My husband left me last night not for another woman but because he just found out I loved his best friend but that shouldn\u2019t have mattered much since that guy\u2019d dumped me a couple of weeks earlier. I sure was feeling bad this afternoon and told my boss I had a fever and needed to lie down. I didn\u2019t want to go home to an empty bed. I needed to be around people in a happy place and decided to drive down 101 from San Mateo to Stanford and visit the beautiful campus where since my teens I\u2019ve often walked with my two husbands, one at a time, and quite a few boyfriends. It\u2019s pretty cold this afternoon, though, and starting to rain so I slide my credit card into a machine and park near the big stone building housing Cantor Art Center I\u2019d often wanted to visit but never had.<\/p>\n
\tAfter walking up stairs and passing four huge columns I enter the museum and arrive at the museum desk to try to hand the lady my credit card but she smiles and says, \u201cIt\u2019s free.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOh,\u201d I say, and stroll straight back and enter galleries on each side and see large portraits of Leland Stanford and his wife and son and learn Leland, Jr. died young of typhoid and his bereaved parents built this great university in his honor and that\u2019s a story I don\u2019t want to think about today. Searching for beauty without pain I take the elevator to the next floor and rush through a dim gallery containing darkened drawings and step into a large, bright gallery showing harsh modern works either abstract or distorted and unpleasant. I need lush landscapes and flowers and portraits of gorgeous people.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cExcuse me, sir,\u201d I say to a man bracing himself with his left hand on the wall. <\/p>\n
\tHe doesn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSir, do you work here? Are you doing some renovating?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe still ignores me, and I wonder if he\u2019d met me before I got clean. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cI need to talk to someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tHe still pretends I\u2019m not there. I try to be patient. He\u2019s a good looking guy and I like his wavy brown hair, mussed from working, and I\u2019d like to muss it more. He\u2019s a physical man, carrying two work gloves in his right pants pocket and a trowel hangs from that side and his pants are stuffed into rubber work boots and his beige short sleeve shirt is dirty and flecked with paint, and he\u2019s looking down, thinking about something. <\/p>\n
\t\u201cSir, you seem as preoccupied as I am. Can we please talk a moment?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe lout doesn\u2019t twitch.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cLook, you uncouth laborer, didn\u2019t you learn to look at people when they talk to you? Goddamn you\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\tI grab his right arm and jerk him toward me so I can knee him in the groin, and then a pound him with a left hook that almost knocks his head off. A security guard envelopes me from behind and says, \u201cYou\u2019re going to jail for destroying Slab Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe\u2019s no man,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe\u2019s as much a man as you\u2019ll see made from vinyl resin and fiberglass.\u201d<\/p>\n