The Worship of Mammon (4)

The story thus far:

Despondent over the collapse of yet another romantic liaison, our writer has decided to sever his ties to his old patron Eros. Much to the consternation of his new girlfriend Ginny-- the anthropomorphic embodiment of his own misogyny-- our writer will instead give his soul to Mammon, the god of lucre.

Both our writer and Ginny are shocked when the corpulent, shark-toothed Mammon rejects his gift of self over a meal of quarter pounders...

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From the Writer's Scrapbook--

It's always like this. You settle into a routine and you desperately sell the lie that you're happy. After all, there is a social stigma to people who "can't move on." It's as if you're wearing a T-shirt that says "HIV +": people can't shun you fast enough for the most irrational reasons.

You're desperate to buy this bullsh!t, of course, but you can't.

For the most part, it works just enough for you to function. You go to work, you wow your students and bore yourself to tears. Each day passes and each day takes you farther and farther away from her. From who you both used to be.

From a distance you notice the little things-- changes in her routine, the marks of someone "moving on." And you wonder, with a sick twisting in your gut, if someone else is kissing her by now.

Home.

Somehow you make it home after keeping to the shadows on the nights you see her with your old peers, walking down that moonlit street. You can't be seen lest she think you're following her. You can't attempt to reconnect-- her friends form a defensive phalanx that would make the Spartans proud. And to her-- and by extension, them-- you look like Frank Miller's take on the million-man Persian army anyway.


You answer the text message from your grandkid, dutifully going online, just like the tech-savvy doting grandpa-figure you are. You've long since determined that you can never be anything else to the women you care about but analogues of male relatives they wish they had. It's convenient, but you're terribly aware of the irony.

She's not your girlfriend and you don't want to think of her that way; but you're showing her the affection you want so desperately want your ex to reciprocate. You're well-defended against unwanted transference, at the least. But it hurts so badly when you think about just how close Tina is when you're accompanying your grandkid to their common place of work.

The Universe mocks when your writer's brain picks out relationships-- situational, alliterative (in the case of names), allegorical, what have you-- among the disparate elements that make up your current private hell.

Is it any wonder that I finally gave in when Ginny -- irreverent as ever-- got down on one knee, took my hand and asked me if I'd gotten her point? There would be absolutely no one who would want or need me as much as she did.

She's worn so many faces in her quest to add me to her stable of angry men. Socorro's. Mylene's. She likely pulls them from my memories and dreams. The masks are so real sometimes: when I touch her just so and I close my eyes, I sometimes believe she's really Tina.

And that's when the truth of it sinks the hardest-- I'm doing exactly what I was trying to avoid. Living a goddamned lie, loving this image of Tina superimposed on my disappointment and anger at Womanity.

This is where Ginny draws her strength from me. That split second after petite mort when I know her for what she is.

And that's when we play this game again. I call her Tina in my softest voice and I tell her I love her so much.