Page 8 of Pierced

“Sorry?” I ask.

“I said,” he says, “that’s your problem.”

“What is?”

“You hold onto everything so tightly. Or you try to. You can’t control everything, man. You know what rock climbing teaches you?”

“Oh, Jesus, please don’t with the whole ‘rock climbing is a teacher of life’ bullshit.”

“Can’t help it. It is. And one of the things it teaches is that you have to be pliant.”

“Pliant?”

“Pliable.”

“OK.”

You can’t actually grip shit too tightly. It’s about communing with the rocks. Finding harmony with them. Realizing that they are more powerful than you and learning to submit. It’s about finding compromise within yourself.”

“Right. And after you do all that shit, you tighten your knuckles around those stones and you hold on for dear life.”

He wanders around behind his desk and sits. He looks tired. Maybe I need to get him to a cardiologist too.

And he’s worried about me.

“Dude,” he says, flopping into his chair, “what can I do to help? When I got to Denver you were obsessing about the whole Sexpert thing, and I thought when that got sorted out you’d mellow a little. Isn’t your dad happy with how things have turned around for the magazine?”

“He’s thrilled.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah. He’s talking to me more, becoming more involved with what I’m doing…”

“Really? Good. That’s good, right?”

“I’ll be honest. I don’t hate it. And it looks like we’re maybe going to turn what was looking like a nosedive around and maybe even beat our total revenue from last year.”

“That’s amazing!”

“Yeah… it is. Hm.” I kind of frown.

He notices. I know he does because he asks, “So, what’s wrong?”

“I just told Myrtle that if we don’t sell two million in ad revenue before December that we’ll all be out of a job.”

“What? Why?” He kind of moans the second word. It’s hard to tell if it’s an actual moan because he has his hands over his face.

“I dunno! I’m trying to, like, engage her or something. Get her to feel excited. Or connected to… something. Me. Or whatever. I don’t fuckin’ know! I run a men’s magazine, not Psychology Today!”

He spins his chair around so that his back is to me. I look outside at the mountains again. Yep. Still there.

He rolls the chair back around. Slowly. “You know another way you could try to engage with her?” he asks.

“How?”

“Engage with her. Like, I’m saying… don’t just say you’re sorry. Show her you’re sorry. I’m saying, like, swallow your fuckin’ pride, man. Prostrate yourself a little bit.”

I have never once, in my entire life, had it suggested to me that I prostrate any part of myself to anyone or anything. I’m not even really sure I know what the word means. “Is that like… bow?”