Curing the Uncommon Man-Cold (21 page)

Jason appeared stunned. “You know the 9-1-1 dispatcher?” In the movies, it was never anyone you knew.

“I know that one. Hazel and I used to play dolls together in grade school.” Christine handed back his phone.

Jason received the device with two fingertips, as though it were radioactive… then shook his head. “I don’t think she would’ve sent any cops even if little Herman had been a live person being slaughtered right here in the kitchen. I think you’re all in this together.”

“All… who?” Amanda was truly offended.

“Women. All of you. Together, all over America, you’re starving men who are helplessly ill. No cable, no A/C, no freakin’ food. Parties every night. And I’m reduced to eating toothpaste, choking down packets of artificial sweetener, and I even came real close to mugging Missus Yodel for a loaf of dry bread. Plus, somebody sic’ed a small panther on me that nearly ate out my eyeballs!” Jason moaned and felt his forehead. “Don’t feel so good. I think I’ll lie down.”

“That’s a good idea.” Amanda tried to sound sincere. “I’ll check on you in a minute.”

“Don’t bother. I’m locking the door until all the sharp-edged hardware leaves. When I hear you chopping off
Jason’s
neck, I want to be certain I know which Jason is your intended victim.”

They struggled not to laugh as he trudged down the hall.

It took all four of them nearly an hour to cut open the Jason cushaw and carve out his insides. They separated the edible components and double-bagged the heavy chunks of rind. It was a mess, but they didn’t really need a shovel. That had been Christine’s idea for a bit of seasoning on the scare. It did involve the axe and the bow saw, however, along with smaller sharp-edged utensils for all the inside work.

When all was settled, they had about twenty pounds of meat plus about five pounds of seeds and stringy pulp from the main cavity (about the size of a volley ball).

“You want to plant this in the back yard?”

“It’s not even my yard, Christine! I just rent this duplex. Unless I get thrown out after all this commotion, that is.”

“I’ll take the seeds,” offered Sunny. “My mom does all kinds of clever things with seeds.”

“Be sure and clue her in that these ordinary-looking seeds turn into gi-normous squashes,” Amanda cautioned.

“Oh, the bigger the better. If she grows one, she’ll probably use the rind as a huge gourd-thing. If she can empty it without this much destruction and get it dried up enough.”

“Whatever.” Amanda washed her hands. “So who’s taking this big pile of cushaw meat?” She looked hopefully toward Maria, who had a hungry fireman to feed.

Maria just shook her head.

“I thought you’d want to keep that, Amanda. You know, to bake a cushaw casserole or something.” Christine could be a real smarty at times.

“I don’t bake… you know that. And don’t hardly cook any more, either. What are we going to do with that stuff?”

Ever devious, Christine had a notion. “We could form it in the shape of Jason’s head on a platter — it’d scare him every time he walks by.”

“That’s evil. Plus, I bet it’ll stink after twelve hours.” Amanda the practical.

“We could leave it on the doorstep of the yodeling lady.” Christine made it sound like a sincere donation.

“Oh, heck. Let me take that to my mom, too.” Sunny clearly wanted to end the debate. “If she doesn’t want it, she might know somebody.”

———

Jason heard none of that exchange from the guestroom — his head was under a pillow. This evening’s episode with his newly-departed cushaw cousin had been extremely unnerving. On one hand, he couldn’t believe he’d actually called 9-1-1 because of what he overheard from down the hall. On the other hand, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t called authorities sooner — after the first mention of
saw
and
axe
.

He stopped to calculate: it’d been seven full days since last Monday evening.
How desperate do you have to be to spend that long in such primitive conditions?
No cooling, no food that was edible, no TLC, no positive attention of any kind. Not a whisper of sympathy for his illness. And his pants were missing!

Why was he holding on? Jason was aware he was no longer
sick
, though he still felt lousy. But why did he feel so rotten? Was it because of his lingering fake cough? Or because he’d not yet received any of the attention he properly craved? If so, why did he crave it so much?
Hmm. That’s pretty introspective.
Jason didn’t usually look that deeply within.

