The following can also be found in the book Chicago Stories 1998. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy.

(Narrator on stage starts singing a cartoonish version of 'La Figaro,' as if a bored five-year-old were singing.)

He was going to the opera.
He didn't want to go to the opera.
She was making him go to the opera.

And so he danced in little circles around her
as they walked down the sidewalk
flailing his arms
and singing upward to the heavens

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

She thought sometimes about killing him in his sleep.
But then she realized
Where would she ever find someone
to make her feel this superior
again?

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

He was 26 and she was 24.
He lived in Wicker Park
and she lived on Irving Park
and they moved in together into Rogers Park.
He works in Humboldt Park
and she works in Lincoln Park
and sometimes, on Saturday afternoons,
they head to Grant Park.

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

Sing with me!
I don't want to play your raindeer games,
she said.

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

He would write her poems
on the back of bar napkins
fueled by twelve bourbon and cokes
and a pack and a half of Chesterfields
which he smoked
so no one would bum them off of him
He would slip haikus
into her lunchbox
on her way to school.

She would have anal sex.
But
not
very
often.

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

She wondered if he had any clue
that she was sleeping with Carl from the office
every Thursday afternoon.

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

He wanted ice cream.
But all they could find was a gelato store.

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

Look.
If you don't shut up this instant,
I swear to God,
I'm gonna punch you right in the face,
and don't think I won't,
because I hit a man in college once
and I broke his nose
and it felt so fucking good
that I've been waiting seven goddamn years
just to get the chance again.

(Continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro.')

You wouldn't really do that, would you?

Try me.

(Long silence, then narrator continues cartoonish singing of 'La Figaro,' this time very slowly and deliberately. Suddenly the narrator makes a sound like someone getting punched in the face.)