The Encyclopedia of Exes Read online

  Well, I don’t know about the ladies, but this gentleman was having a blast, considering it was a work night. And I don’t know what friends the DJ was referring to, since I was there alone and none of the people at the other little tables were friends of mine. But, yeah . . . I was having a good time. I was partying at The Rusty Pelican near the Interstate 80 overpass in West Sacramento, California, and I was drinking a warm cocktail called a Captain’s Coffee, and it tasted like Irish Crème and rum raisin ice cream. And as if that’s not enough, a band from Vancouver called Northern Light Transcendence was about to blur the boundaries between rock, funk, and nouveau jazz. I had seen them the Tuesday before when I dropped in on my way home from work, but didn’t realize they were making a weeklong working gig of it.

  The first song in the set started with her. Everything started with her, if you ask me. The week before, we’d a brief conversation after NLT got offstage. A conversation that I doubted she would remember. I doubted she would because she was beautiful. Beautiful brown hair (except for the bleached blond ‘rat tail’ braid and bangs) and green eyes—although to be fair she was fond of wearing those tiny, round, rose-tinted sunglasses most of the time she was onstage. Those sort of ‘I-love-mushrooms-in-a-Mad-Hatter-kind of way’ little wire frame sunglasses that connoisseurs of art festivals and small town petty criminals fueled by speed and hallucinogens seemed to gravitate toward. She looked like every cute girl on MTV in the eighties, although fine, yes, a bit more masculine. I also doubted she would remember talking to me because let’s face it: she was in a working progressive rock/jazz-fusion trio, and she was kinder to me in a three-minute exchange than Kristin, the only girlfriend I’d had to that point, had ever been. Kristin was a two-year fling of pain, and then we finally just admitted we weren’t right for each other when she cheated on me with her ex-boyfriend in LA. She tried to reason that I would’ve done the same if I had run into my ex and my ex had really good cocaine. Except, I didn’t have an ex back then, and I’d never done cocaine. So, as much as I appreciated her, um, comforting me with the details of how she had sex with someone else while we were going out, it wasn’t really familiar reasoning to me. Anyway, I’m finally maybe over that, so let’s get on with things. Onward and upward, to a girl who is more in my league and clearly better for me! Lindsey played the bass keyboard, the type of keyboard that is worn like a guitar. Even with her choice of instrument she was already turning my preconceived notions on their head. Who the hell cares that a keyboard belongs on a tall stand? She was going to play this thing like a guitar on a shoulder strap. “Let me blow your mind,” she seemed to be saying.

  From where I was sitting alone, it looked like she was playing every note right at me. And for the first time since Kristin acted like a hooker who preferred to be paid with cocaine, I was finding the confidence to look a woman in the eyes. I was looking right at her while she was up onstage. I was tapping the cinnamon stick garnish from my drink against the table’s edge in perfect meter with the beat, and even simultaneously closing my eyes a little bit every time she nailed a riff or scale that made me push the limits between what I considered rock and jazz . . . love and lust . . . crème de menthe and coffee liqueur.

  It didn’t take an associate arts degree in business administration from Sacramento City College to see that I was into something good with her. I ordered up another Captain’s Coffee while NLT worked their way through their first set. When she got offstage I walked over to show her how sophisticated and adult I had become since breaking up (my choice) with Kristin then moving to Sacramento and learning to enjoy a cocktail after work.

  “Nice job on the keyboard bass. I usually don’t much care for progressive rock.”

  “We’re more jazz-fusion if I had to label us.”

  “Yeah, I know. Definitely. I saw you looking back at the drummer a lot. Are you two, um . . . ?”

  “What?”

  “I like the drumming.”

  “Hey, this sounds kind of cheesy, but would you buy me a drink? They didn’t give us drink tickets tonight and my wallet’s . . .”

  “I was just going to ask if I could buy you one. Pick anything you want.”

  “Just a Coke. Thanks. My wallet’s in the van and we parked it way down by . . .”

  “What’s that chain go to then?” I asked pointing down at her hip.

