Stupid and Contagious (31 page)

Fuckin’ cat piss!”

“Okay . . .” I say. Nothing I can or real y want to add to
this
stimulating conversation. So I grab seven cans of Pringles because I’ve decided that Brady and I are going to have a contest to see who can finish a can faster.

I end up with three gal ons of bottled water, seven cans of Pringles, Strummer’s ham and cheese sandwich, my Slurpee, and a funny pair of Foster Grant style sunglasses. I realize after I pay that I’m out of work and stil buying things like I’m gainful y employed.

I drag the bags out to the car two at a time, and pop the trunk. While I’m loading the bags, the cat-piss guy comes over.

“Let me help you with those,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say. “The water was actual y kil ing me.” I go and throw the rest of the stuff up front.

“You got it,” he says. He loads the water in the trunk, comes back into view, and smiles. “That it?”

“Yes,” I say.

“There you go, then,” he says and shuts the trunk.

See? Now, this is a good guy. Sweet. Helpful. Guys in New York aren’t like that.

“Thanks so much,” I say. I maneuver my way out from the front seat, but I don’t even know if he heard me because he’s already walking down the street.

Okay then.

I give Strummer his sandwich, and once he’s devoured it we take a walk down the block. We walk past a Rite Aid and a coffee shop cal ed Tul y’s before we get to Union Street, where we make a right.

We stop to listen to a street performer who is playing his guitar and singing a medley of Nirvana songs in honor of the anniversary of Kurt’s death. Strummer and I listen as he sings, “I feel stupid . . . and contagious / Here we are now . . . entertain us.”

Strummer gives me a tug, so we start walking back.

Several cop cars speed past us on our way. When we get back to the car Strummer sniffs it out to see if there’s any sandwich left, and I open a can of Pringles. Two cans are for the contest. Two are for when he loses and demands a rematch. And the other two are in case he wins that one, and we need a tie-breaker. The seventh can is my practice can. I grab a handful and pul away from the curb. As I’m driving back toward Fourth and Lander a bunch more cop cars with lights flashing speed past going the opposite way. I’m tempted to flip a bitch and see what the action is, but I refrain and stay my course, back to Brady.

Brady

I walk into 2401 Utah Avenue South, and it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. Yes, there is a Starbucks on the ground floor, and yes, it’s a corporate building sparsely populated with people in suits and the occasional bike messenger—al coming and going, al in a rush. I scan the directory for Schultz.

His office is on the eighth floor.

When I walk over to the elevator banks, nobody stops me to ask where I’m going. I’m in. Just like
that.

The elevator opens up on the eighth floor, and there is actual y another lobby—only the coffee is free in this one. There are pots of coffee along a ledge, with al of the fixings you’d find in a Starbucks, natural y. Behind the reception desk there’s a smal ish guy wearing a button-down shirt with a V-neck sweater over it. He’s got glasses on, and he’s got this look on his face like someone just spoon-fed him some motor oil.

“Good morning,” he says. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I have a meeting with Howard Schultz.”

“Your name?” he asks, looking me over and then wrinkling his nose as he notices the baby bottle.

“My name? Yes. My name is Brady Gilbert.”

“One moment,” he says as he buzzes what I assume to be Schultz’s secretary. “Hi . . . Brady Gilbert?” he says to her. My heart starts to pound so loud I’m worried that he can actual y hear it. “One sec,”

he says and covers up the phone with his hand.

“Where are you from?” he asks me.

“New York,” I say. Which is true.

“Right . . . what company?”

“I’m . . . I . . .” Fuck, I think. What the hel do I say?

“Sleestak Records” isn’t exactly going to get me in the door. “Cinnamilk” wil give away my bril iant idea. “I’m from the Make-a-Wish Foundation,” I say. It just comes out.

“Very good,” he says. “He’s from the Make-a-Wish Foundation,” he repeats into the phone. “Uh-huh?

Okay. Great.” He hangs up and looks at me with this thin-lipped smile. “I’m sorry, but they don’t have a record of any appointment.”

