What I should have been doing was what they pay me to do around here. Instead I found myself in an agonizing infinite loop of a conundrum of which I could find no way to extricate myself. I had committed myself to leaving a clever comment on one of the thousands of photos “friends of mine” had felt compelled to share with the entire interweb. People will tell you to go with your first instinct in these situations, but I don’t have a great track record with this method. My first instinct is almost always exactly what I shouldn’t do. As an example a couple years ago, I wrote what I thought was an appropriate comment about a pic of one of my old college drinking companions and his new bride. I wasn’t invited to their wedding ceremony of course; however, via the magic of the interweb, my old friend had tracked me down and had thrust himself back into my life, attempting to recapture some of the spirit of the murky haze that was our undergrad existence. The comment read, “Congratulations to you, my fellow Dildude. Your wife looks very much like that hooker we both doinked in Amsterdam.”
Yes, we were the Dildudes back then. I’m not exactly sure who came up with that moniker. Now this comment to me wasn’t necessarily funny as much as it was amazingly true. We were both in Amsterdam but on separate occasions before college. As we discussed our European adventures, we eventually came to the realization that we had both fornicated with the very same working girl—a bonny lass named Laily. She was a goddess of sexual maneuvering. I was the first to have her. I always made it a point to dwell on this fact whenever chatting with my comrade. Laily became the touchstone of our four year relationship. Around the other Dildudes, we would extol her name and her legendary skill. She became the bedtime story every Dildude wanted to hear if they ever ended the night without a mate. “Tell us again about Laily. Please. Please. Pretty please,” the chorus sang after many a night’s drinking bout. It wasn’t uncommon for a Dildude to be without a mate.
My relationship with my friend along with my friend’s marriage to a dead ringer for Laily both ended abruptly after leaving that comment. Honesty is wonderful. Now I’m left in awe of the destructive power of my photo comments. Trembling, I had wasted nearly five minutes typing some words only to delete them. Am I growing some tiny modicum of restraint? This is the latest battle for my soul. I’ve always been one to speak my mind, but lately I’ve been exercising a bit of discretion and discovering that holding back a little information often has positive results. Holding back is hardly easy for me. People who know me well seem to agree that I’m developing a split personality as a result of my struggle to apply restraint at appropriate times. They just don’t know which one of me is going to show up on a particular day. You can see them physically flinch when they say something that would typically warrant a brutal response.
What I should have been doing was scrubbing through old news footage to prepare for my next interview. As the producer and host of Another Fifteen Minutes on the Classic News Channel, it is my job to follow up on those little human interest stories you catch on the news or in gossip rags. We’re asking the question, “Where are they now?” of people you’ve probably never heard of unless as an example you saw the morning news in Poughkeepsie back in July of 1976. For this latest assignment, I’m looking to revisit a man who has made it his life’s work to create the largest ball made entirely of latex prophylactics. I almost want to just show the original segment and skip the interview, but my contract demands otherwise.
In the footage, an earnest elderly reporter in a three-piece suit asks a young couple with matching feathered mullets, “What brings you to the home of Wes Kitney today?”
The two smile at each other and then respond in unison to the reporter, “We came to see the rubber ball.”
Then Mr. Kitney speaks. “It’s a little embarrassing, I guess, how it all started. There was a girl I really liked who worked down at Thrifty. I figured if she saw how much sex I was having, she’d be interested in me. So I’d go in there to buy rubbers every chance I had. It never worked out with her, but I had all these rubbers. I just started tyin’ ‘em together and rollin’ ‘em up. Now I’ve really got something people want to see.”
“Fucking moron,” is what came out of my mouth.
At that moment my trusted camera operator, Fran, stuck his head into my office. Fran had unusually thick eyebrows. It was as if the salt and pepper hair that used to reside near his hairline had emigrated down to start a new life on his brows. They were all you could really focus on when looking at him.
“Shel, can I bother you?”
