At the Bottom of Everything by Ben Dolnick Page A

canvas hat, which I wanted someone to join me in laughing at.
    And he had tattoos. Tattoos! (Had Anna ever kissed them? Had he given her a tattoo-by-tattoo tour?) I was consumed for the better part of a morning in figuring out what the one on his left arm was—if it could only be something moronic, then I felt that I would finally be vindicated. A wheel? A ship’s steering wheel? Was it a naval thing—maybe he was from a Texas military family? Or was it the kind of wheel where each spoke represents a different realm of reality, and at the center is your desire to demonstrate that you once spent three weeks in Tibet?
    I’m not sure there’s any emotion worse for you than jealousy. Anger, sadness, pity—even at their worst, they have a kind of purity to them: you’re suffering but you’re righteous, the world is failing to cooperate. But jealousy, oh, what a shameful and wincing performance. You’re not just suffering; you’re afraid of being exposed for your suffering. On the days that I sat there watching him, pretending to work, I wouldn’t have been any more ashamed if I’d been spying for North Korea.
    I never told Anna I’d gone to see him, though I did, via some of the most faux-casual, unconvincing conversational maneuvers I’d ever made use of, try to get her to tell me more about why they’d broken up. And I never spoke a word tohim, except for once when he came over to ask if I was using the other chair at my table (I grunted something that we both understood to mean,
No, take it, leave me alone
).
    Instead I went on seeing her at night, always denying that there was anything the matter, and I went on fixating on him, imagining the noises she made under him, thinking of the things she must have said to
him
, if she thought that my arms were strong. It seemed to me that for the first few months of our relationship (when had I started thinking of this as a relationship?) I’d somehow missed the most basic fact of all: I was just a placeholder, something to keep her occupied between the men she actually wanted to be with. The truth of it seemed mathematical and terrible. I could only love her so long as I could be tormented by her; and the more I was tormented, the more convinced I became that my love, which had started out as an absurdity, was the genuine article.
    There is, I’ve noticed, a direct relationship between the handle I have on my life at any given moment and the handle I have on my email. On the laptop glowing in front of me while I strained to see Max’s tattoos, my emails were multiplying like termites.
    Hi sweetie— Quick question about setting up the new speakers in the living room. Probably easier to show you in person. Any night this week you might be able to stop by?
    Hi Adam, I got your name from David Shapiro, who mentioned that you were potentially interested in UVA. I graduated last spring and now I’m clerking for a 2nd district judge and living pretty close to you in D.C. (I think). No pressure, but if you ever want to get together and chat about the pros and cons of your different options …
    And from Thomas’s mom:
    Dear Adam, I just thought I’d try writing to you again, since we ran into your mother the other day and heard all about what you’re up to. It sounds as if you’re doing just as wonderfully as you deserve. I’m sure your mother mentioned it, but Thomas continues to travel and continues to drive Richard and me up the wall with worry. I know you’re very busy, but we’d love to catch up at some point, if you ever find yourself with a free afternoon.
    Responding to Sally—or even responding to one of the messages not from Sally—would have been as far beyond me as doing a cartwheel across the room.
    Instead, when I did look at the computer, it was either to reread months-old emails from Claire (“dinner at 7:30 or 8?” “my boss is actually I think maybe mentally handicapped”) or to do research into questions like:
What’s the name of that actor