

# Lunch with Sam

##

## Phil Wohl

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2005 Phil Wohl

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Being a manager at a Fortune 100 company had it perks: profit sharing, year-end bonuses, 100 percent matching 401K plan, and a subsidized employee cafeteria. But the thing that stuck in my mind most about my 10 years with Rank and Rate Corporation wasn't the television appearances or the pleasant working environment, it was lunch with Sam.

Samuel Earnest Xavier was one of the first people to greet me when I started at R&R Corp. Paul Rizzo, the manager that hired me, walked me around the 15th floor and introduced me to a bunch of forgettable guys wearing blue dress shirts and striped ties. When we came to Samuel E. Xavier's name-plated cubicle, the first thing I noticed was the picture of the New York Knicks team taped to the window of his cubicle.

I thought, "Now this is a guy I could see talking to," being that I love basketball.

It was early March and the company basketball league playoffs were about to begin. Sam was about six feet tall and I am 6'6" on a high self-esteem day.

He looked up at me and said, "Do you play ball?"

I nodded and replied, "Yeah, I play ball." And play we did.

Two days later it was a classic match-up of the first place team against the last place team. I wish I could say that Sam's team was the first place team, but the pickings were pretty slim on the lay-up line before the game. I knew in advance what I was getting myself into because Sam had briefed me for two days straight during lunch. He, in typical Sam fashion, had nominated himself as the unofficial welcoming committee for our department's new hires. He was real good at it, too.

I'll never forget the looks on the faces of the guys that we played against. They were yelling at Sam, saying, "Who is that guy?! and "Does he work for the company?!"

The answers were: "My name is Edward Allen Rubin" and "Here is my employee I.D."

If not for some faulty scorekeeping, we probably would have won the game. Sam and I managed to play our best game of two-on-five and stretch the game into overtime. With a few minutes gone in the five-minute extra session, we were up 62-60. I had just sunk a long three-pointer to give me 39 points for the game and Sam had compiled 29 points. I got called for a foul and the guys at the scorer's table said that I had fouled out. Apparently, the _new math_ taught in the New York City Schools focused on basic counting of 1, 2, 5. The numbers three and four should be offended by being so overlooked and purposely skipped. In some ways the final outcome didn't really matter because we had proved our point: Sam and Ed were a force to be reckoned with.

I learned a lot about Sam that early March afternoon. First, he had a deadly jump shot. Second, he was never formally introduced to his left hand because his right hand never gave up control of the ball. Third, and most importantly, Sam's judgment was about as suspect as a male drunk's toilet aim. When I fouled out Sam replaced me with Jim Marshall, a guy who logged more bench time than the old ladies that feed birds in the park. Sam was urging Jim to foul a guy who had the ball but Jim responded by lightly tapping the player's arm until the clock ran out. He then launched into a tirade that questioned Jim's manhood and sexual preference. Two weeks later, Jim Marshall was named the head of our company's division. Sam's impeccable timing placed his career in perma-hold and left me shaking my head in disbelief for the first of many times.

Six Is a Crowd

During my first six months at R&R Corp., Sam and I ate lunch with four other guys. Three of us were married, one guy was asexual, and the other guy had a really bad hairpiece, so the conversation tended to focus on Sam and his active social life.

Walter Williams was the asexual guy of the bunch. He was as tall as me, but someone must have stuck a rod up his ass at birth because he was one of the stiffest individuals on the planet. He worked long hours, partly because he was trying to impress management and partly because he moved slower than a cross-town bus during rush hour.

The second member of the group was Cal Ellerton, a nice guy who was actively pretending to be a social climber. He even bought a house on the outskirts of Westport, Connecticut, which made him an official Super-blue blood wanna'-be. I could see being friends with Cal if I wasn't circumcised and he was allowed by social law to be friends with me.

The third member of the group was also on our basketball team. The minute I met John Kozlovsky, Kozo, my juices started running like they were shot out of a cannon. This guy overanalyzed everything. He probably even planned every night what he was going to wear the next morning. Imagining his recent honeymoon with his new bride must have given the term _coeptis interruptu_ s even more meaning.

The last member of the Sam and Ed lunch group was occasional participant, Craig Smallwood. The wood was small and the rug on his head resembled a huddling squirrel hiding an acorn. He was a nice, patient, and knowledgeable guy once you got past the hair enhancement.

We had a great time at lunch each day. Although we were all at least eight years out of undergrad, for an hour a day we were collegial again. The guys also brutally abused Sam over his tales of female degradation, even though they were living though him. They grilled Sam for details like he was a suspect in a murder investigation. The following is a typical Monday lunch conversation:

"So Sam, who did you _do_ this weekend?" Cal asked as Sam placed his tray on the table.

"At least let me sit down and take a bite of my burger" Sam replied, shaking his head.

Kozo chimed in, "So, are we talking blonde, brunette, or redhead here? I need to get the visual going."

"Yeah, c'mon Sammy, the meter's running," Walter added.

I looked at Craig, who was usually in listen-only mode, and then said to Sam, "Your public awaits, your tardy-ness."

"All right. All right, people. Settle down." Sam said as he reveled in the perpetual spotlight of the dim cafeteria lights. He continued, "I went out Friday night with a few friends to watch the Mets-Yankees game at Darryl Strawberry's Cheat and Eat Restaurant.

"Walter interjected "Is that the name of that place?"

We all shook our heads and Sam continued, "Well the Mets were winning 3-2 in the sixth inning and there were runners on second and third with two outs..."

"I think we all saw the game, dude," I said keeping Sam on track.

Sam nodded and said, "Oh yeah. This cute waitress was walking by our table and she looked at me, tripped over me friends foot, and then spilled a tray-full of beers all over me."

Cal said, "It's starting to sound like one of those _Penthouse Forum_ letters."

Mr. Smallwood got his two cents in, "What happened next? Did she take you in the back and give you a dry change of clothes?"

We all looked at Smallwood and did a series of double takes. Thinking about _Smalls_ in the comfort of his bedroom with a stock of Penthouse magazines didn't exactly blend well with eating lunch.

Sam continued, "Smalls, you horny little bastard."

"You have to watch out for those quiet guys," I added.

Sam waited for the guys to stop laughing and then he started rolling again, "I think the girl's name was Betty, or was it Wilma? Whatever the Flintstone it was, she took me to a supply closet and gave me a large t-shirt and matching Strawberry's Bar and Grill sweat pants. That was the most fun I ever had getting dressed. Ten minutes later, I was back at my table drinking complimentary beer and nachos."

Sam had a way of talking through lunch, while still eating a hamburger and fries, or a sandwich and potato chips. At 32, he was the elder statesman of the lunch group, but he ate like he was still a teenager. The only time he used the oven in his apartment was to warm his hands when the building's heat was on the fritz.

Kozo was usually the last to talk, as he thoroughly chewed his food before swallowing. This guy was such a health nut that he followed the same workout routine at the same time each day. His analysis and opinions were about as inflexible as the rest of his life. The ironic, and definitely tragic, thing about Kozo was that he died of a heart attack at the age of 36, roughly eight years after he left R&R. I heard he had a genetic heart defect. That was a real sad day when we got the news about that one. But, on this day, Kozo shed his wisdom by saying, "Did you sleep with her?"

Sam shook his head "No" as he scarfed down the last slab of his cheeseburger. He then talked through the food and smiled at Kozo, "We did everything but sleep."

After we all stopped laughing and slapping hands, Sam dished the good dirt, "That was some full-service loving. I didn't even have to leave a tip. This chick had an ass you could bounce quarters off. She left at about 5:00 a.m. and I slept the day away. Come to think of it, I don't think I even got her number."

### I said, "Oh, you got her number" as our lunch break came to a joyous end.

### The Winny Cooper Syndrome

You all remember Winny Cooper, Kevin Arnold's next-door neighbor and flame on The Wonder Years. She didn't leave much of an impression on me; primarily due to the fact the girl was just that, a girl. The same can't be said for my good friend Sam and his warped cranium.

### Sam and I had branched off from our six-layer lunch group once the layers started peeling away. Cal was the first to leave R&R as a result of the pressures of living around wealth. Although he had a secure job that paid adequately, Cal and his wife wanted more. Cal resigned so he could take a position at a brokerage firm, where he would be working 60% more hours for a 20% increase in pay. I suppose he was headed for a slow climb up the social ladder.

### The next lad to bolt was Walter Williams. He was offered a government job that completely fit his rigid personality. The job of Auditor was one that he was born to do, so he couldn't say "No" when his government came a calling.

The next person to go was Kozo and his precise ways. He took a job in Texas to be an Oil and Gas Analyst, moving his wife to what he called "A healthier lifestyle." We all know that health, or a lack of it, had no bearing on the end for Kozo. Poor bastard.

With all of his boys flying the coop, Smallwood quickly baled on our lunch group. He must have substituted the time spent in the company's lunchroom with extra hairpiece monitoring. You never know when that bird on top of your head might fly the coup. Nice guy, but I still get the willies every time I see a copy of Penthouse on the newsstands.

Sam and I were now a dynamic duo, eating lunch together every single day. On Friday's we ventured out of the friendly confines of R&R in search of downtown Manhattan food that wouldn't land us both in the bathroom. If you've ever been in the city, the word clean is not the first word to rush from your brain to your lips. I used to come home at night and blow my nose, only to see black-shaded gook staring back at me. Yeah, that's gross but get over yourself!

### I learned more about Sam in that first week than I did in the previous six months of group therapy. He was an enigma wrapped in veil of lust. I have to admit that it was rough the first few months listening to the tales of his adventures. The only thing that saved me was my imagination, which had been forcibly shifted into overdrive.

### We were sitting outside at our favorite Italian restaurant, Callini's, one Friday lunch when Sam revealed to me what his ideal female looked like. A few women walked by and Sam used words like "big legs" and "too big up top" to describe women that barely weighed over 100 pounds. The following bomb then pried its way out of his mouth, "I'm still in love with Winny Cooper."

I replied with shock in my voice, "Winny Cooper from The Wonder Years?"

### Sam glowed, "Yeah, Winny is my ideal woman."

### "You do realize that she was a little girl in that show," I said trying to awaken Sam's better judgment.

### He started laughing, "Winnie was a babe. I had a huge crush on her."

### I needed clarification: "You do realize that you were in your 20s when that show was on. So, that would mean that you had a crush on a 12 year-old."

### The response, or lack of it, told me everything I needed to know about this desperado. We had a lot of work to do if Sam was going to have a chance of moving on with his life. Sam viewed our lunch talks as a way to flex his libido, but I saw it as a chance to get inside of his head and slowly turn him inside out. There was a caring human being on the outskirts of this tell-all, potential pedophile. I knew Sam would never become a pedophile, but his delusional fantasies were still disturbing.

The more I thought about Sam's Winny Cooper Syndrome, the more I drifted toward Kevin Arnold. Kevin was a kid all of us New Yorkers could identify with - even though he and his family moved from New York to California, Kevin still sported his cool green New York Jets jacket. I had one of those jackets and I also was about as awkward with girls as he was. Sam, it appeared was a self-professed lady's man from the day he sprouted from the womb. There was no stopping this 007 impersonator, unless you surprisingly watch this guy open his mouth wide and stick his size 10 ½ shoes inside. Maybe I was on the other end of the spectrum, but I'd rather have the Kevin Arnold Syndrome over his law-breaking, deviant thoughts any day.

It didn't take me long to realize that Sam and I had polar opposite tastes in women. He liked woman who were so enamored with their meals that had to see it twice: going in and coming out. His idea of fat was 105 pounds. I weighed 105 pounds in the fourth grade, so the thought of someone's weight impacting my love for them was just a bit shallow. Sam had no vision. He could not look into a person's eyes and see the radiance of their soul and the purity of their heart. His eyes were used for superficial viewing only. Sam might have been better off dating skeletons because they would never gain weight and could tolerate his arid sense of humor. These were truly the wonder years for our lunchtime conversations.

### The Ones That Got Away

I've learned through experience that everyone goes through loss at different points of their life. For me, the only thing I lost in my first 30 years was my innocence. Without it, I was like every other cynical, dissatisfied New Yorker. Sam's life was much more complicated than losing his innocence – at the tender age of five he was taught one of life's most tragic lessons: thou shalt not love. Twenty years later, however, he learned a similar lesson that probably cost him his smile.

Sam and I both grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Although I got out of there when I was two, Sam remained in a time warp for much of his young adult existence. We never knew each other back then, but our similar backgrounds helped us make the transition from acquaintances to good friends that much easier. I was coming up on my two-year anniversary at R&R Corp., so Sam offered to pay for my lunch. The funny thing was that he knew how to be a mensch, a good man, but he was so conflicted that I knew something must have happened to him as a kid. We started talking about our families, a subject I was happy to flip over to his side, and Sam's head and eyes lowered like a skittish dog. I felt bad for him, but good for me, because I knew the conversation was about to become a whole lot more substantial. I patiently waited for him to talk, like he was going to tell me the meaning of life.

### He slowly picked up his head and quietly said, "My dad left us when I was five."

### I quickly asked, "What do you mean, he left you at five?"

### "I remember it like it was yesterday. I woke up one morning and my brother told me he was gone. My dad didn't tell my mom, or even leave a note."

### I just sat there for a while to let his words sink in. I then said, "Have you seen him since then?"

### "No, he died when I was 10. My older brother visited him in the hospital, but my mom kept me home because she thought I was too young. I wish I could have seen him."

### I thought to myself, "You deep, dark son-of-a-bitch." I knew there had to be a reason for his surface behavior. No wonder he had a crush on Winny Cooper - the guy was stuck in the past and he couldn't find his way out. Part of me felt sorry for him, while the other part was already throwing the emergency life ring out for him. The worst part of it for Sam was that his mother never tried to ask his dad why he left. While Sam was a researcher, his mother was happy to remain in full denial mode. I had real doubt whether he could ever move forward from such a traumatic event in his life.

### As fate would have it, when Sam was 25 he met Mindy Lipshitz. Despite the fact that he used the "if your lip shits my ass talks" joke on their first date, Mindy was head-over-heels for Sam. They were in love and Sam was finally able to feel comfortable in his own skin. He took down the barriers that had plagued his relationships throughout the years. Females never had a chance to get to know the real Sam, because he always had one foot out the door before the other one hit the ground.

### Mindy was the female version of Sam in every single way. She loved junk food, could talk sports as well as any guy, and had an active sexual appetite that only Sam could satisfy. They met in the summer and spent almost every night together until the winter when they went away on a ski vacation to Vail, Colorado. This trip only solidified the special bond the two lovers had forged. In my talks with Sam, he was even hesitant to talk about their sexual escapades - not that I was prying for information. He told me about a two-hour hot tub session, a food fight in the kitchen, and some action on the ski lift. I asked, "Now, this all happened in one weekend?" That kind of stuff didn't happen in Married Land.

### Sam insisted that the trip was the best time of their lives. From that point the details get a little fuzzy in the mind of our sexual adventurer. It took me two weeks to get all of the details out of him, so I could gain more insight and provide a shred of clarity for the wounded buck. Without accurate information it was like I was trying to find clues in the dark.

### Ever since I was a child I've been sure of one thing: for some reason I have the ability to figure people out. All right, there are two things I was sure about since I was a child, the second being that I really didn't like to eat things that were green. Lucky for me, my dual callings of understanding people while completing avoiding vegetables and salad rarely ever conflicted, unless I was talking to a person who didn't understand my dislike of green food.

Sam was going through all of the steps associated with a confusing break-up. What started with denial had moved to anger, and just when he verged on emotional collapse, doubt had finally set in. Sam's denial phase was marked with a complete ignorance on his part; it was almost like he didn't hear the words "I think we should break up" that flowed so easily from Mindy's mouth. Anger management has always been one of Sam's blind spots. He thought that stalking and leaving obscenity-laced messages on Mindy's answering machine were normal reactions to his confusion. The stalking thing got a bit out of hand when Sam spotted her a few times with guys he knew. The anger and jealousy thing lasted for a good four months before he embarrassingly moved to the doubt faze, following a threat by Mindy to make a police complaint. All in all, the doubt part seemed a bit dramatic to me, but I continued to weed through the hollow words for some hidden meaning.

Every day at lunch we would begin the conversation with sports talk, consisting of the games we watched the previous night. In the spring it was the Mets, the Knicks dominated the winter banter, and the Jets took center stage in the fall. We generally talked about the Knicks and the Mets year-round and tended to disagree on the general direction of the clubs. I am a firm believer that if your team's not going all the way, then bring up the younger guys and let them develop. Sam is an eternal optimist, or die-hard fan, who believes his teams have a shot every time they walk on the field. The key words here are DIE HARD! I don't play the games, so I don't pretend to have a vested interest in the outcome. I enjoy watching sports but I leave the devastation up to the participants... been there, done that.

### After about 20 minutes of sports disagreement, Mindy never seemed to be far from Sam's thoughts. It was almost like sports were our warm up for the main event. I remember it was a Thursday afternoon and Sam had finally run out of material from his weekend escapades.

### "Tell me again what happened with you and Mindy when you came back from the ski trip," I asked like a good detective.

### Sam seemed both bothered and excited to be talking about Mindy again and answered, "We flew home and met her mother at the airport, and then..."

### "Whoa, slow down there big fella'!" I said like Sam was about to step on a land mine. "How come you didn't tell me that her mom met you at the airport?"

### "I didn't think it was important" Sam shrugged.

### I shook my head in disbelief and asked, "What kind of relationship does Mindy have with her mother?"

### Sam responded, "Mindy's parents were divorced when she was 12. She saw her dad only once a year after that and she's been really close with her mom."

### "So you would say that her mother's opinion really matters to her?" I said shifting my questioning from detective to District Attorney. I continued my line of questioning, "How was your relationship once you left the airport?"

### "What do you mean, in the car back to the city?" Sam said confusingly.

### "Okay, let's start there" I replied.

### "Now that I think about it, her mom was asking me a lot of questions on the way home" Sam said.

### The dim bulb must have flickered in Sam's head when he said, "Now that I think about it?!" What was he thinking about? Is his mind so inflexible that he can't remember the most important of details? No doubt he'd remember who made up the starting line-up of the 1973 Knicks team, or who took the field for the Mets when they battled the Orioles in the 1969 World Series. Guys are such one-dimensional beings.

### I continued the grilling, "What kind of questions was she asking you?"

### "About my career and where I lived and where I grew up" he told me.

### I asked quickly. "Did she ask you if you own, or rent, your apartment?"

### "Yes."

### I imparted the wisdom, "Dude. Her mom's the reason why you two aren't still together. She was aiming for that doctor or lawyer for her daughter."

### It took every shred of brainpower for Sam to say "You think?"

### Yeah, Sam, at least one of us thinks! Sometimes the answer is staring at you so hard that it hurts. Sam probably still doesn't want to believe that the love of both his father and Mindy could come and go so quickly. So what if he wasn't a doctor, or a lawyer? He was a Wall Street professional in a secure job, making a good living. He was also a good boy and couldn't understand why his father wouldn't want to spend more time with him. I learned that day that answers sometimes don't provide comfort, they only reinforce the rampant confusion in our minds. Sam was now more confused than ever, and any digging I would have to do would require a much bigger shovel.

### Red Dress Blues

### I could see that our daily sessions were starting to pay off. While I don't pretend to be a therapist I do know that for some reason, people always seek my help. When I was in college I had a popular advice column in the school's paper that eventually turned into an open forum for me to open people's minds. I think it goes beyond listening to what people have to say, because I'm really not interested in what people have to say. Let's be honest folks, our lives are just not that interesting. The thing I'm interested in is straightening people out, meaning that I'm a sucker for the blues.

### Sam came in on Monday morning and I knew something was on his mind. I'm sure in his egocentric world he thought that I would come over to gab with him before lunch. The truth was that I waiting for lunch to hear the story that just couldn't wait. I worked when I had to, and then got the hell out of there at the end of the day. I wanted to get home to my family, not spend most of my day exchanging meaningless stories with co-workers who cared as much as tobacco companies.

Lunch had finally arrived and I took a seat at table against the back wall and waited for Sam to get his lunch. I made my lunch at home every day to avoid the potential harmful impacts of cafeteria food. That and I had a real Jones for peanut butter and jelly. Ah, PB&J, the perfect blend of god's food and grape jelly. George Washington Carver, you peanut cultivating mother-fucker, I love you!

### Sam would always take his time going through the lunch line, stopping to chat with the lunch ladies and their mustaches. He would try to charm anyone if he thought it would get him something in return. Whether it was a piece of ass or a larger piece of meatloaf, Sam was in it for the action. He even flirted with the cashier for some god-forsaken reason.

### After taking his time at the condiment table and collecting enough napkins to clean all of the baby's butts in a maternity ward, Sam took the long, slow stroll toward our table. He did everything but take a victory lap and I was starting to lose my patience, if not my precious lunch, by the time he nestled into his chair.

### I looked up sarcastically said, "Have a good weekend?" I knew the answer would not be a "Yes" or an "It was fine." No, this guy was a master at telling a story in length. You would never hear him say, "to make a long story short," because he made a long story, even longer without weakening the content. Of course, all I really needed to hear was the first two minutes and the last two minutes to gain a firm understanding of what happened. It was sort of like watching a game and seeing only the beginning and the end... what else would you need?

### "Do you want me to start with the good part, or do you want it in chronological order?" Sam inquired.

I replied, "As much as I love to hear the good stuff, just start from the beginning and work your way up the mountain."

It was post time and this horse was off to the races, "On Friday night I went to a charity event at this new night club called Buzz."

### "What was the worthy cause this time?" I asked.

### He thought for a moment and said, "I think it was either Muscular Dystrophy or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but the women were hot."