  “Oh, this? Keys. Van, gear, cases . . .”

  “Well, anyway . . . I work full-time, so I can afford whatever you want. You know, if that’s the reason you were ordering something sans alcohol.”

  “No. I mean . . . I just . . .”

  I held my hand up as if to say, “I know that you know that I know, so why bother saying anything.”

  That night at The Rusty Pelican was shaken and blended into the next, and the next, and the next. And then Lindsey’s band did a week’s stint over at Señor Swanky’s Loco Cantina on Watt Avenue in the shopping plaza next to Pacific Stereo and Winchell’s Donuts. How fast did things move forward? Put it this way: every time Northern Light Transcendence went on tour and they came through California’s Central Valley, most times Lindsey stayed at my apartment (along with the woman who played sax) and I was starting to think of us as something of an item. She had even talked about the idea of wanting to “get married to somebody in the U.S.” (Hint, hint. I think I knew who the somebody was that she was talking about), and my roommates had all kinds of things to say about it.

  “What makes you think she wants to marry you? And how do you figure she’s your girlfriend if you two haven’t even kissed?”

  (Oh, I don’t know, John . . . let’s see, could it be because she’s staying at my apartment around twice a month? Hmm, I don’t know . . . let me think.)

  “Dude, I think she just means that she’s from Canada and needs to marry somebody from the U.S. so she can stay down here longer than a month or two at a time.”

  (Ah, of course, Craig! Yeah, that’s it. She can’t stand the idea of being in another country without being married. . . . Or is it that she finally found a man she loves and it’s not you, so you’ve got to go and ruin it?)

  “If you ask me . . . that long rattail ponytail thing? And bleached bangs? I think she’s a lezbo.”

  (Hmm, interesting, Steve . . . does this have anything to do with the fact that you flirted with her and she pretty much ignored you and now you’re jealous?)

  Steve continued. “Plus, she was making out with the saxophone chick by the van when I came home fifteen minutes ago. They’re probably still out there.”

  No. What? Not this feeling again. Steve had delivered what might be my second helping of heartbreaking proof in the game of love. Jesus, how was I supposed to look out the sliding glass door, past the trashcans and bikes, to the carport where NLT’s van was parked? But I did. And I saw what I couldn’t believe. Steve was right. Apparently Lindsey and the woman who played sax in the band had moved to a level of intimacy that Lindsey and I hadn’t got to yet. This was going to be hard for us.

  That night after the band’s set at the club, I tried to ask her what the plans were for the future. She kept loading equipment into the van and answered like she had no idea what future I was talking about.

  “Well, tonight we’re driving to Walnut Creek, then we’re back at Shyster’s Ballroom in Cupertino, then some corporate thing. A Procter & Gamble sales conference in Oregon, then we go to some craft festival in Nevada. “

  She kept lifting and shoving a series of black sturdy cases into place in the van like a puzzle that only she knew how to fit and solve and assemble.

  “Right. That really is the future, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Well yeah . . .”

  “You know that song you guys play called ‘Remaining Time in Two Quadrants’?”

  “ ‘Replaying Time’s Two Quadrants’?”

  “Whatever. The point is, what does that lyric mean, the one that says ‘I will never again need to dig for evidence of man’?”

  “It’s about dro
pping out of college in Vancouver to play music full-time. It’s kind of a joke. About quitting my anthropology major yet again.”

  “Well . . . I can tell you that it means more than that. I don’t even think you know it, but your own lyric means way more than that.”

  This got her to stop. She took a breather from sliding and fitting cases and instruments into their stack for the long drive.

  “Oh . . . wow . . . it does kind of work on a lot of levels, huh?” She said this with a smile!

  “That’s more than I can say for us.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  And she was crouched and bent looking back at me trying to keep acting like she didn’t know I was breaking up with her. I had to let her down easy.

  “All I’m saying is . . . I hope the Procter & Gamble thing goes good for you guys. I hope everything goes great for you guys.”

