Free Love Monkey by Kyle Smith

bed?”
    â€œSpeaking of crap,” I say. “Gotta edit some stories now.”
    â€œOh, okay. What time is it?”
    â€œAbout eleven.”
    â€œWhoa,” Shooter says. “Been a long night.”
    I turn back to the review for a while. I get to the point where I want to quote something no one else has quoted, to prove I read a book I didn’t read. So I flip around and discover this little tidbit: when John Adams was declaring revolution and all that in Philly, his wife, Abigail, was writing him from Boston, “in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands.”
    Adams wrote back: “You are so saucy.” He really did. He went on:
    Depend on it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force, you know they are little more than theory…in practice you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight.
    So, 150 years before women even had the right to vote , the panty posse was running the show. Despotism of the petticoat? That’s 1776-speak for whipped . And this is a president talking. A founding father. What chance do I have?
    The phone.
    â€œTom?”
    â€œYeah,” I say.
    â€œWe just had our baby on Saturday,” says Mike Vega, my fertile friend. The proud papa. How come married guys are proud but single guys are cocky ?
    â€œHey!” I say. Of course I know this already; his answering machine told me. Sound enthusiastic. Possibly he’s mad at me for not calling to congratulate sooner. “Great! Nice! Um, beautiful!” I’m trying to think up superlatives, but really: “MAN, WOMAN BECOME PARENTS OF CHILD”? It’s not much of a story, is it?
    â€œWhat is, uh, it?”
    â€œA girl. We’re calling her Alexandra.”
    A girl a girl a girl . And an Alexandra: third baby I know named Alexander or Alexandra. I try to drill this information into my brain. I have noticed that people expect you to keep track of the genders of their offspring, information I have on several occasions been forced to punt around by asking dreamy-eyed couples, “So, how is your little, um, one?”
    â€œHow big?” I say. He tells me. And that’s it. Those are the only questions I can think to ask about the situation. But I hear more. Details I don’t want to know. Real horror-movie stuff, bodies splitting open, gushing fluids, eight and three-quarter hours of screaming agony. Childbirth sounds a lot like Alien . I’m invited to meet the kid today at lunchtime, though Mike will be at work.
    That my friends are having kids makes me even more of a kid. With all the man-jam I’ve sent spiraling down my shower drain, I could start a sperm bank. A sperm Switzerland. Isn’t this a bit childish of me? Shouldn’t I be using those sperm for something? Shouldn’t I have someone other than myself to worry about by this point in my life?
    Not that I blame anyone but me. The reasons my last five relationships ended:
I acted like an asshole.
I acted like an asshole.
My UK work visa ran out and I had to move back to New York.
I acted like an asshole.
She acted like an asshole, but only after I tormented her for six months.
    I miss them all, of course. Take last summer’s girl, Maggie Kelly. Met her at someone’s birthday party. She was adorable. Smart. Fun. Self-confident. Loved to laugh, eat, drink, screw. We went out to her mother’s house on Memorial Day weekend. Dad wasn’t there, having moved in with his new mistress in the city a couple of months prior. Looked like Mom was going to have to sell the house. It was a beautiful