Bite-size cubes of translucent green gems jiggled before my eyes bringing back memories from two segments of my personal history. As a child it was one of the most entertaining foods to consume and throw about the dining room. I can clearly remember my mother reprimanding me multiple times for letting the stuff dangle from my lips before vacuuming it up into my mouth. Why I was allowed to eat so much of the stuff I’m still not sure.
For all her faults, which she kept hidden from those outside her nuclear family, my mother was obsessed with manners. A shirt not tucked in, a hair out of place, a silly face, an ill-timed bout of rectal flatulence—these things she could not abide. Any misstep on the part of her children she took as an assault on her own image. It always hit me funny which traits she decided to rebel against. Grandpa was an uncouth Bible-beating drunk. Almost paradoxically, Mamma was able to give up on church and practice flawless etiquette. Alcohol on the other hand was the immortal dog gnawing on her leg that just wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t give ten shits if people thought of her as a heretic. She would be horrified though if folks knew she couldn’t hold her liquor. I lost count how many times I had to tell teachers, friends, other parents, etc., “She has a touch of the flu” or “You know how she gets those migraines.”
Jell-O made a bit of a comeback for me in college. Instead of water, we used vodka. It was the perfect gateway snack for innocent freshmen lovelies. They would suck them down with youthful enthusiasm. Jiggles and giggles. Minutes later they would experience the inhibition lowering properties. Hours later we either got laid, or we scrubbed harlequin puddles out of the carpeting.
“Hey, Fran, are you going to eat this?”
“Go ahead. I’m not a fan of the jiggly stuff. Mel thinks every meal needs to be like hospital food, since hospitals should know what people need to eat. I mean I got Jell-O with practically ever meal. I think Mel believes it must have some mystical healing power. I’m a meat and potatoes guy.”
I couldn’t resist slurping the gelatin through my teeth. I swished it back and forth until it was almost back to liquid form.
“That’s right, Fran. The redder and fatter the meat, the better. Now that your arteries have been cleared of debris, it’s time to build up more.”
“With all the drugs I’ll have to take, I won’t have to give up the good stuff.”
“You’re a genius, Fran. You’ll spend half your salary on drugs, so you won’t have to pass on the sixteen ounce prime rib and heavily buttered mashed potatoes. Way to stick it to the man, hombre.”
“CNC has great insurance. I’m covered.”
“…Had great insurance. After this, I imagine, being part of the group, my premium will go up. And I’m a heavy drinker. No risk here. I’m going to live forever. We really should be talking about the prescription medication program. It’s all right at best. I got my guy in Mexico though that could hook you up.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be cheering me up?”
“Oh, right. You can have a glass or two of red wine a night. How’s that?”
“That’ll do.”
“And you get a colon exam free of charge.”
“How’d you know about that? Out of left field they’re strapping me down and sticking fingers up my ass.”
“You can never be too cautious, Fran. The doctors are just playing it safe. I hear it’s pretty standard procedure these days.”
“My ass. Literally, my ass.”
“Clear the coronary arteries. Might as well clear the large intestine. Your ass has never been cleaner, my friend. It could have been worse. They could have stuffed tangeremons up there.”
I smiled. Fran laughed, but only at the reference to tangeremons. His mind would not be able to fathom me altering his chart. I refused to spell it out for him. Fran would have to get rid of his training wheels eventually.
“You can’t make me laugh like that, Shel, with my chest all tore up.”
“It’s impossible for me to guess how you’ll react to what words come out of my mouth. You’ll get no apology.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Right. So when are you coming back to work?”
“Not too sure on that one. I’m on extended medical leave. I could opt for early retirement, but I’d hate to miss out on all the fun.”
“It’s getting less fun every day now that we’re Ephimria’s bitches. Your best bet for now is to spend some Q.T. with Mel and wait for this mess to blow over.”
“Convince her to stop making Jell-O, and you got a deal.”
“Done.”
As Mel showed me out, I mentioned to her how Jell-O to Fran is like spinach to Popeye. Hey, if I’m going to be stopping by for regular visits, why not set myself up with a little treat. You won’t find any powdered gelatin dust in my pantry.
