Midlife Crisis

Chapter 4

Chapter 1

“Parsnips?” Greg asked me.

I looked over at him from the living room couch as he in turn poked his head out from the kitchen. “Um, huh?” I said, wondering if this was some new pet name he’d thought of for me, as he was forever coming up with new ones. Last I checked, I was being referred to as Professor. FYI, I teach business at a local college. My students call me Jack or Mister Nelson. Professor makes me sound a.) old and b.) like a character in a television show. Also FYI, I am neither, though if he had to come up with anything from the latter category, I was rooting for Pepper, a la Angie Dickinson in Police Woman.

“Parsnips,” he repeated, already looking peeved with me, which was, sad to say, par for the course as of late. Par, bogie and eagle, in fact. Heck, let’s just toss in the entire golfing green and call it a day.

In any case, it wasn’t a question or a comment anyone had ever thrown my way. I squinted my eyes as I pondered this. In truth, I hadn’t a clue what a parsnip even was. Had I ever eaten one before? Would I still seem professorial if I asked what the hell one was? Did I even want to ask and risk his wrath, which consisted of him ignoring me the rest of the evening? Greg, you see, hated confrontation―though he loved being a world-class b***h.

“Just to be clear,” I asked, forcing a smile so as to divert the inevitable kerfuffle, “are you asking me if I want some with dinner?”

He matched my squint with a scowl. He started to say something, realized a fight of some kind would probably ensue, took his nine-iron and golf ball, and promptly left that aforementioned course. In other words, Professor zero, kerfuffle one. And yes, we had parsnips with our entirely silent dinner. Yuck.

***

To backtrack just a bit, Greg and I had been dating for six months. He lived down the hall from me in our high-rise, somewhat-luxury condo in San Francisco. Though for what you pay in the city by the bay, they’re all luxury. In any case, you know that expression, don’t eat where you s**t? Well yeah, I knew it, too, except I’d sadly never paid it much heed. Meaning, while I would’ve loved to have broken up with Greg, I would still have to see him all too often, mainly because luxury didn’t equate to more than one elevator.

To be fair, my boyfriend hadn’t cornered the market in nonconfrontational skills. Which is to say, no, I didn’t break up with him, much as I would’ve liked to. Then again, I didn’t really have to, seeing as he finally broke up with me a mere three nights later.

“Why are we always fighting?” he asked, just before it all fell down like a giant house of cards. And yes, in San Francisco, even that would’ve gone for a small fortune.

“I’d call it silently simmering more than fighting,” I replied, uneager to provoke him―and okay, perhaps just a bit eager as well. It was an odd dichotomy. Then again, so were we.

“You know what I mean.”

I did. Fine. “Thin line between love and hate?”

“But you don’t love me and I don’t love you, so what does that leave?”

I shrugged. “Parsnips?” Sorry, it was the best I could come up with. Largely because I didn’t necessarily hate him, though that aforesaid root vegetable I could’ve forever lived without.

He sighed and tossed me his spare set of keys. “Good luck, Jack.”

He was gone before I could object. Not that I had any intention of doing just that, but it would’ve been nice to be given the option. I looked at the keys as they sat on the kitchen table. I looked at the door. I listened to the peaceful silence.

“Thank God,” I murmured, then sat their sobbing.

Call me a foolish sentimental―or just a plain, old fool―but I had invested six good months into the relationship. And I did like Greg. You know, at first. Besides, I wasn’t necessarily crying over him so much as the fact that I was once again single. That and, at thirty-five, couldn’t for the life of me find Mister Right. Mister Right Down the Hall, okay, but that’s not the same thing, is it? That’s barely a consolation prize. That’s choosing the box with the year’s worth of Spam hidden inside when you were hoping for the Mercedes behind curtain number two.

I awoke from my reverie when I heard a knock on the door. I hopped up, thinking Greg had changed his mind. I flung the door open, ready for either a good fight or a better f**k, but instead got my best friend, Monroe.“Oh, it’s you,” I said, allowing him entrance.

“Nice to see you, too, Jack,” he said. He gazed my way as he closed the door behind him. “What’s with the waterworks? Someone die on one of your soaps?”

“Greg,” I replied.

“Greg died?!” he asked/shouted. “That mean his condo is available?!”

I laughed. “Greg did not die,” I told him. “Greg broke up with me.”

He nodded and shrugged and found himself a Coke in the fridge. “Thank God.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Been there, done that.”

He turned back my way as he downed half the can. “Then what’s with the tears? Is Greg even tear-worthy? I mean, at least you made it through Christmas, and that sweater he bought you must’ve cost a pretty penny.”

“I returned it. Made me itch.”

He smiled. “Figures.”

“Uh huh, figures.”

