---Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband
If passion drives, let reason hold the reins.

---Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard�s Almanac

My best friend Bowen once told me that no one truly wants to die. Most suicide attempts are simply a cry for help. Someone feels the need to bring attention to their lives, secretly hoping the answers lie in someone else. It�s the nature of human beings to be lazy and dependent on each other. Why help yourself? Why not wait for someone else to give you the answers?

I don�t have my own opinion. I would have to say that Bowen is probably right. I�d rather not believe him, though. I�ve tried to kill myself about a dozen times since I was five years old and not once will I admit I was starving for attention. In fact, I think I�m well balanced. I mean, I never severed anything important. And I�ve never done anything ridiculous without someone I cared about being within five feet of me. I may be suicidal, but I�m not stupid.

When I wrote this, I was twenty years old. I lived in Tavern, Minnesota; population 12,000, a Minnesota Star City, and home to the 1992 Minnesota Teacher of the Year. I was at that melodramatic point in my life; where I think I�m in the middle of a soap opera with better actors. The point in your life where one looks back and wants to slap yourself hard.

I was feeling as if I just wanted the world to disappear around me. Like that episode of The Twilight Zone where the guy wants to be left alone to read, so he wakes up one day and everyone�s gone. And then his glasses break, so he can�t read anymore. That�s like my life, only I don�t read that much. I paint. So in my episode, I break my hands and can�t paint anymore. But then, I�d probably just finger paint with my broken fingers. See, I can find ways around things. I can be left alone if I want to.

Our story begins properly at this moment.

A heavy knocking woke me from a relatively uninterrupted half-hour sleep. I had been sleeping on my couch just a few feet from the door and could feel the vibrations from every knock. The full moon had been relaxing as it made my apartment a bluish tint. My leather recliner, harbored in the corner of my apartment was lit up like a glossy ghost cowering in the shadows a few feet away from me. A large, white Nine Inch Nails poster on the wall seemed to glow. I was at my own separate peace.

The knocking became louder with each second I refused to answer the door. Every few knocks, the young woman outside in the hallway would yell for me. I moaned into my pillow, my voice muffled, �F�king heath�ns, go away...�

�Alan!�

She was going to wake the neighbors unless she already had. Mrs. Jerkins, the old woman who always cleaned the laundry mat (and who�s apartment smelled like hamster piss), already hated me enough. However, Autumn�s father had apparently forgotten to teach her proper manners before he ran off with her mother�s cousin.

�Alan Alan Alan!� She let out a piercing whistle that made me grit my teeth.

I thought I could just sit and let her yell and scream. When my landlord would bring it up in the morning, I would just tell him she was some crazy drunk girl who thought I was my cousin, Alex Rayne.

But then I realized I had forgotten to lock the door again. She would NOT have the gall to turn the knob, though.

And yet, the doorknob turned. Fluorescent light poured in the small apartment, as well as a thick smell of dirty laundry from the hallway. My eyes squinted in the light, and I was immediately aware of my lack of cover. The only thing that covered my gaunt, pale body was a heavy quilt with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sewn into it�s patches. My far too dark, dyed red hair stood out like a sea urchin.

The young woman�s silhouette appeared in the doorway with a look of mischief on her face.

�OH my GOD, you are such a cute shit!� she exclaimed happily in her usual husky voice. From behind her, a group of bored young men (whom I had never seen before) walked in the door as if they were guests. One even turned on the dining room light above my pressed-wood table. Once the light was on, she stepped fully in; a cheery girl with long and wavy brunette hair, a curvy body, and a pair of playful blue eyes. The others, the strangers, wandered around the house, a tall one making his way through the hallway to the bathroom---or the bedroom. Now that wasn�t going to happen. There was a rule: if I wasn�t having sex on my mattress, no one else was. I had bought that mattress brand new a few months ago and it was still a virgin.

Someone immediately began scanning the hand-painted watercolors I had hanging on the walls and propped up on chairs. One laughed at the self-portrait I had been working on the night before.

�What, are you some kind of artist?� he asked, ashing his cigarette on my carpet.

�I like to think so,� I mumbled.

�Do you do naked girls? Or anime?� he asked.

�Autumn,� I said, turning away from the kid, �Why are you in my home?�

Autumn looked theatrically sad. �Awwwww, poor baby, did we have a rough day at work? Just standing around take a lot out of you, I s�pose?� she asked. She grinned with perfect white teeth.

