Brilliant … But Bouncy

What Do You Get?

During our ride to “my new home” I learned that Larry had moved out from the junkie’s apartment when his former roommate tried to sell Larry’s guitar for heroin.

The new apartment, like the old one, had a sunken loveseat and a single mattress on the floor and a grand entrance. (I stopped by last week for this picture.)

Larry would sit on the loveseat and play the guitar for me while I lounged on the mattress and listened to him sing. That gravelly voice translated beautifully into song and convinced me instantly that I was falling in love.

So when I moved in quite spontaneously on the day my parents threw me out, my new lifestyle immediately became awesome: a summer dream-come-true.

We’d buy a 12-pack of Miller Lite – always Miller Lite, when Larry was drinking – and we’d sit in that tiny apartment. He’d play guitar and I’d listen and drink. And when the beer ran out, sometimes we’d go to the bar and sometimes we’d just pass out on that mattress on the floor.

I called this “freedom.”

One night, someone knocked on the door while we were sleeping on that tiny mattress.

Larry leapt from the bed, scream-whispering at me: “SHHHHHHH!” Larry grabbed a six-foot steel chain from the corner and wrapped it around his right hand up to his elbow.

Fist above his head and ready to pummel the intruder, Larry whipped open the door.

An old hippie who lived upstairs, Marley, stood outside.

“Whoa!” said Marley, gaping at the chain and sounding like Spicoli. “Just wanted to see if ya wanted a beer!”

Larry exhaled. “Ya can’t fuckin’ do that, Man,” he said.

He unraveled the chain and invited Marley inside. Apparently we did want a beer at 3 a.m.

My macho protector deserved something in return: my body, no holds barred. It’s all I had to give.

But I’d been holding back. “I really don’t want to have sex unless we’re using some form of birth control.”

Larry said, “I had a vasectomy.”

“You did not!” I almost laughed, knowing this was a ploy.

“I did,” he said. “I had a baby with my first wife, and then I had a vasectomy.”

“You had a baby?” I choked.

“Yep!” he smiled. “Karen Marie! She’s beautiful!”

“Okay…” I thought: He’s got a BABY?!?

“I thought my wife was cheating on me so I had a vasectomy. If she got pregnant again, I would know the baby wasn’t mine.”

This seemed … logical. Really stupid, but logical.

Still, the actual operation is what mattered to me. “So you really had a vasectomy?”

“I really did,” he said. “Wanna see the scar?”

I found it very hard to believe that Larry’d had a vasectomy in order to catch a cheating wife, but that was before I knew Larry well.

“Yes, I want to see it,” I said.

He showed me something that may or may not have been a scar.

“Okay,” I said, as convinced as I needed to be.

Then I thought about the convenience of a vasectomy. Suddenly I felt almost giddy.

“So let me ask you something.”

“Yeah Baby, ask me anything.”

“So in this relationship … I get unlimited sex, unlimited beer, and unlimited music. What do you get?”

Larry didn’t blink. “Someone to share it with,” he said.

At the time, this was so romantic and sweet, I nearly cried.

Now I realize it didn’t matter to Larry who I was, as long as he had a warm female body on the back of his bike.