Chapter 9, Enlighten me

Recap:

Last time we met we discussed Chapter 8; not much happened. We got to hear about the Zero getting stood up at Tropical Smoothie again; he let us in on the fact that he was going to propose to Meri if only she bothered to show up. He whines and cries about losing Meri but he doesn't do much of anything to address the situation- he just moves away to Chicago to lick his wounds. And wounds he has a plenty- the trolls came back to tell Meri everything they've found out about him, he had some sort of nondescript family emergency, and his distant family and friends completely turned their back on him. Why do bad things happen to nice people.

Chapter 9:

Now we’re in October, the tabloids have started “digging for information” and contacting our fair Zero. He claims he had a total of 12 different reporters approach him; all attempting to buy his side of the story or provide material for their articles. Zero was displeased and says flatly, “I would not give them all they wanted.” Yeah, no kidding. I'm sure they wanted photos or a television interview. They certainly weren't getting that. Nope, nope, nope. Zero insists that, "I did all I could to defend myself online but nothing was helping." What did he do, you ask? Well, he posted some photos no one recollects seeing, talked to some strangers on the phone, and "I even facetimed at least 2 dozen people in video chat to try to clear this whole thing up," despite no one ever stepping forward to confirm that they did indeed see him. There are 7 billion people on the planet, going to each of them, one by one, to try and prove your case is probably the most asinine thing I've ever heard of; shocker, Zero tells us, "that didn't work."

Towards the end of October the scandal had blown up in the media circuit, according to the Zero, and his family, I guess the remaining few we didn’t know were still alive and didn’t make the confession reunion in Nebraska a month earlier, began to notice and shut him off. The Uncle who used to make it rain on his favorite nephew, while advising him to disregard females and acquire currency, way back in Chapter 1 has returned; he is unmoved by the Zero's plight, telling him, "this is the bed you made, lay in it." Lindsay is pretty much the only person in Zero's corner; "she went on the defensive and started getting accounts suspended on twitter or deleted on facebook." Honestly, I just can't swallow that a 42 year old millionaire would choose this as his first line of defense to save his reputation. Lawyer up man- go take on the tabloids and get this whole thing resolved since you're telling the truth and all. Amazingly, Lindsay's high school antics don't help the situation much, "The group of trolls had grown into a larger group. Anytime I blocked them, they would just create new accounts and start all over. It was non-stop."

 Step one- fire

 

And while these mildly discomforting things are happening, the Zero is just, “trying to grieve the loss of Meri.” To make matter worse, Zero is needed back at the Las Vegas office and has to spend all of October in the same city as his lost love. Since the only reliable way to get over someone, is to get under someone, Lindsay recommends Zero to a friend of hers, a young emergency room nurse, named Peyton, and the two start dating half-heartedly. Zero calls her a sweet girl, but the problem is that she is an ardent fan of Sister Wives and, “all she wanted to talk about was the affair.” Peyton is enamored with Zero though, who wouldn’t be, and asks to see him more often. Zero doesn’t want to talk about Meri anymore, since she’s already all he thinks about, so he tells her, “we are better off as friends … it was too soon for me to be dating.” Peyton seems to be hard of hearing, or doesn’t understand the word boundaries, so she wants to get physical with Zero by the end of the month. Zero says, “I told her I wasn’t ready and wouldn’t,” which just enrages Peyton, who feels she’s been led on. She tells Zero she doesn’t want his friendship if it doesn’t include any benefits. They have a long heart to heart and decide to be friends, which is just silly- you don't have to cling onto people you barely know just because you dated once. “We still are to this day but she continues to ask me about everything in the media,” yeah, crazy. Again, you're whining about stuff no one is making you deal with. Don't be friends with her, it's fine. Zero comforts himself with, “I don't think that if I really gave that relationship a try it would have worked out anyway.” Okay. Well hello and good-bye, Peyton.

“I really don’t think I’m ready to date anyone,” remarks the Zero candidly. He creepily informs us that, “At this point I know who I want to send the rest of my life with but it’s not a possibility anymore.” Oh ew. We're still obsessing over Meri aren't we. Yep,  “My heart is so full of love for Meri. All I can think about is Meri. I miss Meri. I wish she and I could have made things work out.” Just as he’s trying to make some headway in the Meri pity department, he switches gears so abruptly that the resulting metaphorical grinding sound sets my teeth on edge. “I'm both sad and heartbroken after all of the media came out with such disgusting lies about me,” wait what? He continues, “They call me a catfish, a liar, a fake. It's ridiculous! And I can't do anything to prove myself.”

