Shooting Stars (16 page)

My head is throbbing mercilessly, and I stop at a pharmacy a few blocks from the Becker Financial office. I couldn’t bear walking any longer, as the car horns simply exacerbated the pain. It’s the middle of the day and not lunchtime, so I’m hoping I can get in and out with no lines. When did there become so many manufacturers of pain relievers? I always get confused when I have to buy some. It doesn’t help that my mom is always seeing some news report that says one of them leads to heart disease or will shred the lining of my intestines. And I end up spending a good chunk of time trying to remember which one is bad for me. This decision does not need to be as complicated as it is, but the choices make it so. I pace back and forth along the aisle as I browse the variety of products. I typically want the cheapest option, but I also want it to work the fastest. It had to be the head-butt I gave Dontrelle that really scrambled my brain. If I knew it would’ve hurt me more than him, I probably wouldn’t have done it. Not sure if it’s a concussion, but I think I blacked out for a minute. Because I woke up with security jostling me around. The clerk notices I’m having trouble and walks over to me. I’m not in the mood for people interaction, and I never want any assistance from store clerks when I’m feeling perfectly fine.

“Need help, sir?” I don’t respond, with the expectation he will go away. The clerk doesn’t take to my hint real well. “I can save you some time. Really, I can.” His offer does sound somewhat appealing, and my goal was to come in here and get something for my head pain as quickly as possible.

His persistence breaks me down. “I got a crazy headache. I need something to get rid of it and put me in a mini-coma. Got anything for that?”

The clerk looks at the shelves of small tablet boxes with a purposeful scrutiny. He gracefully leaps up to the top shelf like a zoo monkey and pulls a small box down. Normally I would’ve been surprised at such agility from a store clerk, but the way today has turned out, nothing is out of the realm of possibility.

“This’ll do the trick,” he says as he hands me the box.

“You sure? I don’t want to have to come back.”

“No, I’m positive. I used it the other day when I was out training and fell out of a—”

“Okay, thanks.” I don’t want to hear about him or his life story.

He continues, even though I’ve turned my back. “Parkour.”

“What?” I say.

“Those jumping techniques I used to get to the top shelf. That’s parkour,” he says.

“Yeah . . . I didn’t ask,” I say.

He takes another long survey of my face, which is borderline uncomfortable. I hope I’m not starting to bruise. Last thing I need is to come back to work looking like a domestic-violence victim. I walk away toward the register, and he follows me.

“Didn’t you go to Redbrook High?”

He’s persistent, so I know pretending not to hear him won’t work. He’ll follow me to my car. “Nope,” I say.

“Yes, you did. Kevin, right? We graduated the same year.”

I really hate running into people I went to school with. I never remember their names, yet they do mine. And it always turns out the earlier the schooling, the more I hate talking to them. College is bad. High school is excruciating. Elementary school is the worst. And it’s extra bad when they’re someone I never talked to back when we were in school together.

“Sorry, my name is Maurice. You got the wrong guy.”

“No,” he says, laughing. “You’re Kevin Taylor. We went to school together since kindergarten. You still look the same.”

Wow, kindergarten. This guy is the actualization of one of my worst nightmares. My day has turned into a never-ending practical joke. “Did you say Redbrook? I thought you said Led Cook.” I give a fake laugh. “Because I went to Redbrook. My ears do a weird hearing thing sometimes.”

“I knew it was you. It’s me, Ray.” And he jumps around like he won a grand prize on a strange stalker game show. He’s way too excited to recognize someone who doesn’t have the slightest memory of who he is and never remembers talking to him before this day. I’m cringing as I anticipate the level of awkwardness this encounter will reach.

“Man, it’s been a long time. Too long,” he says.

“Sure has.” As I look around at my finish line, the cash register, I slowly backpedal. I’m trying to get out of here one inch at a time.

“How come you weren’t at the reunion?” he says.

Yeah, that’s what I would want to do. Spend an entire evening with a bunch of people I’ve seen no need to talk to in fifteen years. “Uh, I couldn’t make it. But I had my assistant go in my place. He recorded everything that happened. Then reported it back to me. It seemed like a great time from what I’ve read in his transcript.”

