David Wallace: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

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 almost 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.’