Nope, so much nope

There are so many things you could do to prove yourself; throwing this little pity party to obfuscate the truth that you're choosing to do nothing is total horseshit. You chose not to speak to the media. You chose not to provide so much as a picture of yourself. This is all on you pal. You could record a 30 second clip of you saying, "Hello, I'm Samuel Cooper. People think I'm Jackie Overton, but I'm not. I'm Samuel Cooper," post it online and that would quite literally be the end of it. All the stress, aggravation, trolls- all gone. And that's one idea I came up with, with roughly ten seconds of thought invested. You're sitting over there stewing for months and you've come up with nothing to clear your name? Oh look, Zero anticipated this reaction and is ready with some bullshit defense, “Everytime I tried they would just say it's not real. So I gave up.” Oh I forgot, you're traumatized with learned helplessness.

So the dumb ass, who can’t figure out how to tie his own shoes, is starting to feel really alone. “And then I remember what I had been taught in Church when you feel alone. You pray,” oh here we go, the return of Zero the martyr. He starts praying every night, on his knees, at his bedside; “sometimes over an hour.” He asks for forgiveness but his prayers seem to have a more self serving bent, “I would ask God to take me to my true purpose. Use my life for something more than this. I do not want to only be known as the guy that had the affair with Meri Brown.” Not sure you get to beg Him for forgiveness and then tell Him what to do for you, but whatever. In his quest for healing, he goes to an unnamed Catholic Church, in an unnamed location, and shares his sins at confession. Though I don’t know a lot about Catholicism, and this seems counter-intuitive to the purpose of having a confessional in the first place, this puts the Zero in some hot water with his church. “I begged my Church leadership to give me another chance,” Zero insists, but his pleas fall upon deaf ears. He receives a letter to inform him that, “I was removed from the membership of my family Church back home … They erased me out completely.” His family had evidently been a member of this church since 1974; he’s extremely upset that a mere letter ended his stay there.

Again, I’m not an expert on Catholicism, but I’m calling bullshit on this one. My own Grandmother was excommunicated from the Catholic church in the late 1940s for daring to obtain a divorce; she was so incensed that she never returned to the church, but she could have. According to Catholicism for Dummies, the primary three types of punishment meted out to church members are excommunication, suspension (reserved for clerics), and interdict. An interdict simply forbids a church offender from receiving the sacrament; excommunication is the big one- the highest ecclesiastical penalty on offer. If Zero was penalized at all, it most likely would have been an excommunication; an excommunicated individual is either deprived of, or given limited, membership in the church while they think about the wrongs they've committed. It's generally always temporary; once the individual repents sufficiently they seek reversal of the excommunication from the appropriate level of the church, depending on the severity of the offense. Some offenses are so severe that only the Pope himself can reverse them. In any case, the offending church member is never banned from the church or removed from church records. In fact, some former Catholics have begged to be removed from these, usually in cases where they have joined another religion or renounced their faith in God altogether, and the church fundamentally refuses to do so; they feel that such actions would be destroying historical records. Zero just wouldn't have been erased from history, and he'd definitely be welcome back.

Afterwards Zero sank into depression again. “The problem is I will never believe that falling in love with Meri was a sin,” well of course not, you know better than God; you’ve hinted at it several times before. I can't imagine why your church doesn't want you back. He theorizes that the relationship made both him and Meri “better people” and, therefore, couldn’t have been wrong. After the relationship ended, he’s not a better person anymore; “I was quiet, more introspective and sad.” Zero becomes depressed for a few months, “No one prepares you for the fall of a great love. And she was my greatest love.” 

Judy just keeps dropping the ball

Zero maintains that the last time he contacted Meri was on August 31^st to set up their meeting; the two hadn’t talked, through any medium, since. “I wanted to. You don't even know how many times I picked up my phone to call her. But I didn't. Why? She made her choice and she chose her family over me,” aha. So that’s the final story we’re sticking with- Meri chose her family over him. He's never hinted at this before as being Meri's intent but sure, why not; it's vague and partially true to a degree. Solid choice. He's still surprised that he had an affair with a married woman; he asks himself, "Was it worth it?" He answers with a resounding yes after very little reflection.

