Less Than Nothing

I don’t know whether to smile or frown when I recall that night standing outside of this girl’s apartment last summer holding her desperately, trying not to take advantage of her as she kept begging me to have sex. A pedestrian walking by interrupted saying, “I know you’re caught in the sweet embrace, but your purse is in the middle of the sidewalk.” We laughed and ignored the purse and the pedestrian. For once in her life she experienced complete joyful detachment— and it scared the shit out of me.

I got taken for a ride once or twice in my life, and got discarded just as harshly, but I don’t regret it. What I’m left with is less than nothing — and I like that. It’s good to know the nothingness has meaning too. All the somethings in our lives have arbitrary meanings, and suburban nothingness is just a void. But transgressions leave you and take a piece of you. They carve out your identity like a sculptor carves a statue. Perhaps there’s value in that too.