Milwaukee to me was like that friend of yours who partied his brains out back in the day. He was always number one in intoxication, and everyone thought he would die young like many other great partiers of our generation. You loved him for it, and his drunken wisdom kept your stomach muscles in shape from laughing so much. Then he cleaned himself up. He got married, bought a condo, squirted out a couple kids. You were happy for him, but he just wasn’t the engaging lovable personality like he had been back in the day. He would disavow his past and would in fact lash out at others who displayed his old characteristics. This isn’t really a bad thing. It’s just Milwaukee.
I thought the flight from LAX into Mitchell was going to give me a great opportunity to become acquainted with my new shadow and ultimately tear her down a notch or two, but mine was already booked full, so she was on another plane. I did meet Cami Theroux briefly back at the CNC headquarters. I had pretty much told Jeff to fuck off and stop messing with my show. He gave me a speech about how every key player in the organization needed a succession plan. He was doing me a favor by setting me up with top talent. In my narrow view of the world, Another Fifteen Minutes and me are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. The way everyone else sees it, I came up with a spectacular way to entertain people, yes, but I am going to die someday. Someone else will need to pick up the pieces and make sure my brilliant idea continues to attract audiences. If anyone should be picking a successor, it should be me. When someone else picks your successor for you, he’s not worried about you dying. He’s worried about what happens if and when he fires you or you walk out. Jeff suggested I at least meet her face to face, and I have to say, she definitely has a face for television. I’ll give her that. But a face for Another Fifteen? She could never be cast as my twin sister. Jeff and Cami thought that was a good thing.
I sat in one of those ubiquitous coffee places sipping an Americano waiting for the lovely Cami to arrive. She would be easy to spot with her strawberry blonde waves. She’ll have no trouble finding me. Sometimes I almost forget that there are millions of people out there who recognize my face. I’m not doing much to put myself in the tabloids, which helps, but Another Fifteen has a fairly devoted following, and any one of those viewers can become a potential awkward encounter.
“Excuse me. Are you the guy from Another Fifteen Minutes?” came the words from spunky young girl with retro kitsch spectacles.
“That depends. Are you the girl from Ipanema?”
“Awesome. Can I get a picture with you to show my boyfriend? He’ll freak. We fucking love your show.”
“Now that everyone has a camera in his or her pocket, you all want photographs. What happened to good old-fashioned autographs?”
“Oh yeah, totally.”
She grabbed a napkin and borrowed a pen from one of the baristas.
“Can I still get the picture?”
“Sure. Whom shall I make this out to?”
“Owen and Claire with an ‘E’.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do two separate autographs? What if you two break up? Who gets the autograph?”
She gave me a look that said, ‘Dude, I just want the picture. The autograph was your idea anyway.’
“If we break up, I guess we’ll just have to rip it in half.”
“Good answer.”
“You know, my boyfriend is in a band. Maybe you could do a show about his band.”
“Do they have quite a reputation around here?”
“They just started playing together last year. They’ve done a few shows already.”
“Well, how about we let them become semi-famous rock stars first for, oh, about fifteen minutes. Then we’ll wait a long while. And then I’ll come back and talk to them. That’s sort of how the show works.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t hurt to ask, right?”
“They’re just words.”
She got her picture with me along with the autograph I forced on her, and she was as pleased as Punch. She didn’t feel the need to settle down and try to become my good buddy.
I have to give our viewers credit—for the most part, they’re decent folk. About ninety percent of the time, I only have to put up with that overly long stare. I can catch out of the corner of my eye sometimes when someone is gawking. It’s harmless, and if you’re going to do anything annoying, it’s what I prefer. Of course I also get the people that tell me how much they love the show like little Claire just did. As long as they don’t stick with me for too long, they’re tolerable. On very rare occasions, I find out I’m someone’s favorite person in the whole wide world. It’s a delicate art to extricate myself from the hooks of these obsessive freaks. “Oh my! There he is. Now is my chance to ingratiate myself. I can practically hear the wedding bells.” This sums up their thought process nicely. A newer trend I’m seeing involves people that are out to make celebrities look foolish in some way. Like I was telling Claire, everyone carries a camera now—enough to cover all the celebrities deserving scorn. For all I know, as Claire was snapping her photo with me, she could have unzipped her sweater to reveal a t-shirt reading, “I’m with stupid” with an arrow pointing at me. I’m glad I’m not a “celebrity”. I’m content to be very far from John Lennon territory.