### I countered, "I hope they all weren't lethargic and slow moving."

### He laughed and said, "It was hard to tell with some of them. I did my usual white wine drinking and ate just about every knish and frank in blanket in the place before I cut out. Then I went to this bar and sat around with a group of girls having a bachelorette party."

### All right, this is the part when my eyes start glazing over and I check out for about 15 minutes. He'll probably talk about how he played kissing games with a few of them and made out with the maid of honor near the bathroom. I often wondered if even half of these things were really happening to him, but I figured if the guy was delusional at least he was happy imagining it.

### "Blah, blah, blah, and then I met this girl named Merryl," Sam said as his one-man show finally got to a spot where I could re-enter the pseudo conversation.

### "What's with you and the "M" names?" I said to Sam.

### "Yeah, I know. She was standing over near the refreshment stand chomping on a hot dog and drinking a beer and the rest was history. I was hooked."

### "Was it the insertion of the foot long or the swilling of the beer that got to you first?" I asked.

### "It was definitely the sight of that Hebrew National sliding past her lips," he replied while in a half-dazed, reflective state.

### I always tried to keep him on track and this story was no exception, "So, you were at the Knick game... and don't talk about the game because I saw it and they still suck."

### "If Ewing would have made that baseline jumper..." Sam started his Knick vent.

### "We all would be millionaires and live happily ever after. Yeah, I know. If the Knicks had a good team they would have won a championship over the past 20 years." I stated.

### Sam was easily disturbed, "C'mon, they had some good teams over the years."

### "Can we get back to Merryl, please?" I said stopping the flow of blood to his brain.

### He thought about it for a minute then continued, "We stayed until the end of the game..."

### "Because we were both into torture. I'm sorry, go on." I interjected and then tried to calm him down before he went off. I loved to tease him because he was so serious about his teams. My job was to help him shift some of that focus to the more personal aspects of his life. I always think that when people over-emphasize one aspect of their life, they are probably hiding from something that is either bothering them or they don't want to confront.

### Sam took a deep breath and picked up where he left off, "We stayed until the end of the game and she listened to my ranting the whole way home in the cab. It reminded me of the way that Mindy used to listen and be able to comment on the games."

Hello! Red flag! I know that it's inevitable that every woman Sam meets will be compared to the great and powerful Mindy Lipshitz, but what chance do any of them really have? It's impossible for anyone to compete with a person that has become a complete figment of your imagination. We have all romanticized about a certain person and the what if scenario. Sam had placed Mindy on such a high pedestal that it would be nearly impossible to take her down and replace her likeness with someone else. I didn't think he was seeing the whole picture of who Mindy was - she was a person who was willing to give up a great thing just because her mother put the whammy on it. Could it be possible that Mindy really wanted to marry a man that she thought could give her instant stature? Was she really that influenced by her mother's opinion that her love life could take a back seat to tainted opinion? Would either Sam or Mindy ever be truly happy? Stay tuned for these answers and more.

By the second half hour of lunch, Sam was recounting the minutest of details about his first night with Merryl Weintraub. I was always the kind of person that had a tight lip about my personal life, especially when it concerned someone I loved. We never sat at lunch and talked about my relationship with my wife. Come to think of it, about 98% of our conversations were focused on the Life and Times of Sam Xavier. Some people called him X-Man, or X Factor, but I thought of his life as one big X-cuse. I hate when people resort to making excuses instead of simply owning up to a mistake or lack of success.

"Merryl has a decent body, but she could probably stand to lose a few pounds. I guess that I'm attracted to her. We went at it all weekend and I didn't lose interest. I think she could be the one." Sam said in a matter-of-fact tone.

I almost got baited into asking the question, "How much does she weigh?" but I knew that the answer would be between 110 and 120 pounds. Did he just say the one in the same breath as words like I guess and didn't lose interest? At 37 years of age, Sam was starting to hear the proverbial clock ticking. He was beginning to sense his own mortality and the viability of being a father, as he got older. On the other hand, Merryl was a 33 year-old Social Worker that worked with inner-city kids. She had spent many years focused on her professional life and was now also hearing Big Ben ticking.

### Merryl had met Sam a few times previously but he hadn't made a real impression on her until he came over and gently wiped some mustard off her cheek.

### He said, "There's nothing sexier than a hot dog-eating woman at a Knick game."

### She thought this was a grave improvement from his last attempt a few years ago when he said, "You look familiar. Don't I know you from somewhere?"

### She said "No" and he walked away.

The women of the tight New York singles circuit knew of Sam's reputation as a shallow ladies' man, but with inventory being so tight recycling was sometimes the only attack against loneliness.

It was early November when Sam and Merryl met at the Refreshment Stand of Love. Nearly three months had passed by and the relationship was heading to Sam-like proportions. The signs were all there for a complete collapse. He was a master of the bailout, holding his all-out retreat for the moment when the woman was hopelessly in love and ready to make a life-long commitment. This way the pain of her broken heart could let him know that he was loved, even though he had no plans to reciprocate the feelings.

### The last two weeks of Sam-Merryl relationship were both painful to hear about and imagine. It was difficult to decipher whom I felt sorrier for, my friend or his accomplice. I could sense the tide turning when the glow had left Sam's gruff face in favor of crinkled brows and spit-flying explanations. One particular story he told me was very telling about where this relationship was headed:

"She makes me use the squeegee every time I get out of her shower" Sam said.

### I replied, "Isn't that a bit anal?"

### "Yeah, that's what I thought. She's worried about streaks and water spots on the glass door of her shower."

### "Why, does she own her apartment?" I inquired.

### Sam conceded, "Yeah, it's a nice one bedroom in a doorman building."

### I pushed, "So, if you guys get together then you would move in with her?"

### "Yeah, it looks that way. That's if I want to put up with damn squeegee." Sam huffed.

### Putting up with the damn thing that keeps glass looking clean and sparkly? I have the mother-in-law who sprang forth from the bowels of hell and he's complaining about a stupid shower implement. Let's put things in perspective here: this guy's looking for a way out.

### A few weeks later, Sam decided to be romantic and take Merryl on a special overnight date for New Year's Eve. A hotel in Westchester, New York was offering an all-inclusive package of dinner, dancing, cocktails, a deluxe room, and breakfast. Even though Sam was wavering on the future of this relationship, he decided to splurge for the special evening.

It was December 31, and once Sam saw Merryl in her shapely red dress he knew that he would have new plans for the New Year. The fact that she looked beautiful completed went unnoticed to Sam who said, "You didn't bring a black dress?" He had worn a tuxedo and wanted her to fall into place, too. She apologized profusely but there was no way to bring Sam back from the great beyond. He had crossed the line and there was no looking back. He wanted out of the relationship, so he slept with her one more time and then told her "that it wasn't going to work out between them." Merryl cried and cried but Sam's feet were had been firmly placed in cement shoes. It was over and Sam was out of luck with the red dress blues.

### The Old Sam is Back

Sam was determined to fill the void left from the loss of Merryl by flashing back to his roots as a hound dog. It was weirdly comforting to see him snap back so fast from such a serious relationship, but that was Sam. The old Sam was back.

### In my heart I knew Sam was a good guy. That being said, a guy who seeks, and inevitably destroys, is probably not such a good person. He always seemed like he was out to prove something. Every day at lunch he recounted escapades from the night before. Sam went on the prowl each night when the sun went down like he was a vampire feeding on the blood of innocent women. I imagined myself as a vampire slayer, but when it came to driving a stake in his heart the target was nowhere to be found.

### It was a Thursday afternoon and the conversation was dragging a bit. I noticed these girls a few tables over giggling and obviously talking about us, or more specifically, Sam. This one girl had the whole college protest, I eat granola and not meat, kind of look. I had caught her looking at Sam a few times and it was obvious that she had a crush on him.

### "Hey, dude, that girl over there is looking at you," I said nodding my head toward the girl's direction.

### Sam smiled, "Do you think it would be rude if I turned around and looked?"

### I put my head down because I hadn't been party to something like this since junior high school.

### Sam turned around, smirked at the girls, and said, "Yeah, I know that girl. Her name is Sarah and she works in the Bond Department."

### "She looks like the kind of girl you would meet at summer camp," I said trying to keep myself interested.

### Sam broke it down, "Yeah and she's got big jugs, too."

### I looked over at Sarah and nodded my head in agreement. It was funny to me how Sam could weave these stories of suave, error-free connections followed by nights of unbridled passion with beautiful women. I often wondered how different the people floating around in my imagination were, versus actual accounts and descriptions.

It was Thursday night and Sam was once again lurking in the shadows of the upper east side of Manhattan. For those non-New Yorkers, the Upper East Side is as quiet as an old-age home at nine o'clock at night. The action is really on the Upper West Side where there is no closing time. Sam often stayed on the Upper East Side because it tended to attract younger people who were relatively inexperienced on the ways of the street. Sam liked taking advantage of the new girls, much in the way that a college upperclassman usually has their way with new students.

The bar that Sam went to on this night, The Stadium Club, was a hot new bar that served trendy food and had television screens as far as the eye could see. They even had screens in the bathroom just in case you weren't obsessed enough about seeing every play in every game. Sam was the kind of drinker that could look at a label of a vodka bottle a get a bit tipsy. After two vodka and tonics he was about three sheets to the wind and ready to be rocked to sleep.

### As fate would have it, Sarah with the "big jugs" was sitting with her friends across from the bar from Sam. Sam looked across the bar and smiled at her, and she returned the drunken gesture with a tipsy smile of her own. As Sam puts it, "One thing led to another..." and they were back at Sam's apartment ripping each other's clothes off. Sarah was no longer a shy, tofu-eating vegan; she was a woman with needs.

### I walked by Sam's desk the following Monday morning and he had this shit-eating grin on his face. Like the cat that swallowed the parakeet, Sam had oddly enough played the role of the parakeet for a change. Using code phrases such as, "That girl was wild" and "We passed out after a couple of hours of fierce action" let me know that the control was firmly with the girl with the curl.

### The Sarah and Sam escapade was the first of his hook-ups that unfolded in front of my eyes. It became clearer each day that Sam's accounts of his life might have been as accurate as Enron's creative accounting. Weeks passed by and Sarah did not return to the cafeteria. I didn't have the heart to pick his brain and try to pull a reason for her disappearance. Deep down I knew she was embarrassed to have behaved in a Sam-ian manner. It's not every day that a proper girl from a wealthy upbringing acts like an animal in heat. Well, at least not this girl. We never saw her in the cafeteria again, but that didn't stop Sam from continuing his sexual junket.

Next on the list was Sasha Markinova, a Russian-born model/artist/aspiring musician. The details were a little fuzzy on how they actually met, but it sounded like he was waiting in line somewhere and she tried to use her feminine wiles to cut the line. Thinking he was selected because of his good looks and winning personality, Sam was instantly impressed with the Russian Rainbow's good taste. The funny thing about rainbows is that you never know when they are going to show their magnificence. Sam was in love with the fact that he thought a pretty girl was head-over-heels in love with him.

There are times when you'd climb up the ladder of the high-dive, only to realize you probably should have just jumped into the pool from the side. It was plain to see why Sam climbed the high-dive for Sasha Markinova. I met her once outside of R&R as she and Sam were going out to lunch. Her eyes were as dark as a sunken cave and I felt that her heart must have been even more hidden. If this was one of Sam's Bond Girls then he knew what he was getting himself into, or could get himself out of.

Sasha was a girl of many talents. What she did with her time was more of a mystery than the Bermuda Triangle. Sam told me that he asked her if she had ever stripped at a club.

### She answered, "Not lately."

### I think she did whatever was necessary to pay the bills. I'm sure she was into her artwork and playing the electric flute was a good thing, but they weren't moneymaking ventures. It's possible that she pegged Sam for a rich Wall Street guy, and she was merely waiting for the pay-off. That would have been a longer delay than waiting for Rip Van Winkle to wake up.

The one thing that struck me as odd about Sasha was that she was not available to go out on a regular basis. Sam would never know when they would go out, which led me to believe that she was both a call girl and a stripper. The stripper part was more scheduled than the call girl gig, because she never knew when a client would get the urge. Sam's unpaid desires took a back seat to men that would pay to have back-seat sex with her. The more Sam wanted Sasha, the more she would be unavailable. The reverse was true - when Sam would try to distance himself from the Russian Rainbow, she would pull him back in like the suction of a vacuum cleaner.

### In on-again, off-again, romance went on for about five months until it was off again. Sam spent the next few weeks analyzing the relationship until my brain tuned to melted cherry Icee. Sam was on one of his usual obsessive-compulsive jags and I was left the bear the brunt of his mental garbage. I've never seen a person review dead subjects as much as he would. It was almost like the present and future were mere platforms for him to get new material that would mesh with past failures. In Sam's world, success would bring quiet and that would be deafening for a man who built his life on a single focus: What is wrong with my life?

### If there were two choices in front of Sam he would always pick the painful one - you know, the one that he could beat himself up over for years about why he didn't pick the other one. After a while I stopped trying to fix the unfixable and just focus on simplifying the initial decision. We all struggle over the decisions in our life, whether they are simple or complex. I see most decisions as gut reactions, not life-altering choices. Who really needs all of the pressure and responsibility that comes with making such lofty gambles? We were told since we were small that our first gut reaction, or answer, is generally the right one. So why does it become more and more difficult to make decisions as we get older? Are we carrying around so much emotional baggage that we can't process any additional information?

### Meeting people never seemed to be such a difficult proposition for me. I was definitely a lot more selective than Sam, and didn't really mind if I went home without talking to anyone or getting anyone's phone number. The guy had more phone numbers than the white pages. Instead of calling information, Manhattan residents could have called Sam's apartment to be connected. I never saw it as a popularity contest, but Sam did. He wanted everyone to have a high opinion of him but did little to establish this respect. Making women wait a week to call, or dropping them like a bad habit once you slept with them, does little to build credibility.

Two months after Sam and Sasha stopped seeing each other, Sam called her to get together. It must have been one of those low self-esteem, let me unearth something slinky from my past days. I think Sam wanted to be seen with Sasha, so other people would see him as desirable. Sam's sex life had gone as dry as the desert since his last sweaty session with Sasha. The dog was no longer in heat and the bitches knew it. Women have a way of sensing fear and a lack of confidence in a man. Sasha knew that Sam wanted one more for old times' sake but she was now only available for a price - no Sam, there would be no Russian Rainbow at this brief reunion, unless there was an ATM close by.

### The Close Call That Was Kelly O'Reilly

### There were two women in Sam's life that really influenced his thoughts. One was his mother Zelda and the other was his Aunt Birdie. Zelda was a wonderful woman who rarely left her neighborhood in Flatbush saying, "I like it here because I know where to go to get what I need."

### Her life was that simple and her advice was even more direct, "Marry a Jewish girl. They make the best Matzoh Ball Soup and they'll never leave you."

### Not quite Sam's criteria for the ideal women. His top two requirements would be: (1) "Is she bone thin, and (2) does she swallow?"

### If he told his mother about his list she would surely ponder these questions for months. "Swallow? Swallow what? Who doesn't swallow? Maybe that's why she's so thin, because she doesn't swallow what she eats?"

### Jews are among the most skeptical people on the earth. The funny thing is that the more I am exposed to Italians, Greeks, Arabs, and any other nationalities with hot blood in their veins, the more I am surrounded by questions. Do you ever notice that when you ask an older person a question, the answer thrown back to you is always in question form? For instance, I would ask, "How are you doing?" and the answer would usually be "How am I doing? Do you really want to know how I am doing?"

No, I really don't want to know how you are doing; I'm just being polite! Polite will get you two hours of the world's problems and a dish of stale candy.

Sam's Aunt Birdie was one of the few people in the world that lived up to her name. She was truly a wacky old bird, in the finest sense of the words. She would cry every time Sam called her, or saw her, about the fact that she wanted to see him married before she died. She would often try to set him up, but Sam was not the setting up type. He liked to hunt and kill his meat himself. If it were legal, he would hang his conquests on a wall and preserve them for all to see.

It's amazing how older people can take the one scab that bothers you the most and rub it and rub it until you're raw. Aunt Birdie was an expert at turning on and off the waterworks. Sam felt so bad after they would talk that he would ignore his penis for the rest of the day. Why not blame the circumcised one for all of your troubles? It was probably at least half his fault anyway.

There was a part of Sam that knew he wasn't getting any younger, but the majority of the Saminator thought he was still in his prime. He was still in his prime for fringe players only, meaning that girls who had the nasty habit of breaking mirrors and others who used vibrating, battery-powered devices as the sole source of intimacy could qualify.

Don't get me wrong; Sam liked a good challenge every now and then. The problem was that he couldn't even get out of the dugout half the time. Quality women would shoot him down like he was trying to sell them encyclopedias. In a way he was selling encyclopedias: facts about subjects that they already experienced. The experienced women knew all about Magic Sam and his bag of tricks. They wouldn't allow him the chance to pull rabbits out of their butts, or leave themselves exposed to be fooled by his disappearing act finale.

I kept telling Sam that "when you least expect it, expect it." Little did I know that around the corner was a keg of dynamite that was going to rock his world. The TNT's name was Kelly O'Reilly, and she was every bit the Irish Tornado. On weekends, she played softball with the girl-boys and when the season dictated it, she was out with these same masculine females playing flag football. K.O. was feminine when she had to be, but masculine enough to follow her blocking on a screen pass or complete the back end of a 6-4-3 double play.

### I thought it was pretty funny how Kelly and Sam met. For a change, this story did not involve either a sporting or social event, at least not in the beginning. Sam was on line at a Jewish bakery in Brooklyn, getting his mom her favorite Honey Pound Cake, when a group of female football players got behind him in line. It was an early fall Sunday afternoon and the place was pretty crowded.

### Sam, never missing an opportunity to make a joke, looked back and said, "Follow my blocking and the hole should open like the middle of a bagel."

### One of the girls said, 'She's the one you should be blocking for," as they thrust this tree-stump-looking red head with green eyes in front of Sam. His eyes glazed over as the smell of dirt and grass from her green and white uniform made him feel flushed.

### The group moved the bagel and cream cheese party outside as one of the girls said, "Hey pal, what's your handle?"

Sam thought about the word handle for a moment and answered, "Sam." Another girl said, "It's Sam the Pickle Man from Crossing Delancey, Brooklyn."

The irony had escaped Sam as he felt like he was in the middle of a locker room with a bunch of guys. "Her name is Kelly. Kelly O'Reilly or we like to call her The Irish Tornado."

Sam asked, "Why the Irish Tornado?" Big number 78 answered, "Because she's Irish and once she hits a hole she spins like a tornado and jukes defenders into the ground."

The heat between The Pickle Man and The Irish Tornado drummed up Lipshitz-like feelings for Sam, while Kelly was off in her own private kosher dill fantasy world. The fact that all of Kelly's teammates were lesbians never even entered the thought process for Sam. He, in his warped mind, saw all women as potential targets for his charms. Even if they had a bigger penis and more facial hair than him, he still would try to charm the football pants off any of them.

### Kelly O'Reilly was kind of girl that didn't rush into things when it came to dating. It took Sam the better part of 25 minutes to convince her that the shower would be the scene of their first date. Sam couldn't believe that Kelly's apartment was down the block from his mother's place.

### Two hours later, Sam strolled into his mother's apartment with the pound cake under his arm and a million dollar smile on his face. She had been pacing the floors for the last hour and 58 minutes, worried about where Sam could be.

### She whined, "Where have you been? I thought something happened to you. Are you all right?"

### Remember, an elder persons' world is ruled by questions, not answers. Sam said, "The subway was delayed and there was a huge line at the bakery." Sam shows her the hot pound cake, "I waited until this came out of the oven."

### She gave him a hug and a kiss and said, "You sure you're all right? You look a little flushed."

### Sam reassured his mother that everything was great, and he wasn't lying about the cake just coming out of the oven. He and Kelly had devoured the original pound cake after an hour-long shower left them famished. He raced down to the ButterCrown Bakery just in time before it closed and got the last baked good of the day, the world famous Honey Pound Cake.

As his mom unwrapped the tasty cake from its plastic bag, the smell widened his nostrils and sent his senses on a pleasure trip. He couldn't get his mind off of the fullback that was The Irish Tornado, a girl that left his head spinning and his loins on fire. A few hours later, Sam was knocking on Kelly's door and they went at it again. Like rabbits in heat, they couldn't get enough of each other. Sam woke up the next morning a bit confused by his surroundings, until Kelly reached into the barrel and grabbed her favorite pickle.

### Sam thought to himself, "Maybe it's not so bad to be the pickle man, after all."

### Mama Zelda was so happy to see her son on a more regular basis. Sam, in turn, was glad to be seen and made frequent pound cake and pickle deliveries. The thought of getting the two women in his life together never occurred to him because they were from different worlds - his mom was a Brooklyn Ballabusta, or ball buster, and his girl was a sexual ball sweller, or angel sent from erotic heaven. One look from his mother would reveal her distaste at Kelly attending Our Lady of Perpetual Righteousness, versus Hebrew School. Zelda was an immovable object whose thoughts were so well cemented that there were no openings for new ideas. She was a throwback from the old country, although she had spent most of her life in the same apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

### Kelly was the cheapest date that Sam had ever experienced. She was so much different than any of the women he had been dating over the past few years. The Jewish dating circuit was fraught with demanding women who loved, well demanded, to be constantly pampered. Sam was often the purchaser of many expensive dinners and vacations to satisfy the relative hunger of these Jewish Princesses. I don't like to use the term J.A.P., or Jewish American Princess, because it puts the unneeded American restriction on the entire body of work.

### Kelly's idea of a night on the town was to get a few beers and appetizers at Friday's and then go back to either one of their apartments and screw until the sun came up. The relationship cut back on Sam's credit card bills and helped him to get in probably the best shape he had been in over the past ten years.

