I got back to the screening room in time for obstacle number two, called “Radioactive Jacuzzi” (although, as far as I know, there were no actual particles of thermonuclear fallout). It was a wriggle on the stomach across a long vat of ice cubes, with barbed-wire netting close above them. This time I really would have liked to catch a glimpse of Chip; he’s always been sensitive to cold. He doesn’t eat ice cream, even, claiming it freezes his brain near the forehead. But once again I failed to spot my soon-to-be husband: there was too much humanity, it all looked the same to me and I lacked the necessary patience. Instead of squinting and studying those figures of athletes, I bellied up to the bar.
And so it went: obstacle, drink, obstacle, drink. The men and several women ran through lines of flame; they carried logs up hills on their shoulders, abraded their knees and elbows climbing through massive corrugated pipes, and scaled treacherous vertical surfaces. As they became exhausted, injured and covered in mud I threw back margaritas, added some nachos to the mix. I flirted with several other spectators, even got my palm read by someone taking methamphetamines; it was oddly relaxing, even luxurious. A girl with blue fingernails did numerology, while off in the corner a group of wholesome, rich-looking men wearing Harvard letter sweaters chanted ominous runes in some foreign and possibly ancient tongue . . . the point was, it was a party scene, and we the audience even forgot what we were there to watch, after a while. Few of us even glanced over at the screens; it was like being at a party on election night, supposedly “watching” the “returns.” We paid no attention to the faint sounds from the speaker system—squeals, screams, and bells ringing repeatedly.
I drunk-dialed Gina on my cell; she’d been passingly interested in seeing the mud marathon and Chip had invited her, but as it turned out she had a scheduling conflict—free tickets to a special showing of an old Karen Carpenter movie. Now, tipsy and at loose ends, wanting Chip to be finished so he could join me at the after-party, I hit the speed dial. It was the intermission in the Carpenters movie so I gave her the room rundown. That’s what Gina calls it when you’re surrounded by people you don’t know in a social situation and feel compelled, whether under the influence or straight lonely, to dial a friend and callously describe the other people at the scene. I meandered out to the finish line eventually, with Gina still on the phone; in the lobby of the theater she was talking to me rapidly, even as a random hipster guy tried to persuade her to go with him to a glow-in-the-dark tap dance show.
“It’s a critique of Bush v. Gore,” she said.
And then I saw Chip, though at first I barely recognized him. I’d promised him to snap a cell phone pic, a photo of him completing the mud marathon, and so that’s what I did. I raised my phone. He was beaming with joy through the mud plastered over his eyebrows, cheeks and chin, a Stevie Wonder look. But as he ran toward the finish line, right through the final obstacle, his arms raised to greet me, just beaming like a child, he got an electric shock. I think the wires hit him across the lip; maybe the tongue. His mouth was open for the smile. I saw him jerk back like a spastic.
Then he crossed the line and was with me: he shrugged off the shock, hugged me and lifted me off the ground, making me filthy. Soon he collapsed in a heap, and when he recovered it was time to celebrate.
In the end I was able to prevent him from getting a tattoo, but only by the skin of my teeth. As I’d predicted, he ultimately declared he wanted one—not a head tattoo, he knew he couldn’t shave his head before the wedding, but maybe a back-of-the-neck adornment. He saw the other extreme athletes taking swigs of whiskey and going under the needle; with a few beers to his credit Chip turns into a joiner, that’s his way, and soon he longed to top off his own effort with a marking ritual too. He joined the tattoo line and requested that I catch his branding on my phone’s video.
Instead of debating the merits, I had to distract him. I lured him out of the line, then led him into a dark stand of trees and had my way with him. That’s how it works with Chip: you have to skip the preliminaries and bring out the big guns. You don’t waste your time, and his, with words and sentences.
Argument’s a dull blade, when it comes down to it, and I like to be efficient. We both left the party satisfied, me because I’d pulled out a last-minute win on the inking crisis, Chip because he was drunk, certified tough and newly laid. There’s not much more a man like Chip asks for.
Or any man, possibly.
THE NEXT DAY he was pretty achy; he had a long bath, popped some muscle relaxants and did the couch potato thing, gaming. By the time I left for my Ball-and-Chain Party, as Gina was calling it, he had a bowl of popcorn at his elbow, a console on his lap and was gazing wide-eyed at the large screen, where one of his many avatars flew into a
