Brief Interviews With Hideous Men: Stories

by David Foster Wallace

  Q.

  ‘It is ironic from your point of view, I can see that. Okay. And I can see you totally hate me now. And I’ve spent a long time getting myself to where I’m ready to face your totally hating me for this and this look of like total confirmation of all your fears and suspicions on your face if you could see it, okay? I swear if you could see your face right now anybody’d understand why I’m leaving.’

  Q.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to put it all on you. I’m sorry. It’s not you, okay? I mean, it has to be something about me if you can’t trust me after all these weeks or stand even just a little normal ebb and flow without always thinking I’m getting ready to leave. I don’t know what, but there must be. Okay, and I know our history’s not great, but I swear to you I meant everything I said, and I’ve tried a hundred-plus percent. I swear to God I did. I’m so sorry. I’d give anything in the world not to hurt you. I love you. I always will love you. I hope you believe that, but I’m giving up trying to get you to. Just please believe I tried. And don’t think this is about something wrong with you. Don’t do that to yourself. It’s us, us is why I’m leaving, okay? Can you see that? That it’s not what you’ve always been so afraid of? Okay? Can you see that? Can you maybe see you just might have been wrong, even possibly? Could you give me that much, do you think? Because this isn’t exactly fun for me either, okay? Leaving like this, seeing your face like this as my last mental picture of you. Can you see I might be pretty torn up about it too? Can you? That you’re not alone in this?’

  B.I. #3 11-94

  TRENTON NJ [OVERHEARD]

  R——:‘So I’m last off again as usual and all that business like that there.’

  A——:‘Yes just wait and relax in your seat be the last off why everybody right away all the time has to get up the minute it stops and cram into the aisle so you just stand there with your bags all crammed in pouring sweat in the aisle for five minutes just to be the—’

  R——:‘Just wait and finally coming out of the jetway thing and out into the you know gate area greeting area as usual thinking I’ll just get a cab out to—’

  A——:‘Still but always depressing on these cold calls to come out into the gate greeting area and see everybody getting met and with the squeals and the hugs and limo guys holding up all the names on cardboard that aren’t your name and the l—’

  R——:‘Just shut it for one fucking second will you because listen to this because except it’s mostly emptied out by the time I get out there.’

  A——:‘The people by this juncture are mostly all dispersed you’re saying.’

  R——:‘Except for over by there’s this one girl left over by the rope looking in peering gazing in down the jetway thing there as she sees it’s me as I’m looking at her as I come out because it’s emptied out except for her, our eyes meet and all that business like that there, and what does she she up and goes down on her knees drops crying and with the waterworks and all that business hitting slapping the carpet and scratching at gouging little tufts and fibers out of the cheapass product they buy where the low-polymer glue starts the backing separating almost right away and ends up tripling their twenty-quarter M and R costs as I sure don’t have to tell you and all bent over slapping and gouging at the product with the nails, bent over so you can you know just about see her tits. Totally hysterical and with the waterworks and all like that there.’

  A——:‘Another cheery welcome to Dayton for your fucking cold calls, we’re pleased to wel—’

  R——:‘No but the story it turns out the story when I you know go over to say are you OK is anything the matter and like that and get a better shot of I have to tell you some pretty fucking incredible tits under this like tight little top like leotard top thing under this coat she’s all down and bent over in like bitchslapping herself in the head and still doing manual field stresses on this gate area product where she says this guy that she was in love with and all that business there that said he was in love with her too except he was already engaged from priorly when they meet and fall vehemiently in love so there’s all this back and forth and storm and drag business like that and I’m lending the ear to her standing there but finally she says but finally the guy gets off the fence and finally says how he’s surrendering to his love for this girl here with the tits and commits to her and says how he’s going to go and tell this other girl in Tulsa where the guy lives that he’s engaged to about this girl here and break it off in Tulsa and finally surrender and commit to this hysterical girl with the tits that loves him more than life herself and feels a merger of “souls” with him and all that violin business like that and felt like finally for chrissakes after all the onetrack shitheels she’d got the run-around from she finally she felt like here at last she’s met a guy she could trust and love and merge “souls” with the sort of violins and hearts and fl—’

  A——:‘And blah blah blah.’

