The Art of Men (I Prefer Mine Al Dente) Read Online Free PDF Page A

admiring it so that I could touch him more. I was holding his wrist, admiring his watch when suddenly the devil must have risen up from hallowed earth and inhabited me. My burning love for Jim turned into embarrassed, shy, evil intentions. “Oh yes, this watch is beautiful, Jimmy, it’s a real beauty, is it a Twist-O-Flex?” I asked.
    Twist-O-Flex was a newly invented watch of the 1960s, with a very limber, linked, highly flexible wristband. I knew that this watch was indeed not an inexpensive Twist-O-Flex, but with Lucifer lurking in my psyche, I had no will of my own.
    “Jim, may I hold your watch?” I asked as slyly as a henhouse fox. He slipped it from his wrist. “It’s so gorgeous, Jim,” I said softly, coyly, like sugar butter soup. Jim cooed and looked doe-eyed as I admired his fetching gold watch, and then SNAP like a horse’s neck at a rodeo. “Jim, is this a Twist-O-Flex?” I grabbed the band with both hands and maniacally twisted the watch into a mangled pretzel, crackle-twist, twist, torque, crackle, crackle. There! The princess of darkness had done her work.
    As quickly as I’d snapped into the Antichrist, I snapped back. There was Jim, looking shocked. His beautiful, contorted gold watch lay in the palm of his hand where I’d quickly deposited it after my “fit.”
    No words were or could be spoken for several minutes.
    “You nut!” he finally said. “Certifiable!” He began to laugh. “You’re out of your mind and that’s why . . . I love you.”
    Oh my lord, why can’t I find a “Jim” these days? A Jim who thinks I’m gorgeous and extraordinary even when I’m in the middle of a demonic grand mal seizure?
    We had so much fun that night. I vowed to love Jim forever and never again flirt with his brother, Hale . . . until the following Saturday at the skating rink.
    This is how it went for the next two years. His love for me was too overwhelming, and the more I tried to love him back as strongly, the more it triggered the diabolical spirit within my soul, and I would do or say something ridiculous to spoil it and push him away.
    Jim was a handsome boy, really handsome, with blue eyes and dark hair, beautiful teeth and a wonderful smile. That’s why it’s hard to believe that right in the middle of madly making out in a field behind the swim club pool months later, I took the opportunity to trip Jim and wrestle him to the ground, screaming and teasing that he was the only boy I’d ever kissed who insisted on wearing really pointy-toed Beatle boots! Wild with laughter, I yelled, “Beatle shoes, Beatle shoes, Jim Richie wears Beatle shoes!”
    Hale later developed a crush on my sister, and that pretty much ruined the brother-flirt thing for me. Besides, I was starting to fall in love with Jim. I’d not made fun of him, broken any of his possessions, or tripped him in months. I hadn’t laughed like a hyena at his shoes in weeks. My resistance was crumbling, my demon was quelling.
    Jim said he was going camping with Eddie at his ranch on Friday and would call me when he returned on Monday. They were going on a survival weekend, which I thought was very macho, very male. But it was fine with me; I was supposed to babysit the kids across the street on Sunday night anyway, and their mom didn’t like me tying up the phone line.
    My friend Jennifer called me Saturday morning. She said, “You don’t need to come and clean my mom’s house today. Oh, and by the way, guess who’s dead?”
    “I don’t know, who?” I asked.
    “Jim and Eddie. Jim and Eddie are dead. They got asphyxiated last night at the ranch.”
    To this day I can’t believe the casualness in Jennifer’s voice when she relayed to me the death of Jim and Eddie.
    “Gotta go now, are you okay?” asked Jennifer.
    Oh yes, I’m fine, good-bye.
    Children walk around like zombies just like adults after death, like someone has hit you with something hard, right between your eyes, stunning you into numbness and