The clerk starts nodding. “Come to think of it, I did see that guy. He had on a brown suit, right?”

“Yep, that’s Jerry. Good ol’ Jerry the assistant.” It sounds like an assistant’s name. I motion to leave. “Okay. Take care, now.”

“What are you doing with yourself?” he says.

The fateful question you’re obligated to ask when you run into someone. “I’m a senior manager of my company’s human-resources department.” I always lie, and I’ll inflate the lie based on the likelihood that I’ll never see the person again. “Yeah over at Schuster, Thompkins, and Dykes. Well, really my position is junior vice president. That’s my title, but I don’t like to use it that much. Makes me sound more like a politician. I don’t want to come off as someone who’s pretentious or anything like that.”

He’s overwhelmed by my success. Maybe it feels good for him to see that someone he knows made it. “Always knew you’d do big things. Man, I’m happy for you. Here’s my card.”

He reaches into his pocket and hands me a business card. I wasn’t expecting that from a pharmacy clerk. I don’t even have a business card. It’s quite odd, but I take it anyway, and without looking at it stuff it in my jacket pocket. I hope this isn’t about a pyramid scheme or some hair products he sells on the side.

“You know, it’s all about working hard and persevering. Then, there’s time to play and enjoy the fruits of your labor.” I’m really overusing the whole fruit-metaphor thing today, but oh well. “And you’re here temporarily?”

“I hope not. Been here for about seven years.”

My eyebrows rise. I hope he didn’t notice that. I’ll try to play it off. “Nice. Good for you. Must be some discount.” I don’t think he bought it, but he’s dumb, so who knows.

“Helping people find their pharmaceuticals is one of the things I love to do. But my true love is—”

A pimple-faced boy who can’t be any older than twelve years old walks up to the clerk and cuts him off. And I couldn’t thank him any more in my head. I assume he’s the store manager or someone of importance from his tone and the fact he has on lavender slacks, as opposed to everyone else’s black slacks. Then again, he could be the fashion trendsetter of this drugstore operation. “What are you doing?” he yells at the clerk.

Yep, he’s the boss.

“Talking to an old—”

“I don’t give a fuck if you’re praying. What you’re not doing is your job. Stop harassing the customers with your retard bullshit. We don’t pay you for that, you asshole.”

“But—”

“This little exchange is cutting into your lunchtime, by the way,” the manager says.

I start to feel bad and want to step in and say something. The manager was way too harsh on this guy I don’t remember. But I saw this as an excellent diversion to ease out of the store. And that’s exactly what I did.

“Give me a call sometime. We can hang out. I can show you some of the web designing I do,” the clerk says as he notices me escaping.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I overhear the manager saying as I’m waiting for my debit-card transaction to go through. Which isn’t happening fast enough. I should’ve used cash. “Still talking, huh? Well, I got a task for you to do that’ll make you stop talking. There’s a returned bedpan that needs to be cleaned and re-shelved. Get on that now.”

I
shuffle into my apartment
, wanting today to be over with. Not wanting to think about work, interviews, pharmacy stalkers, or anything. Truth be told, the painkillers the clerk recommended did work, and I can feel my headache retreating for the hills. My rule of thumb is always take three times the dosage advised on the packaging, especially for severe cases such as this one. When I get a headache, I need more because my brain is probably three times more complex than regular people’s and can withstand more painkillers. I throw my jacket over a box that hasn’t been unpacked and put my keys on top of the jacket so it doesn’t slide off. I’m getting woozy, and I want to be knocked out until tomorrow morning. I plop down on my air mattress and let the drugs take over.

As I begin to feel myself dozing off, I hear a clanging noise come from the kitchen. A side effect of the drugs? Maybe I should’ve taken the recommended dosage of two pills. The noise persists. I struggle to get up from my inflatable resting spot to investigate. I hear it again. I grab the closest thing that I can use as a weapon, a purple flip-flop that’s lying on the floor. I walk over to the kitchen, ready to flip-flop a burglar to death, or near death at the very least. Instead, I find Alexis making a sandwich. I’m not sure if I’m dreaming, or if it’s just a hallucination.

“Hey,” I say.

