Chapter 11: San Francisco
Ben and I were once in love with the same woman. Though, to be fair, we loved her in different ways — and in both of our own way, we loved her as a woman should never have to be loved. We knew of each other’s love and we knew that our love was not suited for this woman. No man’s love was. She was very special. Whereas Kelly Steele was the most beautiful woman on the planet, this woman had the most beautiful soul of any person, at any time, for any reason, anywhere. And because of this: neither Ben nor I would ever dare sully it. Instead: it would be left to lesser and more unworthy people to defile and for Ben and I to be collectively horrified at the prospect.
Ben and I have both done well to put this woman far from our collective memories and if ever we speak of her it is in the way that two reformed alcoholics speak of a fine wine from which they will never touch lest they fall immediately off the wagon and live the rest of their days in a miserable haze of drunken depression.
She lived across the hall from Ben his freshman year of college and when I claimed to be visiting him, truly, it was her I went to see. Again, there was no rivalry here — no male oneupmanship. If anything, we both worked hard at the other’s cause in a unified effort to better either one of our chances at success. We knew that in this case it would be a victory for everyone if either of us won her heart. Ben, in a gesture of goodwill, told me he had overheard her say that she would be wooed by any man who could use “pusillanimous” in a sentence and play “The Only Living Boy in New York” on the guitar. Well, I got out my dictionary and my guitar and on my next trip up I used both tactics: to no avail.
One morning, after I had spent the night on Ben’s roommate’s cot (which was empty because his roommate was serving a weekend sentence in prison for selling crystal meth), Ben and I both came out into the hall to find her standing in front of us wishing the world a pleasant good morning. And she was wearing an old sweater which had barely withstood the test of time and sported a number of odd holes and tears. And through one of these holes, stood her nipple. We both saw it, immediately, and we both knew we had both seen it and we both knew there was nothing we could do and nothing we could say in that moment to her or to each other. She spoke to us, at length, and at length we stood in front of her in that small hallway and took shallow breaths and tried to keep our legs under us. I leaned against Ben for support. Her nipple. We could see her nipple. We had earlier come to the conclusion that God had manifested Herself in this female embodiment of perfection to guide us in some way as young men. And here was God’s nipple; the fruit from the forbidden tree. And we were staring at it. The most pure and righteous creature on earth was bearing her nipple unto us first thing in the morning.
It was only a matter of time before Ben broke up with his high school sweetheart and proceeded to shackle himself to a love he could never have. He really didn’t stand a chance — his heart was with the nipple and the sweater and the unrequited love of one’s freshman year at college. He eventually had to take leave from school and while he gave other excuses, I know of only one real reason to leave: the nipple. I only escaped her fierce grasp because Ben’s roommate returned from prison and I no longer had a place to sleep at night. Ben and I both know this to be a good thing for me and a bad thing for Ben. To this day, we rarely speak of her for it is a dangerous, dangerous thing, and we know that even the slightest taste of that delicious drink will have us willingly and knowingly destroying our lives and our current relationships for another glimpse of that forbidden fruit.
And all this is merely an attempt to define one of the universal truths of love: sometimes it is simply best to just ignore it.
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