  “Oh . . . well, thanks.”

  The drummer/lead singer came out and took over loading the rest of the gear. The sax chick walked by, smacked the woman I thought I loved on the ass, kind of looked at me sideways, and then walked away swearing about not being able to find her cigarettes. Lindsey had something else to say to me.

  Finally.

  Just say it.

  We both feel it.

  “Hey, can we crash at your place if we need some sleep when we drive back up to Reno next week?”

  “Well . . . I think we’re breaking up.”

  “You and John?”

  “What? No! John? John’s just my roommate! What are you talking about! Jesus. I . . . I had a girlfriend.”

  “Oh . . . okay . . . I mean, we can stay with Janet’s friend. But she kind of makes me jealous, so I hate staying there. How come you never told me you had a girlfriend?”

  “Oh my God. Just get going. The drummer’s getting pissed.” We said goodbye. She tried to act like that’s all it was. I watched as the van turned out of the parking lot and made its way down toward the gas station where they would stop so that the bitter woman who smoked and swore and shoved her tongue down my fiancée’s throat in apartment complex car ports could buy some cigarettes. Then the van made its way up onto the interstate and became part of the hum and motion of people going places. Me, I went back inside The Rusty Pelican to have something sweet enough to make me forget and strong enough to make me try again. I tried to make some noise when the DJ asked if everyone was having a good time . . . but I think what I was going through was pretty obvious.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, a debt goes out to the contributors to this anthology—you are an extraordinarily talented bunch of guys, and it has been a joy working with you. Props also to the Dictionary ladies, for blazing the way and continuing to rock. Rosalie Siegel and Carrie Thornton are the most patient and wise team on the planet.

  All the love in the world goes to Dave, my sin my soul. Thanks to everyone at Columbia, especially Lis, Patty, Dave B., Alan, and Michael; Brandi Bowles; Michael Collier and everyone at Breadloaf, especially the BBK girls, Chrissy, Raina, and Andrea. Love as ever to BC and Scott, Leslie, Allison, Christiane, Anneke, Mark, Caitlin, Eric, and the dear friends who’ve made this year memorable. To Beth and Jess, Jon and Emily: may you have many years of happiness together.

  BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

  John Aboud is a writer for film and television living in Los Angeles. In 2000 he cofounded the comedy collective Modern Humorist with writing partner Michael Colton. He and Colton appear regularly on VH1’s Best Week Ever.

  Steve Almond is the author of My Life in Heavy Metal (Grove, 2002), Candyfreak (Algonquin, 2004), and The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories. For more on his various perversions, check out www.bbchow.com.

  Jonathan Ames is the author of I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, What’s Not to Love?, My Less Than Secret Life, and Wake Up, Sir! He is the editor of Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs, and a new book of his essays will be published in 2006.

  Joshua Braff was born and raised in New Jersey. He studied education at New York University and graduated in 1991. In 1997 he received an MFA in creative writing/fiction from Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, CA. The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green is his first novel and was published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. He has also published short fiction in national literary journals. He lives in Oakland with his wife and two children.

  Nick Fowler was born in Nuremberg, Germany, and raised in Ithaca, New York; La Jolla, California; and Tallahassee, Florida. After graduating from Cornell University, he was the lead singer of the rock band Tonto Tonto. He also composed music for and acted in a first-season episode of the HBO series The Sopranos. His work has appeared in GQ, Epiphany, Pulse, and The Antioch Review. His first novel, A Thing (or Two) About Curtis and Camilla, was published by Pantheon in June of 2002 and was nominated for the 2002 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. Nick teaches writing at The New School and NYU. He lives in New York with his dog, Monkey.

  Panio Gianopoulos’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various magazines and newspapers, including Tin House, Nerve, Hartford Courant, Journal News, Northwest Review, and The Brooklyn Rail. His essays were included in the anthologies The Bastard on the Couch and Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Non-Fiction Reader. He is the recipient of a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in nonfiction literature.

