The Remote Island by Bryan Christian The burning question of the day: Life on Mars or Eleventh Hour? Plus: Britney goes on the record, USA may not renew Monk, and our Grey's Anatomy recap.
"Have you ever dreamt of falling from a mountain straight into a deep hole? Well, I'm about to experience that, and not in a dream. But I'm not afraid, and I don't want you to worry either. Actually, I am afraid, but I sort of enjoy it too. No, enjoy isn't the right word — I'm sort of enthusiastic about it, you understand?"— Dmitry Karamazov
In the summer I started dating someone so rich, he has his own jet. And six cars, a motorcycle, two ATVs, and a speedboat. I grew up on welfare and considered myself a revolutionary, of the people. I wondered if he was slumming it with (in?) me. If so, I was castling it with him. His last girlfriend was a model in London. I hate her.
You know the best thing about dating someone rich? He changes for dinner. That's pretty respectful. It says, "It's an occasion, to be out and about with you, even if we are just going to the sushi place around the block." I never thought of it before. I would just wear what I had on that day, from when I went to the beach or whatever. I suppose I did consider it a little: I knew Nazis changed for dinner. So I had a prejudice against the practice. But does not changing for dinner make one not a Nazi? It's silly and reactionary to live by double negatives.
promotion
I dress for dinner now, too.
We met on Match.com. My shrink said I was ready to graduate, with one caveat: I had to try to date someone normal. That's why I was there. I imagine he was there because he's used to ordering things online.
I was intrigued by his profile's talk of name brands, vacation destinations, martinis, technology and velocity (in an ownerly way). He doesn't say car; he says "Audi TT." He doesn't say "not far;" he says "1.6 miles." Should he ever witness a crime, the detective would lick his lips at the specificity. I would drift into speculation about the criminal's circumstances and mindset until the guy yelled at me to get the hell out of his precinct.
He was attracted to my profile for the same reason I was to his: "You looked like freedom to me. In real life, too. Always busy with what you're thinking. You look like you don't belong, wherever you are. You're the only person
In bed, we discovered how similar our backgrounds were.
I've ever met who doesn't have an angle, who doesn't need anything." He, of course, always looks like he belongs. Everyone in the room turns to look at him — his light eyes, dark hair, good hands; the length of him, the cut of his suit, his graciousness — and something comes over them, something like greed, something like welcoming.
We each left home at sixteen, but he headed straight up, while I wanted to see how far I could burrow into the underground. I'd never even met anyone materialistic before — at least not up close — someone who had chosen not to deal in ideas, which are gelatinous and poofy, but in facts, surfaces. I didn't know you could live outside of ideas. He gets his hair cut every fourteen days. Me, I'm like Edward Gorey, who refused to mow his lawn because he couldn't bear to interfere with what the grass and rocks and wildflowers wanted to be.
His cold, dry speech sounded like code to me, and I wanted to crack it. Our first date was at the shooting range. He paused in his activity of removing from a suitcase and gym bag his glock, rifle, pistols, ammo, to take a call to "discuss the significance of operational adjustments on the Net Back to TIP/DBZ." My stomach about melted down my legs into my shoes at that. I imagined how his accuracy would manifest in more intimate settings.
The first time I saw his place (which was decorated all in black, white, gray, and brown), I thought, "A murderer lives here!" There were no photos, mementos, or quote plaques on the walls. No pen, cup, or any other item that people use in life left on a horizontal surface. If I were to dust for fingerprints, I bet there'd be none. No past, no future. I felt like I was floating in space.
He spent two or three thousand dollars on a date to get it right.
In bed, we discovered how similar were our backgrounds: a dead mom, a dad to whom we don't speak, and a suicide we believe to have been murder. "Do you ever think about contacting your father," he asked, "to give him a chance to show you if he's changed?" I said, "Nah. He's a sociopath. Those people don't change." He plucked from his bedside table a book on sociopaths and read aloud some interesting statistics. He doesn't read, doesn't own books (just manuals), so I was surprised that he could reach over and select one appropriate to the current vein of conversation.
"What are you doing with a book on sociopaths?" I asked.
"I thought maybe I was one," he said.
"Sociopaths don't wonder if they're sociopaths — they know. And they don't care."
"I'm a little concerned that I don't have the emotional responses I should to events. Or it comes later, completely out of context."
"Maybe you're dissociative," I suggested.
"I thought about that. Everyone's dissociative."
It's true. Everyone is dissociative.
We started to fool around and stopped, started and stopped. We were sweating, pushing against each other. He tore my nightgown. It was as if we were trying to dig through all this difference between us, down to the spot inside where our mutual history lay, like a miraculous wound that never stops weeping. Things feel like this in the dark.
He filled his (and, soon, our) life with jokes, action-adventure, extravagance, dressing up, front row seats. He threw money. He laughed. I thought he was brave, the way he ignored anything horrible. The one time he acknowledged a problem was when he told me his escape plan, which involved off-shore accounts, unsecured credit and putting everything in my name. This did not look dishonest to me so much as a positive reaction to everything closing in on him. He'd spend two or three thousand dollars on a date to get it just right. We'd go one place for the best dessert, another for the best coffee. Sometimes we'd fly there.
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
