God Bless Cambodia

by Randy Ross

  “Maybe I’ll get married, do the whole fucking deal: six-figure wedding, six-figure honeymoon, six-figure divorce.

  “Ha, ha. Just joking. But seriously, Doctor Moody, I’m going to need your help. There has to be some treatment that can help me settle for a boring, stable woman like Karen.” Moody taps my file with an index finger. “Randall, you’re almost fifty years old. All the drugs and therapy in the world won’t change who you’re attracted to. These kooky, angry women get you going. We can’t ‘shrink’ you into someone you’re not.”

  I look out the window. Somewhere a lost balloon drifts.

  “So are you saying I’m going to die alone?”

  “Everyone dies alone. All I’m saying is relationships are difficult for you. Relationships are difficult, period. You have your health, you have friends, and your car still runs. Maybe you should get on with your life and quit waiting around for the right woman.”

  “So my life is going to be one long romantic drought with some hookers and rocky, three-month relationships thrown in?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Would that be OK?”

  “That would be OK.”

  The Chronic Single’s Handbook

  Chapter Seven

  Obtaining Your Minimum Daily Requirements of Oxytocin

  The medical staff at The Chronic Single’s Handbook has found that individuals who do not receive adequate oxytocin risk prolonged visits to the Dark Place.

  For a chronic single, the recommended dose of oxytocin is five units a day, about half the amount required by the general population. Note: During good times, excess oxytocin can be stored like fat for later use.

  Oxytocin Benefits from Common Activities: (for a 155-pound man)

  •Flirting with personal trainer with the sparkly navel: 1 unit

  •Watching thirty minutes of sports with a stranger at a bar: 2 units

  •Drinks with an old friend: 3 units

  •Drinks with the personal trainer with the sparkly navel: 4 units • Sex with a long-time partner: 5 units*

  •Naughty massage: 6 units**

  •Sex with the personal trainer with the sparkly navel: 7 units

  *Generally, anyone in a relationship has access to an endless supply of oxytocin. However, as a relationship ages and rots, the human body produces stress hormones that negate any health benefits of oxytocin. Also, following a disagreement, a significant other may choose to withhold oxytocin for several months. (See footnote** below.)

  **In times of prolonged oxytocin deprivation, it is wise to consider the advice of former NFL lineman Conrad Dobler: “If it flies, floats, or fucks, rent it.”

  CHAPTER TEN: BOSTON POSTERIOR

  The morning sun streams through my bay window and illuminates a Marimekko shower drape and a double-wide medicine cabinet that was once populated with rows of golden vials.

  It’s been a year since I got laid off, four months since getting flattened by Ricki, and three weeks since Moody and I had an amicable split. He kept the Ambien and I kept the $125 an hour. I never did call Karen.

  After breakfast, I walk around Boston. The local scents have come out of hibernation: brisk and mossy, the greens of pine, grass, and dill. Up ahead, a line of people are waiting to enter the Museum of Science. I still don’t care for crowds or sightseeing or museums filled with divorced mothers and sticky kids, but today, admission is free.

  Inside, the museum smells cool and metallic like an empty refrigerator. The halls are packed with strollers, women wearing flannel shirts and peasant dresses, and men in dungarees and big boots—The Beverly Hillbillies.

  I’m wearing gabardine trousers, a rep tie, and my big watch.

  At an exhibit called “Creatures of the Sea,” I contemplate the blob fish, the spiny pufferfish, and the fangtooth fish.

  At my side, a small voice: “Mister. What does the stingray do?”

  It’s a child about five or six. A middle-aged guy talking to a young boy who is not his son is not a smart idea.

  “Mister, what does the stingray do?”

  I look around for the matching adult and can’t find one. “Well, little buddy, the stingray is very friendly,” I say. “He floats around the bottom of the sea like a space ship. But don’t pet him on the tail—it’s like a switchblade.”

  “Mister, what’s your name?”

  “The name is Perkins, Marlin Perkins.”

