The answer to one of your questions, though, is that I'm in love with all of you except the part I don't like. That's the part of you that's like all the other girls I see. The part of you that thinks everyone... has to settle down sooner or later with a nine to five job and mortgage on the house and two chrome-covered cars in every garage and a slew of stupid, happy neighbors and nothing to look forward to but eternal manipulation by forces you never took the time to understand. That's the part of you I don't like, and the part I'll never like.

- "The Proud Highway (June 26, 1959 Letter to Ann Frick)," Hunter S. Thompson (1997)

Melissa

"The Dream Police, they live inside of my head, the Dream Police, they come to me in my bed, the Dream Police they're coming to arrest me, ohhh nooooo." I pounded the beat out with my hands on the steering wheel and tried in vain to harmonize with the vocals as I screwed the truck down the expressway. Melissa lived across town, and it took me nearly an hour to get to her place in heavy traffic. I had a decent beer buzz and was happily singing along with an old Cheap Trick mix tape. I didn't realize I was 45 minutes late until I glanced at my watch outside her door. Normally, I'd invent an excuse, but with Melissa it didn't matter. I hadn't made us late for a reservation or caused us to miss the opening scene of a movie. I'd say nothing, and that'd be fine. It was another generic evening. I'd eat, drink some wine, smile at a story about one of her friends, slog through mechanical sex and leave. By arriving late, I'd just forced myself to work faster. I had to be home at 11:30, when my roommate, Lewis, would fire up a joint to watch the first 40 minutes of "Saturday Night Live."¹ My watch said 8:30. I'd have to compress the pre-sex dialogue. I'd managed to have sex with her before using less syllables than the average pop tune. Why not less than a haiku?

You look very nice
Fascinating... Some more wine?
Where is the KY?

I should have liked Melissa. She had great tits, a round little ass, a pretty face, and she was tighter than any girl I'd ever known. I could actually feel every ridge, ever undulation, inside her. But her performance didn't approach the quality of her equipment. She was a Boxster with a cracked gasket; should have been a cheap fun ride... only she never got out of the garage. This would have been a tragic waste of talent, but like I said, she was Boxster grade. Even if she ran well, she wasn't a long term keeper.

Melissa was all about falling in love, which would have been fine, had she a clue about what love actually was - how it worked and felt. She was one of those people who mistook attraction for love, believing if she were merely drawn to someone, love automatically followed. Melissa seemed to think fucking either required or necessarily led to an emotional connection, which left her trying to cultivate one from drunken sex, and convert a series of late night "bootie calls" into a relationship. I'd never met a person who wanted the Norman Rockwell conception of marriage - the white picket fenced home in the burbs and an SUV stuffed with doe-eyed kids - so badly. The way she constantly cooed about her cousins and friends who'd married doctors and accountants, I knew Melissa was an iceberg. She had no real emotion of any kind. She was looking for a ticket the Suburbanite Dance - a penis to ride into a country club, Junior League and PTA. Melissa had mistaken the "stuff" married people had, and the way they carried themselves, as the meat of a relationship. Any attractive enough man was sufficient, connection be damned. Fuck him; please him; get him to stay with you. Love.

Melissa probably thought I was deeply into her because I listened to her with rapt attention. Part of that was cheap weed and Budweiser 16 ouncers; part of it was that I found her self-delusion amazing. Even I understood, through the viscous substance residue clogging the gears of my brain, that you could no more manufacture love than you could cold fusion. You either connected with a person immediately or you didn't. Over time, that connection could get deeper, but if it wasn't there at the outset, it was never going to be there. You just go with it - one of the few human experiences you can't do with anything but Zen.² If it works, it works; if it doesn't, you walk. That someone as technically intelligent and functional as Melissa didn't understand that screaming obvious truth baffled me. I'd stare at her, wondering where the malfunction lay.

