I'm with Stupid (37 page)

I am walking back to my apartment building, feeling rather drained, when someone bumps into me. “Sorry,” I mumble, trying to get out of the way. “Oh, wow,” he marvels. I look up and he smiles, flashing dimples that give his face a certain wholesomeness. Huh. He’s okay. The guy has brown tussled hair, greenish blue eyes, and a toothy, goofy grin. He’s about two inches taller than me—not too short, not too tall. I offer an “excuse me” and try again to pass. He continues to stare at me. “You don’t remember me, do you?” he asks. I tell him that of course I remember him. I didn’t get amnesia when we ran into each other just now. He tells me that we met on Valentine’s Day. I don’t say anything. “I was the bartender,” he adds. “I served you two whiskeys. One on the rocks, one neat, and later, after mashing a cup into some dude’s face, you told me you didn’t like my joke. You remember that?”

I nod. He’s talking about the day I clobbered Richard. “Yeah, I remember you,” I say.

“You know, I thought about you a few times after that night,” he admits. “I don’t know why but I did.” He pauses. “I guess you could say you made an impression.” I dismissively offer that I’m sure he couldn’t stop thinking of me because he’s never met anyone like me. “I don’t know you well enough to say I’ve never met anyone like you,” he points out. “Give me a few days.”

He offers his hand. Newland is the name. When he tells me he was just about to grab some food and asks if I’d like to come I shake my head no. “I just ate,” I lie, “but thanks.”

“Not hungry,” he says mostly to himself and nods. “How about dinner sometime?” I give him a disbelieving look. Is he actually trying to pick me up? “What, you don’t like dinner, or just don’t like dinner with me? If it’s the latter I can seat you at a separate table.”

I take in his attire. He is wearing a black coat over what look like hospital scrubs. Not a good sign. “Are you an inmate at an insane asylum?” I ask, pointing at his light blue wrinkled cotton pants. “Just curious before this goes any further.”

He explains that he’s in residency at St. Vincent’s hospital. Internal medicine. I look at him suspiciously. “And you moonlight as a bartender?” I challenge. “I find that hard to believe.”

He tells me that he was working that night as a favor to the owner, who is a friend. “He was in a bind,” he says. When I continue to stare he pulls out his cell phone. “If you don’t believe me you can call him.” I put out my hand. “Let me see your hospital badge,” I demand.

He wrinkles up his nose. “What?” he asks in disbelief. I extend my hand a bit farther toward him: “You heard me.” He pulls a hospital ID out of his pocket. I examine it. Looks real enough. “Good picture,” I officiously offer with a nod. “Thank you, ma’am,” he says before returning it to his pocket.

Newland takes a seat on the bottom step of the stairs leading to my apartment building, leaving me no choice but to sit down next to him. We talk for an hour while watching the cleanup of William’s car accident. Two squad cars pull up, followed by two tow trucks; drivers exchange information; officers issue tickets. Talking to Newland turns out to be as easy as talking to my friends. No effort required, no awkward pauses. As we sit there I notice that he laughs a lot, and that when he does, his shoulders shake, like he’s really enjoying himself. Before he leaves I give him my number. But only because he asked. Three times. While ascending the stairs I offer that he shouldn’t get his hopes up. I’m taking a long break from men. The only man in my life at the moment is my brother. We have seventeen years’ worth of catching up to do. Before I can make it to the door he calls to me. I turn around. “Why did the lettuce blush?” he asks. I frown. “What, you heard that one before?” he asks and immediately bursts out laughing. Fucking Newland, he thinks he’s funny. Stupid cute drink-making doctor who has a sense of humor. I’m definitely not answering when he calls. “I have other jokes, you know,” he adds and again bursts out laughing. “But they might be too funny.” I playfully roll my eyes. “Don’t look so bored,” he says and puts a hand to his heart, “you’re hurting my feelings.”

I unlock the front door of the building, push it open with my foot, and tell Newland that he needs to stop flirting with me. It’s shameless. He takes a step back onto the sidewalk and waves good-bye. “See you soon, I hope,” he says. “I’m going back to the bar now.” I whip around. He told me . . . He waves a hand: “It’s a joke.” I watch Newland walk away. Nothing I said bewildered him. He caught everything I threw
and
he teased back. I turn back to the door, which is when I remember the mouse. I whip around. I scream his name. He stops and turns. “You have a second?” I shout. “I need help with something!”