  A woman with short hair and no makeup runs over, claims the child, and apologizes. I feel a trickle of oxytocin from this small interaction. My first unit of the day.

  I drift over to an exhibit called “Asian Mammals,” a row of large, stuffed critters in different poses. The smells: leathery and dusty, like a cobbler’s shop.

  I grasp a gooey railing and read the wall plaque:

  “Bengal Tigers generally live alone except for brief interludes during mating season.”

  “Bali Cattle: After mating, bulls lead solitary lives or may wander the countryside with other bulls.”

  The chronic singles of the animal world. Do they worry about dying alone?

  I detect a smell that doesn’t belong: warm, creamy, vanilla. To my left, a woman’s voice. “Look kid, I don’t know anything about tigers. Go ask your mother before one of them gobbles you up.”

  The woman is tall, blonde, and wearing heels, a fitted skirt, and lipstick. An exposed bra strap shines like a ribbon. Tiny lines around her mouth, about my age.

  She lifts her purse and a tube of Purell falls to the floor. I pick it up and hand it back to her. Her fingers are long, her nails are lacquered. When our eyes meet, I sense a disturbance, an electrical storm. I imagine us Rollerblading, sharing a porterhouse, a martini, an urn.

  Wait a minute: I give up on women, accept my fate as chronically single, and now I meet an outlier, a wand, who doesn’t like kids, at the Museum of Frigging Science?

  Fat chance.

  During my final visit with Moody, he handed me a thick manila envelope with my name on it and wished me well. “Randall, remember that intimacy is not the only path to happiness. Many famous artists and scholars never married, some had few if any romantic partners: Beethoven, Kant, Isaac Newton, Beatrix Potter, the list goes on. Today, one out of seven Americans between thirty-five and fifty-four has never been married. There are 112 million single people in this country.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I know you find lists and stats soothing. I dug some up for you.”

  “So I’m going to die alone but have lots of company.” “You want what you want.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The heart is a lonely hunter.”

  “Wasn’t that a novel by Carson McCullers?”

  “You know what I mean, Randall.”

  After the session, I decided to take a hiatus from the experts, the Moodys and Pittmans of the world. Maybe they are right about 70 percent of the time. But flipping a coin, I’d be right 50 percent of the time and save on copays, pills, and exotic trips that lead nowhere.

  The blonde at the railing is disinfecting her hands and reading about the Bali cattle. She glances at me and then glances again.

  “Having fun?” I ask.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This novel took seven years to write and involved four top-to-bottom rewrites with input from friends, relatives, and people whom I barely knew who offered to help, just because.

  I’d like to thank my beta readers who provided encouragement and invaluable input on the various drafts: BFFF Susan Avery; cousin, author, and inspiration Susan Tejada; friend and former boss Bill Snyder; Northwestern alum and apres-ski expert Dave Wallace; friend and French expert Rosemary Jaffe; author and counsel Marlene Fanta Shyer; brother for more-than-a-college-term Jeff Kaufman; fellow schemer and ranter Sam Nejame; cousin, writer, and the first Jewish safari guide in the history of the world Mathew Dry; playwright Debbie Wiess; writer, writing instructor, and performer Daniel Gewertz; and novelist and all-around great in
fluence Erica Ferencik.

  During the last seven years, I belonged to numerous writing groups. The longest-lasting one called NTK was kept afloat by writer friends Joan FitzGerald, Susan Phillips, and Tim Stone.

  A big thanks to actor and playwright Michael Mack, author and publisher Jeffrey Zygmont, the GrubStreet writing center in Boston, and the folks at The Permanent Press: copy editor Barbara Anderson, as well as copublishers Chris Knopf and Martin and Judith Shepard who took a chance on a whiney guy from Boston.

  I’d also like to thank my parents, Tom and Judy Ross, whose encouragement helped me stick with this project through all its ups and downs, twists and turns, and disappointments and successes.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my indispensable editor and writing coach, Carey Adams at anyforkintheroad.com, for her assistance transforming this manuscript from 150 pages of blog scratch into a publishable novel.