Chapter 15

August 18 (Tuesday)

Amanda rose early and left quickly for her office. She keenly felt the grinding crunch of the grant applications.
Jason
can
scratch around for his own dang breakfast
.

It was nearly the middle of the second Hell Week and she was totally exhausted — physically, mentally, emotionally. In the flurry of work-work and Jason-work, Amanda had not stopped enough to contemplate the possible effects of all this on their relationship. Her focus had been short term on both fronts: one, get the apps read and evaluated, and two, get Jason out of her apartment.

But what about the long run? Or even the medium run? After she’d finally blasted her boyfriend out of the apartment, what next? Would he just keep going in the opposite direction? Would he follow his buddy Kevin to hotel happy hours and cruise for desperate traveling business women? Would Jason just wash his hands of their entire relationship?

If so, would that be good or bad?

On good days, that would be
bad
… for their relationship to end. But on bad days, that would be
good
… to step back, get free, and start over. Maybe someone not as needy. Both Margaret and Christine had clearly indicated their expert opinions — except for the control freaks, almost all men are needy. Some reveal it in different ways. Was it so bad that Jason’s manifestation was one or two viruses each year? She could do worse. What if she’d been attracted to someone like Kevin, who could be faithful for only about 24 hours at a stretch?

Nope
. If she got mixed up with someone like Kevin, she might really need to handle him like a cushaw!

Later, in her office, Amanda quickly scanned the central blog for Day Eight. The comments seemed to be shifting. More bloggers were saying — in slightly different ways —
‘You’ve
gone too far just to teach him
a lesson. End it,
one way or the other.’

She logged off and resumed the business of evaluating and ranking grant applications.

* * * *

At the apartment, Jason finally plotted his departure.

Step one: find pants. He searched everywhere. Amanda must have had a secret compartment or floor safe… perhaps a hidden attic hatch. After searching for nearly an hour in every nook and cranny, Jason was positive his trousers really were at the cleaners as Amanda had said. All this time he’d thought she was lying.

Having no keys and no pants complicated his escape logistics, but he thought it must still be possible. Guys in movies frequently escaped without street clothes.

Jason wondered how to start a car without a key. Hot-wire it. TV criminals do it in about fifteen seconds with no tools besides fingers. Could he do that?
Uh, probably not
.

What about walking or running? How long before somebody gave him a ride? Well, in his saggy pajamas with several days of whiskers and a stained shirt, probably no one.

Who else could Jason call to pick him up? His mom! No, she wouldn’t come for him. That woman had no sympathy for his illnesses or the unbelievable situations he occasionally found himself in. No help there.

Kevin was his only hope. With trembling fingers, Jason again phoned his closest buddy. He waited seven rings. Voicemail.
Crud!

He left a “mayday” message. But this was late August, so Jason wouldn’t hold his breath for rescue. He knew his pal pretty well — Kevin probably wouldn’t respond until next May 1st.

* * * *

At work, Amanda was drowning in grant applications. As arranged the previous evening, Christine brought sandwiches and they ate lunch in Amanda’s office with the door closed. Amanda would have preferred the staff lounge, but they certainly could not talk privately in that space.

Their sandwiches finished, Amanda rose to put the empty wrappers and napkins in her trash can.

Christine plopped onto the newly vacant chair and logged in to the blog. “Just checking the latest tallies on Burn-Witch. I need to gauge my popularity.” She clicked on one of the links.

Amanda returned and looked over her older friend’s shoulder. “The most recent entry is
Burn the Witch — 37
. After yesterday’s burst of activity, yours isn’t growing as fast as the others.”

“Hmm. Let’s compare that to the Kick-Marty serial, which is the first one they started.” Christine clicked a different link and her eyes scanned down the block of comments. “Uh, here it is.
Kick Jason Out — 119
. That’s about three times the number wanting to burn me.”

“What?” Amanda yanked the wheeled chair backwards — nearly causing whiplash for her friend — and peered closely at the screen. “You said Jason!” She touched that name on the screen like it contained an evil spell. “It
is
Jason! How did they get Jason’s name? You said we’d be known only as
Marty
and
Missy
— never identified!”

