n a t b s

With the little trip ended, we were for a moment without words. I sat down on the big piece of driftwood. Viv closed her paperback. “Well,” I said, “alone at last”—trying to draw out the joke. But this time the response was forced, the giggle much less childlike, and the joke not nearly so silly. Viv and I were fortunate to be able to kid with each other; as with Peters, operating within the limits of humor and make-believe afforded Viv and me opportunities to laugh and make jokes, put each other at ease with pretense; and with this system we could enjoy a relationship without too much worry about commitment. But a system made secure by the protective plating of humor and pretense always runs the risk of having its protection get out of hand. A relationship based on jokes invites jokes; jokes about anything—”Yes,” Viv said, in an attempt to reinforce my attempt, “alone at long last,”—and jokes about anything are now and then bound to cut too close to the truth.

-Leland Stanford