Everyone groans.
"The catch is this: if you tell anyone—your Mom, anyone who runs this fucking school, another teacher, your guidance counselor..anyone..guys, if you're getting your first piece of ass and in the moment of glory you scream out, 'Professor Pritchett is giving us all A's!!'..women, if you're getting that first good dicking or your girlfriend makes you cum for the the first time with her mouth and those two or three fingers rubbing you on the inside..when you fucking cum, if you shout, 'Professor Pritchett is giving us all A's!!' as your fucking brain is going wild with serotonin..if you mention this to anyone..your fucking imaginary friend..if you talk in your sleep and your roommate hears it..then I'm giving you an F."
Kristi raises her hand.
"I'm not taking any questions on this subject so just pretend that you're Joe Pesci and I'm the big fat mob boss and if you talk, I'm gonna have Kristen whack you. Now, 'first things fucking last,' to quote a movie you all should have seen, let's get down to the business of how you make a film."
"You are like the ultimate bullshitter," Kristen says.
"Shhhht!!" I say. "What's today?"
"Stardate 7/19."
I make a buzzing sound and fake an aneurysm.
I fall to the floor.
I talk to Kristen's ceiling, to the bottom of my empty wine glass. I use it as a microphone.
"That was the first session of the first class I ever taught in film directing. That semester will probably end up being the only time I ever taught a class—but who knows. I did it because I was bored. Too much space between films. My expectations were low. But by the end of that semester, through the experiences I endured with those students—some exceptional, most not—but I loved those people something like you love the people you work with on a film crew, like I imagine you love the people you fight a war with. You come together for a moment, for a purpose, you take your clothes off, you fuck, and through a process of days and weeks, semesters, campaigns, everyone puts their clothes on, the last class is held, and everyone disperses. We do our own work. Most of never see each other again."
I'm twisting my head side to side like a sick Muppet.
I look over at K.
She raises an eyebrow.
"Shut your mouth, Kristen. You're staring."
"I think I just saw inside the mind of Kristen Teacup Pritchett in a way that few probably have."
I get up off her floor and pour myself a fat glass of wine. I'm standing at her mantle inhaling it when she says:
"You spend a lot of time in your imagination, don't you."
I just nod my head while I'm drinking.
"You are a deep deep bitch," she says.
"I'm not deep I'm just sick."
"Respect, respect. You wanna tell me about your headaches?"
I look to the side—just my eyeballs—one of those subconsciously controlled movements that you can't escape..and that totally give you away.
I look back at her.
"They're going to kill me."
She keeps my gaze.
"They're something I have to deal with on my own."
I shake my head.
"I'm sorry, babygirl, but I just can't go there."
"Do you have someone you can go there with," this kid asks me.
"Boy," I say, wiping a tear, "you all are sophisticated down here in CA, huh? No I guess I don't," I say.
"It's alright," she says, and looks down at her phone. "Why don't you pick a show."
That's how Kristi and I went, night after night, this person half my age outpacing me, noticing my crazy, and in retrospect I guess she found me entertaining or something.
I'm not too good with love.
I mean they say you'll never recognize it when it comes—not just love but anything—and I think that's true. It's certainly true of me—I don't have any pride about it. But that shit knocks you off guard, you know? You find yourself in some stranger's hideout, drunk off your ass, knowing she's keeping her head down 'cause you're looking at her and she's giving you time to stare at her. You know like how you leave a room just so people can talk about you? To give them space to do so. That's what I'm talking about, saying she's sophisticated. And I guess it had been a long time since I met someone who could play back with me, in the games I play, and I missed it.
As a kid we played games. But those aren't the kind of games I want to play as an adult. Most of my games I learned from my dad. I'm talking about passive-aggressive shit like slamming doors and punching walls. Like after an argument he would go outside the house and punch the siding while me and Mom huddled in the living room. Like we were under siege. I never saw him hit my mom, but it was the threat of force (like in The Rock—that's what their mission was based on). He made sure we knew that he might hit us at any moment. Then he'd come inside the house and pace right over us, looming, getting real close and forcing us not to talk just letting us know he controlled the space and if we said anything to him he'd yell back at us incoherently.
I loved my childhood. When I talked to other kids about their parents, I always went back to mine and said they were the best parents I had ever heard of and I was not being sarcastic.