All My Bad Luck

by Peter Gannon Crumlish

There are times when I just want to, aaaargg, go crazy. Things haven't been going well for me lately. To tell the truth things have been going pretty lousy lately. First I can't find a job, and don't really want one, which is half the problem actually. And, well, you don't want to hear it all. But the latest thing is, my girlfriend calls me from California and tells me she wants to start seeing other people. One other person to be exact. A lawyer. Can you believe that? A lawyer in the goddamn Navy. I ask what's he like and she goes, he's tall. Can you beat that.

So my girlfriend wants to date a tall Navy Lawyer.

I can't blame her actually. She says she's lonely. It makes me sad. She works hard and comes home to some lousy roommates and her boyfriend is living on the other side of the country. Of course she's lonely. So she might as well date a tall lawyer in the Navy. If it'll make her happy. I sure as hell ain't. Making her happy, that is. How can I? I'm living at home. I don't have a job....

I'm lonely. I haven't been seeing anyone. Well, not exactly. When she told me that she wanted to date this guy, this lawyer, she said I want to be honest with you, so that made me feel like I had to be honest back and that made me realize that I had been a little unfair to her because I had fooled around a little with this one girl I met and I thought about her a lot instead of my girlfriend, because she was around, and more real than my girlfriend who is real but is so far away I can't do anything about it so I kind of forget about her sometimes and think about this other girl. And then I wondered if maybe this thing about the lawyer was just a set up to get me to tell her what I was up to and if I had any girlfriends on the side. So all of a sudden I start to hedge, when I was going to tell the truth in the first place, and start to tell this lame story about these two girls from the office I used to work at who both kind of fell in love with me, although I didn't say fell in love to my girlfriend, there are just some things you don't say long distance over the phone, I said liked me and were both trying to kiss me at the end of the year party. I tried to make it out like it was a real drag so that she wouldn't get jealous. But the weird thing is it's true, there were two girls who were both into me and both kissed me at the party. Well, one at the party and one later on back at her place, and nothing really serious happened, yet, and still I had to make it into some bullshit story because I felt guilty, while she's the one telling me that she wants to date this lawyer!

What it is is, I wasn't being candid and she was, and she started it all, by calling me long distance and bringing up the subject and telling me what was up, so anything I did after that was just a response to her own candor, so it would look really stupid if in the face of that I had a sudden streak of honesty and decided to tell all. So I made the story out like that. No wonder she wants to date a lawyer.

So that's not the first of my problems, just one of them. Probably the biggest, though this is hard to judge, is not having my own place and having to move back in with my folks. See that! That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's not like I lie or anything, it's how I say things, I always put a slant on it. I guess cause I'm afraid of the way the truth sounds bald. The fact is, the fact is, I didn't just move back in with my folks, the fact is I've been living with them since last year. Spell it out! I've been living at home for the last year and a half. I don't have a place of my own and now I don't have any money so I can't get a place of my own, but it's driving me crazy living with my parents. Once, growing up, is enough, but to do it again...Also it's humiliating. Having to tell people where I live and if you try to avoid telling it only looks worse. I try to say in such a straight forward way that it comes out sounding really philosophical, like maybe there's a reason I'm doing it and it's actually making me a better person.

That's the real reason why nothing really has happened between me and these two women. Nowhere to take them. One of them lives with a roommate, which I hate. There's nothing worse than having to deal with someone's roommate the next morning and being polite while they're obviously checking you out to talk about you the moment you step out the door and you're busy dealing with your regrets and thinking up a way to never have to see the person again.

And the other one, who I am really into, lives with her mom. She's only 22 though, just out of college, so that's legitimate. So that's why we can't get it on. No place. So that's pretty depressing. I mean, I do love my girlfriend, but she's really far away and there's almost no chance we're going to see each other for a real long time, if ever, and I'm kind of resigned to that, and in the mean time I'd like to get it on with someone, if I could. Me and my narrow bed. Jesus!

And the other worst thing in my life, other than my girlfriend calling me up from California to tell me she wants to date a lawyer, a Navy lawyer, and me not having a place of my own and having to live with my parents and not being able to take a girl back anywhere and therefore having practically no sex in my life, and not having a job anymore and no money so I couldn't even get an apartment if one just came along all of a sudden, and no future to speak of and my body falling apart because all I can afford to do is abuse it. Other than all that the very worst thing in my life right now is that it's Christmas.


Copyright © 1995
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