“There must be a mistake,” I say.

“Mr. Schultz has two assistants back there. Not one

. . . two. They
together
constitute a highly effective machine who are employed to make certain that there
are no mistakes.
”

“Wel , there’s always a first,” I offer meekly.

“I’m sorry, but you have no appointment. You can feel free to leave your literature with me, and I’l send it back.”

“No,” I say, checking the pleading tone in my voice.

“You don’t understand. I need to see Mr. Schultz today.”

“Not going to happen, my friend,” this little man with the big attitude says. I can see I’l have to change my approach. But first I need a cup of coffee.

I step away from the big desk and make my way to the coffee. Dammit if I’m not going to have some free coffee while I’m here. I take a sip of my coffee and pace. He’s watching me, so I sit down. Then I stand up again.

“Look, I need to see him. The truth is . . . I’m not from the Make-a-Wish Foundation. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I just thought it would help.”

“Yes, lying about working for a company that grants the wishes of dying children is an excel ent idea. I can see why you’d think it would help.” He opens up a magazine and starts to flip through it, like I’m not here.

“But I came
clean.
That’s got to count for something.”

“What’s next?” he says. “Begging me for a milk refil for some starving imaginary baby?”

for some starving imaginary baby?”

I don’t get what he means at first, but then I see he’s looking at the baby bottle. “Oh, this? This . . . this is my lunch.”

“How nice,” he says. “Your mom packed you a lunch. I cal dibs on the Fritos.”

“Look, I just flew clear across the country to see Mr.

Schultz. I have to talk to him about something that is actual y going to make him a
lot
of money.”

“Yeah, you and everybody else who walks through that door. Get in the back of the line.”

“Wel , I would . . . if you’d show me where the line
is.
”

“It’s an expression,” he says, rol ing his eyes.

“I know. I was making a joke.”

“He already
has
a lot of money. Thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to leave your press kit, or whatever it is that you’d like to speak with Mr. Schultz about, you may do so.”

“It’s real y important,” I say. “Can you
please
just tel him that there is someone out here who needs to talk to him about very important things.”

He reaches for his pad and picks up a pen. I see him write my name on it and I think I’m final y getting somewhere.

“Okay. Brady . . . Gilbert . . . very . . . important . . .

things,” he says, holding it up to show me. “Does this look about right?”

“Yes,” I say.

He crumples it up and throws it in the trash. “He’s booked solid with meetings.”

What had been a test of wil s transforms into me wanting to test one of the carafes of coffee over the bridge of his nose. I take a breath. “I’l wait,” I say.

“For the next seven months.”

“I just need five minutes of his time,” I say, enunciating every word.

“I know. You have this brand-new idea that is going to make him a zil ion dol ars—or wait—let me guess .

. . you’ve just reinvented the coffee bean! You think there aren’t a dozen of you people a week that ‘just want five minutes’ of Mr. Schultz’s time?”

“But I don’t want to reinvent the bean! I just want to talk to him!”

This is
so
typical, this guy. In his little shirt with his V-neck over it. A whiny, overgrown fifth grader who got picked on his whole life and now has this big
position of power.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m usual y pro-
high school loser makes good.
The losers who were picked on in high school tend to fare a lot better in society than the ones who were popular. The popular kids are al now living cultural y vapid suburban lives with white picket fences and SUVs, while the high school losers are now the movers and shakers of society.

But not this clown. This guy has his al -important job as a receptionist. It’s his job to keep out al the riffraff.

He is the gatekeeper. Him and his David Spade
and
you are?
attitude. That’s what he is. A poor man’s David Spade. As if a rich man’s David Spade would be any better. Either of them . . . al of them would be keeping me out, and that is just not acceptable.

I start freaking myself out with mental pictures of this guy and David Spade together, laughing at me.

It’s that moment that I realize I’ve drunk
way
too much coffee. He’s not going to budge, and I’m going to have to come up with a better plan. A
better
plan?

