by Drew Magary
“This isn’t funny, John. I’ve invested four years of my life in this. There comes a point when it’s fair for a woman to ask what a man’s intentions are. Don’t you think that’s fair?”
“I do. And I am committed to you. I’ve never cheated. I’ve always been there to support you.”
“And you say you love me, right?”
“I do. I love the hell out of you.”
“You said you’d love me forever.”
“I did. And I meant it.”
Sonia sat down. She didn’t look upset. She looked as if she was trying to solve a math proof whose solution eluded her. That’s what I always liked about her. She was never unreasonable. If she had an argument with anything, it was backed up by sound logic and analysis. Not everyone I know acts in a similar manner. I know I don’t.
“Then I don’t understand,” she said. “You know I’m not a needy person. I can take care of myself. But the reason I’m talking to you about this is because I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to build something with you. And I don’t want to have this conversation with you every four months. I want this settled.”
“I understand all that. But look out there. Do you see anyone getting married? At all?”
“What does that have to do with us? Are you telling me it’s peer pressure that’s holding you back?”
“No.”
“Because I know what’s going on these days. A man in my office got engaged three months ago, and all the other men laughed at him. They laughed right in his face. Every guy is supposed to be some macho, shit-kicking eternal bachelor now.”
I sat next to her on the couch. She had a glass of wine on the coffee table, but she hadn’t bothered to touch it.
“It’s not just a guy thing,” I said. “I’m going to be as honest as I possibly can about this, because you deserve the unvarnished truth. I don’t have the capacity to commit to something—anything—for five hundred years or however long we’re likely to live. I don’t have the knowledge and foresight to say to you, ‘Yes. I will stick with you no matter what occurs from now until the end of time.’ ”
“But you could commit to me if you hadn’t taken the cure? That makes no sense.”
“Yes it does. I could commit to you if we knew our lives were definite. But they aren’t. I have no earthly idea what’s coming next, and I can’t promise that from now until the end of time I’ll always be by your side. Because I don’t know. And you can’t promise that either, because you don’t know.”
“But that’s what marriage is. It’s two people saying that we don’t know what’s going to happen but we promise we’ll get through it together. Being married means there’s one thing you can always count on.”
“I don’t know if I want that. I’m sorry. People got married before because they knew, deep down, that there would come a time in their lives when they would become too old, too ugly, and too infirm to have anyone care about them except their spouse. You needed someone to change your bedpan and help tie your shoes and all that. That’s all gone now, Sonia. All that fear is gone. And whatever urge there is for people to find a lifetime companion . . . I don’t have that anymore. Every guy I know feels the same way. You want something concrete from me? I love you, but I don’t want to get married, and I don’t know if I ever will. I’m pretty sure I won’t.”
Her eyes tightened, like she was about to swing at a baseball. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“How long?”
“Ten weeks. I just found out this morning.”
“You spring this on me now?”
“I’m not afraid to raise our child alone, John. I’m not. I’m a strong woman and I know I can do that. But I’d like you to be there. I’d like to raise him with you, as your wife. It wouldn’t be a chore. It would be wonderful. Indelible. It would be fifty times more rewarding than spending the next three decades getting blasted and watching football with your friends or whatever.”
“I don’t know. I like football quite a bit.”
“Don’t be a wiseass. Not now.”
“I’m not being a wiseass. This is just . . . more seriousness than I want. This is more responsibility than I want.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you grew up?”
“No. See, that’s what I dislike. I dislike that just because I reach a certain age, I’m supposed to hunker down and stop enjoying my life. That I’m supposed to leave all the fun to the younger generation. I’m not buying into that anymore, and no one else I know is either. This is liberation, Sonia. Honestly, why have this child now? Don’t you want to enjoy your life a little bit more before you weigh yourself down with all this?”
“It’s not a weight. It’s something I want. I’m not having this child as some sort of self-punishment. Just because I can have a child a hundred years from now doesn’t mean I want to wait that long. I’m still a woman. I still have the urge to be a mother and to be a wife. I still have that drive. You’re telling me about liberation. I am free. I don’t have to worry about growing old and never finding a man, like every goddamn magazine used to tell me. I have the freedom now to marry whom I want when I want, and to have children when I want. And I want this child today, and I want to raise it with you. Not because I’m some wet blanket. But because I know life is going to be better with the three of us together. I want something in my life that means something. Don’t you see that? It’s not some invisible cultural force driving all this, John. It’s just me, telling you that I love you very much and want to be with you. You tell me that isn’t what you want. But is that really true? Are you really so scared that you’ll miss out on partying and hooking up with other women down the line? Why have you gone out with me for this long if that’s what you really want?”
“Because I love you.”
“Then tell me how tomorrow will be any different.”