  R——:‘Blah and says off the guy goes flying back to Tulsa to finally break the engagement off with the prior girl like he committed he would and then fly right back to the arms of this girl standing with the Kleenex with the tits in Dayton here in the gate area with the waterworks crying out her eyes now to yours truly.’

  A——:‘Oh like we can’t see this coming.’

  R——:‘Fuck you and that he puts his hand over his heart and all like that there and swears he’s coming back to her and he’ll be on that plane there with the flightnumber and time and she swears she’ll be there with the tits to meet him, and how she tells all her friends she’s finally in love with the real thing and how he’s breaking it off and coming right back and she cleans up her place for him to stay there when he comes back and gets her hair done up all big with spray like they do and dribbles perfume on her you know zones and all that business like the usual story and puts on her best pink jeans did I mention she’s got on these pink jeans and heels that say fuck me in like myriads of major world languages—’

  A——:‘Heh heh.’

  R——:‘By this juncture now we’re in that little coffeeshop thing just in from the USAir gates that shitty one with no chairs that you have to with your shitty two-dollar coffee stand up at the tables with your sample case and bag and all your shit on the low-end tile not even thermoset of the floor they got that’s already starting to curl at the grout and keep handing her Kleenexes and lend the ear and all that business there after she vacuums out the car and even replaces the little freshener thing hanging off the rearview and hauls ass to be on time to the airport to meet the flightnumber this so-called trustable guy swore on his fucking mother’s life he’d be on.’

  A——:‘Guy’s a shitheel from the old school.’

  R——:‘Shut up and that how she says how he even called her she gets the call right as she’s smearing the last drib of perfume on her zone and gets her hair all sprayed out in directions like they do to haul ass to the airport it rings and it’s this guy and there’s all this hiss and static on the phone and she says he says how he’s calling from the sky is how romantically he puts it calling her inflight on the flight on that little inflight phone you’re supposed to slide your card through out of the back of the seat in front of you and saying how—’

  A——:‘The markup on those things go six bucks a minute it’s a racket and all the surcharges rated out of the region you’re flying over right then with a double spread if the region they say adjoins at the grid’s desig—’

  R——:‘But that’s not the point do you want to hear this how the point’s this girl says she gets there early in the gate area greeting area and already with some of the waterworks already from love and violins of commitment finally and trust and stands she says all joy and trusting like a pathetic fool she says while it gets in finally the flight and we they all start herding all in their big rush out the jetway thing and he’s not in the first wave out and he’s not in the second wave how they come out in these little waves clumps like the thing’s taking some kind of alm
ost shit you know how—’

  A——:‘Jesus I ought to the amount of fucking times I spend on jetw—’

  R——:‘And says like a pathetic a total fool her faith never faldering she kept peering gazing over the octoweave rope maroon octoweave with that nice fauxvelvet finish the rope of the area over at the side during all the hugging and everybody meeting or going off to Baggage and every time expecting this guy in the next wave out, clump, and then the next and the next and like that, waiting.’

  A——:‘Poor little muttski.’

  R——:‘That then at the end there I come off the last off as usual and nobody else after except the crew pulling their little neat identical little bags those neat little bags that always bug me somehow and that’s it I’m the last and she—’

  A——:‘So you’re explaining it wasn’t you that she’s screaming and hitting the floor it’s just that you’re the last of them off and you’re not this shitheel guy. The bastard even must of faked that call, the static if you run your Remington it makes static that’ll sound like a—’

  R——:‘And I’m telling you you never saw anybody so the word heartbroken you think it’s just words blah blah but then you see this girl with her hand knocking herself in the head for being such a fool crying so hard she can’t mostly breathe and all that business like that, hugging herself and rocking and slapping the shit out of the table so bad you have to lift the coffee off to keep it from knocking over and how men are shits and don’t trust them all her friends said and she finally she met one she thinks she can finally trust to really give in and surrender and commit to do the right thing and they’re right, she’s a fool, men are just shit.’

