12
The Most Blissful Existence, Then, Is:
I am 40 and married to a woman named Miriam. She is Jewish and a stay-at-home mother to our three boys. All of the boys play piano and they especially excel at soccer. Miriam and I both graduated from the Journalism school at Columbia and I am working as a columnist for the Times. But we don’t live in the City. We live in West Nyack.
(This is exactly what I expected.)
(Let me put in the next film.)
I am 40 and married to a woman named Miriam. She is Jewish and I am positive she does sex-work while I am not home. Kessler-style, except that she can’t speak French. I catch her in the act – she plays the dominatrix, wailing and pissing on her male clients. In my bed. In my bedroom. But it doesn’t matter much to me. Because I am closeted-gay and have been cheating on her with men for just over fifteen years. And not just any men: men that like to fuck and fuck off. Men from the Internet-anonymous sites or other married men from my office building. We live in Leonia.
(If I were Faust and you the Devil, Faust would have won this time.)
(More films to go.)
I am 40 and married to a pre-operative transsexual named Miriam. S/he is Jewish and for obvious reasons cannot bear children. I indulge myself in endless amounts of perverted sex acts, rendering it virtually impossible for me to make a living. We live in Vermont.
(A chariot ride across the cosmos?)
(No. Stay for another film.)
I am 40 and not married. I’m still living as a bachelor with a group of 20-somethings in a dreadfully filthy apartment. I split my bedroom with two other unemployed men. I am also looking for employment. I avoid facing my displacement from society with dangerous alcoholism, heroin only when I run into it, and use of the prostitutes loitering behind my apartment building. I live in Bed Stuy.
(Or Helen of Troy to the stage?)
(No. And here is the film with your real future.)
I am 40. I am completely alone. I can’t tell where I live.
A 22-year-old-drop-out of graduate studies in pursuit of self expression.