A few minutes a later, a woman with strawberry blonde hair (she straightened it today) and a cyborg earpiece stood in front of me talking. She wasn’t talking to me, but she was talking. At least she was desperately trying to wrap up the conversation. After her farewell response, she finally tapped the button on her earpiece to end the call. Now I felt special.
“My mother. I always have to check in with her after I land.”
How sweet.
“Me too. I like to gloat that I’m still here. She’s waiting to inherit my riches.”
“It’s ridiculous. Plane crashes are so rare.”
“But so much more spectacular.”
“You’re odd, Sheldon.”
“I can tell you haven’t had much exposure to so-called odd folk. I’m a little surprised. I’m going to ask you to forget about home-cookin’ for a minute and, as my shadow, open your mind to the odd and treat it as it is normal because the odd is in fact normal. It is the world in which Another Fifteen Minutes dwells.”
“Do you ever stop trying to be more clever than everyone else?”
“Hey, we have to be dating for at least three weeks before you can ask that question.”
“Really?”
“Okay. I’ll keep it dull for you.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes when I talk to my mom, I get so… I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Cami, you were playing a pretty good hand there. I was about to fold.”
“Don’t fold. Stay in it. Maybe my mood will change. If it starts to get irritating, I’ll let you know.”
Well, she wasn’t vapidly giggling. That was a plus. Me and my shadow might get along after all. Or we may end up flying back on separate planes.
---
Laura’s little brother, the son of a banker, had a nice little racket going. Free to do as he liked on top of the bedrock of his trust fund, Ian chose to devote his life to charitable causes. No cause was too small for Ian to get behind and organize as long his profile was high enough to be noticed. Where his sister’s humanitarian efforts were most likely altruistic, Ian’s motivation was carnal in nature. It was about impressing the ladies. Impressing them with money was too easy. He wanted to win their hearts and minds. To attract the best, you have to try a little harder. As soon as he met Cami, I began watching his transparent game unfold. To Cami’s credit, she could see through it as well. To her fault, she thought it was cute. I shouldn’t care, but she is my shadow, and my shadow should be stitched to my feet.
“Ian, seven years ago, you decided to let your beard grow—a highly selfish act. But you found a way to turn that selfish act into an act of giving by encouraging others to sponsor every inch of every beard grown in the Milwaukee area to support testicular cancer research. Most guys would just grow the beard as way to stand up and fight against a clean-shaven society. Why all the extra hullabaloo?”
“Testicular cancer strikes thousands of men each year. That’s what we decided to focus on in the first year. With each year’s beard-a-thon, we’ve focused on a different form of cancer. This year we’re going after thyroid cancer. Growing out your beard is a lot of fun. The beard-a-thon is great excuse for guys to let their faces go without getting into too much trouble from their wives and girlfriends.”
“Cancer treatment involves chemotherapy and radiation often resulting in hair loss. Aren’t you in a way rubbing your thick beards in the faces of these hairless cancer victims?”
“Ummm. We think of the beards as more an aspiration of health—something to inspire cancer patients and survivors.”
“I see this year, you are not sporting a full beard. Can you explain the meaning of this? Do you not want to save lives?”
“This year we’ve created a new mustache division. The mustaches are actually worth more points this year. We’ve convinced a lot bearded fellows out there to expose their chins for charity.”
“So you just change the rules willy-nilly.”
“We like to keep it fresh and interesting.”
Cami then handed me my poster board full of pictures of mustachioed gentlemen containing the likes of Sam Elliott, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Kaiser Wilhelm, Freddy Mercury, Rip Taylor, etc.
“Ian, can you point to me which of these mustaches most captures what you are going for with your own mustache?”
