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Suffocation.
The judge’s ruling is the only reason I go along with it, much less pay for it. I don’t have a choice. The divorce wasn’t my idea, although I wasn’t against it. Especially not after Bethany announced she was in love with another woman. That was the first blow, followed by the jarring realization that she’d rather be inthatrelationship than remain a family.
I can’t say her proclamation blindsided me, but I can’t say it hadn’t either. A wife who likes other women may sound like any man’s wet dream, but they haven’t met my ex-wife’s new girlfriend.
Sepsis.
Finally, I pass the accident, and traffic begins to flow. It’s almost disappointing how minor the accident is, considering how much time it has set me back. Anticlimactic, and yet it feels like a decent metaphor for my life. If you’re not careful, your choices will get you stuck.
Choking causes thousands of deaths each year.
If I’m late to therapy I risk losing shared custody, and since I have no idea how I’d explain that to my children, I shift the car into gear and gun it. Bethany despises me enough these days as it is, and I have every suspicion she doesn’t hold back in letting our kids know what a fuck-up their father is. I do what I can not to give her any added ammunition.
A dream that is short-lived when I see the flashing lights behind me.
Suicide by cop?
I take the first exit I come to and drive a little ways, before I find an empty lot. I make a right turn into the parking lot and come to a complete stop. I watch in the rearview mirror as the officer pulls in behind me.
Following a rather impressive strut from his car to mine, the officer shimmies up to my driver’s side window and peers in. His shades teeter precariously on the tip of his nose, although it’s nearly dark. He seems familiar, and then I realize why.
He’s a doppelgänger for Ponch from the TV show CHiPs. He’s as bad a knockoff as I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because trying so hard. It’s too much. I start laughing. It comes in spurts at first, and then I can’t help myself. I can’t breathe.
His stern look and the shake of his head force me to muffle my laughter. He has really nice hair. “I clocked you doing eighty-eight in a sixty-five.”
I’m almost sure it was faster than that, but I won’t argue. I could confess that I’m trying to get to therapy, but with swagger like that, I know it won’t matter. “That’s why I bought this car.”
“Ah. A wise guy,” he says, adjusting his shades. “Just my luck.”
I take it that means I’m not getting off with a warning, and I watch as he removes a Maglite from his hip and shines it inside the vehicle. Finally, he meets me eye to eye. “License and registration, please.”
“I’m a CHL holder,” I say, handing over my license.
His eyes narrow. I can tell this is more than he bargained for as well. “Step out of the car, please.”
He asks me where the firearm is located and when I say it’s on my person; he asks me to remove it and hand it to him. This being the most complicated and least desirable option he could have suggested, I tell him I’m going to unbutton my shirt and let him retrieve it from the holster himself.
His method, while a serendipitous offer, one that could get me out of family therapy indefinitely, would be an easy way to die. Easier than I thought. But death at the hands of a Ponch look-alike seems a tad dramatic, even for me.
He takes the firearm and places it in his cruiser, and then issues me a ticket. Once he’s painstakingly and methodically gone through all the motions in a manner designed to guarantee that I’m as late as possible, he hands my weapon back and gives me permission to be on my way.
“Excuse me,” I call out, leaning out my window just as he’s about reached his cruiser. If he’s going to issue me a ticket, the least he can do is give me some goddamned stickers for the kids.
Chapter Seven
Ali
Austin
Ali’s exhausted after her workshop, but in the best way. It’s that high-level euphoria type of tired she is so familiar with whenever she knocks it out of the park, which she definitely did this evening.
There’s nothing quite like watching a group of women, along with a dozen or so enlightened men, walk away satisfied. And if they weren’t, well, they would be soon.
Foreplay is f*king funis one of her favorite and best attended talks. After all, knowledge is power—and power is sexy. This particular workshop aligns very well with what she teaches of the Kama Sutra.
When the Kama Sutra offers advice on how to be a “desirable woman,” it suggests that before marriage women should learn “all the required forms of art,” ranging from reading about worldly affairs to playing an instrument or knowing how to make a bed. And, of course, a desirable woman should study the sixty-four sexual positions that the Kama Sutra is known for. Despite it sounding terribly old-fashioned, Ali agrees with the idea that a well-rounded person is more attractive. Her personal motto: Doing squats is great, but so is reading.
To celebrate the end of a successful workday, she does what she often does. She lets her hair down. She practices what she preaches. Tonight, she is practicing at The Roosevelt Room.