One night, a few months after I became involved with Melissa, Lewis and I got into a late night discussion about whether she was desperately confused or a heartless gold-digger.

"Dude, she's a subconscious whore," Lewis coughed and took a belt from his Sierra Nevada.

"That's an oxymoron."

"We're all whores. You're not going to go and fuck some dumbass trailer chick, or chase an ugly chick. You're looking for high end. Everybody trades up, or at least stays even."

"What's that got to do with Melissa?"

"Some chicks want the love bit, but will settle for security. They'll take a stable guy they're not really into to get the 'family,' to avoid becoming a spinster. It's biological clock shit. They hedge."³

"Melissa's in her 20s."

"They're the worst kind... All confused and shit, thinking they have to land a dude before 30. You're a decent looking guy. You'll make decent coin. You know which forks to use when... You're an ideal target."

"She's not stupid enough to think we'd ever--"

"You using condoms?"

"Yeh."

"Use the heavy duty shit with her - the ones soaked in Nonoxynol 9, thicker than trash bags..."

"I'd move to Switzerland. She knows there's no fucking chance..."

"This shit isn't rational. It's subconscious."

"How's that any different than a gold-digger?"

"'For starters, because you don't have any money."

"Good point. But--"

"Melissa's worse than a gold-digger. She isn't handing out ass for money; she's trading it get some guy to really dig her. But she doesn't give a shit about being into the guy."

"Why not just wait until she gets a guy who digs her shit?"

"Doesn't want to wait. Wants the husband, yesterday."

"That makes no sense. She's screwing herself."

"How? Some guy takes the bait and she gets her husband."

"It's like the reverse of a guy lying to get laid."

"Exactly."

"Why the fuck would she get involved with me?"

"She's like the 'Terminator.' You meet certain criteria, she fucks you. She keeps going till she catches a keeper."

Though it made sense, I didn't want to buy Lewis' theory. The notion that anyone you'd slept with fucked you not because they wanted to fuck or dug you, but because they thought that doing so would somehow get you to love them, or worse, might save them from spinsterhood, was depressing. The worst cynic likes to sustain the myth that something as seemingly authentic as a solid screw was what it purported to be. But then, maybe it was just fair that girls like Melissa were out there, trading sex for the hope of a McFamily. Every man I know has said "I love you" without meaning it hundreds of times to get sex. If one side of the transaction's so frequently fraudulent, why not the other?

As I ran the three blocks back to my truck after fucking Melissa, I kept fumbling with my cell phone, flipping it open and closed. I wanted to call her back and ask her if she had any self respect. I kept replaying the night in my mind - how I'd shoveled down dinner, guzzled red wine, listened to her prattle on about something, popped off a few canned laughs, then screwed her against a couch on the floor of her living room. I could still taste the sauteed spinach on my breath. I must've stunk of garlic and had shards of it stuck between my teeth while I was on top of her. I fucked her just hard enough, from just the right angle, to ensure I'd come quickly. When I was through, I bolted.

"I gotta go... I have to get up early and take care of a bunch of shit."

"That was great." Melissa was smiling.

"What?" I knew she'd said something, but "Surrender" was playing through my head the whole time. The end of a verse I couldn't recall was driving me mad. Mother told me, yes, she told me I'd meet girls like you / She also told me, 'Stay away, you'll never know what you'll catch' / Just the other day I heard a soldier nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah nah...

"I said 'that was really great.'"

"Yeh."

As I stood at the door of the truck, staring at the phone, I realized why I wanted to shred Melissa. The half-assed effort she put forth to get what she wanted repulsed me. Spreading your legs isn't effort. Its not creative, manipulative, clever, cagey, or conniving. It's lazy and simple. Melissa was a sexual "yes" man, assuming I could be hooked with a few easy lays. When I took what she was giving and offered nothing in return, her best Plan B was tepid flattery. In more ways than one, Melissa lacked the necessary barrier to entry that hooks a customer, serving up a common cheap commodity as her sole product. To a savvy buyer, she'd never be more than an exotic form of Kleenex. But I never called her and told her this. Statistics were on her side; she'd eventually find a keeper. It wasn't me. I got in my truck and drove.

