Out of Hand

All right, the omnipresent omni-powerful phone thing is getting out of hand. 

I mean a guy can’t even take a girl out anymore without her trying to wrap his phone in a wad of tin foil. They follow us into the restroom on the first date. Not to make sure we are washing hands but to make sure we do not defile the stalls with the lust which is founded in the Wall Street Journal. 

“I can see your feet!” 

Olivia is screaming at me and I thought it was a private place and the waiter understood. He would fill her cup with iced tonics and maybe some small talk. Since he was young and handsome he doesn’t need the Journal. Young men do not need these things to make themselves feel like a man. As older fellows, we have to follow the market because we are feeling the great waves of emotion, the happy ending. 

She’s banging on the door. Rappa Dappa Dap. 

I’m trying to get my feet way up but obviously, the door is locked on purpose to the stall. I have never heard of a bathroom stall being locked on accident like a car or a house. It might be because it requires a person to be present. I didn’t want to be present. 

There’s a way to climb over to the next stall. I can wait till she dives under the floor, take the fire escape window, run around the restaurant to the front but that means the mean Hostess is going to see. She made us wait for ten minutes in dresses and suits and pretended that we were just commoners instead of royalty. We pay extra to be treated with a certain uptightness. This is the way. 

Bang Bang bang… 

The futures on soybeans are so enticing. I was wanting to scoot a little money over before I ordered a soy burgers with truffled cheese (which is also soy). Henry Ford did not invent the soybean but he smashed it into a paste and blew it out for some of the first food-grade plastic. I love that guy. 

I don’t think it makes me gay. Well, maybe. 

Bang BAng… [tears] “Tommy… Tommy… I thought you could be the one. The man of my dreams. We spent six months talking about this night. I flew from Toronto!” 

Canadian stocks are kinda dumpy which is really attractive when you want no questions asked. I mean the Los Angeles money markets went from some lousy street hustles down in The New Otani to a full-fledged courtesy service. They have ticker tapes and all the acronyms and Hoovers Reports and math geeks are getting sweaty. A man can have a heart attack with so much joy. 

She falls on the porcelain floor before I can even put it in. 

Soy Futures are trading at 31-¼ and I feel like it won’t last forever. I feel like Olivia won’t be so angry if I just buy her a big ring, and carefully deduct the cost as a business expense. I mean we could probably be happy…?

“You’re just like Herb. He was always playing in the bathroom… even brought home an AI from the Hong Kong exchange. It didn’t end well. “

(Shhhh… shhhh… almost there)

(why do I have to double verify my identity. Charles Schwab is a crappy pimp. We need to finish. Must finish… must…)

“Then he says to me… ‘Liv we got to go out west. Because the hills are green for our future.’”

Olivia turns so that her legs are under the door and her mouth is right on the metal. 

“It wasn’t _our_ futures he was talking about Tom. (sniff) A girl knows.” 

God, it’s so hard to concentrate when she’s crying. Do I want to take a double-back split? Set the auto trader to commodity lows or highs? It really depends on if you think people are happy and healthy and will buy buy buy…

Olivia was reestablishing her makeup. Wiping the mascara trails. Leaving the tissue clean-up rag for the maid. She didn’t even wash her hands when she left because the heels stumbled away like she was really done dating. 

I didn’t mean to ignore her because I knew she liked swordfish, Akai tuna rolls, the way the Cordon Bleu chef came over to the table to beg how he could please us. Olivia could have the entire staff at their becking call. She could have taken them all home and showed them an executive kitchen. She could have tipped 200% because soy futures were very lucrative. It’s all about the futures. 

Instead, she did the walk of shame out of Tarpy’s old southern Italian plantation building. She walked right out to the Carmelite stone wall, before the coy pond, surrounded by daffodils, dragon hearts, and sprouting purple magic carpet in bloom. 

And if she had taken a moment to pray, to pause, to consider – she wouldn’t have walked past the second barrier to Highway 68. 

There was a bump in the night but I think the driver was on his phone. 

.

.

I felt really bad about Olivia. I mean...

Anyone can pretend they are doing it for balance, not pleasure. We can say it is the emotional equalization of primo domini -- that Gatsby found his fortune for Daisy.

We can put the market down, pretend that the Wall Street Journal has great articles in the back and that Richard Bauchman shot his horse without pleasure. We can Celebrate Recovery with modern psalms:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else

He will hold to one, and despise the other.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

We all trying to better ourselves.

I bury Olivia's remains and stand next to her mother.

The pastor talks about the excesses of this world while Olivia's uncle has his head bent toward the horizon. An earplug needs the silence.

He's gonna score.