How to Talk to a Widower

you’ve got a big heart. I don’t mind admitting that I’m very attracted to you, and I think we would have a very good time together. I know you’re just getting back out there, and I don’t want you to think it would be any kind of commitment. And it’s not like I’m some whore who jumps into bed with any guy who buys me dinner. I can’t go there if I don’t feel a connection, and I really do feel a connection to you. It’s fine if you don’t want to, I’ll understand, but I just wanted to extend the invitation, you know? No strings attached, and I mean that. If we only become friends, that’s fine too. Also, I’m a very sexual person, very passionate, and I’ve been told that I’m great in bed, so, there’s that too … You sure? Okay, I understand. No, it’s fine. That’s why God invented vibrators, right? I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Listen, I hope you don’t think I’m this horrible slut, because it’s not like that, it really isn’t. It’s just that decent guys are few and far between, trust me, so when one comes along, I try not to play any games … Okay. It’s fine. Believe me, I totally understand. Let me give you a kiss … Mmmm. Sure you won’t change your mind? Okay. Well, it was great to meet you, it really was. Call me, okay? I’d love to do it again … Me too. Okay. Have a good night. Can you just wait and make sure I get in okay? I hate coming into an empty house. Thanks. Okay, bye. Give me one more kiss … Mmmm. Oh my God, you have amazing lips. Okay. I’m going now. Say hi to your sister … ”

27

    THE TOWN OF NEW RADFORD HAS ONE OF THE best public school districts in the country. We have well-funded libraries, beautiful parks, clean streets, an exemplary police force, and great shopping. What we don’t have anywhere in the vicinity is a single decent strip club. Someone tried to open one a few years ago, but nothing galvanizes an upper-middle-class bedroom community faster than the threat of tits and ass. Local lawyers offered their services pro bono to file all the legal motions, the wealthier financial professionals funded the opposition, the minivan set picketed the proposed site, and the local family associations and religious institutions united and mobilized to cram the zoning board hearings with raucous crowds to make sure the application and all subsequent appeals were shot down. Ironically, these same men who gave of their time and money to keep the strippers out are now forced to drive the forty minutes into Manhattan when they want to be grinded on by topless dancers in G-strings.
    Even before I was married, I never liked going to strip clubs. Not for any grand moral reason, or because it objectifies women—I believe in a woman’s right to choose to be objectified—but because I can’t help seeing myself through the eyes of the dancers; a dumb, sexless mark too pathetic to achieve female contact on his own terms. But after Hailey died, the married guys saw me as the perfect excuse to make these trips. Going to a strip club might be a seedy and wretched act of misogyny, but bringing me along transformed it into a humanitarian mission, a noble act of friendship and compassion, the men gathering to buck up the sad, lonely widower in their midst. It was the flimsiest of justifications, but when naked women are involved, that’s generally all a man needs. And so, with this rationale tucked neatly away as ammunition for the imaginary defense they would never present to their wives, they would call me, advising me that it would do me some good to come out and party with them. I knew that sitting with a group of middle-aged married men and watching them chat up the young, naked dancers writhing on their laps would only make me feel shittier, but sometimes it was easier to grin and bear it than to explain that to them. And so the night finally came that I found myself being dragged along on one of these little outings like a team mascot; not one of the players, but there to foster team spirit.
    At first I figured I would just sit at the bar, or on the couch, get drunk on the watered-down drinks, tap my foot in time to the eighties hard rock, and take a mental nap until it was over, but then I learned yet another incontrovertible truth about being young and bereaved: everyone wants to buy the widower a lap dance. Like waving a pair of powdered tits in my face will somehow ease my pain. And suddenly I found myself shouting down the men in my party, who were