by Martin Kihn
Didn’t think so—that’s because you are the worst case I’ve ever seen of a person who can’t find his own dick with two hands and a map! Don’t know how to act? How about this: Act like you know.
Anything you want that other people also want is going to take a lot of focus, effort and determination. Focus. Effort. Determination. Even then there’s no guarantee, especially for people like you who have no natural talent for anything.
Now where—you’re asking—are Marty’s personal favorite ingredients of whining, self-pity, and mental hypochondria?
That’s right, they’re back where they belong: Shoved up your ass!
Does that help?
I printed out this letter to and from myself and read it over a couple times. Really thought about it. Then I tore it in half and put it into the blue recycling bin next to the vending machines.
It was in that moment I finally knew what to do.
EPILOGUE
Doing What It Takes
“It is a disgrace to be rich and honored in an unjust state.”
—Confucius
You were promised a path from Zero to Hero—and you got it, Riches and happiness are yours for the taking! Enjoy True, the riches might not be in the form of actual money, at least not right away, and the joy might not be all hookers and blow … but by following the Ten Steps of Assholism you can gain something I didn’t think you’d ever have: a soul.
At this point, as you can see, I had precious few options. I was backed into a corner, at a spiritual and physical crossroads. There was no way I wanted to do what I had to do next, but the Fates had left me no alternative. I had to call in the big gun.
I phoned my wife and begged her to meet me for lunch.
She was in the middle of class—as it turned out, the ominously titled “Knife Skills.” But something about the tone of my voice told her this meeting was probably included in the “worse” part of “for better or worse.”
So she said she had “literally twenty minutes” and met me at Kosmo’s on Eighth Avenue wearing a white canvas jacket with the name of her cooking school embroidered on an arm patch. First thing she did was insult the menu, then she told me how she’d rewrite it, then she described all the injuries her fellow students were getting in “Knife Skills.” I actually counted to make sure she had all ten fingers.
Then she drank some water and asked me, “What’s wrong, chief?”
“Gloria, I’ve got to tell you something.”
She breathed in sharply. These are definitely not the words you want to be hearing from your spouse.
“Okay,” she said, gingerly.
And I told her—about the decision to be an Asshole, the coaches and the field trips with Al (“You did what?” she asked when I told her about the hotdog cart); about practicing in stores and on my team at work; about the weird diet.
At some point the waiter came, and Gloria ordered a scotch and soda. He reminded her that Kosmo’s was a diner, not a saloon.
After I finished, she just stared at me. I didn’t know what to expect. This was basically a confession that I’d been lying to her for a couple of months. If she had decided to slap me, I would not have disapproved.
But she did something different: she breathed out suddenly, grabbing onto the table. Nodding slightly, she said, “Well, that’s a relief. I thought you were having an affair.”
“What?”
“With that girl Emily—the ballet dancer. You’re always talking about her.”
I couldn’t believe this; it had never occurred to me she might think such a thing. But it made sense: I had been away and “working late” a lot lately, to accommodate my various experiments. I laughed, then almost cried, then laughed again. “She’s not my type,” I said.
“I knew you were up to something,” she said, thinking back. “You’ve been kind of a jerk. But Hola’s a lot better.” She was nodding. “Yes, Hola’s definitely shaped up. So have you, sort of. You look better.”
“Thank you.” I waited a moment. “Gloria, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry,” she stopped me. “That’s the old Marty. You wanted to change, you made an effort. That’s all that matters.”
I worked on my chocolate pie and Gloria drank more water. She seemed anxious, like maybe she’d left something on the stove back at school. “So what’s wrong?” she asked. “You seem upset.”
I admitted, “Being an asshole isn’t as great as I thought it would be.”
She had to smile. “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know—something else.”
“Come on,” she said, gently. “You know what you expected. Tell me.”
I thought back to the tan guy in the dog park, at the beginning of my journey. I said: “I guess I figured I’d just stop being nice and I’d get a better apartment. You know, love and respect. All that.”
She looked like she might giggle. “Why’d you think that?”
