He better not have gone to that goddamn barbecue. And I told him. I told him when it started. I told him before it started. I told him long ago. I said, “Warren, you do not have the constitution for coupling.” Which is true. I call it like I see it. I know people. And you want me to tell you something? It’s a very slim margin of humans who do have the constitution for coupling. It’s a fifty per cent divorce rate, people. You put that and human nature in a calculator and you know what comes up? Pre-nup. Pre-nup. Pre-nup. And even then. Even getting that. Standard pre-nup. All laid out on the boardroom table. Client comes in with his fiancée. All he’s got to do is sign. You can see he feels a little queasy. I hand him the pen. He goes to sign, he stops, he goes to sign, he stops, he looks up at me: “This doesn’t feel very good.” No it doesn’t feel very good, it’s not a time-share in Costa Rica it’s a pre-nup it’s not supposed to feel good. But bingo bango Missy sees her way in. She starts digging in her purse. Pulls out this chewed-up plastic pen. Goes to hand it to him: “Here, use my lucky pen.” Oh what a gesture. What a woman. Offering the dagger with which he will stab her in the guise of the lucky pen. I can see what’s happening here. I can smell it. His heart melts. And I can see in his eyes what he’s about to say, “Awww we don’t need a pre-nup.” So I step in just in time and I say, “Hey hey hey, who needs luck when you’ve got love?” Thank you very much. That gets us over the hump long enough to get signatures and off they go for cake arranging or flower tasting or whatever the hell they’re spending their time and money on. About twenty minutes later I go into the boardroom to clean up and what’s on the table? That’s right. The lucky pen. And I keep that lucky pen for two months waiting for the frantic “Did I leave my lucky pen there?” phone call. Never comes. Come on, she fished that pen from a junk drawer ten minutes before she left the house. The ruse of the lucky pen. I’ve seen it all. I’ll give her back her lucky pen when she comes in for the divorce. And divorce! Trying to get people through that these days. There’s a walk in the park, there’s a weekend at the beach. Another client of mine. Gervase. Gervase and Sonja. Oh my God. Gervase. Dumb. Lazy. Rich. There’s a stellar combination. And beautiful. Lighter fluid on the fire. Gervase became my client a few years ago when he came into the office all upset about how his psychic just told him the world was going to end in five years, not in eight years like his psychic told him last time, so Gervase wants to adjust his living will accordingly. What? Whatever. Doesn’t matter to me, bring on the end, a change is as good as a rest. Then a couple of days after this Gervase goes out and buys a turtle. A turtle? A turtle? This guy thinks we’ve got five left and he goes out and buys a turtle? Those things live for seventy years or something. That’s a scary thought all by itself. Then Gervase meets Sonja. Sonja. Gervase and Sonja are both models. They met in rehab for Ritalin addiction. There’s a prescription for bliss. Within a month they’re married, fourteen months later we’re working on the divorce. A couple of days ago Gervase walks in to my office with a bowl on his head. “Why do you have that bowl on your head, Gervase?” “It’s not bowl it’s a hat.” Models! “Take off the bowl sit down shut up and tell me what you want.” And Gervase tells me he wants to withdraw the divorce papers. Again! “Why this time, Gervase?” “Well the other day I dropped by the house to get…” Laid! That’s the only reason he’s dropping by the house. To get laid. Happens all the time. Familiar sex. It’s very dangerous. The lure of familiar sex can hold divorces up for years. Of course sex is scary you just have to watch porn with the sound down to see that. Of course you want to hang your hat on a hook you know. And who wants to subject themselves to the horrors of dating? Come on! True story. Here’s me:
“So tell me a little about yourself?”
Here’s him:
“Well I’m a very active member of NA because last year I got addicted to marijuana because I was smoking it medicinally to counteract some gastrointestinal issues that I developed as a result of my HIV meds which also gave me anal fissures, they’re not malignant but my doctor wants me have them removed before I go back to school this fall to study fashion design.”
