In all fairness, it's wrong to say that, due to lack of physical performance, I'd fallen out of favor with Virginia. She loved the sex, no question, but there was more to her than selfish little nympho.
When you can't get it up, you just start to think that you're no good for any woman, so how could she possibly want anything to do with you? It's really nothing more than an insecurity issue.
I hadn't talked to her in a couple weeks, but that was hardly her fault. I was embarrassed, you see. And then I got all wrapped up in my new hobby. There just wasn't any time.
"So how's work?" She was pouring a drink for me and was perfectly friendly.
I expected her to be a little colder. I thought it was her nature. "It's work. Dead people aren't very exciting, but at least they don't give you any shit."
"Really? Dead people aren't exciting?" The sarcasm knew to come out of her mouth the way baby sea turtles just know to head for the ocean.
I was in no mood for it, though. "Yeah, really."
The thing about sarcasm is you really can't fight back. How do you fight with a tone? You might as well take a swing at the fog. Sure, you can try to fight, but you're usually met with either "Oh, relax. I was just kidding," or "You misunderstood my tone." Then there are those with a preternatural gift for sarcasm, born with a sense of bitter, passive-aggressive humor. You'll never come out on top with them. At best you'll hear, "You need to learn how to take a joke."
I was in no mood for it, so I just sat there, quiet, looking at my drink.
"Oh, what? Can't take a little sarcastic remark?"
Sarcastic people also have trouble understanding why some people don't handle it well. It's not their fault. They just didn't grow up on the same side of that fence.
"Listen," I said. "Listen. I'm a little embarrassed about, well, you know. That's all."
She put her rag down and positioned herself across the bar, where she crouched down to my eye-level. "Listen. I don't mean anything by it. It's just my tone. You can't help your tone, you know? I'm not mad or anything. I don't mean anything personal. I just pick on people I like. I totally destroy the rest."
"Like a six-year-old putting gum in a little girl's hair, huh? At least you're mature about it."
She smiled. "There, see? Like that. You can do it, too."
I wasn't about to tell her that even though I sometimes had a problem dealing with her little biting remarks, it was also kind of a turn-on. "I just don't think sarcasm is an all the time thing."
"Yeah, well, I'm not sarcastic all the time." She took a sip of her water, or maybe it was whiskey. I couldn't tell through the red plastic of the cup. "How's that going, by the way? With your little guy, there?"
And there that was. "Not so good, actually. I can't figure it out. I mean, after the accident, up until that night with you, I couldn't. I figured it was the stress and the malnourishment and everything. And then there were those days with you. And then nothing again. I can't figure out why it's happening. Or not happening, I guess. It's really starting to piss me off."
"I can understand that. It’s pissing me off, too." She pulled some goofy-looking ballet stretch and cracked her knees. "Ahhhh. That's better. I wonder what snapped you out of it then."
"Yeah. So do I." I sucked down the rest of the drink.
I wondered why I was talking to her about this. I couldn't bring myself to talk about it with anyone else. Not the doctors or shrinks. Not Adam or Dave. I think it may have been because they were all men. I didn't want them to know. Yeah, it was sort of childish.
"I don't know," I said. "That night I was here, Little Travis just suddenly--"
"Wait." She let out one laughing breath. "You call him Little Travis? That's retarded. If you're going to name him, you might as well actually name him. You're more creative than that, aren't you? Than 'Little Travis'?"
It took everything in me not to get defensive. "I don't know. You got any better ideas?"
"I do, actually. I was watching Bull Durham the other day. That night you first came to my place, Little Travis there, he announced his presence with authority. Maybe you should call him Nuke." She winked, which, since I’d come to know her a little better, seemed out of character. She was no winker. She was, however, amazing. I mean, what woman is going to say you should name your pecker after a character from the greatest baseball movie ever?
"Anyway," I continued, "I got here that night, and Nuke just sort of woke up. Out of nowhere. I guess I was just too excited about it to give it any thought."
The phone rang, and rang again.
"Well, you should think about it. Maybe it's something you can do again." She answered the phone, told whoever it was to hold on, and went back into the office.
I rested my head on my hands and started to think about what could have possibly charged my sexual appetite that night.
Then, as so often was the case, Adam showed up, smiling and bumping my thoughts right off the track. "What's going on, brother? Haven't seen you in a while."
Virginia reemerged from the office and got back on the phone to tell whoever was on the other end "Wednesday." Then she noticed Adam. "Adam, how do you always show up out of nowhere like that?" She brought him a beer.
"I'm one quarter ninja," he told her. "You didn't know that?"
I lit a cigarette for him and asked what he'd been up to.
"Nothing much, man. You know, working and sleeping." As long as I'd known Adam, I don't think I'd ever once known him to be up to anything much. I think that might be why he was always in such a good mood. "What about you? Go to any more of those secret meetings?"
Virginia's ears went up with that one. "Secret meetings? What? Are you part of the Illuminati or something? Scheming for world domination?"
"Well, I've always been scheming for world domination, but I prefer to work alone. Those Illuminati bastards, they always manage to fuck everything up." It was a feeble attempt to avoid any more questions.
And yes, it failed.
"So what are these secret meetings, then?"
I looked at Adam and wished I could sock him a good one for spilling my beans like that, but he didn't know he had a hold of my beans, so I couldn't really be all that angry with him.
"I've only been to one meeting, and I'm not really sure what it was all about, actually. Best I can guess is they have something to do with surviving accidents. They asked me to speak for them a couple weeks ago."
"What night was that?"
"The night we had to call a cab for drunkie-boy, here."
Adam shrugged. "I don't remember that night too well."
"Oh. That night." Virginia blushed, and I couldn't believe it. "I remember that night."
"Yeah. That night. Anyway, they were really strange people. And they were all loaded. Rich, I mean, not drunk. I didn't know what they were about when I agreed to speak for them, and I didn’t really learn much." I knew it sounded ridiculous. How could I not know anything?
Virginia knew it, too. "You don't know anything? That's ridiculous. Do you at least know what they're called?"
"Yeah, I think. PEP, but I don't know what it stands for." I took a sip from my refreshed beverage and turned to Adam. “The main guy, he said he'd get in touch with me to tell me when the next one is."
"You gonna go?" I couldn't tell which of them said it first.
"I don't know. Maybe."
And then, we drank.