“Drinking is often a way to try and find control,” Lisa says, and I’m happy she’s speaking again. “But that’s a lie you tell yourself,” she adds.
“I know about lies,” Amelia says. “I know about married men who sleep with other women, too. I slept with a married man once — well, many times. I loved him — I lusted for him, and I couldn’t help it. I was even living with another guy, Nick. Have I ever told you about Nick? I don’t think so. He was only around for a while. I should say he was living with me since he moved into the place I’d had for a while. And it all had to do with this married guy I was seeing, David.
“I met David when I was still in college, fighting my way through the system to get a degree so I could do what I’m doing now: putting a lot of hours into teaching kids and getting paid crap. But anyway, I met David and was attracted to him immediately. I saw his wedding ring, but thought to myself, ‘I don’t care, I want him.’ And I knew I wanted him when I realized he felt the same way about me and wasn’t going to tell me, I’m married.’ I don’t know what the deal with his wife was. I knew later on, but that’s almost a different story — but maybe it isn’t a different story. So yes, I slept with David, many times. I was so caught up in my school work, and the men — boys, really — I was meeting, didn’t interest me. Immature, most of them. But not David.
“David was twenty-eight, but he seemed older. I knew he loved his wife, but deep down he was used to going from woman to woman and his womanizing was hard to let go of; that’s why he took me to bed. We’d go to my apartment because we certainly couldn’t go to his. Sometimes we’d even have sex in my car or his and that was pretty exciting. Excitement — I guess that’s what it was about. Exciting for him, sure, to cheat on his wife; exciting for me because I knew it wouldn’t, couldn’t, last, and I never knew when it was going to end. But how can something end if it doesn’t have a beginning? For us, there never was a beginning. We just were. Or maybe there was a beginning, because it all led to something else. It led to me meeting The Astronaut.”
“The what?” Tasha asks.
“I’m getting to that, and I’m getting to how I became Amnesia. Let’s say the beginning starts when I came home, when Nick was living with me. I come home from school and there he is, lounging on the couch, drinking beers. He liked to drink lots of beers. He didn’t have a beer-gut, thank God, but when I looked at him, right then, I looked at him and wondered. He was a nice-looking guy, don’t get me wrong, but he was pretty blank up here,” she points to her head, “maybe like that football player you knew, Lisa — or so I thought at the time. He was sitting there watching TV, but I didn’t hear it — all I heard was the clock on the wall. I had — still have — this big clock, and it ticks real loud, I mean loud, tick tock tick tock tick tock goes my clock. That’s all I could hear — that clock — as I sat down next to Nick and looked at him. We didn’t say anything to each other. He didn’t even look at me, just went on drinking his beers and watching the TV as I heard the clock going tickety-tock. I couldn’t stand it anymore, had to do something, say something. So I said, ‘Hey—’
‘Yeah?” he asked.
‘I was thinking—’
‘What?’
‘I was just wondering—’
Silence on his end.
‘Hey, are you listening?’
‘Sure.’
I said, ‘I was thinking, thinking that—’ Wait, I forget where I am.”
“You were telling him you were thinking,” Holly says.
“Yeah,” Amelia says. “Well, I asked him if he knew when was the last time we’d made love. He acted dumb. I said, ‘You know, when’s the last time we fucked?’
‘Watch your mouth,’ he said, ‘you know I don’t like you talking like that.’
I told him how I hated other girls I knew at school talking about all the great sex they were getting — their boyfriends and their suitors and their dates and et cetera. He said, ‘What other girls do you talk to? You don’t have any friends.’ That was dumb — of course I had friends! He asked why didn’t they ever come over to the place.
‘I don’t invite them,’ I said. He asked why. I said, ‘For one thing this place is a mess.’ Nick finished a beer, crunched the can, threw it on the floor, and told me I should clean up the apartment. I told him he should help since he contributed to the mess.”
“A messy pig,” Cara says.
“He said why should he clean house when he worked? I said I worked, too; it was a part-time job at the library and I had school, but all that was work. He told me about busting his ass at the construction site laying cement all day. I said, ‘Yeah, well, that’s all you seem to lay.’ He tried to argue that it was his paycheck that kept us alive which was a lie since I was doing fine before he moved in, even if my parents did help me out with three hundred dollars every month. I told him he could just fuck himself.
‘I should slap you for that,’ he said. I extended my chin and said, ‘Here, do it,’ because at least that would be doing something. I knew he wouldn’t, and he didn’t. He was a chauvinist pig, but he never hit me. ‘Something’s not right,’ I said to him. ‘This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,’ I told him. ‘When I pictured my future self, I didn’t see this!’ He told me to shut up, he said he was watching TV.
I had to get out. I told him I was going to go. That damn clock ticking so loud was too much! He asked where I was going and I said, ‘Somewhere! Anywhere!’ ‘Where?’ he asked. ‘Away,’ I said. ‘When?’ he asked. ‘Now,’ I said. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘That’s all?’ I asked. I thought, Screw this, and started out the door. He yelled at me to bring him back some beer. Yeah, right, I thought.
I got into my car and drove. I stopped off at a 7-11 and went to the payphone and called David. I told myself before that I wouldn’t — and what if his wife was there? But when he answered, he sounded surprised and happy to hear from me. I told him I wanted to see him and he said sure, so we agreed to meet at a bar we used to go to when we were lovers.”
Amelia looks at me and I know that I’m David.
I am, after all, every man.
Chapter 9…
I’m David and I meet Amelia at this bar we used to go to when we were lovers several months ago. We kiss when greeting, kisses on the cheek, more like old friends than lovers. I get a gin and Seven for her, a beer for me. We find a booth to sit in. The bar is fairly crowded, people playing pool, drinking and talking. “It’s good to have a beer now and then,” I say.
She says, “It’s good to get out, go somewhere, make connections.”
“So,” I ask her, “how’ve you been?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia says. “Home. Always home. School. Work. Nowhere.”
“I’d pretty much given up on you.”
“Don’t say that,” she says, looking at her drink.
“I was really surprised you called.”
“I was afraid Elaine would answer.”
“I’m glad you called.” I touch her hand.
“Me, too,” she says timidly.
“I didn’t think you would,” I say.
“Why?”
“I didn’t think you were interested anymore.”
“Hey,” she says, blushing, “I was always interested — even when you didn’t know it. I still am.”
“Oh?”
“When I first saw you, you were wearing those same sexy jeans you are now, and I thought, Yeah! That’s what I thought.”
I look and see that I am wearing torn jeans.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if people were like dogs and cats?” I say. “We’d meet, sniff each other’s crotches, have sex in some indiscriminate dark alley, or right out in the open.”