I had no answer. Three weeks ago I helped our firm devise a lucrative new type of prenuptial agreement between a banker and his fiancée. It’s a forty-year marriage. Set in stone. No divorcing allowed without significant penalties. The couple agrees to be together for forty years, with the marriage automatically dissolving at the end of that period and the assets divided at a previously agreed-upon percentage. The couple could then pick up an additional forty-year option if they wished. My boss has even coined a new term for it: “cycle marriage.” He says it could help raise marriage rates back up to where they were a few years ago. The reason clients like it is because it precludes the acrimony that usually accompanies divorce. You’re less likely to claw at each other’s throats if you know there’s already an end set in place. A couple marries, raises a family, then they go their separate ways to enjoy single life once more after the children are grown and well-adjusted. It’s a win-win situation, particularly if you’re the lawyer brokering the deal.
“What about a cycle marriage?” I asked her.
“That forty-year thing you do for asshole bankers? Are you being serious? That’s moronic.”
“That’s all I can offer you.”
She stood up and straightened her skirt. “So this is it. You really don’t want this?”
“I don’t. There’s too much left in front of me. I love you. But I don’t have the certainty that you have. I’m not ready.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sorry all this has changed your ability to love someone. I can’t stay here.” On went her jacket. “Will you help me raise him? Will you support us?”
“I will. I promise you that I will be the best father I can be.”
“Then I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”
I watched her collect her things and move to the door. She turned to me. She wasn’t crying. But I could see the disappointment. She’d had plans for us. She had envisioned an entire life for us that she thought was going to become reality one day, and she was so very much looking forward to it. She thought I would feel the same way. She
felt assured of it. She believed in me. But now that she knew the truth, she saw me as a different man—one I don’t think she liked very much.
“I’ll let you know when the first ultrasound is,” she said. “I’ll pack up my things when you’re at work this week.”
“I’m sorry, Sonia. I’m sorry I failed you.”
“Goodbye, John.”
And she left.
DATE MODIFIED:
10/31/029, 5:33 A.M.
I Seek the Grail
I have a friend who’s going to have a cure party next week in Las Vegas. He’s really doing it up too. He booked a suite at the Fountain of Youth, so our trip is guaranteed to be either cheesy in a fascinating, outstanding way or cheesy in a horrible, soul-sucking way. There’s no in-between when you go to Vegas, particularly if you’re committed to staying at that monstrosity. Before the trip, my friend had a request.
“You’ve had the cure, right?” he asked me.
“Yep.”
“Do you have a grail?”
“No. That’s idiotic.”
“You have to get one. We’re all gonna buy grails and bring them. You have to do it. Prerequisite.”
“Oh, come on. Really? I have to buy one of those stupid things?”
“We’re staying at the Fountain of Youth. We have to go all the way with this. I’ll even pay for yours. I can’t have a half-assed cure party.”
“Can’t I buy it when we’re out there?”
“No, because we’re gonna drink out of them on the plane. Hell, I’m looking forward to the plane ride more than any other part of the trip.”
So I had to get a grail. Derrick’s Grail Shop is located on Christopher Street between a gay sex shop and a head shop. Derrick’s is also a head shop, but it seems to do such good business selling grails right now that the bongs have been pushed to a small section on the side. I wondered when the head-shop owner next door would wise up to that fact.
I walked in and took a look. They had thousands of the things. I remember a scene in one of the Indiana Jones movies where Indy walks into the grail room and sees all these shiny, golden chalices. But the real Holy Grail was a crudely made cup sitting meekly on the lowest shelf. All the nice-looking grails in the movie killed you instantly. Well, Derrick’s had no crude grails—no real grails. They were all like the fakes the bad Nazi guys drank from, designed to tempt you and then suck all the life right out of you.
That said, they were all quite pretty. Some were knockoff versions of the kind you can get in the Diamond District, with the fake gold and the giant phony gemstones lining the rims. But there were some cool ones too. I saw one made of stitched leather with fake gold inlay. Oxo made a couple of stainless-steel ones with comfortable rubber grips—the practical grail, if you will. There were also Goth ones, including a grail that had a curled-up dragon for a stern. If I had a van, I would definitely paint that grail on the side of my van. They had grails made of elaborately carved oak, for the environmentally friendly postmortal. None of them looked all that Jesus-appropriate. But, hey, they were still nice grails.
I saw one in a Lucite box. It was made of crystal, with an engraved pattern of infinity symbols. I looked at the clerk behind the glass counter and pointed to the box.
“What’s that one?”
“That’s the DX3490,” he said. “Designed by the Swift himself. It’s the same one he drinks from on tour. You can even send away to have him sign it.” He pointed to a poster on the wall. Sure enough, there was the Swift, wearing a white suit and drinking purple drank out of the very same grail. Spiffy.
“Do you think I could pull off rocking the same grail as the Swift?”
“Truthfully? No.”
He also showed me a room in the back where you could design your own. They had thick stylebooks you could flip through, like choosing wedding invitations. You could pick the pattern, the font, everything. They even had suggested sayings you could have embossed on your grail. You could paint your own clay grail and then have them fire it in a kiln. I saw a couple up on the shelf waiting to be picked up. One said BETTY’S GRAIL. I have no clue why that made me laugh, but I nearly soiled myself when I saw it. They had matching grail-and-bong sets, which I found highly tempting, though God help you if you ever confuse the two at five in the morning.
