Dealbreakers
You might remember the film Dealbreakers from a few seasons back, a romantic comedy in which Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a young woman who seems to have found her true love, until her breast reduction surgery proves too much for their relationship to bear.
This is not that story, but it might as well be.
When we last saw our hero, me, he was about to make up for a lifetime of sidelining poor, crazy Jane by giving her one perfect night of directionless jawing.
One truth I’ve stumbled upon by mistake is that if you are endlessly and repeatingly a big jerk to a vulnerable woman who only wants to be liked, and then one day you are nice to her, you get even more points than if you had been nice to her in the first place. This shouldn’t work, but it seems like it does. Hey, I just work here.
Down-and-out, crazy, underloved, but undeniably well-put-together Jane waits for me at the bar. I deftly engage her in her desired unburdening of random thoughts: the remarkable makeup of her extended family, what it’s like to be smart in a world that only cares about her ass, the fact that Roy Orbison is from Lubbock, Texas (which shocked me; how could Lubbock have two rock pioneers, when it doesn’t even have two laundromats?). She’s a philosopher, but sort of in the “I’m thoughtful, and therefore unique, and therefore right” mold.
However, I was able to sound her out on some of the Trouble Sells Issues of the Day. I brought up “maturity,” and how I’m beginning to think it’s a myth. I understand that people collect “experiences,” and that this happens over time, and that these experiences help them make decisions. But that isn’t “maturity,” which suggests that people somehow get new tools with which to make these decisions, as they grow older. I’m not convinced, from observing, that they do. I don’t think someone at 45 or 85 or 805 has any more ability to understand than does someone at 15. They may have more examples on which to draw, but no “maturity.”
Jane said, “That’s beautiful,” in the dreamy way she said everything.
“Don’t be snarky,” I told her, “it’s no longer ‘in’.”
“No, it is beautiful,” she purred. “I never say anything I don’t mean.” Good grief. That is straight out of some syllogism. Socrates is a man…all men are liars…therefore, I’m out at the bar with Jane.
It was getting late. Maybe the reason I liked Jillian the best was that she also knew the most important rule I learned in Vaudeville: always leave them wanting more. Jane was a few drinks ahead of me, but fresh out.
“Have one more?” I suggested.
“I’ll have another drink with you if you give me some cocaine,” she said in the dreamy way she said everything.
“I don’t have any cocaine. That’s the situation.”
“I’ll have another drink with you if you give me some cocaine,” she said, meaning it.
“It’s five in the morning. I wouldn’t know where to get cocaine if I wanted to get it for you.”
“I had better go home,” she said, rising, “though I would be thrilled to have another drink with you if things were different.”
Now she’s wrecking it. I told her, “Your telling me that you’d like me better if I gave you cocaine is like me telling you I’d like you better if you got a boob job. It isn’t very flattering. What happened to your celebration of humanity? I mean, liking people when you’re on drugs isn’t about you, it’s about the drugs. It isn’t hard to do, that’s what they’re for.”
Smiling, waving, her face brushing by mine as she destooled herself, saying, “You’re right. Goodnight.”
I was right.
by Jack, November 14, 2003 4:23 PM | More from Drinking & Women | More from Jane
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RIGHT!
I think rock geniuses like film geniuses, etc. beget other such geniuses. The same town produces another because the town starts to think of itself as worthy.