IN WHICH HE MAKES ME LAUGH

So, the Jude and I were talking last night about the- if any- thread of consistency through the men I date. In the last twelve months, I have knowingly dated (and perhaps occasionally been accidentally engaged to) a Buddhist Sichuan, a Muslim Turk, a smattering of various Chinese men and then (kinda, sorta) an agnostic Catholic/Jewish Frenchman. It should come as precisely no surprise that I am now skirting the/my issue with a Belfast Republican (don’t think “Bush and the right wing”; think “socialist revolutionary”) I will call “Simon.” Simon is here teaching criminal defense at one of the local universities, as he is a criminal defense barrister with over a decades worth of experience in London and a successful lecturing series on international law. In short, he is 180 degrees away from anyone I have dated in the past 12 months. Then again, they’re all 180 degrees away from each other… which kind of distorts the space/time continuum but who’s counting?

However, it occurred to me this morning that what binds them all is that they make me laugh. They make me laugh until it hurts. They all have a capacity for silly that is effusive. And what makes Simon so unique is that he cannot only play my verbal games but he can best me at them. I am well aware that I am an intelligent human being (kinda, sorta) but that doesn’t really help a gal much. Simon and I are intelligent in similar ways (he clearly more so) and our twisted sense of humor aligns quite well; from Monty Python to the obscene.

We first met a week ago when J and I were talking on the phone late at night. J had told me about Simon the moment he got back from Spain and his beloved. He told me all about how he wasn’t sure how to gauge the attractiveness of men but he would venture a guess that I would think Simon was hot and he thought we’d just get along being that he’s “a big, burly, loud, smart Irish dude.” Though I knew about Simon, we hadn’t managed to get together thus far.

“I just got a message from [Simon] about going to the bar tonight. I don’t have any money left on my phone to send him a message. I’m not going tonight but I’ll got tomorrow.”

“I’ll send it” I leapt at the chance. “What’s his number?”

J gave me his number and I promised to call him back the moment we had clarified what was going on.

I sent Simon a message explaining that J had run out of money on his phone but I was a friend and we had been talking when he got the message so I was sending the message on his behalf.

“I don’t know. Sounds highly suspect to me. [Same bar] tomorrow night at 9.” He sent a reply.

Never one to let a chance to flirt pass by, “Honey, I’m a broad from New York. You have no idea how suspect I can be.”

To which I all I received was, “You’re coming too, yes?”

We then had a solid back and forth for a good long while in which we started slipping in Monty Python quotes. The conversation lasted into the evening and we picked up again the next morning. That continued through the afternoon and on through the evening up until 5 minutes before he arrived at the bar where my French boy, his cousin, J, a student of J’s and I were sitting.

The one thing to understand about the French boy, his cousin and me in heels is that we are all well over six feet tall. The Frenchies are the classic lithe, poetic-looking, dark haired French men that they write about in teen romance novels. I’m (the “fat” version of) what Hollywood would have you believe all Americans look like. Taken as a unit, I know we can be quite intimidating. Nevertheless, my boys are my boys and I’m not about to exclude them from the goings-on in my life simply because they’re too good looking for anyone’s good.

“My god, I never thought I’d feel too short in this country but there it is,” was the first thing out of Simon’s mouth. Not that it matters but in flats, Simon is about an inch or two taller than me; in the platform heels I was wearing, he was solidly “shorter.”

And there with him was the paper-perfect man my friends had all been so keen on me dating back in December. It was jarring for me to see the two of them together. Seeing the paper-perfect man with the text-perfect man threw me for a loop. I couldn’t quite figure out what to do with all the randomness surging through me.

Frankly, I don’t know what I was expecting when I saw Simon but I think that discovering that he was a flesh and blood man just threw me for a loop, not unlike what my mother says about giving birth; you spend this time talking with a person and once you give birth, the baby they hand you is cute but it’s not really the person you were talking to. Granted, nothing would fit the bill you were expecting because you were expecting an abstract but nevertheless, there we were.

We switched to a larger table having realized the table we were originally at would be too small. The paper-perfect man took the seat across from me, I took an end seat. To my right sat the French boy and then his cousin. To the paper-perfect man’s left sat Simon and to Simon’s left sat J.

Simon then tried to make small talk, clearly put off by the French boys and nervous about me. Very quickly, my French boy got up to get me another beer and Simon clearly tried to sort out what the story between the two of us is.

He then asked me some question, his soothing baritone drowned out by the falsetto wailing of the on-stage group.

“What?!” I yelled towards him, making him reel back at the piercing sound of my voice. A moment later, he came back at me, mocking my American, nasal accent.

“What?!” he screamed back.

We volleyed back and forth like this for a moment until it was clear he could take no more of the nasal wailings, and could merely blinked from the sheer agony of the noise.

