All we’d talked about all week was pigging out on Subway pizza. Bump their watery, five-dollar footlongs—and Jailbird Jared, too—but their pizzas, though! Chef’s kiss.
Sally was still in workshop. I waited for her in the bar at Chili’s. I was pooped after an arduous day of teaching multiplication to booger-lickers. One day, I thought, they’ll appreciate my instruction. But by then, I’d probably be sucking oxygen tanks dry.
I ordered a glass of water, considered tipping the bartender a buck, didn’t. Some things in life are free.
A couple sips later, Sally texted me she was out. I drove to the Subway near her condo, the one next to a taco truck managed by Indians-from-India who said to each passerby, “hola, howdy.” I’d offered to pick her up, but she wanted to meet me there.
In the parking lot, her face glowed in the streetlight like a Rembrandt—large, downturned almond eyes, vague. Even after another Earth rotation, gravity’s constant drag, I realized again, looking at Sally, her ring finger, how damn lucky I was. Damn-lucky boy, me.
She let me kiss her lips as she stood statue-still. It was like smooching with a mannequin, except the most exotic mannequin sheathed in piquant, pliant skin. We were both exhausted, I figured.
I ordered a pepperoni pizza with jalapenos, extra mozzarella, a pinch of oregano and half a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos on top. The sandwich artist said, “You’re one bad motherfucker.”
“Damn straight,” I agreed.
Sally ordered the same thing minus the chips but added tuna and onions. So not the same thing at all.
“Is that too much?” she asked me.
“Pepperoni, tuna and onions—sounds scrumptious!” I fibbed.
She grabbed a bag of Hot Cheetos off the rack, but I gave her side-eye, so she put them back.
As we waited for our pizzas to finish baking, the sandwich artist jammed out to something loud playing from his wireless Beats. Had he worn them the whole time we were there? I heard what I thought sounded like Ice Cube, but it could’ve very well have been Ice-T or Vanilla Ice.
After I paid, Sally sat us in a corner table near the restrooms. She liked being in corners to “keep an eye on folks.” Her dad was a cop, so her hypervigilance didn’t fall far from the handcuffs.
“I’m so hangry it ain’t even funny,” she said.
“Chow time,” I proclaimed.
My pizza was gone in two minutes flat. I ate like a tiger shark around a shipwrecked crew.
“What’d I tell you about chewing your food slowly,” Sally lectured.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled.
A couple years prior, I’d almost choked to death on a curly fry at a burger joint. Sally had to karate-chop my back a hundred times and at every chop she’d screamed, “HI-YA!” After I coughed up the fry the whole restaurant cheered, and Sally was mad at me for two days back to back. (Pun intended.) She didn’t particularly take to me calling her Sally Bruce Lee Jet Li Chan after the incident. (Not to mention Sally Field before it, even though we both agreed Sally Field is a great American actress.) Sally swiftly introduced her Ten-Chews-A-Bite Rule, to which I violated during every meal thereafter. Good times.
She left half her pizza uneaten, looked queasy.
“You all right?” I asked.
“I think I’m sick.”
“You do look a little sick.”
“I feel like crap.”
“You do look a little crappay.”
“Let’s go.”
“Leggo my eggo,” I said, and we left.
Outside, I hugged her tight, sniffed her hair—shampooey with a tinge of musk. I was about to kiss her lips again but she turned away, so I settled for cheek-peck. She was all clammed up. Mannequin-like.
“No more pizzas ever again,” she said all serious.
“You said that last month.”
“Yes. But I mean no more, ever again.”
“Oh, okay. Ever again as in …?”
“As in we’re done.”
“Oh, okay. We’re done as in …?”
“As in I can’t fucking do this anymore. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
She handed me her promise ring—$150 at Zales. Not on sale.
“What’s this?” I said.
I went in for another kiss but she pushed me away.
“Stop that! You always mitigate pain with fantasies like everything’s okay, but everything’s not okay, don’t you understand? Everything’s not okay!”
“Sally, we talked about this already. C’mere, come to Papa.”
Crying, she got inside her car and started the engine. Uh oh. I approached it and placed my hand on the driver’s window.
“What about Paco?” I asked both her and my dashing reflection. Paco was our loveable pet iguana, who’d been moving slower and slower in those days.
She sped off, her tires screeching. It was so climactic I was panging Buncha Crunch—my go-to candy at the movie theater. Okay, that was a bad dad joke delivered in poor taste.
I felt strange eyeballs on me and turned around and saw the sandwich artist outside, posted up against the Subway entrance, smoking a cigarette, Beats headphones still on.
“Your girl just dump you, huh? Damn, dude. That’s some messed-up shit, and I’ve seen lots of messed-up shit during my time here.”
“Had it coming,” I said.
What he said next is the spiritual climax of this depraved story, a moment which nearly drew from my eyes scant tears.
“Would you like a couple cookies for the road? They’re on me. I gotchu, my guy.”
I studied my fellow man for a few seconds, dumbfounded in admiration.
“You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar and, above all, a sandwich virtuoso—I didn’t catch your name.”
“Harrison,” he said.
“I appreciate your generosity, Harrison,” I said, and then I walked to my truck, my head held high.
On my drive home, “Ain’t No Sunshine” played on the radio. Bill Withers’ serenade soaked me in alien misery. Somehow, it was beautiful. No—therefore, it was beautiful.
The road was dark and empty. The planet had always been that way, but I was only just seeing it. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, my peepholes were only just opening.
I zipped past so many green lights—escaped them—which is to say, I attempted busting out of my gorilla brain.
Time was inscrutable. It was like watching beach sand being blown endlessly by warm, coastal winds. Or observing legions of earthworms slide across thick mud.
I drove past a boy, I think, sitting on the edge of a wooden pier. He seemed to be gazing into the muck that was the Gulf of Mexico. The full moon reflected brightly off the filthy ocean’s surface, where underneath, I knew, were sea creatures lurking, grinning dementedly.
I grabbed the bottle of Jack underneath my seat, popped it open and swigged from it, pirate-like.
Ahhh. Shiver me timbers.
That’s how one made up for tragedy. By doing the sensible thing, which is to say, doing the thing that’s right in front of you.
I recall only the loud, metal explosion. Everything else is subject to change.
I’d aimed for a watery grave—Davey Jones’ Locker—but had to settle instead for a soft hospital bed
• • •
The pretty, blonde nurse instructed me to try my hand at poetry, so I came up with this:
Gunshot between the eyes,
Instantaneous demise.
“Wow!” Nurse Tiffany said. “Vivid imagery! You’re a natural!”
“I get it from my mother,” I said. “What’s your last name?”
“Blanco. I’m like, half Spanish, or Portuguese, or whatever.”
Other than banging Tiffany after I recovered, I don’t remember much after my hospital days. Daze. Get it?
Tiff. A big ol’ freak, that one. She was twice divorced, which perhaps factored into why that fake Spanish sorceress turned me onto crack. Yes—exactly the kind you’re thinking of.
Since then, it’s been one white vaporous tail after another. I slither across space, track strangers, stare at them, make them squirm. Then I laugh. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhhh.
Sometimes I like to think my smirk speaks for itself. Sometimes I like to think it boasts, in an iconic James Earl Jones baritone: We’ll end up in the same place, you and I. Ready or not.