If I Were Built

If I were built I’d go out to bars with friends. I’d sit on the barstool with immaculate posture, my polo taut against my chest and shoulder blades. My friends would tell stories about embarrassing things that had happened to mutual friends, and I’d laugh loudly from somewhere deep within my core muscle group. I’d order bright red lagers and pumpkin ales and thick stouts with high alcohol contents, and I would drink them, one after the other, very rapidly, and still I would not be drunk.

I would be hungry, and I would order cheese sticks and chicken fingers with extra ranch dressing, and as an experiment I would dip one of the cheese sticks in the ranch dressing, and I would eat it, and I would like how it tasted, and I’d dip the rest of my cheese sticks in the ranch dressing before eating them.

If I were built, I’d be attracted to petite women. I’d see a petite woman approaching the bar. As she ordered her woman drink I’d see her staring at my food with an expression that seemed to say, “Are you eating what I think you’re eating?” and I’d lick my fingers suggestively and say, “I invented it. I invented a new kind of food,” and she’d stand in front of me and sip her drink and talk to me about cooking shows and spices and stationery, she’d tilt her head and bite her lip and play with her necklace, and the guy she had come to the bar with would see us flirting from across the room, and he would see how veiny and muscular even my neck was, and he would stay right where he was and get drunk on his light beer and wait for his petite woman to return, but she would not return, she would come home with me.

If I were built, the petite woman would come home with me and she would be my wife. She’d fill our condo with all sorts of tasteful furniture—Amish-made oak armoires, recessed bookcases, shapely desks with many compartments, brightness-control lamps, firm-cushioned couches and armchairs, and a firm-cushioned love seat, which I would sit on, wearing a tank top and tight boxer briefs, watching whatever television shows my petite wife wanted to watch. I would complain about these shows, talent competitions and prime-time soaps, but my wife would understand from the tone of my voice that actually I enjoyed them, that I was just complaining because I believed intellectually that a man of my power and heft should rather be watching sports or bad sitcoms.

And so my petite wife would cuddle up against me and disappear into my armpit as we watched television together, and she’d buy obscure kitchenware from infomercials and use it to make us elaborate dinners, Waldorf salads and twelve-cheese quiches and pan-grilled walnut-encrusted mahi mahi, and we’d feed the leftovers to the big purebred dog we would have bought at a very high price with money from my six-digit salary, and my wife would say “Baby, you’re spoiling him,” and I’d say, “He’s a big boy,” and she’d say, “Just like you. I’ve got two big boys in my life,” and later that night I’d roll over in my sleep and I’d almost crush her, I’d almost crush my wife’s bones with my muscles.

If I were built, I’d have a petite wife and a big purebred dog and still I would join my friends at bars from time to time, and when I did I would order a round of shots named after a professional football team, and we would drink them simultaneously, and I would emit a resounding noise to indicate that I was not just satisfied but refreshed, and I would laugh at my gagging friend and say, “You all right, buddy?”

If I were built my wife would love me and my friends would admire me. If I were built the world would be my dog, and it would roll around at my feet, and I’d bend down to rub its tummy and scratch behind its ears and give it a vigorous parting pat. Then I’d go fix a sandwich.