Stupid and Contagious (11 page)

“No.”

“Have a Hershey’s day,” she says and hangs up. I want to punch Darlene.

Wel , that didn’t work out quite as I’d intended.

Maybe a trip to Hershey’s headquarters is in order. Or maybe I’l just cal Knudsen, Tuscan, Borden, or Parmalat.

I’m about to look up their Web sites when I hear drumming on my door. It’s Zach. He knows I’m not real y in Florida. I let him stay out there and drum for a few minutes, but then he breaks into song.

“Josie’s on a vacation far away . . .” he sings in a high-pitched voice that actual y does the song justice.

Then again we’re talking about
The Outfield,
a one-hit wonder if there ever was one. He does this to embarrass me, and because he knows I’l get off my ass and open the door. And I do. ’Cause if I don’t, I know that “Sister Christian” can’t be far behind.

“Perfect crime,” he says as he breezes past me and opens up my refrigerator.

“I just got off the phone with Hershey’s.”

“I was in the record store the other day,” Zach continues.

“Hey, Hershey’s?”

“In a sec,” Zach says with a wave of his hand. “I’m just about to walk out with my DVDs—”

“Your porn DVDs,” I interject.

Zach does not even acknowledge. “And this girl walking in sets off the shoplifting alarm with something in her bag. Here’s the plan: we figure out what sets off that alarm, equip somebody with it, stuff what sets off that alarm, equip somebody with it, stuff a backpack ful of
Lord of the Rings
trilogies, then time our departure to coincide with the arrival of our confused friend—who can’t figure out why this thing he’s bringing
into
the store has set the alarm off. The embarrassed security guard, not wanting a lawsuit, waves everybody ahead.”

“Shoplifting—is our coup de grâce?” I say. “What are we, a bunch of troubled high school
sophomores
?”

“Okay . . . how about this? I send you a letter in a resealable envelope, and you stick your reply inside, reseal it, then write ‘Return to Sender’ on the front. Ful round trip for the price of a one-way.”

“That’s great, Zach,” I say. “We’l make our fortune by bilking the government thirty-five cents at a time.”

“For your information, it’s more like thirty-seven . . .

o r
thirty-nine
cents now. Okay, now what’s
your
thing?”

“Just got off the phone with Hershey’s.”

“And?” he asks.

“Bitch wouldn’t help me at al and told me to ‘have a Hershey’s day.’”

“That’s a little Disney-ish.”

“It’s something-ish.”

“Ish,” he says.

“Hey—guess who I walked past on my way home?”

I ask. And then I answer, because he’s not going to guess. “Ron Jeremy.”

“That guy’s fucked like every girl in the world.”

“Wel , every porn star,” I say.

“I never got that. The guy is
ugly.
He reminds me of a guy I used to get pizza from. The pizza guy’d show up, and we’d have bad dialogue for a couple seconds, and then the next thing I knew we were fucking. Wait a sec . . . he was a girl. And there were two of them. Yeah, that’s it.”

“Real y,” I say, “how is it that guy got al those parts?”

“I think it was that one
b i g
part,” he says. “But maybe back then it wasn’t so much about the looks as it was about the . . . sex.”

“Or maybe it was about who was wil ing to fuck in front of a camera for fifty bucks.”

Zach nods in solemn agreement. “That’s a good sighting. I’d say you’re in the lead, but I had a good one the other day too, and forgot to tel you . . . who was it?” He taps his chin. Then his finger rises in discovery. “Oh! It was the woman from the Palmolive commercials.”

“Madge?”

“Yes, Madge!”

“Nice,” I say. “How’d she look?”

“Dude. It’s not like she was ever hot. What do you mean how’d she look? She looked like
Madge.
”

“True. Madge might beat Ron Jeremy.”

“Could be a tie,” he offers.

“I think you’re in the lead,” I admit. Zach and I have this ongoing competition of B-list celebrity sightings.

Anyone can see Britney Spears or Harrison Ford.

