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Since you mentioned the “S word,” I must mention that I’m dying, perhaps just figuratively speaking, but if it were possible to expire from sexual frustration, I’d most definitely be a goner. Alice was kind enough to bless me with some oral compassion on my return from camp, but then rescinded her kindness at the last minute, just moments before my—shall I say it?—ultimate Thank-You. I was left there in the back of her mom’s Prius, writhing in unreleased tension, and she just dabbed at the sides of her mouth with a Kleenex and informed me that oral strikes her as inherently misogynist because the girl receives nothing in return and is effectively silenced in the process. I said I was more than happy to return the favor, or perhaps find a configuration more conducive to tandem pleasure, but she would have none of it.

  Honestly, I don’t know what I did wrong. I can’t imagine a more attentive and sensitive boyfriend than me. My sensitivity to the feminine condition borders on pathology. So why does it sometimes feel like she considers me a kind of danger to her? Was she traumatized in some past life? Does she see me as nothing more than a stand-in for a former abuser? Or is she just a cold fish? Isabel, help me figure her out. You’re my only hope.

  Hypothermic from cold showers,

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Saturday, September 3—4:47 PM

  Subject: Re: Hello stranger

  Connor,

  What kind of disturbed woman doesn’t like oral?! On what planet does a wet tongue lapping at one’s girlie parts feel like anything less than God’s breath? What is wrong with this Alice of yours? I suggest you trade her in for a newer model. She is defective, my friend.

  I don’t know how to help you, except to remind you that the most important sexual organ for the woman is in fact the mind. Guys can get turned on by a cantaloupe, but girls need a little more inspiration. At least, this is what I hear. I, on the other hand, seem to be more like a guy in this respect. Not that I get turned on by cantaloupes, but bananas or zucchinis, sure. Ha! I think I must have more testosterone than most girls or something. It’s like I’m on edge and anxious and I just need my body to feel something else, something different, and sex is the only thing strong enough that works to relieve it. I guess I could cut myself or something, but I’m already enough of a cliché. I don’t want to go down that road.

  I told Trevor about it once because, all kidding aside, it kind of worries me, this feeling I get sometimes. I’m full of all this energy, way more than is supposed to fit in one person, you know? And I poured my heart out to Trevor about it and it’s like he didn’t even hear me. He was just all sexy face and saying how lucky he is to have a girlfriend who wants it so much, hubba, hubba. But I was being serious, and it kind of pissed me off. I know most of the time I’m kidding, so maybe it’s hard to tell when I’m not, but it’d be nice if someone took me seriously once in a while. That’s what I like about you. As much as I kid you about it, it’s nice that you take everything I do so seriously. You’re the only one who really does.

  Your favorite sex fiend,

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Sunday, September 4—1:33 PM

  Subject: Popsicle sticks

  Dear Isabel,

  Remember that rainstorm when everyone crammed into the Craft Shack during free time because it was too wet to do anything outside? It was just you and me and about sixty soggy, hyperactive kids trying to stab each other with scissors. And I was all trying to hand out construction paper and popsicle sticks and asking everyone to please calm down, but it was like I wasn’t even there and they didn’t even see me. Then you climbed on top of the table in the middle of the room and started tap dancing and singing about surrealism and Dalí and Magritte, and everybody shut up and sat down. This room full of little kids just watched you, transfixed, like you were telling them the secret to life, like you were revealing something really important. Remember? You said, “I dare you to make me a picture of your dreams,” and they all got to work, just like that, like you were the president and just told them their drawings would save the country from certain annihilation. You inspired them, Isabel. They listened to you when nothing else would shut them up. They took you seriously. They actually listened to you lecture about art history, and they were like, nine years old. Apparently they knew something your beloved Trevor hasn’t figured out. And, by the way, I know it too.

  Your biggest fan,

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Sunday, September 4—11:28 PM

  Subject: Re: Popsicle sticks

  Dear Connor,

  I don’t know how to react to Nice. It makes me uncomfortable. Remember how I’d always pretend-strangle you this summer every time you complimented my drawings or told me my hair looked nice? Well, I kind of want to punch you in the face right now.

  In response, I’d like to point out that it doesn’t take a whole lot to impress little kids. I mean, why do you think they’re always wandering off with molesters? All I had to do was wave my arms around and try to be more interesting than stabbing a kid with scissors. It’s not rocket science.

  But thank you, I guess. Is that what I’m supposed to say to a compliment? I wouldn’t know, since I receive them so infrequently. Not that I’m fishing right now. I’m not, so don’t try any of your little tricks to boost my self-confidence. You have an unfair advantage, being raised by a therapist. You know all these secret ways to get people to tell you things and bare their souls. Me, I learned nothing of substance from my Neanderthal father and Executive mother. But I guess my family’s not completely useless—I did learn how to argue from my sister and how to lie from my brother. I should probably send them thank-you cards.

