Big Swiss

by Jen Beagin

She dropped the bag at the waitress station and returned to their table. It was her eleventh day without a cigarette, her eleventh month without sex. She’d been smoking her feelings since she was fifteen, and now, at age thirty-three, her real self was beginning to emerge. Unfortunately, her real self was horny, easily enraged, and no longer interested in making money.

OM: What else do you put up with? FEW: His need to drink milk with dinner. His penis. His flat, wide cow tongue. His clicking jaw. His collection of cutlery— OM: Back up—what was the first thing? FEW: Milk with dinner. Every single night for as long as I’ve known him. I don’t know why he can’t drink beer like an adult. Or wine. Or water. OM: I meant the second thing. FEW: Right. OM: His penis. FEW: Yeah, I remember. OM: Were you referring to his actual penis? FEW: As opposed to what? OM: His sexual behavior, or his libido. FEW: [PAUSE] His penis is two different colors. OM: What colors? FEW: Dark brown and white. OM: I see. This is a problem? FEW: For whatever reason, I wish it were either all brown or all white, not both. It’s like a saddle shoe. OM: You’re familiar with the term “body shaming”? FEW: Sorry. It’s like a beautiful, well-oiled saddle shoe.

Greta had been ogled plenty in life, but she’d never been looked at quite like this. She felt like the red balloon in the black-and-white movie: weightless, irresistible, elusive, and out of reach, floating high above all the bullshit and debris.

G: I haven’t killed anyone—yet—but several attempts have been made on my own life over the years. BS: Who’s trying to kill you? G: Me.

“Are you always this intense?” “I’m direct,” Big Swiss admitted, “because I don’t care if people like me. I distrust people-pleasers. They seem phony to me, and dangerous.”

“I think I get why men are so ‘visual,’ ” Greta said. “It’s because they can see their own dicks at all times.” Big Swiss rolled her eyes. “It’s sociological. Men are taught to be visual, to objectify. It’s not a biological trait.” “I think it might be as simple as see dick, see Jane, see dick go into Jane.”

Otherwise, there’s an air of doom about her. She seems profoundly lonely. It’s part of my attraction to her. She reminds me of the church bells of my childhood. In Geneva, all the church bells ring at the same time, every hour on the hour, in every corner of the city, and it’s the most melancholic sound I’ve ever heard, but also beautiful. I think that’s why the suicide rate is so high in Switzerland. “So, I make people want to kill themselves,” Greta said. “Wonderful.”

At the time, Greta was just beginning to understand that human relationships were pure folly, because nothing was ever perfectly mutual. One person always liked or loved the other person a little more than they were liked or loved, and sometimes it was a lot more, and sometimes the tables turned and you found yourself on the other side, but it was never, ever equal, and that was pretty much the only thing you could count on in life. This went for relationships between friends, siblings, lovers, spouses, even parents and their children.

My point is, we all have an inner shithead, and maybe you need to shake hands with yours.