On the other side of the bed, Kelly was experiencing feelings she never knew existed. She came from a broken family with parents that stayed together but lived apart. This lack of love trickled down to their ten kids, the eldest of which was Kelly. She was more of a mom to most of the kids than their own mother. The majority of her teen years were spent either taking care of the kids or working nights at a local Irish pub, where she tended bar for her uncle. This man was the closest thing to a father figure that she had, as he watched over her and made sure that drunken men kept their distance. This enabled Kelly to keep her innocence while going to Brooklyn College on a softball scholarship. She was still living at home and experiencing an almost identical life to the one she had in high school, which kept her on the simple side.

Month after month went by and Sam's excitement barely waned. In fact, I think their relationship maintained its intensity like no other I'd seen him experience. This was the longest period of time that he kept a silent Mindy Lipshitz - he didn't even try to compare the two women. My opinion was, and still is, that Kelly O'Reilly was the love of Sam's life. The problem with Sam is that he usually worried about what each and every person thought about his life. He kept Kelly O'Reilly a secret from the immediate world, only surfacing for air and to restock the food supply. Only a few selected friends got to meet Kelly and I was one of them. I'm still not sure if being selected was such a good thing. Kelly was everything he said and less. In fact, I was shocked by her lack of femininity, but I suppose that was the part of the animal attraction for Sam.

### After I met Kelly, I thought back to something Sam had said one afternoon at lunch we had with a few of the guys from the office. Someone asked him what his ideal woman looked like.

### Sam quickly replied, "Aaron Feldman with a wig."

### The scary part was that he wasn't kidding, and you would be even more horrified if you ever saw the 110-pound Mr. Feldman. The guy worked in our office and must have been every Jewish mother's nightmare. I could imagine Jewish mothers lining up down the block to feed and fatten up this kid. I was nervous the first time I shook his boney hand. I was even more nervous thinking about Sam's desire to meet a woman so frail. Kelly was anything but frail - she had this big, round ass that was complimented by a pair of extremely strong legs. She also had a chest that obviously would be able to be controlled by the likes of a training bra. Sam definitely wasn't a breast man, that was for sure.

The longer the relationship endured the more Sam took advantage of a good thing. It was his nature to destroy things that made him happy, so making Kelly beg and grovel for his attention was no surprise. She even resorted to writing poems about her backside and how she would use it when they had sex. It would have been easier for Sam if their relationship was purely about sex, but that wasn't the case. He loved this girl because she accepted Sam for Sam, not what he did for living or other nonsensical material things.

### The Kelly and Sam coupling lasted for about a year give or take a few days. Sam's refusal to let his heart go and love another human being was the final straw that broke this strong camel's back. Kelly had proven to herself that love was possible, if not worth risking everything. She had gained so much confidence from being with Sam that she was ready to take the next step. I had often asked Sam at lunch if he ever thought about asking Kelly to marry him. He would just shrug his shoulders, and I knew that my words only served as ego reinforcement for a guy who already had an inflated head.

### I would look him in the eye and say, "You know, she would say yes if you asked her."

He would smile and nod his head in agreement. I realized that easy was not Sam's game - he much preferred the art of the pursuit as opposed to easy pickings. In short, he was looking for a woman who could take the place of his mother. In Sam's world, his mother was a clean woman that wore an apron and had sex in the missionary position. Kelly was Sam's sexual match but not his life match, or so he thought.

Soon after Sam shut Kelly down for about the tenth time, she decided to test the waters. She would occasionally stop by her uncle's Irish pub to check up on her people. Kelly's confidence was soaring despite Sam's rejection of her love. It was more important for Kelly to have loved than to resist feelings she knew existed. She was now wide open for the ultimate commitment, a lifetime of love and hot sex for some lucky guy.

### Kelly's uncle was getting older so his son, Brian Connelly, helped him run the family business. Brian and Kelly grew up playing sports together and they generally had a good relationship because Kelly was able to take his shit. Kelly was helping behind the bar this night and Brian was teasing her about going out with a Jewish guy.

### She shot back, "Show me an Irishman worthy of me and I'll go out with him!"

### Just then, Brian's friend Sean Moore walked up to the bar. Sean was a quiet All-American lacrosse player who usually let his stick do the talking. One look at Sean and Kelly had moved on from Sam.

### Brian looked half-stunned at the connection between Sean and Kelly and said, "Sean this is my cousin Kelly O'Reilly." The rest was pure love history.

### Sam still tried to call Kelly every now and then when he got the urge to stir something up. Kelly was about as interested in Sam as she was with learning the Talmud, and blew him off until he eventually lost the scent. His loss.

### Camp Hook-Up

### The name speaks for itself. Where else would a shallow guy go to get his mojo jump-started? Good news travels fast in Manhattan, so Sam didn't hesitate when an acquaintance told him about the opportunity to work at Camp Hook-Up every weekend in the summer. Actually, the camp operated from May until October and promised a fun time for all of its adult inhabitants.

The camp for grown-ups was located in Westchester, New York, and was complete with a canteen for refreshments and a mess hall for meals. It was just like the sleep-away camp you remembered from your youth, but now all of the doors were open. There was no curfew or rules of any kind to slow the course of nature. This was Sam's time to take advantage of the ultimate stage, and he was ready to perform and the camp's inhabitants were more than ready to be entertained.

### Every weekend the camp focused on a certain theme to attract various clientele. The first few weekends were sports-oriented to attract the 20 and 30-something male population of the tri-state area. Hearing all this from Sam, I was surprised they didn't have a television watching, crotch scratching, pizza-eating weekend. Various washed-up sports personalities from the local sports teams would come to camp to run around with the civilians for a nominal fee, some alcohol and some booty. It was a simple formula that seemed to lure these old names like honey attracts big bears.

### Sam was in his glory playing football, baseball, and basketball with some of the guys he watched from the stadium stands. It was like he and the other guys were the pro's equals for the day. Sam also thought he was impressing the women in attendance with his playing ability, when they were actually filing their nails and waiting for the nighttime festivities. Some of the real princesses would show up in the late afternoon, preferring to miss the testosterone-fest in favor of pure socializing. A few beers helped dull the pain of pushing a body way past its physical limits. Reality was not one of Sam's regular stops, and this camp would only to serve to feed a brain that had already surpassed its illogical limits.

### It's amazing how women become less inhibited when they leave the big city. There must be something about the traffic, the noise, and the smog, that makes the female-being clench up. All of that pressure melts away when the roads become dirt, the birds sing their song, and the fresh air cleans your lungs. Women that put up a stink about going at it on their leather couch were doing the nasty on any flat surface.

### Sam told me a story about this one girl that he had the hots for and she couldn't keep her hands off him, either. It was like being in high school again, as the two would-be lovers searched high and low for a location to consummate their unbridled lust. The gazebo was rocking, the cabin was taken, the utility shed was occupied, and even the TV room was full of people, well, watching TV.

### Sam looked around and saw only two solutions, "It's either the basketball court or the softball field."

They opted for the basketball court with a few exercise pads over the dirty, bug-crawling softball field. The lights were low and the fluids were flying as Sam spun, dipped, and thrust his way to the hoop a few times.

### You might ask, "What the hell kind of work was Sam doing all summer at this camp?"

### If you weren't curious I'm going to tell you anyway. Honestly, I'm not really sure what he did. I heard a few things like, "I assisted people on the zip line to jump in the lake," and "We did shows for the campers."

### It all must have been a smokescreen for all of the sex going on there. Sam told me this one story about the history of the camp, "In the 1970s the camp was a retreat for swinging couples, who frequented the area until the late 1980s when the AIDS epidemic stopped business for a while.

The camps owner, Harry Chafeman, was a regular at the site formerly known simply as Bliss. This modern version was coined Camp Escape by Mr. Chafeman, and affectionately called Camp Hook-Up by people who were in the know.

Chafeman was considered to natural coupling what Hugh Heffner was to the Playboy lifestyle. He was known to say, "You take the beast out of the city, and then nature takes its course." You wouldn't see that statement as a slogan on any Camp Escape brochures, though. H.C. was a master at camouflaging his scenic acreage as a singles resort for upwardly-mobile professionals. The reality was that bliss was still the game even if it wasn't still the name.

One of the best stories Sam told me about Camp Escape, involved two girls and the ménage a toi that was there for the taking. The only thing that is a sure thing with Sam is that nothing is a sure thing. I've seen it happen over and over again with him - just when you think there is no way for him to drop the ball, before you know it, oops!

### One Saturday night Sam was on fire! He could do no wrong. If Sam had a few extra sets of lips he would have been kissing half the girls at the camp. One minute he was with a girl named Fran, and then she excused herself and went to the bathroom, only to have her friend Natalie come over and resume where Fran left off. Sam didn't know what else to do but continue kissing Natalie.

### After about 15 minutes of heavy petting, Sam and Natalie headed back to Natalie's bunk. He flung the door open and they started going at it on the first bed they could find.

### A few minutes later a tipsy Fran stumbled into the bunk and said, "Hi Natalie! Hi Sam! I have to pee!"

### Sam and Natalie sat up and quickly smoothed out their clothing in an effort to look presentable to Fran. Fran emerged from the bathroom stall and attempted to straighten her hair and makeup in the mirror, not that it would help much.

### Fran walked over to the bed and set next to Sam, effectively sandwiching him in between the two girls. Sam was so excited he almost peed in his pants.

There were a few awkward moments until Sam said, "You girls ever done a ménage?"

### Moron!

The two girls giggled and said, "No." Like two innocent schoolgirls and one big, bad wolf, the three sat awkwardly for what seemed like minutes. Sam, as usual, froze under the pressure and waited for the girls to make the first move. He eventually made the first move as he got up and went to the bathroom. That's the problem with beer, once you hit the internal liquid barrier, there's no stopping Budweiser Falls.

### Sam zipped the fly on his jeans and sauntered back in the room. When he saw only Fran on the bed he said, "Where did Natalie go?"

### Fran replied, "She felt a little awkward, so she left."

### Sam felt rejected, "Didn't she like me?"

### Fran rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, she liked you just fine. It was me she was nervous about."

### Fran could see that Sam was having difficulty processing that new stream of information and thought to herself, "Damn, he's cute but there isn't much going on in the attic." Fran went on to explain how she was a lesbian, actually a bisexual, who was attracted to both Sam and Natalie. Straight Natalie was good friends with Fran and wasn't attracted to her in that way. The ironic twist was that Fran wound up sleeping with her last Sam, preferring to feast on an all-girl diet in subsequent encounters. Fran and Natalie remained friends, although the two never came closer to enhancing their bond any further than that near miss with Sam. Fran never spoke to Sam after she cleaned him up and he walked out the bunk door. It wasn't Sam's first lesbian experience, and it wouldn't be his last.

A few weeks went by and Sam thought he had it all figured out. The spring the schedule made the rounds for its lucky Club Hook-Up viewers. The people held in the highest regard would view the list of weekend themes first and sign up to work the weekend in advance. Sam had a friend named Bennie who worked at the camp and was privy to an advanced copy of the schedule. The two guys poured over the two stapled sheets like they were the answers to a final exam. For Sam, the content of the sheet meant almost as much as the actual weekend. When Sam scanned over the words Lesbian Weekend, his mind froze much as it had months earlier when he was between Natalie and Fran. In Sam's misshapen world lesbian did not mean, "Hey pal, I only like girls." He saw a much deeper understanding of how he could turn an obvious disadvantage into strength.

Being one of only two male staff members at the Lesbian Weekend seemed too good to be true for Sam. The last time he was surrounded by this many girls he was in high school and he accidentally groped a female soccer player on her way out to practice. Following a sound barrier-piercing shriek, Sam was surrounded by the entire Brooklyn Tech Varsity Girls Soccer team who were anxious to kick the crap out of a couple of balls before practice. Even though Sam still felt the pain of those grossly swollen testicles, he was willing to overlook that unfortunate occurrence in favor of a weekend of potential redemption.

### My lunch partner's master plan to convert every last lesbian back to the hetero-Samsual side of the fence would have worked -- yeah, it would have worked if his penis was strapped on and his name was short for Samantha. Incredibly, Sam did get one bored woman to make out with him, although she was another staff member who was getting hit on unmercifully by the partisan crowd. As soon as the coast was clear, which gave Sam only five minutes of face time, the yoga instructor said "Namaste'" and quickly disappeared.

Sam later realized that he had failed in his quest to liberate the lesbian forces. He wondered, "What do they see in each other that I couldn't give them?" Once again the world was unnaturally flowing through Sam, even though he had absolutely nothing to do with about 99% of the action around him. It was difficult for him to conceptualize a woman not wanting to enjoy his company. The funny part was that he had no problem with two women getting together sexually; he just didn't want to be left out of the equation. Sam was like a little kid who wanted everything in the toy store; each item became more of a conquest than a satisfying individual experience. This kind of short-term gratification proved dangerous to any thoughts that Sam might have had about making a long-term commitment to a lucky lady-in-waiting.

### A Girl, the Jets, and the Mom

Camp Escape wasn't always a place where people mindlessly took a break from the rat race. There were a few people that actually forged a lifelong bond while screwing like coyotes in dark shadows of the shed or the open moonlit spaces of the gazebo. There's nothing like nature to bring you back to your roots and help discover what's missing in your life. Believe it, or not, Sam even tried to ascend from the rubble of Camp Hook-Up by putting on his serious face one lazy August afternoon.

### It was a hot Saturday mid-afternoon and Sam had appointed himself as a one-man welcoming committee. With most of the staff and guests lounging down by the lake, the rest of the grounds were quiet. The last of the weekends guests were trickling in, only to be under-whelmed by the sleepy state of the camp. Sam was sitting in the shade of a large elm tree when a Toyota Celica pulled up in front of him. He slowly rose to his feet like a farmer surveying who had set foot on his land.

### Two girls emerged from the car, obviously bothered by the heat and wrestled from their cool and comfortable 20-something wheels.

### "Oh, my god! It's so hot here! Let's just go back to my house and sit by the pool," the driver said as she shifted into full whine mode.

### The other girl said, "My mom said that I should come here and meet someone, but I think the pool idea sounds better."

### The girls turned and reopened their car doors, but then stopped when they heard Sam's energetic voice, "Where are you girls going?"

### The girls said things like, "This place is dead" and "It's too hot to have fun," but Sam was not buying it. These girls were playing a classic game of cat and mouse and he was happy to chase a bit. The girls decided to stay, or was it Sam's charm and persuasiveness that stopped them from leaving? The truth was that it was too damn hot to get back in the car and one of the girls, Holly, thought Sam was cute.

### When a girl thinks Sam is cute they usually wind up all sweaty and pressing skin against skin. But, Holly Levenstein was different in a way that Sam had ever experienced. Holly was a 26 year-old girl that wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps - in every way. If Sam wanted to marry his mother, he was well on his way.

The first weekend of the Holly-Sam coupling went so well that Sam, the former Pickle Man, started to think ahead. Let me clarify the concept of ahead in the world of a nearsighted bachelor; we're talking about a few days to a week at best. If Sam thought ahead any more than a week than that would mean that he was in a serious relationship, which is the bachelor's kryptonite.

### It was mid-August and Sam was thinking about asking Holly to accompany him on a trip to California the following month. He was digging deep and planning to attend the Jersey Jets opening game against the Oakland Raiders. It was a real mystery why he would take a girl he just met to a game clear across the country. What was even more mysterious was why Sam had expanded his dating horizons to an entire month?

Bonnie Ursula Levenstein was a mother in every sense of the word. She loved her only daughter, Holly, so much that it killed her to see such a beautiful girl without a husband. By the time this aging vagina was Holly's age, she was married and already had two kids. In her world, times hadn't changed enough to make her daughter undesirable. It was time for a real move and mom was going to make sure her daughter was headed in the right direction.

### Sam was busy on Monday morning making plans for his future. The 40 companies that he was responsible for monitoring took a back seat to flight, car, and hotel search detail. Being legitimately obsessive-compulsive had its limitations, but it also meant that the man could put together an interesting getaway. Lunch would have to wait an extra half-hour until 12:30, which threw a monkey wrench into my tight schedule. Actually, I could have cared less because it gave me an extra 30 minutes to order some books on Amazon.com. At least I looked at a few financial books while online, but I didn't buy them, though.

### I might have uttered about 14 words during the hour-long lunch that afternoon. The most profound thing I said was "Cool," and I even kicked it up to "That's cool" at one point.

Sam was droning on and on about how he couldn't believe that Holly just fell into his lap, that he convinced her and her friend to stay when they were ready to turn around and go home. In reality, the girl's weren't going anywhere; they wanted someone to fawn all over them, and shower them with a Sam-diculous amount of attention. He did everything to praise his persuasive abilities but pat himself on the back. Conspicuously missing from the conversation that day was any mention of hot sex. Sex was the basis of most of our conversations and I was starting to wonder what this relationship was all about. Could the loveless man's heart be awakening from an extended slumber? Was this girl so wonderful that Sam had fallen in love? Stay tuned for these and more answers on, As the Sam Spins.

I never, in all my conversations with Sam, brought up the subject of sex. Resorting to the cheap line of questioning would have been the easy way out for both of us. Instead of guiding the flow of talk, I simply let Sam's brain twist and bend its way off course and then back on course. It was similar to watching a drunken man take a sobriety test—they're focusing so hard on walking a straight line but their mind is not in sync with their bodies. Sam's mind was not in line with his heart, and the words that flowed out of his mouth bore witness to this imbalance. His mind wanted to be in love, get married, and then have kids. Conversely, his heart wanted to screw as many skinny bitches as his penis could find. The marriage of heart and penis is about as pure as swamp water. Harmony can only be reached when upper brain and the lower brain between your legs agree. The heart will follow when the brains see eye to eye on a course of action; that is when your best chance of true happiness occurs. Brain synchronization equals unobstructed focus, proving that it's a lot easier to see the forest through the trees when your tree is out of the way.

### Sam was so used to living amongst the trees that he had no idea the forest even existed. All he saw was other trees and a few swamps, which were wet and inviting but not the kind of place where trees can spread their branches. All right, enough of the tree and forest analogy.

The month between Holly entering Sam's life and the California trip passed in the blink of an eye. He had no doubt that she was the one, and any fears that crossed her mind were quickly squelched by her determined mother. The senior Mrs. Levenstein was anxious to have her daughter also become a Mrs. Levenstein. Holly had gone away to Cornell University for college but her mother was always within calling or driving distance. She had never traveled past the eastern seaboard, with Florida being the farthest distance that she ever journeyed. Of course, on that trip to visit her grandmother, she was accompanied by her mother. Smothering mom says what?

### Sam sensed that Holly was really anxious as they boarded the plane to San Francisco. Since Oakland is only a bridge-ride away from the other city by the bay, Sam decided to go all out. His plan included much more than just a football game. For a change, sports took a back seat to romance. Once in their seats, Sam reached over and took Holly's hand in his. She responded by using her free hand to reach for her cell phone.

### Sam looked over at her as she quickly hit her speed dial number one and proceeded to whine to her mom for a few minutes before the stewardess/flight attendant announced, that "all electronic devices and cell phones have to be shut off." Bonnie Levenstein's last words for her daughter were not "have a good time," but "call me when you land."

### It took a call to mom at the San Fran Airport and another on the way to the hotel for Holly to be soothed. Sam was still in his obsessive-compulsive best and was only pacified when they reached the hotel, which turned out to be as nice as its photos looked. Stage one of the planning process had been completed and he was content, thus far, with the results.

### For such a sexual being, Sam was showing unusual restraint in the first month of his relationship with Holly. Not that I was keeping count, but Sam had been unusually quiet about the frequency of his sexual escapades. Maybe he was convinced that sex was for the casual dater, not the serious and married couples. The fact that he had never heard one story about my sex life must have influenced his recent behavior. Yeah Sam, just lock the penis away and throw the god-damn key away! What, do you think that all married people call their parents every five seconds and use beds for sleeping only? I don't think so!

### Four days in San Francisco produced one ten-minute session of sexual activity. It got so quiet by the end of the third day that Sam stopped trying to get his grove on. He was fully resigned to the fact that he was on his way to getting married and this was the lifestyle he was destined to lead. I never told Sam what to do when we sat down for our lunch conversations, and this time would be no different.

### When he got back from the trip, most of the talk focused on the Jets dramatic loss to the Raiders in the final seconds of the game. I have spent the majority of my life as both a Jets and a Raiders fan, so the outcome was both exhilarating and deflating for me at the same time. Sam's sexual and sports spirits were both completely deflated. Once he stopped crying about his team's brutal loss, it was on to the slowly crumbling relationship and how it was impacting his life.

"Why does she have to call her mother so much?" Sam asked me as he methodically down-shifted back into first gear.

### I rolled my eyes and responded, "Maybe Holly is the puppet and Mrs. Levenstein is the woman behind the strings."

"You think?" Sam said in his usual reply once I dipped into my thought bag.

### Yeah Sam, I think once in a while. It's kind of the thing I do when confronted with unanswered questions. Dude, if the honeymoon is over before it even begins, then pack up the unused prophylactics and get your hairy white ass the hell out of there!

### My actual answer was a lot less tame, "Dude, it doesn't get any easier when you get married. Mother-in-laws have to be pushed back every now and then or they will walk all over the both of you."

"Did you do that to your mother-in-law?" he asked.

"Hell, no! That woman is one scary bitch! I prefer avoidance over confrontation" I said.

"She called her mom like twice a day. It was a little distracting. At first I thought it was cool that she was so close with her mom. You know how much I'm into family."

### I wasn't too sure about that last comment, but he was on a roll and I didn't want to slow down the thought drip.

### Sam continued, "Family is one thing, but not getting laid is another. Once in four whole days... she had an excuse for almost every one of my advances. By the third day I stopped trying and went to sleep after Leno's monologue at night. I never go to sleep before midnight; it's like bachelor code to stay up after midnight."

