Crank

He opens Tuesday, and removes three tiny white pills. He places them in a neat row on the table. “Anti-depressants,” he informs me. “I had a crazy second wife. She was my assistant, a gorgeous twenty-two year old gold-digger! When I wouldn’t sign a new will, she banged her head on the wall, and then sued me for divorce. In court under oath she said I beat her up. I had to give her millions. The girl made Honey Boo Boo look smart.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be with women so young.”

“Women over sixty have widow’s humps, arthritis, and want a schmuck like me to take care of them. ”

“But that’s ageist,” I protest, stuffing my mouth with burger.

“Age schmage,” he shrugs. “I have frozen eggs in every country. These women want my genes and money.”

“Shame,” I say, enjoying the burger.

He looks reflective. “People compare me to a Jewish Trump. You write about those jerks. Write about a man who runs marathons, who has a zest for life!”

And then the freak starts ranting more about how I need “real therapy,” and that I must have “lousy therapy,” his eyes bulging out like ping-pong balls. Between slurping his soup, then stuffing his face with fish and rice, he continues to elaborate in agonizing detail about how two years ago he’d married a girl thirty years younger and how she took him to the cleaners. “The bitch took me for every dime — and my house, my Lexus, guitar. She took everything!”

‘Shame.” I say, picking at a lump of rice “And you preach love? “ he continues, his mouth full of rice. “Love is hard enough for the young and the beautiful, but who wants love when your teeth hurt and you can’t lift your leg to fuck?”

“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t see it that way,” I say, thinking I have to get out of here.

“I read your article on boomers and genitalia — If It Fits Don’t Acquit. Very entertaining but you’re sexually repressed.”

“I don’t think so.’’

“I know so. I’ve been a therapist for thirty-four years. You need sex. I can always tell.”

“Don’t we all,” I say.

He looks reflective, blinks several times. “The current woman I’m in love with — -we finally had sex and I couldn’t get an erection…couldn’t get it to work. She left me an email that she isn’t sexually attracted to me. I feel like the Pyramid Building fell on me.”

“I’m …sorry,” I whisper.

“I wish I had ten inches.” Then he starts crying real crocodile tears. Cries as if I’m not even here. His smart phone is lighting up and a buzzer goes off on his watch. Which is time for his medication. Oh my God, is this boomer dating? Why can’t I meet anyone? It’s been years — -and outside of the schlumpy mathematician, nada, only a bunch of fools and bad boy boomers.

“You have your wallet with you?”