Living in New York, that’s shooting fish in a barrel. To us, it’s much more exciting to see someone like Gary Coleman or that guy from
Bosom Buddies.
Whatever his name is. The one who didn’t have Tom Hanks’s success. The one who’s probably bitter as hel right about now.

“Come downstairs,” Zach says. The bar he works at is conveniently located right down the block from my apartment, and tonight is a karaoke night.

“Can’t. I’m planning my strategy.”

“Come have a Jameson and then plan your strategy.”

“Because
that’s
good advice,” I say.

“C’mon,” he says, brushing off the sarcasm as though it were dandruff. “Just hang out for a little bit.

You know I get the ladies in there. You can have some of my spil over.”

“I’m out of the business. No ladies for me. You know that.”

“Because of stupid Sarah?” he asks.

“No, because I’m done. I don’t want a relationship.

This is
me
time. Maybe in five years or so, I’l think about it.”

“Five years? What the hel are you talking about?

You’re not going to have sex for five years?”

This throws me into a profound, if momentary, contemplation of five years without sex. And to give you some idea of my weakened mental and romantic state, the prospect
almost
sounds enticing. Think of it: No more praying to God that she doesn’t rol over and face the wal when I give her the subtle “Can we?”

signal by placing my hand on her right breast. No more transforming my tongue into a ragged scrap of sandpaper over the course of an interminable journey toward an elusive orgasm. No more testing the condom, post-coitus, for signs of leakage. God forbid any of the fruit of my loins should test the fragile wal of her uterus and leave her baking up a Brady Junior to one day cure cancer or solve the energy crisis. No more returning to a half-asleep body whose only epilogue to the rapture is to mutter, “And don’t go hogging the comforter.”

“I said nothing about not having sex,” I say.

Because when al is said and done, were there a pair of breasts and a taut naked stomach staring me in the face, I’d gladly ride that toboggan straight back down to hel .

“Then come out.”

“Sex isn’t my main priority right now. I’m trying to start a company. Invent things . . .”

“Is this because of the ‘little problem’ you’re having?” he asks, and I feel my temperature rise about twenty degrees. Zach is my best friend. I tel him everything. But I
never
told him about that.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sarah told me.”

“Oh my God, is
that
what this is about?”

“You need to get back on the horse,” he says, drawing near and threatening to put his arm around me. But with a single look I back him off. “Shit, man.

Sarah was such a miserable bitch, I’m sure I couldn’t get it up for her either. You’re lucky she didn’t turn you gay.”

“Dude! There . . . is . . . no . . . problem.”

“That’s not what she says.”

“And when did you talk to Sarah, by the way?”

“I didn’t,” he says. “She left me a message on my answering machine. I’m pretty sure she’s leaving the same message on everybody’s answering machine.”

“That’s just fucking great.”
Now
I need that Jameson.

We go to the bar and I have not one, but two Jamesons. I explain the whole situation to Zach, and how it was only in the very beginning of the relationship, blah, blah, blah. But he doesn’t care. He tuned me out as soon as the Twister Twins walk in.

Tara Clean and Darling Nikki.

Tara Clean got her name because she carries around the most recent copy of her AIDS test everywhere she goes, and Darling Nikki’s been cal ed that since the eighties when “Purple Rain” came out and it was every girl’s favorite song. They’re the

“Twister Twins” because Zach’s bar has a dance floor designed like the game Twister, and Nikki and Tara usual y go out there in revealing clothes and start everyone off. Before long, everybody wants in. It’s become the main attraction at the bar. The girls get a smal cut off the net in exchange.

I check my messages at home, and there’s this message from Phil:

“Hey, man. I guess you’re on the plane or something. I just wanted to tel you that Sarah cal ed me. She said that . . . wel , it doesn’t matter what she said. But listen . . . I have a Viagra. It’s been in my wal et for like four months, but you can have it if you want it. I got it because of that twenty-four-year-old that I was seeing, but she changed her number.”