This line of conversation was all-too-familiar for a guy who could fall out of love almost as quick as he seemingly fell into it. Love is such a variable concept that one man's interpretation may be another's idea of like, or lust, or some kind of short-term virus. Sam's episodes of love were situated somewhere between lust and that virus, with the occasional bout of food poisoning thrown in for good measure. Love, to me, is more than just a sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach. It should be as spontaneous and explosive as a July 4th fireworks celebration. Sam's bouts with love were restricted to bottle rockets and the occasional m-80 firecrackers; quick rumbles that go poof in the night.

### The next two weeks went as slowly as an accounting seminar, but Sam managed to get through it with minor ego bruising and only small droplets of drool cascading from his tired mouth. Holly was on a mission, and her mother was determined to see her daughter through a few rough spots. I wasn't really clear about who broke up with whom, but Sam muttered something about "needing some space" and Holly was gone. He thought a few tears and his standard separation speech would have been comforting \- to him, of course, not her.

### A few months later Sam came to the lunch table shaking his head. "You're not going to believe who I ran into last night."

### I was going to say "Who," but the suspense was killing me.

### Sam continued like the breath I nearly wasted would have mattered, "I was walking a block away from my apartment when I was Holly holding hands with this guy. I crossed the street because I had to know."

"Had to know what? Who the guy holding your ex-girlfriend's hand was?" I finished Sam's thought.

"How did you know?" Sam questioned.

### I rolled my eyes and sarcastically answered, "Lucky guess."

"I took an angle that made it impossible for Holly and the guy to escape me," he demonstratively explained. "She looked the same and she obviously recognized me. Within minutes, Holly was detailing her whirlwind romance with this guy named Charlie, or Chester, or Sherman... I can't remember the guy's name."

### The one thing I learned about Sam over the years was that he didn't forget a name. He might have been a bit fuzzy with faces every now and then, but names never evaded him. I jumped into the conversation, keeping Sam on track, "What was she doing there with Chester, or Sherman?"

Sam smirked at me and reaffirmed my instinct, "His name was Charlie Nusbaum. Believe it or not, Charlie was Holly's fiancée'. She must have been really crushed by our beak up.

"She's engaged?! Sam, what the hell did you do to her? Was her mother there?" I said looking to make Sam smile.

"No, but I bet she called her when she got home," he replied, closing the book on the girl, the Jets, and the mom.

With Friends like These...

### The other side of Sam paled in comparison to his life as a sex fanatic. Being a loyal friend had its advantages, unless the acquaintance exchange rate was completely out of whack. Sam had life-long friends, work friends, casual friends, Asian Dry Cleaner friends, bar friends, ski friends, and gym friends. The only friends he didn't have were basketball friends, because he was so abrasive and abusive on the court that getting close to him was as hard as calmly sharing a picnic with a bear.

### I would hear stories about these friends on average of once a week; or when he came up for air about the hook-up scene. Friends ranged from people he knew since he was 10, to the Asian woman at the dry cleaner who didn't over-starch his shirts. In a way, Sam was still the boy who was affected by everyone's opinion of him. He absolutely hated it when people reacted negatively, or he heard that someone didn't like him. In life's popularity contest, Sam was one of the biggest campaigners of them all. He got so neurotic about not being liked that he would call people, or machine gun e-mail them, until they either said, "I like you," or cut him off completely.

The first of Sam's friends that I met was Mickey. This guy was about the size of a mouse, but Mickey was only his nickname – his real name was Michael, or some Hebrew/Jewish equivalent. Mick had a pretty thick Middle Eastern accent, although he had been in this country for longer than he had lived in Israel. Leaving your country at 12 years old in order to avoid serving in the army was a typical move for kids being protected by their parents. Mickey felt guilty about leaving, so he went back to Israel each year to serve for two weeks in the equivalent of an American R.O.T.C. program.

Within the first year of meeting Sam, Mickey's wife filed for divorce. This outcome took place about a year before I met Sam; by the time I started to hear Mickey stories, he was already divorced. Thirty years old and already divorced; it probably made him think, "What's next?" What's next were a few years of hanging out with Sam year-round. Mickey was a smart and nerdy sort of fellow, which combined very well with Sam's good looks and limited capacity to reason.

The Sam-Mickey relationship had a good balance to it as long as nature was allowed to take its course. By nature, I mean that Sam would be the guy that all of the women wanted to sleep with and Mickey would be the guy that women would just want to talk to. As good as their friendship was each man was more than willing to pick on the flaws of the other guy. Mickey was quick to point out Sam's bottomless shallowness, and Sam could not deny that Mickey was not the prototype for a Chippendales' dancer.

Any jealousy between the two friends was a one-way street, with Mickey holding all of those cards. He met his ex-wife at the tender age of 18 and was married to her just after his 21st birthday. They met while the both were vacationing in Israel in a set-up kind of situation. Her friend knew his friend and a few hikes later, they were inseparable. Mickey never had a rap because he never needed one. For all of you that are socially challenged, a rap is a way of knowing how to talk to someone you are attracted to. He was great at listening to other people's problems, not being of romantic interest to them. Mickey was the nice guy, not the guy you want to fuck so hard that the bed brakes. That enviable task was reserved for his good friend Sam.

If Mickey were a share of stock, his value would have flat-lined for quite some time. He had an average job, he rented an apartment, he was short, and he was divorced. The funny thing about life is that it can shift at a moment's notice. Sam's life was virtuously shiftless, but the same could not be said for Mickey's existence. He got a call one day from a dot com company looking for a programmer. It was a risky situation, going from a secure job to one that he could either make him a heap of money or lose everything he worked for.

Needless to say, Mickey took the .com job and did quite well for himself. So well, in fact, that he was able to buy a two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's East Side. Although he was still short and divorced, Mickey now had a high-paying job and owned an apartment. Most New York women would be more than happy to overlook the divorcee status and his hormonally challenged condition for a wealthy guy with an apartment.

That's the wonderful thing about single women in New York City; they are so picky in their 20s. Picky would be the most mildly understated word men had ever seen. Their tastes are so narrow that only the most unavailable and imaginary men fit their extensive criteria. Not that the city isn't filled with extremely good looking, upscale professionals that own their own well-decorated apartments. The problem with most of these Adonis's is that they prefer men, not uptight, over-rated women.

Once the Manhattan women start smelling the number 30, all bets are off. The clock that could once be faintly heard in the distance now starts ticking full time. Another amazing change also occurs – money and security become top priorities over looks and personality. Just look around next time you go out—either women overrate themselves or they settle for the best available guy on the open market. You must believe that women have a concrete schedule when they approach 30. Engagement, marriage, babies, misery—they're all on the schedule.

### Sam told me about a now infamous weekend he and Mickey had at Camp Hook-Up. Mickey had cut back his schedule at the camp because of his elevated working status. This early July weekend would define their future relationship while changing Mickey's life for good.

Sam and a few other guys had the pick of the lot when the guest showed up each weekend. This social pecking order created layers of dysfunction rolled up into speed-dating-like environment. There were a group of girls that passed by the parade procession stand and Sam was busy rating each of their floats. I'm really not sure how he distinguished one of these yentas from another.

One float caught his eye because he had seen her before. Her name was Sasha and she had a big crush on Sam. Usually, girls that had a crush on Sam were not the type he would pursue -- they were a little heavy, or their hair was too curly, or their left big toe was slanted, or they had a strange laugh. He had more excuses than Jelly Belly has jellybean flavors. So, in typical Sam fashion, he decided to pass on Sasha and all of her average-ness. When Sam passes on a girl he deems unworthy of some Sam loving, it becomes a slow please kiss my ass a little more process. He loves all of the attention, like a Golden Retriever nudging your hand for more petting. The boy loves the ego stroking so much that he'll even sleep with a woman that he's mentally passes on. It sounds kind of freaky, but believe me it all makes sense.

Sunday afternoon was put up or shut up time at Camp Hook-Up and Mickey was getting a bit edgy. He had had his eye on Sasha the minute she stepped off the bus, but she was focusing all of her attention on Sam. Sasha and Sam had talked the night before about some of the people that worked at the camp, and Mickey's name came up. After she heard the Mickster's story she said, "I don't want to be with a guy who's my height and has been divorced.." Sam did little to back up his friend other than saying, "He's a good guy." The good guy kiss of death, which is only outdone by comments about an outstanding personality.

Talk always runs rampant in a setting of two or more Jews – go ahead, test this theory if you don't believe me. By brunch on Sunday, Sasha had been informed that Mickey had an awesome job and he had just bought an apartment. At 28, she was still trapped in her parents' mediocre dwelling on the shady side of Long Island. It was either step up or be stuck in her sleepy home town—the choice was evident because she would never be able to get her own apartment with all of the student loans weighing her down. With her graduate degree in Pharmaceutical Studies parlaying a counter position at the local drug store, Sasha was well on her way to paying off her undergraduate and graduate loans by the time she was 80. Nice job of planning mom and dad.

### Brunch was slowly breaking up and Sasha was in the midst of making her big move. She saw Mickey walking toward the tray drop-off area, and she headed him off as he cleared his plate. "We should go get some good food after eating this stuff," she flippantly said to Mickey.

### Mickey turned around and looked at Sasha, "Oh Sasha, it's you."

### Mickey was surprised to see Sasha so close to him that he became instantly tongue-tied. His low-communicative state did little to dissuade her new-found enthusiasm. Sasha even made sure she sat next to Mickey on the bus ride back to the city.

### She said, "So, where are we going to eat tonight?"

### He replied, "Wherever you want."

### A match was made thanks to Sam's indifference and Mickey's elevated status in the dating community. Sam was really a piece of work – on the one hand, he had absolutely no interest in Sasha – but, on the other hand, he was upset when he saw his best friend with her on the bus.

### He even questioned Sasha as she got off the bus, "I thought you said you weren't interested in Mickey?"

### Sasha answered, "He's a really nice guy."

### She wouldn't admit that she had made disparaging comments about Mickey; those remarks were now buried as deep as pirates' treasure. Sam knew, deep down, that the reason Sasha was interested in Mickey was because of his apartment. It was the same reason why women had not flocked to his side, because renting at some point wasn't tempting to city women. It was accepted in the 20s, barely tolerated in the 30s, and purely rejected in the 40s. Life was starting to pass Sam by and he knew it.

### Friends were the center of Sam's universe. He relied on them so much that he was nearly powerless as a solo act. The guy never went anywhere by himself. He even broke the guy code of going to the bathroom with other guys. That was a no-no for us dudes - we usually let the traveling in packs thing stay with the fairer sex.

Sam was so into sports that everything else paled in comparison. He had season tickets to the Jets, Mets, and Knicks, but had no interest at all in hockey's Rangers. Sam did not limit his viewing of these games to Giants Stadium, Shea Stadium, and Madison Square Garden. He and his friends often took their die-hard act on the road to such places as Denver, Dallas, Seattle, and Detroit. His most remarkable trip was a perennial divisional battle with the Miami Dolphins. Sam and his buddies from Giants Stadium Section 225 hopped on a plane and headed down to Miami, the city of early-bird specials and older, blue-haired ladies than you can shake a cane at.

The problem with Sam's friends was that they were as fair as the weather in South Florida. They made fun of him and left him behind as much as a little kid trying to tag along with his brother's friends. Sam never caught on to their little reindeer games, thinking that he was truly one of the boys. It wasn't just women who looked down on his repetitively mundane bachelor life – most of his friends had kids and were either adulterers or divorced. It was quite a dishonorable band of brothers.

It was second nature for Sam to flex his bachelor muscles on many of these trips. Although it wasn't uncommon for his friends to completely disregard any parameters set by a marriage contract, it was Sam that would primarily be getting down and dirty.

For some reason, married guys love to go to strip clubs. I have only been to two of these establishments, and took the first opportunity each time to bolt the fuck out of there after the acceptable one-hour waiting period. The first time I went to a strip club was in Tijuana, Mexico, with my cousin and his college friends. Honestly, it was worse than any movie you've ever seen – these women, girls, whatever they were, were about as sexy as watching your mother and her friends dance. No amount of tequila and beer could erase the memory of those Latin lunch-losers. My second strip trip wasn't much better than the first; my boss invited me to his bachelor after work one day. When I realized that I was the only non-manager invited to attend I couldn't say "No." It would have been career Samicide if I declined the invitation. I swear the owners of these clubs must get group discounts on breast implants and peroxide. I like my woman a little more genuine than wanting to grind on my special lap for the bargain basement price of $20. I don't pay for play; I'd rather stay at home and paint the walls than think so little of myself that I have to pay a woman to pretend to like me.

Sam and his friends enjoyed playing the game of fantasy over reality. None of them were truly happy until they slipped into skins other than their own. You know these guys; the one's that love to smell up bars with their expensive cigars and bury their wedding rings deep in their suit pockets. Women are always attracted to this kind of guy because they are so distant from being a real threat.

It was the Saturday night before the big Jets-Dolphins showdown the next afternoon. Sam and the three of his friends had already breezed through two strip clubs and were feeling pretty polluted from the two-drink minimum they had exceeded. The Snore Four rolled into the next bar they saw and were face to face with a language barrier only rivaled by my butchering of high school Spanish. Many parts of Miami are composed of people that consider Spanish their first language and shun English like they aren't living in our country. Sam was in all of his macho glory, displaying a brash language of love attitude that was last seen at Camp Hook-Up's Lesbian Weekend.

Our hero reached deep in his pocket and bought himself a beer and passed Martini's out to his trendy friends, who usually gagged at the taste of whiskey but liked being seen with the trendy drink in their hands. Sam looked down the long, rectangular bar and saw a Mamasita smiling his way. The Jets and the Sharks wouldn't have been any more dramatic in their version of Down South Story.

### The girl's name was, strangely enough, was Maria. That was the only thing that Sam understood in their three-minute broken English conversation. He was joking with his friends about being fluid in Spanish since his college days. Yeah, Sam was as fluid as an ice cube and all Maria had in mind was getting busy, Spanish style. Ten minutes later, Maria was getting out of her clothes like a skunk had sprayed her. Sam stumbled around looking for some protection like a teenager hiding his porno stash.

### He looked up at Maria with innocent eyes and she said, "Yo tengo condom?"

### He shook his head "No" as she pulled out a colored assortment from her purse for him to choose from.

For one night Sam was right – the language of love was spoken in Miami, and he could be Maria's Tony for a night.

### The guys stumbled out of bed the next morning, looking forward to clearing their heads and watching their Jets be tortured by the Dolphins yet again. Sam continued to drink cheap beer and eat greasy food while his team lost in overtime to the Dolphins, 24-21. Their flight back to N.Y.C. was scheduled for 7:30 p.m., so there wasn't much time to spare to get to Miami International Airport.

### Sam was feeling a bit queasy, so he chugged a bottle of Pepto Bismol while waiting to board the plane. His friends teased him as he wobbled and weaved his way toward the plane's door. Once inside the cabin, all of the pressure in Sam's sails blew away as his eyes rolled back in his head. In a split second he was one with the floor, shocking his friends and putting the flight attendants on high alert. The E.M.T.'s came within minutes and started a dialogue with the now-conscious Sam.

### As they were rolling Sam out of the plane, his friends asked him if he was all right. "Yeah, I'll be fine. You guys go home," a slightly delirious Sam said smiling.

His friends looked at each other and walked back to their seats without hesitation. Sam was left by himself in a local hospital overnight and took a flight back on Monday afternoon. He returned to work the next day and recounted this story for at least the next week. I couldn't help but think to myself, "With friends like these, who needs enemies." Sam defended his friends but I knew what he really felt down deep. Maybe it was a function of the dog-eat-dog world of New York; maybe he was friends with a bunch of shit-heads. Either way, I would rather have no friends than friends who would so easily leave me behind.

### Trendy in Extremes

There is something about basing my life on Keeping up with the Joneses that makes me want to heave. I don't like to do what everyone else does; this is what makes me, hopefully, a unique individual. Listening to Sam's accounts of his summers in the Hampton's and winters skiing in Upstate New York, made me realize how he was living his life on a perpetual treadmill.

Let me explain my treadmill theory – if life is truly a cycle, then Sam has seen his share of rotations. After a while, though, nothing he does is original. The more I heard the stories, the more I envisioned him in a cage like a hamster; chugging along trying to spin his wheel as fast as those little legs could move. Sam the Ham wasn't going anywhere, but he was sure spinning the hell out of that wheel.

### There were two women in Sam's apartment building that lived on his floor, and had slept with him in a previous cycle. He talked for years about how he knew who they were, but they pretended like he wasn't the person that "gave them the best sex of their life."

### He wondered out loud "Did they really remember me?"

### I didn't have the heart to tell him that the reason they avoided him was because they had remembered him. Sam never really understood why it would be embarrassing to sleep with someone and then see them years later. He thought he could always seduce women, no matter who they were or what part of their bodies he stuck his penis.

### It appeared that Sam had gone through all of the eligible Jewish girls in the greater New York City area. I came to this conclusion because he was having trouble finding people to share houses with in the winter and summer. Even his drifting friend Mickey decided to go into another house with a bunch of his new friends. Mickey was hurt by Sam's comments that he let him take a shot at Sasha. Not surprisingly, Sasha had moved in with Mickey and they were very happy together. Not only had Mickey been disturbed by Sam's behavior, but Sasha had also strongly cast him aside on the pile of Mickey's former friends.

### Sam was nearly 40 and he was having trouble fitting into any category but "Next!" The women of New York needed to see some type of stability from a man of his age. Without the essential doctor or lawyer credentials so critical to materialistic she-devils on the prowl, Sam would have to come up with another angle. So, he spent the next year and-a-half cavorting with non-Jewish women. Many of these women enjoyed his boyish company and had little expectations for the future. Winter and summer weekend getaways are perfect spots for meaningless flings with the best guy available, or the B.G.A. Sam was often the B.G.A. in these houses made up of mostly people that no one else wanted to be around. It was like Sam had been moved to the nerd table at the Delta House without his permission. Life passes you by when you're resistant to change and constantly riding the wheel.

Story after story would flow in and it became hard to distinguish one from another. Sam would meet a girl, sleep with the girl for a few weeks, and then the girl would meet another guy and become engaged to him within a few months. It was almost as if he had been given the job of Vagina Warm-up. He had become a subway car that women would ride until they got off on their stop. He had become the vehicle that provided clarity for females to find their future. By realizing what they didn't want in a man, they also were able to focus in on the man they would walk down the aisle with. Sam didn't know it but he had become the hottest set-up man in the trendy extremes.

Sam continued to lose control over his own dating destiny, as women were consistently casting him aside for the first time in his illustrious dating career. I was wondering when the Jewish Dating Hall of Fame was gonna' come a knocking and enshrine him into its imaginary, hollowed walls. Sam was definitely starting to worry me – he was taking chances with his life that showed me that he was literally hanging over the edge. He went on a weekend trip and skied the equivalent of the K-12 from John Cusack's movie, Better off Dead." Sam was no Lane Meyer and he wound up teetering on the jagged edge of a cliff after his skis skidded on a patch of ice. He saw his life in front of his eyes and, to his surprise, the viewing was more of a preview than a full-length feature.

Most people would have gotten off that mountain and seen it as a sign to change their lives. Sam reacted like any dysfunctional adult living in denial would - he went out and bought a new pair of skis. He told his near-death story to any Ski Chipmunk within range, and he even managed to share his nuts with a few of them. The bunnies had hopped away from a guy who had lowered casual dating to a new level.

Sam's relationship with Mickey and Yoko also slumped to a new bottom. I really didn't think their friendship had any legs to stand on, but after this next incident their connection was barely on life support.

It was a typical weekend up at good old Mount Snow and the powder was kickin'. It had been snowing all week, so the conditions were ideal for all-day runs. Sam woke up early and took the first shuttle from outside of his ski house to the slopes. He was really anxious to be one of the first skiers down the run, so it made the two-mile drive seem more like 100 miles.

Sam was on fire. It had been one of the best days of skiing in his life. He only stopped briefly during the day to eat a bite of lunch and take a few drinks of water. He was stoked and nothing was going to stand in the way of his snow groove. The day was going so well, and Sam was so locked in to his skiing, that he completely lost track of time. The sun was almost set and the last of the skiers were being air-horned off of the slopes. By the time Sam got back up to the top of the mountain, he was so hungry that he stopped to get a muffin and some coffee. As he picked up his head he could see the last shuttle bus of the day departing from the front of the ski lodge. He tried to gather his gear quickly and run outside but the bus had rolled far into the distance.

### Sam stepped outside and stared at the near-empty parking lot... so much for bumming a ride from someone. He thought about walking the two miles, but his body was tired from the 10 hours of skiing and his equipment was getting heavier with each step. Sam unzipped his inner jacket pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed Mickey's cell phone number. After a couple of rings, Mickey answered "Hello."

"Mickey, it's Sam."

### Mickey sounding surprised replied, "Hi Sam, how are you?"

"Great day of skiing today. I sort of lost track of the time and just missed the last shuttle back to the house," Sam said in his best sympathy-searching voice.

### Mickey blandly answered, "Oh, that's too bad."

"Could you come and pick me up?" Sam asked.

### Sam could hear a female voice screaming in the background, "Is that Sam, that moron?! What, did he miss the last shuttle back to his house?!"

### Mickey tried to cover the mouthpiece and he quickly said to Sam, "I'll call you right back."

### Five minutes later Sam's phone rang. Sam said "Hello" and Mickey replied, "Sam, it's me."

Mickey went on to make up some kind of excuse about being liable for any damage done to his rent-a-car. Sam pleaded with him but Mickey's feet were set in quick Sasha-sand. It took Sam nearly 90 minutes to walk from the ski lodge back to the house. He spent most of the walk debating on why Mickey wouldn't pick him up. In Sam's mind, all of his friends, whether past or present, were good friends. Whether he shits on them, or they shit on him, at the end of the day they were still friends.

