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were sitting on his couch, “It’s a little bit late, Val, I think I’ve missed my last train.” Once I even gave him a tab of acid, his very first, but all he did was curled up in the fetal position in the bathtub and sob for three hours.
    We did kiss, but his kisses were frantic, angry. He would pull my hair while he kissed me.
    Finally I said, “Listen, Val, I’m not going home tonight. I’m not going home tonight.”
    We slept together for a week, he fully clothed and I naked. But he would not look at my body in the morning. Then one night, before bed, I got him to agree to strip to his underwear. I mounted him that night. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I hissed as I rode him up and down as he murmured.
From this point on
, I thought,
we will behave like a man and a woman
.
    But why was I being so persistent?
    It wasn’t because I loved this man. I simply wanted to solve him. I wanted to give our relationship a definite shape before I walked away.
    But still he was useless. You see, he couldn’t maintain an erection inside my vagina. He could stay stiff for a long time as long as he didn’t have to enter me.
    And as long as he wasn’t fellating my stump. Before, when we were just kissing, I noticed he had a habit of clutching my maimed hand, really squeezing it, and I had caught him staring at it few times, but now, now that he had lost his inhibition, it was all he wanted to do: give my stump a blow job. And after a couple minutes of that, nibble, nibble, nibble, he would pop and lose his erection.
    I had had lovers who would make a point of acknowledging my stump during sex to show that they were not freaked outby it—true, some did seem to like it a little bit too much—but I had never met one who was this fascinated by it.
    I realized the rest of me didn’t exist as far as Val was concerned when I’d wake up, night after night, to find him fellating my stump.
21. The Index Finger
    Like I said, maybe I shouldn’t have named my son Valentino. But doesn’t Valentino come from the Latin
valentia
, meaning “strength and valor”? Valentino = Valor = Valiant = Voluptuous = Vatic = Vast = Varied. It’s strange how one word can determine the course of an entire life.
    But it would be disingenuous of me if I didn’t tell you about my index finger. It may have some relevance. I’m no shrink, of course, I’ll just give you the facts:
    I joined the National Guard in 1966. In 1968 I was called up to go to Vietnam. Now, the reason you joined the National Guard was to avoid going to Vietnam—so what was this bullshit? I was twenty-three, in love, and about to take over the family business—Buskin Hardware in Walla Walla. Why would I want to go to Vietnam?
    But don’t get the wrong impression. I’m no leftish tree-hugging faggot. If the Vietcong were to attack Portland tomorrow, I’d be the first to drive my Chevy down Route 12. But why would I go ten thousand miles to fight them in Saigon? For whom? For what?
    In short, I was in a major crisis. What in hell was I going to do? I couldn’t say anything to my own family. My father and two of his brothers were World War II vets. One came back with a plastic bladder. The only person who knew about my anxiety was Trish.
    Each life is determined by two or three crucial moments. One night, after drinking a fifth of Jack, I went into the back of the store and flipped on the band saw. Its loud hum unnerved me for a moment, although it’s a sound I’ve heard all my life. You can go for years on cruise control, but then, all of a sudden, you have to make a decision. And if you cannot do what is in your best interest, then you are a coward. No, worse, you are a pervert. Only a pervert shrinks from what is in his best interest. With my left hand I guided my right hand, its index finger sticking out, toward the blade.
Fluffffff!
That was it.
    I felt no pain, only exhilaration. I was bleeding like hell, sure, but I was ecstatic. For the first time in my life I had