  Trevor’s band is playing at Chop Suey tonight, so I must be off to make myself beautiful. It’s hard work being such a jet-setter. My dear sister, Gennifer-with-a-G, the self-proclaimed Queen of the Aging Lesbian Hipsters, always tells me our generation is doing it all wrong, that we’re all about manufactured style and lack any real originality or substance, like she’s automatically superior because she was old enough to remember the day Kurt Cobain killed himself. So I say, “What, like it’s cool to still be driving Mom’s old hand-me-down Volvo and shopping at thrift stores when you’re almost forty?” Then she’s like, “I’m thirty-six!” and I have to remind her that’s twice as old as me, and then she stomps away with her shitty nonprofit job and two useless masters degrees to go home and listen to her records and read her comic books and reminisce about the days when being poor and overeducated was cool. Except she’s not poor anymore, because her wife, Karen, makes a ton of money and they live in a fancy condo downtown. So now I guess she’s just a hypocrite like everyone else I know.

  I should try to be nicer, shouldn’t I?

  Yours in eternal bitchitude,

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Monday, September 5—9:43 PM

  Subject: Death and dismemberment

  Dear Isabel,

  School starts tomorrow and I feel like I should feel something. But I don’t. I feel nothing. I am dead inside. Do you want to know why?

  BECAUSE ALICE BROKE UP WITH ME!

  Do you want to know why she broke up with me?

  BECAUSE SHE SAYS SHE’S A FUCKING LESBIAN!

  Did you hear me? Do you need me to repeat myself?

  MY GIRLFRIEND WAS A FUCKING LESBIAN!!!!!!!!

  The whole time I was exhausting myself trying to perform acrobatics with my tongue, she was not only not interested, but DISGUSTED with my whole gender. Every time I clenched my teeth and forced myself to act like a gentleman, trusting that someday it would all be worth it, someday I would be rewarded for being so damn NICE and RESPECTFUL, someday God would shine on me and send a lightning bolt of passion surging through Alice, inspiring her to run toward me while tearing her clothes off, eyes wild and mouth
foaming, rabid with her desire for me. I kept hoping that all those cramped, lackluster nights in the back of her mom’s car were just working toward the moment she’d finally break through to her hibernating nymphomaniac core and go wild. But it was all a lie. All that patience and frustration and talking and hand-holding was for nothing. Because the whole time I was trying to be the sensitive boyfriend I thought she wanted, the whole time I thought maybe I was someone she could love, the truth of the matter was that I was wasting my time. Do you have any idea how that feels? To realize you’ve been wasting your love on someone for whom it’s mentally and physically and spiritually impossible to love you back?

  She said I was her last hope. She had been suspecting she was gay for a long time, but she wanted to try dating me because—and I quote—“If I couldn’t like you, I probably couldn’t like any guy.” Do you know what that really means? It means I’m the closest thing to a girl she could find that still had a penis.

  It’s official: I’m the Last Chance for Lesbians.

  What does this say about me?

  Your tattered rag,

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Monday, September 5—11:48 PM

  Subject: Re: Death and dismemberment

  Dear Connor,

  The good thing is, you don’t really have to take it personally. She didn’t reject you, she rejected your entire sex, which is something you don’t have any control over. And really, if you look at it a different way, you could take this as the best compliment ever. What if this just means you’re the very best of your gender? Did you ever think of that? Maybe you are such an amazing specimen of a man that if a woman doesn’t want to throw herself at you and kiss your feet and have your babies, then no man will do. Because you’re the best of the best, the cream of the crop, the greatest penis-endowed human this world has ever seen. Alice was putting a lot of confidence in you if she thought there was even a chance you could sway what she knew deep down in her woman-loving loins. Really, you should be proud of yourself.

  I’m sorry if I can’t spend more time stroking your wounded ego, but I’m a little preoccupied at the moment. You should know by now that I am a very selfish friend, which probably explains why I don’t have many. I blame it on the influence of my mother and her type-A personality. I keep trying to focus on you, but my own desires and obsessions keep crowding you out with flashing lights saying “Pay attention to me!” and I have no choice but to obey. I hope you’re not offended.

  What I’m thinking about is how tomorrow morning I, too, am going to wake up to the first day of senior year. I’m going to put on my clothes and get in my car and drive to that big old yellow mansion full of the rich and smart and superficially interesting. I’ve told you about my school, right? We’re the black sheep of the private schools in Seattle, the indie-rock to their pop music. They’re the machines pumping out the future robots of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale while we’re the little organic garden sprouting the brains of Reed, Oberlin, and Sarah Lawrence. I know you love it when I complain, but to be honest, I really like my school. The kids in it aren’t much to write home about, but at least they’re pretending to be authentic, which is more than I can say for the rest of the clueless assholes in our age bracket (present company excluded, of course).

  We’re located in the heart of the Capitol Hill district, down the street from a women’s sex-toy shop and a Wiccan “magick” supply store. A couple blocks away is the community college and a few blocks beyond that is the art school, and everywhere in between are coffee shops and gay bars and ethnic restaurants and beautiful people with big sunglasses and small dogs and reusable canvas shopping bags, and everywhere you turn are these pretty brick apartment buildings full of the twenty-something hipsters that make this little ecosystem so vibrant. It’s quite impressive, really, and I’d like to think I’m a part of it even though of course I’m only eighteen and technically not allowed to be cool yet, but I have my sister’s old ID that usually works (I’m thirty-six!), and of course I have Trevor when he’s in town.

