Neanderthal Seeks Human(11)

I spoke only briefly to Jon since the break up and I still needed to evaluate what I actually felt during our conversation. He was mad at me; in fact, he was outraged and he’d yelled at me for the first few minutes of our conversation. He said he’d found out about my job loss from his dad, a man I couldn’t ever bring myself to call by his first name, and wanted to know why I didn’t asked him for help.

I couldn’t believe my ears; it took me a few seconds to respond, “Jon, is that an actual question? And how did Mr. Holesome- I mean, how did your dad know?”

“Yes. It is an actual question. You need me, you are my girlfriend-”

“No-” I shook my head as if convincing myself.

“Nothing is decided. I want to take care of you. I still love you. We belong together.” He sounded resolute and a little sullen.

“You cheated on me. We are not together. ” I was starting to become aggravated, which was the closest I came to anger.

I heard him sigh on the other end, his tone softening, “Janie, don’t you know that changes nothing for me? It was one time. It meant nothing. I was drunk.”

“You were sober enough to put the condom wrapper back in your pocket.”

He half growled, half laughed, “I still want to take care of you, let me take care of you.”

“That’s not your role-”

“Can we be friends?” he cut me off, his voice somewhat gentler.

“Yes.” I meant it. I didn’t want to lose him as a friend, “Yes. We should be friends.”

“Will you let me take care of you?” His voice was pleading, “Will you let me help you?”

I thought about what he was asking; I knew he meant financial support. “You can help me by being a good friend.”

“What if I can’t be just friends?” I could sense his renewed annoyance with me as he spoke, “I can’t think about anything but you.”

It was my turn to sigh; I couldn’t think of anything to say. Well, more accurately, I couldn’t think of anything to say related to our topic of conversation but I could think of plenty of things to say about the climate of New Guinea or the prehistoric ancestors of the African secretary bird.

After a moment of silence he cleared his throat, his voice sounded firm, “Nothing is decided.” he said again, “When can I see you?”

We arranged a time to meet on Saturday morning, at a neutral spot, then said our goodbyes, during which he told me he loved me again. I didn’t respond.

I reflected on all that had happened. I didn’t feel an acute need to grieve the loss of him or the five years of our life together. In order to be confident in my feelings I made sure the invisible closet door in my head was open, the light was on, the box was unlocked- but detachment remained.

I knew that my preoccupation with the trivial was a direct result of my mother’s death as well as, what my therapist called, an already natural propensity to observe life rather than live it. He called it self-preservation.

My parental grandmother, ever a fangirl of pharmaceutical products, insisted that I needed therapy when my mother died. And, so, I started therapy at the ripe age of thirteen. I thought therapy meant I would be sitting on a couch as a man showed me inkblots shaped suspiciously like blobs of ink and told me I was angry with my mother for her affairs, for running off with her latest lover, for getting herself killed in a motorcycle accident, for leaving me with my somewhat dimwitted- albeit well meaning- father and my two criminal prone siblings, and for cooking veggie tacos on the Tuesdays of my childhood instead of the hot dogs and potato chips I craved.

The therapist did all those things even though I hadn’t felt particularly angry; I just felt sad, enormously sad. It was why, the therapist said, my brain always took a hard U-turn when I was faced with difficult or uncomfortable emotional situations. Nevertheless, during that year, I also reluctantly learned strategies that worked; I learned that overwrought with emotional distress, small things could be a trigger, like finding a bathroom stall bereft of toilet paper. The mundane became as insurmountable as moving Mt. Fuji.

However, I felt certain that I was doing my utmost to spend some time marinating in the end of my relationship. The most emotion I could conjure over its end was a wistful melancholy over the possibility of losing Jon as a friend. Admittedly, I also felt a twinge of regret when I realized I’d already bought him a birthday present.

Maybe that made me shallow.

Elizabeth thought I was in shock.

Whatever the truth was, I reasoned, once enough time passed, the truth will out. I liked to think of myself as Launcelot Gobbo from Shakespeare's the Merchant of Venice; even a foolish man will produce some wisdom, given enough time to drone on and on in unchecked soliloquy. Since most of my time was spent in unchecked soliloquy, I held out hope for some wisdom.