79. I revolted by becoming a sensitive person, which I am not. I hate folk music. I don't care for most of the sensitive people I feel obligated to hang out with. Many of them play guitars and write songs about their feelings. I have to pack up my Percy Faith records when they come and put the box in the bedroom closet and pile winter coats on it, and despite the mothballs I'm afraid they'll take one sniff and say, "You like light classical, don't you." I pour a round of Lowenbrau, being careful not to pour along the side but straight down so the beer can express itself, and they say, "Did you ever try Dockendorf?" It's made by the Dockendorf family from hand-pumped water in their ancient original family brewery in an unspoiled Pennsylvania village where the barley is hauled in by Amish families who use wagons with oak beds. Those oak beds give Dockendorf its famous flavor. These beer bores, plus the renovators of Victorian houses, the singer-songwriters, the runners, the connoisseurs of northern Bengali cuisine, the collectors of everything Louis Armstrong recorded between August 1925 and June 1928, his seminal period--they are driving me inexorably toward life as a fat man in a bungalow swooning over sweet-and-sour pork. You drove me toward them.

80. This is one I can't say. It's true and it's important, having to do with sexual identity, but if I said it, I'd hear you saying, "How can you say that?" and I know I'd feel guilty. So I won't. You know what I mean.

81. Another thing of the same sort.

82. Another.

83. Guilt. Guilt as a child, then anger at you for filling me with guilt, then guilt at the anger. Then I tried to relieve that guilt by presenting you with a wonderful trip to Los Angeles to see your aunt. You protested that I didn't need to, then you went, and you conspired to make it awful. You cashed in the first-class plane tickets and flew tourist, you canceled the reservation at the Beverly Wilshire and stayed at a cheap motel in Torrance by the freeway, then you came home miserable (but happy) and gave me a refund.

84. I took you to a famous steakhouse on your anniversary. You agonized over the menu and ordered the cheapest thing. I pleaded, I argued. I ordered the prime rib. I felt guilty as I ate it, just as you intended.

85. With the refund from the trip, I bought you a pearl necklace and a pair of gold earrings. You never wore them. "I'm afraid of losing them," you said. "Here? In the house?" I said. "You never can tell," you said.

86. A scene repeated thousands of times:

You (in the easy chair): Dear? As long as you're up, would you mind--
Me (in the doorway): What?
You (rising): Oh, never mind. I'll do it myself.
Me: What? I'll do it.
You (sighing): No, that's all right. You'd never find it.
(Or: "You might burn yourself." Or: "I'd just have to do it myself anyway." Or: "It's nothing.")

87. All those birthdays and Christmases when you turned to me and said, "You shouldn't have," you really meant it. You were the author of the story, not me, and it was supposed to be about generous parents and an ingrate son. Once or twice, dark marital suffering was hinted at, with the clear intimation that you had stuck together for my sake. I felt wretched for months.

88. A scene from early childhood: our Sunday School class learned "Joy to the World" for the Christmas program. You asked me to sing it for the aunts and uncles when they came to dinner. I said no. You said yes. I said no. You said, "Someday when I'm dead and in my coffin, maybe you'll look down and remember the times I asked you do things and you wouldn't." So I sang, terrified of them and terrified about your death. You stopped me halfway through. You said, "Now, come on. You can sing it better than that."

89. A few years later, when I sang the part of Curly in Oklahoma! and everybody else said it was wonderful, you said, "I told him for years he could sing and we wouldn't listen to me."

90. I did listen to you, that's most of my problem. Everything you said went in one ear and right down my spine. Such as, "You're never going to make anything of yourself." When I was laid off from a job, you couldn't believe it wasn't for something I had done, something so awful that I wouldn't tell you.

91. Everything I said had hidden meaning for you, even. "I'm going to bed." "You can't even spend a few minutes talking to your parents?" you said.

92. Every tiny disagreement was an ultimate blow to you. "Is this the thanks we get after all we've done?"

93. My every act was a subject of study: "What are you doing?" you asked a million times. "Why didn't you do it before?" (Or "Can't it wait until later?") "Why do it here?" "Why are you so quiet?" I'm thinking. "About what?"