“And then the finale went on the tv,” intones Zero, even though this happened in late November and not October, but whatever. Zero asserts that he didn’t watch it live but was forced to relent later when his, “lawyer called and said you better watch it.” Dude, what is this millionaire paying you for? You watch it and find some grounds upon which to sue. Luckily, Zero has the episode recorded and he sits down to view it, “I watched my baby cry as she remembered how much we laughed.” Ugh, nine chapters in and he's still such a fuck face- not a degree of empathy or understanding anywhere in his soul. Always one to be moved by his personal magnificence, “I cried as she was crying talking about how I was very kind, very compassionate, and very understanding. No, I bawled. I sat on the couch and bawled like a baby.” It takes him 20 minutes to pull himself together and be able to finish watching the episode; even today, as he’s writing the book, he starts, “crying right now thinking about to seeing her cry.” Good grief. “My Meri. My beautiful Meri,” he moans theatrically, and you can just totally picture him sitting in front of his television, stroking Meri’s hair on the screen.

Zero watching Sister Wives- visual approximation

He tells us pointedly that he typed out a response on his blog when the episode ended; that he won’t go into it again because he doesn’t, “want to relive that part of my life.” He's totally checked out on the book, you're going to have to go the extra mile to pencil in those details yourself. “She lied,” he says simply, “She went on national tv and lied.” He says something vaguely interesting though, “She said who she was talking to this whole time she thinks is a woman. That's not true and she knows it. And I'll leave it at that.” Their relationship is almost consistently defined as talking- the Zero is hardly bothered to refute the fact. He says he fired off a quick note to Meri on the blog, separate from the response, as well; it said “I am still in love with you. No matter what. You will always be my baby, Meri.” He also posted some tacky quote photo that said, “You weren’t just a star to me. You were my whole damn sky.” Which might move a 15 year old high school student but an adult you've just conned into a relationship with you, not so much. “I can't get over Meri. I don't even want to. She was my reason to look forward to the next day. I can't unlove her. She is my Queen. How do I go on?”

He breaks here for a few weeks, from writing the book; when he returns he has, “come to a new sense of peace about this.” He’s decided that by writing he can simultaneously remember the events and let go of them. He draws strength from God and the remaining friends who can accept the mistakes he’s made. “And I love myself enough to stop beating myself up internally,” ha, I'm sure there never was an issue there. He’s also decided that the affair was the “greatest love I have ever experienced,” and he has a lot of great stories to tell, why he didn’t include these in the book is anyone’s guess, so it shouldn’t be considered a bad thing that happened. Even though we’re in super positive mode, he lets the audience know that, “I still cry. It’s not as often but I do.” Ugh, man up already. He says that being in Las Vegas is hard and he doesn’t belong there; he ends up selling both his condo and the house he purchased for Meri. He’s still contractually obligated to keep his office there, to run a business and all, but he has no future plans to live there ever again. Somewhere Meri is breathing a huge sigh of relief knowing that they'll always have a few states between them.

He reflects on Meri, who will always be his baby, warmly and states, “There are so many great things that make her unique and special.” Most of these are the normal fluffy bland things you’d expect someone to say about a person that they loved, like her laugh or the way she said his name, but some of them… just aren’t. He misses, “The way you can't brush your teeth in front of her because she gets physcially ill. The way she can write your name on her arm with just her finger and it's legiable. The way she can squish a water bottle in one shot.” The hell is this?  Really? Seriously, if my relationship with you ends and the only thing you can remember about me is the awesome way I could crush a beer can on my forehead please, please, do me a favor and just don’t remember me at all. Kay?

He tells us again that Meri will always be his baby, “since he doesn’t call her that.” Dude, no. No. That’s not how life works. You don’t get to own someone in perpetuity as long as their current romantic partner doesn’t use the pet name you selected for them; there’s not some sort of love loophole to discover here. I didn’t think this was something that anyone would need explained to them. Geezes. Zero tells us that he’s magnanimous and happy for Meri; “That’s what love is. You want the other person to be happy, even if they aren’t with you.” Which is a sweet sentiment on the surface, but is just some weird bullshit to remind Meri that he will always be thinking of her; that whatever she does with the rest of her life will be because he allowed it to happen or something.

“I will never forget my Meri,” he assures us; it’s on to the final chapter and the surprise twist we’ve been promised.

-Kate