  Ben Greenman is an editor at the New Yorker. His short fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, Zoetrope, McSweeneys, and elsewhere. He is the author of Superbad, Superworse, and the forthcoming Candidate. He lives in Brooklyn.

  Dan Guterman was born and raised in Montreal, Canada, where he briefly attended Concordia University. He works as a contributing writer for the award-winning satirical newspaper The Onion, and he has performed at the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival.

  Justin Haythe’s first novel, The Honeymoon (published by Grove Atlantic and Picador UK), was Long Listed for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Harper’s Magazine in the United States and is forthcoming in Zembla magazine in London. He is also an accomplished screenwriter (most recently credited for writing the 2004 feature film The Clearing, starring Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, and Willem Dafoe) and was listed among Variety’s 2003 screenwriters to watch. He lives in New York City.

  Jeff Johnson’s writing has appeared in Jane, Vice, The Minus Times, City Pages, Flaunt, Fence, the Philadelphia Independent, the New York Post, and the New York Times. He lives in New York with his family and complains hourly at www.fittedsweats.blogspot.com

  Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First: My Thirty Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation. His work can also be found in the book Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Writing. He is living in New York and laboring over screenplays and television.

  Lee Klein edits Eyeshot.net, wrote Incidents of Egotourism in the Temporary World (temporaryworld.com), and currently attends the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

  Adam Langer is a journalist, playwright, and novelist. He is the former senior editor of Book Magazine and the author of the novels Crossing California and the forthcoming The Washington Story.

  Jonathan Lethem is the author of six novels, including Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude. His most recent book is a collection of essays, The Disappointment Artist. He has edited two anthologies and was the founding fiction editor of Fence Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn and Maine.

  Sebastian Matthews is the author of the memoir In My Father’s Footsteps. He has also coedited, with Stanley Plumly, Search Party: Collected Poems of William Matthews. Matthews lives with his wife and son in Asheville, North Carolina, where he teaches at Warren Wilson College and edits Rivendell, a place-based literary journal. He was a recent fellow in nonfiction at Breadloaf Writers’ Conference.

  Jack Murnighan has a BA in philosophy and semiotics and a Ph.D. in medieval literature. He is the former editor in chie
f of nerve.com, where he wrote a weekly column on the history of sex and literature. A collection of these columns, The Naughty Bits, was published in June 2001 and another, Classic Nasty, in August 2003. He coedited the anthology Full Frontal Fiction and has had short stories chosen for The Best American Erotica anthologies of 1999, 2000, and 2001. He currently teaches journalism at the University of the Arts and writes, now and then, for the glossies.

  Neal Pollack is the author of several books, including the cult classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and the rock ’n’ roll novel Never Mind the Pollacks. He writes the “Bad Sex” column for nerve.com, a column about novelty music for emusic.com, semiregular political satire for Vanity Fair, and for just about any other publication that asks. He plys his hack-for-hire trade out of his home in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife and son.

  Lewis Robinson is the author of Officer Friendly and Other Stories, winner of the PEN/Oakland–Josephine Miles Award. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he received a Schaeffer Fellowship in 2002 and a Whiting Writers’ Award in 2003. Robinson lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program.

  Richard Rushfield is journalist, author, and seer housebound in Los Angeles. He is the cofounder of the satirical review The LA Innuendo and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

  Anthony Schneider is the author of Tony Soprano on Management (Berkley, 2004). He has been published in the anthology The Literary Insomniac (Doubleday, 2005), and numerous magazines, including Details, The Believer, Mid-American Review, McSweeney’s, The Reading Room, U.S. News & World Report, The Globe & Mail, and BoldType. He lives in New York City.

  Ben Schrank is the author of the novels Miracle Man and Consent. He is at work on a new novel called Bag of Stones.

  Michael Schur is a writer living in Los Angeles. He has written for Saturday Night Live and The Office.

  Matthew Sharpe is the author of the novels The Sleeping Father and Nothing Is Terrible and the short-story collection Stories from the Tube. He teaches at Wesleyan University and in the MFA program at Bard College.