Christine scooted forward again, partway. “Must be a lucky guess. Jason’s a pretty common name.” She looked like she was straining to remain calm. “Let’s check another link.” Christine clicked. “What the heck!”

“Not another Jason reference!”

“The Lighten-Missy link now has YOUR name!”

“Where?”

Christine pointed to the most recent serial. “Look!
Lighten Up,
Amanda — 54
!” She pointed again, as though the first gesture didn’t take.

“Move over!” Amanda looked where her friend had pointed. Then she shrieked. “Oh, no… they’ve got my name, too!” It had to be restated. She stared, stunned. “How?” Amanda yanked on the seat again and positioned her face near the screen. “How the hairy hell did they get my name?” When she swiveled the chair and put a hand on each of its arms, that effectively bracketed her older friend.

Christine looked pale, unusual for someone who made two weekly visits to the tanning salon. “I don’t know. This isn’t even our blog.” She twisted away from Amanda’s hold and scooted back to the computer. She clicked a link. “See, here’s our blog. No real names here.”

“Click back to the other one.” Amanda barked the instruction like a riled police officer. “And pull over.”

Christine rose hurriedly.

Amanda perched on the edge of her own office chair and read a few comments. Then she scrolled down and read a few more. Tears. “They’re talking about me like I’m on reality TV.”

Christine leaned in again. “Yeah, and some of them want to vote you off the show.”

“That’s not the least bit funny.” Icy.

Christine pointed to the screen at the bottom of the comments. “This is what I call a shadow blog. It only exists because of our blog.”

“So who’s operating this shadow?”

“No way of telling. They can’t find my name, as creator of our blog… and I can’t find theirs. I mean, unless somebody cozies up to a computer geek, like your co-worker said yesterday.”

Amanda scrolled back up to the top. “There, that’s a name.”

“Not a real name. All of us blog creators use pseudonyms. See, this blog was created by Simon-Sezz.”

Amanda clicked back to one of the other links. “This other site doesn’t seem to have our names yet.” She pointed. “This one’s been solely Free-Marty… and they’re up to
Free
Marty Now!
— 61.
”

“I bet it won’t be long. I’m sure the hardcore bloggers check all these other links sooner or later. If they’re logging on to our main site, several are bound to be interested in the other comments and these tallies.”

Amanda turned away from the screen and faced her clearly rattled companion. “You swore there was no way our actual names would ever be associated with this blog, but here we’ve already seen both real names. Who knows what else they’ve already discovered about us. Probably addresses and places of work.” Amanda was getting louder. “How did these cranks get our real names?”

“Settle down.” Christine checked that the office door was closed all the way. “Your boss is right around the corner.” She returned near the chair where her dejected friend sat with head in hands. “Look, this blog of ours went viral, much faster and wider than even I predicted. We’ve had thousands of hits. There was always a very slim mathematical possibility that somebody just happened on our blog who also knows that Jason is at death’s door with a cold and you’re at wit’s end trying to cure him. And maybe they put two and two together.” Christine paused. “But this makes me think somebody actually did sleep with a turbo-whiz-bang computer geek just to bust this thing open.”

Tears burned Amanda’s eyes. “Why? Who? You said it was foolproof!” She felt like slugging somebody, beginning with the first tanned, large-bosomed woman she could reach.

“Amanda, I’m really sorry. I had no idea. I read all the stuff about blogs and it sounded secure enough to run the shipping schedules for Fort Knox.”

“Evidently not! Not if some horny, pimple-faced computer nerd can figure it out! Unless one of your numerous confederates spilled the beans!” Amanda plopped her head on the desk and pointed weakly toward her door. “Just go!”

Christine muttered regrets as she grabbed her purse, opened the door, and scurried out of the office. She practically collided with Louis, who stood nearly inside Amanda’s doorway.

Louis watched Christine hurry away and then turned again toward Amanda’s office. He waddled in, plopped down in the guest chair, and exhaled loudly. “Catfight?”