THE PREVAILING THOUGHT in Oliver’s brain when he turned onto his street was: I knew I should have gone to class this morning.
Because the last thing he wanted to see as he pulled into his driveway (or more accurately, the driveway of the house where he did most of his sleeping, noshing, showering, and flushing) was Barry Sherman sitting on his front stoop. All he really wanted to see were his two fluffy pillows and one thick quilt. He considered backing out and driving away. Instead, Oliver locked the car door, then stopped by the mailbox to perform an elaborate pretend search for mail that he knew wasn’t there (since he’d already gathered yesterday’s mail on his way to work). He tried not to resent Barry’s shiny black BMW parked across the street.
When Oliver finally looked up again, Barry was still there, lounging on the steps, squinting at his iPhone. Oliver ambled up the cracked sidewalk, marveling at the resemblance—Barry’s dopey grin was the mirror image of his uncle’s frown.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Barry. But what are you doing here?”
“Managing.”
“On my front porch?”
“Well, since you don’t answer my calls I’m not sure how else to do it.”
“What are you talking about? I answered your call last night.”
“Did I call you last night?”
“At the hotel,” Oliver said. “Right after you allegedly popped a bunch of sleeping pills. You were going to give me an address before you sort of faded out.”
“I don’t think so,” Oliver said, not really sure what he believed. He moved his duffel bag from one hand to the other, then back again. “So what sort of managerial duties are you here to perform?”
“Actually, this is more of a rapport-building visit. You know, strengthening the manager-client relationship.”
“I was hoping you booked me on Letterman.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You know, I’d settle for a headlining spot at Downers.”
“I’d say you probably have a better shot at Letterman, actually.”
This was obviously not news to Oliver, but he was more than a little surprised to hear it coming from Barry. “If you don’t mind my asking, how could you possibly know that?”
“I stopped in and talked to that Roscoe guy again.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not? According to Google, he’s a legend, like some kind of comedy Yoda. And I don’t know what you’re worried about. He seems to really like you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“Hey, what’s not to like about me?”
Oliver considered the question as he watched Barry finger the lump on his forearm, but decided that sometimes the truth hurts too much. And unnecessarily. “It’s not you. Roscoe kinda hates everybody.”
“Well if you guys are so tight, why won’t he let you play his club?”
“It’s a very long and very complicated story.”
“I have time.”
“I thought you were working today. I would have sworn I saw the word Barry followed by the word Sherman on the schedule.”
“I’m taking a personal day.”
“Any chance you could cover for me tonight? Or tomorrow night? Or, you know, ever?”
“There’s always a chance, Oliver.”
“So how many personal days do you get anyway?”
“It’s kind of a birthright thing. Anyway, aren’t you going to invite me in?”
The first excuse that popped into Oliver’s mind was to claim the house was a mess. But for all he knew, Barry had already peered through the windows. “Haven’t we built enough rapport for one day?”
“Come on. How about a quick beer?”
Oliver bristled at the idea of alcohol inside his mother’s house. She was never much of a beer drinker. But most of the men she brought home were.
“It’s 8:30 in the morning.”
“I’ll take orange juice then.” Before Oliver could turn him down again, Barry gripped his elbow and began escorting Oliver up the steps. “This won’t take long, I promise. And we really do have some business to discuss. I got you an audition.”
“Yeah, you mentioned that last night.”
Barry looked at Oliver as if he were the one recovering from a sleeping pill hangover.
“Whatever.” Barry said as he clicked through a series of screens on his fancy phone. “Here, write this down … two p.m. today, at Jesters. You should be there by —?”
“No thanks, Barry.”
“What do you mean, no thanks? I worked hard to get you on the list.”
“It’s an open audition, which means anyone can, and usually does, show up. And it’s for that new reality show, a knockoff of Last Comic Standing.”
“Yeah, so? That’s a huge show with national exposure.”
Oliver was too sleepy to explain abject lack of “reality” in reality TV. The producers invite any and every wannabe comic to show up and stand in line for hours. Their goal is twofold: one, to create hype by having the cameras pan to the hundreds of alleged comedians lined up around the building for their shot at the fabled fifteen minutes of fame; and two, more importantly, to shoot scads of embarrassingly bad footage of embarrassingly bad stand-ups. This footage is then spliced between that of the real comics who actually have a legitimate shot at getting on the show. The part they don’t tell the viewer is that these seasoned comedians don’t have to stand in line with everybody else. Their auditions have set appointments.
“Trust me,” Oliver said as he fished his keys out of his pocket and opened the door. “Unless they gave you a specific appointment time, it’s a total waste of time.”
“If you say so.” Barry brushed past him and stepped inside. It was more than a little surreal to have a “guest” in his house. Oliver followed close behind, overly aware now of any potentially embarrassing sights or smells. But there were no piles of dirty laundry, no moldy pizza boxes, no musty smells or overflowing garbage cans or unsightly stains on the carpet—not a single domestic faux pas or unflattering detail worth memorizing and blabbing to the gossip-mongering staff of the Harrington Hotel. If anything, Oliver was most embarrassed by how thoroughly uninteresting it all seemed. If Barry had any opinions about Oliver’s living conditions, he kept them to himself. Instead, he said, “Well, let’s get down to business.”
