How do introductions sound? I’ve never much cared for them myself. I’ve always preferred jumping straight into the good stuff. “So, how do you know Andrew? I’ve slept with him a few times, have you? I think he’s terrible in bed, but he’s a sweet boy, and he means well. Don’t you agree?” I have never slept with a man named Andrew, but if I did know an Andrew that would conceivably sleep with me, this is how I would choose to open a conversation with a friend of his. Rather than facing a potentially uncomfortable moment spent figuring out what chit-chatty question to ask next, I prefer to take the offense. Keep the other on their toes. I always feel better when I’m in control of the dialogue, because I have trust issues. I’ll be frank; I may as well, if we plan on spending the next thirty days together.
It all began with my mother. She suffocated me. Literally. On my ten-month anniversary of my mind being married to my physical body in this world, I decided I was hungry at a rather inconvenient time. And rather than shut up and take my meal like a good child, I decided to refuse my mother’s sexual advances. Who was she to throw her breast in my face? I’d been trying to tell her I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing for the past two months, but she still insisted. My limited vocal and verbal capacities were also nothing to brag about, so I suppose my death wasn’t entirely her fault. The law saw differently, of course, and my mother ended up in the state penitentiary by the time of my would-be first birthday. Pity, I told myself. Such a shame that an intelligent, attractive enough woman should end her own life so swiftly as she ended mine.
My father is a different story, but as we have the time, let’s tackle that next. I never met him over in the living world, but I’ve come to know him here, and he’s quite a charming fellow, if you can get over his flaky tendencies and nauseating apathy. I realize there isn’t too much to worry about in this place, but nevertheless, it wouldn’t hurt if he could commit to plans every once in a while. He tells me he was a successful businessman, and cared for my mother very much, but only screwed her enough for me to happen. It took me years to figure out he was telling a dirty joke, and now that I understand, I don’t find it particularly funny. I don’t have the heart to tell him he never would have made it as a comedian, although his neighbours might be tempted to share that nugget of information with him soon. I hear (through the grapevine - no one here has the cajones to disrespect a man related to me in the living world to my face) he has parties, but instead of playing music, he does stand up routines, and insists on others participating in karaoke. He only owns three karaoke lyric discs, and all of them are of 1980’s glam rock hits. As much as I love Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me”, I feel I can speak for those partygoers when I call my father’s house hell.
I’m using hell here in a way you may find slightly confusing, and that’s because I’ve left out a rather significant part of my introduction: I’ve failed to tell you where I am. Referring back to my trust issues, I feel like I have to develop a working relationship with you before I can unveil all of my secrets. Maybe I’ll be generous today, and only make you wait another dozen or so paragraphs, but don’t expect too much: my mother wants to come for a visit later this evening, and that means I have to wash my nice set of dishes. I haven’t done the dishes in at least a week (I’ve been eating out more often than I ought to), so getting last Thursday’s lasagna remains off my fancy plates is going to be a bitch, and I’m in no mood for bitch work.
My mother’s here as well. I don’t know if I made that explicit further up. I’ve been here so long that I’ve forgotten livers don’t know how it works anywhere but the living world. I wish I had the time to properly introduce you to my side, or at least one of the sides in between and beyond these two, but a month is really a pitifully short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Storm clouds may gather, and stars may collide, but nine times out of ten, humans would rather watch a sitcom on the couch next to their spouse. I hear this week’s Two and a Half Men is particularly insightful into Charlie Sheen’s personal struggles, and the fat kid says something obnoxious, yet heart-warming.
But I digress. As you may have noticed, getting to the point of things is not my forte. Unlike my introductions, I much prefer to dance around the meat of a conversation. Once you’ve thrown someone off their guard, they make much better follows as you drag them through whatever is most pressing in your mind at the time. For example, when mommy dearest sits down at dinner, I’m not going to give her the opportunity to ask me how many boys I’ve done this week. We both know that’s the first question she wants to ask me, and we both know eventually she will have a good estimate as to my number, but she’s not getting there without putting up a good fight. The first course is vegetable samosas my good friend Jesse prepared for the occasion. He knows how much my mother detests Indian food, and he threw in extra turmeric as a personal favour. That reminds me that I really should return the gesture, and set him up with that cute girl I always see at the supermarket…
The main course is lamb chops with a mint jelly sauce. I have no appreciation for mixing mint with my lamb, but I know mom likes it, so the entrée is meant to lull her into a false sense of security after the initial shock of ethnic food. At this point, the conversation will go from the tense inquiries about each other’s weeks, and I’ll beat her to the punch and ask her if she’s spoken to dad lately. Just as her goal is to have a sex life vicariously through me, my goal is to prove to myself that a relationship can work. Eternity gives people a much better scope of time to work through their differences and see if they’re really “meant for each other”. And while I’m positive my birthparents would have had no chance staying together in the living world, they’ve had time to appreciate themselves (and one another) over here. Things have changed, and the last time I spoke with my father, I swear I felt a twinge of loneliness.