“Isn’t that what you’re already doing?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll come back.”
“Fran, you are a man. You don’t take shit from people-- especially people like me. You barge in, sit down, and start talking.”
“I’m sorry…”
“You don’t say ‘sorry’ either for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m… Well. I uh. What I wanted. Well, my wife suggested…”
I was a millisecond away from strangling—no-- throat-punching him.
“My wife and I would like to invite you over for dinner some time?”
“Fran, why would I want to share a dining experience with you? You are socially inept. You’re no fun to look at.”
“Well, my wife was thinking that’s part of the reason why I lost my last job. She thinks I should try a little harder to get in good with my co-workers and bosses.”
You’ve got to love honesty. Fran came to us after he had been let go from his job as a camera repair technician with some big company like Panavision or Sony. We figured, hey, this guy knows cameras. So maybe he doesn’t have much experience filming. At least he can fix his own camera. Ironically, we’re using cameras now that Fran has no inkling how to fix.
“All right, Fran. I’m going to make it my mission to teach you what I know about living. I’m good to go any night except Thursday through Monday.”
“So Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Sharp man.”
“Today is Wednesday. How about tonight?”
Damn. It was Wednesday.
“You know, Fran, I did have plans tonight, but I’m going to ditch them to go have dinner with you instead. That’s how committed I am.”
“Awesome! I’ll email the details.”
I really did have plans. But they were the kind of plans on which you would find any excuse (even dinner with Fran) to avoid following through.
I gradually eased back into my research work and was really starting to hit my stride when another unwelcome intrusion found its way into my office—Sadie from sales.
“Hey there, Shelly boy, guess who’s got a new sponsor?”
“Sixties at Six. Seventies at Seven. Eighties at Eight. Anchors Away. Teleprompter vs. News Reader…” I continued to rattle off every show in the Classic News Channel lineup besides my own.
“No, silly. Another Fifteen.”
“Damn. I never would’ve guessed in a million years.”
“It’s called Ephimria, and it will change your life.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a lot of hype about it. There’s a huge buzz.”
“What is it?”
“A lot of people are using it. You should check out their website.”
“What is it?”
“Just check out the website. You’ll find out everything you need to know. They love the show, and they want in on it in a big way.”
“Please, don’t tell me we’re doing product placement. Why can’t they love another show?”
“Ooooo, that’s a great idea. I’m going to talk to the buyer about working the product in somehow. You’re a genius, Shel. Let’s get dinner later to talk about it some more.”
“I’m actually booked. And you’re not hearing me about the product placement. It’s not cool.”
“I’ll cruise by tomorrow then. Ta-ta.”
The next ten minutes were spent trying to figure out what this Ephimria product actually was. I searched under every goatse and behind every glossy bubbly button across the interweb. The only real source of information was the company’s website, which didn’t actually say much. There were myriad bold testimonials of how life before Ephimria plainly sucked, including a video montage of happy customer after happy customer glowing with satisfaction on a sunny beach. Was it a drug? Was it a get-rich pyramid scheme? I could not fucking tell. The about page spoke of its wondrous life-altering effects but still didn’t state directly what it was. This was marketing? This was bullshit.
My day ended sooner than usual when I realized Fran and his wife were expecting my ass to be at their suburban home around eight o’clock. I’m an assertive driver. Other people would probably call me an aggressive driver. This classification didn’t help much in getting me the twenty-five miles up the freeway through traffic to Fran’s home. I kept thinking to myself, “How the hell does he do this every day? Just get a place in Culver City already or something, anything closer than this.”
With a bottle of cheap wine in hand, I knocked on the door. The toothy smile of Fran’s wife greeted me.
“Sssssssssssssssss…” was all I could say.
“Sheldon? You’re leaking, dear.”
Underneath a wiry rat’s nest of hair and two eyes framed by a pair monstrous glasses was a noticeable snaggletooth amongst rows of teeth. I wanted to scream it out to the world. It nearly slipped out of my mouth, but restraint won the day. It was a proud moment.