I lead Newland upstairs. “This relationship is moving faster than expected,” he says. “You should know that I like to sleep on the left side of the bed and that I’m a cuddler.” I assure him he’ll be coming in for only a minute. I don’t want to deal with the mouse alone. He can dispose of it, pretty please. If he’s a doctor in training he can’t be too squeamish. We stand in my kitchen and stare at the mouse in the cage. I know it’s the same mouse I saw weeks ago because of its distinctive marking—a patch of white on the rump, right above the tail. As I contemplate what we should do with it I notice that the mouse is trembling. It’s scared of me and I’m scared of it. I lean over the cage. Its gray fuzzy mouse ears are kind of sweet. It looks helpless, and it’s kind of pudgy. Its little face is . . .

“Cute,” Newland says with a chuckle. “Look at those little ears.”

“Yeah, I guess they are,” I answer. “Even if they are on a rodent.”

“I mean your ears,” he says. “They are cute.”

“Stop looking at my ears,” I say, starting to smile.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll only look at your ass from now on.”

I turn toward him. “Will you stop?”

“I’m finding it hard, but yes,” he says and grins. “So do you have any cheese?”

For the next few minutes Newland and I attempt to feed tiny pieces of American cheese to the mouse. When it realizes we are not going to hurt it, the mouse waddles over to the silver bars. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t need any rich cheese, being chunky and all, but that’s okay. I never liked diets anyway. It cleans itself like a cat after it finishes eating, rubbing its paws on it furry ears and tiny mouse face. The mouse stops cleaning itself and looks up at me. Awwwwwww. When Newland leaves, he leaves alone. Max is going to kill me.

That evening I get an e-mail message from William.

Subject: hey gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!im gong--me arm is beter

Amstil in nyc//goin 2 mo, son--hopfuly/idontknw. Mi new apt is excelent//the other mail modals are nice//we hav a fooze ball table. I won!!!!!!!!!!! My bunkmate is oliver.he will b sleping ontop of me. He promise 2 take me 2 the turkish bath hous 2.U now I luv u &this is hard 2 sy but I hav 2, we hav to break up. Sory. We canot conitnnue know that im goin 2 mo!!!!!!!!!!!I wil be very buszy. I luv you. mayb sum day!!!/1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!your willy

PS $%%^&*%$## -u r gorgeous//I will sent u money--3000. will be there son! Pss--Me arm is beter!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I shake my head. Wow. I write a response saying that I understand everything, which I don’t, and wish him the best on his convoluted journey to Mo (let’s just hope “Oliver the bunkmate” turns him into a mo before he gets to Mo. It’s likely if they visit that Turkish bathhouse together). As for the money? I tell him he doesn’t have to send it and turn off the computer.

At work on Friday, Barbara—or Barbie, as Freddie would say—is all sunshine and light. And, on an even better note, so is my boss. He calls me into his office. It seems that a major Internet media news site known for its cruelty and general fuck-you attitude, The Daily, picked up a link to the blog published by the disgruntled author whom I rejected. They thought it was the funniest thing ever, that we would be so mean. They wrote a flattering article about the agency, recommending us to all writers looking for representation. I spend the day opening mail and reading e-mail submissions. Some of the new submissions reference The Daily’s article in the cover letter, one is even addressed directly to me. Writers are lunatics. But good for them.

That evening Libby and I are watching TV at my place when Max bursts through the door, again wearing his cowboy duds. Tonight is his date. “I have a serious situation. Do you have Benadryl or anything like it?” He begins to scratch his neck, then his leg. His face is red.

“What’s the matter with you, babe?” Libby asks. “You’re all red.”

He throws off his ten-gallon hat and begins manically scratching his head. “Okay,” he says, still standing in the kitchen. “So remember how I sent Richard itching powder inside a greeting card awhile back?” We nod. “Well, I still had a lot of it left over. Like a huge bottle of it.” He begins pacing back and forth. “So I was getting ready to leave my house tonight for this stupid date and I was reaching into the cabinet and I accidentally knocked it off the shelf, and I guess the cap was loose. The bottle tipped over and all the powder dumped out on top of my head and got all over me. I took a shower”—he begins wildly scratching at his chest and talking even faster—“but I had to put this stupid outfit back on and it’s like all over the clothes I guess and I can’t stop itching. And I’m late. I have to be there now and I have no time to get new clothes because I have to wear this stupid cowboy getup. And I can’t cancel because if I do he will turn me in, I know he will, I can see it in his eyes . . .”

He just keeps talking and itching, and I remain strangely calm. I’ve done my share of frantic pacing lately. Now it’s someone else’s turn.

“. . . So I’m wondering if you have Benadryl because I’m freaking out here.”

“You should have stopped while you were ahead,” Libby says, shaking her head.

“I’m always ahead,” he snaps. “How should I know when to stop?”

