Let Me Not Be Mad by A. K. Benjamin

Let Me Not Be Mad by A. K. Benjamin

Author:A. K. Benjamin [Benjamin, A. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-06-11T00:00:00+00:00


* * *

I had a ten-minute walk from Marble Arch. It was a second date, the first having gone unusually well. On such occasions I always invited them to the Greek off Edgware Road. It had a seductive mix of casual grande bouffe: Each of the ten dishes on the menu was carelessly brilliant; a scruffy interior—you might find a sock or a toothbrush under your chair—a whopping vinyl soul collection, bits of Star Wars figures, rolling papers, disused circuit boards, like you’d walked into a student’s digs; and he was an aging DJ-stoner genius chef, when he wasn’t gaming, mouth ajar, in full view of his customers. This Greek knew me from previous dates, helped me where he could with gratuities, cheek-pinching, double kisses, the feeling of singling me out from the rest, a fellow exotic, a Mediterranean brother, etc. In truth the Greek was a Cypriot raised in the London suburbs. In truth there had been far too many awkward, depressing nights spent here in the years since I moved out of Helen’s home. I called them dates, but it was obvious to anyone that I was really conducting interviews for a kidnap, screening for possible detainees to jump-start a new family with me at its center to stop me feeling the full weight of losing my own. Obvious to everyone but me. But this date was different; it felt moderately interesting. That’s a lie: I was excited. She was from Chicago, sharp but not just sharp, soulful also, a Boo-dhist, the two seemingly syncopated. There was something attractively dark about her timing. On the first date she had compared looking for a guy at her age (at “our age,” give or take a few years) to looking for a parking space at Whole Foods on a Sunday: “Only the disabled spots weren’t already taken.” She had me.

I called “L” en route, an autumn evening in 2016. He was the person I was closest to at work. I was grateful for the chance to hear myself describe her to him, burn off a little of the excitement that might otherwise capsize me one way or another.

I still regret not letting him speak first. After a characteristic pause he said: “You’re on fire. What’s it going to be: water or petrol?”

Finally, a full five minutes into the conversation, I asked him how he was. It had been several weeks since we’d last spoken, on a late summer cycle in the Surrey Hills in the days before my Stalinist Cycle Program, when I could still ride for the sheer, creaturely pleasure of it.

And then he told me.

The date was a disaster. She offered to rearrange, but I never saw her again.



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