Ian’s mustache was actually quite unimpressive and didn’t come close to matching any of the pictures on the board.
“Probably that one.” He pointed to Tom Selleck. I gave him a puzzled look.
“Magnum P.I. Good choice. However, I think you’re leaning more towards this one.” I pointed to Freddy Mercury. Ian tensed up a little.
“Nah. Definitely this one.”
“Are you sure?”
Cami unexpectedly chimed in, “I don’t like where this is going.”
It took all my will power to contain my fury with the cameras rolling. I didn’t need some footage floating around the interweb of me flipping out on my shadow. I finished up the interview. We made arrangements to meet Ian later for drinks as I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to get some intel on Laura and maybe even Jeff. Then I let it all out.
“Don’t you ever fucking speak up like that in the middle of an interview. Do you understand?”
“You were implying that…”
“I don’t give a fuck about your opinion while the interview is happening. You need to shut the fuck up. If you want to talk about something, it happens before or after.”
“I can’t just sit there while you’re obviously hinting that to be homosexual is less desirable.”
“That’s not what I was doing. The choice was Ian’s. There was a correct answer. Rip Taylor’s or Wilhelm’s staches should have been his first choice. After he selected Magnum’s and I chose Freddy Mercury’s for him, he should have agreed with my choice. He chose incorrectly.”
“You set him up.”
“I set him up to succeed or fail. He failed.”
“It’s going to get cut. Or they’ll fix it in editing.”
“I am the editor.”
“It’s Jeff’s brother-in-law.”
She may have had a point, but then again, most people in America could probably care less how Ian responded. I was done with the conversation. Cami wasn’t though.
“Don’t think this is going to be one of those relationships where we start off hating each other, and the tension between us leads to incredible sex because it’s not going to happen. I’m a dyke. And don’t think I’m going to be your dyke friend who eventually falls for you and goes straight.”
My jaw hit the floor. I did not peg her as a lesbian. I was the proverbial deer in the headlights.
“Okay. I’ll turn down the charm a little.”
“I’m just fucking with you.”
“What?”
She began to laugh a little. It was a cute laugh, but slightly crazy.
“I had you. You really thought I was gay for a second.”
“Wow. You are a Martian. Touché. I'm actually cool with you either way.”
For all her faults, which she kept hidden from those outside her nuclear family, my mother was obsessed with manners. A shirt not tucked in, a hair out of place, a silly face, an ill-timed bout of rectal flatulence—these things she could not abide. Any misstep on the part of her children she took as an assault on her own image. It always hit me funny which traits she decided to rebel against. Grandpa was an uncouth Bible-beating drunk. Almost paradoxically, Mamma was able to give up on church and practice flawless etiquette. Alcohol on the other hand was the immortal dog gnawing on her leg that just wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t give ten shits if people thought of her as a heretic. She would be horrified though if folks knew she couldn’t hold her liquor. I lost count how many times I had to tell teachers, friends, other parents, etc., “She has a touch of the flu” or “You know how she gets those migraines.”
Jell-O made a bit of a comeback for me in college. Instead of water, we used vodka. It was the perfect gateway snack for innocent freshmen lovelies. They would suck them down with youthful enthusiasm. Jiggles and giggles. Minutes later they would experience the inhibition lowering properties. Hours later we either got laid, or we scrubbed harlequin puddles out of the carpeting.
“Hey, Fran, are you going to eat this?”
“Go ahead. I’m not a fan of the jiggly stuff. Mel thinks every meal needs to be like hospital food, since hospitals should know what people need to eat. I mean I got Jell-O with practically ever meal. I think Mel believes it must have some mystical healing power. I’m a meat and potatoes guy.”
I couldn’t resist slurping the gelatin through my teeth. I swished it back and forth until it was almost back to liquid form.
“That’s right, Fran. The redder and fatter the meat, the better. Now that your arteries have been cleared of debris, it’s time to build up more.”
“With all the drugs I’ll have to take, I won’t have to give up the good stuff.”
“You’re a genius, Fran. You’ll spend half your salary on drugs, so you won’t have to pass on the sixteen ounce prime rib and heavily buttered mashed potatoes. Way to stick it to the man, hombre.”