I've fumbled with my cell phone a lot over the past decade, staring at it as I endured meeting after Sominex-like meeting with corporate functionaries. During law school I figured Melissa was a rare animal - that most people used at least a little ingenuity and creativity in selecting and getting what they wanted. I was wrong. Melissa's breed crosses all lines - sex, class, culture, age, geography - filling floors of cubicles and offices everywhere. She's a member of the Fattened Middle, the faceless go-betweens bouncing e-mails back and forth to one another, pinballing requests for decisions up and down the chain of command - endless armies of unfireable grey suits doing Exactly What They're Told. I've met with legions of Melissas. They've been my e-mail tennis partners and opponents for years.

SERVE:

RE: Morgan Agreement
From: _______@______.com (Me)
To: bcarter@_____.com

Bob,

Here's the agreement in the Morgan matter. Let me know if this is OK.

RETURN:

RE: RE: Morgan Agreement
From: bcarter@____.com
To: ________@_______.com

Has Tim Sanders OK'd this? He's got final say on these matters.

VOLLEY:

FW: RE: RE: Morgan Agreement
From: ________@______.com
To: tsanders@____.com

Tim,

Bob tells me you have final say on the agreement in the Morgan case. Tell me if this is OK. We are obligated under court order to finalize it by Monday.

Thanks,
_________

■

RE: FW: RE: RE: Morgan Agreement
From: tsanders@_____.com
To: ________@________.com

Actually, the agreement involves possible tax issues. Best to run this past Katherine.

■

RE: RE: FW: RE: RE: Morgan Agreement
From: ________@_______.com
To: tsanders@____.com; bcarter@____.com
CC: korourke@_____.com

Tim/Bob,

Katherine's already blessed it. So if its good with you two, its ready to go.

Let me know.

■

RE: RE: RE: RE: FW: RE: Morgan Agreement
From: bcarter@____.com
To: korourke@_____.com; tsandders@____.com; _______@______.com

Tim,

Are you good with this?

■

RE: RE: RE: RE: FW: RE: Morgan Agreement
From: tsanders@____.com
To: bcarter@_____.com; korourke@_____.com; ______@_______.com

I think we need to have a meeting on this. How's everybody's schedule Tuesday afternoon?

The Meeting... the lifeblood, heartbeat, nucleus of the Fattened Middle, where those with no idea about how to actually solve the problem at issue can ricochet criticisms around the room, looking sage-like, raising theoretical "strategic concerns." Meetings are beauty pageants for the mediocre-- corporate lingo bukkake sessions where they harrumph complaints and opinions all over the conference table, knowing they'll never be forced to come up with a better idea than the one they're nitpicking.⁴

• "I'm really concerned that maybe taking this position will hurt our perception with organized labor in this area."


• "This needs to synergize with the labor policy, which is very progressively oriented, with an emphasis toward tempered productivity goals."

If asked to address how the company might take the position it wants to without hurting labor relations, the critics are suddenly a sewing circle of Helen Kellers.

None of this is shocking, and none of it a hanging offense. Chickenshittery's as prevalent as acne. No, the sin of the Fattened Middle are the miles of administrative speed bumps they jam into every simple decision, near gridlocking every process. It's done under the pretext that every move, from purchasing toilet paper to opening an overseas plant, is too important to be made by one individual. Of course, the unspoken benefit of this committee-think and hyper-regulation is that no one's ever accountable, and there's endless busywork to justify the Fattened Middle's jobs.