This startles her. “Hi, I thought you’d be at work. Should’ve known you’d be playing hooky.” Then, she notices my suit. “I’m sorry. An interview today?”

“No.”

“Proposed to someone today?” She chuckles to herself. I don’t find it funny. “Too soon?” she says.

This can’t be a dream. My dreams don’t usually include cruel jokes. She says, “See you’re still leaving all of your cabinets wide-open before you leave. It’s like there’s—”

“Yeah, poltergeist. I know. What the fuck are you doing here?” She’s silent. It’s all coming to me now. “Oh, I see, the grass isn’t greener, is it? Especially when the other side doesn’t have grass, because it’s a dumpster outside of a Burger King.”

She pretends not to know what I’m talking about.

“Come crawling back to me?” She takes a nervous bite out of her sandwich. “I don’t know if I’d take you back. But I have to admit, it’s pretty arrogant of you to think I haven’t moved on by now.” She tries to speak, but I cut her off before she begins. “There are a lot of things that’ve changed about me. And there’d be quite a few stipulations for you to adhere to for me to even consider taking you back.”

A voice comes from the bedroom. “I think this one will fit, but I might have to do some alterations around the scrotum area. I got way bigger balls. Is my sandwich ready yet?” Robbie emerges from the bedroom wearing my other suit jacket, with the pants around his ankles.

“What the fuck?” I say.

Robbie is stunned to see me. “Hey, Kev. Nice new place.”

I look at Alexis. “He needed a suit for an important meeting. I thought it’d be okay,” she says.

“Meeting? He’s homeless. Bums don’t take meetings,” I reply. “And why would you think that’s okay? What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck is wrong with both of you?”

“Because we’re friends,” she says.

“Yeah, we’re friends. All of us,” Robbie says.

“Well, we’re not friends,” she says to Robbie. “We’re soul mates.”

“You’re right,” he replies.

I look him up and down. “You shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear from you right now,” I say. “He’s not even fully dressed.” They look at each other with lustful faces. I realize what just happened. “In my bedroom? While wearing my suit?” Before I get the chance to fuck anybody in my own apartment, Robbie beats me to the punch with my girlfriend. Can anything be worse than that? “In my bedroom? While wearing my suit?”

He says, “Sometimes passion simply takes over. And I didn’t have the suit on. What type of person do you think I—”

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” I exhale as I try to gather my composure. “You were my friend. I’d even lend you my car for your errands.” They share the same lustful look again. “Oh, that’s foul. In my car? I can’t believe you two.”

“What type of errands could I possibly have?” He laughs. “I’m homeless.”

“I told you he wouldn’t notice the mess we made or the smell of sex in his car,” Alexis says to Robbie.

“I thought it was from us having sex in the car,” I say.

“We never did that,” she says.

I think about it. She’s right. “How could you?” I say to Robbie. “Bros before hos.”

“Listen, none of us are saints in all of this,” he says.

“I did nothing wrong,” I say.

Robbie wobbles over to Alexis, with my pants still around his ankles. “This is both an awkward and private discussion. I’ll grab my sandwich and let you two settle it.”

I pick up a milk crate and hurl it at his head. It misses but hits him right in the back as he tries to shield himself.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I say. Robbie races out of the apartment.

“You don’t have to be like this, you know,” she says. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. Take it easy.”

“Why don’t you tell me how I should be?” I ask.

“Borrowing a suit is only a favor. You could easily say no.”

“You weren’t even going to ask me. You were planning on me not being home.”

“Well, you normally let stuff like that go,” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a pushover. Can’t fault me for trying.”

I scoff like I’ve never been described using that term before.

“Like the dry cleaner who puts holes in your shirts,” she continues. “But you never complain.”

“They do a great crease in my slacks.”

“Robbie wouldn’t go for that,” she says.

“He wouldn’t because he’s never been to a dry cleaner in his life,” I say.

“No, he’s take-charge. Doesn’t take shit from anybody. That’s what I like . . . love about him.”

“He smells like bologna, like all of the time.”

She smiles glowingly. “Because he stole our lunch this afternoon. Hid two whole handfuls of bologna and mustard packets in his sweatpants. That’s what I mean.”

“And that’s what you wanted?” I reply. “Someone with bologna pants?”