He sat at the kitchen table and tapped his index finger against the aluminum can. I sat down next to him. Monroe was my age, blond to my brunette, short to my tall, blue-eyed to my muddy brown, pudgy to my, well, we’ll call it svelte, on a good day. He was the yin, as it were, to my yang. We’d been best friends since just after college. He knew me better than anyone else, perhaps even better than I knew myself. He was also happily married to his lover, Paul, which meant that, at that moment, though we were indeed best friends, I hated him with a simmering passion as he sat there tapping on that f*****g can. Call me shallow, but it’s much easier standing at that end of the pool than treading in the deep end.

“He was a d**k,” he said, the rest of the can promptly finished off. Monroe loved his Coke. Monroe loved all things sugary and sweet. Monroe was ten pounds overweight, hence the pudgy, and didn’t care since he was already married and didn’t have to worry. Those were his words, by the way, not mine. Me, I was perpetually dieting and had good reason to worry: thirty-five, single, yada, yada, yada.

“To be fair, the d**k part was his best attribute,” I made note.

“I was referring to the adjective, not the noun,” he replied. “And just to be clear, how attributed are we talking here?”

Monroe had been together with Paul for well over a decade now, so when it came to s*x, he lived vicariously through me. Which was ironic because I didn’t even live vicariously through me, and I was, you know, me. Guess the grass is always greener over someone else’s, um, d**k, so to speak.

“You mean like is he a grower or a shower?” He nodded, eagerly. “Both,” I said, with a heavy sigh.

“Fucker.”

I shrugged. “Like I said, best attribute. In any case, I’m once again single. Me, the college professor with the paid-for condo and thirty-inch waist.” Give or take an inch. Mostly take.

“You have rather nice teeth, too.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll let my dentist know you sent your regards. Still, none of those things is doing me any good. I want what you and Paul have.”

“Male pattern baldness and belly rolls?”

My sigh returned. “You know what I mean.”

He hopped up and got a second can. I always kept a large supply, even though I only drank water. Or vodka. Or tequila. Basically, anything white. I called it my mean drunk diet. “I know what you mean, and it’ll happen, Jack. It’ll happen. I promise,” he said, crossing his heart―or maybe it was his pancreas. “You’re a catch.”

I grimaced. “Sounds like herpes.”

He reached over and patted my shoulder. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You just need to get back on the horse.” He grinned. “Greg that big, by the way? Like Seabiscuit big? He ever f**k you over a bale of hay?”

I socked him one in the arm. “Must you?”

He nodded, sagely. “I must. Really.”

I took out my cell phone. I showed him a recent photo taken during one of our more amorous evenings together. “There.”

He gulped. “It’s like a kickstand. How is there enough blood left in his head to keep him from fainting?”

“He managed.” And then some. My prick throbbed at the memory. My heart throbbed as well. Poor, lonely heart. “But a good f**k is not the same thing as a good relationship.” It helps, to be sure, but it’s not the same.

He shrugged. “Better than no f**k at all. A f**k in the hand is worth two in the bush.” He looked at the photo again. “Nice bush, too. Expertly trimmed. You sure you should’ve broken up with him. He’s, you know, growing on me, all of a sudden.”

“He broke up with me,” I reminded him.

“You could always beg him to take you back.”

“Please, Monroe.”

Again he nodded, eagerly. “Like that, but with more earnestness. Please! Like you mean it.”

“But I don’t.” He pointed at my ex’s massive schlong in reply. “Mostly,” I added, knowing that I would indeed miss that part of him. “Now what do I do?”

“Grindr? Craigslist? The bars?”

I shuddered. I was desperate, okay, but not that desperate. I mean, those were fine for that f**k I mentioned, but not for what I was looking for. “Any other ideas? Anyone at work you could set me up with?” Monroe did something dot.com techie that I could never quite make head nor tail of.

“You ever meet my coworkers, Jack?”

I had. My shudder returned. “Plan B?” Though by then I was at Q and fast approaching the dreaded Z.

He finished his second Coke. “Maybe we first need to fix the problem before we find the solution.” He jumped up. He found my photo albums in the living room. I’d always taken pictures, back since I was a kid. He flung the evidence of this onto the table. “Let’s go through them and see what went wrong.”

“Oh joy,” I quipped. “A walk down Ex-Boyfriend Memory Lane. This should be scads of fun.”

He flipped open the most recent album. I guessed we’d be going in reverse. “That’s the spirit, Jack!”

An hour later, and here’s what we’d come up with:

Greg: big d**k―both the adjective and the noun, the former trumping the latter.

James: professional magician; fun at parties, not so much when he disappeared with his assistant, never to be found again―not that I looked all that hard, mind you.

John: nice looking guy, but so many issues he could’ve been sold at the newspaper stand.

Matthew: mamma’s boy; went home every weekend, with or without me―mostly without. Though, truth be told, I liked his mom better than I liked him. The lady, after all, made a mean lasagna.