AT THE AGE OF FIFTY-TWO! It’s a circus out there. And now Gervase is in my office telling me that he and Sonja are still in love. Love. Oh please. I don’t care how you feel. I’m not a marriage counsellor. You want a marriage counsellor at three hundred dollars an hour? I suggest you get a therapist. It’s half the price and twice as indulgent. I don’t care how you feel. It’s a ledger. A ledger. A ledger. A list of objects and numbers connected to the objects. A chest of drawers? Fine. How much is it worth? Put it on the ledger. I don’t care how you feel about the chest of drawers, I don’t care if you met buying the chest of drawers, I don’t care if your grandmother strapped that chest of drawers to her back and swam all the way from the homeland with it. Just tell me who owns it what it’s worth put it on the ledger. Period-osky. C’est ca. Tout fini. Nada more.
Gervase says I need a vacation. Yeah, Gervase, I’m taking a vacation this weekend. I’m taking Percocet Airlines up to Gin Lake. Shut up, Gervase. But he’s a cutie. He’s got that going for him. What’s he so upset about divorce for? My marriage ended and I’m fine. Except I got the goddamn kids. No no, they’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Or they ruined my life. Who knows. I don’t know what might have happened because this happened. But when all is said and done and at the end of the day I’m a good mother. I am. Because I set boundaries without being overbearing. I let them make their own mistakes. I let them have their diversions. Their books. I’m not a fan of books. I read when I have to but I can’t say there have been many books I’ve got through without at some point wanting to chuck them across the goddamn room. And self-help books? Oh my God. Listen, if you’re thinking about buying a book called Should I Leave? save yourself the $25.99 and leave. And fiction? Meh. I haven’t got the imagination for fiction. They made me turn in my imagination when I gave up my expectations. I’ll wait for the movie. But I let the girls have their books. The little one has her Aleister Crowley—she doesn’t really read it though it’s more of a prop. And the older one went through her Candace Bushnell phase. Candace Bushnell. Sex and the City. Candace Bushnell, I’d like to burn that bitch in effigy. I tried to watch that TV show, but what the hell was it? Four whores sitting around tables in restaurants stuffing their faces with cheesecake and bread. And what did they weigh? A hundred and twenty pounds collectively. I actually saw it once where the little scrawny one said, “I’m going to drown my sorrows in another piece of cake.” Yeah maybe with a bucket beside you. What were they selling besides herpes and bulimia? God I hate that shit. Bring back the Barbies, at least they didn’t talk. But I wasn’t coming down on my kids about this stuff. Their books, their diversions. I let them make their own mistakes. But the older one I don’t know. I think it’s just prison for her. A real-estate scam? In this economic climate? She might as well have been stealing wheelchairs from war amps. I mean give me bank robbery, give me hijacking. These days a real-estate scam makes organ harvesting look classy. But the young one, who knows? She’s young. The tattoos won’t go away but the piercings will grow over. And there are worse things than hanging out in a swamp with a bunch of vampires wearing purity rings drinking Dr. Pepper from a goblet. I indulge her, I call her Cerridwen, and she seems pretty happy in the basement. But I was thinking, one thing I might have done wrong, maybe I should have got her a turtle instead of a ferret. A turtle and a hamster might have got along better. But not really though. It was the hamster was the mean one. Tough! That ferret didn’t stand a chance. Ah what difference does it make turtle ferret hamster. We all end up feeding the same field of daisies. Everything ends. Or turns into something else. Or goes away. Just like when you’re fifteen years old at the high-school dance and Lionel Richie is singing “Easy Like Sunday Morning,” and Elliot Hillman finally asks you to slow dance and introduces you to the concept of engorged for the very first time. But four minutes and sixteen seconds later it�
�s all over and you can never get it back again. And thirty years pass and Elliot Hillman finally comes out of the closet after two marriages and you can’t get into the high-school dance without passing through a metal detector and Lionel Richie has a daughter who grows up and becomes famous for being best friends with a skank. That’s the way it goes. It ends and it turns into something else. Or it just ends. (She takes out her cellphone and looks for a number.) Okay, Warren, that was strike three. And I cancelled a date today to meet with that son of a bitch. Goddamn barbecue. Warren’s out, date’s back on. Yeah I’m dating. I met him online. Third date today. Nothing’s happened yet though. He’s shy. He’s an astrologer. There’s nothing wrong with that. Astrology’s no worse than anything else. And I believe in things. I believe in lots of things. What I don’t believe in is people. Because I know people.
