In Which We Prefer Our Gifts Small And Delicate

paintings by gigi scaria

Must

by LINDA EDDINGS

David had a reputation on a dating website. He also had webbed toes on one foot, which I previously believed impossible. He pronounced sinecure incorrectly, and he used it incorrectly in conversation over half the time, which constituted a double whammy.

Charlie had wild hair and was a very fast runner. After we had sex three times he revealed he was a product of incest and things spiralled out of control from there. He wrote and shopped around a book about his life story and how he was saved by semi-pro lacrosse.

Marcus loved M. Night Shyamalan and insisted The Village was a work of genius. He totalled my car.

paintings by gigi scaria

A myna bird will repeat whatever interests it. In the absence of sound, it will cry.

Theo drank Bailey's Irish cream in everything, even Diet Coke. I asked how he could do that and drive. He told me, "Bailey's doesn't have alcohol in it, right? What do you mean?" He died in 2007 during a stampede.

Jason used to blow bubbles on my stomach. At first it was semi-pleasurable and routinely led to oral sex. Eventually he only did it when he was apologizing: e.g., "Please forgive me. Blooooooo" on my navel. He is now married with two children.

I started to wonder if guys only talked down to you because you did it to them in subtle ways. I tried women, found them very similar in almost every way.

Diane remains a musician with a very irritating voice. If you got mad at her she cried, probably because her father was an English alcoholic who wanted nothing to do with her.

Mary-Ann's favorite musical act was Salt-N-Pepa. Each time she brought me to the point of orgasm she whispered, "Shoop." This was fantastic but she ended up clicking more with her Korean dermatologist.

Artis was an engineering lead who spent a lot of time in front of his computer. Sometimes I would feel I was observing a fish in a tank. On occasion he would take a break and meet my eyes, but only for a second.

You know when a plane suddenly loses altitude and then levels out? Nina was like that.

Daniel took me to Disney World. We had a very nice time until he remarked, "The only problem with this place is the none of the pools are deep enough to drown."

Susan Minot acts like such a dick sometimes.

You know when you are really close, yes you are so close. The one thing holding you back from where you're supposed to go hovers at the periphery, it is saying the same words you heard as a child in a classroom: Behave.

Clifford was the most transparently pathetic adulterer in the entire city of San Francisco. He never lied or apologized, which was his only saving grace. Actually he had several other virtues: punctilio, joie de vivre, and a passion for Pinot Giorgio that defied all common sense and fiscal responsibility. He kissed with his eyes open.

Pascal was always coming from new cities, where he would bring small and delicate gifts and go into the bathroom while I opened them. It took me much longer than it should have to realize he was a drug mule.

They pick up on something that is so petty, and so reductive because they can't think of the real reason why it is over, and instead of being disappointed by the lack of perceptiveness at work, I am just as happy not to have my nose rubbed in it.

My fault.

A man (a boy?) who only sips from juiceboxes, who only listens to Buck 65 and J Dilla.

Henry wrote all the pauses into written dialogue. Sometimes when he stopped talking I could see him mouthing the word to himself.

They want you near, in more intimate proximity than they have ever been to themselves. They want to go to the one place you have never been, in order for you to witness the event through their set of inhibitions, hang-ups and callbacks.

The most free I have ever been was one morning in Joseph's studio. He was breathing as he always did, through a sleep machine, and the rhythmic sound of the snore echoed through his only chamber. I knew that no matter what I did or said, he could not wake to answer. This is what I told his sleeping form: "Don't. Just don't."

Linda Eddings is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

Paintings by Gigi Scaria.

"Holding On" - Bootleg Rascal (mp3)

"Asleep in the Machine" - Bootleg Rascal (mp3)

In Which We Checked On His Story And It Was Fake

His Twitch

by LINDA EDDINGS

Q: You came back to Chicago.

A: I don't know how he knew I was in town, but he did.

Q: You were reluctant to go back with him, to his apartment.

A: He told me he wanted to talk. When he said it, I realized that was what I wanted, too. He didn't look like himself, had put on weight. He mentioned it and explained he had given up smoking. I can't explain this, but it felt like someone was watching us.

Q: Did you feel pity?

A: I tried to. He was telling me about his last girlfriend. She had probably had things on the walls, before she left. I said, why did she leave?

Q: There is a myth that smoking reduces the appetite. It isn't true. The act of taking drugs simply mitigates the pleasure we take from food, in contrast. 

