Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin [73]
“How can you ask a question like that?” he said, continuing the game.
And then, before she could get out another one of her queries, with her eyes dancing, he sunk down beside her in the unmade bed in the tangle of beers and mysteries and laundry and cigarettes and bluejeans that was his life whether he liked it or not and hugged her so hard he almost broke her bones. He knew then that he loved her upside down and inside out, fat or skinny, rich or poor, sick, healthy, the whole list. He loved her wet green eyes, the chuckle, her rough hands, the right one extended, palm up, when she wanted to make a serious point. He loved her whiskey voice, her teenage breasts, her crazy hair after a shampoo, and before one, too, and if she didn’t want to be buried right next to him, he’d be disappointed, but that would be all right, too, as long as she gave it some serious thought. He wanted her, and if he didn’t know it the instant he met her, he knew it ten minutes later. Her. The very word made him weak.
He just wished she’d wear a skirt once in a while.
Notes Towards a Unified Theory of Dumping
by Sam Lipsyte
Introduction
What is dumping? Why do people dump other people? Is it because they don’t want to be with those people? Is it because they want to be with other people? Is the drive to dump an evolutionary adjustment? Did early man dump? By early man do we mean really hairy man? Hairy like my great-uncle Seymour, or even hairier? These are not idle questions. Just because I am often idle, it doesn’t mean you have to drag the questions into it, call them idle, too.
In 1995 I was awarded The McDonnell-Douglas “Smart Guy” Fellowship to continue my work in the fields of Applied Desire and Advanced Biffing. My proposal centered on the notion of a Unified Theory of Dumping, an idea first broached by my mentor, Dr. Benny Wallinger, and his research partner, Shem Orsley. Many are doubtless familiar with The Stanford Dumping Experiment and the terrible effects it produced in otherwise healthy subject couples. Anybody unfamiliar with those unfortunate events would do well to consult Orsley’s account, The Devil’s Data: The Corruption of Benny Wallinger. Though both scientists died some time ago (Wallinger at the hand of his fifth wife, Gwenda), and all of their research was discredited, the notion of a Unified Theory of Dumping continued to haunt me, even during the completion of my major work, Bifurcations: Penile Duality in a Multivalent World.
Still, my research remains unfinished, and I fear my empirical powers have begun to wane. Herewith I offer my notes towards a Unified Theory of Dumping with the hope that the next generation of scientists will not shirk from the task. Now that global climactic calamity is increasingly difficult to refute, it is imperative that the scientific community develop a workable theory of dumping so we may better understand why our society sucked so bad before it was completely underwater.
I’d be lying if I didn’t also admit to a personal stake in this project. Simply put, I am not just an objective observer of dumping phenomena. I have long been a victim of our ignorance of their properties as well. Indeed, had I been born to a future age that better understood dumping, I could have been spared a great deal of suffering. But such was not my fate. Like Galileo and other trailblazers before me, I have martyred myself to a dogged pursuit of the truth, risking penury, calumny, and many other things that end in y. But until my dying breath I will endeavor to understand precisely which natural forces colluded to obstruct my happiness.
The following cases are culled from my own experience, and are offered with the expectation that such anecdotal evidence is but the first step in the long march toward a comprehensive knowledge of dumping, a phenomenon I believe may turn out to be closely linked to certain unnamed vixens who, if you’ll excuse such a flight of lyrical fancy in a man of science, thrill to heel-stab our trusting hearts