“’Sorry’ was what I meant to say Mrs. Wilkinson. Sorry for being late.”
I handed her the bottle.
“It’s okay. Fran told me how you’d probably be running a little behind. You really didn’t need to bring anything, but thank you. And please, call me Melissa or Mel. Dinner will be ready in five. Fran is out in the backyard manning his station. Can I pour you a glass of this, or do you want something else to drink?”
“I’m fine for now. I’ll just get out of your way and head out back to check out Fran’s ‘station’.”
I could tell she wasn’t used to entertaining guests. She was well-rehearsed, but she was both excited and slightly terrified at the same time now that the moment had come. The seed she planted in her husband’s brain had borne fruit, and now she wasn’t sure she knew how to eat it. I was expecting a manipulative shrew and not this sweet little snaggletooth. The verbal brutality would be turned down to a minimum tonight.
Fran was indeed manning a station of sorts. He was standing on top of a bench up against a cinder block wall at the rear of his yard. He held a camcorder up to his eye, gazing over the wall into the distance. I stepped up on to the bench to see what was so mesmerizing.
“Hey, Fran, it looks like you live right next to the most mundane city street on the entire planet. I’m sure glad you’re documenting all this. Don’t miss the Accord right there at the stop light.”
“I’m actually documenting the faulty traffic camera the city installed at that intersection. I swear it is going off even when no one runs a red. At night, it uses a flash. It’s like a lightning strike. They’re watching us, Shel. They’re watching our every move.”
“And you’re watching them I see. Don’t you think they’re watching you watch them?”
“Oh, I know they are. The cops come by all the time to see what I’m up to, filming the intersection. I tell them how I’ve called the city multiple times to fix the camera and nothing is being done about it. I tell them how I have a right to privacy. They don’t need to know every move I make. They think it’s a joke.”
“Well, I hope you have some damning evidence for the next city hall meeting. Hell, with video proof, then they’ll really have to do something.”
“Damn right. I’m thinking of posting these videos on the internet too—really put the pressure on.”
“Yeah, and all those people who drive through that intersection whose privacy you’re protecting-- won’t they be grateful.”
Fran wasn’t getting it. I was watching the end of privacy unfold before me.
“Hey, Fran, is that an orange tree over there? You’re just letting ‘em hit the ground. Let’s pick some oranges.”
“Be my guest. Take as many as you like.”
He didn’t seem interested in leaving his post until the dinner bell rang.
I picked one of the citrus fruits off the tree and noticed the aroma immediately. It was definitely tangerine, but these were too big to be tangerines. Was I holding a tangelo? A tangelo would be fantastic. Maybe this trip wasn’t a bust. I peeled the fruit and took a healthy bite. And then I spit it right back out across half the yard.
“Bile of Satan! What the fuck is this, dude?!”
I’d never heard Fran laugh such maniacally unbridled laughter.
“I got you good, didn’t I?”
“You sure did, asshole.”
“We call them tangeremons. I’m not sure what they are, but they taste like pure hell. That tree was there when we moved in.”
Mel opened the slider and was instantly appalled at the site of me spitting out the remnants of the juice.
“Fran, you didn’t! How could let him take a bite of that nasty fruit?”
“It was worth it. You should have seen his reaction. Priceless.”
I had to chime in. “Lesson One for tonight, Fran. Just because someone comes over to your house for dinner, doesn’t mean you’re instantly on frat brother terms with that person. This behavior would not be advisable typically. But I do like to think I have a sense of humor, and I must say this is a side of you that you need to incorporate more into your work persona.”
That set the tone for the rest of the night. Fran was immediately reminded of his subordinate role, but encouraged that some day he might be able to reach my lofty status. My speech earlier in the day must have been a little too empowering. I thought the whole traffic light thing was supposed to be a joke too, but it wasn’t. Fran still had a long road ahead of him.
