Free I Think You're Totally Wrong by David Shields

dumb. The skin yarmulke.
    DAVID: Shaved is the way to go. Just admit who and where you are in life.
    CALEB: It’s easier.
    DAVID: In my thirties I was endlessly trying to finesse my hair so it’d look decent.
    CALEB: I started losing my hair in my late twenties. I thought long hair was an asset with the ladies. Actually, for every one woman the hair attracted, it repelled ten. Terry said she wouldn’t have looked twice at me had we met in my long-hair days. The shaved head opens up the widest spectrum of options for the balding guy in the dating world, unless your head is shaped like a potato.
    DAVID: If I had my druthers, I’d have more hair. Baldness ages one. And a lot of the people Laurie has had crushes on had long hair—Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Todd Rundgren, Taylor Kitsch.
    CALEB: Taylor Kitsch?
    DAVID: The kid in
Friday Night Lights
. It’s nothing I think about overly much. I shaved my head by 1997, early forties.
    CALEB: I probably started to shave regularly when I turned thirty.
    DAVID: Now I do it practically every other day.

    DAVID: So this is the little town of Skykomish?
    CALEB: Burlington Northern, the railroad, leaked oil or pollutants into the water supply underground, and the whole town was dug up. There are two restaurants, but only one was ever open at any given time, and the grass you see used to be twenty-foot-deep pits.
    DAVID: Every building was simply picked up and moved?
    CALEB: Or razed. The structural engineers had to figure it all out.
    Train whistle
.
    DAVID: Will this be endlessly long?
    CALEB: Could be five cars, could be a hundred. Barouh was with his girfriend and their son and dog down the mountain, straddling the track, not paying attention; the stereo’s blasting, and they didn’t hear the train whistle. The train nailed the bed of the truck, killed the dog instantly.
    DAVID: How dumb do you have to be?
    CALEB: Every time Khamta and I come to a train track, we shout out, “Barouh! Barooooouh!”
    DAVID: Is he an oblivious guy?
    CALEB: Unofficially, he’s got ADD. He’s hyper and alwaysfocused on something else. Whenever I call he says, “I’m busy—can I call you right back?”
    DAVID: Who was injured besides the dog?
    CALEB: The girlfriend and the son were airlifted by helicopter to Harborview. She was messed up, missed six months of work. The son just had bumps and bruises.
    DAVID: Barouh had no injury?
    CALEB: Just scrapes. Didn’t even see a doctor, but that was the final straw. The girlfriend left.
    â€¢ • •
    Here we are—the Cascadia Inn.

    DAVID: Laurie has what she calls “cellular issues”—periodic biopsies, mini-scares about dysplasia, her cells’ repair mechanism—but she doesn’t really fill me in on to what degree she’s worried, whereas I would tend to want to talk about it.
    CALEB: Maybe she’d like you to ask.
    DAVID: Believe me, I ask. She’s John Wayne: strong, silent type.
    WAITRESS: Hi. Two?
    DAVID: Two. Do you have wireless?
    WAITRESS: Yes.
    DAVID: Oh, good. Let me get out my laptop.
    CALEB: So Laurie’s okay?
    DAVID: We think so. She’s now a health fiend. How’s Terry’s health?
    CALEB: Three babies, three miscarriages. Basically, she was pregnant for five-plus years. I mean, she’s beautiful. She loves taking walks, works out at home with aerobics videos.
    DAVID: Who was that jumping up and down on the bed back at your house?
    CALEB: Gia; she’s the middle one.
    DAVID: Pretty cute. How about the other kids—are they as sweet-tempered?
    CALEB: I’ve won the lottery three times. You said you didn’t enjoy the first couple years of parenthood.
    DAVID: I struggled a little bit. Did you not?
    CALEB: Struggle? A little, but for every negative there’re three or four positives.
    WAITRESS: Today’s specials are a Denver omelet and the chicken salad sandwich. Coffee?

    DAVID: Do you know how to dive into a