“CNC has great insurance. I’m covered.”
“…Had great insurance. After this, I imagine, being part of the group, my premium will go up. And I’m a heavy drinker. No risk here. I’m going to live forever. We really should be talking about the prescription medication program. It’s all right at best. I got my guy in Mexico though that could hook you up.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be cheering me up?”
“Oh, right. You can have a glass or two of red wine a night. How’s that?”
“That’ll do.”
“And you get a colon exam free of charge.”
“How’d you know about that? Out of left field they’re strapping me down and sticking fingers up my ass.”
“You can never be too cautious, Fran. The doctors are just playing it safe. I hear it’s pretty standard procedure these days.”
“My ass. Literally, my ass.”
“Clear the coronary arteries. Might as well clear the large intestine. Your ass has never been cleaner, my friend. It could have been worse. They could have stuffed tangeremons up there.”
I smiled. Fran laughed, but only at the reference to tangeremons. His mind would not be able to fathom me altering his chart. I refused to spell it out for him. Fran would have to get rid of his training wheels eventually.
“You can’t make me laugh like that, Shel, with my chest all tore up.”
“It’s impossible for me to guess how you’ll react to what words come out of my mouth. You’ll get no apology.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Right. So when are you coming back to work?”
“Not too sure on that one. I’m on extended medical leave. I could opt for early retirement, but I’d hate to miss out on all the fun.”
“It’s getting less fun every day now that we’re Ephimria’s bitches. Your best bet for now is to spend some Q.T. with Mel and wait for this mess to blow over.”
“Convince her to stop making Jell-O, and you got a deal.”
“Done.”
As Mel showed me out, I mentioned to her how Jell-O to Fran is like spinach to Popeye. Hey, if I’m going to be stopping by for regular visits, why not set myself up with a little treat. You won’t find any powdered gelatin dust in my pantry.
---
Milwaukee to me was like that friend of yours who partied his brains out back in the day. He was always number one in intoxication, and everyone thought he would die young like many other great partiers of our generation. You loved him for it, and his drunken wisdom kept your stomach muscles in shape from laughing so much. Then he cleaned himself up. He got married, bought a condo, squirted out a couple kids. You were happy for him, but he just wasn’t the engaging lovable personality like he had been back in the day. He would disavow his past and would in fact lash out at others who displayed his old characteristics. This isn’t really a bad thing. It’s just Milwaukee.
I thought the flight from LAX into Mitchell was going to give me a great opportunity to become acquainted with my new shadow and ultimately tear her down a notch or two, but mine was already booked full, so she was on another plane. I did meet Cami Theroux briefly back at the CNC headquarters. I had pretty much told Jeff to fuck off and stop messing with my show. He gave me a speech about how every key player in the organization needed a succession plan. He was doing me a favor by setting me up with top talent. In my narrow view of the world, Another Fifteen Minutes and me are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. The way everyone else sees it, I came up with a spectacular way to entertain people, yes, but I am going to die someday. Someone else will need to pick up the pieces and make sure my brilliant idea continues to attract audiences. If anyone should be picking a successor, it should be me. When someone else picks your successor for you, he’s not worried about you dying. He’s worried about what happens if and when he fires you or you walk out. Jeff suggested I at least meet her face to face, and I have to say, she definitely has a face for television. I’ll give her that. But a face for Another Fifteen? She could never be cast as my twin sister. Jeff and Cami thought that was a good thing.
I sat in one of those ubiquitous coffee places sipping an Americano waiting for the lovely Cami to arrive. She would be easy to spot with her strawberry blonde waves. She’ll have no trouble finding me. Sometimes I almost forget that there are millions of people out there who recognize my face. I’m not doing much to put myself in the tabloids, which helps, but Another Fifteen has a fairly devoted following, and any one of those viewers can become a potential awkward encounter.
“Excuse me. Are you the guy from Another Fifteen Minutes?” came the words from spunky young girl with retro kitsch spectacles.
“That depends. Are you the girl from Ipanema?”
“Awesome. Can I get a picture with you to show my boyfriend? He’ll freak. We fucking love your show.”
