Out of Whack (10 page)

       I sit down at an empty table and take in the sights. A waitress wearing a dog collar. A waitress with a barrel of whiskey under her neck. A dancer on a side stage does an erotic routine that involves smearing herself with chewing gum. A woman in a diaper lies on a table, where men can change her for twenty dollars.

       “Excuse me,” says a woman wearing a bra and panties with see no evil, hear no evil, and taste no evil symbols on them. “Would you care for a lap dance?”

       I nod. She leaps up onto my lap and starts clog dancing, leaving several nasty bruises. When the dance is completed forty-five minutes later, she asks me how I liked it. I admit that it wasn’t really my thing.

       “Well, maybe we’ve got something that is your thing,” she says. “In the back room you can experience the hottest, most sensual thrill known to man.”

       “You mean...?”

       “No.”

       “Then you mean...?”

       “No.”

       “Then you mean...?”

       “Yes,” she says, looking me in the eye. “I mean—”

* * *

       This is where the fantasy always ended, and I’d return to reality wondering what I meant. Then I’d wonder why the hell I was having a sexual fantasy that didn’t involve my having sex. Then I’d get depressed and go somewhere to mope.       

“Yeeeee-ha!!!”

       “WAKE UP! WAKE THE HELL UP! WAKE UUUUUUUUUUU—”

       I reached over and shut off the Screaming Psychopath alarm clock, which had been funny in the store but was much less amusing in actual use. I stretched and groaned. Since there were only three days until school started, I’d been trying to condition myself for getting up early again, even if it meant setting the alarm for the ungodly hour of eleven-thirty. I’d stayed unemployed after getting fired from telemarketing for reading a skit (involving a talk show host interviewing a corpse) to a customer over the phone, and had therefore become embarrassingly lazy over the past month.

       I showered and got dressed, just to get back in the habit. I trudged downstairs in a sleep-deprived stupor, giving my mom a good morning grunt as I walked past the living room.

       “You got a letter,” she said. “It’s from something called
Dearly Demented.”

       “You mean
Gleefully Disturbed?”

       “Yes, that’s it. It’s on the kitchen table.”

       Suddenly wide-awake, I hurried into the kitchen and picked up the letter.
Now, don’t get too excited,
I told myself.
It takes most people dozens, even hundreds of submissions before they sell their first story.

      
I opened the envelope, but didn’t slide out the contents yet. I wanted to savor the suspense.

      
Yeah, but most people suck. I want to sell something NOW!

      
I slid out the letter. It was three pages, folded together. Was it an acceptance letter and a contract...or a really long, detailed rejection? (“Dear Mr. Trexler, your story was awful. Awful, awful, awful. So awful that I’m going to fill the next three pages with the word awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful...”)

       There was one way to find out.

       I took a deep breath.

       I opened the letter and read the heading.

       “Dear Mr. Trexler...”

       Okay, so far so good. At least he’d bothered to write my name before rejecting me. I continued to read.

       “I am pleased to inform you...”

       Yes! Success! Unless, of course, he was pleased to inform me that he’d burned my story so it wouldn’t be harming any more innocent readers.

       “...that I liked your story ‘The Private Diary of Lionel Parr’ and wish to use it in the next issue of
Gleefully Disturbed,
which should be out in november. Enclosed are 2 contracts; please sign 1 and keep the other for your records. Sincerely, Michael Garrett, Synex Publishing.”

       Okay, so, he got the title of my story wrong and was a bit shaky on the rules regarding the capitalization of months. That was fine. I was going to officially be a published writer! The name of Seth Trexler was going to be in print for all of America to see!

       If Mr. Garrett spelled it right.

       I let out the breath I’d been holding for the past few sentences. A couple of flying insects dropped to the ground, writhing in agony.

       I rushed into the living room waving the letter. “He’s going to publish my story! Now my weirdness is justified!”

       “Oh, that’s wonderful!” my mom exclaimed, standing up and giving me a big hug. “I always knew you’d be successful, even if what you write isn’t what I like to read.”

       My dad reacted to the news with similar excitement. “Neat,” he said. “Now why don’t you write that historical novel I’ve been giving you ideas for?”

       I gave Travis a call at his grandparents’ house. “Hey, guess what incredible news I’ve got to share,” I said when he answered.

       “You shaved your head.”

       “No.”

       “You grew a second tongue.”

       “No.”

       “You ate an entire squid that washed up on Lake Erie.”

       “No.”

       “You learned to perform a hysterectomy.”

       “No.”

       “You found a creative use for a coat rack.”

       “No.” I knew this could go on for weeks, so I finally took the initiative to end it. “I sold that story to
Gleefully Disturbed.”

       “No way! Congratulations!”

       I could hear heavy breathing that was coming from the other extension on Travis’ end. Apparently his grandfather’s asthma was acting up again.

       “I just got the letter this morning.”

       “Wow, you’re gonna be famous!”

       “Yep, and then it’ll be
my
turn to pork a waitress named Roberta.”

       Somebody, either Travis or his grandfather, inhaled sharply.

       “Anyway,” said Travis, with more than a hint of Ix-nay on Oberta-ray You Stupid Idiot in his voice, “congratulations again. I can’t wait for it to come out.”

       “Me either. Well, I’ll talk to you when you get back. See you then, roomie.”

       “See you then, you stupid idiot.”

       I hung up and spent the next couple hours dancing around like a hyperactive preschooler attached to a sugar IV. My mom answered the phone when it rang, and extended the receiver toward me. “It’s for you. Somebody named Garrett.”

       I grabbed it excitedly. “Hello?”

       “Hi, Mr. Trepler,” said a low, gravely voice. “How are you doing?”

