This Is Where I Leave You: The Home Game

Vincent Truman

I tend not to read often – well, as often as I’d like – because, for whatever reason, I spend an inordinate amount of time mentally mirroring the narration in any given tome.

For instance, I just finished a book by Jonathan Tropper entitled “This Is Where I Leave You”, a charmingly funny and tragic story about a man who loses his father and marriage in one foul swoop (even though the acts are unrelated) and deals with both while sitting shiva with his family over the following week. The book reads like a hysterical comedy without any sign of a laugh track, which is a way I would describe my own life over the last year and a half, so the mental mirroring was just a matter of time.

On one level, it’s a great and personal way in which I enjoy a book, having an author grab hold of the reins of my thoughts and lead it down his or her own synapses. On the other hand, when one’s life is indeed a comedy without a soundtrack, it can be troubling, as if I cannot put down the book at all. Rather, it lives on in my head. This is how Tropper writes, and this is how I thought for a good hour after I put the book down at lunch:

There is a girl who in in charge of the cafeteria at work. I call her a girl, because, in the dating world, all men are boys and all women are girls. Everyone retreats to the safety of their youth when contemplating the likely futility of an adult relationship; who wouldn’t? Knowing the odds of establishing a good relationship, indeed even one that is fleetingly pleasant, could only inspire one to hide in one’s basement, not to embrace the unknown. Because we all know how most of them turn out. Anyway, the girl is directly my type: shorter, brunette, a slight determined frown, noticeable nose, unnoticeable breasts. Plus, in her eyes, there’s the look of great adversity in her past, as if she’s overcome some circle of hell that Dante couldn’t have even dreamed of, and has lived to fight another day. She looks primed to be charmed with humor and stolen glances. Yes, she is directly my type. And then I recall the same features that framed my ex-wife. So I look at the girl in the cafeteria. And avoid her at all costs.

I have to be careful of the books I read because of such a phenomenon. I daren’t go near any Greek tragedies, as I still want to cultivate a healthy relationship with my mother. Shakespeare is also a no-no, as it inspires me to imagine in which way my closest friends and colleagues will die horribly. I steered well clear of ’50 Shades of Gray’ because – well, it sounded ridiculous and far too proudly and gleefully in-the-shadows to constitute actual literotica.

My mind only comes to rest on the most trivial and fact-based material. The books that line my bedroom and bathroom are: The Complete David Bowie, The Pythons: An Autobiography by the Pythons, The Beatles Anthology, and various Doctor Who novellas. With these, my mind doesn’t want to assume the role of narrator or protagonist. They are my safe zones. Same with my choice for sleeping music, for lack of a better phrase: any concert by George Carlin or Bill Burr or Louis CK, the Mighty Boosh radio series, the audiobook of Christopher Hitchens’ “God Is Not Great.” All of these lull me to sleep due to the beautiful rhythm I can hear these days only in comedy or the British tongue.

There is so little left of me, I often think to myself. I have grown up a great deal in the last eighteen months, and as a result, my inner Peter Pan, who would see beauty and challenge and opportunity at each sunrise or low flying plane or oncoming thunderstorm, is dormant and unable to be easily moved. I am far more mature, but I find within that maturity, a protective yet isolating wall, the type of which my family and former spouse so excelled at. Is this it? Is this all that’s left of me? Am I indeed going to be like every other emotionally crippled person I know?

I don’t know.

In the meantime, even after “This Is Where I Left You” has been finished and put aside, I try my best to enjoy the ride of an author whom I’ve never met.

I entered my building using my keycard this morning and the fellow behind me had to leap for the closing door. Jagoff, I heard him say under his breath. Instead of ignoring it, I stopped. “Was that for me?” I asked him. “What?” he asked, with a belligerent tone that suggested he knew damn well what I was talking about. “Did you say something to me?” I asked. “Why would I say anything to you?” he snapped back. “You’re going to be thinking about what you could have said for the rest of the day,” I said, “and you’re not going to like it.” I turned and walked away, through another door. He stood still. Just as the door was closing, I said, under my breath but loud enough for him to hear, jagoff. He said nothing.