A: His mother — when he was a boy — had tied him to a chair when he wouldn't eat.

Q: Did you check on the story? Do you know if it was a lie?

A: That doesn't matter.

Q: I had a boyfriend who was a pathological liar. Eventually I realized when he told a lie he always touched a dimple above his eyebrow. 

A: I think a dimple specifically refers to a cheekbone. Anyplace else, it's a twitch.

Q: In that case, your eye is twitching. But since I always knew when it was a lie, it meant he could no longer effectively lie to me.

A: You told him.

Q: No. Our connection was mostly physical anyway. To make him conscious of his tell would be to make him into an effective liar. Since no woman willingly tolerates that for long, I would have been dooming him to certain unhappiness.

A: So?

Q: We hold the fate of others in our hands. To pretend it is not so...

A: In his apartment, I felt a keening despair. He had nothing on the walls, nothing at all.

Q: That is the mark of someone who is easily distracted from what he should be doing, who could rationalize anything.

A: I know.

Q: Yes, that was good. 

A: He said that it was because she knew he loved me. There was no point in competing with that.

Q: He was probably telling the truth there.

A: Do you know when I lie?

Q: Do you know when I lie?

A: I used to think I did. You have become subtler in the years since we began this. I don't see you as a human. You know what I mean. I see you as a useful, kind, giving abstraction.

Q: You did it there. That kind of blithe summary.  Weak people - your ex, maybe - are addicted to that sort of thing.

A: His father was abusive, also. When he attained some corporate rank at his firm, his father's first question was, "Why aren't you a partner?"

Q: Don't change the subject.

A: This was the subject.

Q: I meant, don't change it again. I do know when you lie, sometimes. At other times, I don't have the slightest idea.

A: You should look for a tell. It was lucky I could see it in his face. Usually the lie is on the body somewhere: the crossing of a legs, cracking of a knuckle, shifting of a tailbone. 

Q: I realized what was happening in the apartment. His girlfriend was watching you. He had to prove something to her?

A: Yes.

Q: Were you angry?

A: No. I felt I deserved it.

Linda Eddings is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn.

Mixed media by Ching Ching Cheng.

"Sprained Ankle" - Julien Baker (mp3)

In Which We Parenthetical This Situation Repeatedly

Anger

by LINDA EDDINGS

I make the dark sea out of my hands. It is a restless, needy dough that presents itself as salve and illness both. Are you expecting someone (me) to get so upset she can barely breathe? I am not that kind of person. I am the sort of individual who packs the snow in my hands before the rain breaks.

I had done a lot of things for you by that point. I never made a list, or even counted them. I knew it was a lot because of the way you thanked me.

Your pet peeve — what you hated — was feeling worthless. A therapist named Dr. Walters had imprinted into your brain an incredibly dangerous word: value. She neglected to mention that the phenomenon went both ways.

When we place value on ourselves, we call that self-esteem. (Some people also call it snitching.) When you placed value on me, you neglected to mention that it was entirely conditional on the converse. But actually, once I recall asking you if you believed in unconditional love. You said, "Like, no matter what?" It was the same as telling someone what a pencil was.

I knew I was an angry person at the age of 12. I saw a girl print out an encyclopedia entry and submit it as a book report and I wanted to put her on a raft and push her out into the ocean. Now I feel a weird compassion for her plight. At least she knew, without the slightest shred of doubt, that she was a fake.

As a teenager we made repeated trips to a lighthouse where an old man lived with his wife. He let us go to the very top. I couldn't help but think we were not seeing very far from there. Certainly not as far as we should have been able to, given the height. Fog stopped us, rolling in off the ocean.

Twenty years have passed since those days, and I do not even think about them anymore. I think of the pope's attitude towards women in the clergy, the mileage on my car and my next meal.

I talked already about what you hated most, You disliked many other things: my mother, my tendency to repeat myself and apologize for doing so. You rolled your eyes when I said "The long arm of the law." Why do I remember that so vividly?

Most people I could pick apart. It's a matter of knowing their weaknesses, as well as your own. I deliberately did not do that to you — not because I thought it was important to be nice, but because I was afraid you would return that attitude in kind. I think it is the real me.

The old man in the lighthouse died of food poisoning. I don't know what happened to his wife.

Linda Eddings is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn.

"Will You Dance?" - The Bird and the Bee (mp3)

"Runaway" - The Bird and the Bee (mp3)