“Neither,” I respond coldly. “And don't talk like a character from fucking House, please.”
“Don't change the subject.” He pauses. “I don't know if I can fully believe what you're saying. There doesn't seem to be a third option here.” He shakes his head. “It just bothers me. You're an intelligent person, but you don't seem to have any occupational interests that fall short of international renown. Isn't there something more realistic that you can see yourself doing?” I roll my eyes. “Do you even have any idea what you want to do for a living?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I ask with an exaggerated hand motion. “You know I have no idea, Jeff. We've been over this; why are you even asking me?”
I rarely saw him over the initial months that we lived together. Consequently, our interactions have always been cordial and concise. He stayed with his girlfriend virtually every night of the week while they were together. She lived by Columbia — in one of the undergraduate dorms. Sometime in early May, however, some incident led to an acrimonious breakup. Just about all of their friends sided with her, but Jeff quietly maintains that he did nothing wrong. I never really asked him to explain himself; he never really offered.
Being that the break happened at the end of the semester, exams and papers managed to keep the two of us out of one another's hair. I'll be the first to admit that the amount of work demanded of a doctoral student at Columbia is far more than that of an NYU undergrad; still, we both spent many nights either in the library or cloistered in our respective rooms.
The coffee machine begins to hiss, which means it's been done brewing for some time. Neither of us pays much attention to it; instead, we stare to one another or the languid smoke of my cigarette, which hangs in the dead air of the apartment with torpid indifference for the window or the three fans blowing at full capacity. He shakes his head, which incenses me to no small degree. “Look, Jeff, I know what I'm doing. I mean, yes, I can see how this looks bad, obsessive and silly even, but, honestly, I can handle myself. Who cares if I haven't been to an interview in a few weeks? I'll get a job.”
“But I worry about you,” he says without compassion. He's trying though. “What, exactly, do you want to do?” emphasis, peculiarly, on want. “What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Where do you see yourself in ten years?” He pauses to light a cigarette of his own. “You need to be asking yourself these questions.”
“I can't see what ten years of life will bring. For all I know, I will have knocked up some girl with a trust fund and parents too conservative to permit either an abortion or a birth out of wedlock. We'll live in a condo somewhere in Manhattan, I'll get hooked up with a cake job, and the rest will just kind of work itself out.” I smile. He doesn't. “Look, I'll probably just go back to school after working some entry-level job for a year or two. Like I've told you, I want a little time to figure all of this out.”
“All of what?”
“My life. I don't want to jump into anything prematurely.”
“Well, you're at the age that you need to start making decisions that will—”
“Dictate the rest of my life? Yes, I'm barely responsible enough to get into a bar, yet I'm supposed to be mature enough to make the most important choices of my life.” I laugh. “You've got to be fucking kidding me, Jeff.”
“This is what college is for,” he says didactically. “You don't spend four years just dicking around getting drunk and laid; you spend four years learning a skill that will prepare you for the real world.”
“That is such a fucking load, and you know it. I went to college to learn about all of the things that the real world has dubbed irrelevant. I went to college to learn about history, philosophy, literature, art — things that people used to believe held inherent value.”
“I'm just saying—”
“What? If it doesn't make dollars, it doesn't make sense?”
“That's not what I mean at all.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Don't turn this around on me. I'm trying to help you recognize where you are in life.”
“Look, Jeff, you were drawn to a major that provided you with a career path — I wasn't. Do I think I fucked up? No, absolutely not.”
“Just tell me what you enjoy doing. What can you see yourself doing?”
“Writing, playing bass, reading, researching, painting….”
“It sounds as though you wish to live in a state of perpetual adolescence.” He stares back to me and my cigarette, which has once again gone out. “You fear the responsibilities of adulthood. Now, forgive me for being blunt, but your actions portend a feeling of indignity towards work. You need to find your calling; otherwise you're going to find yourself stuck working some menial job even with your fancy degree,” he condescends, as his degree is far fancier than mine (University of Chicago, class of '03). “If you want to be a career academic, go to grad school; but if you think you can eke through this life by living like some asshole bohemian, you'd better go get yourself a trust fund — otherwise you're going to learn a lot of very difficult lessons. And these lessons aren't going to be the types of things one picks up from a book, either.”
“I plan on going to grad school. I just told you that. Hell man, I've told you that a thousand times. I just want to take a year or two off from school. I mean, I really have no idea what I want to do. For the time being, I plan on taking up a bullshit job so that I have enough to eat. I'll figure out 'my calling' while I'm doing that.”
“Have you started looking for this bullshit job that you already seem to detest?”
“Jesus, Jeff; I just graduated from college. I want to have a little time to myself.”
“It's been more than three weeks. You didn't just graduate.” Emphasis, correctly, on just.
“Well, it feels that way.”
“What do your parents think about this? I'm sure they're not going to continue to support you as you destroy your liver on their dime.”
“If I don't find Coprolalia in the next two weeks, I'll give all of this up. I'll sit on the computer all day looking for postings. I'll scour the papers. I'll walk the streets of Midtown handing out fucking resumes.”
“That's great and all, but, in the meantime, it wouldn't hurt to apply to a few places here and there. It requires very little effort and even less time; and, who knows, you may even find something you actually want to do.”
“Why are you suddenly so concerned with my life? When you were with Melissa, you didn't give a shit about what I did or didn't do.”
“Don't try to change the subject.”
“Seriously, though, I want to know why you care. What gives you the right to tell me what to do?”
“Will you listen to yourself? You sound like a petulant teenager.” I light the cigarette again, take a drag, and then put it out. “Look, you've become self-destructive. Perhaps it's to avoid feelings of failure, perhaps it's because you equate freedom with hedonism. I don't know. What I do know is that you've taken on an impossible task — finding Coprolalia — because you know there's virtually no likelihood for success. You need to start going on interviews. You'll thank me in the long run.” I attempt to interject, but he raises his hand. “Look, you are not going to find Coprolalia. You knew you weren't going to, and you know you're not going to. Just listen to me. I was afraid when I was in your position, but I got over it. You have to get over it, too, because you can't continue like this.”