“Shel, you seem to have it all figured out. What’s your secret?”
“There’s no real secret, Fran. As a pseudo-intellectual, I simply realized that there are a multitude of people out there that have done or have had done to them amazing things. And we’re forgetting them at a rapid pace. One moment, they’re all we can talk about, and the next they’re gone from our collective consciousness. It’s my job to remind everyone. We can only pay attention to the foibles of celebrities so much before we realize there are billions of people out there with whose foibles we have yet to become intimate. What about that young girl who made the local news thirty years ago for winning the state majorette baton-twirling championship? Did she become the CEO of a grain silo manufacturing company? Is she working at Wal-Mart? Did she maintain her lithe figure, or has she expanded to epic proportions? We need to know. We need to know what everyone has ever done forever. That’s what keeps me going, Fran.”
Dinner was actually satisfying. Mel didn’t include any tangeremons in her baked pasta. Maybe feeding me tangeremons earlier was just a ploy to destroy my taste buds into believing any other food tasted delicious. I wasn’t about to test this theory. After four or eight gin and tonics and dozens of wise words passed to my co-worker and his homely yet lovely wife, I finally left Casa de Wilkinson for browner pastures back down the freeway—my real plans for the night.
When I unlocked and walked through the apartment door, I was assaulted by a barrage of familiar epithets.
“Fuck you! You fucking piece of shit, cock-sucking ingrate. You’re not too big to fucking whoop upside the fucking head, you fucking shit fucker.”
I handed my mother the bottle of gin she was waiting for, and her anger melted away.
“Oh, Sheldon, I just knew you’d come. You wouldn’t leave your poor mother stranded like this with nothing, absolutely nothing to make it through the night.”
“Who loves you, Ma?”
“My widdle Shelly Welly. Thank you, dear.”
I pretended to listen to my mother’s redundant stories while I fired up my notebook and plugged in my antenna to continue my obsessive research of the mundane accomplishments of people around the world. I had developed the skill of listening for keywords from my mother to know when to make some sort of response. This enabled me to focus less on her and more on my work. Inspiration came from everywhere, but with a show like Another Fifteen Minutes, the stories came to me. I rarely had to look for them myself anymore. Sometimes the inspiration came in the form of post-midnight phone call from Jeff. Jeff was the CEO of the Classic News Channel. My mother had passed out by this time, so we were free to chat uninterrupted.
“Sheldon, I forgot to swing by today to pitch a show idea to you. My wife’s brother organized some sort of charity beard growing contest a while back and made the local news in Milwaukee. He’s putting it on again. My wife was hoping you might be able to work him in. You know Laura. I can’t say ‘No’ to her.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Jeff. It’s after midnight by the way.”
“Oh, fuck. Is it? Did I wake you? Sorry.”
“I wasn’t asleep this time, so you’re off the hook. If I get another call like this, you’ll owe me an all expense paid trip to the Monaco GP.”
“How about I just fire you, and we’ll call it even.”
“How did you become the CEO of the fastest growing cable network in the world anyway?”
“Good night, Sheldon.”
“Night, Jeff. Or should I say, ‘Morning’?”
I would say ‘No’ to Jeff without hesitation. But his wife was indeed another matter. Every CEO’s wife I’d met before Laura had been blonde artificially or not. Laura was a brunette, and it blew my mind. My brain was completely wired to find this woman extremely and achingly attractive. I’m a grown man, and I have a junior high crush on my boss’s wife. Last year at a company party, she asked me if I’d be willing to speak at a charity function she was hosting. I wanted to say “No.” Speaking in front of a bunch of wealthy philanthropists is not fun for me. I’ve actually been blacklisted from similar functions for being “inappropriate”. But the animal mind took over. All I could think about was the fact that maybe I would get to work more closely with her. We’d have coffee or something to talk over the details of the event. One thing would lead to another and blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. The fact that she was married to the guy who ran the company didn’t seem to matter to me. I said “Yes.” Well, I ended up working with her people and not her directly. I did get a nice hand-written thank you note from her though. I think I still have it somewhere. Of course I still have it.
