Dreams of Fish
Fragments
The Seven Deadly Social Sins
My Enemy
San Francisco, Strippers, and Satan
New Town
Interviews with the People in My Neighborhood
First Dateh
Reunion
Tasty Recipes
Job Search, Pt. 1
Republic, Pt. 2
Scientology
The Girl Who Works at Tower Records on Thursday Afternoons
Meat Market
Fun Pranks
My Best Friend is My Dentist
Tips For Scoring With the Ladies...
The second of many parts.
It was on one of these nights that the Hawaiians decided that I should call Marianne Rosenblum. Ms. Rosenblum was the young lady who called me while I was at work to yell at me but showed a kindly amount of compassion when I lied to her that I was a victim of sexual abuse. It was not common that I receive offers from women to have coffee, so I had to take that offer rather seriously. The fact that I did not know what Ms. Rosenblum looked like was irrelevant. I did know that she at least sounded like a woman and that was enough for me. I pictured her to be a thin schoolteacher with a mousy face and her hair in a bun. Sort of like my mother. There was no reason for me to picture her this way. It was just a notion. It did not matter anyways. I'm not picky because I am the loving sort.
I have to admit, my love for others consumes me: I have showered each of my previous lovers with affection and bubbling passion. The routine for each relationship was the same. I put all of my effort into showing them the love I felt for them. I sent roses and candy and stuffed animals. I coddled them in the way mothers treat newborn children.
I sent rambling, heartfelt letters declaring my undying love daily, sometimes twice a day. It became easier because, at some point, I created a filing system. When I was in need of a love letter, I would retrieve a Xeroxed copy from the appropriate file folder. There were thirty-six folders in all, sequentially ordered to reflect which stage of the relationship we were in. The first folder is marked You are the Only One for Me and the final folder is marked Angst-Ridden Goodbye/Pseudo-Suicide Letter. Each letter is about fifteen pages in length and took about a week to write. No one ever said that love is easy work.
When the coddling would begin to annoy them, I would only work harder at it. Woman after woman would distance herself from me, and I would call their homes every hour trying to work things out. They would stop answering their home phones, and would I call them hourly at work. When the letters and items begin returning in the mail and the threats of restraining orders began to be tossed back-and-forth, I hired private detectives to watch after my ex-lovers, keeping track of their daily whereabouts and activities. I would listen to the reports of the detectives, closing my eyes and imagining myself walking around in my ex-lovers' routines.
Then, when I would realize that it was over, I was single again, and ready to find someone else to love. And that's where I was that night, holding a piece of paper with Marianne Rosenblum's number on it. It was hard to make out the numbers. On that night, I decided to buy the bottle of Jim Beam in addition to a twelve pack of Coors. Of course, I didn't drink everything. I'm not an alcoholic and I'm definitely not crazy. But my vision was definitely very fuzzy from the eight beers and four shots that I did drink.
The phone rang about twelve times before she answered. Her voice was almost a wheeze. I was afraid that I might have woken her, so I immediately hung up. I wasn't sure if I had dialed the right number so I tried again. This time, I was sure I got the number right the first time around because she answered with the same wheeze. I hung up again. I decided to wait. This sort of a relationship would take a great deal of tact and strategizing. It wasn't something that I would be able to just pull off in a middle-of-the-night phone call.
Once David Letterman was over, I drank another shot of Jim Beam and opened another beer. I put a pornographic videotape in the VCR and began to heat up some leftover pizza in the microwave. On the television screen, a nude woman was bent over a sink while a shirtless man approached her with a can of whipped cream and a disposable razor. I knew that my situation was going to be difficult. After all, she only knew me from my voice on the phone, a voice that was pretending to cry as it told her of a hidden secret that wasn't exactly true. All I had to work with was her sympathy. As I watched the porn starlet on the screen cupping her whipped-cream covered breasts, I wondered how I would use that sympathy to my advantage. I went to my love letter file and picked out folder #8, entitled I Had a Dream About You Last Night and began my love affair with Marianne Rosenblum.
My father was a tough son of a bitch. When I would hear children …