Cool Now

She texted me:

"I have a story to tell you."

Oh, no.  I didn't want a text story.

"Call."

She did.  She told me about going out and meeting a guy.  He was cute, sweet, and loving.  She just met him at a bar.

"I've never picked anyone up in a bar," I told her, though it wasn't true.  I did once.  It was everything it should have been.  I was drunk, she was drunk, had blonde hair, and a black, low-cut dress.  It was a bar where the beautiful and famous drink right in my own home town, and I had been broken up with my girlfriend long enough to want to do this.  She drove me the few blocks back to my house at that time.  She had a little sports car with a T-top.  We never made it inside.

I couldn't remember her clearly the next day as she looked something like another girl I had a crush on for a very long time.  In fuzzy memory she was enough like that girl to become that girl.  Oh, I couldn't wait to call.

Her voice wasn't what I remembered, but she invited me to her house for dinner.  Turned out she had a kid.  I went with two bottles of champagne and high hopes.  I should have been drunk when I got there.  She lived by the airport in a apartment complex.  She kept yelling at her son while she cooked.  When I left, I swore that would be the only I did that.

"Good for you," I said.  "Isn't that something."

I reminded her that I hadn't had a date in over a year. I thought I reminded her, but it must have been new information.

"What?!"

Suddenly I was embarrassed.  Certainly there was something wrong with me.  All around people were dating or married, having children, living the American Dream.

"You're becoming a hermit," she said.  "You need to get out."

"Not a hermit," I said.  "A monk."

But I got the chill.  I was a freak, an outsider, something to be avoided and perhaps feared.  I was that man that parents tell their children to avoid.  I could feel people staring though I was in my house alone.  The word "creepy" came to me across the vast expanse.  A man too set in his ways, intransigent.  Hadn't she told me just days before that I didn't dress right, that my hair was a mess?  These things start to add up when no one is telling you some sweet other.

It was almost noon, and I was still sitting around in my pajamas, unwashed, unshaven.  It wasn't a good sign.

And so I decided to go to that most American of institutions--The Mall.  I needed some things, and they were there.  The Mall.  That would be just the thing.  I could see what people look like, what they wear and how they dress, not just the crowd in my little hamlet but real Americans who watch shows like "So You Want to be a Star," and "America Can Sing" and "The Shores of Hoboken"--whatever they are called.  The Mall had it all--The Gap, Urban Outfitters, Banana Republic, American Outfitter, Abercrombie, and a dozen other clothing stores I can't remember.  It even had a Tony Bahamas.

And Holy Jesus, the masses were there.  Is this what happens while I'm at work every day?  Everybody had come, and it was awful.  How could she critique the way I looked?  This was a freak show.  Do you think Brad Pitt wonders if his wardrobe is hip or up to date?  They all moved like they'd just been freed from cages, all jerks and hiccups and twitches.  They all had bags full, I assumed, of "nice" clothes.  But what had happened?  What did they do with them after they bought them?  They weren't wearing them.

I ended up at the Apple Store instead.  A place of refuge, I thought.  But it was unbelievable.  Apparently are no fire codes are enforced at The Mall.  It was impossible to move.  People had packed in like cattle.  I managed to squeeze in among them, though, and found myself standing before a 27" iMac.

"You know," I thought, "you deserve this.  Yes you do.  You work day and night on photos on that tiny ass screen and everybody else has this to surf the internet and download porn.  You're an artist, goddammit, and you work on a computer.  You need this and deserve it.  Yes, you do."

And here is the upside to not having a girlfriend or a wife or kids or anybody but your mother to spend your money on.  And I used that as evidence to convince the jury.  I looked around the store.  People were buying everything in sight.  Big boxes full of Apple products were pouring out the door--iPhones, iPads, Macbooks, and Big Ass iMacs.  Everyone else was doing it, I said to no one.  Do it, buddy, do it.  Do it.  Do it.  Do it.

That was the little devil on my left shoulder.  But the little fellow on my right was putting up a pretty good fight.  He had my mother's voice, a voice shaped by the Great Depression.

"Don't do it, son.  Don't do it.  Nothing good can come of it.  You've got enough.  You've got plenty.  You don't need this.  You do fine with what you've got.  Think about this."

"Hey, can I get some help over here."

This morning, my house is covered with electronic things that need to be put together.  There is the new stereo amp with HDMI ports and two new speakers sitting on the floor by the television that need to be hooked up.  What a pain in the ass that will be, I think.  I read the booklet yesterday.  I am pretty sure I will end up without either a) audio output, or b) cable reception.  I will sit on the floor for hours weeping at the complexity of it all.

And in the study, there stands a new 27" Apple iMac with upgrades out the ass so that it runs like an Indie car on full throttle.  I will spend the rest of my hours trying to get all the programs I use loaded today.  And there will be problems like lost codes or system incompatibilities.  And again I'll weep.

So there it is.  There is my new virility.  Or is it a substitute girlfriend?  Can it be both?  I can see the future, me sitting in front of the big, bright screen with a turbo-action hard drive unshaven in my baggy pajama bottoms and a three day beard working on pictures and pretending I'm an artist.  And I'll text her:

"Am I cool now?"

But I need some advice.  What should I get next, a Harley or a Porsche?