“Don’t I have to generate some income for this to qualify as an actual business?”
Barry unfolded a check and handed it over. It was payable to Oliver Miles. Oliver had to look at the amount twice.
“And that’s just the retainer. You get twice that amount once your services have been rendered. That is, if you don’t feel like it’s a waste of your valuable time.”
Hope ballooned inside him but developed a slow leak at once. Oliver had long held the belief that if something sounds too good to be true, just wait for the other shoe to drop.
Oliver pocketed the check and pulled a chair out from the table on his way to the refrigerator. This was less an invitation for Barry to sit than an invitation for him to not go nosing around in Oliver’s business. Barry took the hint and Oliver drained a carton of Tropicana into the only two glasses in the cupboard. The refrigerator rumbled, then belched, then seemed to expire altogether.
“That thing okay?” Barry said.
“Give it a sec.” As if on cue, the compressor resurrected itself. “So what’s this gig all about? Where is it? And when? And who is it for?”
“It’s a corporate thing, next Wednesday night. Some kind of fund-raiser for a big insurance company.”
“Can you at least tell me how long my set is supposed to be?”
“All I know at this point is that you’re one of several comics on the bill. And that it’s a paying gig. As soon as I get more information I’ll send you an email.”
“Good, okay,” Oliver said. “And thanks.”
Barry lifted his glass, as if proposing a toast to his own success as a manager. Then he said, “Man, you must really love that hotel.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Your place is just like it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Look, I wasn’t going to say anything. But this place is weird. And kind of old too. It’s just … I don’t know, functional. There’s no personality, no soul. Just like the Harrington.”
Oliver considered reminding Barry that he was free to go whenever he liked. But then Barry said, “Speaking of the hotel … what do you think of her?”
“Think of who?”
“Mattie, who else?”
“Your segues are as bad as mine,” Oliver said. “So is that why you’re really here? To ask about Mattie?”
“This is the rapport-building part,” Barry said.
“I think she’s nice enough. Seems to be a hard worker.”
“Don’t give me that, Oliver. I know you like her. I can tell by the look on your face.”
“Sure, I mean, yeah. What’s not to like? But I don’t like her like her.”
“Well I think she’s totally hot,” Barry said.
“You’ve mentioned that before.”
“Come on, admit it Oliver. Don’t you think she’s hot?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
“That’s too bad, ‘cause she really digs you.”
Oliver pretended to take this in stride. “How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s kinda hard to miss. Every time I tried to steer the conversation onto me, she just kept steering it back to you. So finally I say, ‘You really dig Oliver, don’t you?’ But then it dawned on me that she could have been playing hard to get. You know, using you to get to me. To be fair, she didn’t start going on about you until I asked her out.”
It occurred to Oliver that Mattie might be using him to get away from Barry. But he kept that to himself. What he really wanted to know was how she answered the question, or even if she answered it. But before he could find a way to ask, Barry was cradling his chin in his hand and wincing.
“Oh man,” he said. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Barry didn’t answer at first but darkened his already blank expression while moving his jaw from side to side with great deliberation. “I think my hinge is busted.”
“Your hinge?”
“Yeah, listen.” He reversed the direction of his cocked chin. “My jaw pops whenever I move it like this.”
“Have you considered not moving it like that anymore?”
Barry ignored the question and continued trying to break his own jaw.
“Okay,” Oliver said. “I think I did hear a little something.” This was not entirely true; he just wanted to ease Barry back onto the right conversational track, specifically what else Mattie might have said about him. “But why do you feel the need to keep moving your jaw like that?”
“To see why it keeps cracking. Why else?”
“It’s probably in protest. Because I really don’t think it’s supposed to move that way.”
“Oh, man. You think I have a bone disease? I’ll bet it’s cancer.”
“Put me down for brain damage,” Oliver said, still trying to figure out how to steer the discussion back onto Mattie. Or at least get rid of Barry and get some sleep.
“There! Did you hear that? It was more of a click that time.”
“Could we change the subject?” Barry’s face was turning red and there really was a dimple on his left jaw that was starting to quiver. “I can see your pulse beating in your hinge and it’s creeping me out.”
“But did you hear it?”
“No, Barry. Not really.”
“Well, listen. You need to hear it.”
“Why? What difference does it make? If you say it hurts, I believe you.”
“Who said anything about pain? I never said it hurt, only that it’s making this weird creaking noise.”
“Maybe it’s haunted then. Maybe you have a haunted hinge.”
“You think this is funny?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Fine. That’s just fine. My bones are disintegrating in my face and you’re making jokes. If that’s how you’re going to be, you can just be your own manager.”
“All because of your clicking jaw?” Barry slid the bottom half of his face so far to one side that it made Oliver’s own jaw hurt. Then it did pop.
