot Stuff” and “Little Lotta” comics. As we play air hockey and pinball, I reflect that my inner eight-year-old has been pretty well taken care of.

  I wonder what I can get at the prize booth for my forty Skee Ball points. There’s not much you can get these days for forty points—but another ten and the rubber spider ring is mine. I see her standing in front of a funky-looking, ancient machine, definitely from the fifties—checking it out. She puts a buck in and tugs on this incredibly-difficult-to-pull stamper. The thing stamps out whatever you type onto a tiny metal Lucky Key Chain, embossed with horseshoes and four-leaf clovers. She stamps something out, knowing she can’t go back and make changes. If she makes a mistake, it’s set in there. It plops into the dispenser and she hands it to me:

  BXRTQI LXUS CHMGA

  I get her some water.

  Soaked in sweat, hair matted.

  I’ve spent months in classes, training to be her “coach”—but really, I don’t do anything. I’m just there to be there. I say, “come on, honey” a lot. “You’re doing great.” “Come on.” And I give her little chips of hard candy to suck on.

  She’s been carrying this medicine ball in her belly for months now. Through sheer force of will and physical exertion—and an excruciating, primal effort that will screw up her body for weeks to come—she will bring new life to the planet, for God sakes. Me, I’m going to hold little pieces of candy in a Dixie cup and try not to sound too idiotic.

  “Push, honey. Push. Want some candy?”

  In a pretty good tuxedo, I wait in front of a couple hundred of people all decked out in surprisingly nice formal wear. I have incredible gas. So, every cliché you hear is true. I didn’t sleep the night before. I’m completely exhausted, but my beard looks great. Trimming my goatee is always an unpredictable experience. It’s all guesswork. Instinctive. The slightest jerk and the whole thing gets setoff. Unbalanced.

  I’m going for short. She likes it short. However, today has to be special and much better than average. It has to have flair, almost a European salon look. And I have to do it myself—on no sleep, with the worst gas in history and a thousand things racing through my mind. No nicks. No bleeding. God forbid I cut slightly too much from one side. Then all that’s left is to try to balance it—cut from the other side, cut from the first, balancing, balancing—till I’ve lost all perspective and then what? Nothing to do but shave the whole thing off, or cancel the wedding.

  I’m surprisingly calm. Maybe it’s lack of sleep. If anything, I’m giddy. But why not? Really, I don’t have to do much. For once, showing up really is everything. Everyone looks so nice. I look nice. Hell, the whole thing is nice. I can enjoy this. It’s just hard to take it all so seriously.

  And then she appears.

  This person I’ve known my whole life, now. This angel in white with that black, black hair walks towards me. Me. Her eyes sparkle. Her smile literally lights up the room. Everyone stares at her, breathless. And suddenly, she’s there, beside me—and everything else ceases to exist. The family, the priest, the rabbi, my gas, my exhaustion, everything. Yes, yes, the ceremony is lovely. But look at this. Suddenly, I am the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in town.

  She learns how to play poker.

  Better than me.

  Jerry Garcia dies.

  “Push, honey!”

  “C’mon!”

  “You can do it!”

  We don’t actually own the house yet. We own it as of tomorrow, but we’ve got the keys. For all intents and purposes, it’s our house.

  Our house.

  We’re ripping up the carpeting. God forbid the deal goes south in the next twelve hours as we would then be ripping up car
peting in someone else’s house. However, it’s unlikely the deal will go south. The carpet is funky, old, discolored, extremely lumpy in the middle. This is the master bedroom. What were these people thinking? Obviously, personal comfort wasn’t very important to them.

  Ripping up the carpet is invigorating. It’s like a New Year—a new life. Out with the old and in with us. We paid for it. We paid the broker, the inspector, the lawyer. We trudged through snow and slush. We cut notices out of the paper and taped them to blank pages and made phone calls and argued and toured neighborhoods every time we saw an “open house” sign. We saw houses. A dozen, at least. And now we’ve bought one. Surely, we must be adults now. Right?

  Look at us: gleeful, delinquent teens—the Bonnie and Clyde of carpet removal—sneaking into the old man’s house while he’s on vacation and ransacking his property, only there is no old man and it’s our property. Or it will be tomorrow, anyway. We are primal, unprofessional in our carpet rippings, heaving and sweating.

  Neither of us has ripped up carpet before. We knew something was holding it down. Nails? Tacks? Stapled, to the floor and to thin, brittle, wooden planks framing the carpet. As we rip and pull, millions of staples and nails jut out at us, everywhere.

  How do people in houses dispose of things? Throw it on the street? Hope someone picks it up? Take it to a dump? We don’t even know how our own garbage works. Where’s a landlord when you need one?

  I go out to find where the trash is kept. Three cans under an eave at the right side of the house, before the garage. Okay. Great. So, someone must pick it up.

  “Garbage picks up Tuesday and Friday, but we have to call them to get service started back up.”

  “They discontinued service?”

  The trash cans are full. Great. The sellers discontinued service and left us weeks-worth of rotting food and trash.

  “Get rid of it! Get it out of here! Take the carpet with you!”

  “Get rid of it?”

  “Take it! It stinks! Go on!”

  “Where?”

  I load the garbage and carpet into my car trunk. Maggots crawling across the garbage bags drop into my trunk. The stench is unbearable. I drive back to our old apartment complex and dump everything in the trash bins. No one sees me. No one cares. Technically, I’m still a tenant till the end of the month. I heave the carpet with my super strength. The carpet is gone. Gone.

  Over the course of the week, I make three more trips back to the complex before we determine how to get our garbage picked up.

  We are proud new owners of a house.

  We discover we like basketball.