Yes, we were the Dildudes back then. I’m not exactly sure who came up with that moniker. Now this comment to me wasn’t necessarily funny as much as it was amazingly true. We were both in Amsterdam but on separate occasions before college. As we discussed our European adventures, we eventually came to the realization that we had both fornicated with the very same working girl—a bonny lass named Laily. She was a goddess of sexual maneuvering. I was the first to have her. I always made it a point to dwell on this fact whenever chatting with my comrade. Laily became the touchstone of our four year relationship. Around the other Dildudes, we would extol her name and her legendary skill. She became the bedtime story every Dildude wanted to hear if they ever ended the night without a mate. “Tell us again about Laily. Please. Please. Pretty please,” the chorus sang after many a night’s drinking bout. It wasn’t uncommon for a Dildude to be without a mate.
My relationship with my friend along with my friend’s marriage to a dead ringer for Laily both ended abruptly after leaving that comment. Honesty is wonderful. Now I’m left in awe of the destructive power of my photo comments. Trembling, I had wasted nearly five minutes typing some words only to delete them. Am I growing some tiny modicum of restraint? This is the latest battle for my soul. I’ve always been one to speak my mind, but lately I’ve been exercising a bit of discretion and discovering that holding back a little information often has positive results. Holding back is hardly easy for me. People who know me well seem to agree that I’m developing a split personality as a result of my struggle to apply restraint at appropriate times. They just don’t know which one of me is going to show up on a particular day. You can see them physically flinch when they say something that would typically warrant a brutal response.
---
What I should have been doing was scrubbing through old news footage to prepare for my next interview. As the producer and host of Another Fifteen Minutes on the Classic News Channel, it is my job to follow up on those little human interest stories you catch on the news or in gossip rags. We’re asking the question, “Where are they now?” of people you’ve probably never heard of unless as an example you saw the morning news in Poughkeepsie back in July of 1976. For this latest assignment, I’m looking to revisit a man who has made it his life’s work to create the largest ball made entirely of latex prophylactics. I almost want to just show the original segment and skip the interview, but my contract demands otherwise.
In the footage, an earnest elderly reporter in a three-piece suit asks a young couple with matching feathered mullets, “What brings you to the home of Wes Kitney today?”
The two smile at each other and then respond in unison to the reporter, “We came to see the rubber ball.”
Then Mr. Kitney speaks. “It’s a little embarrassing, I guess, how it all started. There was a girl I really liked who worked down at Thrifty. I figured if she saw how much sex I was having, she’d be interested in me. So I’d go in there to buy rubbers every chance I had. It never worked out with her, but I had all these rubbers. I just started tyin’ ‘em together and rollin’ ‘em up. Now I’ve really got something people want to see.”
“Fucking moron,” is what came out of my mouth.
At that moment my trusted camera operator, Fran, stuck his head into my office. Fran had unusually thick eyebrows. It was as if the salt and pepper hair that used to reside near his hairline had emigrated down to start a new life on his brows. They were all you could really focus on when looking at him.
“Shel, can I bother you?”
“Isn’t that what you’re already doing?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll come back.”
“Fran, you are a man. You don’t take shit from people-- especially people like me. You barge in, sit down, and start talking.”
“I’m sorry…”
“You don’t say ‘sorry’ either for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m… Well. I uh. What I wanted. Well, my wife suggested…”
I was a millisecond away from strangling—no-- throat-punching him.
“My wife and I would like to invite you over for dinner some time?”
“Fran, why would I want to share a dining experience with you? You are socially inept. You’re no fun to look at.”
“Well, my wife was thinking that’s part of the reason why I lost my last job. She thinks I should try a little harder to get in good with my co-workers and bosses.”