Monroe turned and looked at me. “Maybe that’s your problem: James, John and Matthew. Looks like you have a penchant for dating disciples. We find you a Latino named Jesus and you’ll be good to go.”

It sounded nice on paper, but the idea of bringing a Jesus home to the family seemed less than appealing, mainly because my parents were agnostic, last time I checked, and hated organized religion, let alone the leader of one. “Maybe not.”

We continued with the dissection of my love life.

Norm: wanted kids. Enough said.

Glenn: my first long-term boyfriend, post-college; never held my hand, never kissed me in public. I could tolerate it for a time until, of course, I couldn’t. Some men are perfect, though not perfect for you. Glenn was perfect but for those little things. Except, to me, those things weren’t so little; they were massive.

And lastly, there was Bing. Or maybe make that firstly, seeing as he led the pack.

“You dated a guy named Bing?” asked Monroe. “Did his parents have a fondness for cherries?”

Bing O’Malley. I hadn’t thought of him in years. He was my first. My first kiss, first f**k, first boyfriend. We’d met toward the end of our junior year in high school. We were so on the down-low that ants could squat over us. Still, at seventeen, at eighteen, Bing was my be-all and end-all. With him I blossomed, came out of my shell, came out in general. Even my parents liked Bing. Me, I probably loved him, thought at that age, who knew for sure?

“Family name,” I eventually replied, willing myself out of my daydream. “Bing the Third.”

“Hipster name these days, I’d imagine. He have a man-bun and skinny jeans?”

I shrugged. “Who can remember what he had?” I pointed at the picture. “Besides red hair and freckles. As for skinny jeans, he was skinny all over, seventeen looking like fifteen.” The pictures didn’t do him justice. Maybe the memories didn’t either. Both were faded now, frayed around the edges.

“And why did you break up with him?” he asked.

I shrugged as I squinted at the ceiling, trying to remember the details of the demise of our relationship. “I don’t think we ever did break up,” I eventually replied. “He went to college. I went to college. Never saw him again. Never spoke with him again. Guess that’s just how it goes.”

Monroe snapped his fingers. “So technically, maybe you two are still dating.”

I grinned. It was a novel idea. “And maybe that’s why I’ve had bad luck with men: no closure from my first one.” Which sounded a lot better in my head than admitting that I was a f**k-up.

“So let’s go and find him then.”

I stared over at my friend, whose blue eyes were sparkling under the kitchen lights. “Why bother? That was nearly half a lifetime ago.” Though it felt far, far longer. And like I said, I’d not given Bing a thought since. Too much water under the bridge. Or too much come spilt, more aptly.

“Couldn’t hurt,” Monroe replied.

Though in fact it could hurt. That much I remembered, however hazily. Leaving him, losing him, that hurt like a motherfucker. Nowadays, it’s like a mosquito bite: there’s a welt, some brief itching, then not even a scar to let you know that it had ever been there to begin with. But back then, then it was like someone had yanked my heart straight out from my chest. I didn’t even date in college. I couldn’t bear to. Then, of course, I eventually did. Life moves on. Bye-bye Bing, hello Jesus’s minions.

I frowned at Monroe. “I wouldn’t even know where to look for him.”

“f*******:,” he said. “How many Bing O’Malley’s could there possibly be?”

“Apart from number one and two,” I said.

“You didn’t date them, too, did you?”

My frown turned upside down. “I wasn’t their type.” Though that was mere speculation on my part. I was, after all, a rather nice-looking teenager. Thankfully, I’ve maintained most of what I’d started off with. In any case, I never met any of the O’Malleys, not even Bing’s parents, far as I could recall.

He already had his cell phone out before I could object. Though I don’t think I would have, given the choice. I mean, I hadn’t thought about Bing in ages, but I was thinking about him now, especially as I sat there looking at the pictures of him, of us, both of us smiling so brightly it was a wonder our faces didn’t crack.

“s**t,” he soon said, thereby bursting my bubble. “Not a one.”

He checked i********:, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Yahoo, even MySpace. But no, nada, zip, nil. No trace of him. And that was weird, because everyone had a trace these days. Everyone. Heck, you could probably find Jimmy Hoffa online, if you looked hard enough.

My stomach sank, my heart dropping right along with it. My hopes had been up, my d**k as well. Having s*x with Bing had been earth-shattering back when we were seventeen; what would it be like today? Now my musings were trampled into the ground like so much rubble.

“Good try, though,” I said, feigning indifference. “Guess it wasn’t meant to be.” Though we had found each other in high school―which was no easy feat, mind you, especially back then. Maybe it was meant to be, but our circumstances simply got in the way. Maybe college got in the way or our twenties, but those obstacles were long gone now. Still, what did it matter? He was gone, the memories of the memories all I had left, and barely any of those to begin with. “Maybe I’ll just try a bar. Or an art gallery.” I looked away from the pictures and back at Monroe. “Where did you and Paul meet, by the way?”