  Several doctors and nurses attend us—a lot of people for such an intimate experience. And then . . . and then . . . oh boy . . . there he is . . . really . . . his head . . . his eyes . . . arms . . . his legs . . . his tiny tiny feet curled up. He’s out. Out! There he is, Mrs. We—we actually have a baby.

  And we’re a family, suddenly. We must be adults, now. We must be. And the angel in white is lying on the bed, smiling and crying, exhausted, spent, resting, recovering.

  Then, there—he’s—he’s in my arms. My son. My little boy. So small. Hardly anything. He’s so small. He’s beautiful. My boy. My little, little boy. Our boy.

  Our son.

  Translated: Bortai loves Chimuga.

  Bits & Pieces

  Random Thoughts

  Tis better to have loved and lost than to be Lost in Space.

  I was a late bloomer. Well actually, I was more of an exploder.

  I once went out with a girl named Tanya, but her friends called her “Nya.”

  At the grocery today I saw some loose morels.

  I never know what to do at parties. I’m always the guy in the corner smoking a beer.

  What once were vices now are hobbies.

  Wedding Pictures I’ve Ruined through Inappropriate Facial Hair

  Shortly after college I was in my friend Dave’s wedding party and I wore a massive, outlandish, unkempt beard which looked just awful on me. Of course, no one else in the wedding party had any facial hair whatsoever. So, now, in page after page of his wedding pictures, I stick out like a sore thumb. Did I consciously plan to ruin his wedding album? Who knows? However, I remember he had an extremely polite wedding party. Oh, you look great! What a nice suit! They were way too polite to ask this lunatic they barely knew to shave.

  A Short High School Reunion Play

  SALLY and DOUG see each other at their 10-year high school reunion. Sally, who used to be very shy, looks phenomenally successful and at the top of her field.

  DOUG: Hey, Sally—what happened to you?!

  SALLY: I started having sex, Doug!

  DOUG: Wow! Sex did all that?!

  SALLY: Sure did! Built up my self-confidence, gave me a real workout—and y’know what?! It’s fun, too!

  DOUG: Wow! Do you think sex could do all that for me?

  SALLY: (laughs) Probably not everything, Doug! But it’s a start!

  Why Can’t I Look in the Fridge?

  Why does my significant other need to ask me what I’m looking for in the fridge? Why is that a thing? Why can’t I just endlessly look in the goddamn fridge? What are you looking for? Can I help you with something? I’m looking for Seagram’s Golden Wine Coolers. I’m looking for French Danishes. I’m looking for my dignity. Is it hiding behind the LaCroix seltzers? When did our fridge become precious and curated? There’s nothing in there you need to see. Now, close the door. The temperature’s rising!

  My partner does not like it when I put shredded cheese on a sandwich. It’s just not right! Please don’t do it!

  Brief Conversations On a Train

  Him: I dreamed you cheated on me with one of my high school friends.

  Her: I would never cheat on you with one of your high school friends. (Attractive guy with cool socks and hipster douche beard walks by.) With him, maybe.

  Her: I’m pre-forgiving you.

  Him: What does that mean?

  Her: It means I assume you’re going to be a complete ass later, so I’m forgiving you now, ahead of time.

  Him: Okay. Could you go ahead and pre-forgive me for the next five years?

  Him: I don’t need your undivided attention. Your divided attention is just fine.

  Her: You know where you don’t want to go? There. You don’t want to go there.

  Him: (singing) You say tomato. I say—well—since you said tomato, why don’t we just go with tomato? No, no what I was going to say—no, don’t worry about it. Tomato is fine. Sure, sure, that’s great. Let’s do that. Let’s go with tomato.

  The Qualified Apology

  If you want to maintain a successful relationship, try not to use The Qualified Apology. The Qualified Apology is just like a regular apology—but with a but . . . added on at the end. And that but . . . negates the entire apology. For example, I’m sorry . . . but you were an asshole.

  See, that first part—that I’m sorry—that’s the perfect apology. Is it standard? Sure. But that’s okay. It’s simple. Effective. Sincere. I’m sorry. Period. Nothing else needed. But adding that but . . . well, now you’ve ruined the whole thing. That but . . . is a sure sign of someone who is not only not sorry—but who is by no means ready to disengage from the monumentally trivial thing that you’ve been fighting about for the past three hours. It’s a way of saying see, you thought it was time to make up, but I’ve gotten my wind back and I’m ready for Round Ten.

  There are many variations of The Qualified Apology. There’s the classic version: I’m sorry, but . . . you were an idiot. There’s The Qualified Apology with Clarification: I’m sorry, but . . . you were an idiot. Had you NOT been an idiot—then I’d actually be sorry. But you were. So that’s how the chips fell. Another popular variation is The Double-back Qualified Apology where the Apologizer teeter-totters on the sincere apology before finally totally giving in to the regular Qualified version: I’m sorry, but you were an idiot. But I am sorry. But you were an idiot. But
. . . I am sorry. But you know what? You were an idiot!!! I mean—what the hell am I sorry for?! I’m not sorry!!! You should be apologizing to me!! Jerk!

  Random Thoughts

  Tis better to have loved and lost than to work in the Lost and Found department. Or the Complaints department, for that matter.

  Celia and I kept in touch over the years: by phone, by email and finally just by yelling out the window.

  I practice monogamy, and I like to practice it with as many people as possible.

  I once got an email from a trusted impotence solution. Which is better than getting an email from a dubious impotence solution.

  Absence makes the heart lose interest.

  Advice Regarding Your Upcoming Marriage

  Being married will prepare you for just about everything except germ warfare.

  Consider establishing a marriage contract for three years with an option to renew.

  Consider adding the marriage vow “and do you solemnly swear to put up with each other’s bullshit year after year after year?”

  And then, every year on your anniversary, you can toast each other and say, thank you so much, darling, for continuing to put up with my bullshit.