I said nothing. At this point in my life, I was the manager at Graham�s Italian Restaurant. I was putting in over fourteen hours a day, ordering attitude-stricken pubescents to work, smiling for high-paying customers, sometimes cooking when someone was ill, as well as tending the bar. I had put in sixteen hours the day before and that was my excuse for not being up to spirits. Well, that and a bit of anti-socialism. And the fact that some drunk, under-age kids had just barged into my apartment. But I had no decent excuse to kick them out. To Autumn, there was no reason for not wanting to hang out with complete strangers while getting inebriated.

�We brought some beers,� she offered, placing a six pack of Corona bottles on my table, where a bald, goateed Mexican sat directly on the tabletop, smoking a cigarette and staring at me, trying to be intimidating. I could and should have rolled my eyes at this.

�It�s too late at night, Autumn,� I said.

�Alan! It�s only two in the morning, kid!� Autumn said. She came over to me and tried to turn the living room light on, but found the light bulb burnt out.

My deep, cracking voice slurred, �Yeah.�

�Yeah?� Autumn asked, rolling her eyes and putting her hands on her hips. �So? So what�s my point, right? My point IS, you don�t have to work tomorrow, man! We�re young, drunk, and totally FUCKin� horny! Let�s par-TAY!� She started gyrating her hips as if she was a girl in the background of a music video. The Mexican on the table looked away from his game of intimidation with me and watched her bounce, a grin growing. He looked at a friend, who was in the kitchen pouring himself a shot of Southern Comfort into a tall shooter. Damn, she a slut, dog, he mouthed to his friend.

Look, I don�t want to be hard on her. I�ve been friends with her since I was ten. Well, not exactly friends, more of the adoring little older boy with a crush kind of thing. My point is, Autumn wasn�t exactly a bitch. She just seemed to be a bit intellectually dim. More interesting to her was sex, drinking, and drugs. And she was completely comfortable with this station in life, being a teenager with no responsibility. It, of course, had led to a reputation to make Courtney Love blush, but she acted as if she knew nothing of the gossip that followed her. Now she looked at me with a you-need-a-social-life look, but I rolled my eyes at her.

�Autumn. I�m very tired. I have had a hell of a day. I don�t know if you know that, since someone called in sick and then showed up at her boss�s house at two in the morning. Now, I�m not naming any NAMES, but last I checked, that�s got to be the stupidest shit I�ve ever seen. And y�know, I have to do something tomorrow,� I said, wiping my eyes.

�What?� she asked, looking at the other men as if they were supposed to know the answer. The guy staring at me was Angelo Gonzales, I suddenly realized with a groan of disgust, knowing that he knew where I lived now. Everyone called him Angel, a name so ironic it made me sick to hear it. He was the resident crackhead of Tavern and a few years older than me. He was also Autumn�s long-time, ungrateful boyfriend, who had plastered the World Wide Web with pictures of her giving him oral sex. No one could see it was him (or his penis) because it was a close-up of her face, but everyone could see that look of playfulness in her eyes, which gave her away immediately. Autumn found out, but apparently was turned on by the incident. Days later there appeared a custom-made picture of her posing nude beside the statue of Hubert H. Humphrey in town square on the web. I hated Angelo Gonzales, but am still impressed with his photographic and HTML skills.

�I have to give Trevor a ride to the bank,� I said.

�When?� she demanded.

I made up a time. Oh, I don�t know, how about---�Ten.�

�OH HO HO MY GOD!� came one of the social misfits examining my CD player. A little rat-faced kid was holding up a Nine Inch Nails CD. �You listen to this fuckin� bullshit? That�s so lame, man! You got something with bass, dawg? Some Will Smith? Hey, dude, did you know country�s got some crazy bass? It sounds dope in a car! It�s all boom-boom-boomboom---�

I sighed to himself.

Autumn squinted her blue eyes, �Please? Can�t you just go ONE night with only a few hours rest? I mean, staying up until the late hours of the night with your people is what being---� she was going to say �a teenager�, but froze. I hadn�t been a teenager for months. �---a whatever...is about. I mean, it�s not like you have school in the morning.� There was a quick chuckle, then the everyone started laughing at me, as if I was some kind of joke since I hated them. My heart twitched with embarrassment and anger. It wasn't like I didn't WANT to go to college---

I groaned, �Look, you�ve gotta go.�

�Well---SHIT, Alan!� She exhaled loudly.

"Good night,� I said, standing up and scratching my crotch. I pushed two angry Mexican�s away from me as I opened the door. I made sure to grab my Wu-Tang Clan CD�s from the social misfit who showed sudden interest in them.