You’ve got to love honesty. Fran came to us after he had been let go from his job as a camera repair technician with some big company like Panavision or Sony. We figured, hey, this guy knows cameras. So maybe he doesn’t have much experience filming. At least he can fix his own camera. Ironically, we’re using cameras now that Fran has no inkling how to fix.
“All right, Fran. I’m going to make it my mission to teach you what I know about living. I’m good to go any night except Thursday through Monday.”
“So Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Sharp man.”
“Today is Wednesday. How about tonight?”
Damn. It was Wednesday.
“You know, Fran, I did have plans tonight, but I’m going to ditch them to go have dinner with you instead. That’s how committed I am.”
“Awesome! I’ll email the details.”
I really did have plans. But they were the kind of plans on which you would find any excuse (even dinner with Fran) to avoid following through.
I gradually eased back into my research work and was really starting to hit my stride when another unwelcome intrusion found its way into my office—Sadie from sales.
“Hey there, Shelly boy, guess who’s got a new sponsor?”
“Sixties at Six. Seventies at Seven. Eighties at Eight. Anchors Away. Teleprompter vs. News Reader…” I continued to rattle off every show in the Classic News Channel lineup besides my own.
“No, silly. Another Fifteen.”
“Damn. I never would’ve guessed in a million years.”
“It’s called Ephimria, and it will change your life.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a lot of hype about it. There’s a huge buzz.”
“What is it?”
“A lot of people are using it. You should check out their website.”
“What is it?”
“Just check out the website. You’ll find out everything you need to know. They love the show, and they want in on it in a big way.”
“Please, don’t tell me we’re doing product placement. Why can’t they love another show?”
“Ooooo, that’s a great idea. I’m going to talk to the buyer about working the product in somehow. You’re a genius, Shel. Let’s get dinner later to talk about it some more.”
“I’m actually booked. And you’re not hearing me about the product placement. It’s not cool.”
“I’ll cruise by tomorrow then. Ta-ta.”
The next ten minutes were spent trying to figure out what this Ephimria product actually was. I searched under every goatse and behind every glossy bubbly button across the interweb. The only real source of information was the company’s website, which didn’t actually say much. There were myriad bold testimonials of how life before Ephimria plainly sucked, including a video montage of happy customer after happy customer glowing with satisfaction on a sunny beach. Was it a drug? Was it a get-rich pyramid scheme? I could not fucking tell. The about page spoke of its wondrous life-altering effects but still didn’t state directly what it was. This was marketing? This was bullshit.
---
My day ended sooner than usual when I realized Fran and his wife were expecting my ass to be at their suburban home around eight o’clock. I’m an assertive driver. Other people would probably call me an aggressive driver. This classification didn’t help much in getting me the twenty-five miles up the freeway through traffic to Fran’s home. I kept thinking to myself, “How the hell does he do this every day? Just get a place in Culver City already or something, anything closer than this.”
With a bottle of cheap wine in hand, I knocked on the door. The toothy smile of Fran’s wife greeted me.
“Sssssssssssssssss…” was all I could say.
“Sheldon? You’re leaking, dear.”
Underneath a wiry rat’s nest of hair and two eyes framed by a pair monstrous glasses was a noticeable snaggletooth amongst rows of teeth. I wanted to scream it out to the world. It nearly slipped out of my mouth, but restraint won the day. It was a proud moment.
“’Sorry’ was what I meant to say Mrs. Wilkinson. Sorry for being late.”
I handed her the bottle.
“It’s okay. Fran told me how you’d probably be running a little behind. You really didn’t need to bring anything, but thank you. And please, call me Melissa or Mel. Dinner will be ready in five. Fran is out in the backyard manning his station. Can I pour you a glass of this, or do you want something else to drink?”
“I’m fine for now. I’ll just get out of your way and head out back to check out Fran’s ‘station’.”
