Associated Pressure
By Chris Dougherty

Arthur
Even as she turned the key to open the door I knew something was wrong. At the very least something wasn’t right. She walked in and dropped her bag on the coffee table. She wasn’t angry. Good. She didn’t seem tired, happy or happy to see me. She lowered her eyelids muttered "Hi".

She was… indifferent. Or, more accurately, playing indifference. At that moment I knew she must have had a "Men really suck coffee chat" with her friend Emma. Nothing to be concerned about. Par for the course.

I held a smug grin and said "You just had a ‘Men really suck coffee chat’ with your friend Emma. Didn’t you?" Her nonchalance gave her away. A smile for her, I knew, was just around the corner.

"We always have a men suck coffee chat when we’re together. You know that." She smiled.

"Does that mean things aren’t going too well between she and Mike?" I asked. Not that I cared. I never met either one.

"No, things are going good."

I had to correct her English. "Well. Things are going well." I coughed in her direction. (I didn’t really correct her grammar, but since this is a "men are scum" piece I’m trying my best to portray myself like an arrogant bag of fuck nuts).

"She’s just at a point," she continued. "That, you know, she put up with so much shit from him, for so many years, that she doesn’t care any more. And he, he wants to control her"

"Uh huh," I said flipping the channels on the TV and stopping on The Simpsons.

Mike is a recovering alcoholic and he and Emma went through a seven year rough patch involving countless rants, raves and the off-handed affair.

"Now he doesn’t let her breathe. He always wants to know where she is, what she’s doing. She loves him she just doesn’t care any more."

"Does that make sense? Loving someone and not caring?"

She sighed impatiently at my ignorance. I felt like the nine-year-old learning the facts of life from the eleven-year-old. "In the beginning he was the strong one, he was dominating their marriage and now, in the end, she’s the tough one."

I pictured Emma sitting on a throne with a trembling Mike kneeling before her begging for forgiveness and a bottle of Mad Dog. She extending a bejeweled hand. He taking it, delicately at first, then kissing her gentle fingers until the tears poured from his eyes like straw-imbued shit from a camel’s ass.

"Women are stronger," I said for no reason whatsoever. "At least in the long run." It sounded as good as anything. Not to mention the brownie points, brownie points.

"I don’t think women are stronger," she countered, yet by her tone she was certainly agreeing, yes, women are stronger. Know it. Know it well, fool! "Men are like this," she made a series of steep sine waves with her hand, signifying that men are strong then they’re weak, then they are strong and so on, over time.

It sounded good to me, but I was more impressed that men can be so aptly described with a mere wave of a hand, with the old breakdance move known as "popping". I reminded myself, she is Italian.

"Women," she said in contrast "are like this…" she cocked her wrist against her right breast, with her hand palm down, and slowly sent her pointed fingers east-northeast like the Concorde taking off for London or a slow motion "Heil Hitler"

The strength of men are a sine wave and women–a Heil Hitler. I couldn’t wait to use that in a romantic comedy. It wouldn’t be nearly as funny as the orgasm scene with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, but I can easily see Woody Allen neurotically argue-whining to his actress du jour "So, men are this (he makes the popping breakdance move) and women are this (he makes the Heil Hitler, including heel click)? Is that right? Well thank God we cleared that up… ‘cause, you know, my analyst said we have a real communication problem and now, now I can tell him it’s not true!"

"I see," I said, although I didn’t. I was still playing smug, know-it-all guy. The guy commonly referred to, in certain cultures as "asshole".

"They’re not going to divorce or anything, but…" she finished the sentence with a casual shrug which would have been replaced by a long slow exhale of cigarette smoke if I allowed her to smoke in the apartment.

"Uh huh," was, again, the best I could do by way of response. I was preparing to drop my own little bomb and now was a good time as any. "By the way," I said flippantly, as if I were about to tell her I made pork chops for dinner. "By the way, I found a lizard in the apartment today." This was true.

"What!" she said, whitening faster than the white of an egg on a truck stop griddle–about three and a quarter seconds.

"Yeah," I added casually. "I was on the phone with Larry, he was telling me that he thinks he has Hepatitis B, when I looked down on the floor and saw a baby lizard looking back at me."

"You’re lying!"

"Really?" I paused for effect, "Am I?"

I walked into the kitchen and came back with one tea-colored (extra milk, extra sugar) baby lizard in a jelly jar.

"Ugh! Get it out of here! Get it out now!" she screamed.

"What? He’s not going to escape."

"I don’t care! Where did it come from?"

"From the city sewer system. I don’t know."

"I can’t believe you didn’t kill it."

"Kill it! I’m not going to it. He’s one of God’s little creatures!"

"You don’t believe in God!"

Not entirely true, but a good point nonetheless.

"You have no trouble killing mice!"

Another good point. One more and I would have lost the losing battle right then and there instead of a few minutes later.

"How disgusting!"

She left the room saying, without saying another word, "When I return from the bedroom with my bunny slippers that thing better be street litter."

"I want to keep him," I whined after her like the dirty little boy with the scabby knees. I poked four little holes in the lid with a cork screw and mined the window sills for a few dead flies and live silver fish.

"You’re not keeping that thing in this house! Do you know how many germs and diseases those things have in their pee and stuff?"

"No." I rolled my eyes.

"A lot! Are you kidding me?"

She always said things like that. Things completely unsubstantiated, not proven as fact, but fact through tradition. She once scolded me for swimming after just eating a tiny bologna sandwich. "You’ll drown!" she said with utter conviction. "You’ll drown!" Maybe it’s possible. I don’t know.

"His name is Arthur." I informed her. I named him after our landlord and thought he would be pretty cool sitting on my desk, someone to talk to while I’m home alone with no job.

"I don’t care what you call it. Get rid of it!"

"What am I going to do, throw him in the garbage?"

"Yes!"

So I reluctantly compromised (without telling her) and put Arthur out on the window ledge. I thought he would enjoy the big city summer night while I decided his fate.

I woke late the next morning. My far-better half was long gone for work and I completely forgot about Arthur until I was eating lunch. I ran to the window, threw open the sash. It was already a hot Hemingway morning.

Too hot. Arthur died in his sleep.

I held the jelly jar to the sunlight and turned it. I shook the jar. He seemed more like a plastic toy than a reptile. I thought maybe Arthur was just playing dead, kind of a prank between old friends, but sadly no.

The cause of death of death still troubles me. He had water. He had bugs and air. I think the jar got too hot and he steamed in the morning sun. Death by poaching, I suppose.

When she came home from work I told her Arthur passed away in the night. "There is some consolation" I added. "I believe his was painless death."

"Good!" she said. Good, with an exclamation point.

"Burial is tomorrow at noon. Thompkins Square Park. Near where I play hockey."

She shook her head, walked toward the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse. As she closed the door on my face I thought I heard, somewhere mixed between the whoosh and the slam, the words "assholes, men are".

How queer?