Free Monday Night Man by Grant Buday

virtue.
    The Arete meetings take place in The Iron Workers’ Hall.
    Glen is at the door hugging everyone as they come in. Glen is tall, has b.o. and a beard. Star hates beards, especially stringy ones like Glen’s. She notices he’s wearing that ugly brown sweater again. Star cringes when Glen hugs her, and keeps her hips well back from his. She knows this means she hasn’t “got it” and still has work to do on “her shit.” But fuck Glen. Star comes to Arete because Ruth’s here, and Jerry, who has only one leg. Funny how Star doesn’t mind hugging him. Jerry’s cancer’s in remission and he’s just happy to be here setting up chairs. He also does a great imitation of Adolph Hitler singing “My Way.”
    Ruth strides over and wraps her arms around Star, who feels like sobbing. Ruth is forty-five, solid, and getting fuzzy about the chin, something Star watches with admiration and horror. Admiration because Ruth’s not doing anything about those hairs. She doesn’t even bleach them. Horror because this is exactly what is happening to Star herself. Hair, the acne of middle age.
    Ruth hugs Star, then leans back, scrutinizing her. “Bunce?”
    Star nods, relieved that Ruth has spotted how upset she is. Her mother hadn’t noticed a thing. Ruth strokes Star’s back, then, one arm around her shoulders, hugs her again, the way Star’s father used to. Ruth smells of soap and self-confidence. Star loves Ruth.
    Glen stands up in front and spreads his arms, signalling for attention. Everyone sits on the folding metal chairs and prepares to listen. Star and Ruth and June sit in a row. Star and Ruth exchange glances as Glen describes his trip to California, where he attended a Senior Facilitator’s Seminar with Dale Rice, the man who designed Arete. Star and Ruth think Glen is a prize noodle.
    â€œAll I can tell you is this,” says Glen in his most profound voice. “Dale Rice burns natural gas. He burns clear and he burns clean. And when you look into Dale’s eyes!” Glen nods as if there can be no mistake. “You know he’s been all the way.” Glen paces. “Dale taught us something. But he didn’t do it with words. No!” Glen flings his arms apart in a gesture Star finds embarrassingly theatrical. Glen the Guru. She hears Ruth clear her throat to cover a laugh. “What Mr Dale R. taught us he did without one sound. How? I’ll tell you how. He was himself.” Glen pauses dramatically, desperate to be taken seriously. “He told us how it had taken him a PhD in Clinical Psychology, two trips to India, a hundred trips on LSD, divorce, a hernia, and prostate surgery to finally be … himself.”
    June emits a long murmur of admiration at such a struggle.
    Star smiles politely.
    Glen is relieved. “Now. I want each of you to step up here and tell us all how you’ve been doing since our last Three-Day Intensive.”
    June stands right up, walks to the front, turns, and faces the group. Star’s mother is a small, tidy woman, who, for decades, lived in a housecoat. Yet since leaving her husband, Star’s father, she is no longer Star’s mother, she’s June. And what June does, to Star’s horror, though everyone else’s absolute absorption, is describe her first orgasm. Her very first, which occurred two nights ago with a baker named Dunc.
    â€œAfter thirty-seven years of marriage I had my first satisfying sexual experience,” she says, blinking at them all in tearful defiance. She cries as she describes her ex-husband. “Each Saturday night before our weekly sex, he had an enema. I could smell the rubber on his fingers.”
    When June sits down, to applause, escorted by Glen who never misses a chance to put his arms around someone, Star stands. She’s horrified. She’s getting the fuck out of here. Yet she stands at the same time as Jerry, who