Barbie

BARBIE
AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN, Big Ben Center fell hopelessly in love with his younger sister’s Barbie doll. Within a year, though, he realized that things would never work, and so they broke up. There was more to a relationship, he knew, than the physical attraction that a doll provides, which is what seemed to have dominated their first year together. Still, the attempt to split was tough. For try as he might, Big Ben could not find it in himself to make the final break. And so he struggled for another year--another painful year--in which they were both miserable.
At the end of that time, however, he realized once again that it was not going to work-–that it could never work–-and so, in what he knew to be an act of cruelty, he bought his own Barbie doll and began a relationship--a much healthier relationship--with this new toy. Of course, the break-up was still painful--much more so for the original Barbie than for himself--but it was something he knew --that they both knew together--had to be done before either of them would be able to move on to the next level of maturity.
With time, this second relationship began to grow into a much richer involvement, one with a greater satisfaction on all levels--verbal, emotional, physical, sexual–-than the one he’d had with Barbie I.
* * * * * * *
When Big Ben turned eighteen, he registered with the draft. War was threatening, as usual, and he wondered: if he had to serve in the war, would his relationship with Barbie survive? Would separation strengthen--or weaken–-their commitment?
He never found out.
The war was, of course, just a threat. Still, the threat of reality was enough to disrupt his life--his thoughts. His perception of life. And love.
When he closed his eyes at night, he saw light. When he rubbed his eyes in the morning, he saw blue. When he thought of love, he wanted to scream. He wanted to scream most of the time. He opened his eyes. He closed them again, and in the new light of wakefulness he saw Barbie’s blue eyes; he saw her blonde hair, her long, beautiful blonde hair; and he saw her skin, her smooth, soft, firm, beautiful skin. He traced her mouth with his finger; he touched her eyelid with his other finger; Big Ben looked at her mouth with his eyes and thought for a moment that he was really in love.
They began to talk more. Of course, they didn’t really talk together. Barbie couldn’t, in fact, talk at all. But Big Ben talked for her; he talked for them both. And because he knew her--because he knew her thoughts so well and was probably able to articulate them better than she could--he felt comfortable in the way their relationship–-their communication--was progressing. They did everything together. They were happy.
* * * * * * *
At the age of 21, Big Ben met a human being. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. This person responded and talked back, could hold up her end of a conversation, after awhile even bringing up topics of her own. They went out. For the first time in his life, Big Ben was able to go out to a restaurant and order a meal with his date. They’d go for walks and hikes, and sometimes in the evenings they’d get together with friends, another thing he had never been able to do before. Going to the movies or lectures or a concert turned into a shared event that they could enjoy together--and even talk about afterwards. And sexual intimacy, which previously he had always thought to be entirely satisfying, now took on a greater fulfillment than he had ever known before. Jean was much more responsive than Barbie and would often even initiate the activity. Further, she had her own ideas on fantasy, rather than just the one-way thing Ben had always had with Barbie.
Barbie, of course, took the news hard. At first she was OK with Big Ben’s new addition to his life. After all, she wanted what was best for him. But she also wanted what was best for herself; she wanted him. And because she could not have him in his entirety, she soon began to withdraw, and she became moody and less responsive to his advances, now that he was no longer monogamous.
* * * * * * *
About seven months into the new relationship, Big Ben began to notice a change coming over Jean. It was slow and had probably been going on for much longer than he had been aware of. But it seemed to him that she was becoming less interested in the topics he would bring up. She no longer asked about the paintings he was working on, nor would she join in as enthusiastically as she had in the past when he presented his views on the upcoming war--or the one to follow--or when he told her about his work at the mental hospital. Now the things she wanted to talk about seemed more focused on the personal, the mundane, the everyday-–on things that did not generally interest him. But he’d listen anyway when she began talking, try to hold up his end of the conversation, and did as best he could. Even so, they seemed to be talking less and less. Or, rather, he seemed to be talking less and less.
