One of the sad facts of moving house is that neighbors will often not recognize misanthropy until it literally smashes them upside the head with the blunt force of a mostly empty gin bottle. If you are anything like me, your gin bottles are ensconced in knickknacks and baubles meant to invoke the spirit and goodwill of lords and creators; cruciform baubles of lavender scent that juxtapose poorly with the hollow thump of bottle-bludgeoning and the viscous splatch of blood splashing to the ground from six feet and two inches in the air; sounds, shapes, and scents that put on stretchy-knit gloves before they join hands. Other neighbors seek only to spread the gospel of love, and they only know one kind of love.

One of my new neighbors popped by on the fourth of July. It was sweltering hot for Portland. He had a protein shake for sipping, and told me about how he wound up in this part of the country. We shared ideas, but not stories, about our inability to have healthy relationships. We talked about the eroticism of Anne Rice and the chivalry of Erwin Rommel. He asked several times if he was making me uncomfortable, and I told him no more so than everyone else. I confessed that I had a problem with eye contact.

He asked if my eye contact issue had anything to do with feeling vulnerable. I told him that I didn't think so. He asked if it carried over into moments of physical intimacy, if I didn't mind him asking. I told him it wasn't a problem when I was being intimate, because by that point one has pretty much opened all of their defenses. I then said, "Ah ha! So perhaps it is a vulnerability thing." We kept talking.

In spite of the opressive heat, he told me about the time his father wrote to the archdiocese and demanded that his donations be returned if they were just going to use them for trifling issues like preventing gay marriage. I told him about Lon "Loon" Maybon and ballot measure 9. He said he liked Science-fiction and told me about an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew encountered a race of androgenous beings who didn't identify along gender lines, and how it all was just a thinly veiled exploration of the issues surrounding social acceptance of homosexuality. I told him that I liked Science-fiction, and how I thought it was funny when Bender sang the Car Wash song in that one episode of Futurama. Also, did I mention that it was pretty hot out that night.

My neighbor asked if I wouldn't mind, assuming that I wouldn't think it was too weird, if I wouldn't mind if he took off his shirt. It was, after all, pretty damn warm out. I told him that I didn't mind, and additionally invited him to turn on the fan for an additional cooling effect.

He took off his shirt, turned on the fan, and said he was really into Ayn Rand in his younger days. I think I might have cringed a bit, but I didn't say anything. He said that he had grown to realize that Rand, for all of her genius, failed to allow for empathy, and that he felt that empathy was an important part of his life, work, and philosophy. I told him that I had found that most of the Objectivists I had encountered viewed empathy as a weakness, yet, in almost every case, owed the continued existence of their wimpy, dim-witted husks to the consideration of those who view empathy as a virtue.

"So," he says, "Have you ever been with a man?" "Nope," I says, "Never been in a situation where that seemed appealing." "Sorry," he says, "that was kind of a weird question." I tell him that I find it a perfectly reasonable thing to ask and inquire as to whether he as ever been with a woman. He tells me that he once was, it was a three-way thing. He said he wouldn't mind being with a woman again, but he doesn't think he would be interested if there wasn't a man at least watching. "You ever do anything freaky like that?" he asks. I tell him that I started watching a pornographic scene on a Mutoscope once, but I had to close my eyes once the underskirt was hinted at.

Two doors down there's a bottle where I take out my shame and hold it up for the whole world to view...

Two doors down there's a memory that won't ever end.