“Now that everyone has a camera in his or her pocket, you all want photographs. What happened to good old-fashioned autographs?”
“Oh yeah, totally.”
She grabbed a napkin and borrowed a pen from one of the baristas.
“Can I still get the picture?”
“Sure. Whom shall I make this out to?”
“Owen and Claire with an ‘E’.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to do two separate autographs? What if you two break up? Who gets the autograph?”
She gave me a look that said, ‘Dude, I just want the picture. The autograph was your idea anyway.’
“If we break up, I guess we’ll just have to rip it in half.”
“Good answer.”
“You know, my boyfriend is in a band. Maybe you could do a show about his band.”
“Do they have quite a reputation around here?”
“They just started playing together last year. They’ve done a few shows already.”
“Well, how about we let them become semi-famous rock stars first for, oh, about fifteen minutes. Then we’ll wait a long while. And then I’ll come back and talk to them. That’s sort of how the show works.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t hurt to ask, right?”
“They’re just words.”
She got her picture with me along with the autograph I forced on her, and she was as pleased as Punch. She didn’t feel the need to settle down and try to become my good buddy.
I have to give our viewers credit—for the most part, they’re decent folk. About ninety percent of the time, I only have to put up with that overly long stare. I can catch out of the corner of my eye sometimes when someone is gawking. It’s harmless, and if you’re going to do anything annoying, it’s what I prefer. Of course I also get the people that tell me how much they love the show like little Claire just did. As long as they don’t stick with me for too long, they’re tolerable. On very rare occasions, I find out I’m someone’s favorite person in the whole wide world. It’s a delicate art to extricate myself from the hooks of these obsessive freaks. “Oh my! There he is. Now is my chance to ingratiate myself. I can practically hear the wedding bells.” This sums up their thought process nicely. A newer trend I’m seeing involves people that are out to make celebrities look foolish in some way. Like I was telling Claire, everyone carries a camera now—enough to cover all the celebrities deserving scorn. For all I know, as Claire was snapping her photo with me, she could have unzipped her sweater to reveal a t-shirt reading, “I’m with stupid” with an arrow pointing at me. I’m glad I’m not a “celebrity”. I’m content to be very far from John Lennon territory.
A few minutes a later, a woman with strawberry blonde hair (she straightened it today) and a cyborg earpiece stood in front of me talking. She wasn’t talking to me, but she was talking. At least she was desperately trying to wrap up the conversation. After her farewell response, she finally tapped the button on her earpiece to end the call. Now I felt special.
“My mother. I always have to check in with her after I land.”
How sweet.
“Me too. I like to gloat that I’m still here. She’s waiting to inherit my riches.”
“It’s ridiculous. Plane crashes are so rare.”
“But so much more spectacular.”
“You’re odd, Sheldon.”
“I can tell you haven’t had much exposure to so-called odd folk. I’m a little surprised. I’m going to ask you to forget about home-cookin’ for a minute and, as my shadow, open your mind to the odd and treat it as it is normal because the odd is in fact normal. It is the world in which Another Fifteen Minutes dwells.”
“Do you ever stop trying to be more clever than everyone else?”
“Hey, we have to be dating for at least three weeks before you can ask that question.”
“Really?”
“Okay. I’ll keep it dull for you.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes when I talk to my mom, I get so… I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Cami, you were playing a pretty good hand there. I was about to fold.”
“Don’t fold. Stay in it. Maybe my mood will change. If it starts to get irritating, I’ll let you know.”
Well, she wasn’t vapidly giggling. That was a plus. Me and my shadow might get along after all. Or we may end up flying back on separate planes.
---
Laura’s little brother, the son of a banker, had a nice little racket going. Free to do as he liked on top of the bedrock of his trust fund, Ian chose to devote his life to charitable causes. No cause was too small for Ian to get behind and organize as long his profile was high enough to be noticed. Where his sister’s humanitarian efforts were most likely altruistic, Ian’s motivation was carnal in nature. It was about impressing the ladies. Impressing them with money was too easy. He wanted to win their hearts and minds. To attract the best, you have to try a little harder. As soon as he met Cami, I began watching his transparent game unfold. To Cami’s credit, she could see through it as well. To her fault, she thought it was cute. I shouldn’t care, but she is my shadow, and my shadow should be stitched to my feet.