  So you’d think I’d be excited about starting school, but I’m not. I’m only telling you this because, well, you’re you, and for some reason I always feel this compulsion to tell you things. The truth is, I don’t really have any friends, and that’s a pretty sucky thing in a school where your whole class is only thirty-four people and everyone refers to each other as their “educational family.” I know this must come as a huge surprise, and you’re probably catatonic from the shock because you know me as such a charming and likeable person, but if you must know, I have a little bit of a problem getting close to people. It’s not like I’m a total pariah. I mean, I’m friendly enough with people and they’re civil with me. But while they’re all planning their weekend activities and eating the school’s homemade vegetarian lunch in the cozy cafeteria together, I’m wandering around Broadway Avenue or sitting in coffee shops by myself and reading. It’s like everyone’s part of this big happy family, and I’m the weird foster kid that everyone is very polite to, but the truth is no one really considers me a part of the family.

  I’m pretty lonely, Connor. Trevor’s in Portland and only comes to town a couple times a month. My sister hardly ever stops by anymore, and who knows where my brother is, and don’t even get me started on my parents. The only one I really have is you, and you only live inside this computer and in my Craft Shack memories.

  Shit, where did that come from? This little bout of pre-school depression is making me sappy.

  I’m sorry about Alice. I really am. You deserve someone as amazing as you are, and I know you will find her. Some girl is going to love you like crazy.

  Yours in lonely solidarity,

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Tuesday, September 6—9:12 PM

  Subject: Please?

  Isabel,

  Can I call you? I really want to talk to you. It’s so annoying having to write things out, then wait for a response, and you never even respond to my questions anyway. Why can’t I call you?

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Wednesday, September 7—10:13 PM

  Subject: No

  My dearest Connor,

  We already went over this. I do not talk on the phone. I hate talking on the phone. You said you liked my quirkiness, so just think of this as another one of my wonderful, likeable qualities. Phones are only good for ordering pizza and telling someone you’re running late. I assume you won’t be calling for either of those reasons, so no, you cannot call me. End of story. Don’t take it personally. I don’t even pick up the phone for my sister, and I’ve liked her way longer than I’ve liked you. Whatever you want to say to me can be said right here. The end.

  Isabel

  (PS: Phones also give you brain cancer.)

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Friday, September 9—8:39 PM

  Subject: Question

  Isabel,

  You have too many rules. And you wonder why people don’t want to get close to you. Are you this difficult on purpose? You’re lucky I’m so agreeable.

  Okay, here’s my question, and it’s important and I really need a girl’s honest opinion. And don’t do your usual thing where you don’t even answer it and just start talking about yourself instead. Here goes: Do you think it’s unethical to ask someone out just because you’re lonely and you know she’ll say yes? Does that count as using someone? Would I be an evil, misogynist pig for going out with this someone and not resisting if things happen to move in the physical direction, even if I know there’s no way I’ll ever be interested in her for anything more than that? My body is telling me there is nothing wrong with this, but there is the unfortunate problem of my pesky conscience getting in the way. I blame my mother for that. I can practically hear her voice every time I fantasize about taking o
ff Emily’s clothes. “Are you treating her with respect, Connor? Are you honoring her mind and her body?”

  I don’t know the answers to these questions.

  Horny and humble,

  Connor

  (PS: Have you ever thought that maybe sitting in front of your computer all the time will give you face cancer?)

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Sunday, September 11—12:17 AM

  Subject: Re: Question

  Dear Connor,

  First of all, there is no such thing as face cancer.

  Second of all, I’ve never wondered why people don’t want to get close to me. I am perfectly aware of how difficult I am.

  Third of all, maybe you would be honoring her mind and body by having a purely physical relationship with her. Girls are horny too, you know. Maybe she just wants you for your body too. Did you ever think of that? Maybe not all girls want roses and hand-holding and moonlit walks on the beach where you bare your souls to each other. Maybe this Emily of yours would be perfectly happy with you using her. Maybe she wants to use you, too. Maybe you should ask.

  Isabel

  From: condorboy

  To: yikes!izzy

  Date: Sunday, September 11—11:28 AM

  Subject: Re: Question

  Isabel,

  What, like, “Hi, Emily. What are you doing tonight? If you’re not busy, can I use you for your body?”

  Connor

  From: yikes!izzy

  To: condorboy

  Date: Sunday, September 11—6:13 PM

  Subject: Re: Question

  Connor,

  Maybe something like, “Hey, Emily, do you want to hang out sometime?” Then she says yes, then you hang out a little, then you say something like, “I’m attracted to you, Emily. I’m not really interested in a relationship right now, but I’d like to kiss you. Would that be okay?” And she can either say yes or no. That’s it. You lay it all out, completely honest, and she gets to choose. Hopefully she’ll decide that Friends with Benefits is a sweet deal for both parties. Case closed.