He grinned. “At the gym.”

“You were at a gym?” I asked, incredulously.

His grin amped up. “Well, the steam room of a gym, at any rate.”

I nodded. “Uh huh. Now that makes sense.”

He stood up. Two Cokes and he looked like he was vibrating. “Well, gotta go. Just dropped by to say hi. Picking up Paul to go see a flick. Wanna go with? Turkish movie with subtitles, but good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.”

“Good reviews? How many people have seen a Turkish movie with subtitles?”

“Six,” he said. “But six solid reviews. Except for the one that wasn’t.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. It’s been an exciting day already; don’t think I can take much more.” Subtitles or not.

I was soon alone again in my shroud of silence. I was pretty sick of Greg, sure, but at least I had a Greg to be sick of. Now I only had me, and me wasn’t exactly my favorite person these days. So what was there left to do? Well, naturally, I called my mommy.

“You in jail?” she asked, right off the bat.

“Jail? Why jail?”

“It’s a Saturday afternoon,” she replied. “You never call on a weekend. I’m lucky if I get a call on a Wednesday.”

I grinned. She had me there. “No, no jail, Ma. Can’t a guy just call to say he loves his mom?”

She shrieked. “You’re dying! What is it? Something terminal?”

I shook my head. “If I was dying, it would have to be from something terminal, wouldn’t it? In any case, no, not in jail, not dying, just, um…single.”

She sighed, loudly and with great aplomb. “Again?”

I paused and gritted my teeth. “Is Dad there? Maybe I can talk to him instead. Or the dog. The dog is a good listener.”

“Chompers is very nearly deaf, Jack.” Chompers is the family basset hound, by the way. Deaf, for sure, but he makes up for it by being exceedingly gassy. Exxon should be so gassy, in fact.

“He feigns listening well, though. In any case, I didn’t call to discuss my being single,” I told her. “You know, sort of.”

“Sort of?” Ma didn’t watch soap operas; Ma had me instead, and I was cheaper than cable.

“Do you remember Bing O’Malley?” I asked, steering the conversation back on track.

Now it was her turn to pause. “Is he a character on one of your soaps?” Again with the soaps. I only watch a couple. Three at most. “Wait, Bing O’Malley,” she eventually said. I heard her snap her fingers. “You dated him back in high school, right? Nice guy. Skinny. Red hair. Green eyes.”

“Ding, ding, ding.”

She laughed. “Ding, ding, ding on the Bing, Bing, Bing. What were his parents thinking?”

I didn’t want to go over that conversation again, so I diverted with, “You ever see him around town?”

“Nope,” she all too quickly replied. “Never saw him again after you both went off to college. Why?”

Again I decided to divert, which seemed like the smart thing to do. Ma could go on tangents, you see. Ma was the queen of tangents. Ma’s tangents could make a geometry teacher jealous. “His parents then? Did you know his parents?”

Again I heard the snap. “I knew his parents!”

My heart leapt, thereby lodging in my throat. “Do you still know his parents?”

“Not for years, Jack,” she told me. “All I remember is that the husband cheated. Was a big brouhaha. Again, why?”

My heart sank, my throat once again free. “Could you find them maybe, or at least one of them? Casually ask around?

She snorted. “How does one casually ask around for someone they haven’t seen in well over a decade, Jack?” She was starting to get testy with me. Testy wasn’t good with Ma. Testy and tangents were the reason I didn’t call my mom on weekends. That and, well, it was a weekend.

“Church social?” I tried.

Her snort returned. I was suddenly chatting with Miss Piggy. “Any other suggestions?”

Testy was turning into impatient. I was treading on shaky ground now. And so I ended the conversation, what little of it there was to begin with. “Never mind, Ma. Just a little project I’m working on.” Like my life.

“You’re a strange one, Jack.”

Pot, kettle, black, Ma, I thought. “Thanks. Hugs to Dad and Chompers from me.”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Which one?”

She sighed. “Take your pick.”

The phone call quickly and abruptly ended. I’d learned nothing except that I was no closer to finding Bing than when I started. And so I sat there staring at the pictures of him, of us. Was I ever that young? In truth, I couldn’t remember the guy in the pictures, the me in the pictures. Still, the me seemed happy. Thinking back, I suppose that’s what I was: happy. And now? Well no, not so much. Sure, life was fine, work was fine, my friends were fine, but fine isn’t so fine, not unless you’re talking about china―the plates, not the country.

I thought about what Monroe had said. Maybe I did need to fix the problem with me before I could move on, to be happy again. Perhaps the answer really did rest with Bing. Or perhaps I was just depressed from my breakup. Either way, the solution wasn’t on Craigslist or at a local bar, that much I was certain.

So yes, in order to move forward I had to go back.

Lord help us all.