�That�s a cool Crow tattoo, man! Wasn�t that movie ad?� a short, gothic kid said, looking at the tattoo on my heart.

I grimaced. �It�s a raven, you fuck,� I groaned. I held the door open and made gestures for everyone to leave. And to the Goth, I muttered, �And learn how to apply lipstick, you sloppy fuckin� girl.�

�Hey, let�s go,� Angel said with a smirk, getting off the table and blowing smoke in my face, �Let�s find a party---this kid�s a fuckin� basketcase.� He was trying to make me feel like a little shy party pooper. And it would have worked, had I given a shit. Autumn left within the crowd, not even saying good-bye. So much for my good friend Autumn. Yeah, she was definitely getting fired when I got back to work.

I turned off the kitchen and dining room lights and locked the door. Scratching myself again (I had only had sex once, a year ago, it�s not like I had some disease still...right?), I laid back down on my couch; directly beneath the air conditioner. Smiling happily to myself, I sighed, feeling content. With the air conditioner on its highest setting, it was nice and cool in the apartment and just as I liked it. Everyone was gone, I was alone, I didn�t have to work the next day. Total contentment.

And then there was a flush and someone came out of the bathroom coughing. I had no chance to see who it was, even though the couch faced the door. I could see the lit end of a cigarette or joint was visible, followed by a dark silhouette. The stranger fumbled to the door, played with the locks, loudly exhaling �Fuck!� when it couldn�t find the lock in the dark. It finally unlocked the door right and walked out into the light. It didn�t bother to shut the door, rather letting it softly sit in an open state, a crack of light peering into my apartment.

And I thought, Next time I move, I�m not telling anyone where I live.

I stood up and locked the door.

The next morning, I sat up on the couch, rubbing small bits of sleep from my eyes and frowned. The day was on me already, the sun piercing my usually dark apartment. I almost cursed, noticing someone had opened the long, vertical violet shades I had placed on my window. I scratched my side and lifted my legs, pulling off my boxers. I left the living room and went down the hallway to the bathroom. My pace was slow, the same as my brain this morning; I was simply moving on instinct. Finding myself in the bathroom, I stared at the stick figure in the mirror.

This is me at the time: five foot eleven and one hundred-thirty-five pounds. I had small ears which seemed to stick out unusually far from my body, and one ear was missing a bit from a childhood trauma that I�m not going to go into at this time. My eyes, a dirty shade of emerald, were a bit yellow and bloodshot, and around the whites, there were clusters of light freckles. No one could ever say I had nice eyes. They would be lying. In fact, no could ever, or had ever, said I had nice anything. I was pale all over my body from the lifestyle I was destined to have: staying up nights and sleeping most of the days (I had been lucky this day, to get some decent hours of sleep). I had long, slightly curly red hair, which I usually left hanging before my eyes to give me a mysterious aura. However, people usually just pointed and thought I was gay.

I hate this ignorant town.

My friends seemed to have the time of their lives here, however. The qualifications to fit in with my circle of friends were this: white trash, preferably having a face like dripping saliva, a stressfully-earned high school diploma (or G.E.D.), a penchant for driving around in circles late at night while looking for drugs and alcohol, and an outlook most likely resulting in child support, pawn shops, cheating spouses, and self-inflicted gun wounds before the age of forty.

Oh, and if you weren�t white, you were probably successful. Our friend Manuel was the only one besides Bowen to have a car made within the last five years. I won�t say how he earned the money to get this, because that would stereotyping.

My best friend was Benjamin Franklin Graven or as I have already been referring to him---Bowen. He may have thought his namesake was the greatest mind ever, but his father was a former horror/fantasy writer who seemed to think Bowen would have been a better name for his son.

And as much as I pretended to hate him, Bowen was everything I�ve ever wanted to be and I�ve known him since before I can remember.

Another one of my friends is Trevor Felix a.k.a. Dopey Won Kenobi. He�s this middle-class drug dealer who moonlights as a Star Wars collectibles dealer (sixty dollars for an ounce of weed, ninety for a Darth Vader action figure with removable helmet). It�s always made me laugh when I see kids that were spoiled all their lives with college trust funds and cars on their sixteen birthdays suddenly start selling drugs to make extra money. And to top it off, after he caught the edge of the hoop while dunking a basketball, he wears a long scar on his head. He claims it�s a drug-related knife wound, of course. He always comes up with some story. For example, did you know that this one time these Mexican dudes caught him smoking a dub on the school grounds? Yeah, and you shoulda saw how they fucked him up, trying to find his weed. But no, just kidding, ferreals, what really happened was that he was driving this bad ass import with glass packs and he slammed into a semi loaded with Bud Light and that�s how he REALLY got the scar, homie.

