No threeway for you.
There's nothing quite like meeting the girl your boyfriend had a threesome with. It's a completely different experience than, say, meeting an ex-girlfriend or, I don't know . . . sister. The Italian had once told me he'd had a threesome with a girl named Izola. Mind you, he works with a girl named Izola. He swore up and down that they weren't the same person. How common a name can Izola possibly be? No, no, it's not her. See that bartender, the one with the tattoos? He would've killed me if I'd gone near her. Threesome Izola and I didn't stay in touch, he said. His friend Texas Matt (who looks shockingly like Pacino in "Scarface") was the 3rd part of the threesome. I like him very much. I wouldn't let him near my daughter but that's beside the point.
So, there we were last night. Like so many nights. Drinking drinks at McAleers on the upper west side. Izola, her boyfriend bartender, Texas Matt, the Italian and myself. When it comes out that the Midget had hit on Izola while, and I quote: "[SHE] WAS FUCKING MATT!" She was screaming like Sam Kinison and I was ready to slit my wrists. Then I realized. This was, indeed, Threesome Izola, the girl the Italian had repeatedly lied to me about. I was pissed that he'd lied. After Izola and boyfriend left, I just looked at him. "You lied to me. You lied to my face. On three separate occasions." He said he did it to protect me . . . it was an awkward situation . . did I want to know he worked with a girl he'd had a threesome with? Of course Texas Matt chimed in as guys are wont to do. The Italian went to the bar to settle up. Texas Matt looks at me: "Look, I know it seems fucked up but he really likes you."
I thought about it. I thought of this girl's not-so-attractive face, her annoying voice, thought of Texas Matt's chicken legs and the Italian's awkward torso and found myself wanting to laugh. Did it, in the grand scheme of things matter? It's not that I care what he did before me and God knows there are plenty of things I'll never tell him. As much as I hate dishonesty this . . this just wasn't worth it. My anger left shortly and I found myself shaking my head and smoking the last of the Italian's cigarettes. It felt like my right at that moment. The Italian felt bad. Apologized profusely. I let it go.
Okay, so the girl in question wasn't really named Izola.. but it wasn't too common a name either.
That being said, before all this happened, we busted out our respective journals and read sweet things we'd written about each other, including the night we met. That was kinda lovely.
posted by Kath at 2:45 PM
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File under: comments too long for here.
i read this at first feeling somewhat bitter, but then remembering that there is enough of that in this world, and in me. instead, and I don't know why, Kath, so don't yell at me or ask for cogent reasoning, I thought of the poet jorie graham.
She came into my head as I was thinking about the end of your post here. i'm sure now that you need to read her, and maybe hate her, but there are things there for you to find. things I have gone back to again and again, and things you should know about.
i picked up her book when we all worked in barnes & noble, back when things where somehow more simple, but profoundly less interesting. i was restocking, or reshelving, or whatever it was called, and i found her book left on a table in the cafe. ‘the dream of the unified field’, collected poems. This was all so long ago.
i had never heard of her before, and it makes me both grateful and sad that i will never know the person who pulled that book off the shelf and left it for me to find.
This is now turning into something that better belongs on my little page in the world, but keep it here if you like.
You wrote what you wrote at the end – about good things existing in the midst of aggravation and uncertainty – and this was what sat down at a table in my head and decided to stay. It’s from a poem I nervously had to read in a staff meeting, but was better than I was nervous. I don’t have line breaks with me, so it’s just this:
“There are moments in our lives, which, threaded, give us heaven.”
All this to say, don’t put up with the bullshit the world and its people are often so good at, but also don’t be afraid to thread together the good you find in them either. I’m shuddering as I type this, but maybe it’s as close as we get. and if so, maybe that’s enough. it has to be.
t
9:10 AM
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