  A——:‘Men mostly are shit, you’re right, heh heh.’

  R——:‘And I’m basically, I’m standing there holding coffee I don’t even it’s too late I don’t want even decaf I’m lending the ear and my heart I got to say it my heart going out a little bit to this girl for this heart-break. I swear kid but you have never seen anything like this heartbreak on this girl with the tits, and I start telling her how she’s right the guy’s a shit and don’t even deserve and how it’s true most guys are shit and how my heart’s going out and all like that.’

  A——:‘Heh heh. So then what happened?’

  R——:‘Heh heh.’

  A——:‘Heh heh heh.’

  R——:‘You really got to ask?’

  A——:‘You bastard. You shitheel.’

  R——:‘Well you know how it is I mean what are you going to do.’ A——:‘You shitheel.’

  R——:‘Well you know.’

  B.I. #30 03-97

  DRURY UT

  ‘I have to admit it was a big reason for marrying her, thinking I wasn’t likely going to do better than this because of the way she had a good body even after she’d had a kid. Trim and good and good legs—she’d had a kid but wasn’t all blown out and veiny and sagged. It probably sounds shallow, but it’s the truth. I’d always had this major dread of marrying some good-looking woman and then we have a kid and it blows her body out but I still have to have sex with her because this is who I’ve signed on to have sex with the whole rest of my life. This probably sounds awful, but in her case it was like she was pre-tested—the kid didn’t blow her body out, so I knew she’d be a good bet to sign on and have kids with and still try to have sex. Does that sound shallow? Tell me what you think. Or does the real truth about this kind of thing always sound shallow, you know, everybody’s real reasons? What do you think? How does it sound?’

  B.I. #31 03-97

  ROSWELL GA

  ‘But you want to know how to really be great? How your Great Lover really pleases a lady? Now, all your basic smoothie-type fellows will always say they know, they’re an authority and such. It’s not a fag, darlin’, you have to hold it in. Most of these fellows, they haven’t got the first damn idea how to really please a lady. Not really. A lot of them don’t even care, to tell you the truth. That’s your first type, your Joe Sixpack crackertype fellow there, your basic pig. This fellow’s barely even semiconscious about life anyhow, and when it comes to lovemaking why he’s just pure selfishness. He wants whatever he can get, and as long as he gets it that’s all there is to it far as he’s concerned. The type that rolls on and has at her and the minute he comes he rolls back off and commences to snoring. Go easy there. Why I suppose this is your old-fashioned stereotype male fellow, older, the fellow that’s been married twenty years and don’t even know if the wife even ever comes. Never thinks to even ask her. He comes, and that’s all that counts far as he’s concerned.’

  Q.

  ‘These aren’t the fellows that I’m talking about. These are more like just animals, roll on and roll off and that’s all she wrote. Hold it closer to the end there and don’t inhale as much in as a regular fag. You want to hold it in and let it absorb. This is mine, I grow it, I got a room all lined with Mylar and lights, darlin’ you would not believe what it goes for down here. Those fellows are just animals, they’re not even in the type of game we’re talking about here. No, because the ones we’re talking about here are your basic secondary type of fellow, the fellow that thinks he’s a Great Lover. And it’s real important to these fellows that they think of themselves as Great. This preoccupies a major block of their time, thinking they’re Great and they know how to please her. These right here are your sensitive male smoothie type. Now, they’re going to look like the complete opposite of your white-trash fellow that don’t even give a shit. That’s it but go easy. But now don’t go thinking these fellows are really any better than your basic pigs are. Seeing themselves as a Great Lover doesn’t mean they give any more of a shit about her than the pigs do, and deep down they aren’t one little bit less selfish in bed. It’s just with this type of fellow what they get off on in bed is their own idea of themselves as a Great Lover that can make the little lady just about lose her mind in bed. What they’re into is a woman’s pleasure and giving her pleasure. That’s this type’s whole trip.’