She pushes a button as if turning on a CD; it’s “Easy” by the Commodores.
I’m just gonna chillax with some tunes and see if I can get the reluctant Romeo on the line and rebook the date. Fingers crossed third date we’ll get below the belt. “Oh she’s randy!”
That’s the Commodores. Lionel Richie at his best, baby. A girl can dream can’t she? (into phone) Hi Aaron, it’s Susan. Listen—
The sound of giant footsteps and a record scratching.
Light shift.
WILL
The Commodores? What’s next John Denver?
Music “Happy Ending.”
And she doesn’t read? Oh, okay. I guess I can get behind that. And domesticated turtles don’t live to be seventy years old, they’re lucky to see seven. She’d probably know that if she read. (He takes a sip from the Starbucks cup; he immediately spits it out.) Jesus Christ! That’s fucking cold! Grrr. Oh listen, “Happy Ending”! Yay. But as for happy endings I’m sorry to say that if we were to continue telling her story it would not be a happy ending. If she were to continue on the road she’s on it will be a ripped-from-the-headlines type ending: “Mother Drugged and Killed in Bathtub by Satan-Worshipping Teenage Daughter.” But the good news is the daughter ends up becoming rehabilitated in prison and finds God. Although she does eventually go back to jail for bombing a mosque. You win some you lose some. No happy endings here. Which brings me to Mister Arthur Schopenhauer Fellatalist—urm—Philosopher, who would say that it is the will of the horny lawyer mother, the will of the vampire mosque-bombing daughter, the will of the I’m-going-to-get-my-stuff Warren that leads to their unhappiness. Because Arthur Schopenhauer was the guy who said “A life of will is a life of misery.” Oh okay. Well let’s take a look at Arthur Schopenhauer’s life shall we? Once upon a time Arthur Schopenhauer was born to a privileged, cultured family. But tragically Arthur’s father dies when he is very young. And this is tragic because little Arthur has a nasty, nasty relationship with is mother. Arthur Schopenhauer is a very serious kid but his mother is a party girl of the highest order. They’re fighting all the time. One night his mother actually pushes little Arthur down a flight of stairs. Pushes him down a flight of stairs! So clearly Arthur Schopenhauer has approval issues. And all he really wants all his life is to be famous. But nobody wants to read all this pessimistic writing he’s doing. So he ends up sixty-nine years old living in a dingy little flat in Frankfurt paying people all over Europe to cut out any tiny mention of his name in the paper and send it to him. That’s just sad. Maybe if Arthur Schopenhauer realized he could use his Will rather than deny it he would have… I don’t know… lightened up a bit… learned how to play the fiddle or something. Change your attitude, Arty. And I’m not talking about some pathetic “from now on I’m going to look at snow as a good thing” attitude. What the hell was that? No, I say if life gives you lemons—break out the tequila. Make a change, take a stand, tell your story, get your stuff. Of course some people just don’t have the balls. (He finds this hilarious.) You’ll get that later.
The cellphone rings.
Oh good! What’s next?!
Light shift.