How about
any
plan . . .

“Is there something else I can help you with?” he asks me.

“No . . . nothing else. Just, you know . . . letting me meet with Mr. Schultz.”

“Okay then, if there’s nothing else, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”

“Put yourself in my position,” I say, taking a breezy new tack, in the absence of that plan I just referred to.

“You just flew al the way across the country to see Mr.

Schultz. The only thing standing in your way is some guy—some very nice and wel -dressed guy—who’s just trying to do his job.”

“Please leave.”

I walk out of the reception area, but then peek my head back in. . . .

“Don’t make me cal security,” he says, and I duck back out. I stand in the hal way for a few minutes, thinking. There’s got to be a way. A side door . . . a fire escape . . . something.

A food delivery guy gets off the elevator and heads to the reception area. I stop him and ask if they send him back when he delivers food, or if whoever ordered it comes to reception. He tel s me he’s not al owed to pass reception. So much for that idea.

I take the elevator downstairs and walk around the main lobby, trying to figure out a new plan. A costume? It works in the movies, right? I can pul a Fletch. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a costume shop, so I’m going to need to improvise.

I walk outside and look around. There’s real y not much to work with. I actual y contemplate breaking a bunch of branches off a tree and going up there as a tree. But this is assuming that the guy has a sense of humor and a heart.

I walk back into the building and spot a janitor.

Sure, I could pay the guy twenty bucks to let me put on his outfit, but what’s that going to do, besides make me short twenty bucks. Every harebrained idea I think of seems like it’s from an episode of
Laverne &
Shirley,
and I hate that I’m not better prepared for this.

But how do you prepare to meet a man who is guarded behind a 1-800 number?

Then I get this idea. The bathroom! I take the elevator back upstairs to the eighth floor and head straight for the bathroom. The man is going to have to relieve himself at some point, right? I’l just hang out in the bathroom and wait until he comes.

So I’m sitting in a stal with not even a scrap of reading material, and I am bored. Not just bored . . .

I’m
doorman bored.
This is a term I coined years ago when I had a summer job as a doorman in a fancy apartment building. Your job is to just sit there and wait for people to come in and out. But I worked on the off hours when people rarely came in or out. And I’d just sit there. And I’d try to entertain myself.

Reading wasn’t al owed, so it was al down to the imagination. Back then I had it bad for Stephanie Seymour, so I’d just think about her al night. Of course, that would inevitably lead to extreme discomfort. So I’d try to clear my mind and think about nothing. Just sit there, doorman bored.

I wait in my stal , and people come in and out. I peek out, but it’s never Schultz. It’s been an hour and thirteen minutes, and I’ve heard things and smel ed things that I couldn’t even do if I tried.

Two guys walk in, one after the next, and they start going on about some race:

“Hey, are you stil going down to Portland for the Nike Run Hit Wonder 10K?” the first guy says.

“You kidding me? I wouldn’t miss it for anything! I’m a huge Tone-Loc fan.” This person is admitting this out loud?

“Who else is playing?” the first guy asks.

“Tommy Tutone, Flock of Seagul s, General Public, and a mystery band. And Devo is headlining,” the second guy says. What’s this? Devo? Devo certainly had more than
one
hit, and they are not especial y connected to the running world, so I don’t understand why they’re going to be playing. Why not get Bob Seger? Not a one-hit wonder either, but at least he was al about running “Against the Wind.”

“Devo just doesn’t get the respect they deserve,” I find myself saying out loud, and then I actual y cover my own mouth with my hands to physical y shut myself up. Neither of the two responds, but they both make pretty hasty exits.

A few minutes later someone else walks in. He gets in the stal next to me and sits down. I recognize the shoes. It’s David Spade. I actual y hold my breath because I don’t want him to know I’m in here. I’m sitting here turning purple, but I don’t hear any action on his behalf. Not that I want to hear the guy do his business, but I just find it odd that he’s not doing
anything.
I’d suggest he eat some bran, but I don’t want to blow my cover.