  Q.

  ‘Oh like oh say going down on her yingyang for hours on hours, holding off their own coming so they can keep at it for hours, knowing the Gspot and Ecstasy Posture and such. Running down to Barnes & Noble’s for all your latest female sexuality–type books so they can keep up on their knowledge about what’s going on. I’m guessing from looking you over out here now you’ve run up against a smoothie a time or two, with his pheromone aftershave and strawberry oil and hand massages and the holding and touching, that know about the earlobe and what kind of flush means what and the aureole and the backside of the knee and that new little ultrasensitive spot they say they found now just back of the G, this type of fellow knows them all, and you can be damn sure he’s going to let you know he knows how to—here, give it here. I’ll show you. Well and now darlin’ you can just bet this type of fellow wants to know if she came, and how many times, and was it the best she ever—and like that. See there? When you blow out you don’t want to even be able to see anything. That means you got ’er all. I thought you said you did this before. This is not your average cracker ditchweed. It’s like a notch on this fellow’s gun for each time he can make her come. That’s how he thinks about it. It’s too damn good to go blowing half back out, it’s like you got a Porsche and you’re only driving it to church. No, he’s a Notcher, this fellow. That’s a good way to compare them maybe. The two types. Your pig might put a notch for every one they nail, that’s their notches, they don’t care. But your so-called Great Lover–type fellow puts a notch for every time each one comes. But they’re both of them just Notchers. They’re both really the same-type fellow underneath. Their trip is different, but it’s still only just their own trip they’re on, in bed, and the little lady deep down’s going to feel like she’s just getting used just the same. That’s if the lady’s got any sense at all, which is another story. And now darlin’ when it goes down a little more you take and don’t grind it out with your boot there like you do a regular f
ag. You want to wet up your finger and gently pat the end of it and put it out and then save it, I got something to save them in. Me, I got something a little special but your more run-of-the-mill is one of them little film canisters from the developer, that’s how come nobody ever throws those out. See if you ever see you a little film canister thing in the trash someplace.’

  Q.

  ‘No but here’s your classic symptom to tell if it’s one of these Great Lover fellows is they’ll spend whole major blocks of time in bed going down on a lady’s yingyang over and over and making her come seventeen straight times and such, but afterward just watch and see if there’s any way on God’s good green earth he’s going to let her turn around and go down on his precious little pizzle for him. How he’ll go Oh no baby no let me do you I want to see you come again baby oh baby you just lie there and let me work my love-magic and such like that right there. Or he’ll know all his special Korean massage shit and give her deep-tissue backrubs or haul out the special black-cherry oil and massage her feet and hands—which darlin’ I got to admit if you never had a quality hand massage you have not heretofore even really lived, trust me—but will he let the little lady reciplacate and give him just even one backrub? Nosir he will not. Because this-type fellow’s whole trip is he’s got to be the one giving the pleasure here thank you ma’am. See, it’s different, it’s got a screw-lid with a airtight seal so it don’t smell up your pocket, they’re stinky little boogers, and then it goes right in this little flap thing here where why it could be anything at all. Because this is where your smoothie type is being stupid. This is what gives me my contempt for these fellows that go around thinking they’re the Lord’s own gift to the female species. Because at least your cracker type’s halfway honest about it, they want to nail her and then roll off and that’s all she wrote. Whereas but your basic smoothie thinks he’s all sensitive and knows how to please a lady just because they know clitoral suction and shy-atsu, and watching them in bed’s like watching one of these stupid-ass mechanics in white coats work on a Porsche all swelled up on their expertise and such. They think they’re a Great Lover. They think they’re generous in bed. No, but the catch is they’re selfish about being generous. They’re no better than the pig is, they’re just sneakier about it. Now you’re going to be thirsty, now you’re going to want some Evian. This shit’ll dry out your mouth something fierce. I carry these little portable Evians with me in here in this inside part, see? Custom-made. Go on and take one, you’re going to want it. Go on.’