Free Magnificent Vibration by Rick Springfield Page A

keep repeating and repeating it. It makes me sound like more of a freak than I already do.”
    “As well as painfully politically correct,” she adds.
    “I know. How hard does that su . . . how funny is that?” I avoid saying “suck” because she’s a nun and it seems like the appropriate thing to do, although she looks like no nun I’ve ever encountered. I did encounter more than a few at school—vicious, punishing, remorseless, sexless beasts who did everything they could to brutalize and devastate their young charges. Except for Sister Mary, who was awesome.
    I smile at Alice. I’m still trying to find some common ground that isn’t inhabited by things I know would seem insane in the cold light of day, if not under the coffeehouse lighting, which is at this late hour warm, cozy, and as yellow as chicken fat.
    Trying my best not to scare her off but really needing to tell this to someone, for maybe the first time in my life I opt for absolute honesty as an opening gambit. I don’t recommend it.
    “I’ve been thinking about death and dying a lot in the past few months.”
    A beat. Nothing from Alice. She seems to be waiting.
    “I’ve heard that’s when you start looking within, around your early thirties, isn’t it? I read that somewhere.” I inhale deeply . . . and GO! “I’ve been really depressed lately and worried that maybe I’ve already shot my wad as far as life goes, excuse the expression, but it seems like my existence on this earth is completely laid out before me now with no more surprises, no more wonder or discovery, just a long, monotonous, dull gray grind until I finally flop over like a dead fish from a heartattack or a stroke in my late forties, so I’ve been thinking about suicide as well, trying to figure out which would be the best way to go, either drinking myself to death, which in all likelihood I’m sure I’d enjoy, versus jumping out of my apartment window, but it’s only on the second floor so I’d probably just break an ankle or a hip or something and that would then make me even more depressed having to hobble round in a leg cast for six weeks and pee through a catheter, plus I’ve already just gone through a hellacious divorce, though I’m sure what I’m feeling is pretty normal considering, but I don’t know if maybe I just conjured all this God stuff up in my imagination as an alternative to my brain actually exploding in a bloody nerve-cell-and-myelinated-fiber spattered mess on the kitchen wall from all the friggin’ pressure, and who knows, maybe I even dyed this dopey stripe in my hair myself in the bathroom sink and then blocked it out of my memory and I could actually be insane, come to think of it . . . I mean . . . that’s a possibility, right?” It’s a staggeringly convoluted and ambitious sentence delivered without a break and without a breath. As I accept the award I thank the Guinness Book of World Records for naming it “longest and lamest speech in the history of humankind!” And muchas gracias to all those who voted.
    A look has slowly crept onto Alice’s face that tells me there may be good reasons why absolute honesty is not always the best policy for a balanced and positive first impression.
    I glance around the hazy room to see if anyone is listening in to my mad-as-a-March-hare monologue. No one is, but Alice still says nothing so I counter argue for her. “Okay, that’s dumb. Obviously I’m not crazy. I’m just stretched a little thin right now and I’ve been through a very strange couple of phone calls that I . . .”
    She’s watching me with, I imagine, the same look a mouse might wear when confronted by a hungry but slightly deranged pit viper.
    “Sorry, that was . . . ridiculous,” I try, “Let me have another shot at explaining this. Okay, I’m just going to tell you the story without my interpretations or side comments and then if you still want to run for the hills I’ll open the door for you, give