You Don't Love This Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

fantasy life I am always courteous—because the two of them seemed well matched, really. I was just talking about one more time, what did she think? And I was practicing this conversation not only between customers, but between each step of helpingeach customer, as in, Good afternoon, how can I help you? I’d just like to withdraw fifty dollars, but you’re out of withdrawal slips at the counter . I’m sorry about that, let me get you one, there you go, because you have to admit that it was pretty good, wasn’t it, I mean I think about it fairly often, I think we both enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. I’m not talking about getting back into the emotional depth of a full relationship, I’m just talking about finding out if that chemistry’s still there, and if it is, enjoying it one more time from a different perspective, right? There you go. Thank you. How did you want that? Could I get two twenties and a roll of quarters? It’s laundry day. You bet, and if you don’t ever want to see me again after that, I think that’s fine, I’d totally understand if you’re uncomfortable, and I might be, too, so maybe we’ll just have drinks this one time and then get together separately the one time for ourselves, and then we can go our separate ways. Thanks . You’re welcome.
    And so forth.
    I recall three details of that day’s final customer: eyes the pale blue of a frozen winter sky, dark stubble bristling from a pointed chin, and a black T-shirt featuring the image of a slobbering, monstrous creature beneath stylized gothic lettering that read “Mooncalf.” I was fairly familiar with popular music in those years, and at least vaguely aware of the goofy “heavy metal” music characterized by satanic prancing and the miming of animal cruelty, but I had never heard of this “Mooncalf.” So the mutant on the T-shirt’s front, in concert with the pale blue eyes and dark stubble of the shirt’s owner, served as the man’s distinguishing characteristics when he looked into my own eyes and, speaking slowly and quietly, told me to give him all the money in my drawer. The words that had been running through my head before he spoke were something on the order of, Now don’t you think this was a good idea, don’t you,don’t you? , so because the man’s directive was completely irregular to my experience of transaction-opening sentences and, strangely, slipped fairly unobtrusively into the imaginative situation I was absorbed in, it failed to register with me. My response was simply to look up from my computer screen, apologize, and ask if he could repeat himself. He looked into my eyes and said even more quietly, “I want all of the money in your drawer, right now. This is a robbery.”
    That was when it finally stopped: the scene in my head, its soundtrack, and the autopilot consciousness that was completing transactions for me. I felt the muscles of my cheeks tighten as my vacuous work grin froze upon my face. What my coworkers told me happened next is that the man pulled out a pistol and, swinging it high in the air, brought it down on the crown of my head. I fell backward, the back of my head struck the floor—there was probably no pad at all beneath that thin carpet—and the world went out. The man leaped over the counter and, waving the gun in the general direction of the other employees, took the cash from my drawer, stuffed it into a canvas bag he pulled from the back of his pants, leaped back over the counter, and ran.
    After he was gone, one of my coworkers attempted to rouse me. She told me she felt my hair was damp, and then noticed the scarlet corona of blood-soaked carpet expanding from beneath my skull. When I regained consciousness a few minutes before the police and medical personnel arrived, it was only in order to turn my head to the side and vomit.
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    C ATHERINE WAS THE FIRST to greet me when I