He walks over and asks us to scratch his back. Libby and I pull away. We don’t want to get the powder on us. He walks back into the kitchen and notices the mouse cage. “What is that?” He frowns. I tell him I have a pet mouse. He raises an open palm. “Okay, we’ll talk about that later.” He jerks open a drawer and pulls out a wooden spoon. He puts it down the back of his shirt and starts scratching himself, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. “Oh my God that feels gooooood,” he says. He takes out the spoon and stares at it. “I have to psych myself out. I have to will this away and power through. Just have to get this over with.” He looks down at his watch, scratches himself one more time with the spoon, then tries to hand it to me. I tell him to keep it. I’m pretty sure I’m done with that spoon. He puts it in his back pocket. “All right, I’m going. I have to go.” He scratches his neck. “I feel like it’s spreading, not going away. It’s like ants crawling on my body . . .” He opens the door and walks out, mumbling to himself.

Libby puts her feet up on the coffee table. “What do you want to do tonight, babe?” she asks and yawns.

I look at her disbelievingly. What does she think?

The bouncer at Lone Star Bar tells us that the cover to get in is fifty dollars. “Fifty!” I shout.

“That’s what they tell me,” he responds. He’s tall and built, with light eyes and blond hair. We open our wallets. We have twenty-three bucks between us, and twenty-two of that is mine. I ask if he’ll just take the twenty-three dollars; we only want to be in there a little while. “Sorry, cowgirl,” he says as two men in chaps approach. “Five dollars,” he tells them.

“Hi, Felix,” they say in unison. Like Phillip, they must be regulars. The bouncer nods. They hand over five bucks each and he opens the steel door. A very loud Billy Ray Cyrus song attacks my ears before the door closes once more.

“Wait a minute,” I protest. “You told us it was fifty dollars to get in. And just because we’re not gay?”

“I don’t make the rules,” he says. “They’re not friendly to ladies here. You’d be better off somewhere else.”

I start to walk away. Fifty dollars? Yeah, right. I turn to say something to Libby but she is still standing next to the bouncer. I walk back over as she puts her hands on her hips. “Hey, Felix,” she says, tilting her head, “you’re straight though.” He nods: “I know I am.”

“Then why are you working at a gay bar?” she asks.

He tells her plenty of straight bouncers work at gay bars; they pay better. “And gay dudes never fight,” he adds. “I don’t know what it is. Gay dudes just don’t fight. It’s easy work.”

Libby tells him we came to see about a friend. She explains the situation. He nods. “I saw that dude, he’s in there. He’s in bad shape.”

“Can you cut us a break?” Libby asks. This guy is totally her type. She likes that built, vaguely meathead-ish but sweet sort.

He shakes his head. Can’t do it without collecting the cover; strict policy. Libby gives him puppy-dog eyes. “There’s nothing you can do?” she says in a baby voice. She opens her wallet and shows him the measly one-dollar bill. “Pleeeeeeeeeesh.”

Obviously it doesn’t take much to convince bouncer Felix. He’s a meathead. It’s his job to get hosed. Score one for puppy-dog eyes—and probably boobs, who’s kidding who?

The bar serves food in addition to drinks, and the bouncer sneaks us into the kitchen through the back. The cooks are straight (of Latin flavor, incidentally), and don’t mind that we’re there, as long as we agree to stay in the kitchen. In the center of the door leading from the kitchen to the bar is a round window. We pull up chairs and look through. It’s a clear view of the dance floor. I’ve never seen a place like this. There are bales of hay decorating the floor and a big neon bronco over the main door. There are four dartboards and an ATM machine. On the walls pinups of naked and half-naked men in cowboy hats have been plastered. A Shania Twain song is blaring. In one corner is a mechanical bull. The place is filled with couples. All men in Western wear. One guy has a lasso strapped to his black jeans. Most of the men are line dancing. A few are sitting in the corners, watching, tapping their feet. “Man, I feel like a woman!” Shania sings.

Out of a shadowy corner come Max and Phillip. Max scratches his neck and then, after a few words are exchanged, Phillip scratches Max’s neck. They begin to line dance. Step one, step two. Max bends down to scratch his leg and bumps into the guy next to him. He then itches his wrist and continues. But not for long. Midsong he raises his finger to Phillip, like he’s telling him to hold on a sec, then runs over to a chair, leans his back against its back, and begins moving up and down, bending at the knees. He has a look of great relief on his face. His back must really itch. He pulls his arms behind him, grips the chair, and begins to slide it up and down his back. Finding this ultimately unsatisfying, he runs to the bar, barks an order, and is soon downing three shots of something in a row. Phillip walks over and pulls him back onto the dance floor.