I’m not interested in small talk
a plea to get real
I’m not interested in small talk. I don’t want to talk about our jobs, or where we grew up, or how many siblings we have. I want to get real. Tender. Raw. I want to know about the dreams you had when you were a kid, whether you believe in love at first sight, what’s wrong with you and why you look like that.
I’m sick of the polite blah blah blah that keeps us trapped in our white picket prisons. I want to crack each other open and let our wild unruly perfectly imperfect souls come roaring out. Tell me about the last time you cried and the songs you dance to alone in your room. I want to talk about God. We both agree he’s an old white guy with a big grey beard sitting on a throne made of clouds, right? Okay great. Tell me how you really feel about the Grinch. Do you think he’s cut or uncut? Does the Grinch have a human penis or a sheathe like a dog. If he has a sheathe, is the penis green like his body or red like Christmas? If it’s red like Christmas, wouldn’t that cause him anguish? Isn’t this so much better than talking about our roommates?
I want to ask the hard questions. Tell me what that is on your neck. What’s that thing on your neck? Is it a skin tag? Could I pinch it and twist it off? Could I try? Let me try. I’ve done it before and I loved how it felt. I kept it in a vial on a keychain. Do you want to see it? Not everyone gets to see it. That’s what you get with the real me.
Let’s talk about art, real art, not just The Real Housewives Of Survivor Island or whatever the hell they’re dumping on Crapflix and HBO Gunk these days. I want to know your favorite poems. Mine’s the Frank O’Hara one about the orangutan who’s drinking all that coffee and smoking all those cigarettes. That kooky crazy orangutan. My second favorite poem is the Rumi one about the field where an orangutan is waiting for me. That one really scares me. I don’t deserve that. I’m a good person. I tithe.
Let’s talk about film. Let’s name films back and forth. Moneyball. Bull Durham. A League Of Their Own. Mr. 3000. Kicking And Screaming. The Squid And The Whale. Margot At The Wedding. Greenberg. Frances Ha. While We’re Young. Marriage Stories. White Noise. Jay Kelly. And of course, say it with me
To
All
The
Boys
I’ve
Loved
Before!
Let’s get vulnerable with each other. Let’s get really vulnerable with each other. Where’s your money. Where do you put your treasure. Draw me a map of your treasure. Tell me where to go to find your rubies. I need rubies to please my cruel and greedy mother. She doesn’t like emeralds. She screams at sapphires. She only wants rubies! She lives in my home. She was evicted because she was sleeping with her landlord’s son and she had nowhere else to go so I had to take her in. I only had one ruby and she took it. She popped it in her cheek and now she has the flavor for it like when a dog tastes human blood and then they crave it, but I can’t put her down, she’s my mother. Her landlord’s son is 45 so it’s not creepy but it wasn’t a good idea even though she said he had a dick like a science museum pendulum and nutted like a flare gun. She says that stuff to anguish me! Okay I got vulnerable with you so now you have to share.
Don’t worry, we can be silly and random too! How often do adults let ourselves be silly? We can do crazy would you rathers, like, would you rather get down on all fours and let me ride you like a camel, or get down on your belly and let me ride you like a serpent? I’d rather ride you like a serpent but it’s your choice. Would you rather be peeled in one long strip like a clementine or a bunch of strips like a carrot? Don’t get freaked out, it’s just a silly would you rather. But seriously, how do you want me to ride you?
We can say crazy sentences nobody’s ever said before or will ever say again. Like, I don’t know, After I’m done riding you down broadway on your belly like a giant snake i’m gonna flip you over and peel you in strips like a gigantic carrot for my stew with a custom person peeler i commissioned from a blacksmith for this purpose, right there in the middle of broadway avenue will my stew begin. In all of human history do you think anyone has ever said anything like that? Not even Genghis Khan!
I’m so sick of dithering around on the surface. I need to drill right down into the core of each other and see what comes oozing out. Let’s share memories we’ve never told anyone about before. Here’s mine: When I was seven or eight my dad and I were walking along the side of the highway. We did this most weekends to look for scraps of blown out tire that he’d stitch together into crude coats of armor for the two of us. We were in a father-daughter after dark anything goes junkyard gladiator league, and our armor was always getting gouged or melted, so we had to keep up a constant supply of scraps. Plus growth spurts. On this particular day the sun was really beating down – it was that heat wave where all those old people were dying in Europe – and I told my dad I was feeling faint and asked if he could take a turn carrying the scrap sack. Now, my dad was a big guy, really big, with big meaty hands and this ruddy orange hair all over his body, and he never said much, and he didn’t say much then. He just scooped me up under the armpits and before I knew what was happening, he was holding me out over the metal shoulder, dangling me over an exit lane. I started kicking my legs and pounding on his hands, going, dad, dad, as this huge yellow Hummer rounds the bend and starts bearing down on me. And I don’t know how I could possibly have seen all this, but in my memory, I’m looking through the windshield and I see the driver, another big guy, cock an eyebrow at my father, and then I turn my head to see my father give a little nod back. And suddenly the Hummer’s not slowing or swerving, it’s accelerating. But just as suddenly, I’m perfectly calm. I’m not scared. I hear a voice in my head, not my own, this flat voice say, You’re going to die. But it’s a relief. I’ve never felt so calm, so relieved. And in that perfect stillness I hear my mouth saying, please, dad, I’ll carry the scrap sack, I’ll never complain, I promise. He pulls me back just as the Hummer whooshes past us, stinging my eyes with grit. I just stood there. I didn’t know who I was. Was I the me who accepted death, or the one who sold myself out to escape it? Which one did my dad want me to be? Well, it didn’t really matter. I had to pick up the sack like I promised. At the end of the day, it was realer than I was.
Okay, now you go!