The Unbinding by Walter Kirn Read Free Book Online Page A

About the movies we agreed that
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
may be the greatest tragedy ever filmed, though neither of us could explain exactly why. About the universe we had this exchange:
    “I feel sometimes,” the facialist said, “like I’ve woken up in a dark room and I’m walking with my arms stretched out, trying to find the walls.”
    “Succinct,” I said.
    “But what do I do when I reach the walls?” she asked me.
    “Try to climb over them?”
    “What if they’re too tall? What if the walls go clear up to the ceiling?”
    “Then sit on the floor and wait for them to crumble. All walls do, eventually.”
    “But what if I die first?”
    “Your ghost can just pass through them.”
    “But what if there aren’t ghosts?”
    “There have to be,” I told her. “Why would there be walls,” I reasoned, “unless there were also things that could pass through them?”
    “Eat that last nice hunk there. It’s for you.”
    “Do you believe in walls, Sabrina?”
    “Walls are all I believe in, I’m afraid.”
    “Then,” I explained, “you also believe in ghosts.”
    During this talk my cell phone jumped a fourth time, but I didn’t pick up the messages until I was sitting on the facialist’s mattress, waiting for her to wash up and brush her teeth. It was one in the morning. We’d jabbered for four hours. Once you really get to pondering, walls and ghosts are an enormous topic.
    Message one: “This is Jesse. Call me back.”
    Message two: “You need to call. It’s Jesse. I’m in Las Vegas. I’ll be up all night.”
    Remember Jesse, Mom? The windburned sailboarder from Outback Steakhouse whom I bought an engagement ring for after three weeks? Who dumped me for the Don Juan who built log homes? She’s an official W Hotel slut now who rubs that glittery makeup in her cleavage and can have any man she points her nukes at.
    Message three: “You have to call immediately. I’m down here with Rob, from the bar. He’s in the poker room. I was scrounging for Advil in his overnight bag and I found some things you need to know about. I care about you. I’m anxious for you. Call me.”
    Who this Rob is doesn’t matter, Mom—just a guy from my complex (who recommended that movie). What matters is that Jesse mistreated me and that I take calls for a living, all day, all week, and I’m required to answer every one of them. But I didn’t have to answer hers—not with a cute facialist right there (and a late-blooming technical virgin, I happened to know) who seemed, from all the electric brushing noises and toilet-flushing to-do and bathroom racket, as though she were preparing the sort of circus that veterans like Jesse don’t have to show a guy, since all they need to do is smoothly clench.
    Though it wasn’t a circus I’d want to join each night (and maybe the facialist sensed this, and it hurt her, and that’s why I haven’t heard from her this week), at least it convinced me when I heard message four (after kissing the facialist good-bye and noticing that her copy of
Aguirre
was still immaculately bagged) that I didn’t have to give in to temptress Jesse. No matter how deeply I realized that I still loved her.
    Message four: “Rob has copies of your journal entries from MyStory.com. They’re paper-clipped neatly together in a blue envelope. In one of them he highlighted the word ‘Nazi’ with pink fluorescent marker.”
    Well, at least one sick fool ’s reading me, I thought. I’d better put in more stuff about the gym. About how I never launder my skunky shorts. About how I get noble stiffies in the hot tub from imagining my paintball team vanquishing the breeder who took our mascot.
    Then, a day later, this call came. From Rob.
    “We need to discuss your ridiculous ex-girlfriend. Not right away, but when I’m there again.”
    “I’m flattered,” I said.
    “By what?”
    “By all of this. Whatever it is. This increase in activity.”
    What I’m saying here, Mom, is that I’ve gone