Nicholas GRIDER
Nicholas Grider lives in Milwaukee and has studied writing and photography at the California Institute of the Arts. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Shampoo, canwehavourballback?, and Hobart.
_LIARS_
CARL N.
Told me that two wrongs don't make a right.
MY NEIGHBOR BOB (WHO'S AN EX-MARINE)
Told me it was a matter of the power of positive
thinking, and that the worst thing I could do was
shoot myself in the foot before I even got off the
boat (I liked talking to Bob).
JASON K.
Told me that sex was a beautiful and magical thing,
that it was the pinnacle of life's experience of
pleasure, and that there was more to it that him
simply sticking his dick up my ass, that even on the
basic prosaic level of lovemaking there was
mouth-to-genital contact and different kinds of
genital-to-genital contact, not to mention all the
different stuff you can do with your hands.
THE COUNTY OFFICE
Told me I wasn’t poor enough to qualify as “Poor.”
MY YOUNGER SISTER
Told me my hair would grow back if I did what I did to
it.
JASON K.
Also told me that sex was mostly in a person's mind,
and to give in to the moment, and that there was more
to it than just the awkward sweating and clutching of
it and that he wouldn't even go near my ass if I
wasn't comfortable with it, but I still ended up with
my face pressed into the couch cushions and with my
bare ass sticking up (it felt like) and with Jason
trying to wrangle his dick into my ass, which wasn’t
cooperating.
THE LEAD SINGER OF MY FAVORITE BAND
Sang that regret saves lives. I want to write him a
letter to ask him if he can provide specifics on
this—case histories and so forth—but I'm not the
letter-writing kind.
THE STAFF OF THE HEALING CENTER
Convinced me to move out here because they said it
would make my future more comfortable.
MY BROTHER AND SISTER
Convinced me to move home (almost) because at least
then, they said, I would feel like I was at home.
THE NURSE
Told me it would hurt less if I looked away.
MY CHILDHOOD FRIENDS
Told me that I was a baby for crying so much, that
everyone died sooner or later, that if I were more
like them I would get over it, though they didn't say
how long it would take.
MELANIE H. AND STEVEN R.
Had me almost convinced that some things (diamonds,
but also truth and beauty) are forever.
JOHN KEATS
Also had a hand in that last one, and suggested by
example that youth enacted its own kind of wisdom, if
only a flimsy and desperate kind.
PEOPLE WHO WRITE FOR THE PAPERS AND MAGAZINES I GLANCE
AT IN WAITING ROOMS
Want to inform me that being indigent isn't
necessarily a life sentence. (These people, who
phrase things in terms of prison, are afraid to use
the word "poor".)
SEVERAL LEADING ECONOMIC THEORISTS
Maintain that while class is certainly an important
factor in the general warp and curvature of a person's
life that it doesn't represent as much of factor as
individual drive and determination (they talk about
these things as if they were different, or
complementary) as well as good old-fashioned American
luck.
THE GUY AT THE CLINIC WITH THE BLUE HAIR
Told me that the nature of luck is that everybody has
some at some point, good and bad.
JOHN S. AND TYLER P. AND A FEW OTHER PEOPLE
Told me that they the loved me, and implied that it
was important.
EVERYBODY
Says "Look on the bright side."
MY PARENTS AND TEACHERS
Told me I could trust doctors and people in positions
of similar authority. (Though I find it hard to
believe in retrospect that any of my teachers really
meant what they said; I picture them smirking as they
organized their desks and turned off the classroom
lights at the end of another long day of school,
quietly gleeful in the knowledge that they'd managed
to completely snow another young flock.)
LORNA H.
Told me that things wouldn’t change between us, even
if I really were sick.
MY UNCLE RON
Gave me a newspaper clipping about the relationship
between medicine and spirituality and told me to think
about it.
MY PRIEST (WHO I HAVEN’T SEEN SINCE I WAS TWELVE)
Told me that it was in God’s hands, and that God loves
everyone, and that even though I hadn’t technically
done anything to have to repent for (as far as he
knew), that it wouldn’t hurt to go to confession
anyway just in case there was anything I needed to get
off my chest because although God loves everyone He,
just like a lot of mortals, has a limit.
MY FRIENDS
Suggested (pr presumed?) that there was a lesson to be
learned in all of this somewhere.
MY MOTHER (IN TEARS)
Told me it would be easier if I kept everything to
myself.
MY DOCTOR
Told me that everything was going to be okay,
ultimately, and that it was a matter of taking care of
myself. That taking care of myself (though he didn't
elaborate what that entailed, exactly, as he tugged at
his lab coat and tried to look solemn) was not just a
necessity but a responsibility. He told me that I was
lucky, relatively, and that it was a matter of taking
responsibility for myself, which implied that that
would make a difference.
LORNA (AGAIN)
Told me after I got home from the doctor that
everything was going to be okay.
HAMISH L.
Told me that breathing deeply would help, that
everything was going to be okay, and that he’d only
touch me where I wanted him to, that we had all the
time in the world, and that there was no need to
worry, and that the best way to look at it was: how
could things possibly get any worse?