### I still think, "Fuck that! If someone has absolutely no regard for me or my feelings, they can take a flying leap! I don't have time for that shit!" Obviously, Sam had plenty of time for all types of shit.

Sam met with as much resistance in his summer Hampton's experiences as he did at Mount Snow. He was a bloated almost 40-something trying to play a young man's game. The body doesn't respond the same way to chemical and physical abuse when you get older. Simply sweating it out does little to restore much of the limited strength that was present only a day earlier.

### With days filled with losing basketball games against the younger guys and nights scattered with more strikeouts than a Nolan Ryan-pitched game, Sam was growing tired.

The same old lines like, "Don't I know you from somewhere," and "Didn't we meet at Mount Snow" were getting stale and probably used on the same women a few times already. Sam's mind hadn't changed in so many years that his very evolution as a being was in question. He wanted to meet someone but wasn't really focused on getting together with that special person.

What Sam needed he could not get, which was a mind that could convert all of the inputted data and tell it to him straight. The straight dope was that he needed to cut the shit and grow up! No, I'm not talking about losing all of the child-like goodness in his fluffy center; it's more like taking responsibilities for your actions. I would be the first man to tell you that I will be a kid for life. Hiding behind sporting events, spending weekends sleeping in the same room with five other guys, and sleeping with the enemy is great if you want to live a life of both mental and physical masturbation. There is much more to life than waiting for the other shoe to drop – in other words, if you want something you have to make it happen. It was a real challenge for me to get inside of Sam's head and try to vacuum away all of the cob webs. He wanted a change but had no idea which foot should hit the ground first. It was baby steps, for now.

### Therapy Moves to Callini's

### I love Italian food so much. I love it so much, in fact, that I felt myself craving the best Italian food in the city every weekday and Callini's was the ticket. Sam shared my passion for pasta and sauce and we moved our lunchtime ritual from the new dark, crowded cafeteria to the lower reaches of Manhattan from noon to 1:00 p.m. every day.

R&R Corp. decided to move its offices from the Canyon of Heroes, which was the sight of many famous ticker-tape parades, to a magnificent building overlooking the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Our new cafeteria was stocked with all of the reasonably-priced food items you could ask for, but it lacked the coziness and charm of our former digs. The dim lighting suggested that it was either nap time, or they were trying to recoup the money spent on food to lower their energy bills. We spent maybe a handful of days over the next year in this habitat, when inclement weather forced us to stay inside.

### It was amazing, but my life had never been the focus of our lunch conversations over our first seven years. I suppose my life didn't merit a front-page headline but it definitely deserved more consideration. Honestly, I am a very private person that likes to keep business and pleasure as separate as possible. Early on in my career, I was more than willing to volunteer personal information that was often used against me. I had one boss who would act like she was my best friend one moment, and then the next moment she would be using that information against me to keep me down. I guess we all learn the hard way – that is, all of us except Sam.

### Sam's private life was about as private as a 25 cent peep show. He never had a problem chirping to co-workers about his dating adventures, and they never seemed to tire of his sophomoric behavior. At first, I must admit, that I was really captivated by the way he told a story. But, as time went on, I kept wondering "Where's the beef?" As I became more and more comfortable with Sam, it was easier to guide him to the straighter track. If I had a dollar for every time he said, "To make a long story short," I would have enough money to buy a few hundred black and white cookies. Tasty.

We spent at least three months talking about Sam's 40th birthday, which was closing in on him like he was literally being hunted by Father Time. Sam liked to talk about minute details until my ears became raw. He was planning his own 40th birthday party and was even billing it as a Surprise Party. I'll let you catch your breath for a minute... yeah, a surprise party. At first, I thought I was hearing him say something else. Once he repeated this amazing statement, I had wished I would have heard something else.

Sam Earnest Xavier had an old school sense of humor. By old school, I mean OLD SCHOOL! Some people use the term old school to categorize anything that happened up to a few minutes ago. Sam's sense of humor pre-dated electricity; that's how old school it was. He used jokes that were so old – HOW OLD WERE THEY? They were so old that George Burns was barely walking when he heard them. Now that's, old school!

From the summer before his 40th birthday to the winter of his birthday, Sam had hit a desert-like dry spell. It got so bad that tumbleweeds were making more frequent appearances, rolling through his apartment. He even heard the whispers of the nickname Catcus Cock drifting his way.

### I can remember this one lunch we had like it was yesterday. Earlier that day, a new girl named Talia was starting her first day in our department. The turnover at R&R had been pretty high over the past few years, as the stock market headed to new highs. Opportunity was plentiful but I chose to be comforted by my job security and suddenly advancing prospects. Sam stayed because they gave us donuts and mini-bagels during the quarterly earnings seasons. He also liked the fact that he had a place to go every day and he knew what to expect when he got there. Our man wasn't so keen about surprises; I guess that's why he decided to throw himself a surprise party.

### Talia was one of those women that you meet and never forget. She had a sort of earthy Joan Baez quality to her. You could say she was the kind of woman that made my instincts scream "RUN!" when I saw her. There was this witchy quality about her that made me act cordial, from fear that I would be put under a spell if I gave off negative energy. Talia also had this voice that made me think that she had a helium tank under her desk. She had a crush on Sam from the moment he welcomed her to R&R and flashed that 20 dollar smile at her. It all added up to pure gold for our friend Sam, who needed the attention as much as a neglected dog.

### I had seen Sam flirt before, but this time it was different. He was so lonely that the very sight of a woman pursuing him altered his judgment like clouds had settled over his head. After about a month of watching the Sam and Talia thing from a distance, I was close to saying something to him. One Friday afternoon, I was casually talking to my boss, Bill Kerr, in his office and he asked me the question that was on everybody's mind, "So what's up with Sam and Talia?"

### Knowing office politics and the kindly nature of Bill Kerr, I answered the only way I knew how, "I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out myself." Bill and I had a great relationship because he was working side-by-side in the trenches with me before he was promoted to the top spot in our department. He always appreciated my hard work and insight, so my career started taking off a few months after he settled into his new corner office.

I wasn't going to talk badly about my good friend Sam, but I also wasn't going to give Bill some bullshit answer that would shake his confidence in my ability to talk straight to him. Straddling the fence can be dangerous unless you learn how to look straight ahead – I said what I needed to say without looking at one side or another too long. Everyone knew that Sam was a social misfit, but he was also a solid, dependable worker. Bill knew what he was getting with Sam and he was willing to overlook his social shortcomings for his productive professionalism. I was learning the office game and also gaining insight into the ripple effect caused by mixing business and pleasure. This knowledge would cause me to rarely emerge from my spacious water-view cubicle and a daily face-to-face with Lady Liberty.

Sam started to really push the envelope each successive day on the way to his 40th birthday. February 29th was the day that he set his surprise party for, which was 40 years to the day that he was born. Being a leap year baby had its obvious disadvantages and often confused him when to celebrate the February 29th birthday each year. It was quite an ironic twist for a Leap Year baby who became a man unable to take the ultimate leap.

### Talia and Sam would often disappear for 20 minutes, or more, at a time. I was too busy trying to advance my career and do my job to keep tabs on this misuse of company time. Not that I really give a shit what people do during the weekday hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., but whispers about the two wanderers had turned to full conversations. Sam called me one morning and said lunch would have to wait a few minutes while he "took care of some business." Again, I took the extra time to do some last-minute Valentine's Day shopping. That's what I call an appropriate use of company time.

While Sam was taking care of some business, I was inching closer to sitting his ass down and telling him to cut the shit! Since he had already committed career suicide at least a few times, the nine lives reincarnation of this cat-dog was being held in limbo. We sat down at Callini's one afternoon, Sam eating his usual mayonnaise-drenched, pasta salad and me eating my favorite Baked Ziti.

### "What the fuck are you doing?! I jumped into the interrogation.

### Sam barely picked his head up, "I'm eating my lunch."

### I shook my head, "You know what I'm talking about. Do you think you and Talia could make it a little more obvious?"

### "Nobody's even noticing us," Sam said in stride.

### I started laughing, "Bill was asking me about you the other day."

### "Bill Kerr? What is he your best friend now?" Sam answered in a jealous tone.

### I could have taken the conversation in a few different directions at this point. One option would have been to add a few more logs on the flame and really get him pissed off. Another option could have been to get upset myself and respond to his ass-kissing innuendo.

### The option I took was my usual high road stance, "Dude. I'm just watching your back. I will never say anything negative to anybody about you." That was the truth, to some extent. It seemed that anytime I would have a conversation with anyone about Sam, words were unnecessary as long as I could shrug my shoulders, shake my head, or roll my eyes. Yes, I was the king of the expression.

### Sam didn't question my loyalty to him, but that didn't stop his rampant paranoia from getting the best of him. "I can't get a break. So what if Talia and I are friends. Why should that be anyone's business?"

### Again, I was taking the upper roadway, "You can do anything you want with Talia," I said, although the thought of the two of them together made my ziti start an upward ascent. "But you have to be a little more careful at work. I then shifted gears, "So, what's the attraction?"

### Now, Sam doesn't usually shock me with anything he says but this one was an earth shaking, "She's everything I don't want in a woman. She's older than me, she's not really attractive, and she has big tits."

### Words could not have expressed my disbelief, so I picked up my hands palm up and gave him a look that said "What the hell did you just say?!

### I didn't hear a word Sam said the last 40 minutes of our lunch. His words were about as empty as a cookie jar about an hour after the warm cookies nestled into their ceramic confines. Mmmm, I love warm chocolate chip cookies – that stomach ache about 20 minutes later is always worth the trouble. It's like eating pizza when it's steaming hot and the next day you've got that dangling, torched skin flapping from the roof of your mouth.

Sam cut Talia off from his golden goodness a few days after our lunch conversation. I'm sure I had nothing to do with this sudden change, because he was much more concerned about his public image. Sam often acted like he was still in the running for his high school's popularity contest. The business world is anything but a popularity contest. Companies quickly find out that one day you're hot and the next day you're not. Sam was looking to get hot again, but using Talia to spark his flame was like trying to light a match in the shower.

It was two weeks before Sam's big surprise party. He thought long and hard about how he could get everybody into his apartment and not be there himself. After all, what would a surprise party be if the man of honor greeted his guests at the door? As fate would have it, Sam's friend Mickey bought an apartment in the same building as his. Somehow, Sam convinced Mickey to show up at his apartment at 7:00 p.m. and let all of his guests in – not surprisingly it would be the first time the two old friends had gotten together since Mickey moved in five months earlier. Sasha was now only a few months away from her marriage to Mickey, so she was in a pretty good mood. There would be no bitchy stance for Sasha on this night; she would be more than happy to spontaneously show everyone her satellite dish-sized engagement ring. There's nothing a bride-to-be loves more than talking about her wedding, because it is the culmination of lifetime of planning.

The party list included such dignitaries as Sam's buddies from the Miami trip and many of his old friends from the Jewish Community Center in Brooklyn. Sam had the nerve to invite the world famous Kelly O'Reilly, but she respectfully declined because she was hot and heavy with her boyfriend Sean Moore. Kelly's thoughts about Sam were restricted to how lucky she was to have met him – otherwise she never would have had the confidence to go out with Sean, who was the love of her life.

Also absent from the guest list was Talia, the long-haired freak from the office. Sam had shut Talia down so quickly that she thought she still had a chance. The truth was that she had about as much of a chance with him as any of the other females that Sam had discarded. He spent that week of his party almost taunting Talia about his Saturday night party. She was so helpless that she couldn't even ask him if she could come; it was weird, but I think she was waiting for Sam to ask her "if she was free Saturday night?" She daydreamed about being in his apartment and talking to his friends. Folks, this was a girl that didn't get out much. Her idea of a good time was a copy of the Accounting Journal and an occasional wine cooler.

As the day of the party drew closer, I became increasingly intrigued. It was a rare occurrence for my world and Sam's to collide outside of work. Aside from the occasional sporting event or drive-by if he was in the neighborhood, I had managed to completely separate my personal life from my professional life. This division made me happy, and somehow I knew I was better off not seeing the truth for myself. Sam's life had to be more interesting than a string of abstract thoughts, rather than reality. I was hoping that meeting many of these previously fictitious people would have little impact on my interaction with Sam. Frankly, my expectations were so low that there really was no room for disappointment.

### The invitation said, "Please arrive promptly at 7:30 p.m.," so I did what I was told. I knocked on the door of Apartment 5C and was greeted by the tandem of Mickey and Sasha. What a welcoming committee! If they were employees of Sam, Inc. they would have been fired on the spot. Mickey and Sasha took advantage of the opportunity to make fun of Sam and his immature lifestyle. Now, you can tell by my views in these pages that I had some issues with the way he lived his life, too; I just never aired my views in public.

### One by one and two by two the guests arrived at Sam's, now cramped, one-bedroom apartment. I was neither more nor less impressed than I thought I'd be with the people now surrounding me. Hanging out with Sam taught me to expect mediocrity, but a part of me still hoped there would be more to his life than a chain of words. Words can only take you as far as actions and spirit will go.

### I held down a nice corner sofa and managed to grab a little food and drink before the show started. I turned my head towards the door and saw this old man dressed as Sam. While most of the people at the party saw Sam walk in dressed as an old man, I saw the man for who he really was: an old man. His disguise, which appeared to be only skin deep, actually tunneled deep into his soul. At 40 years old, he really was an old man trapped in a middle-aged man's body.

People are always amazed when a person of advanced age remains vital and young. Contrarily, I am intrigued every time I look into the eyes of a younger person and see the soul of a grandparent. Everyone saw Sam as this macho womanizer, but I viewed him as an old man wearing a cardigan sweater with his pants hiked up to his nipples. Hair or lack of it, and body type are merely cosmetic visuals in the makeup of a person. Whether he was smart enough to acknowledge the clock-ticking in his head, Sam knew that father time would soon have him looking back at what could have been. While patrolling Miami Beach with a metal detector had its rewards, walking on that beach with another person would be more satisfying.

It was plain to see how happy Sam was at the party with all of his friends surrounding him. Whether they held him in high regard, or not, was irrelevant. Sam felt love in quantity, not quality, which often left him looking for more and more and more. Women often thought that Sam's appetite for them could not be quenched, but his desire for sheer numbers shrouded his aversion for true love. His apartment was scattered with old girlfriends who were more than happy to trade their Sam stories.

I often thought nobody would believe that Sam's stories held even a fraction of truth. Not only were the stories true, they were also retold with such incredible detail. It was almost as if Sam paid such close attention to details that he never let himself get caught up in the moment. Although he enjoyed many of sexual adventures, I would venture to guess that he never truly let himself roam beyond his boundaries. Like a poker player holding back his chips, Sam refused to go all in even when he had great cards.

### The party ended in the early morning hours with Mickey staying and drinking with Sam. Sasha had slinked out hours earlier but her fiancée decided to drink with the boys for a while. After all, Mickey had a short elevator ride home and his woman would already be sleeping.

### Sam recounted stories from the party all week, as I continued to devour Callini's favorite Baked Ziti delicacy. This proliferation of pasta and meat sauce was wreaking havoc on my rapidly deteriorating level of fitness. It had been so long since I worked out that I couldn't remember the last time I sweated; well, the last time I had sweated was when I last walked up a few flights of stairs. When you can't walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded, that is the point when you realize that your ass is completely out of shape. Somehow, Sam and I kept eating at Callini's to dull the pain of life passing us by.

### Splitsville

### It could be entirely possible that I latched onto Sam and his escapades because something was missing in my life. His stories of having sex wherever and whenever he wanted frankly made me envious and a little bitter. Keeping my personal life at a distance from Sam had its advantages, but it also kept me from discussing any of my problems.

Over the years, Sam had become quite the celebrity in our travels. We were walking through Battery Park in downtown one day and there was a camera crew and a few people standing around facing the Statue of Liberty. Sam instinctively walked toward this free publicity with open arms. A few minutes later he was singing God Bless America like nobody's 4th of July business. If there was one thing that Sam craved it was attention – he couldn't get enough of it.

I couldn't get enough attention, either -- literally. Marriages go through a progression that leads couples down a path of separation, not intimacy. With role models like Ozzie and Harriett Nelson and Mike and Carol Brady, it's no wonder why kids of the T.V. Generation tried to copy their ideal family role models. You grow up thinking that life has a structured path that should be followed. What you discover is that the trap has been set and you have become the mouse chasing after the small chunk of cheese.

### Don't get me wrong, I still love my wife Nina - I just couldn't live with her anymore. I can't really put my finger on one specific thing that made either one of us pull away. I can see why Sam loves the courtship end of the process more than the daily grind of a relationship. In the beginning, people have full control over who they are and what they want out of a mate. I always viewed Sam's noncommittal nature as a flaw in his character, when in fact it was a stroke of genius on his part. He never had to answer to anyone but the demons running laps in his head.

Life changed for me when Nina became pregnant with our first, and only, child. I think every guy is elated to hear the heartbeat of his child for the first time, but there is a part of all of us guys that realizes the lights are dimming and the party is winding down. Gone are the days of spontaneity and unscheduled, random passion. Something happens to women when they prepare themselves to become Mommy. It's one of the most amazing transformations I have ever seen – sort of like Peter Banner turning into the Hulk or Dr. Jekyll changing into Mr. Hyde.

### As the days slowly passed in my marriage, I was sinking more and more into a comfortable hole. I think the hole was carpeted and the television was hooked up to a satellite, proving that it really doesn't take too much to keep guys content. However, I always say that a life without passion is like a day without Pop Tarts: it's just no fun.

### My belief has always been that people's core, their inner self, doesn't materially change from the time they start developing to the time they decompose. That being said, how can women go from easygoing and spontaneous to anal and planned in less than a decade? People usually wind up becoming the person they would least like to be. For women, that person would be their mothers. The funny part of the whole metamorphosis is that they know they're turning into a butterfly, but even when they see the change they can't believe what they have become.

### Once phrases like, "If you do that, we're not going to..." or "You'll eat what I put on the table," are uttered, the harsh reality sets in: Your wife has become her mother.

### That is why it is so important to meet a girl's mother as soon as you get serious with her. The mother holds the key to everything that will be right, or wrong, in your life. Fortunately for Sam, he didn't get to meet too many mothers over the years. The one he did get to meet, Mindy's mom, turned her daughter's relationship off as quick as flicking a light switch. Sam made it a point of avoiding mom's until Mrs. Levenstein, Holly's mother, had him walking down the aisle with her daughter after the first date.

We were all right, my wife and I, until I got her pregnant. I never thought that my sperm and her egg would cause so many problems. Sex was really never an issue until Nina's stomach started to grow. She was so concerned that my monster penis would harm that little person that I didn't get anything more than a monthly pass. I never asked Nina to pick up the frequency of our conjugal visits, but if I didn't practice some self-love I would have exploded.

Having a child is one of the most blessed events that a person can go through in life. I was never jealous of my daughter Jessica being born; the problem I had was that my monster could no longer do any harm but access to the golden palace was still restricted to a monthly basis. Feedings and diaper maintenance took precedence over affection for me. There were many times that I felt like Sam and his dickcotomy. Some people believe in the idealistic view that love can conquer all, while others see the realistic notion that if you don't use your center appendage, it will fall off.

Sam couldn't believe I was getting a divorce. He didn't even know we had separated; that's how one-sided our conversation had become. Sam was a taker and I was a giver, and any attempt to try to reverse those roles with probably is fruitless. Walking out of the door of my own house was really difficult. My daughter was only a few years old and it felt worse leaving her than my wife. I knew once the door closed behind me that I would never live in that house again. After a six-month trial separation and some couples counseling, we realized that in order to stay friends we had to go our own ways.

### As part of divorce settlement, I got one of the cars and most of the stock in the brokerage account. My wife got the house and everything in our bank account. I instantly sold the car and used it as part of a down payment on a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I spent the weekends with my daughter in the city and she stayed at home with her mom during the week. There were times that I even stayed in the spare bedroom of the house every now and then. Our schedule was very flexible because all of the tension had been removed from our house.

### It seemed that the more my attention was diverted from work, the faster I was ushered up the corporate ladder. By the time I bought the apartment in the city, I was living the good life of an upper-level manager. Long meetings and even longer lunches took the place of toiling in an unrecognized existence. My relationship with Sam didn't change despite his attempts to get me to talk about his career freeze. My stance of not mixing business and pleasure helped me use the line "I don't want to talk about it," to Sam every time he tried to stir up trouble.

Now that I was living in the city, it became nearly impossible for me to avoid going out with Sam. We usually went out on Thursday and Friday nights, but we would go out earlier in the week if there was a good game to watch. The weekends were reserved for my family, and I would either go to Long Island by train, or my ex-wife would drive my daughter in to the city. Driving in to Manhattan gave Nina a chance to catch up with a few of her friends and do some much-needed shopping. I think she was also happy to get out of Long Island, and all of its mediocrity.

### Sam and I made quite the duo on the sports bar circuit. The best part of our social coupling was that our taste in women never conflicted. You couldn't have put together two guys with more opposite tastes in women than us. Sam liked women that were paper thin and I wouldn't settle for a snack when a meal was just around the corner. We were equally repulsed by each other's extreme taste in women, but it kept us from any jealous or hurtful feelings about each other.

### I'll never forget one of the first times we went out to a bar together. Sam was so eager to show off all of his womanizing skills that he nearly blew his load before we ordered our first drinks. Trying to pick up the coat check girl was nothing new, but Sam tried to get her number before she even hung up his coat. I was so embarrassed that I picked up my coat receipt and walked directly to the bar.

