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It's Saturday and this afternoon you're going to walk into the living room where your wife is watching Hell's Kitchen and crying. You'll get down on your knees and place your hands on her stomach, getting your mouth close enough so that your breath creates a small damp spot on her skin. Then you'll tell your baby the truth.
“Hi little baby,” say. “It’s dark out here. It’s confusing and you have to watch people you love destroy themselves. You have to watch people you don’t even know destroy each other. You have to watch terrible television and you have to watch yourself forget who you were supposed to be.”
“Eric.” your wife will say.
“Shut up,” tell her.
Then to your baby, “If you're lucky you'll get about 80 years, or unlucky depending on how you look at it. You’ll love some people and you’ll trick yourself into thinking you’re in love with some people when really you just want them to take on the responsibility of making your life matter to something besides your pets. There’s alcohol and drugs out here. Alcohol is great until it gets bad. Drugs are terrible until they get worse.”
“Jesus Eric,” your wife will say.
Ignore her. “Fucking weird how a lot of us get by. When you find out you like to be choked when you come or you need to be called Betty, it’s weird enough to take you out of the rest of it so it works. Taking yourself out of the rest of it without killing yourself, that’s the secret to life. You might pull it off through sheer, unparalleled accomplishment that lifts you up above the screeching desperate hordes, or you lurch down into a darkened basement and huff paint. Same deal. You claw yourself up and away from the mess the best you can.”
“We’re late,” your wife will say.
“You shouldn’t make it to your 30’s without feeling like you’ve destroyed at least one human being simply by entering their life. Never go to raves and never read Anne Rice and never start a gelato or hunting blog."
You look up. Your wife has tuned you out and is back to the TV.
"When you realize how ruined your parents are, you’re invited to bestow upon them one brief pitying glance, then just make polite conversation with them until they die. Somewhere in the middle you may attempt to express to them how sorry you are for being the source of their pain and high blood pressure and endless nights laying awake in bed staring at the ceiling, but you give up because there's no way"
"After enough decades you'll reach back and count the knives in your back left there by friends or family you swore you'd be buried next to, and you'll shrug and resume paying overdraft fees ."
"I do not apologize for bringing you into existence. No one apologized to me, so why should you be special.”
Your wife will start to move away. Tighten your grip on her stomach and finish up.
“It sounds bad but it’s all there is. Just come out here and cause as much damage as you can. Also, sit by lakes occasionally.”
Let go of your wife’s stomach and get dressed because you've got to go and buy her a fresh box of nicotine patches.