I could tell she wasn’t used to entertaining guests. She was well-rehearsed, but she was both excited and slightly terrified at the same time now that the moment had come. The seed she planted in her husband’s brain had borne fruit, and now she wasn’t sure she knew how to eat it. I was expecting a manipulative shrew and not this sweet little snaggletooth. The verbal brutality would be turned down to a minimum tonight.
Fran was indeed manning a station of sorts. He was standing on top of a bench up against a cinder block wall at the rear of his yard. He held a camcorder up to his eye, gazing over the wall into the distance. I stepped up on to the bench to see what was so mesmerizing.
“Hey, Fran, it looks like you live right next to the most mundane city street on the entire planet. I’m sure glad you’re documenting all this. Don’t miss the Accord right there at the stop light.”
“I’m actually documenting the faulty traffic camera the city installed at that intersection. I swear it is going off even when no one runs a red. At night, it uses a flash. It’s like a lightning strike. They’re watching us, Shel. They’re watching our every move.”
“And you’re watching them I see. Don’t you think they’re watching you watch them?”
“Oh, I know they are. The cops come by all the time to see what I’m up to, filming the intersection. I tell them how I’ve called the city multiple times to fix the camera and nothing is being done about it. I tell them how I have a right to privacy. They don’t need to know every move I make. They think it’s a joke.”
“Well, I hope you have some damning evidence for the next city hall meeting. Hell, with video proof, then they’ll really have to do something.”
“Damn right. I’m thinking of posting these videos on the internet too—really put the pressure on.”
“Yeah, and all those people who drive through that intersection whose privacy you’re protecting-- won’t they be grateful.”
Fran wasn’t getting it. I was watching the end of privacy unfold before me.
“Hey, Fran, is that an orange tree over there? You’re just letting ‘em hit the ground. Let’s pick some oranges.”
“Be my guest. Take as many as you like.”
He didn’t seem interested in leaving his post until the dinner bell rang.
I picked one of the citrus fruits off the tree and noticed the aroma immediately. It was definitely tangerine, but these were too big to be tangerines. Was I holding a tangelo? A tangelo would be fantastic. Maybe this trip wasn’t a bust. I peeled the fruit and took a healthy bite. And then I spit it right back out across half the yard.
“Bile of Satan! What the fuck is this, dude?!”
I’d never heard Fran laugh such maniacally unbridled laughter.
“I got you good, didn’t I?”
“You sure did, asshole.”
“We call them tangeremons. I’m not sure what they are, but they taste like pure hell. That tree was there when we moved in.”
Mel opened the slider and was instantly appalled at the site of me spitting out the remnants of the juice.
“Fran, you didn’t! How could let him take a bite of that nasty fruit?”
“It was worth it. You should have seen his reaction. Priceless.”
I had to chime in. “Lesson One for tonight, Fran. Just because someone comes over to your house for dinner, doesn’t mean you’re instantly on frat brother terms with that person. This behavior would not be advisable typically. But I do like to think I have a sense of humor, and I must say this is a side of you that you need to incorporate more into your work persona.”
That set the tone for the rest of the night. Fran was immediately reminded of his subordinate role, but encouraged that some day he might be able to reach my lofty status. My speech earlier in the day must have been a little too empowering. I thought the whole traffic light thing was supposed to be a joke too, but it wasn’t. Fran still had a long road ahead of him.
“Shel, you seem to have it all figured out. What’s your secret?”
“There’s no real secret, Fran. As a pseudo-intellectual, I simply realized that there are a multitude of people out there that have done or have had done to them amazing things. And we’re forgetting them at a rapid pace. One moment, they’re all we can talk about, and the next they’re gone from our collective consciousness. It’s my job to remind everyone. We can only pay attention to the foibles of celebrities so much before we realize there are billions of people out there with whose foibles we have yet to become intimate. What about that young girl who made the local news thirty years ago for winning the state majorette baton-twirling championship? Did she become the CEO of a grain silo manufacturing company? Is she working at Wal-Mart? Did she maintain her lithe figure, or has she expanded to epic proportions? We need to know. We need to know what everyone has ever done forever. That’s what keeps me going, Fran.”