In the end I chose a simple gold one. I wanted a grail that made me feel like a knight who had just finished a long day’s pillaging. The kind you hold in one hand while you eat a turkey drumstick with the other. The kind that makes you feel compelled to talk like a town crier while holding it. That’s the kind of grail I wanted, and that’s the kind I ended up getting. Twenty bucks. Not bad for the cup of Christ.
I brought it home, mixed a rum and Coke in it, and gave my usual cheers to Katy. I have to say, the Swift was on to something with this trend. Drinks taste way better when you’re drinking them out of a grail.
DATE MODIFIED:
11/7/2029, 8:51 P.M.
Field Trip:
The Fountain of Youth
I hadn’t flown to Las Vegas since they opened Fountain of Youth Resort and Casino last year. I already knew it was the biggest hotel on earth, but I wasn’t prepared for the view from the airplane. There are familiar sights you see as you approach McCarran at night: the Luxor’s pyramid, New York–New York’s skyline, the Shanghai, etc. But the Fountain now dwarfs all of them. An old lady on the right side of the plane was the first to spot it. She screamed out in joy when she saw it edging into view through her little porthole.
Everyone spontaneously broke into applause and chugged the contents of their respective grails (three steakheads from Long Island had DX3490s; I’m relieved I didn’t spring for one). I swear the jet spray shooting up from the center of the oval fountain could have tickled our landing gear if we were flying directly above it. I read that the fountain continually pumps four million gallons of water a minute. Seeing it in person, that estimate now feels low. I assume when they first turned on the fountain, the guy throwing the switch thrust his hips for maximum effect.
After deplaning we circumvented the cabstand (the line stretched so far they had to move the security checkpoints for the entire airport) and took the shuttle bus down to the Strip. The last time I was in Vegas, the ride took twenty minutes. This time it took so much longer that I asked the driver if there were multiple conventions going on. There were not.
He dropped us off at the main entrance, and we walked into chaos. The hotel has over twelve thousand rooms, and this evening it appeared all its occupants had decided to hang out in the lobby. We stood in the check-in line in shifts; half of us waited while the other half went to get drinks, and then we switched. When it was my turn to help fetch alcohol, I walked out into the main atrium and stared at the fountain, a gigantic edifice of water that defies all reason. It’s as if the hotel is trying to put out a fire on the surface of the moon. Colored lights illuminate the mighty geyser in a painstakingly choreographed arrangement. Surrounding the base of the fountain are the cure stations: small platforms with a doctor and a single chair that each soon-to-be postmortal sits in to get their shots. Like in Dr. X’s apartment, each chair has straps and belts to hold you down while you are injected. Unlike in Dr. X’s apartment, each chair is a specially designed throne. You get to choose the theme for your chair. There’s your basic emperor’s chair (made of gold; it matched my grail!). There’s also the Poseidon: Lord of the Sea chair, which is actually a large, chair-shaped fish tank, with miniature sharks and all kinds of other imported marine life swimming under your backside. There’s a Space chair, which is shaped like a giant egg and has two hot girls with big fake tits dressed as green aliens on either side of it. And there’s a Viking chair, which features a giant serpent erupting out from between your legs when you sit in it. Those are the four I remember off the top of my head. There were hundreds of the things, no two alike.
I was in awe. I turned to my friend Scott.
“I almost want to get my shots again.”
“You can do that here,” he said. “They’ll throw you a cure party even if you’ve had it done already. They just shoot you up with something besides the vector.”
“What do they shoot you up with?”
“I don’t know. Gin?”
They’ve perfected the process at the Fountain. You get your blood drawn when you check in (separate, even longer line for that), and they have the vector ready for you three days later. In between, you presumably lose all your money, and then spend the next thousand years trying to make it back. It’s incredible. After getting their shots, all new postmortals jump from the platform into the pool at the base of the fountain. Fully clothed, of course. I looked out at the pool and saw a horde of people frolicking in the water, all in soaking-wet dresses, suits, and tuxedoes, all drunk beyond comprehension. Baptized into the sweet life.
On the way back to the check-in line, I noticed a small exhibit called Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth. It looked like a pointless waste of time, which intrigued me.
“Hey, let’s go in that.”
Scott wasn’t as enthused. “That? That’s for kiddies.”
“We go in there, we finish our drinks, we get another round, and then we head back to the line without anyone noticing. That line isn’t moving at all.”
“Oh, all right.”
So we went into the exhibit, which was sparsely crowded due to the late hour and the fact that it was stupid. We walked through a dark corridor for about twenty yards, then found ourselves in front of an enormous scrolling diorama. A life-sized puppet of Ponce de León was sitting in an exact replica of King Ferdinand of Spain’s royal court. A voice-over narrated as we watched the puppet hop onto a ship and sail across a miniaturized version of the Atlantic Ocean (with real wind and water!):
In the year 1513, King Ferdinand of Spain commissioned explorer Juan Ponce de León to sail across the seas and find the fabled fountain of youth. It was a dangerous journey, as Ponce de León and his men battled scurvy, hurricanes, and pirates!