Beep. My machine cut him off. Of course he cal s back. “I don’t know why she changed her number. We were getting along so wel . Anyway, she did. So I never got to use it. And you can have it. But we can talk about it when you get back. Have fun in the Sunny State,” he says, and hangs up. It’s the
Sunshine
State,
Phil. And right now I hate Sarah more than Bil y Joel hates sobriety.

“Another shot, please?” I say. Zach hits me with a double this time, pointing out a beautiful girl who just walked in with her two friends.

“Check her out. She’s fuckin’ hot.”

“Wedding band,” I say.

“She sings in one?”

“No, jackass. She’s wearing one.”

“Good catch,” he says. I’m so pissed right now, and I need to leave. I pul out a twenty and slap it on the bar. “You know your money’s no good here. And where you going?”

“Home,” I say, getting up quickly because I know he’l try to talk me out of it. I have a giant headache.

Plus two fat girls are on the mic singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” “Look,” I say as I point to the two girls. “Two more reasons to hate this song.” And when he turns to look at them and starts laughing, I make my hasty exit.

Of course I run into Heaven in the elevator. What a misnomer
that
one is. This is the last thing I need right now. I don’t even say anything. I think maybe if I don’t say anything
she
won’t say anything, and maybe we’l never have to speak again.

“You don’t say
hello
?” she spews.

“Hel o.”

“Look, about what you saw—” she starts to say.

“I don’t want to know,” I say, interrupting her.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s none of my business. You are none of my business, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“That’s rude,” she says.

“Oh, real y? And what would you cal coming into my apartment uninvited, opening my mail, which is not only rude but il egal,
borrowing
my money without asking, and attacking that woman today?”

“I didn’t attack her and you’re right . . . it’s none of your business.”

“That’s right, it’s not.”

There’s another moment of total y palpable silence.

Then she comes out with “I have your mail.” Fuck. Of course she does.

“Which is none of
your
business.”

“Whatever,” she says. This means she read it.

Again!

“You’ ve
g o t
to stop opening my mail,” I say seriously. “Seriously. You can’t just open anyone’s mail al wil y-nil y like that.”

“Wil y-nil y?”

“Just . . . don’t.”

“It’s in
my
mailbox,” she says.

“Look at the outside of the letter before you open it.”

“That takes extra time,” she says, greatly pained.

“Time that I don’t have.”

“Time that I don’t have.”

“Yes, I know you have a very busy schedule, stealing things.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“My ten bucks, that poor woman’s freakin’ toilet paper . . . what’s next? Stealing Legos from children?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says dismissively. “And you weren’t interested in hearing about what happened because it’s none of your business, remember? So here’s your stupid mail, and you can feel free to go fuck yourself.” With that, she hands me my mail.

“Thank you,” I say. “For the mail. Not the freedom to go fuck myself. But thanks for that too, I guess.” She doesn’t say anything. We’re on our floor. She gets out.

I get out. “Don’t you want to crack wise about the content of my mail now, or something?”

“There was nothing good today.” And she opens her door and goes into her apartment. Doesn’t even say good-bye. Not that I expected her to, but I don’t know. Maybe she’s having a bad day, too. Why am I now feeling guilty? I don’t need this shit. I’m not going to think about her. Fuck her.

Of course there has to be more to the story. She’s not real y a maniac. I know that. Or at least I
think
I know that. I just assed off because I’m pissed Sarah is making my life, and reputation, a living hel . Now I feel bad.

Maybe I should go and apologize. Or maybe not apologize, but at least find out what the hel is up with that woman. And then there’s a knock at my door. She saved me the trouble. Good.

I open it, and holy shit. It’s not Heaven standing before me, but Sarah. Satanic Sarah and her devil-may-care diarrhea of the mouth.

“Hi, Brady,” she says. “Can I come in?” No. No, you can’t come in, vile woman. I crack the door a little more and motion her in. I’m such a pussy.

“What can I do for you, Sarah?”

“I was in the neighborhood and I found your E.T.