What did you think your summer would be like with your wife Haruka away?
Frankly speaking, I thought I’d be able to screw as many girls as I liked without the hassle of having to sneak about. Without Haruka around, I would be able to mail women without her looking over my shoulder and go out on dates without having to worry about my cellphone ringing.
You wanted, in essence, to pretend that you were single again.
It is the next best thing to being single.
Why not just get divorced?
Looking back, I probably should have. Many friends told me that it would only get harder to break up the longer I waited, and they were right. Trouble is, I didn’t quite have confidence I would be able to land on my feet. Besides, I needed to focus first and foremost on my career.
And you did that by sleeping with as many girls as you liked?
Yes . . . I mean, no. The women were . . . a distraction.
From?
From the loneliness that was gnawing at me.
Loneliness?
I’ve always been a lonely person. Many people think that because I often spend time alone, I’m a loner, but nothing could be further from the truth: I crave to be with people. I don’t necessarily need to be the center of attention, but I do like to be surrounded by people.
Why do you think so?
I think it has something to do with growing up in a large family and being at the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak. I was called the “Baby of the Family” as if I were babied, but the fact of the matter is, the lower you are on that totem pole the less of your parents’ tender loving care you receive.
Oh?
Listen: when the first child trips and falls, the parents scoop the child up into their arms and comfort it. The second child gets a hug and some encouragement. The third, a pat on the head. The fourth is told to walk it off. The fifth gets scolded for making so much goddamn noise.
And the sixth?
He’s told he’ll be given something to really cry about if he doesn’t stop crying right this second.
It must be terrible to be the seventh child.
Oh, the seventh child has it easy: the parents are so tired of raising children by then that he usually gets forgotten or neglected. Neglect would have been like a walk in the park on a sunny afternoon compared to what I had to contend with as a child.
Such as?
Older brothers showing their fraternal affection through the administration of the daily Wedgie, Titty-Twister, Wet Willy, and other indignities. So, as a consequence of the mild neglect of my parents and quotidian physical and emotional abuse by siblings I developed this inclination for melancholy and loneliness.
Has sleeping around ever helped?
Helped what?
Tame that gnawing loneliness.
Gabriel García Márquez wrote that . . .
Gabo again?
He is the Maestro, after all. Gabriel García Márquez wrote that there was no place in life sadder than an empty bed.[1]
Oh? I can think of places that are worse.
A tad hyperbolic, perhaps, but true, nonetheless. My bed today is far from empty—three young boys sleeping between my wife and me, tangled limbs and leaking diapers and I’m constantly rolling over onto Tomica die-cast cars, Legoblocks, and Kamen Riderblasters—and I couldn’t be happier. When my second son woke the other night to find his younger brother sleeping on my chest he cried, “No! No! No! My Daddy! My Daddy!” Now that I think about it, I haven’t felt lonely or sad since I became a father five years ago. Am I tired? Yes. Woozy from sleep deprivation? Yes! But lonely or sad? No, not at all. As for the sleeping around helping, I would have to say, no, it did not help.
I could have told you that, of course, but why do you think it didn’t?
Because what I was really after was not so much the act of making love—I wanted that, yes—but I wanted more: a sense that I was loved, loved for who I was, flaws and all . . . I often joke that what men and women want is usually in conflict: namely, men don’t want their women to change; they want them to remain that adorable little creature they fell in love with. Women, on the other hand, want their men to change, to become better, something worthy of their affection. Trouble is that while women often change, men don’t: they remain the loutish, shiftless drunks that their women could barely stand when they first started dating.
So, how do you think your summer went?
Not quite as planned.
You met up with Xiuying again.
Yes. There’s nothing like hitting a homerun on your first at-bat.
But you struck out.
Funny that.
You had expected otherwise?
I suppose yes, yes, I had.
Let’s see, you dump the girl just when she’s most vulnerable and a year later you think she’ll be eager to jump into the sack with you for nostalgia’s sake?
When you put it like that . . .
So, you strike out.
Let’s say it didn’t do much for old Peadar’s confidence.
And the girls at the Happy Cock weren’t as enamored of you, either.
It was incredibly frustrating: for all intents and purposes, I was “single” again, but I was having a devil of a time just trying to get girls to give me the time of day.
You strike out again. Has it occurred to you that you might have been trying too hard?
Now it does, yes, but at the time I thought I was being charming.
Oh, that fine line between charm and repugnance.
But, then I met Nahoko.
[1]The original quote is “Ninguin lugar en la vida más triste que una cama vacía.” Another good one from El Coronel ne tiene quién le escribais “No hay medicina que cure lo que no cura la felicidad.” (There is no medicine that cures what happiness cannot.)
The first installment/chapter of A Woman's Hand can be found here.
A Woman's Hand and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.