“Are you saying my accent is abrasive?” I accused as he shrugged in possible consent. “Fine. I’ll just sit here and look pretty.” I said, goading him to get out what he was clearly thinking of me.

He took the bait and made a comment to the paper-perfect man who laughed in agreement. Better to lance the prejudice boil than to let it fester and grow.

Though I have no idea what he actually said, I fully understood the sentiment and kept my mouth shut, merely raising my eyebrow at his comment.

Which set him off back peddling.

“So, what are you doing in Xi’An?” He asked nervously, rapid-fire. I shrugged dismissively. “I remember somewhere in the back of my very small brain you said something about your students. My deductive reasoning would lead me to believe that you are a teacher of some sort.” I nodded briefly. “Do you teach university students?” I shook my head. “So you teach younger students?” I nodded indifferently. “Do you like doing that?” I shrugged indifferently. “What do you like to do in Xi’An?” I pushed my hands up in a “whatever” gesture. “How long have you been here?” I waddled my head back and forth suggesting I’ve been here long enough. “You know, I never actually asked for you to stop talking.” I shrugged ambivalently, with the slightest air that he might have. “Really, you can start talking again at any time. I never said your accent was abrasive…” he trailed off for a moment, “I merely didn’t disagree when you said it.”

I looked at him directly and nodded, which stopped his rapid-fire questioning very quickly. “I’ve been here about a year and a half.”

And that began a discussion about “liking” Xi’An versus surviving it. Simon fully believes I must sum-total “like” Xi’An if I would stay here so long. I tried to explain it’s far more complicated than that.

He then got up to get us some shots of iced tea and whiskey. He came back with a pitcher and some shot glasses. Quickly everyone but the two of us stopped drinking shots. We, however, kept on in between verbal sparring sessions.

He told me about how his first assignment was an analysis of a track off Radiohead’s “Amnesiac.”

“It’s off Amnesiac,” he explained.

“Really? It’s not off Pablo Honey? Or Kid A?” I teased.

Sheepishly, he spoke, “I didn’t know how much you knew.”

“No, I appreciate that but I love Radiohead.”

He smiled, “Really. Well, which track is it?”

I paused for a minute trying to count how many in on my iPod it is but couldn’t think of it. “I…. have no idea.”

Smiling triumphantly, he toasted another shot.

Then he challenged me to a drinking contest and before I knew it, we were through two pitchers of booze.

Not much later, the French boy and his cousin informed me they were going to leave.

As I was hammered and I will not be swayed when drunk from the decisions I made when sober, I went home with the Frenchies. I had promised myself that no matter how drunk I got or appealing it was to go home with Simon, I was going to go home with the Frenchies. I’m old enough to know that I trust no one like I trust myself to make decisions for me but I have to be sober. So, I make sweeping decisions while sober and stick to them while drunk. No matter how horribly torturous the decision seems while drunk, I know that there were very good reasons I made those decisions while sober and I just stick to it. Such thinking has spared me a vast and varied array of STD’s, pregnancies, broken friendships and broken hearts. It is the magic behind my ability to drunkenly dodge bullets.

I kissed Simon’s cheek and hugged him goodbye, his hands lingered on my hips holding me in place against him as his siren song whispered into my ear, “You sure you want to do that? We’re going to go play pool.” And suddenly I was Odysseus lashed to the mast of his ship screaming to be released and allowed to crash upon the rocks. But like Odysseus, I was tied fast by the sober me and despite my desperate cries of protest, my ship sailed on.

I released my grip on him completely and he let me go totally. I nodded and wistfully said, “Goodnight.”

And, frankly, it’s a good thing I did because the moment I was outside, I hit a drunk-wall and needed my boys to get me home. Apparently, I made quite the (entertaining?) fool of myself but I have no recollection of that, senator. I thank god that if I did or said anything that was truly mortifying or upsetting, my boys have been discrete enough not to mention it. Later I apologized profusely for my inexcusable behavior (despite the fact that they somehow got me home utterly unscathed) but they insist that I was merely highly entertaining.

We then continued our increasingly inappropriate texts to each other until we were to meet again on Friday.

Friday, Simon entered the bar and immediately took the seat next to me. He briefly told me about his shit week and then stopped himself. “I’m sorry, how are you?” he said apologetically.

“Alright. I had a shit week. I hit a new personal low. I wanted to punch a 6 year old today.”

To which he laughed briefly and then said, “I’m really sorry but I can’t sit here. I just can’t do it.” As he got up and switched to the seat across from me, he apologized again. “I’m sorry. I just can’t. Besides, from here I can look at you and not this ugly bastard.” He said, trying to lighten the mood as he joked with the paper-perfect man.

Simon took a deep breath and called over for beers immediately and it sunk in that he, while friendly and not defensive, he was clearly edgy.