Dessert is going to be where we lay our cards down on the table. I purchased a baked good called pasta flora. It’s an apricot jam tart, and it looks absolutely divine. As you may have just guessed, it tastes terrible. I’ve tried pasta flora on at least three separate occasions, and each time, it’s let me down. My mother knows how much this particular dessert disappoints me, and she’s made a point of taking every pasta flora in a bakery just so that I don’t have to look at them. It’s an incredibly sweet gesture, but three months ago she finally slipped up and missed one. It was destiny that I found one, and apricot flavour to boot. I knew this pie would win a conversation against her, and as I scrub the only two glasses I own that don’t feature an etched-in Batman character, I’ll beam at my pie, thawing beautifully on the counter. I won’t even need to eat a piece of this disgusting liar of a dessert: my mother will see me bring out two slices with her coffee, and she’ll confess to everything. I want to know whether she’s been seeing the gardener, and what the first thing she ever livingly said to my father. Once I get those nuggets, I’ll throw her a bone and “accidentally” find Tony’s jockstrap behind the couch. I think I have good chemistry with him, so I’ll let slip that he’s the only guy I’ve seen in the past three weeks. She’ll forget that her information was much juicier than mine, sip her coffee, and ask how I managed to steal a pasta flora from her garbage. But I suppose that’s enough about my parents. They’re old souls, and lead much less complicated lives than my hustling, bustling generation.
After I’ve got one major anecdote down in a conversation, I offer to reciprocate the listener role. If I’ve done my job well, I’m usually told I’m such an excellent storyteller they insist on getting to know me better, and find out the “real me”. Everyone has mommy issues, but what makes me so special? I still surprise myself at how convincingly I feign deep thought at this question. Whether I’m trying to seduce someone or make a temporary friend for a dull party, I don’t respond until the other person says something to the effect of “oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry”. That’s when I really get to do some damage. I have a story that’s a personal favourite, and can’t even remember how it really happened. But thanks to suddenly gaining an unconditional ego, I’ve been able to feed my ego for decades.
This may seem manipulative, but I see my approach to conversation as perfectly adapted to my current environment. Had I grown up in the living world, others would have condemned me as neurotic, controlling, and narcissistic, but here, where time matters much less, I’m only doing my part to keep things interesting. I get no thanks for the work I do, but I don’t mind too much. I still have those trust issues, so I wouldn’t even know how to appreciate a compliment anyway.
Before I wrap this up, I should explain that I do experience intimacy. Until now, I don’t think I’ve done my love life justice. I’ve had several long-term relationships, most of which ended on relatively good terms, but one thing that always ruins it for me is when a man can’t articulate his thoughts. Yes, language limits our self-expression, and yes, speech disorders are becoming increasingly common these days, but I see no need for a grown man to blubber like a baby when he can’t tell me how he feels without saying, “love you eternally”. People ought to watch fewer romances. They blow up false images of feelings, and send all kinds of awful messages to our youth about the value of beauty in women and strength in men. However, today is not my day to preach, so I think I’ll stick to my personal conclusion.
When I know I’m about to leave a party, and will likely not see my now exhausted talking partner for a while, I like to leave with a bang. They have to know I’m leaving, and never once intended on being a good listener. How minor the consequences are astonishes me, and I’ve learned that people can endure a good deal of abuse before they hold any sort of grudge against you over here. I don’t think people are this benevolent in the living world, but being a product of growing up in limbo, I’ve only learned so many ways to live.
My favourite part of writing is knowing exactly what you want to present to the reader, and so you get a twofold sensation of satisfaction. First, you get to put down in tangible words your thought, and second, you get to see somebody else read and interpret that thought. In conversation, this all happens at the same time, so you don’t get to savour the sweet time between speaking and being heard.
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Kudos Jonathan, great first post. I see Pasta Flora is still haunting you haha.
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