The Game

fart is sufficient.
    “How are you?” I asked.
    That is one of my usual openers. Just something you hear every day from the grocery store clerk. Ninety-five percent respond with a one-word, noncommittal answer: “fine” or “okay.” Three percent respond with enthusiasm: “great” or “super.” Those are the ones you learn to stay away from—they’re nuts. And two percent respond with an honest, “Terrible. My husband just left me for his yoga teacher’s receptionist. How fucking Zen.” Those are the ones you love.
    She tells me she is “fine.” Her voice is rough for such a small package. She must have been up late screaming at the Courtney Love concert. I am not really into the loud rock scene. I like elevator music. But I forgive her. I don’t screen women. That would only limit my adventures. I only screen on how well I get treated.
    I look at her expectedly. She takes the hint. “How are you?” she asks.
    I ponder a moment. “I’m an 8.”
    I’m always an 8, sometimes an 8.5.
    There are two paths to move a conversation. You can either ask questions:“Where are you from?”; “How many ways can you curl your tongue?”; “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
    Or you can make statements: “I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan—home to hundreds and hundreds of ice cream shops”; “I had a girlfriend who could curl her tongue into a poodle”; “My housemate’s cat is the reincarnation of Richard Nixon.”
    I spent my early twenties trying to get to know girls by asking tons of questions—open-ended questions, smart questions, strange questions, the most heartfelt questions wrapped in beautiful boxes. I thought they would appreciate my interest. All I got was name, rank, serial number, and sometimes the finger. Interrogation is not seduction. Seduction is the art of setting the stage for two people to choose to reveal themselves to each other.
    Talking in statement form is the way old friends speak to each other. Statements are the mode of the intimate, the confident, and the giving. They invite others to share and make perfect metaphysical sense. Trust me on that—you do not have to spend nights lying in the grass, staring up into our spread-eagled Milky Way galaxy figuring it all out. I have done it for you.
    “This video makes me feel peaceful,” I said. “Like raking leaves into a big pile and falling into them. But if they had some actual leaves here that we could play in—now that would be art.”
    She smiled. “I got thrown in the leaves a lot by my older brothers when I was growing up.”
    I chuckled. The thought of this tiny girl being tossed gleefully into a huge pile of leaves was funny.
    “You know,” I said, “I have a friend who swears he can figure out a person’s personality based on the age and sex of their siblings.”
    “Like having older brothers makes me butch?” She adjusted her Harley-Davidson belt buckle. “That is so much bullshit.”
    You can’t lead without being able to follow. “Crazy bullshit,” I agreed. “The guy is completely wigged out. Of course, he did read me exactly.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah, he knew I had one older sister. Just like that.”
    “How did he know?”
    “He said I was needy.”
    “Are you?”
    “Yes, of course. All my girlfriends have to write me love notes and give me backrubs. I’m high maintenance.”
    She laughed musically. It was like the soundtrack to falling leaves.
    CLICKITY CLOMP, CLICKITY CLOMP, CLICKITY CLOMP.
    Focus is passé. In the modern world we want to feel everything all the time. There is no point in just taking a walk in the park when we can also listen to headphones, munch on a hot dog, crank up our vibrating soles to the maximum, and check out the passing carnival of humanity. Our choices shout the creed of a new world order: stimulation! Thought and creativity have become subservient to the singular goal of saturating our senses. But I’m old school. If you are not prepared to focus on me when you are with me—conversation, touch, our momentary entwining of souls—then get out of my face and go back to your 500 channels of surround-sound life.
    “Look, I can’t talk to you anymore.”
    “Why not?”
    “I am enjoying this but you either have to commit to talking with me or go look at art. And, besides, with you standing there I’m going to get a crick in my neck.”
    She smiled and joined me on the bench. Ah.
    CLICKITY CLOMP, CLICKITY CLOMP, CLICKITY CLOMP.
    “I’m