“It seemed obvious.”
I pondered for a moment. Then I said:
“I have a question.”
“Okay.”
“Why—why do I feel so bad about things? I’m not happy, Gloria.”
She looked at her watch, then back at me. “I know why,” she said.
“So tell me.”
“You don’t want me to.”
I knew she was right. Of course she was right—she knew me better than anybody, even my dog. The only mystery being why she insisted on staying married to me.
“Go ahead,” I said, “tell me. Don’t worry about my feelings.”
“You’re not being who you are. It’s like Aristotle said: ‘To thine own self be true.’ Life seems to work better that way.”
“That wasn’t Aristotle.”
“Told you you didn’t want to hear it.”
She stood up and started rebuttoning her lab coat. There were pudding stains on it. Looked like yummy pudding. God, I loved pudding.
Suddenly, from nowhere, I let out a yawp of emotion I’d kept inside me all these months: “I just want you to love me!”
Talk about a conversation stopper. I know I got the complete attention of Kosmo’s Diner.
After a moment, Gloria leaned down and kissed me. Then she stood up again, hovering.
“I do love you,” she said, smoothly. “Whoever you are.”
“Really? But why?”
“Lots of reasons.”
“Give me one.”
She considered this a moment. Then she said: “I think it’s cute how you’re always trying to improve yourself. It’s adorable. A total waste of time—but it’s adorable.”
With another quick kiss, she left for the kitchen, having just served me up some food for thought.
If you’ve followed my Steps and done everything right—which is to say, wrong—you too will have your Moment of Truth. Probably in a diner, and probably with your S.O. It’s not pleasant, but like any diagnosis it’s better to know.
When you and I met, we thought we’d figured out the thing that had been holding us back all our lives. At that point we really believed we were too much of a pushover and that if only we could make ourselves more dick-like all our problems would be solved. We’d pull in more money, dress better, maybe get invited to Uma Thurman’s Cool People Christmas Party, if she has one—be more like all the people we thought we wanted to be like.
But at least for me, it didn’t work like that. I had to face the unexpected conclusion that being an Asshole all the time doesn’t seem to work.
Don’t trust me on this. Try it yourself. Use my techniques. Embarrass, humiliate, and otherwise electrocute yourself. I’m sure you’ll end up just where I did, except maybe in a different city.
I was musing on my hard-won insights some weeks later when I found myself in the client’s offices in Long Island, and I, decided to stop in and see my old friend Sherry. We’d heard she still hadn’t pulled the trigger on Lucifer but had been overruled in using the Nemesis by her boss, the SVP. I
t made sense: His agency was way too small to even begin to think about handling a serious Fortune 500 account. Maybe if he’d succeeded in luring more of the young analysts to join him, if his house party had worked like it was supposed to …
“You busy in here?” I asked Sherry.
She was sitting at her desk reading e-mail on a big flat screen and tapping a pen on a pad.
Tap tap tap.
She hesitated, then said hello.
“Have a second?” I asked her again and how could she say no? I was right there. I didn’t even sit down on her guest chair. There was a small wooden crucifix glued onto her paper shredder, and she had a lovely gold cross around her neck.
“I was thinking,” I started, “about the Gen Z project and I wanted to say we got it wrong. What I said was—you were there—we should embed in the social networks and get them to recommend and so on blah blah. You were there.”
“Yup.”
“But I’ve been thinking and I’m bothered by something. Can I sit down? Thanks—It occurred to me the whole thing may be wrong. Not just morally wrong—not like it’s a good thing to get kids into debt before they even have an income really. But it’s wrong for the market out there. People are changing. We see this with other clients. As consumers we’re getting more:—not just more religious, more Catholic—It’s—what am I trying to say?”
She inclined her head slightly, mirroring my own motion.
“It’s like we’re—as a culture—we’re getting less cynical. That’s the best way to say it, I think. So I thought—Why not turn this Lucifer project around?”
“How?” she asked, studying my face.