Dinner was actually satisfying. Mel didn’t include any tangeremons in her baked pasta. Maybe feeding me tangeremons earlier was just a ploy to destroy my taste buds into believing any other food tasted delicious. I wasn’t about to test this theory. After four or eight gin and tonics and dozens of wise words passed to my co-worker and his homely yet lovely wife, I finally left Casa de Wilkinson for browner pastures back down the freeway—my real plans for the night.
---
When I unlocked and walked through the apartment door, I was assaulted by a barrage of familiar epithets.
“Fuck you! You fucking piece of shit, cock-sucking ingrate. You’re not too big to fucking whoop upside the fucking head, you fucking shit fucker.”
I handed my mother the bottle of gin she was waiting for, and her anger melted away.
“Oh, Sheldon, I just knew you’d come. You wouldn’t leave your poor mother stranded like this with nothing, absolutely nothing to make it through the night.”
“Who loves you, Ma?”
“My widdle Shelly Welly. Thank you, dear.”
I pretended to listen to my mother’s redundant stories while I fired up my notebook and plugged in my antenna to continue my obsessive research of the mundane accomplishments of people around the world. I had developed the skill of listening for keywords from my mother to know when to make some sort of response. This enabled me to focus less on her and more on my work. Inspiration came from everywhere, but with a show like Another Fifteen Minutes, the stories came to me. I rarely had to look for them myself anymore. Sometimes the inspiration came in the form of post-midnight phone call from Jeff. Jeff was the CEO of the Classic News Channel. My mother had passed out by this time, so we were free to chat uninterrupted.
“Sheldon, I forgot to swing by today to pitch a show idea to you. My wife’s brother organized some sort of charity beard growing contest a while back and made the local news in Milwaukee. He’s putting it on again. My wife was hoping you might be able to work him in. You know Laura. I can’t say ‘No’ to her.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Jeff. It’s after midnight by the way.”
“Oh, fuck. Is it? Did I wake you? Sorry.”
“I wasn’t asleep this time, so you’re off the hook. If I get another call like this, you’ll owe me an all expense paid trip to the Monaco GP.”
“How about I just fire you, and we’ll call it even.”
“How did you become the CEO of the fastest growing cable network in the world anyway?”
“Good night, Sheldon.”
“Night, Jeff. Or should I say, ‘Morning’?”
I would say ‘No’ to Jeff without hesitation. But his wife was indeed another matter. Every CEO’s wife I’d met before Laura had been blonde artificially or not. Laura was a brunette, and it blew my mind. My brain was completely wired to find this woman extremely and achingly attractive. I’m a grown man, and I have a junior high crush on my boss’s wife. Last year at a company party, she asked me if I’d be willing to speak at a charity function she was hosting. I wanted to say “No.” Speaking in front of a bunch of wealthy philanthropists is not fun for me. I’ve actually been blacklisted from similar functions for being “inappropriate”. But the animal mind took over. All I could think about was the fact that maybe I would get to work more closely with her. We’d have coffee or something to talk over the details of the event. One thing would lead to another and blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. The fact that she was married to the guy who ran the company didn’t seem to matter to me. I said “Yes.” Well, I ended up working with her people and not her directly. I did get a nice hand-written thank you note from her though. I think I still have it somewhere. Of course I still have it.
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1 comment:
dan, i read your first chapter and i enjoyed it. i like how you have so many things going on. there's a lot of potential for future conflict. also the narrator is pretty funny, has an interesting job, wondering what ephimiria is, what's gonna become of his crush, and even fran and the wife and the mother. i'm sure i'll prob read chapters here and there during downtime at work or something.
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