### When he finally followed me to the bar, he said, "Where did you go? I thought you left, or something."

### I felt like saying, "Yeah, Sam, I was gonna' leave but I needed a beer to dull the pain of the embarrassment." Instead, I said, "I thought you were right behind me?"

I've never been much for using pick-up lines, and it had been quite a few years since I was on the market. Sam seemed poised to give me a refresher course, but I told him that I would go with the strong, silent type approach until I got my sea legs. It's funny how New York women can smell the intoxicating bouquet of fresh meat. I felt like a helpless, bloody swimmer being circled by annoying, whiny, Jewish sharks all night. They would smile at me, with that squinty, phony smile, and I could see the tote board in their head turning like they had some infra-red-kind of ability to scan my net worth. With no ring on my finger, I might as well have been a deer walking around with a bulls-eye during hunting season.

I was sitting most of the night, so many of these aggressive women had absolutely no idea how tall I was. It's incredible how much shorter I look when I fold my far-reaching legs under the bar. I am one of the most deceptive 6'6" men on the planet. So deceptively tall, in fact, that most of the girls that were circling me were 5'4" and shorter. I was happy to divert these hormonally challenged females to Sam, who was delighted to receive the excess inventory.

### A few hours after we arrived, I spotted this mountain of a woman talking to this guy that appeared to be about half her size. He was so much shorter than her that he could have been breast fed more easily than kiss her. After about five beers I thought it was time for me to stretch my legs and go to the bathroom. From the minute I stood up I stared directly into this 5"11" woman's confused blue eyes. She had seen me at the bar but didn't even give me a second look when Tattoo started to rap to her about how successful he was. I smiled and kept walking toward the bathroom, realizing that I hadn't been away from the singles scene long enough to know that the cards were now in my hand.

This is the part of socializing that always confused me - if you know someone is interested in you, how do you close the deal? While I was draining the main vein, I tried to focus my thoughts on how I would emerge from the bathroom. I walked out all cool and composed only to see Sam talking to my Amazon.

I thought, "What the hell is he doing talking to the enemy? Sam never talked to girls he couldn't lift off the ground." Sherri took the liberty of ditching the jockey and walked over to get information from the horse's mouth. Sam was his usually loose-lipped self and provided Sherri with the 411 on things in my life even the FBI didn't know. So much for being anonymous and letting people know about my past within the flow of the conversation.

Women in their thirties, like Sherri, weren't interested in the flow of conversation kind of talks. They had been on the market much too long and were in danger of over-ripening. The stories I heard from Sam and some of the women I dated were almost identical. They all had their chances to get married, but something more than a squeegee incident, or not opening a car door, contributed to their prolonged unmarried status.

I dated at least ten women like Sherri in the six months after I became a free man. Free is such a relative term when you're sitting in your apartment, watching TV, with a pile of Doritos crumbs accumulating on your belly. About three months into my planned exile on the planet Snack, I decided to join a gym. Just when I thought it was safe to back in the water, I discovered that the sharks also made waves around the gym. There I managed to connect with about half of my dates like Sherri, and they all lasted about as long as she did – about three dates. After a while, I stopped dating and focused on hardening my Jell-O-inspired body. It felt good to sweat again and release some of those smile-enhancing, foot-clicking, endorphins. I still went out with Sam on occasion, but I replaced beer with spring or mineral water.

I had been working out for about six months when I noticed that the rack that held my chip crumbs was gone. Not only was the shelf gone but the chips had been replaced by Cheerios and Triscuits. Sam kept asking me to rejoin the company's basketball league with him, but the thought of pulling irate teammates off of him turned my stomach like a washing machine rinse cycle. I didn't need that kind of stress in my life again.

Sam's dating life was just as lame as mine. He was in such a bad stretch that he couldn't even get past the first date. He went out with this one girl who ate her meal, excused herself, and then walked out of the restaurant. When he found out that she was going out with a guy he knew, he became instantly enraged. He had been dated for food by a girl who had a cheap boyfriend that rarely sprung for dinner. Sam had become a dinner date that could only be extended to desert if it had been a low carbohydrate day. The story goes that Sam bumped into this girl and her boyfriend on the corner of 57th and 2nd one early evening and he punched the guy in his neck. The misdirected punch left little more than a scratch but it served noticed to all Jewesses that Sam shouldn't be taken so lightly – they would have to stay for desert and at least offer to split the bill.

### When Sam knocked on my door to show me his slightly red knuckle, the air in my body tried to escape all at once and I almost imploded. He spent the better part of an hour going over and over the atrocity that she committed. "How could she be going out with a guy, no matter how cheap and disgusting he was, and go on a date with me? Not only did she go on a date with me, she left after she finished her meal without at least saying goodbye! She didn't even try to leave a message on my machine or send me an e-mail apologizing for leaving so abruptly!"

### It was one of those times when I said as few words as possible. I figured that I would let him vent enough to reduce his blood pressure back to a measurable rate.

### After an hour of venting and a few Devil Dogs, Sam noticed that my computer was on. "Can I check my e-mail?" he asked. I said, "No problem," and sat at my desk and went to work.

"I want to see if anyone answered my ad," he said while scanning the page on the screen.

### I replied, "Where did you put an ad in?"

Sam answered, "It's this new site called MarryJew.com. I just put my picture of last week and I've already talked to a few women."

My left eyebrow raised as Sam brought the web site up on the screen. I had been looking for an activity to supplement my working out and browsing MarryJew.com was just the kosher ticket.

### One Thing Leads To Another

### I guess I wasn't surprised to hear that Nina had begun dating again. Part of me felt shocked and betrayed, while my sensible side wished she would remarry so I could keep more of my paycheck. My daughter Jessica was now six years old and ready to take over the world. She wasn't elated about her mom started to date other guys, because she still held a little hope that we would get back together. As well as we handled the divorce, the separation of mother and father still had an impact on her. We were still a family, but not under the same roof.

I decided to tell Nina about MarryJew.com in the hopes that it would help her meet someone. I had enrolled in the non-goy service about a month before mentioning it to her, so I could test the product out before giving it my endorsement. After three fun dates with pretty impressive women, I was eager to get my ex involved.

Nina isn't the kind of woman that rushes into anything. We didn't have sex until the fifth or sixth date at least. All right it was probably the fourth date, but who's counting? Nina had fallen in love with the Internet and she became equally as smitten with MarryJew.com. There were so many pictures and personal descriptions to scan through that it was as if you were browsing through the official database of single Jews. Sam especially liked the category called Body Type and the appropriate response of Petite. He wished they had the reply Anorexic, but would have to settle for less honest answers for the time being.

While Nina and I were using the veritable matchmaking service to meet a future mate, Sam was still up to his old tricks. He was looking for a wife like a bald man searches for a comb. Sam told me about this one date he had with this Israeli chic. Israeli women are so aggressive they make Sam look frigid. Berit dragged Sam back to her apartment after scarfing down a 14 ounce steak, and the pair was naked before he could say, "What are those bushes growing under your arms?" The sight of a hairy woman is a turn-on for some people but it made Sam's groinal region duck for cover. It took a good five to ten minutes of mouth to organ resuscitation before Sam was able to calm some of Berit's animal hunger. He told me that the worst part of the night happened when he got home and pulled a bunch of stray, Israeli hairs out of his mouth. He was hoping that it wasn't under arm hair and wished that the MarryJew site would include a category called Hair; this would have enabled Berit to include the response Plentiful in her profile.

I'm not sure who complained more to me about the MarryJew web site, Nina or Jessica. My ex-wife had a great deal of anxiety about going out on blind dates. It probably would have been a good idea if she would have thought about that before freezing me out of our sex life. I wondered what type of man would make a good match for Nina. It had to be someone who had the patience to read The New York Times from cover to cover on Sunday, and have the sexual appetite of a eunuch.

My daughter Jessica, or Jessie as we called her, really knew how to work the system to her advantage. She would tell me that she didn't want her mom meeting another guy, then I would here from Nina how Jessie helped her weed out the losers from what she thought were winners. The little kid didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but she was also learning how to play both sides without being too conspicuous. I knew it would take a real patient man, a saint, to live in that house full time.

Cross town from me, Sam was entertaining another one of his MarryJew.com floozies. I often wondered why so many people would sign up for a site with the name MarryJew if they had no plan of making a commitment. If the sight was called SleepWithJew.com then their intentions would be more easily understood. For many single New Yorkers, the concept of marriage was something they were constantly trying to get their hands around. Marriage for many city girls became a business proposition more than looking for true love. Years of dating without tangible results set these women back on their heels and completely jumbled any thoughts they might have had about a fairytale romance. Sam's dating history wasn't much different but he always saw fairytales as just that, tall tales.

Sam and I only fought over a woman once. Her name was Deidre Silver and she had this intangible quality that made men act like fools. I went over Sam's apartment one night, not realizing that he was busy entertaining someone. When I mentioned to him at lunch that I might stop by later in the day after my workout, he probably forgot that he was going on a date that night. Stupid me, I should have assumed that the dating machine would be carving another notch on his bedpost.

### I knocked on the door and, for a change, a woman answered the door. For a guy that made frequent appearances on national television, my tongue was tied tighter than an Eagle Scout's knot.

I thought to myself, "Who is this creature and what is she doing in Sam's apartment?"

"Are you looking for Sam?" she purred like a kitten.

### I eloquently replied, "Uh-huh."

### Sam quickly came out of his second home, the bathroom, and said "Ed! What are you doing here?"

### It was as if I was the last person on earth he wanted to see at that moment. I tried to dismiss myself quickly and move along, but Deidre held me there like a spider catching two bugs in her web.

### We wound up ordering Chinese food and watching a Lifetime Channel movie. You know these movies – boy meets girl; boy marries girl; boy obsesses over girl; boy nearly kills girl before the police shoot him dead.

This girl Deidre really knew how to work a room. She was sitting on the couch between me and Sam, holding his hand and leaning her head against my shoulder. I looked at Sam through the corner of my right eye and shook my head in disgust. I never wanted to compete with Sam over any woman; especially one who enjoyed the attention and adoration of as men as Deidre. Once I digested my Chicken with Cashews, I became hungry again and told the two of them I was going into the kitchen if they wanted anything.

### Sam was motioning with his eyes for me to leave, so I quietly picked up my coat and gym bag and slinked out the front door. About ten minutes later I was eating a few slices of pizza when my cell phone rang.

### I picked up the phone and said, "Hello."

"Deidre wants you to come back," Sam said in an irritated tone.

"Well, you tell Miss Spider to spin that web away from me," I said strongly.

### Deidre walked over to Sam and gently took the phone from him. "How could you leave without saying goodbye?" Deidre pouted to me.

### It was strange, but her powers must have been limited to direct presence because I was unfazed by her manipulation over the phone. "I'm sorry. I just didn't want to get in the way of your date," I replied.

### She continued to try to charm me for another few minutes until the battery on my cell phone went dead, or did I remove the battery from the back panel? Either way, I was freed from silky smoothness of Deidre Silver.

That was, at least, what I thought until my cell phone rang about an hour later; I was sitting on my couch watching the Knicks game and eating some Cocoa Krispies. That's the problem with Chinese food: it fills you up for about 20 minutes and then you're not just hungry, you can eat like it's the first food you've seen in days.

"How was the pizza? I see you were able to put the phone battery back in," and all-too-familiar voice said on the other end of the line.

### I instinctively blurted, "Oh shit!" as the buzzer rang on my intercom. I closed the phone and walked over to the intercom.

### I never had a chance to even speak, "Well aren't you going to let me up?" the spider lady said as her voice nearly came though the intercom. Without speaking, I buzzed her up and stood their virtually motionless until she slinked through the door.

We didn't say a word the rest of the night as we made love for over two hours. I must have had all this pent up sexual tension from years of being with Nina, because I matched the insatiable Deidre thrust for thrust. That was the most incredible, sensual, experience of my life. I must admit that when I first heard her voice again, I thought I was on the wrong end of one of those Lifetime movies. She left shortly after my third, and last, release put me down for the count. I fell asleep with a smile on my face and not a care in the world. Deidre left no note and I never saw or heard from her again.

### The next day at lunch I apologized to Sam about barging in on his date.

### Sam replied, "Do me a favor and call me next time you're dropping by."

"Oh, so now I have to call you before I come over! You're the one that told me to yesterday at lunch to come by," I set Sam straight.

"Thanks for leaving, anyway," Sam said in embarrassment.

'I stopped and got a couple of slices at Ray Barry," I said.

### Sam asked, "So what did you think of her? You think I should call her?"

### I looked straight ahead, appearing if I was laboring over the answer, "I don't know. She was all right."

Sam nodded as he continued inhaling his hamburger and fries. I nearly pinched myself to make sure the events of the last 12 hours weren't a fluffy dream. We never talked about Deidre again, but I had the memory of that night I spent with the woman that would forever be known as Miss Spider.

"Have you gone out or talked to anyone from MarryJew.com lately?" my ex-wife asked me as we sat at my old kitchen table.

### Since Deidre and I didn't go out and the conversation was no more than body-oriented, I replied "No, it's been pretty quiet in my neck of the web, I mean woods."

"I have a date coming over tonight. Can you handle it?" Nina asked me.

### Can I handle it?! Can I handle it? The more I processed that question the more I was unsure about my feelings. The thought did cross my mind to turn around and run out the front door and all the way back to the city, but I decided to stick it out for my ex-wife, my daughter, and my rampant curiosity.

I took my wife's car and went out with Jessie to pick up a few things for our interesting night together. Blockbuster, for a change, had everything we needed for a fun night. After paying for a couple of DVD rentals, a few un-popped bags of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn, one plain and one peanut bag of M&M's, and a Power Puff Girls toy, we headed home. After all, 3678 Euclid Drive was the first house I had bought. It was quite an accomplishment to build up from nothing and be able to afford a house. Even though my name was no longer on the deed, I still felt proud every time I drove up to that house.

We walked back into the house with our bounty, and Nina was busy primping in front of the main bathroom's mirror. The one negative aspect about the three-bedroom and two-bathroom Ranch-style house was that it was difficult to get any privacy. The main level of the house was where all of the action was, and there was no way of avoiding the constant traffic. At times, it was like being on 5th Avenue and 57th Street during Rush Hour in the city.

### The one thing I'll say about Nina was that she was so structured that being late was never on the agenda. She could plan base, blush, eyeliner, and lipstick in such a fashion that it fit into even the tightest of time restraints. But, on this night, she had as much time as any diva would need to get ready. In fact, she had too much time on her hands – Jessie and I witnessed at least six outfit and four shoe changes. With each new pairing we said, "That looks good!" and "That's the one!" but Nina wasn't feeling any more at ease. She was a dating novice and it was beginning to show.

When I met Nina, she was 25 years old and had only dated a few guys before me. I think I was the second or third guy to receive a golden ticket to enter the forbidden palace; truly wonderful imagery for something as simple and wonderful as making love. In our case, it was more like making Ed happy once a month.

Now that the girl was no longer mine, the burden of servicing my lower Ed was no longer her responsibility. Once I realized that it was my responsibility to find a partner that wanted to have sex with me just by looking at me, it became clear that I had to move on. Nina was a passionate person in more of a Martha Stewart way – I like a woman who can be just as creative and open minded in the bedroom as she is in picking out paint color for the bedroom walls. You live and you learn, I guess, and it doesn't really diminish the special love I will always have for Nina.

### The digital clock on the white microwave flicked to 5:45 and the doorbell rang. I thought that if this guy's punctuality was any indication of the direction of the day, Nina might have hit pay dirt. I heard Nina take a deep breath before she began her 14 step stroll toward the front door. It's amazing the things you focus on during times of anticipation. I was tucked away in the kitchen behind a column that led to the basement, but I saw the whole meeting. She smiled when she saw this proper gentleman and he returned the positive feedback with an equally wide smile of approval.

Once my ex-wife and Gordon Posterman met, there pictures should have been placed next to the word conservative in the dictionary. I felt both a deep sadness and extreme elation when I first realized that Nina would be the future Mrs. Posterman. There are some things in life that are so obvious that they will certainly come to pass. Gordon could have been the poster man for the Extreme Caution Society, if there was one. This man considered going ten miles over the speed limit dangerous. His idea of a crazy night would be to watch the first two Lord of the Rings movies, back to back.

I have to give Gordon a lot of credit – he was quite diplomatic about meeting the daughter and the ex-husband before even going out on a first date with Nina. It appeared that once he met Nina, there was nothing that could keep him away from her. That kind of blind devotion was so admirable for any person, let alone one who wore a Mr. Rogers-type sweater and used "Jiminy Cricket!" as swear words when he was upset.

The coupling of Nina and Gordon helped me rub my eyes and clear my vision. Six months after they met, Gordon asked Nina to marry him. She said "Yes" and he pulled out his great grandmother's antique engagement ring. Nina's eyes lit up at the site of anything antique, let alone a ring that came with from such a special person and fit her finger like it was meant for her. If Nina could move on, there was no reason why I couldn't follow her lead... for a change.

### Spark Ignites a Blaze

Nina's engagement set off a fire in me that I haven't felt in some time. If MarryJew.com could work for her, imagine what it could do for me if I became serious about getting remarried.

When I told Sam of my ex-wife's engagement and pending marriage he reacted with little emotion. The news obviously hadn't hit him the same way as it had inspired me. In a strange way, I don't think Sam and I were as close as we were before Deidre the Spider Lady Silver spun in and out of our lives. He must have sensed by her quick exit that she had other plans that night. Maybe I shouldn't have given into her, but what choice did I really have? For one, I could have flushed my phone down the toilet. But, honestly, the night was worth a lot more than a fading friendship. It had been a long time since I was able to go so strong for so long; I just needed the right woman to stoke the flames that Nina's engagement lit.

In my tenth, and final, year at R&R Corp., Sam and I ate lunch an average of about once or maybe twice a week. That was really all of the time I needed to catch up on his circular life. In the whatever goes around comes around world of Sam Earnest Xavier, events had a way of repeating themselves like cold pizza late at night. Our lives seemed to be moving in separate directions and I didn't have the patience to look back. Sam was a big boy, so it would be up to him what happened the rest of his life. I tried hard to channel his thoughts, but I had lost sight of the big picture; it always comes back to my point that people really don't change. If Sam were to ever marry, it would be to a person that he was meant to be with – nothing I would say or do could ever change that.

Work was about as strenuous as vacationing in Hawaii. It's true what they say, "It's good to be the king." Maybe I wasn't the king but I was close enough to the throne that the pressure of pulling myself up, was off. This lack of professional stress helped me focus more on my personal life. It was full steam ahead for MarryJew.com and my all-out search for a new love in my life.

I've always been a very private person at work, so I didn't dare cross the line despite my desire to search. I'm a research guy at heart, so looking for a wife wouldn't be any different. The problem that most single people have is that they search for a person they can get along with, not one they will marry. The Sonic Boom Theory should apply to every serious date you go on; if the world doesn't stop and you're not blown away, then it's time to move on and try someone else. The misnomer is that love grows over time – I am here to tell you that if you think you'll learn to love someone, there is no such thing. Either you love someone or you don't, and you should know it the second you lock eyes with that person. Growing love gets you divorced, not happily married. I obviously know this from personal experience.

I was on a mission to find the one person who could be my female twin. Since I knew that Linda Carter, alias Wonder Woman, was already married, I had to search outside of the superhero genre and dig into the vast database of MarryJew.com. There were so many pictures and varied personal profiles that it became a challenge to select people to contact. I love to probe deep in the depths with my analytical mind. For some people the searching was drudgery, but for me it was pure heaven.

Serious date number one intrigued me because the girl was tall and decent looking. Most women turned me off with there canned responses toward romance, or the ideal date. I immediately kept searching when answers such as "The first date tells you if you want to go on a second date," or "We'll see if something can grow from the date." Wishy-washy answers like that will get you the curb in my world.

Being nearly 40 years old, I was looking for a woman well into her 30s – that was my first mistake. Betty Strauss was 31 and enjoyed quiet moonlit walks on the beach and most sports. The thing you have to watch out for when you're locked in and on the trail is false positives. Seeing so many women that violate eyesight guidelines can make you believe in something that doesn't strain your eyes. Betty was tall and thin and I wanted desperately to like her. We sat down and had lunch and the talk was small enough not to flatten the positive initial impression.

### The date went well until we got up and walked out of the restaurant, which was located in the lobby of the building she worked in. It was a Friday afternoon, so I had no problem getting away from R&R for a few hours. The lobby was buzzing with people so we stepped outside for a little privacy. I fidgeted for a few seconds then went to kiss her on the cheek. Betty pulled away enough so all I pecked was the grimy city air we were breathing.

### I looked at her in astonishment as she said, "Sorry." She shook my hand and told me to give her a call; then she walked inside to the elevator and disappeared. I walked a couple of blocks to the subway, which I had to take back downtown, and thought about the coldness of her kiss pullback. My mom, the excuse maven, would have said "She didn't want to kiss you in front of all of her co-workers." I'm not a firm believer in excuses.

Contrary to my Sonic Boom Theory, I didn't give up on Betty right away. Although I should have sent her ass back to the Stone Age with her pal Barney, I decided to be a little patient for a non-New York minute. I called Betty a few times and she seemed to be trying to get used to the idea of dating me. I looked at myself in the mirror to see if I had turned hideous over night, but the mirror didn't crack. Once I conveyed my thoughts on dating to her, it was over. We got together so she could milk another lunch out of me, and she wasted little time once she finished her sandwich to say, "I don't think this is working out?"

"You didn't like the tuna salad?" I replied sarcastically.