“Ian, seven years ago, you decided to let your beard grow—a highly selfish act. But you found a way to turn that selfish act into an act of giving by encouraging others to sponsor every inch of every beard grown in the Milwaukee area to support testicular cancer research. Most guys would just grow the beard as way to stand up and fight against a clean-shaven society. Why all the extra hullabaloo?”
“Testicular cancer strikes thousands of men each year. That’s what we decided to focus on in the first year. With each year’s beard-a-thon, we’ve focused on a different form of cancer. This year we’re going after thyroid cancer. Growing out your beard is a lot of fun. The beard-a-thon is great excuse for guys to let their faces go without getting into too much trouble from their wives and girlfriends.”
“Cancer treatment involves chemotherapy and radiation often resulting in hair loss. Aren’t you in a way rubbing your thick beards in the faces of these hairless cancer victims?”
“Ummm. We think of the beards as more an aspiration of health—something to inspire cancer patients and survivors.”
“I see this year, you are not sporting a full beard. Can you explain the meaning of this? Do you not want to save lives?”
“This year we’ve created a new mustache division. The mustaches are actually worth more points this year. We’ve convinced a lot bearded fellows out there to expose their chins for charity.”
“So you just change the rules willy-nilly.”
“We like to keep it fresh and interesting.”
Cami then handed me my poster board full of pictures of mustachioed gentlemen containing the likes of Sam Elliott, Burt Reynolds, Tom Selleck, Kaiser Wilhelm, Freddy Mercury, Rip Taylor, etc.
“Ian, can you point to me which of these mustaches most captures what you are going for with your own mustache?”
Ian’s mustache was actually quite unimpressive and didn’t come close to matching any of the pictures on the board.
“Probably that one.” He pointed to Tom Selleck. I gave him a puzzled look.
“Magnum P.I. Good choice. However, I think you’re leaning more towards this one.” I pointed to Freddy Mercury. Ian tensed up a little.
“Nah. Definitely this one.”
“Are you sure?”
Cami unexpectedly chimed in, “I don’t like where this is going.”
It took all my will power to contain my fury with the cameras rolling. I didn’t need some footage floating around the interweb of me flipping out on my shadow. I finished up the interview. We made arrangements to meet Ian later for drinks as I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to get some intel on Laura and maybe even Jeff. Then I let it all out.
“Don’t you ever fucking speak up like that in the middle of an interview. Do you understand?”
“You were implying that…”
“I don’t give a fuck about your opinion while the interview is happening. You need to shut the fuck up. If you want to talk about something, it happens before or after.”
“I can’t just sit there while you’re obviously hinting that to be homosexual is less desirable.”
“That’s not what I was doing. The choice was Ian’s. There was a correct answer. Rip Taylor’s or Wilhelm’s staches should have been his first choice. After he selected Magnum’s and I chose Freddy Mercury’s for him, he should have agreed with my choice. He chose incorrectly.”
“You set him up.”
“I set him up to succeed or fail. He failed.”
“It’s going to get cut. Or they’ll fix it in editing.”
“I am the editor.”
“It’s Jeff’s brother-in-law.”
She may have had a point, but then again, most people in America could probably care less how Ian responded. I was done with the conversation. Cami wasn’t though.
“Don’t think this is going to be one of those relationships where we start off hating each other, and the tension between us leads to incredible sex because it’s not going to happen. I’m a dyke. And don’t think I’m going to be your dyke friend who eventually falls for you and goes straight.”
My jaw hit the floor. I did not peg her as a lesbian. I was the proverbial deer in the headlights.
“Okay. I’ll turn down the charm a little.”
“I’m just fucking with you.”
“What?”
She began to laugh a little. It was a cute laugh, but slightly crazy.
“I had you. You really thought I was gay for a second.”
“Wow. You are a Martian. Touché. I'm actually cool with you either way.”
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