The dunking story is true, but I swear that he�s a professional liar. And now he always shaves his head to show off the scar. But I watched him crying beneath that basketball hoop as his head gushed with blood. I seem the be the only one who remembers this, though.

Then there�s Autumn Roman. I think you�ve got Autumn�s character down already. She isn�t exactly a three-dimensional creation and I need to move this narration along. Long story short, she�s cute, not really beautiful, and completely ambition-less. And she likes to party. And she�s a alcoholic. Yes, I know most people our age do go out and drink---a lot---but she takes a drink of hard liquor when she wakes up in the morning and can�t sleep. Literally. She has to pass out. She�s not a weekend warrior. She�s an all week dipsomaniac.

Cyrus Knox was Trevor�s fat best friend. He had the distinction of being the very, very bottom of the school�s popularity poll. Two hundred-eighty five pounds and five-feet nine inches of roundness. Stupid and shy. But I have to agree with his defense mechanisms, though. Stare at the ground and pretend you�re a wall. Maybe people will ignore you. Did you just feel a punch on the shoulder? No, I think it was someone grabbing your breast. No, it was nothing...boy I love playing Super Metroid. Why when I get home, I�m going to call Trevor and we�re going to finally kick Ridley�s ass and then we�ll write our own comic book and---hey, did someone just call me a fat fuck? No, probably not. Anyway, keep staring at the floor videogamesvideogamesvideogames, comicbookscomicbookscomicbooks...

Natalie Graham is the gem of the crowd. Once a girlfriend of Trevor�s, this absolutely gorgeous girl dropped him hard when she realized he was going to be a drug-dealer and not a banker or some sort of middle class job. Unfortunately for Ms. Graham, she had already had her clean finger in this dirty bowl and made lots of lowlife friends. Now she�s a constant presence around my friends. And I feel sorry for her. Tall, brown-eyed, dark-haired, and the most beautiful girl I�ve ever seen, she just isn�t worth any of our time. Simply because we�re not even worthy to be in her presence. Spoken like a true school boy crush? I�ll admit, the feeling was always there, like the servant I was destined to be. Of all the girls in the world, this was the one I was so horrified to talk to that I actually tensed when I heard her voice. And I hated her for it, really. It�s unfair of me, but I had a problem focusing my anger.

And then there�s Sara Hawkins. Sara is pretty, in that girl next door, Mary Jane Watson, freckles and giggles kind of way. Long, straight blonde hair in a pony tail. Bright blue eyes. And pale skin that actually seems transparent, showing her long, blue veins. She was always there for me, I will say that. And Sara�s always been there for Bowen, since they were thirteen. They actually lost their virginity to each other. Unfortunately, Bowen decided that whole teenage �I�ll never love anyone like I love you� thing was too creepy. We had always agreed on the idea that a teenager�s mind is still immature and that people always end up being obsessed with their first loves for that very reason. I mean, it�s like the love sector of their brain isn�t formed yet and they make hasty decisions based on episodes of Dawson Creek. Teenage love was just too fucked up an idea for us to comprehend. Oh, I never mentioned her drug habit, too. Sorry. It�s not that important that the girl is an absolute whore for heroin, right?

Maybe we were wrong about some things, and maybe we�ve changed. I sound like some old man talking about how great the old days were, but the year of this story was just such a huge year for me. I�ve had better years, and I�ve had worse, but 1999 is where my entire perspective changed.

Instead of being at the bank with Trevor like I told Autumn, I was at The Greenhouse Mall with Bowen Graven. The mall was built like a giant greenhouse (hence the name, obviously) and was originally supposed to be a tourist�s trap back when it was designed in 1979. But in the twenty years since it was open, it still brought in the same small crowd of people and had even less stores. Bowen kept looking around, sizing up every girl he saw, from thirteen to thirty, while quietly singing �I Put A Spell On You�. He looked like a Goth Tom Cruise with Dracula�s lust for women. His entire wardrobe cost more than my monthly rent: a long white shirt ($35 at Hot Topic), black cargo pants ($89 at Rags) and a heavy black duster jacket ($399 at The Leather People). And his hair was perfectly white, short, and gelled so it curled like waves or some comic book character.