### She started to respond to set me straight, but I gave her a knowing look and she smiled. This time she gave me a kiss on the cheek at the end of the date. It was a Saturday afternoon and I decided to walk the forty blocks uptown to my apartment. By the time I unlocked the door to my apartment, any thought of Betty had washed away like a quick summer rain shower. Sam would have debated the failure for weeks, but I wasn't Sam and I would eventually succeed. I went to the bathroom, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and then sat down at the computer to find the next Mrs. Rubin.

I thought I would broaden my search outside of the hellish confines of the city for my next date. A week later I wound up taking an Amtrak train to Princeton, New Jersey, to meet Jennifer Fearstein. I was hoping her last name was just a coincidence because I didn't want to walk into the date already intimidated.

I had a good two hours to think about my life on the trip to Princeton, Tiger-land. Even though my divorce had been final for some time and I had moved on, it still stunned me to think that I suffered through a failed marriage. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to make another mistake. Now, don't take the word mistake in the wrong way. In Nina, I now have a friend for life. While I need to find my best friend, I also want to meet my sexual equal. I'm not going through all of this trouble again just to be held to monthly feedings. I have too much of an appetite to be put on a structured schedule.

The minute I looked into Jennifer's eyes, I knew I was face-to-face with a sexual predator. At 34, her body was in excellent shape that would leave a woman of any age envious. Her bright red hair appeared to be slightly chemically enhanced but not to the point of being so red that Bozo the Clown's wig would appear dull. There was nothing about her that didn't scream red head, down to her tight white pants. When I got a good look at her ass, a few minutes after we met, it was easy to see the she either went brief-less or was wearing a thong. This woman took pride in her body and I was more than willing to feel my way through it and offer it the praise it deserved.

### Jennifer and I spent the day walking through Princeton University and the cool town surrounding the Ivy League school. We sat real close during lunch, our legs rubbing together like two twigs trying to make fire. She smelled good and she felt even better. I was blinded by lust and barely even tasted the grilled chicken sandwich I ate for lunch. She ate like it was the only food she would consume all day. Her eating habits were a far cry from the city girls and their obsession with eating as little as possible in public.

### After lunch, we took a short stroll and then sat in a square surrounding by blooming, pink Cherry trees. It was such a beautiful setting and it made me feel a movie vibe when I looked around. I was looking for romance and I thought I had found it. We talked on the bench for at least an hour and the conversation never hit a lull – reviewing our lives so the other person could a better idea where we came from seemed so natural.

She walked me to the train, after spending over four delightful hours with me, and we met in a passionate kiss that lasted a good twenty seconds. I was ready to duck into a dark corner and settle the thong/no panty issue right then and there but she put the brakes on. We hugged and I told her I would call her soon. What a great first date; thank you MarryJew.com!

A few hours later I walked into my apartment and I was as happy as a clam. Not that you can tell if clams are really happy, or not; take my word for it, I was really happy. I instinctively reached into my pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and dialed Jennifer's number. When I got her answering machine, I left the following short message:

"Jennifer, hi it's Edward. I just wanted to call and tell you what a great time I had with you today. I hope we can do it all again real soon. Bye."

### I'm not one for holding back when I see something I want. Some people see that as coming on a bit too strong, but I want to be with someone who will let herself go and get lost in the moment. Since I have already been with someone who thought about every move, it has made me sensitive to hesitation. In my world, hesitation means "I don't want to do it," or "I'm not that into it." Words usually fall short when someone wavers over what seems like a simple decision.

### I was lying on the couch when the phone rang a few hours later at 8:00 p.m.

"Hello," I said answering the phone.

"Edward? Hi, it's Jennifer."

"Hi, Jennifer, how are you?" I said somewhat clumsily.

### She replied, "Sorry it took me so long to call you back, but I went over my parents' house for dinner. I couldn't wait to tell them about you."

### Stop! Hold the presses! If you stopped the tape right there it would appear that we were headed for a long, successful relationship. I know that's what I thought, too. Jennifer went on to tell me that her dad lived on the West Side of Manhattan for ten years before becoming a full professor at P.U. He was telling her how much she would love that part of the city. We went from a good date, to living together in one day. If things are right, that's about the right pace for me.

I wish I could have bottled the events of that first day for safe keeping. The question that keeps coming to mind is, "What happens to women once they see their future?" Women either run and embrace what's ahead, or do their best to sabotage a life they weren't meant to lead. It's funny how they always accuse men of running away from commitment. While it is true that men often flee from commitment like they've been told to eat all of their Brussels sprouts, there are some of us that welcome it with open arms.

### A few nights after we met, we got into a deep discussion about relationships.

I started the ball rolling by saying, "I believe that you're feelings for a person is shaped the first time you meet them."

### Jennifer asked, "Do you mean that feelings don't grow over time?"

### I replied, "I think you learn more information about someone as time goes on, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you love them more each day you're with them."

"My mom told me that she learned to love my dad over time," Jennifer proudly stated.

I rebuffed that statement, "How do you learn to love somebody. Real love is a raw emotion it is not a learned behavior."

### "Well, that's not what my mom said. Anyway, how do you know when you meet the right person?" Jennifer stated sternly.

### I thought to myself, "If she doesn't know the answer to that question then I'm not the right person."

I said to her, "I just know," without saying that she was the one for me. I quickly thought back to all of those conversations with Sam and the misunderstandings he had with women. While most of those situations were his fault, I'm sure there were a bunch of women that purposely messed it up.

A 34 year-old woman should not be discussing every detail of every conversation with her mother. I thought back to Holly Levenstein and her intrusive mother, but I think Jennifer's issues dug a little deeper than the junior Levenstein's. After I hung up the phone with Jennifer that night, I remembered a moment during our date that caused me to momentarily pause and think. We went into this women's clothing shop during our travels in downtown Princeton, and she stopped to try on this big, floppy hat. She looked really good and I told her so; she then looked at the price tag and winced. I asked her how much it cost and she said with a serious face, "Two hundred dollars and you better get used to buying me expensive things."

### It wasn't so much what she said, it was the way she said it and the manner at which she glared at me. The sneer in her lip told me that she was the boss and I was the piece of shit she would be doing whatever she wanted to, whenever she wanted to. That attitude flash was sandwiched between a whole mess of creamy goodness that was hard to resist. I have been pushed by a boat-load of bitchy women in my life, so I tended to not be as impacted by ordinary attempts to back me up.

The more we talked on the phone, the more I was sure about my future. We decided to go out again, despite our not seeing eye-to-eye on several points. It was amazing how volatile our relationship had become after just one date. Jennifer was anxious to come into the city, so I met her the following Saturday afternoon at Penn Station's Amtrak base. It was weird, but the minute I saw her walk out from the gate I knew it would be a long night.

True love transcends all boundaries and doesn't take shit from mothers, or fathers, or friends, or stray dogs with matted, Rasta-looking hair. Time stands still when love bangs down your door and you're not looking to find fault with your mate. That's the first sign of being in lust, not love; when you start looking for flaws in the other person, the party is well on its way to being over. I don't want to be with someone who has to grow to love me. Either you love me or you don't, it's that simple. I see everything I need to know about a person the moment I meet them. People rarely disappoint me because I can sense what's in front of me from the outset.

### That's the problem with disappointment – how many times have you claimed to be disappointed when you already knew what the outcome would be in advance? We know what people are capable, or not capable of, before we go through the motions. For example, Sam often complained about his relationship with Mickey when, in fact, there really was no relationship to talk about. Why waste time with fruitless pursuits when there are so many other possibilities out there?

I was thinking about that very question when I met Jennifer at Penn Station that Saturday afternoon in April. Why did I always have to be the nice guy who couldn't close the door when it was necessary? I knew there was no future with Jennifer, as a result of her hesitancy about falling in love. She did me a favor by slowing the action down enough so I could see the situation clearly. There was a reason for her being 34 and never married; there is always a reason why people land where they are in life. The explanation for Jennifer's bad luck with men centered on a combination of a cold heart and insanely bad advice from her frigid mother.

The afternoon we met in my backyard, Jennifer told me the story of her most serious relationship.

### She started the conversation with, "Brad Jeffries was the love of my life." I looked behind myself like she must have been talking to someone else, because I thought I still had an outside chance. She babbled on about how he was mentally and physically abusive at times, and often called her a "C-word" when she would work out at the health club in a unitard. Although the relationship had ended a year prior to our meeting, it was obvious that Jennifer was hiding behind her vulnerability. I surmised that she didn't like the fact that I was telling her how she should feel.

The fact was that I expected a lot more when I met the one. If Jennifer was the one then I was well on my way to divorce number two. Sam would probably be a good match for Jennifer; they could commiserate about their lost loves all day while losing sight of the most important stage of all, the present. I was the one who took a chance and failed at a 10-year marriage, yet she was talking about a two-year relationship that went awry.

### I didn't hear very much she said after her initial "love of my life" comment. Statements like that take the starch out of any thoughts of a relationship you had left. We spent the remainder of the day walking around the city. At one point, we even held hands while crossing the street. I hadn't planned on a sleep-over date, but it got late and I was concerned for Jennifer's safety riding the train by herself. Chivalry is not dead, it's deaf, dumb, and blind.

### The only sparks that were flying that night were concentrated on our unfiltered mouths. Our views were anchored on the opposite sides of the spectrum, and the likelihood of compromise seemed bleak. She said she wanted to call her father to pick her up after I called her "frigid" at one chilly valley.

"I'm not frigid!' Jennifer replied. "You're the one who failed at marriage, not me!" she added.

### I came back quickly with, "Well, at least it tried! You can't even let your heart go! That is, if you have a heart!"

She started to cry after I crossed the line of any hope. We slept on separate sides of my queen-sized bed the rest of the night without incident. I tried to apologize in the morning but she didn't want to hear it. Within minutes of her waking up, she walked out of both the door and my life. She wouldn't give love a chance and I wouldn't settle for watching love grow like an annoying, clingy vine. Next!

The next couple of dates enabled me to refocus on what I wasn't looking for in a woman. The first female posted a picture on her MarryJew profile that was at least ten years old. Needless to say, the girl with the curl wound up being the old bag with the sag and some significant hair loss. The wide view of her scalp made me think that "Maybe a picture doesn't say a thousand words." She spooked me out so much that I gave her a wrong number and e-mail address when she hounded me at the end of the date. I have never used deception on a date but this undercover operation was merely an act of survival.

Date number two was so pleasant it was as if I had eaten dinner with an old friend. Kimberly and I met outside of the Fairway food market, on the corner of 74th and Broadway. We kissed "hello" on the cheek and she looked at me and said, "The Knicks are playing the Nets tonight. Do you want to go to the sports bar across the street?"

We were like two guys high-fiving each other, drinking beers, and eating nachos. Kim must have been a lesbian or a LIT, Lesbian In Training, because we seemed to both be interested in the waitress. She did everything but say "That waitress has a nice set of cans." Who cares what she was, we had a great time that night and the Knicks won.

The series of dates I had recently completed left me with concerns about my choices on marryJew.com. My idea of stretching my geographic boundaries was a good idea but I didn't want to start a long-distance romance. Long-distance romances are painful and ultimately doomed to fail. No, I wanted to meet someone who was born and raised outside of New York. This would almost guarantee me a chance to connect with someone that wasn't raised to be thoughtless and self-centered.

I was looking through profiles for about a week with no success. The brick wall that I crashed into jogged my brain and left me as frustrated as I had been since I moved to the city. I was trying so many different combinations in my searches that the only thing left to try was loosening up a bit on age. Diving below the age of 30 seemed like I was trying to pump myself up, when in fact I was closing myself off to a world of possibilities. Stopping at the age of 29 seemed to be about as young as I could go, seeing as I would be ten years older than my partner in crime.

I knew she was the one the moment I saw her picture. Gabrielle Marcus wasn't your average transplanted New Yorker. She didn't look Jewish and she sounded like such a nice person.

You might ask, "What does it mean to look Jewish?" Jews would probably call me an anti-Semite, but I had more of an anti-ordinary mentality. Natural blond hair and blue eyes are uncommon to most Jews, who tend to die there hair to become more mainstream looking. I wanted a person to be themselves around me, because there was no need for them to try to look like someone else.

I responded to Gabrielle's ad and waiting for her response. The one thing she said in her profile that got me, was a response to Your Perfect Man: I'll know it when I look into his eyes. I couldn't have said it better myself. Finally, someone who speaks my language!

### There was no doubt in my mind, in the days leading up to our first date, that I would spend the rest of my days and nights on this earth with Gabrielle. I had never been so sure about anything in my life and it felt so right to be happy.

### The following Monday afternoon I ate lunch with Sam at Callini's. He was going on and on for about 40 minutes about his recent dating mishaps, and I sat their quietly content like the cat that just swallowed the bird.

### Sam came up for air and asked me, "So, how was your weekend?"

### Ahhh, the moment I had been waiting for ever since I met Sam – it was my chance to share some good news about myself. I had become so accustomed to listening to negatives and recanting some downcast tidbits of my own, that it felt right to inject some joy into our conversation.

### I answered with a smile, "It was really great."

"Great? What do you mean great?" Sam kept asking for some clarity.

### I said in a matter-of-fact tone, "I just met the girl I am going to marry."

### Sam was outraged, "Get outa' here! How do you know?!"

"I just know," I calmly responded.

"How can you get married twice before I even get married once?" Sam said in a frustrated tone.

I shrugged my shoulders to mean "I don't know," but I really knew why I was able to know about everything that was happening around me.

I knew why I had met my perfect match and I knew why Sam had never been married. We were two different people: I got things done and he talked about doing things. Sam was able to shrug off the engagement of my ex-wife but I could see that he couldn't shake off my admission of instant love. With thoughts of Mindy Lipshitz constantly dancing in his head, Sam felt sick about all of his lost opportunities. He had dismissed nearly all of the women he had dated because of minor flaws. By self-sabotaging every relationship, he sealed off his heart and ensured a solitary life.

### I looked into Sam's cool, hazel eyes and saw that something was up. He was at the end of his dating rope and he knew it. At 43 years old, he was standing on the border of the all-too-obvious age barrier. The twenty-something crowd looked at him like he was a dirty old man flashing his wares in a raincoat. The thirty-something crowd was getting real serious about meeting someone, so Sam's non-committal bullshit was legendary and was not tolerated. Sam was not interested in the forty-something crowd because he was in severe denial about his advanced age.

Something had to give; either Sam would let his guard down and be true to himself, or he would prepare for another long winter, alone. The real trick was figuring out how he could be true to himself. What the hell did Sam need? What type of woman could domesticate the untamable beast? The only woman that was somewhat successful at keeping Sam in line was his mother. It hit me, sitting there that afternoon with Sam that he had to marry his mother. While the thought of that happening makes my stomach turn like a tornado, it was exactly the medicine he needed. The spark that my ex-wife Nina ignited had now turned into a full-scale blaze of fire.

I also realized that Sam would likely be wide open for the next woman he met. It was a rare opportunity for the single women of New York to get a legitimate shot at a lifetime bachelor. It sounded real enticing but chicks weren't lining up around the block to take him down. Sam's only chance was attracting a fringe player that was incapable of bagging the big game. Most of the women in New York, no matter how hideous or obnoxious they were, felt that they were qualified to attract a doctor or a lawyer. Poor bastards.

### Talk Was Cheap

### Ten years of talking amounted to a city-full of hot air. All I heard about day after day was Sam yapping at the outside, and paying little attention to the inside. He was so concerned with appearances that he boiled down his essential components to skin and bones.

Imperfections of a women's skin was a key ingredient in the Sam recipe. Whether the blemish was on her face, leg, arm, hand, foot, or butt, he would find it. Sam also was a stickler about weight; girls that weighed over 100 pounds need not apply. He seemed so set in his ways that I thought there was no way he would give any ground. That was, until one weekend when he ventured back to Camp Hook-Up.

### Sam had been nudged out of the Camp Hook-Up staff and, despite his attempts to get back in, the owner only gave him a 10% discount off the usual weekend rate. With pride no longer an option, Sam sucked it up and paid his way. He told me that it was the best $150 he ever spent.

### While there are so many people scrunched up in the New York metropolitan area, Sam seemed to run into the same people over and over again. I always thought that Sam suffered from a little middle-aged Alzheimer's because his memory was as short as his temper on the basketball court.

I kept thinking that Sam would be vulnerable to the first women he met that weekend, and I was right. Carla Weisberg knew Sam and she sat next to him on the trip up to the camp. Carla was the anti-Sam; a person that went against everything he wanted in a woman. He had met her a few times, but obviously he made a much better impression than she did. Carla was aptly named because she bore a striking resemblance to Carla Tortelli from the show Cheers. She was a strong 36 year-old woman that had never been married. Not only had she never been married, the thought had never really crossed her mind. Carla had been a lifetime student, a perennial book worm, until her mom passed on some wisdom before she passed on.

"Be happy, Carla. Go out and find yourself a nice man to marry. Get your head out of those books and live your life," Mrs. Weisberg said on her way out of the world.

### Carla was so swayed by her mother's words that she immediately signed up in February for a much-needed weekend at Camp Escape. She was happy to both fulfill her mother's last request and jump start her social life.

Carla noticed Sam waiting for the bus in front of H&H Bagels. He was chomping on an everything bagel with lox spread, and wound up wearing some of the snack on his cheek. She had recently encountered Sam a few times while out with her friends. Carla really liked him, but she initially felt that he was out of her league.

### When Carla saw Sam sitting in the middle of the bus next to a window, she focused on the open seat next to him. Being behind Rhonda Fishbein, the whore wearing a tube top and cut-off jean shorts, made the walk down the aisle excruciating. Rhonda took her time scanning the bus to see who she would open her recently groomed jungle for. She looked over at Sam who smiled at her, but she kept walking until she nestled next to doctor-in-training, Greg Baum. Sam was looking sadly out the window when Carla said to him, "Is this seat taken?"

Sam was happy to feel wanted after Rhonda Free-Bush passed him up for Mr. Doogie Howser light. Carla nestled into her seat and the bus started rolling. No more than 20 seconds passed before the conversation began. Sam started talking about his past experience at Camp Hook-Up, offering the G-Rated version for a change. Carla was so distracted by the excess lox spread on Sam's cheek that she reached into her purse to find a wiping device. She pulled out a moist wipe and, despite his refusal to stop talking, held the clean side of his face in her left hand while wiping off the excess bagel with the right.

### Sam looked into Carla's jet black eyes and realized that she was the person he had always been looking for. He hadn't realized until that moment that he wasn't looking for an anorexic bitch on a low carbohydrate diet – he was looking for, and just found, a woman to replace his mother.

The weekend at Camp Hook-Up was more about "eating everything on your plate" than sex in the trailer or basketball court. In a matter of minutes, Sam had been transformed into the obedient boyfriend instead of a wandering Jew. It all made sense to both Carla and Sam – a bookworm and a bachelor were happy to transform into a Mama and her boy.

### Sam came in Monday morning and I could sense that he couldn't wait to talk to me. I had just come off the best weekend of my life and I had my Gabrielle to thank for my smiling aura. Just as a smiling Sam passed by my office, Bill Kerr nodded at him and came into my office.

### He closed the door and said, "Have a good weekend?"

### I knew it was small talk so I played along, "Yeah, it was great. Did you go out to the shore?"

"Where else would I be?" he replied. He dropped his head for a moment then continued, "As much as it pains me, I have something to ask you."

### I thought to myself, 'Either he's going to get fired, or he's going to give me his job."

### What really came out of my mouth was "Ask away."

"What would you say if corporate wanted to steal you away from us?" Bill asked me.

### I sarcastically answered, "You can tell those number crunchers to go bug someone else."

### Bill took his small, gold-rimmed glasses off and looked me in the eye, "My friend. This is one offer you cannot refuse."

### Bill was a good friend. He had boosted my career in the past when others had passed me over for promotions. A 40% increase in salary, a corner mid-town office overlooking Central Park, and a chance to oversee and share in the profits of a new department were too much to refuse. That would be my last week at Rank & Rate Corp., and it would also be the end of rest and relaxation for a while. Our parent company, O'Neill-Moss Company, would make sure I had plenty to do for the foreseeable future.

I did some work in the morning and then left to take a walk about an hour before lunch. I called Sam from my cell phone and told him to meet me at Callini's at noon. Since I am an educated consumer, I popped into Syms and cruised for some bargains. A few shirts and ties later I walked back to the office and put my purchases down. It was ten minutes before noon, so I went over to Sam's desk and told him that I was back. Before he could ask me why I came back, I raced to the bathroom. I took care of my number one business before I splashed some cool water on my face. I looked in the mirror and thought, "Who are you and what have you done with my good friend Ed?"

### I really didn't think much about what I was going to say to Sam at lunch. What do you say about the opportunity of a lifetime? The conversation would dictate what I said and when I said it. We walked to Callini's enjoying light sports conversation about how pathetic the Mets had become; the Mets do that for about 13 or 14 years at a stretch.

### Lunch became a stalemate for the first few minutes after we got our food. We both were carrying huge stories and were just waiting for the other guy to ask the simple question, "So, what's going on?"

### Sam started the conversation by saying, "It was an interesting weekend."

### I countered with, "And it's been quite the day today."

For a change, Sam wasn't cramming as much information as he could down my throat. He had news that made the Man on the Moon headline look tame. My news, by comparison, was juicy but paled in comparison to his earth-shaking development.

I wasn't too keen on hearing his reaction to my news, so I asked "So, how did you enjoy your first weekend as a camper at Hook-Up?"

The last time I saw a smile that wide on Sam's face was when the Mets got to the Subway Series against the Yankees. He didn't even use his classic line "To make a long story short," because there weren't any short stories in the hopper.

"I met the girl I'm going to marry this weekend," he said, borrowing a quote from the Ed playbook.

### Sam's story focused on substance rather than style for the next hour. We finished eating and then strolled by Battery Park's water view and sat on our favorite bench. The way he made it sound was that Carla had everything he ever wanted in a woman.