One evening, at dinner, Jean began speaking in earnest about her divorce--and the marriage--both horrible ordeals, she had said. She wanted to talk about what a jerk her ex- had always been. The alimony. The child support. The fights. His complete lack of logic--and insight–-and maturity–-intelligence. And feeling. In short, his overall failings as a member of the human race. She seemed to be wanting to talk about a lot of things in her life that Big Ben had already heard about but did not have an opinion on–-or feel that he needed to have an opinion on. But he sat and listened-–listened until his brain fell into a crazy ambivalence, and he looked back not into her eyes anymore, but rather at the make-up around her eyes, or the lipstick covering her mouth, or the parsley on her teeth. He was interested, of course, because it was Jean’s story; but he was also not interested because all that stuff was in the past and gone and done with. And, besides, what’s the point? Let’s get on with it! He kept nodding and uttering the periodic filler phrases between her pauses. But, in truth, he was off in his own world, thinking about a sketch he was currently working on, or the opening scene from a film the two of them had watched the other night, Girl On A Bridge, a film Jean had not seemed to care for. At the same time, he was also wondering, What’s going on?
Jean sensed something in the air. She stopped for a second and tried to bring him more directly into her conversation: Should she call her ex- and confront him about how he had talked down to her at Christmas?
Big Ben was shaken from his dream world of color and texture and the dialogue from an opening scene--and doubts: doubts that he could not share with his lover; doubts that he was now beginning to have about his lover. His eye moved from her eye-liner to her eyeball--and back again.
He didn’t know, he said.
Still trying to bring him in, she asked him about his own personal life: how long he and Barbie had been together before he had detected the first signs of distance.
(Jean knew nothing about Barbie, except for her name.)
What were those signs? she wanted to know. And when did they first surface? Why had they become insurmountable? Would he do things differently, now, in a new relationship? And did he see any similar issues they might have? Him and her? He and she?
(No, Jean--he wanted to say (but did not)--our issues, though serious enough, are very different.)
And how come he wasn’t talking more? Why could he talk on and on about the Absurd, or culture jamming, or a patient at the hospital who had freaked out during his shift, but not about his own personal life? About his own true personal feelings on a personal level? And, how come he didn’t try to interact with her son more often? And why, she wanted to know, didn’t he like John Denver?
Conversations like this were becoming more and more frequent. It seemed to him that she wanted him to say things that he did not --or could not--say. Perhaps it was more the way she posed the question; the way she brought up a topic. For he did not so much disagree with Jean; it was just that he didn’t have anything to say about any of these subjects.
* * * * * * *
The next month, he went back to Barbie. At first she was reluctant to take him back. Her feelings had been hurt, she’d felt betrayed, and she could no longer trust him. But Big Ben was persistent. He promised and he persuaded. He took her out on walks. He took her out to the movies and concerts. They went to dinner at the nicest restaurants he knew. He talked to her with metaphors and metonymy. He used his best methods. Pulled out all the stops. And finally, Barbie, persuaded, took him back in. They consummated.
But he soon tired of her again. He began to miss Jean. Or rather, he began to miss certain aspects of Jean. He had loved the way, when they had first met, she had been so attentive, always asking him questions about himself and his interests. And how he had felt that he could talk to her for hours and hours--about his loves and passions. About the world he found so beautiful and fantastic. And a little bit insane. And how he had wanted to share those things with her. He loved all that.
What had happened?
He felt that she was no longer interested in him or his life.
And so, even though Barbie tired him, and he knew that Jean did too--although in a much different way--he decided to give Jean another try.
For several months, Big Ben went back and forth between Barbie and Jean, unhappy and dissatisfied with each. With both. He thought about buying another Barbie doll; he thought about trying to find another human being. Maybe another job. He thought about getting a dog. Or a new car. A gun. Or something. Anything.
But he suspected that none of these things were really the answer he was looking for. He suspected that his problems were much bigger and perhaps went far deeper than anything he had ever imagined. He thought that he probably needed a whole lot more screaming in his life--not necessarily long screams (at first, anyway), but certainly those loud, quick, snappy ones. The ones that could tear the roof of his head off with a sudden little tweak.