The Only True Love Story

I needed a place to sleep and Gary wanted sex; I guess we were both looking for a hole to crawl into. Our conversation had transitioned seamlessly from Grindr to the bar, where I made the mistake of asking about his work. He discoursed between sips of Chablis. “Five,” he said. “Maybe six, but never seven.” I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

I was trying to decide if I would let the conversation progress to his bedroom; with my car at the shop I was bed hunting.  For a few days, I’d crashed on Treena’s couch in exchange for feeding her cat mashed salmon and scooping its shits from the litter, but I couldn’t stand a furry rump in my face at five a.m., the needling mew in my ear.

Gary seemed more interested in himself than in me, the hallmark of every lonely person I’d ever met. The bar was “Big Lebowski” themed, each time our waitress checked on us, I pointed at my cocktail and said, “Another,” regardless of how far I’d progressed with my current drink. I had three full glasses standing guard between myself and Gary, three empties off to the side. The drink was called “The Dude Abides,” which was a White Russian with, for some reason, coconut vodka. Every few minutes the same guy walked into the bar: backwards cap, sports jersey, beard. Or maybe it wasn’t the same guy, maybe that was just how people looked now.

Gary was wrapping up. “You see what I mean?” he said, unveiling his set of tiny, wine-stained teeth. Under the table his hand pawed my knee. The numbers were apparently foreplay.

I played dumb. “Why not seven?” I asked. Gary’s smile ruptured and he launched into an explanation I did not attempt to follow. He only wanted me because he wanted a sensation he couldn’t provide for himself. There were plenty of miserable people on Grindr, but few were the right kind of wretched for me.

If not Gary, I knew a guy Benny on the river. When I lifted baby wipes for him to clean up with, he let me share his sleeping bag. He couldn’t steal the wipes himself because he looked homeless and I didn’t; Target wouldn’t even let Benny through the front door.

“Did you say you had a cat?” I asked Gary. He hadn’t, but Gary seemed the kind of guy who would purchase a cat, hoping it would snap him out of his depression, and end up saddled with both. In about three seconds, he’d pressed his phone so close to my face the on-screen image was a blur. “I’m super allergic.” I said, which was not true.

“That’s okay!” Gary said. “She’s hairless.” I leaned back, and the image materialized. His cat looked like E.T. on ganja.

“It’s not that kind of allergy,” I said, and reached for my final drink.

“Listen Gary,” I said. “I don’t think this is going to work out.” As I stood to go, Gary’s pinched smile showed he’d anticipated this blow all night, that I was merely another bead on the long string of disappointments that made up his life.

I didn’t have wipes but walked Benny-ward anyway. I hated that everything was reciprocal—I wanted to lie down and let people run their tongues over my ears, without having to listen to their childhood traumas or lie about how good they were at sex.

I once knew a guy who drove his ATV around the neighborhood with a cat perched on his shoulder. The cat’s name was Petunia. Her owner said she clawed hashes into his skin at first, but Petunia rode on, clinging to him despite the fear. That is the only true love story I know.

Benny wasn’t at his usual spot. A hot wind raged. I slipped out of my clothes to let the wind run its fingers everywhere Gary had wanted to. I felt magnificent, made of light. A hymn burbled out of my lips: “Through cloud and sunshine, Dude, abide with me.”

Fish cluttered the surface of the river, facing into the current, their little gobs open, expectant, as if the earth had promised them nourishment and they were waiting on her to deliver.