by Eugenio VOLPE

It’s 2am and I’m creep­ing on my own Face­book pro­file. I click through my var­i­ous al­bums and tagged pho­tographs. I judge my­self. I check my­self out. I like how I look. I like how oth­ers see me. I look fan­tas­tic with a dif­fer­ent woman un­der each arm — the wives of close friends, my cousin Sofia, even my moth­er-in-law. It’s ob­vi­ous that I have a lot to of­fer the world, much more than a pho­to­genic smile and full head of wavy hair (I won’t even men­tion my broad shoul­ders). These pho­tographs has­ten a se­cret urge of mine. I want to im­preg­nate a dif­fer­ent woman on all five con­ti­nents. I am a re­al­ist how­ev­er. I would re­lin­quish Antarc­ti­ca and set­tle on Asia, Eu­rope, and the two Americas.

On Face­book, I ap­pear to live a ter­rif­ic life, hip­ster theme par­ties and trendy art open­ings. More of­ten than not, I’m the best look­ing guy in the frame. I can’t say the same for my wife. She’s al­ways in the top three at least. She’s just a qual­i­ty per­son, the coolest woman I’ve ever met, as ev­i­dent by the pic­tures of me pulling in­to huge tubes at Puer­to Es­con­di­do and La Nord. I’ve surfed some of the best waves that Eu­rope and both Amer­i­c­as have to of­fer. My wife was al­ways right there with me, tak­ing pho­tographs from the beach by day and deny­ing me in­ter­course by night on ac­count of TD and/or jet­lag. Ho­tel mat­tress­es gross her out. We’ve nev­er been to Asia.

Af­ter tal­ly­ing the ra­tio of my be­ing the hand­somest amongst three hun­dred and forty-sev­en tagged pho­tographs, I ar­rive at the fol­low­ing pro­por­tion: I am the best-look­ing in all but three of them. In two of the pho­tographs, I am out­done by the same Calvin Klein mod­el pos­ing as the live sub­ject of some mas­tur­ba­to­ry con­cep­tu­al piece at the Gagosian. In the third pho­to­graph, I am posed next to David Bowie on the cor­ners of Lex­ing­ton and 50^th. Not sure if he’s ac­tu­al­ly bet­ter look­ing than me, but he’s David Bowie, one of the coolest men in the world, proven by his will­ing­ness to stop and take a pic­ture with me, San­to D’A­lessan­dro, a mi­nor video artist. In re­gards to beau­ty, a tie al­ways goes to the gra­cious su­per­star. Re­gard­less, I am more than hap­py with the ra­tio. I live in New York, which is­n’t Los An­ge­les in terms of gor­geous peo­ple, but a far cry from some Mid­west­ern sub­urb. My trag­ic flaw is that I’m bet­ter-look­ing than my art. Is there a worse shortcoming?

I log out off Face­book to avoid over-think­ing the ques­tion. I get up from the couch and shuf­fle to­wards the bed­room. Halfway there, I pause in front of the win­dow to check on my plas­tic shop­ping bag. It’s still there, glow­ing un­der the street­light. It’s been stuck in the same dog­wood branch since Ground­hog Day. To­day is the first of spring. Every morn­ing at ex­act­ly 7am, I shoot the plas­tic bag with my hi-def cam­corder for ten sec­onds. I’ve been do­ing this for a month, rain or shine. When the bag fi­nal­ly dis­ap­pears, I’m go­ing to splice the videos to­geth­er in­to a se­ries of three-sec­ond fades, from bare branch­es to buds, to blos­soms, to leaves, to fo­liage, and then back to bare branch­es. Hope­ful­ly the bag will stay put for that long. It’s a good twen­ty feet off the ground, safe from en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists and young NBA hope­fuls try­ing to test their ver­ti­cal leap. It would be some­thing if I could cap­ture the bag through the sea­sons. It would re­al­ly be some­thing if I cap­tured the ac­tu­al mo­ment it blows free. That would make for some­thing love­li­er than even my face.

In the bed­room, my wife is sit­ting up against the head­board typ­ing on her lap­top. It’s a nov­el about me. In it, I’m av­er­age-look­ing and sin­gle. She’s died and left me with two daugh­ters. We’re try­ing to cope with­out her. I be­gin dat­ing an at­trac­tive gallery own­er and my ca­reer fi­nal­ly blos­soms on­ly now I’m an in­suf­fer­able ass­hole and al­co­holic. I drown while surf­ing Rock­away Beach dur­ing a nor’east­er. Our daugh­ters live hap­pi­ly ever af­ter as a re­sult of my posthu­mous fortune.

My wife’s prose is con­sid­er­ably pret­ti­er than her face, and there­fore might be good enough for pub­li­ca­tion, which would the­o­ret­i­cal­ly make it bet­ter look­ing than my face. She’s the true artist, and I some­what re­sent her for it. I pray that her book nev­er grows a spine. Not sure I could live with myself.

She does­n’t look up from the screen as I slip un­der the blan­kets. I lie fac­ing the wall so the com­put­er glare won’t keep me awake. I reach be­hind my­self and give her a good­night pat on the thigh. She’s too en­grossed for a response.

