Noah Cicero - Best Behavior

Linda yelled at me, “Where have you been all my life?”

She would always yell that at me and other men, I responded, “Waiting for you.”

“Here I am baby.”

She started touching my belly. I felt no sense of arousal from it.

She went over to The Big Smooth and started on him. I don't think he’d had a woman in a while and he was very receptive to it.

I went over to Sarah. Sarah was the queen of the steak house. She had been there for over six years. All her friends were steak house people. She had a long story. She grew up poor with a father that abandoned her and a mother that didn't really care. The deadbeat father got sick, called her once on the phone and then died. Her brother ended up in prison for killing somebody. She got drunk one night and got pregnant by a man eight years older than her. They were going to get married but he eventually left and got married to somebody else. A daughter was born. Sarah grew to love the child. She had been going to college for seven years, had switched her major about twenty times. Had about five boyfriends in the last two years since the baby daddy left. Each relationship lasting about five months. After one would end, she would immediately start another. She wanted a daddy but had the complete inability to commit to a relationship because she was convinced that all men would eventually leave and break her heart. So she decided to start relationships and end them before they could end them. She had become a master of this game and everyone that knew her knew she was endlessly playing it. And we would watch one man after another enter into her life. We would stare at the new man knowing that at any time we would never see him again.

Sarah was leaning on the bar drunk as a human could get. All her words came out sluggish and blurred. Her movements were clumsy. Her eyes barely open. At times tears came from her them. She had just broken up with her fiancé. She was planning to get married to a really good guy named Dave. Dave was a college-educated man who worked helping juvenile substance abusers get back on track. On the weekends he would do carpentry with his dad to make extra money. He was a very responsible person. He finished school in less than five years, paid his bills on time, had good credit. He owned a newer motorcycle, had a newer car. He was nice. Always courteous and polite. He was what anyone would call “a nice guy.” Dave tried to get Sarah to love him for over a year before she relented and started dating him. When they began dating, things went quickly. Dave moved in with Sarah and the kid. Dave was a sweetheart to the kid. The kid loved Dave. He would always play with her. He would take her out. He babysat and spent money on her without complaining. But Sarah didn't want that. Her father was irresponsible and shiftless. Her mother dated men of the same character. She knew the logical choice was Dave. Rational self-interest notified her that a responsible man was best for her and her child. But she was confused by responsibility. The shiftless male made sense to her. Women were supposed to love shiftless men. Men who lacked courage and self-control she viewed as optimal mates.

I stood next to her while she sat in a barstool, Sarah said, “I'm drunk.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“The Steelers won.”

“Yes, life is good. You broke up with Dave, they said you fucked someone in the back seat of your car?”

“Yeah, in the back seat. I was drunk.”

“Like you are now?”

“No, not so drunk.”

“Dave was a good guy.”

“I wasn't happy.”

“Wasn't happy, he has money and an education.”

“I wasn't happy. I'm drunk. Shut up.”

“Are you crying?”

“You've seen me cry like 50 times, what makes this different.”

“I guess it doesn't.”

Then she hit me in the dick.

I bent over and held my dick.

“You punched me in the dick.”

“That's true.”

“You have issues.”

“I'm so drunk.”

I punched her in the arm really hard.

She said, “Oh, my god. I need a new boyfriend.”

“Do you want a drink?”

“Okay.”

I ordered a rum and coke.

She didn't say thank you. She put her drunken fingers around it and then pulled it close to her face. Slowly put her mouth around the area of the straw. She was so drunk the straw went up her nose the first time. But then she was able to get the straw in her mouth. She slowly sipped the drink. Sarah had forgotten I was even there. So I walked away.

Monica ran up to me and gave me a hug. She was a skinny half-Italian girl that spent her days working at Red Lobster and her nights drinking herself stupid. She was another girl with no father and a heartless mother. Her hair was intensely gelled and looked like something out of Moonstruck .

I said, “Monica, your hair looks great.”

“Oh, thank you. I worked really hard on it. Do you wanna see my cleavage, I have cleavage tonight.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

She pushed her little tits together and made cleavage.

“It makes me wanna put my tongue in it.”

“You know you can't, I have Brandon down in Columbus.”

“You and Brandon go well together, so I'll keep my tongue to myself.”

She laughed not knowing I was being sarcastic about everything I said. She was completely convinced that her hair was great and her cleavage made me horny. She was attractive and it would not have been hard to have sex with her. But it didn't really matter to me. She lived alone in an apartment for the last two years. She was fond of farting and burping as loud as possible. She watched a lot of television and had no political opinions.

She lived a lonely life.

I went over to the table where everyone was sitting. Amanda's new boyfriend was there. She always had a new boyfriend. This one was named Joseph. Like everyone she liked to have someone around that appreciated and loved her. My generation was consumed with serial monogamy. We went from one person to the next. Even if we had kids it didn't matter. The state was happy to take care of them now. We viewed our romantic relationships like little boys with baseball cards, television shows, and the owning of cars. We liked to meet someone new. We enjoyed learning about them. We enjoyed sharing our lives with them, talking about childhoods, our parents, our siblings, little things that happened when we were seven. We enjoyed meeting people for the first time and that slow revealing of who we really are. It was all theatrical. Our sex was neurotic, with no intention of procreation. It always involved dirty talk, violence, paddles, handcuffs, anal sex, dildos, strap-ons, and threesomes. There was no getting married and quietly walking as virgins into the bedroom on a wedding night awkwardly trying to have that first sex. Our awkward first sex was a distant memory, one that we would laugh over, usually over the phone.

Joseph was a tall man. He grew up with a Christian preacher for a father in Hartford. A small country town 20 minutes by outside of Youngstown. He was one of those Christians that voted for Bush in 04 and in 08 voted for Obama. He had a bible in his car and knew it well. The pages were ruffled; there were little notations next to lines he felt were important. Several book markers were found amongst the pages. His father had made sure he learned the bible.

Several years ago, between the ‘04 and ‘08 election a change had occurred. What it was, he never said. But a realization that creationism, pro-life militancy, and the love of foreign wars had nothing in common with responsibility, kindness, and sincerity.

Joseph was wearing a bright blue shirt with a white tie and dress pants. He believed it was important to be drunk and well-dressed at the same time. His hair was gelled and styled. My hair was not combed. I couldn't comb my hair because of genetics. My father was Sicilian and had nappy hair. If I combed my hair it would turn into an afro. I had spent my life completely unable to comb my hair. It was a detriment to my everyday life. It was hard getting a job without properly combed hair. One could never be a server in a restaurant, a hedge funder, a schoolteacher, or anything that made above 12,000 a year without nicely gelled and styled hair. Joseph had a very good shot at life. He was a server and had learned how to speak Spanish. I believe pragmatically that if I had hair that could have been combed I would have been able to rise to levels of success undreamed up by the normal man. But my hair could not be combed. It was my tragic flaw. Like Oedipus having sex with his mother. But for me it was my hair. I couldn't even be a proper hipster with curly hair. Male hipsters had brown hair that flowed nicely over their head. That went over their forehead and looked appealing to the eye. I had come into luck though. Michael Cera, an actor, a man who played in movies being ironic was also half-Sicilian and had hair that could not be combed. It looked combed but I knew it wasn't. He was just pushing it down with his fingers. Perhaps he had stylists with specially built combs for people who were half-Sicilian mixed with Northern European white people. Women started finding my hair attractive.