AARON
(He moves his hands as if laying out cards.) This is the recent past. This is the present. This is the near future. Everybody wants the same thing behind the cards. In the past people want hardship and strife. In the present people want searching and solitude. And everybody is looking for one thing behind this card: the Future. Everybody wants change. Everybody wants to feel like they’re good people having some bad luck and moving toward something better. They want to hear that everything’s going to change. They want the Ace of Pentacles: wealth and health. They want Strength with her hand on the lion’s mane. Or the Lovers. We’re all looking for the hookup. Even if they’re already with someone, maybe there’s somebody better out there, the real one, the one who’s going to save me. We’re all blindfolded sticking our hand in a bag of snakes looking for the eel. That sounds bitter I know. I blame my ex-girlfriend. I blame people who lie; I blame people who use other people to forward their own agenda; I blame righteous people… I used to be righteous. Until I realized that righteousness is damn ugly when it takes off its choirboy robes. Righteousness has no eyes, no ears, just a big mouth in its oversized head—oversized to hold all those facts, all that information—and huge hands, huge hands for pushing, pushing away anything that doesn’t agree. (He looks at his hands.) I asked them if they could make my hands bigger. Ever since I was a little girl I hated my little hands. And my long hair. My Gramma, she got it. She didn’t care. She was the one who took me for my first haircut at a barber when I was twelve. I had this long curly hair that my mother treated like it was hers and that my father looked at as proof. And I was twelve and sick of my long hair and my little hands and of course my boobs had already started. All the girls praying for boobs and all I wanted were big fleshy hands and short hair. Well I couldn’t do anything about the boobs and the hands but my hair I could. And my Gramma got it. She didn’t take it personally. And I sat in that barber’s chair and when it was over I felt the bristles on the back of my head and it was like the chains had been cut off and I was two feet taller. My parents called me selfish, but I wasn’t doing what I wanted, I was doing what I was. My mother doesn’t believe God makes mistakes. Yeah well okay but that’s the kind of thinking that makes me worry for the kids. For kids like me. For my nephew.
My sister still calls me Erin. I changed it from Erin with an E to Aaron with an A but when my sister says it I can still hear the E. But she chooses me over her ex when she needs someone to look after the kid, but that’s because her ex is usually too drunk or hungover to be responsible. So she puts me on the list above a deadbeat chronic alcoholic. That’s something I guess. See my nephew, he’s at that age where he’s still acting from his own truth but he’s starting to notice that he’s being judged. The looks in the room when he says that at Halloween he wants to go as the Little Mermaid. He loves The Little Mermaid. And that doesn’t mean anything, he likes giants too. But I want to make sure he grows up in a world that gives him the space to find out if he’s a mermaid or a giant. Not in a world that says “you can’t be who you are because we don’t have a box for that on the form,” that says “you can get married but you can kiss my ass,” that raises its eyebrows every time he leaves a room. So I guess I want to change the world. How do I do that? I have no idea. But I know it has nothing to do with righteousness. You don’t get there by writing letters to the editor and eating indignation for breakfast, puffed up with pride. You see righteousness doesn’t like contradiction and we’re made of contradiction. Righteousness wants you to choose. Righteousness is my ex-girlfriend. Calling herself an activist and making her speeches about the rights of the marginalized. And when I told her I wanted to transition she was all for it. She was supportive. She was encouraging. And she came to all my appointments and she used me in her speeches and she was at the front of the crowd in every parade. But after I had my breasts removed and the hormones kicked in and I was living as a man I felt more myself than I ever had before. I didn’
t need a penis to be a man. I didn’t need any more operations. I didn’t need to manipulate my body any more, I was me now. I was who I am. So I tell her. Oh then everything changes. She doesn’t know what her speeches are about anymore. She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to be fighting for. She doesn’t know what story to tell. She doesn’t know how to feel. She doesn’t know what to call me. Call me contradiction. Call me the future. Call me Aaron. See, righteousness wants the definitive; righteousness wants you to have the operation. Righteousness wants that box checked. So I leave. Fine. This is who I am. This is where I belong. This is my power. This is my place. This is my body. And if that makes you uncomfortable I understand that, because I’m talking from the physical and we’re trained not to talk from the physical. We’re trained to use our language to tell stories and talk about feelings. But language is physical. Language is made in the body—these bodies we’re so afraid of. Our bodies become our nightmares when they should be what set us free. And that is the freedom I want for my nephew. That’s how I want to change the world. Will I get there? I don’t know. But it’s pretty funny that I’m the father figure in his life. I was supposed to babysit him today but I might have a date. I decided to start again. She cancelled but then left a message to say she was suddenly free. Suddenly free. That’s a nice feeling. It would be our third date today. I haven’t told her yet. I don’t know how she’ll take it. She’s pretty cool. She’s a lawyer. She’s older. Got a couple of kids. If I see her today I tell her. Who I am. The contradiction. And if she doesn’t go for it that’s okay. Maybe I can save myself three hundred bucks and get some free legal advice. I’m thinking about suing my ex-girlfriend for being a cunt.
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