"She even wiped some lox spread off of my face," he beamed.

I didn't know whether to be elated, or cautious, as he was trying to convince me that Carla was the one. My concerns about Sam becoming attached to the next woman he met had come true. Things were going so well between me and my future wife Gabrielle that Sam was dying to get into the action. The bottom line was that I was happy if he was happy. I just hoped that he found was he was looking for.

### Lunch with Sam was a thing of the past a week later when I started my new job at corporate headquarters. I missed the great pasta at Callini's but with catered food to choose from each day and a free gym membership, I was living a healthier existence. In a weird way, I also felt a sense of relief to be separated from Sam. While I enjoyed our therapy sessions, it took a lot of energy away from me. We had transitioned into talking on the phone every now and then, and e-mailing each other almost every day. It was a much more efficient method of communication for me because I was able to read what I wanted and ignore the remaining babble.

Seasons came and went until it was time for my early summer wedding to Gabrielle. It was her first wedding, so I didn't want to cheat her of any of the glories of being a bride. We had a beautiful wedding at Resort/Hotel and most of the guests made it a weekend getaway instead of merely a one-night stand. With just over 100 people attending our nuptials, there was really no need for an excessively large bridal party. I asked me lifelong friend, Walter Monroe, to be my Best Man, and I also asked Sam to stand up there with me.

Although I was thoroughly enjoying myself that weekend, I could sense some tension coming from Sam. He wasn't his usual jovial self around me; maybe it was his new life partner status, or he might have felt scorned not being my Best Man. Getting a smile out of his girlfriend Carla was like sitting under the Christmas tree waiting for Santa to come: both are possible, but it could take a while.

A few months prior to our wedding, Gabrielle and I met Sam, Carla, and a few of his friend for dinner to celebrate his birthday. All of the months I had heard about the amazing Carla, this was the first chance we got to meet her in person. I had built such a strong inventory of images in relation to Sam's women, that it often shattered my fluffy vision to actually see pictures or meet them. Being such a visual person, it became painful to inject reality to the women of Sam. I was interested, though, to meet the woman he finally settled on after all of the years of pass-overs.

I couldn't believe my eyes! All of my preconceived notions crumbled like the great walls of Pompeii in the blink of an eye. Why hadn't I seen this coming? Being face-to-face with a younger version of Sam's mother was not only disturbing, it was also scary. My first reaction was that there was no way that Sam would marry Carla. For a guy that put so much emphasis on the physical appearance of his female counterparts, it appeared that that part of the screening process was on vacation. Carla, with her hair in a tight, slick bun, was the picture of discipline. All she needed was a yard stick and some chalk, and half of the catholic school population in the city would shit in their pants at the sight of her.

Being a firm believer in actions speaking louder than words has its advantages. For one, being an expert people watcher gives me the advantage of translating body language. There was a definite invisible physical barrier between Sam and Carla. Although the held hands a few times during dinner, I could tell from their lack of body touching or kissing that she had the beast under control. It wouldn't be long before his season ticket packages for the Jets, Knicks, and Mets would be cut back and eventually revoked. I was convinced that Sam would grow tired of another woman trying to control him; despite his proclamations that Carla was the one, I was clinging to the belief that he had come far enough to not settle.

A few days after we went out for Sam's birthday, he informed me that he was shopping for rings. I was hoping he meant a nipple ring, although the visual of Sam standing in front of me with a nipple ring sent me diving into a pile of dusty work on the corner of my desk. Could it be true? Was the most notorious bachelor since Hugh Hefner taking himself off the market? Sorry Hugh, I think we all realize the impact of literary license – I meant you no disrespect comparing a small-time player to the King of All Players.

Shortly after Sam's strolled down 47th Street to the topsy-turvy world of the Diamond District, he popped the question and Carla quickly said "Yes." It was quite a journey for a girl that was used to attracting more frightful looks than interested men. She had a dark complexion and always wore dark lipstick, leaving me to believe that she was either a vampire or a really gloomy person.

My suspicions about Carla's dark personality were confirmed at our second dinner together. The four of us went out to celebrate Sam and Carla's engagement, when Carla almost immediately told us she was adopted. It was almost like she sensed that I could see inside her dark eyes and into her murky soul. I knew that she and Sam connected on some level, with that level being an upbringing lacking parents. Carla had wonderful adoptive parents who loved her and supported her, but she never felt complete. That was part of the reason why she never sought out male companionship; she was used to depending on herself that being with a man was not her idea of completing the picture.

### Sam's happiness was the only thing on my mind, but I was still a bit murky about his relationship with Carla. She lived in Kew Gardens, Queens, in a lovely two-bedroom garden apartment overlooking the pleasant town. The most important aspect of the apartment was that she owned it, a factor that was very appealing to life-renter Sam. So, he picked up all of his stuff and moved his ass out of the city and into Queens. Carla told us over dinner that she worked as a second grade teacher at an elementary school that was located down the block from their apartment. I had a feeling she was a teacher. Conversely, the move lengthened Sam's commute to about an hour and 20 minutes from a painless 35 minutes, which caused him to leave the office at 5:30 p.m. each day instead of hanging around until about 6:30.

Gabrielle and I really wanted to like Carla and, more importantly, Sam and Carla as a couple. It sounds like I'm jealous, but what would I be jealous of? I had the greatest, most sexy woman on the planet in Gabby. Jealousy would not be a word that would come to mind – disappointment is the word that was on the tip of my brain. Years of talking to Sam and thinking I was guiding him down the path of happiness. I came to the conclusion that the only way to happiness is through one's heart. Words are merely street signs on a road toward enlightenment. We talked at lunch every day, trying to figure out how Sam could be more successful in his relationships. At that point, I didn't see the sole criteria of success being Sam and Carla's engagement. To me, success is true love; anything less is bound to fail.

The real question that had to be answered was: Do good friends tell each other the truth, or do they let each other live their lives and make mistakes? My knee-jerk reaction was to open my mouth as fast as a New York minute, but I put the brakes on when I realized the damage it would cause to our relationship. That's the great thing about New Yorkers; they talk first and think second. The mouth sort of get ahead of the brain, if that's possible.

Sam was saying all of the right things but I continued to have doubts. Not that it was any of my business, but I could see where his motherly obsession would take him. I could have turned my back and focused on my wonderful life, but that wasn't the route I chose. The temptation to try to clear Sam's eyes was extremely high, but any thoughts I had about coming out with my theories were neutralized by the chance that I could really hurt Sam's feelings. As sensitive as I was, there was no way I would ever go out of my way to hurt someone's feelings or contribute to a broken heart. No, it was Sam's life to fuck up as he chose. Case closed.

### Sam and Carla were scheduled to be married in the middle of November, yet the planning for his bachelor party began at least for month earlier. Sam's bachelor party was seen by his friends as their ticket to heaven; an event that would go down as one of the greatest nights of their lives. I hate bachelor parties and everything they've become! What should be a nice evening shared my male friends has become an all-out dildo-flying, morals-forgetting, stripper extravaganza. It goes against every principle of commitment and fidelity, and I guess that's what makes it so alluring to so many scum bags.

All I heard about the months leading up to Sam's wedding was that god-damn bachelor party. His friends were calling and e-mailing me so much that I had to shut them down. They were talking about this night like it was their last on earth – if it was my last night on earth I would be with Gabby, not with a bunch of drunk bastards groping a couple of disease-ridden whores. I went back and forth so many times if I would even show up at the bachelor party. My gut instinct, which is usually on target, told me to stay home in bed with my wife. But, the nice guy in me didn't want to make waves and upset Sam a week before his wedding.

The calls and e-mails from the male entourage kept coming, further convincing me that the bachelor party would be a complete disaster. I kissed Gabrielle goodbye and promised her I would be home soon. The night started innocently with a steak dinner at this new hot spot called The Filet Mignon Grill. The guys seemed less interested in the steak and more interested in finishing the meal and adjourning to the restaurants cigar bar. Since I don't smoke, which probably takes me down a few notches on the fabulous meter, I had thoughts of eating and then walking away. As I was getting my coat to make my getaway, the heard of cigar-smoking cattle swept me up in its stampede and carried me off to a nearby hotel where the party would continue.

### I've never been to a hotel-based bachelor party before. I've had two bachelor parties myself, but one was based at a baseball game and the other was with a two friends and was dinner only.

### There was beer on ice and alcoholic drinks as far as the eye could see in the large suite we were hanging out in. I had been wondering why these guys had to bleed $200 out of me for this night, and I was about to find out.

The last drop of innocence was drained from the gathering when there was a knock on the door about 45 minutes after we stepped into Suite 12A. I am here to tell you that the strippers that entered the testosterone-fest were nothing like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. In fact, they couldn't even hold a candle to her disgusting "Cinda-fuckin'-rella" friend Kitt. No amount of alcohol in the world could make me think otherwise. As I get older, it's getting harder and harder for me to see or hear anything that shocks me. That trend made a U-turn between the hours of 10:30 and 11:30 p.m. on that lovely Saturday evening.

### I managed to escape to the bedroom for the first 20 minutes of the lesbian portion of the show. I remember what occurred next like it was yesterday, because it has become a steady contributor to my nightmare reel. I arose from the bed as I heard women giggling and turning the corner into the bedroom.

### I heard a familiar voice say, "Are you sure you two can handle me?"

As the light hit their forms, I could see it was Sam walking arm-in-arm with the two female entertainers.

"Hey Ed, what are you doing in here?" Sam said to me as if he were talking to me under normal conditions. I shyly nodded and quickly exited the room without saying a word.

### Twenty minutes later a completely disheveled Sam, wearing only a towel, stumbled out into the suite and said, "That was amazing! There waiting for the next guy to some in." The herd was once again on a stampede but Sam picked his best man Manny to get his slow, Jewish groove on. Manny was a married man who obviously couldn't get in the room fast enough. Manny came and went in just under five minutes and Sam then selected his next married friend Kenny to the ménage room. Two more guys paraded in and out of the room until Sam told me it was my turn.

### I had been torturing myself for the last 45 minutes to get up and leave but my legs were completely paralyzed. There was no easy exit out of this predicament, or so I thought. My hesitation caused the 12 guys in attendance to open fire on my manhood.

### I was called colorful names such as "pussy," "fag," "homo," wussy," and my favorite, "butt muncher." A wide range of thoughts went through my head, including beating the shit out of each of every one of those vertically challenged, raisin-like circumcised penises. As usual, I took the high road – I walked smiling into the bedroom and, once I sighted the door to freedom, I walked a straight line out of there.

It felt good to breathe fresh air again once I hit the pavement outside of the fancy hotel. I looked back at the hotel and shook my head at the thought of Sam and his upscale friends. First it was a trip to a trendy cigar bar, and then they got down and dirty with a couple of revolting ladies who make their living sleeping with anyone who had some loose change. That was everything I hate about life in one evening, and the fact that Sam was one of the loudest hecklers didn't help raise my spirits.

I've never been a big fan of adultery, but I can marginally understand it if a marriage isn't working and a person is starving for romance. But sleeping with whores at a bachelor party makes absolutely no sense to me! It makes even less sense if you are a man who is about to be married! If you're a man or a woman looking for a last fling before getting married, then you should probably put the car in reverse and remain single. Marriage is all about pure commitment, not seeing what the other person will let you get away with! I had always had difficulty seeing eye-to-eye with Sam, but this had taken it to an all-time disjointed level. I was so upset that I was debated skipping his wedding the following week.

Gabrielle and I talked for hours about the bachelor party and if we would attend Sam's wedding. In the end, I decided to run through the finish line and attend the wedding. I ignored calls and e-mails from Sam and his friends all week, with the questions ranging from, "Has anyone seen my underwear," to "I wonder what happened to Mr. Ed?"

This Ed's days of talking were over, as was his 10-year friendship to a complete fraud. Not only was Sam about to marry someone he was barely interesting in on a physical level, he also became just another person I wouldn't want to be friends with. This proved once again that talk was cheap and actions do speak much louder than those words.

### Being part of the wedding party meant that you had to show up a few hours early to take pictures. Gabrielle and I took our time getting to a hotel that was ten blocks from our apartment, and showed up 15 minutes before the guests were scheduled to arrive. We were quickly ushered into a room full of cleaned up guys and their wives. No soap and water could take away the filthiness of the situation for me, but I smiled at everyone in the room and took some pictures.

### Sam cornered me and said, "What's up with you?" in a tone that should have got him at least bitch slapped. I said nothing, choosing to let Sam scar his wedding day all by himself. Gabrielle and I waiting somewhat impatiently for dinner to be served; once we ate a few bites we looked at each other and walked out of Sam, Carla, and their disgusting friends. We never said goodbye to anyone at the party, and I finally felt both relieved and sad to have Sam out of my life. I never should have expected someone who was so heartless to act anything but selfish. It was Sam's life to live, not mine.

### Lunch Is Served

### With the memory of Sam's wedding fiasco still fresh in my mind, I decided to walk as far away from the situation as possible. He tried to contact me a few times but I wasn't having any of it. The excuses, the empty words, and the lecherous lifestyle that made my stomach turn. No, Sam was no longer my friend.

### Months without really thinking about Sam turned into years. Occasionally, I would hear a sob story from my family that Sam had called and asked why I wouldn't talk to him. Sam hated when people were upset with him; even if he had been wrong he wanted you to forget everything and move on. The problem I had with Sam was he would never take anything I said seriously. The reason why so many women had grown tired of him was because he appeared to think so little of them. How could you show love for somebody one moment and then walk away coldly in the next? Sam was only concerned with things that bothered him; anybody else's problems were just that, their problems.

### I'd rather walk away from someone if I feel that they are not listening to me. It takes at least two to have a conversation, unless a person has multiple personalities. Sam was definitely an individual in every sense of the word. He didn't hear; he only talked. That was why our relationship worked so well \- he talked and I listened. Day after day I would listen to story after story without talking at all about myself. The bottom line was that our friendship had nothing at all to do with me. Sam could have been talking to anyone that was willing to listen. Obviously, the advice and guidance that I gave him was about as effective as telling a kid to be patient in the car. Hearing "Are we there yet?" every five minutes was the same as Sam's endless, circular dating pattern.

With quiet as my guide, I proceeded to live a happy life filled with substance. Gabby and I had our first child, Julia, and we were thinking about moving out of the city and into the suburbs.

### Then, as fate would have it, I got a call from my good friend Bill Kerr one lazy Monday morning. He said, "Believe it, or not, I have another offer for you that you can't refuse." As I hung up the phone I wondered, 'Where would my life be without Gabrielle and Bill Kerr?"

Bill wanted me to come down to R&R on Friday morning to discuss his can't-miss proposal. Rumors were circulating that R&R was looking to establish a West Coast presence and take advantage of that virtually untapped financial information market. It would have been next to impossible for me to not hear whispers in such a gossipy company. Although I never gossiped, there were plenty of people that were looking to ride my coattails, or talk about matters that didn't concern them.

### On the other end of the spectrum, Sam remained at the same level of the R&R machine, content to have stability in his professional life. With Carla guiding every step of his personal life, he finally was able to hand the neurotic reigns over to someone else for a change. It had been three years since they had been married and Sam had settled into having sex with his wife a few times a month. The one time professed sexoholic was now living the average middle-class existence with a woman that was even tougher than his mom.

I thought about many things as I took the number 4 Subway train downtown to R&R Headquarters. It was amazing to even think that our desire to move to the suburbs would land us in California, not Westchester or Long Island. To think that San Diego would be home, put in instant smile on my beach-going, 70 degree-loving face. What a wild ride it all had been; to think that Sam had anything to do with any of my success seemed a bit of a stretch at first. When I thought about it deeper, it could have been his indecision and windy path-walking that made me focus on the straight and narrow. By hearing his intricate and mostly far-fetched stories every day, it taught me to shed all of the superfluous garbage in my life and concentrate on the things that really mattered.

I had stopped talking to Sam because I was both embarrassed for him and did not respect him as a man. Not that men are the most honorable of species, but some of us actually have consciences about where we stick our magic sticks. I know that difference between a rusty nail and a new shiny, silver nail – Sam and his friends, along with the majority of the male population, still see a nail as just a nail.

### I hadn't been downtown in a few years and I missed the quaintness of my surroundings. I loved downtown, but living and working so close to Central Park made me forget about Battery Park real fast. When the weather was nice I would walk home through Central Park South all the way to Central Park West. I don't know where my spirit would have been all those years without the natural splendor of Central Park. For me, it was an oasis in the harshest of deserts. The one advantage of Battery Park over Central Park was the spectacular water view and the natural breeze that lifted your hair softly in the air and then inhaled enough to let your hair drop right back into position. There is no city in the world like New York, but I was getting exciting to trade all of the hustle and bustle for the serenity and tranquility of California's rock, sand, and ocean.

I walked into R&R's building and signed in at the reception desk with my good friend Willie. He gave me a sarcastic hard time about a strip search, so I made some crack about the Yankees. We both smirked, like old times, and I was on my way upstairs. My right index finger instinctively pushed the button marked 24 as the elevator doors slowly closed.

Once inside the doors of R&R, I was greeted repeatedly with handshakes like a politician on the campaign trail. I guess good news travels as fast as the yentas that spread the gossip. Most of these analysts also knew that I would be able to assemble my own team to start the new office. What they didn't know was that I wasn't fond of people trying to creep up my butt, and I already had some pretty solid preconceived notions about the few good men to pluck from the ranks. Was I going to bring Sam with me? Hell no! He was a great fit for the simple life, but those limited skills wouldn't transfer to the free world. Besides, the last professional basketball team they had in San Diego was the ABA's own Conquistadors; not exactly the New York Knickerbockers in Sam's slim book.

I slid into Bill Kerr's office and we adjourned to the conference room to talk with a few other heavies. Once I happily agreed to sign on the dotted line and take on the project, Bill became concerned with his own backyard, "Now Ed, be gentle on my staff. We're thinking that five analysts would give you a good start on picking up coverage of most of the West Coast companies."

### I smiled, "Yeah that should get us through about 30% of the coverage universe."

"So, who are you going to take?" Bill uttered with an apprehensive grin.

Now I've known Bill Kerr for over 15 years, so that's long enough to know who he needed and who he couldn't get rid of fast enough.

### I smirked and said, "Let's start with Henderson." Once Bill's face turned whiter I waved at him, "Just kidding."

### Everyone at the table started laughing, effectively breaking the tension of the moment. A few minutes later Bill cleared out the conference room and we sat and talked. After all, I still thought of Bill as my boss and mentor and I was happy to defer to his wisdom.

"You give me your best team," I said, "For me to pick and choose who I want is a bit presumptuous, don't you think. We don't even know who would want to pick up and move across the country."

### The blood returned to his vital organs and I made a list of likes and dislikes. I gave him the human ledger and he commented, "Which side is Sam on?" I replied, "He somewhere in the middle. I think he's fine right where he is."

### Leaving Sam behind had nothing to do with our differences; well, it actually had everything to do with my apprehension. I needed people with me that I could count on in tough times. While it was important to have functional relationships with co-workers, it was never a goal in my mind to be best friends with anyone in my professional life. Maybe I got too involved with Sam's zig-zag lifestyle; maybe I shouldn't have gone to that bachelor party. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it usually doesn't dull the pain of failure. No, Sam would be staying in New York for the duration of his life.

I knew the majority of the analysts at R&R would not want to move to California. As I left the firm right-handed grip of Bill Kerr, the walk down the familiar hallway seemed like an endless tunnel. The power of my new position felt both liberating and burdensome. I ducked into the bathroom to take care of some of nature's business and get a break from the rush that awaited me. A few minutes later I emerged from the bathroom with a seemingly clear path to freedom, but a strange thing happened on the way out the door. I decided to pay a visit to an old friend.

There are times in your life when you labor over decisions and think things to death. This was not one of those decisions. I knocked on the doorway of the cubicle in front of me and said, "You ready to go to lunch?" Sam turned around quickly in his chair and smiled and the sound of my voice and then the sight of my elevated mug. Since hugging is against all office and guy public display of affection laws, we slapped hands and headed out the door. I'm sure that many people saw our being together as a sure sign that Sam would be coming with me to California. They didn't get the memo that read, Ed Not Taking Sam.

### The amazing part of the impromptu manly lunch date, was that it was anything but awkward. It was as if we picked up where we left off; well, not exactly where we left off in the hotel room, but where we left off on our last lunch. In the years I was gone, Callini's hadn't changed a bit. Sam even said to the Italian grandmother-looking cashier, "See, my friend Ed is back," but she looked at me like she never saw me before. I guess she only had eyes for Casanova Sam.

### My favorite Callini's Baked Ziti never tasted so good. Maybe Grandma' Rosa was using a new and improved sauce, or maybe I was savoring my last tastes of New York for a while. Our conversation centered on sports for and then made its usual shift to Sam's life. Of course, the stories weren't as juicy as they used to be now that Sam had been married for a few years.

### He shot me a look that said, "You never told me about all of the shit I would have to deal with."

### I said out loud, "You never asked."

After lunch, we took our usual stroll through the Battery Park Esplanade, the concrete boardwalk that overlooked the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. He said, "So, I hear that you're going to California."

### I replied, "Yeah, I'll probably be leaving next month."

### He snickered, 'You know they don't have a basketball team in San Diego. The last team that was there was..."

### I finished the sentence, "the Conquistadors. Yeah, I know. I didn't ask Bill for you."

### Sam quickly looked up at me with a broad grin on his face, and then he nodded in approval. It was the end of summer and we still had so much to discuss.

I asked him, "So, do you think the Knicks have a chance this year?" The conversation shifted into a comfortable gear as we stopped to sit on one of the wood and stone benches in the shade. I knew at that moment that wherever I went in the world, I would always have a warm place in my heart for lunch with Sam.