“Okay. Alright. I did hear that.”
“Too late now. My feelings are already hurt.”
“That was kind of gross, actually. Like you cracked a big knuckle in your face.”
Barry lined his teeth up again, then opened and closed his mouth several times in quick succession. When he cocked it to the side again, there was a short creak, followed by a small click, then another loud pop. Oliver was about to make some wisecrack about his new manager turning his face into a percussion instrument when panic lit up in Barry’s eyes.
“I hink ih tuck.”
“What?” But then the audio caught up to the visual and made the necessary translation. “I HINK IH TUCK!” “Should I call 9-1-1?”
Barry shook his head so hard, he spritzed the table with tears. “Hake ee to da EEE ARR.”
“What?”
“HAKE EE TO DA EEE ARRRR!”
“To the ER?”
In his mind, Oliver said, I’m not driving you to the hospital, especially not for some idiotic, self-inflicted facial injury. What I am going to do is show you to the door and go catch up on some much-needed, well-deserved sleep. What actually came out of his mouth was: “Can I pee first?”
Barry just shook his head.
“Okay,” Oliver said. “Give me your keys.”
Barry mimed a question, painfully.
“I’ve never driven a BMW before.”
Once they were buckled in and Oliver started the car, Barry cradled his jaw in his hand and began to cry in earnest.
• • •
Oliver spent the morning dozing in a plastic chair in the ER’s waiting room. He’d brought his notebook along in case inspiration struck. But there was nothing funny about the county ER. Unless sad was funny.
When Barry finally emerged hours later, he looked disheveled, defeated, and more than a little embarrassed.
“What’s the prognosis?” Oliver asked. “Are you going to live?”
Barry walked toward the exit, as if he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He ended up banging his shoulder on one of the sliding doors, then teetering into Oliver on the rebound, and nearly falling on his face on the sidewalk.
“What did they do to you in there?”
“Muscle relaxers,” Barry said, moving his lips like a bad ventriloquist. “I guess all that flexing caused my face to cramp up.” Barry righted himself, took a deep breath, then gripped the crook of Oliver’s elbow before starting off toward the car again. They toddled toward Barry’s car like an old married couple. “Gonna need to crash on your couch for a while. Till the drugs wear off.”
He wasn’t asking permission, but rather stating his intentions as a foregone conclusion. Oliver suspected it was a by-product of growing up rich. That’s when it dawned on him that what bugged Oliver so much about Barry wasn’t his money or his laziness or even his glaring chauvinistic tendencies. It was his hyperactive sense of entitlement. Barry was a spoiled brat and Oliver didn’t like him very much. But he did feel sorry for him.
As they rode in relative silence, Oliver sensed movement in the seat beside him. Barry had lifted Oliver’s notebook and was thumbing through the pages.
“What are you doing? Put that back.”
But Barry held up a silencing hand, then used it to massage his jaw again.
Oliver heard the scratch of pen on paper. Then Barry was holding the notebook up where Oliver could see it.
There was an address in big letters, followed by the date, time, and contact number.
“What’s that?” Oliver said.
Barry added: Insurance gig.
Oliver nodded and Barry snapped to a clean page and wrote some more.
BTW … She said yes.
“Who did?”
Mattie did, dummy. Barry scribbled faster, then held up the notebook where Oliver could see the words without having to take his eyes off the road. I said, You really dig Oliver? And she said yes.
“Huh,” Oliver said, trying not to blush.
She thinks you’re funny.
“She said that?”
Barry nodded, cradled his face again for a long moment, then scratched out another message.
Sorry I messed up your sleep.
“It’s okay,” Oliver said. But Barry was already writing again.
Thanks, Oliver. You’re a REAL PAL!
He’d underlined the last two words. Oliver didn’t respond, focusing instead on the traffic in front of him, conveniently slowing for a traffic light. Only after they were at a complete standstill did Oliver turn to look at Barry. He was slouched and sleeping with a thin line of drool forming on his chin.
It took real effort to wake Barry and get him settled on the couch. Oliver kept trying to ask for more details about Barry’s conversations with Mattie, but only seemed capable of slurring nonsense.
“What are you saying?” Oliver asked. “You want me to call your brother?”
Barry nodded, pointed at his jaw, then his watch.
“I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
Barry struggled through various syllables that sounded like “Jen—Rull—Shoe—Man.”
After the fourth attempt, Oliver said, “General Sherman?”
Barry nodded again.
“You mean your uncle, right?”
Barry nodded a final time, then nodded off completely.
Oliver called the hotel and left his boss a brief message about Barry, then padded off to his bedroom for an afternoon nap. But he couldn’t sleep. His mind ping-ponged between what Mattie had actually said about him and imagining tactful ways to kick Barry out of his house. He fluffed and refluffed his pillows and eventually vowed to figure out both as soon as he woke up.
Hours later, when he finally padded out to the living room to check on Barry, he was already gone.