Free When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

my life
after,
two chapters so dissimilar in style and content that they might have been written by different people. That’s what I’d hoped, but of course it wouldn’t work out that way. I needed a story that I could live with, and so I compromised and told the tow truck driver that I had an
ex
-girlfriend. “We just broke up a week ago, and now I’m going home to win her back.”
    “So?” he said. “I got an ex-
wife.
I got a current one, too, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t feel good to give someone a blow job, or to have somebody give you one while you laid back and enjoyed it a little.”
    Mine was the lie that got you nowhere, and, as I berated myself for wasting it, the driver took his right hand off the steering wheel and laid it on the seat between us. For a moment it was idle, and then it began to lumber in my direction, its movement as hesitant and blocky as a turtle’s. “Yessiree,” its owner said.
    There would come times in later years when I would have sex against my wishes. No one forced me, exactly — it wasn’t that. I just wasn’t sure how to say “Go. Get out. I don’t want this.” Often, I’d feel sorry for the guy: he was deformed through no fault of his own, he bought all his clothes at Sears, he said he loved me on the first date. Once or twice I’d be too scared to say no, but this particular man didn’t frighten me. I looked at him in much the same way that the fifteen-year-old, my father’s neighbor, must have looked at me: as a relic of an earlier era, when trees were stubs, women could be deceived, and everything inside your home was the color of rust or dirt.
    When the shambling hand at last reached my coat, I thought of how I’d assert myself and tell the driver that this was an excellent place for me to get out.
    “What?” he’d say? “Here? Are you sure?”
    The man would pull over, and I would take my place by the side of the road, a virgin with three dollars in his pocket, and his whole life ahead of him.
    What I Learned
    It’s been interesting to walk around campus this afternoon, as when
I
went to Princeton things were completely different. This chapel, for instance — I remember when it was just a clearing, cordoned off with sharp sticks. Prayer was compulsory back then, and you couldn’t just fake it by moving your lips; you had to know the words, and really mean them. I’m dating myself, but this was before Jesus Christ. We worshipped a God named Sashatiba, who had five eyes, including one on the Adam’s apple. None of us ever met him, but word had it that he might appear at any moment, so we were always at the ready.
Whatever you do, don’t look at his neck,
I used to tell myself.
    It’s funny now, but I thought about it a lot. Some people thought about it a little too much, and it really affected their academic performance. Again, I date myself, but back then we were on a pass-fail system. If you passed, you got to live, and if you failed you were burned alive on a pyre that’s now the Transgender Studies Building. Following the first grading period, the air was so thick with smoke you could barely find your way across campus. There were those who said that it smelled like meat, no different from a barbecue, but I could tell the difference. I mean, really. Since when do you grill hair? Or sweaters? Or those dumb, chunky shoes we all used to wear?
    It kept you on your toes, though, I’ll say that much. If I’d been burned alive because of bad grades, my parents would have killed me, especially my father, who meant well but was just a little too gung ho for my taste. He had the whole outfit: Princeton breastplate, Princeton nightcap; he even got the velvet cape with the tiger head hanging like a rucksack from between the shoulder blades. In those days, the mascot was a saber-tooth, so you can imagine how silly it looked, and how painful it was to lean back in your chair. Then, there was his wagon, completely covered with decals and bumper