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Third-Life Crisis

Jack Bristow

    “Come on, man—you’re always staying home. How the hell you expect to ever meet a girl, anyhow?” This was Darren talking—Don Plato’s roommate. Don had come home from the war a different man, but in what way exactly it had been difficult to explain—especially to his sex-crazed roommate. To a good shrink, maybe. But if Don were to ever tell Darren the grisly truth, he knew he would never think of him in the same way ever again.
    “Donnie,” Darren jabbed his friend in the ribs jokingly, but his hazel eyes were beyond threatening. “You’re going with me to that fucking club tonight—and that’s final.”

*

    Young crowd, Donnie had thought miserably inside Club Zionsville. And it was not just his secret that was causing this depression, though it had had a lot to do with it. No—here the man was, twenty-five years old, at a critical turning point in his life. For the first time in his life, he had felt old. Like his best years were far behind him... How many hours had he squandered away at home, drinking beer, fucking around with his guitar and Darren? And then one day his fiancee, Denise, had broke it off with him and then there was a commercial on TV showing men and women jumping out of planes and overcoming all sorts of obstacles. In spite of the cheesy heavy metal music, the little voice inside his head had told him: This is right, and a few weeks later he was deployed to Iraq, and the rest was history.
    “I’m going to go mingle, you anti-social cocksucker.” And then Darren was up, walking toward a gaggle of girls at the table area. Don sat slumped at the bar stool, glaring forlornly into the salt-rimmed margarita glass. He was about to make a toast to somebody, but didn’t know who—then, it had occurred to him. “Here is a toast to me, Don Plato. Dipshit-of-the-year. No, the century.” He perked up as he continued with the self-hatred. Before he could think up more depressing thoughts a small, warm hand had touched him.
    “Is this seat taken?” The voice was female, and Southern. Painfully cute, almost, to Don Plato. “No, be my guest.” He tried with all his might to smile, to look normal, like he wasn’t hiding anything. Fortunately, it had worked, because the little cutie was smiling back at him. She had brown eyes and blonde here. A petite frame with small-but-delicious-looking tits. Christ, Don had thought philosophically. If women could read our minds, then we’d really be fucked.How do you engage in conversation with a beautiful woman? It had been so dreadfully long, that Don had nearly forgotten. But then, like a bolt of lightning, the right thing to say had hit him. Forcefully.
    “That’s a cute accent you have there—I take it you aren’t from around these parts. Where, if you don’t mind my asking, do you hail from?” Darren sipped the margarita, which was almost empty, the girl blushed as she replied, “Louisiana.” There was an uncomfortable silence before Darren had called out to the waitress. “Miss—I’ll have another melon-flavored margarita. And, my friend here...” he trailed off so she’d give her name. “Rebecca,” she answered. “And yes, I’ll have what the gentleman is having. That looks good.”
    After the initial, bullshit formalities they had discussed work—first, Rebecca had asked Don what he had done for a living, after he had tersely replied “computer work,” he asked her about her vocation, by saying, “Let me guess. You’re very well-read, very articulate—too articulate to be in a place like this—I would guess you were either a writer or getting your criminal justice degree to become a lawyer.”
    The woman had a bewildered expression on her face, and then she said, “How did you know—I’m taking criminal justice at night, working at Ralph’s as a cashier by day. And what you just said about me seeming ‘too smart’ and sophisticated to be hopping in a place like this, I thought the same about you... Anyway, in answer to your question, things have been hectic for me—at work, and school—and I didn’t really want to go here, but my roommate, Darlene, had talked me into it.”
    Holy shit. Don had felt a wave of exhilaration, more alive than he had felt since returning home. After he had explained to her how those were the very same conditions under which he had been suckered into coming in—a pushy roommate and hectic workweek—she had grabbed his hands as though she were a fortuneteller, then she said, “Well, by the looks of it both of our friends have abandoned us. Let us do the same.”

*

    On the cab ride back to his apartment with Rebecca sitting next to him the man’s mind had raced frantically. How, he wondered, can I explain this to her? About the torture—torture he had suffered under the overzealous hands and sadistic gadgets of Iraqi extremists, the men responsible for Don’s shameful little secret, the thing he had been too ashamed to admit even to his friend-since-childhood Darren. He looked into Rebecca’s bright-brown eyes and knew, somehow, that it would all turn out all right.
    He would still be able to pleasure the woman tonight—with his tongue and fingertips.
    As the cab reached the seedy-looking apartment building the eunuch had tipped the cabdriver generously and then, walking out of the car with Rebecca’s warm hand in his had thought, somewhat philosophically, What constitutes a man, really?

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