Bankers work with money, chefs with food, tailors with cloth. The Fattened Middle deals in guidelines, rules, procedures and protocols, enforcing them like Captain Vere. God help anyone who wants to cut a corner. No matter that you must be in San Francisco tomorrow to handle an issue which could lead to more work from a client. The Travel Office can't process your request unless it's written and approved by a partner. And why would they? That increased revenue isn't going to appear in their cost of living raise.

My aggravation with the Fattened Middle is what's made me fumble with my cell phone at corporate client meetings exactly the way I did leaving Melissa's. When I think about how transparent and weak she was in her mantrapping, I'm reminded of the vacant-eyed managers I see ducking decisions like AIDS tipped darts. They fall in line, storm troopers snapping "yes," "excellent idea," or "couldn't agree more" as soon as an executive pops off a suggestion. I see Melissa, lying on the floor next to a torn condom wrapper, complimenting me as though I cared.

Some CEOs are overpaid, and that pay may be a corporate fleecing, but they at least place themselves on the line, subject to criticism, investigation, and a brutal public axe. Nobody fingers the legions of people who hide in administrative mazes doing nothing but protecting their narrow little interests, working death by a thousand cuts on their institutions. I guess we leave them alone for the same reason I never tore into Melissa. Karma's a boomerang; looking back at 80 on a craven life spent hiding is cruel enough...

That's the biggest handle with law. It's constipated with Melissas, celebrating the values of the Fattened Middle. Worship procedure, follow the rules to the letter, smile through a brutal apprenticeship, play yes man to anyone who can help your career, and above all else, Cover Your Ass. Hedge. Follow precedent... Spread your legs.

I couldn't drive home fast enough. The sprint from her place to the truck cleared the wine fog from my head. Alone on the highway, the nasty reality hit me. Melissa was a strawman of sorts. The fact that I was fucking her, around people like her - being trained to become the same thing they wanted to be - was what really gave me the piss shivers. Where did I go wrong? Who'd walked off with my balls? I jammed the tape into the stereo and blasted "Surrender" over and over, fiddling with the bass and treble until I could hear the lyrics clearly. Just the other day I heard a soldier... falling off... some... Indonesian... junk... that's... going round? That makes no fucking sense. It's pointless.

It wasn't until I was home, out of my mind on the couch, giggling at Chris Farley crashing through a balsa wood coffee table, that I realized another overplayed Cheap Trick song would have fit any evening with Melissa so perfectly. "Heavvvvy..."

"What's heavy?" Lewis mumbled sideways, his eyes glued to the television.

"Was I talking out loud? Nothing."

To Be Continued...

----------

¹ At the time, the cast actually made it worth watching. But even then, the second 50 minutes - the portion after the news segment - was worthless.

² Hence the high divorce rate among lawyers.

³ We didn't discuss this at the time, but in fairness, there are many twisted guys who do the same thing.

⁴ Known in another context as "The Bravery of Being Out of Range." See "Amused to Death," Roger Waters (1992).

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 7:05 PM

Print Friendly · Digg it · del.icio.us · StumbleUpon · Netscape

Comment Policy:

Anonymous comments are allowed. All anonymous comments and comments from those not registered with TypeKey are moderated. They WILL NOT appear until they are read and approved by a moderator.

It is strongly encouraged that you sign up and login with a TypeKey account. Once you do that, your comments will be immediately posted.

Comments

Posted by: anonymous at November 15, 2006 10:41 PM

Posted by: AC at November 16, 2006 08:23 AM

Posted by: anonymous at November 16, 2006 11:16 AM

Posted by: Chris at November 16, 2006 07:16 PM

Posted by: Johnny C at November 18, 2006 07:00 PM

Posted by: anonymous at November 19, 2006 03:11 PM

Posted by: Anon at November 20, 2006 07:16 PM

Posted by: anonymous #2 at November 21, 2006 11:50 AM

Posted by: rosie palmer at November 23, 2006 10:17 AM

Posted by: Stinks at November 26, 2006 02:34 AM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

Please type the phrase 'philalawyer' in the box below (required):