       “Great. How are you?”

       “Oh, hell, I don’t know. Okay, I guess. This is Mike Garrett, editor of
Gleefully Disturbed.
How are you doing?”

       “Great still.”

       “That’s good. That story you sent worked for me, so I mailed you a contract. You should be getting it in a few days.”

       “Actually, I got it this morning,” I told him.

       “Really? No shit? The postal service usually sucks. One time they lost something of mine for two months. Two months. That’s not even funny. In fact, it’s pretty sad. Pisses me off.”

       “What was it they lost?”

       “Oh, hell, I forget. Some catalog.”

       “Yes, well, your letter arrived just fine.”

       “You’d be amazed how many letters I get with coffee stains on the envelopes. There’s no pride anymore. Nuke the whole planet, that’s what I say. Start over with microbes.”

       I was starting to wonder if my story appealed to him simply because it ended with the demise of humanity.

       “Sorry,” he said, after a moment of silence. “I’m ranting. My girlfriend hates that. Of course, she doesn’t seem to mind the way she bitches about every little thing whenever I take her to a restaurant, but that’s my problem, I guess. So how are you doing?”

       “I’m okay.”

       “Good. Rare these days, you know. Anyway, Steve—”

       “Seth.”

       “Who the hell is Seth?”

       “I’m Seth Trexler, I wrote ‘The Private Diary of Leonard Parr,’ which you just sent me a contract for, and I’m doing fine today.”

       “I’m sorry, man. I knew that. I got this big assortment of scented candles last night and I was up until about two hours ago sniffing them, so I’m kind of zoned right now. Shit, why’d I call?”

       We were silent for a full thirty seconds as he tried to remember. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I wanted to make a couple changes in your story, if that’s okay.”

       “What kind of changes?”

       “You know that part where the guy is bleeding out his nose all over the dog?”

       “You’re thinking of somebody else,” I said.

       “Oh, man, I’m sorry. That’s this other thing I got a couple days ago. Worst piece of shit I ever read. I wanted to call the asshole who wrote it and tell him to shove it up his dick.” He cleared his throat for several seconds. “I’m sorry, my girlfriend doesn’t want me to talk like that anymore. Helium-voiced little skank. Anyway, in your story, there’s a part where you talk about a movie called
Lord of the Unzipped Flies.
Could I change that to
Gore Slaughter?”

       “I, uh, guess so. Why?”

       “My friend, he’s trying to get funding to make a movie called
Gore Slaughter,
and I thought this might get him some attention.”

       “Well, I mean, if you do that it sort of wrecks the joke.”

       “You’ve lost me. I’m confused.”

       “The whole point is that Kimberly is seriously hot for Leonard, but he doesn’t realize it,” I explained. “That’s why she wants to take him to an adult movie. If we turn it into a horror movie, it defeats the purpose.”

       “I don’t get it. Oh, wait, now I do. Yeah, keep it the way you had it. Scott can just kiss my unshaven ass.”

       “Is there anything else?”

       “Yeah. There’s this slut Agnes who keeps calling me even though I tell her that anorexic chicks just don’t make the blood rush to my prick. I want to change ‘Kimberly’ to ‘Agnes’ just to piss her off.”

       “I’d rather not,” I admitted. Anyone who found Mr. Garrett appealing obviously had mental problems, and I didn’t want them coming after me.

       “Okay, forget it then. No big deal. It would just have added another level of meaning to your story. Look, I’m already three months behind on my phone bill, so I’m gonna cut this short. Nice talking to you.”

       “Nice talking to you,” I lied.

       “You don’t happen to know what happened on
Guiding Light
yesterday, do you? I missed it, and today’s episode just didn’t make any sense.”

       “Nope. Sorry.”

       “Oh well. Talk to you later.”

       We hung up. My day was starting to decline.

“Beware the Dormitory”

       “I feel like I’m about to open the gates of Hell,” I remarked, placing my hand on the doorknob. In the distance I swore I could hear the screams of souls in torment.

       No, Tanglewood Hall was not the dormitory of choice for students at Trade Point University. No mints on the pillows, no clean towels delivered to your door, and certainly no massage therapists making daily visits. Tanglewood was a sewer pit, and to be placed there was to know beyond all doubt that you were truly freshman scum.

       If I were being paid by the word, I’d list everything that was wrong with the dorm. As it stands, I’ll just give you a brief rundown. The carpet had faded to a lifeless grey, except for the stained parts, and contained a generous portion of loose threads, holes, and burn marks. The walls were also heavy on the holes and stains, and were often sticky to the touch. The bathrooms were...well, let’s just say that when venturing into the bathroom, many of us preferred to use the buddy system. The shower was a mildew paradise, and the substance that emerged from the spigots may or may not have been water. The sinks were usually filled with dirty dishes. Most horrendous were the toilets, which I liked to describe as having attitude problems—they didn’t take shit from anybody.

       But I’m getting ahead of myself. At the point where this chapter begins (“‘I feel like I’m about to open the gates of Hell,’ I remarked, placing my hand on the doorknob.”), I had only been at Tanglewood for a few minutes. I’d bid farewell to my mom and dad that morning, promising to keep my teeth brushed, hair combed, and underwear changed in case of surprise inspections. Packing had been a surprisingly quick and easy process. It wasn’t
meant
to be a quick and easy process, but I’d decided to use the time-tested organizational plan known as Waiting Until The Last Minute. Upon receipt of my deadline, in the form of my dad telling me to get my lazy butt moving because Travis and his parents would be here any second and why the hell hadn’t I packed last night like I was supposed to and Jesus Christ when was I going to learn a little bit of responsibility, I proceeded with the creative and effective solution of throwing everything into random garbage bags.