I have failed her so many times, in so many ways, that she has come to ask on­ly one thing of me. No fart­ing in the bed­room. It’s a shab­by bed­room. Our bed rests on cin­derblocks. Our dress­er draw­ers are miss­ing knobs. There are piles of books in every cor­ner. Some piles taller than her. It’s been like this for ten years. We aren’t mak­ing any kids in here ei­ther. We aren’t even try­ing. It’s been like that for two years.

I don’t know why I can’t grant her the one small pro­pri­ety of not pass­ing gas. She has sac­ri­ficed every­thing to be with me. The on­ly pay­off is my looks. As a part­ner, I’m a fi­nan­cial li­a­bil­i­ty. As a com­pan­ion, I’m too self-in­volved. If noth­ing else, my wife de­serves to breathe clean air. I can’t even grant her that. Per­haps it’s my way of drop­ping hints. She smells it al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. She clos­es her lap­top and punch­es me in the small of the back. I sit up and look around like I haven’t a clue.

“I don’t ask for much! Why do you in­sist on ru­in­ing my life?” She takes a deep breath and pinch­es her nose.

“I’m giv­ing you more ma­te­r­i­al for the novel.”

The com­put­er glare ren­ders her face in a fa­vor­able light de­spite the fact that she’s scowl­ing at me.

“I can’t be­lieve that some­one of your van­i­ty would be so foul. You com­plain that we nev­er have sex yet you come in our bed­room and let one rip. Is that sup­posed to set the mood? Are you try­ing to tell me something?”

“I want to im­preg­nate a dif­fer­ent woman on all five continents.”

She slaps my face in a man­ner that is more mat­ter-of-fact than angry.

“Just leave,” she says, breath­ing out of her mouth.

“Like leave leave or just leave the bedroom?”

“You de­cide! It’s ob­vi­ous that you don’t want to be here. You’re de­pressed about it. I can’t deal with you any­more. Go flirt with your­self on Face­book! Just leave!”

Who am I to say no? Hav­ing al­ready de­nied her so much, I roll out of bed and re­turn to the liv­ing room. I click through my pro­file pho­tos. They no longer look the same. I look su­per­flu­ous, my arm around women I’ll nev­er love. I have no busi­ness look­ing so ridicu­lous­ly pleased with my­self. My wife is right. I am de­pressed. I want to leave. I want to stay. Nei­ther more than the oth­er. Per­haps I ask for too much. Some­body has to die thor­ough­ly dis­ap­point­ed. Most of us in fact. At the end of the day, how else would David Bowie feel so good about him­self? I’ll al­ways lose. I will nev­er have a mort­gage or pen­sion. I will nev­er have col­lat­er­al. I’m not worth a sin­gle cent of al­imo­ny. I’m all debt. My on­ly po­ten­tial is out­side flut­ter­ing from a dog­wood branch.
I get up from the couch to check on it. It’s still there. My bag is go­ing nowhere. The prick­ly buds will hold it in place un­til leaves fill in around it. I’ve thought of ty­ing the bag to the branch, but that would be cheat­ing. It would cheap­en my theme of form tri­umph­ing over the aleato­ry per­ils of Time. Not that my view­ers would ever know, but re­al­ly, what’s the like­li­hood of the plas­tic bag re­main­ing in the dog­wood through­out the var­i­ous nor’east­ers of Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber? Slim to none. If it does tri­umph by ei­ther luck or its own de­ter­mi­na­tion, who will be­lieve that I did­n’t have a hand in it? I’m too hand­some to be­lieve. I look like the kind of guy who would try pass­ing pornog­ra­phy off as chance, as if the bored house­wife just so hap­pened to be get­ting out of the show­er when the plumber knocked.

Just then, my wife calls me in­to the bed­room. “I just fart­ed,” she says. “Come take a whiff. It smells awful.”

How I wish it were true. Noth­ing would please me more. In ten years, she’s nev­er even yawned in front of me with­out cov­er­ing her mouth. She’s too good to break her own rules. It’s a trick. One that I taught her. I of­ten call her in­to the liv­ing room as if there’s some­thing on TV that she can’t miss, a white pup­py nap­ping on a pile of fresh­ly bleached sheets or David Bowie be­ing in­ter­view by Char­lie Rose. She’ll come sprint­ing in but the con­tent nev­er lives up to the hype in my voice. I’ve set a trap. While she’s stand­ing in the room dis­ap­point­ed, I’ll ask her to pass me the re­mote con­trol or car­ry my dirty din­ner plate in­to the kitchen. How can she say no? She’s stand­ing right there.

Now she’s try­ing the plot on me. My guess is that she wants me to crawl un­der the bed and look for her lip balm or per­haps set the alarm clock. The San­to D’A­lessan­dro of her nov­el would­n’t take part in such a con­trivance, but I’m not that guy. I haven’t drowned yet. I’ve got a mil­lion selves and we’re all strong swim­mers. She’s my best shot at land. Sink or swim, she will paint me in the best pos­si­ble light, bet­ter than I look on Face­book. I’ll do what­ev­er it takes. Even tie my­self to the branch so to speak. I storm in­to the bed­room pre­tend­ing to snort up an en­thu­si­as­tic breath of stink.

Filed under Fiction on December 31st, 2018

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