My mind instantly settled on the fact that he grew up in a war-torn country, is a criminal defense attorney who lived in enemy’s territory for more than a decade and the seat next to me was the most vulnerable (in terms of seeing who’s coming and going around us) at the whole table. He switched the seat for the one directly across from me as it was the least vulnerable. However, our first meeting, he had been fine with his relatively vulnerable seat. Clearly he was spooked about something. Considering who he is and now that he’s teaching in China, I can only imagine how spooked he must be.

Not long after he switched seats, he mentioned he’s got a meeting Monday with Party members, which is what I settled on as being the thing that spooked him. Distracted for most of the evening, he flitted back and forth, never really talking to me. We had brief conversations but nothing like the verbal sparring we had had earlier or even had over cell phones.

A large group of German tourists showed up with a new, German Xi’An arrival who has made friends with Simon. They wanted to sit with our group so we had to switch to a larger table. Simon was immediately antsy about finding the right spot to sit in. He parked himself on the far side of a pillar, and clearly wasn’t happy about that.

“Your seat’s over there.” I pointed to the safest seat at the table.

He looked over the table and then looked at me smiling, “You’re right.” He reached down for the beer at the seat he was going to sit at.

“Don’t” I stopped him from taking a swig. “That’s [J]’s.”

“Are you playing musical beer bottles? How the fuck do you know?” He asked.

“That’s your seat there, so that’s where I switched your bottle to.”

He smiled at me at took the beer as I passed it down to him. “Thanks.”

I nodded and smiled.

My favorite Francophile couple then showed up and he (a Parisian) started getting on well with Simon. His wife (a Canadian) then started trying to pick fights with everyone at the table, most of all Simon. Simon handled it all with great aplomb and I was thoroughly impressed. However, I was definitely disappointed I wasn’t getting the face time I had been looking for. In fact, he seemed to be actively avoiding me.

At one point Simon got a round of beers and I happened to drink one extra fast. I then asked him, “Can I have another one?” pointing to a full beer near him.

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling like too much of a leech.

“Why did you just waste two questions when you know you can just take anything of mine?”

Which is one of those sentences that hits a girl like a fist. Somehow I fumbled through a recovery, which led to a back and forth that ended with me saying, “Well, then I guess we can’t hang out anymore. Oh well.”

And all his aloofness and stand-off-ish-ness evaporated as he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Considering what’s going on between us, I think we’re actually going to be hanging out a lot… for quite a while. I think.”

Again, another fist-sentence but this time all I could do was relent and smile. “That’s true.”

As the cloud of exhaustion descended upon me, lots of the extraneous people seemed to evaporate into the nothingness and we were left with paper-perfect, Simon, J, Paris, Canada and a few local bar fixtures.

Simon had seen fit to spend most of the evening at the exact opposite end of the large table from me for reasons my tired, alcohol heavy brain was unable to discern. (Granted, later it dawned on me that if he was spooked then I either distract him to a level he feels unsafe at or he was trying to protect me as he spoke at length and depth with everyone at the table but me.) Nevertheless, for reasons unknown, I have 100% faith in his word over one night’s actions so I decided to scuttle my irritation and just enjoy the moment with my friends.

Sandwiched between paper-perfect and Canada, we started talking about everything from the body-grooming habits of various countries to Eric Satie.

Canada was busy baiting Simon into an argument to prove her superior knowledge of music. Simon, like a good boy, remained evasive and refused to fight her.

“Do you like Debussy or Satie?” She flat out demanded at one point.

“Debussy” Simon answered, flashing a Mona Lisa smile.

“Good boy” I thought as I watched the two of them go at it. “Don’t get sucked in.”

“Do you even KNOW Satie?” She started in aggressively.

The Mona Lisa smile went up again and I knew exactly what was coming. So, I tried to sort through a way to steer the conversation away from the oncoming lecture about the finer points of music. “Of course I say I prefer Debussy because I know Debussy.”

Which, of course, launched her into a self-righteous lecture of the finer points of the difference between Debussy and Satie. When she got to the part where she explained his 4-phrase structure, I interrupted.

“Satie is the gateway drug to Minimalism.”

Which lit Simon up. “Does anyone have a pen? That is fucking brilliant.”

Too tired to suss out if he was mocking me or not, I sat upright. “But it’s true!” I insisted.

“I know” he smiled earnestly, “that’s why it’s fucking brilliant. I want to write it down.”

I laughed, took another sip of my drink, spoke with some local fixtures and when I turned back both Paper-perfect and Simon had vanished.

Paris was amused and outraged. “He’s great! You always got to have that aloof motherfucker in your group. I’m sorry, ‘aloof wanker’!”

Irony of ironies, I find him one of the most straightforward, purest, least aloof men I’ve ever met. He doesn’t need to be sorted or decoded. He’s just to be enjoyed.

And goddamn does he make me laugh.