Big Swiss

by Jen Beagin

OM: Where would you place your trauma on the hierarchy? FEW: All I’m saying is that trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card. It also doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom, or the right to pontificate, which I realize I’m doing right now.

Yes, people age horribly. They suffer strokes. Their bodies and brains fall apart. But the male ego? Firmly intact until the bitter end.

OM: Were you single at the time? FEW: Yes. I spent a lot of time alone, but I was rarely lonely because I like my own brain.

Why are you here? I kept repeating to myself. It was a good question. Meanwhile, he was telling me how amazing he was at oral sex, how he’s known for it all over town, how women tell him he’s the best they’ve ever had—

Not for the first time, she considered appealing to the gynecologist in Big Swiss. The truth was, Greta only felt “normal” for one week out of every month. The week before her period: rage, lust, and what felt like clarity. The week of: cramping, fatigue, self-pity. The week after: mind-numbing depression. That left one week of feeling “okay” and “like herself,” but sometimes she wondered if it was the only week in which she wasn’t herself, if the other weeks were the real thing, the real her. At any rate, her reactions to events depended on where she was in the cycle, except she never kept track of the cycle, so she never knew where the fuck she was.

“Sometimes I feel like we’re getting somewhere,” Greta said. “Other times I wonder if I’m just not that kind of person.” “Which kind?” “The kind who gets to the bottom of things.”