FRESH
YARN PRESENTS:
The
Very Idea
By
Despard Murgatroyd
Look
at me. I am on the second floor of Borders Books and Music, shuffling
nervously around the Fiction section, at 7:04pm on a Wednesday night.
I am wearing brand new dress shoes, gray and black striped slacks
(with faux-gold pocket watch chain clearly visible), and a light
blue dress shirt, opened at the collar. Look at me. I am the most
obviously single twenty-two-year-old male in the western world.
I might as well be wearing sandwich boards proclaiming the fact.
I am on the prowl. I am off the charts.
Look
at me looking.
In
the store for only three minutes, my heat-guided pupils have already
located several young women I would have jubilant sex with. They
are all probably under the legal age for Pennsylvania-style intercourse,
but that doesn't matter to me. We both know I am not going to have
real sex with them anyway. Real sex, no. Eye sex, definitely. My
eyes are lucky. My eyes have been around the block. My eyes have
plenty of sex. Just look at them. Their tans are a perjury; their
precious breasts energetically poke out from beneath their shirts
like reluctant Klansmen attempting to claw their way out of their
sheets after a moral awakening. If their jeans were not applied
to their legs and rear ends with a paintbrush, then I am the lyingist
bastard that ever wrote a word.
I am
done with these girls relatively quickly. I have a want for what
they have to offer, but I have no need for any of it. I do not care
about them, because they appear false to me on the outside. They
cannot be true on the inside. Impossible. I try to imagine having
a real conversation with any one of them. Also impossible. Even
my vivid, oftentimes colorful imagination cannot fathom the required
parameters. Could any of these silly little flits be counted on
to survive an entire dinner with me, consisting of appetizer, main
course, dessert and coffee/tea? Conversation? What would they discuss
with my mother, the finer points of Maybeline versus MAC? Could
they raise my children-tenderly and patiently negotiating the little
ones' neurotic, paranoid wants and needs? More pressingly, could
they tenderly and patiently negotiate my identical, though more
deeply entrenched wants and needs? No, I quickly decide, as I take
one last mental photograph of the taller one's ass. Click! Mmpf.
Like a McIntosh apple.
After
devoting just four minutes more to pretending to look for books,
I have forgotten all about the three breathing Barbies. Take note,
you mean world, you; I have found a suitable life-partner. Look
at her. She is sitting, cross legged, on a bench by the Periodicals
section (Borders does not call magazines "Magazines."
Borders calls them "Periodicals" because they're "Borders").
She reads her magazine -- excuse me -- periodical so intently
and I can only catch her profile as I pass, deftly wedging myself
behind the shelf containing the International Newspapers. I am sly.
Tonight I do not trip. Tonight I have skill. I sashay inconspicuously
by her again, this time I am able to process more details. She is
wearing a tight -enough -to -see -a -bit -of -the -old -you -know
-whats -but -not -tight -enough -to -see -too -much -of -the
-old -you -know -whats shirt. Lavender. Nice. A long khaki skirt
covers her mid-to-lower section(s). Also nice. There is a conservative
but noticeable slit in the skirt that reveals a bit of leg. The
bit of leg, from what I am able to quickly ascertain, is fair and
smooth and shaved and, consequently, should be touched. I am willing.
I notice that her shoulders are inverted and hunched as she sits
and reads. Her posture needs work. But, then again, so does mine.
Perfect. Grand, even. Perfectly grand. We could work on our lousy
posture together. It could be a collective process. Learning
and whatnot. We could do joint physical therapy. And have sex. As
I look at her curved spine, I picture our children. They will be
humpbacks by their Bar Mitzvahs (I am pretty sure she's Jewish too)
but, look, what are you going to do? Kids are bastards; they'll
always find something to make fun of. If it's not your humpback,
it's your sneakers. Kids are always on you for wearing the wrong
kind of sneakers.
continued...
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