Sharing the Wife
A BMW club meeting atop the mountain turns into a salacious scene
This $24 cheeseburger displeases me. A fucking disgrace, really. Tepid disk of flavorless beef. Soggy brown sugar bacon. Gruyere cheese sourced from a basement, I think. The draft beer selection is rather pedestrian, though this place tried to rebrand itself as a gastropub. I always have trouble properly satiating myself whenever things are more gloss than delivery. I brush the hair back from my eyes and watch the bartender struggle to make an Old Fashioned. Ants cannot carry flies back to their colony as individuals, but the struggle is admirable. I tell myself this, while the bartender lightly singes an orange peel with a mini butane torch.
The Mountain House Grill used to be a ski lodge, but now it’s not. I sit on the far end of the bar, idly sipping bourbon, neat. The bar and almost every table is packed with the worst kind of people. Most of them are here as part of some kind of BMW-owners club. They meet up on weekends and enjoy insipid group activities. Today, I assume they hiked around the Ramapo Mountains. Probably got in a big circle and did fucking yoga at some point. I try to recall the difference between “venomous,” and “poisonous,” and throw back the rest of my drink. Order another. I vaguely imagine extinguishing a cigarette on my tongue.
All these attractive, sporty couples in their early 30’s, getting together on weekends in the more cosmopolitan hamlets of northern New Jersey. Today they are in my scenic little pastoral corner of existence. For me, it is a nightmare place with nothing but memories of sleeping outside in cold and merciless weather.
This one couple, obviously part of the BMW group, is sitting close enough to me that I can hear their inane conversation. Maggie is whining about her intended happy hour food order. Mark’s irritated, monotone retort tells me everything I need to know about the fucking guy. Probably goes to the gym to do cardio on the treadmill, doesn’t touch the weights. Wears novelty ties to the office on Fridays. Flosses his fucking teeth.
His wife is a goddamn drip job waiting to happen. Like to see her let loose after three or four margaritas. Probably take on the whole Seton Hall basketball team before midnight. But I’m being uncharitable. She keeps glancing around self-consciously while they bicker mindlessly. I study the olives in the bar tray. Consider the pimentos.
Maggie, please, please…I don’t care, like seriously. Please do not order the wasabi yellowfin nachos if you’re going to have them take everything off. Cuz I’m not going to share fucking nachos with melted fucking cheese with you for eighteen fucking dollars, he’s bitching to her.
He starts in with this self-conscious head swivel thing now, like oh shit, maybe this IS the saddest goddamn conversation in the world. I dissect the exchange: BMW group, post-hike happy hour argument with the missus about fucking overpriced appetizers. Frozen tuna, wholesaler’s grade 2+, pumped full of tri-poly like a fucking Crayola crayon. Sad as puppy mills.
She’s kind of squawking like a parakeet now. Maaaark, just order your own thing like you said you were going to do! Screw it…I’ll just get chicken fingers, then. Oh wait, they have flatbread pizza thingies. Mmm, the margherita one sounds good. I wonder how big they are?
Madonna’s voice entices me from the surround sound speakers. Holiday, it would be so nice. I close my eyes, imagine a discorporeal transport to tropical hideaways denied to creatures like myself. Daiquiris spiked with strychnine. The ants swarm the spider. A kamikaze mission.
I realize the humming song of the caveman is on my lips. Swaying, eyes closed, I appear in the throes on lunacy. Damage control must be done. I lean over to my right, say hey guys, and let my serene grin introduce me as a beautiful fool.
I begin talking at a measured pace, mellifluously, with the nuanced delivery of a skilled orator. Hey guys, if you’re debating about what to order, I have to tell you, everything here is absolutely unbelievable. I come here once a week just to eat this insanely good Mountain House cheeseburger. Here, try one of these hand-cut fries. Divine.
I go on and on. Oh, and if you’re on the fence about the tuna nacho appetizer, I have to tell you, the “nachos” are actually some kind of baked, puffed pastry-like textured chips, and the tuna, tartare-style, is completely on the side in a little glass dish with a spoon. This way, good sir, your lady can have ALL the carbs and you can have ALL the tuna. Sharing without sharing.