“Instead of selling it to kids based on selfishness why not—why don’t we sell it to parents as a tool. Make it a way to learn how to save. A vehicle for social responsibility and—here’s an idea. Why don’t we embed a savings account in the card instead of rewards points or cash-back. Or a—a college savings account. So there’s a one point five percent cash-back put into a five twenty-nine in New York, or whatever. And it’s only good for certain types of purchases.”
“Like what?”
“Block out the SIC codes for entertainment, music, fast food—or maybe let the parents choose. Make it the card that only buys clothes and books and—and education—and doesn’t work on—”
“On sin,” she said.
“Exactly. That’s the thought. Anyway—I know you didn’t ask me. But I wanted to get that out there.”
I stood up, trying to keep this seeming casual. The Navy SEALs might call it simply matching the weapon to the target.
“Yes, thanks,” she said, “that’s very interesting. An interesting twist.”
“Let me know if you’d like to talk more about it.”
She nodded. “Give me a call next week, let’s talk more. It’s a really neat idea.”
As I left Sherry’s office, I realized I had been surprised. Not that she liked the idea; I knew it was a good one. I was genuinely surprised by how great it felt to be a nice guy again, to consider something other than my year-end bonus.
I hadn’t seen that coming.
• • •
I’ve heard there are no coincidences in life—only probabilities we don’t understand.
As I stepped onto the elevator, I ran right into one of those probabilities.
“Marty,” said the Nemesis, dressed in a shabby two-button pinstripe and worn-out black oxfords.
“Hello.”
There were packs of people on the ride with us, and professional services people never—but never—speak on the elevator, because you do not know who’s listening. Million-dollar accounts have been lost because of a stupid comment on an elevator. So we put our reunion on hold for fifty floors. During the ride, I couldn’t help but notice my old friend looked a mite scrawnier than usual; probably he couldn’t afford to hit the steroid dealership as often as he used to.
We walked out of the building together and started waving for our cabs.
“Where you working these days?” I asked him.
“Here and there. You?”
“Still at the agency.”
“Sorry you guys lost Lucifer. Nice try.”
“Sorry your company went under so fast. My condolences.”
“Who told you that?” he asked, sharply.
“Well—Jaime and Roger came back last week. So we sort of figured.”
He tried to edge in front of me, but I kept blocking him off, then he’d step in front of me and so on, as we did a silly dance with waving arms down the street toward the Chipotle’s restaurant.
“What’s next for you,” I asked him, “direct mail?”
That was about as low as it gets—and I almost regretted my tone when I saw the hurt in his eyes. Almost. But then a cab started slowing in front of us and I rammed my forearm like a subway turnstile across his chest.
“That’s my cab,” he moaned, “you can get the next one.”
“Not quite,” I said—and jumped in, slamming the door behind me and locking it.
The Nemesis said something then I didn’t quite hear, but I like to think it was that beautiful little word we all secretly long for but none of us hears nearly enough. The word that proved I’d learned a thing or two from my journey after all.
“Asshole!”
Acknowledgments
An Asshole no longer, I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the following people: Chae and Paul Kihn, Kathy Douglass, Jim Meddick, Mark Fefer, Mike Rubiner, Kim Cummings, Kate Taylor, Miriam Silverman, and all my friends on the “Fast-break” morning crew, particularly Glenn G.
Special thanks to the team at Writers House: Simon Lipskar, for encouraging my pitch and coming up with the title; Dan Lazar, for great agenting and for saving this project at a critical point; Maja Nikolic, Jane Berentson, and Josh Gentzler.
Much love to Broadway Books: my dream editor Becky Cole, Brianne Ramagosa, Hallie Falquet, Julie Sills, Ellen Folan, and Rex Bonomelli. And to the true talent on the Left Coast: Paula Weinstein and Jeffrey Levine at Spring Creek, Zeke Steiner at Brillstein Grey, and the incredible Kassie Evashevski.
About the Author
Martin Kihn is an Emmy Award-nominated former writer for MTV’s Pop-Up Video and the author of House of Lies. He has worked at Spy; Forbes, and New York, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, GQ, Details, and Cosmopolitan. He lives in New York City.