Friends Who Do Not Kill You Make You Stronger
(45 weeks)
SUNDAY.
Gregor comes over for breakfast. A business breakfast. He instructs me to save the bill for the groceries so that I can expense it.
“This is warm bread,” he says. “You lack the stick-toitness to make toast. And even the way you cut it is wrong. Toast has to be cut diagonally. Not vertically. This is an abomination.”
“If manners are going out the window, then I’ll say this: Quit double-fisting the strawberries. I might want to have one myself.”
“How dare you!” he yells. “You’re the double-fister! Remember that time I ran into you on the street and you were eating from a bag of Cheezies with your left hand and a bag of Fritos with your right? Coming down the street it looked like you were wearing mittens.”
“Even worse! What grown man wears mittens?”
“Why can’t we just enjoy breakfast,” I say. “Why do you always have to focus on what’s wrong with everything?”
“It’s a talent and a curse,” Gregor says sombrely. “I guess I’m just more sensitive than most.”
“Did you know that after eighteen years locked in the darkness, Kaspar Hauser’s eyes were so sensitive to light he could see stars in the daytime?”
“Maybe to his friends it seemed like an ability to see blemishes in a perfectly bright sunshiny day.”
“Okay,” I say. “But to even be able to see stars you have to start by looking up and taking in the glory of the firmament once in a while.”
In a dramatic flourish, I lean my head back and stretch out my arms as though embracing the world, flaws and all. In so doing, I knock a pot of coffee off the table. It shatters, sending coffee and glass in all directions.
I rise from the table.
“Don’t bother getting up to help with the mess,” I say.
“What mess?” he asks, continuing to eat his warm bread.
THURSDAY.
Tucker and I are supposed to go out for steak tonight. We frequent this place where the average customer age is eighty-five. Going there makes us feel young and virile. But an hour before we’re set to go, he calls up.
“I don’t feel steaky,” he says.
I ask him why and he explains how he misplayed his whole day of eating and now he just isn’t ready.
“I was working on my film treatment at the café this afternoon,” he says, “and I spilled coffee all over it. But the amazing thing was that the coffee stain perfectly highlighted the opening two paragraphs, and I realized, looking at them like that, that they needed to be completely rewritten. All of this because of the spill! I began to wonder if God had finally taken notice of me. I tested this theory by seeing if the girl sitting beside me would talk to me. She would not, and so to cheer myself, I ordered a half-pound Angus burger with fries.”
Unfortunately there’s no Viagra for steak. I put the phone down and go make myself a sandwich. If God is taking notice of me, there will be Dijon left in the pantry.
FRIDAY.
Howard is going away for the weekend and I’ve agreed to watch his pugs, Desmond and Bruce. He shows up at my apartment with, among other things, two dog beds, three vinyl pork chops, chicken-flavoured toothpaste, and a canvas chew bone upon which are inscribed the words “Bite me.”
“Is all this necessary?” I ask. “A two-pound bag of heartshaped dog treats? How many treat-worthy deeds can two dogs accomplish over the course of a single weekend?”
“I like to lavish my boys with positive reinforcement,” he says. “Finish all the food in your bowl: that’s a treat. Go to the bathroom: that’s a treat.”
“Eat all your treats: that’s a treat.”
“Look,” Howard says. “They can tell we’re talking about them!”
I look down. A string of drool hangs from Desmond’s lip while Bruce scratches an ear with his hind leg.
“The weight of their stoic hearkening fills the room like a dense fog.”
“They’re enlightened,” Howard says defensively. “Pugs were bred by Tibetan monks. Do you know what for? Not sheep herding or sled pulling, but for companionship.”
Before leaving, Howard tells me that Desmond and Bruce will prove to be the best friends I’ve ever had. Sadly, I fear his words may actually prove correct.