Completely disarmed, the guy allows a monotone laugh, and the bobble-headed bitch makes this indescribably stupid and happy facial expression. We are the best of temporary friends now. I give a full-fledged account of my favorite menu items. I ooze restrained enthusiasm. My poise is evocative of a master falconer.
I finish my enthused journey through the menu. Draw a thoughtful close to the address. Maggie’s cellphone rings and they are temporarily engrossed in conversation with some teenage babysitter. I look down at my hardly-touched cheeseburger. I feel something kind of like the children of the Greatest Generation feel when THEY look at THEIR children.
I feel that old icepick pain in my brain. I sense the man behind the curtain stirring from his morphine dreams. Ants scramble uphill against a flash flood of raindrops. In this fugue state, I am calm, composed, and as mentally organized as a file cabinet. I spend so much of my time feeling chaotic and fragile. The hourglass has flipped. Extraterrestrial sand from Mars begins its descent.
I begin mentally vivisecting the menu I just described with such love and polish. Foie gras terrine with mead gelee and seasonal jam. Yeah, it’s insultingly bad Hudson Valley goose liver, force-fed pebbles and skunk meat, probably. Why is the gelee flavored like mead? Such a poor decision. The seasonal jam is spot on, though, as it’s reminiscent of seasonal depression.
Prince Edward Island mussels in a Soave broth with roasted garlic and diced pancetta. Ok, by roasted garlic they usually mean completely fucking burnt. This seafood horror show tastes like a fish tank set afire with some kind of pork-scented accelerant. Hog wallows and gasoline. I want to put my head in the burning aquarium to ask the fish if they hate this disaster as much as I do.
Chinese five spice-rubbed bistro steak sandwich, on toasted brioche with yucca fries and sweet gherkins. This sandwich is an affront to God. Bistro steak…what the fuck is that? Apparently it’s some tough shoulder cut, under-seasoned and lacking in flavor. The yucca fries are like deep fried tissues stuffed with jellied cotton. The diminutive, horrid gherkins are bumpy little goblin dicks.
The colony in my mind pulses with feverish activity. I slowly close and open my eyes a few times. On the speakers, Cyndi Lauper bemoans a lover lost to the stains of chronology, time after time. Maggie ends her cellphone conversation with the babysitter and turns back to me. Polite and friendly is her inquiry as to my place in the universe.
She asks me if I’m here with the BMW group. Feigning ignorance, I ask her what group she’s talking about. Mark answers, Oh, the BMW club. We get together on weekends for different activities, then we do happy hour and-
I cut him off. Drop my voice suggestively, like a carnival worker who DOES in fact have the narcotics you were seeking. Oh, you guys are part of some kinda group meet-up jawn? Is it a swingers thing? Do you fuck each others’ wives? Cuz I’m in, my friend.
Mark narrows his eyes and stammers. Whoa, whoa, whoa man. We’re in a BMW club. Like, the luxury car? What’s wrong with you, bro? Not cool, not freaking cool. Let’s go sit over there, Maggie, come on.
They get up to walk to the other end of the bar. I grab Mark’s arm. Hey man, that’s fine. If you don’t want to fuck my wife then I don’t want to fuck yours. It’s whatever. Go fuck yourself. This is MY town. Those fucking mountains you were hiking earlier? They belong to me. My father bought them for me as a first Holy Communion present. My ancestors were celestial giants. Anyway, BMW’s are for jerkoffs.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a $100 dollar bill, and throw it on the bar. I shuffle towards the door and grab my coat, laughing like a hyena. As I step outside to smoke, I think about whether or not Caligula really designated his horse as a general. Or, was it just some manufactured bullshit the senate or whoever made up to get the dude out of there. My lungs cherish combustion. The moon suffers in the night sky.
A drunk old man standing outside asks me, Mister, could I pleeease bother you for one of those Newports? Of course, fine sir, I say, but I must warn you, these are death sticks, and I’m not doing you any favors by giving you one.
He makes a confused face and laughs nervously, like when a homeless man tries to graciously accept a handout along with whatever bullshit sentiment he doesn’t give a fuck about. I hand him the cigarette. Sharing without sharing.