He was one of the few people I had known since before high school. I remember the first moment we had actually met each other. We were about two or three and were fighting over a stuffed Yoda toy. Bowen obviously won, and I simply got up and sat in the corner, feeling sorry for myself. He came over and yelled at me for being such a wimp. And reminded me of this every day from that day forth. Never-the-less, we�ve just kind of adopted each other.

�I tried to call Sara last night,� Bowen said with his trademark nasal voice. Sara was actually dating Nathan Tripp at this moment, but Bowen and Sara had a �special� relationship. Even when they were dating other people, no matter how monogamous those relationships may seem, they ended up sleeping together and breaking the second party�s hearts. Bowen�s mailing address was his father�s decrepit farm house by the lake, but he usually stayed at Sara�s house, whether on the couch, on the floor of her room, or in bed with her. My opinion had always been that they were going to get married someday, or just end up killing each other.

I scoffed to myself. �What time?�

�About one-thirty,� Bowen said, checking out a pair of bleach blonde-hair trendy fifteen year olds in pink and baby blue tank tops (one was mortified and called out, �Like, oh-my-God!�). �How old do THEY look?� he asked, not taking his eyes off them.

�They look like ten years in county for statutory.�

�Ah, why do I have such a hard time with that? I wrote a thesis on Shigeru Myamoto�s impact on the electronics field and protoculture when I was in fifth grade, yet I can�t tell if a girl�s old enough for sex without asking if she can go buy me some smokes.�

I stopped walking and Bowen turned around. �What?� he asked.

I gave him my confused glance and asked, �Who�s Shigeru Myamoto?�

Bowen shrugged, as if I should know. �From Nintendo.�

I raised an eyebrow. �What does Nintendo have to do with protoculture?�

Bowen looked around to make sure no one was looking. �Are you an idiot?� I shrugged. �Shig-eru My-a-fuckin�-moto! He�s the fuckin� guy who created the Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda? He IS Nintendo. He IS protoculture! Do you not know what protoculture is? Probably not. But Myamoto is a goddamn legend in Japan. He�s bigger than God there. And, Christ, he�s to blame for a major pop culture revolution in America between 1985 and 1991 and the resurgence in 1996 that turned videogames into an accepted mainstream art form. Without Myamoto-san, where would I be? I�d be on drugs, hunting vampires, or shooting people. But Myamoto-san made me realize that videogames can give you the same satisfaction that looking at a beautiful painting can give someone with class. Hey, those girls are looking, stop being a dork---it�s fuckin� creepy.� He patted me on the back.

�Since when are videogames an art-form?� I asked in a bored tone.

Bowen looked ashamed. �I don�t even know you anymore. We�ve grown so far apart. You just don�t care, do you? What happened to us?�

We continued walking, though I kept giving Bowen skeptical looks. I coughed and said, �You know, you can sit here and talk about games in the middle of the mall, and everyone still loves you. If I even gave a shit about games and added to this conversation, they would laugh at me. Every geeky thing you say would be transferred to MY reputation.�

Bowen shrugged.

�I fucking hate you,� I muttered. �So why�d you try to call Sara, anyway?� I asked, though the answer was clear.

�I just wanted to see her. Really. But she was with fucking Nate Tripp.� He laughed, �So I went to a Final Fantasy website and had cyber sex with this great girl named Tara Branford. Oh, I love me and Sara�s relationship. I do.�

I squinted my eyes and interrupted him. �Do you realize I�ve never been in love? What�s it like? Because you can�t tell me that you don�t love Sara...right?�

Bowen shook his head and scoffed, �You are honestly SO goddam---�

�Can I just get a straight answer?�

Bowen looked as if he was actually thinking deeply about the question, �I really don�t know. I mean, I don�t think I�ve ever HAD that kind of thing with her. And I don�t think she�s ever had any real feelings for me. Nothing that couldn�t be attributed to knowing someone for years and having their secrets imbedded in your brain. It�s familiarity. That�s what she loves. Not me. She doesn�t want ME.�

�Come on, don�t lie to me. Sara loves you---�

He scoffed again. �I think not my friend. Sara Hawkins is currently associating herself with the cock of Date-Rape Tripp. Had she ever been, or currently is, in love with me, she would leave him and be begging at either my front door, my e-mail address, or on my phone. Seeing as she has done none of these, I will assume, for the time being, that she is enjoying her months of freedom from my cock and has neither the time, nor the emotions, for me or said cock. As such, I will say that I can�t love her.�

I looked at him with disbelief. �I can�t believe you�ve never been in love with Sara. Ever? Come on, I�m not a complete moron. I mean, why are you so obsessed with screwing up her relationship with Nate Tripp?�

Bowen sighed. It was always like this when we were together. Bowen had the strangest set of morals, something I admired, but he was transparent to me. I�ve always been more conservative than my white-haired friend and Bowen was constantly explaining himself, as if he felt guilty for his existence. �Man, look, just because you�re going out with someone doesn�t mean you�re expected by dating dogma to be faithful. Look at Autumn and Xoe, for chrissakes. You think they�re never going to cheat on Angel and Trevor? They say loose lips sink ships, and with loose lips like those, they�re two ships that will sink, I promise you.�

Just then, an elderly couple came by, so Bowen grinned and continued, �And you know WHAT I�m talking about, too.�

�Oh please, god, don�t embarrass me,� I said with anger, as Bowen began to follow the old couple. �You are such an asshole.�

Bowen has an opinion on sex. Sex isn�t that big of a deal. The days of the sanctity of sex have passed. He was vulgar and he was blunt about it. Bowen has slept with a large amount of girls from this town. To me, it�s not a big deal to turn my stereo on before I go to sleep. In Bowen�s case, he considers sex as habitual as my turning on the stereo. He stopped telling me every time he had sex when we were fourteen. I couldn�t stand it anymore. To you, it would be as if your best friend told you EVERY day that they turned the stereo on before going to bed. Every day. Every DAY.

The couple began to speed up their power-walking. �It�s like two rugs floating in the breeze,� Bowen said and chuckled with amusement. He make a spitting noise with his lips and started to clap his hands. The couple looked back with disgust, then stepped into the craft store, the one place they knew two young men wouldn�t touch.

I just looked at Bowen with anger and muttered through my teeth, �You need to shut up. I am so serious. You know, I�m just a filthy white boy, but you�re worse, you know that? Every word out of your mouth is fuck, cock, shit, bitch...I mean, fuck.�

He ignored me and we made our way to the exit. Coming out the glass doors and into the almost vacant parking lot, I changed the subject. �Y�know something?� I asked, �Sometimes I wish I was like you, though. Your whole attitude. Not caring about sex or---well---anyone. I wish I was less conservative about sex. But, you---sometimes I just don�t understand you. Don�t you hold ANYTHING holy?�

�Yeah,� Bowen said with disbelief. �Of course.�

�What?�

�I held Sara last night.�

�She�s not exactly holy.�

�Yeah she is. She�s got three of them, man.� he said, laughing so hard, he bent over double. I continued my angry stare, not laughing. He suddenly stood up, pushing his sunglasses back into place, and unlocked his Beetle. He stopped smiling. �Oh God, you are so uptight. But in all seriousness. I do hold something holy.�

I had to ask, �What?� And waited for another joke from my smart-ass friend.

�My heart hurts every moment I know she�s with someone else,� Bowen said, seriously, looking at me directly. �I�ve cried at night thinking about it. I love her, but I�m not IN love with her, right? And that love for her is causing me agony---it�s just eating me alive, Alan. I don�t know, I just don�t think I could ever trust her again. I mean, shit, I don�t trust ANYONE.�

�Not even me?�

�No. Not really.�

I looked hurt, even though I just knew he was full of shit.

�Oh come on, man,� Bowen said, grinning, �You my boy! I love you, man!�

�But you don�t trust me, right?�

�It doesn�t take much to earn my love, but it takes a lot to earn my trust.� He took his sunglasses off. �I�m only opening up my heart to you because you�re my brother and I�ve seen you naked.�

Bowen sat down in the car quickly and started the Bug up, its engines making a loud buzz. Though I was surprised by my friend�s opening up, I was a bit doubtful to its sincerity. I got in next to him and put my shopping bags on the floor. I leaned back and just stared at the roof of the car.

Bowen stared at me and shook his head. �But do you want to know something? I still want to get with Autumn once more before I inevitably marry Sara.� He grinned wide. �Isn�t it a fucked up world we live in?� He sighed with content, then looked over to find my face confused a bit.

He sighed. �Don�t worry about finding that perfect girl, dude. She exists. And she�s a SLUT. They ALL are. That�s why I call them bitches and whores. What�s the first occupation? No, not diplomacy, but prostitution. Women are there to serve a duty. Don�t get your hopes up some heifer is going to get droopy tongued over you. Seriously. Women suck. Trust me, O.K.? Just remember what they say: those who get their wishes inevitably find their dreams have become twisted.�

�I�ll try to remember that,� I said, bitterly.