The First Bad Man

by Miranda July

When that didn’t pan out she asked me if she was barking up the wrong tree. “Maybe it’s not Mark you don’t like? Maybe it’s men?” People sometimes think this because of the way I wear my hair; it happens to be short. I also wear shoes you can actually walk in, Rockports or clean sneakers instead of high-heeled foot jewelry. But would a homosexual woman’s heart leap at the sight of a sixty-five-year-old man in a gray sweater?

There had been options, before the baby, but none of them had been pursued. I had not flown to Japan by myself to see what it was like there. I had not gone to nightclubs and said Tell me everything about yourself to strangers. I had not even gone to the movies by myself. I had been quiet when there was no reason to be quiet and consistent when consistency didn’t matter. For the last twenty years I had lived as if I was taking care of a newborn baby.