by TJ Klune
It wasn’t flattering by any stretch of the imagination.
But Josy thought it might be the realest thing he’d ever seen.
The caption read: I’ve talked a lot about mental health, and how important it is to take care of yourself. You need to get out of bed, even if the very idea hurts. You need to take a shower. You need to eat. You need to get dressed. You need to go outside and get sun on your skin. But no matter all the platitudes I spout, sometimes I forget my own words. For the last few days, I’ve forgotten how to practice self-care. It can come without warning. I don’t know why it happens, but it does. Three days ago, I woke up and I was drowning for no reason at all. Instead of pushing myself to get up, I pulled the blanket over my head and stayed there. I only moved to use the bathroom. I haven’t eaten. I haven’t showered. I was tired and sad for reasons I can’t quite explain. But this morning, I opened my eyes and realized I couldn’t let this be who I was. I wouldn’t let this thing beat me. So I pushed myself up. Here is what I look like now. It’s not great, but I’m going to be okay. I have an appointment with my therapist. I’m going to take my SSRIs. I am going to go outside and breathe that sweet, sweet smoggy air. Because I’m worth it. And so are you.
It was the only photograph like it. The photos that followed were brighter. Happier.
And even though Josy knew that Q-Bert was better now—he’d just seen him, after all—he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
It was when he was sixty-three weeks in that he made a mistake.
It was on a mundane post, a photo of water sluicing down a window with the caption I love rainy Sundays. It was nice, and while it didn’t speak to him like some of the others, it still fit in with Q-Bert’s aesthetic.
The problem was that the bathroom door opened, and an awful voice said, “Josy, are you still in here? I swear to god, if you’re getting high again, I’m going to get your ass so fired,” causing Josy’s thumb to slip and skitter along the screen.
A little heart blossomed over the rainy picture.
Josiah Erickson had just liked a year-old photograph on the Instagram account of the writer he was stalking.
He stared down at his phone in horror.
There were only three people in the entire world that Josy despised.
The first was Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte, who was responsible for numerous human rights violations.
The second person was Mason Grazer, a fellow actor who had beaten Josy out for some roles in commercials but still managed to find the time to aggressively flirt with Josy, telling him it was only a matter of time before Josy said yes. He had also sent Josy an unsolicited dick pic via direct messenger. Josy had replied that Mason should really get those varicose veins on the underside of his penis checked out before blocking him.
The third and final person that Josy despised was Frank, a dictator—er, manager at Applebee’s. He was a lifer, or so he liked to claim, having been employed with “the Apple” (as he called it, much to Josy’s dismay) for almost ten years. There was absolutely nothing wrong with gainful employment and being proud of where you worked, but Frank was everything wrong with humanity wrapped into one five-foot-six package whose sole purpose on this earth was to make the lives of the people under him a living hell.
And yes, maybe Josy sometimes partook in a little herb before his shift (and maybe during, too, if he was being honest), but who the hell hadn’t? It wasn’t like it affected his job performance. He absolutely was still able to serve sliders and chicken tenders while stoned. And yes, there was that one time that, while high, Josy had accidentally eaten some french fries from a plate that was about to go out, but who the hell hadn’t?
Frank hadn’t, apparently.
Frank, who had decided to make it his mission to follow Josy’s every move.
Frank, who had stood behind Dave/Keith/Esteban while Josy was filming the commercial, a scowl on his face, interrupting every now and then to tell Dave/Keith/Esteban that he could take over if there was a need to fire Josy.
Frank, who had just caused Josy to accidentally double-tap a photo of a rainy Sunday that had been posted over a year ago.
“Oh my god,” Josy mumbled. “No. No, no, no. Take it back. Take it back!”
For the first time in his life, Instagram was failing Josiah Erickson. Because there was no way to take it back. No matter how many times he tapped the photograph, that little heart beneath it remained bright red and mocking, whispering to him that his life was over, that Q-Bert was going to see that TheRealJosiahErickson had been scrolling through his profile like a stalker.
And he couldn’t fix it.
A fist pounded on the stall door. “Josy!”
“I’m taking a shit!” he snapped. “For Christ’s sake, let me do my business in peace.”
“Are you on the reefer?” Frank demanded. “I can smell the reefer!”
No, Josy wasn’t “on the reefer.” He wasn’t stupid enough to light up a joint in the bathroom at Applebee’s. Well, sure, he’d gone through a wake-and-bake this morning, but that was normal. It was how he functioned. But Frank was a liar when he said he could smell anything aside from bleach and hints of hamburger meat wafting in from the kitchen.
“I’m not smoking,” Josy growled. “If you don’t stop harassing me while I’m in the bathroom, I am going to call the anonymous corporate line and leave a strongly worded voice mail that you won’t leave your employees alone while their pants are down. Where will you be then, Frank? Where will you be then.”
Frank sputtered. “That’s—you wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?”
“Ugh. Fine. But if you’re not out in the dining room in three minutes, I am going to write you up and put it in your permanent file.”
“Oh no. Not my permanent file. Please, anything but that.”
“Jessica just sat a group in your section. Get your ass—oh, hello, sir. Welcome to Applebee’s. I hope your visit is enjoyable.”
“Uh, thank you?” a man said before the stall door next to Josy opened and closed.
“Josy,” Frank hissed. “Get out there. Now. The Apple waits for no man!”
“I will. Can you take their drink orders?”
“Yes, fine. No more reefer!”
There was nothing about how to make it look like you weren’t stalking someone’s Instagram page in the FAQ section. Josy couldn’t even find a phone number to call to see about getting the like removed. He gave very real consideration to just deleting his Instagram entirely, but then thought that his seven thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven followers would be bereft at losing insight into the life of an actor on the rise.
Besides. Each of Q-Bert’s photographs had thousands of likes. He probably wouldn’t even notice.
HE NOTICED.
Josy was opening the front door to his apartment when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He fumbled with the keys as he pulled the phone out.
In the top left corner was an Instagram notification.
He slid his thumb down the screen.
He read four words that caused his heart to stutter.
Q-Bert started following you.
“What, pray tell, the fuck,” Josy whispered.
What, pray tell, the fuck indeed.
“—AND NOW I don’t know what to do. Do I follow him back? Do I ignore it and pretend it never happened? Do I pretend that I’m a different Josiah Erickson even though we look exactly the same? There is no protocol for this. Believe me, I’ve looked, man. Do you want to know how bad this is? I got through this morning on air to answer trivia. It said almost one-third of Americans are embarrassed by this. You know what I said? Their nose hairs. Their nose hairs.”
Xander and Serge stared at him blankly from over glasses of mimosas.
“It’s not their nose hairs!” Josy bellowed. “It’s the cleanliness of their cars! Why the hell would I say nose hairs unless I was so distracted by the fact he follows me on Instagram!”
Okay,
so maybe Josiah had been ranting for the past ten minutes, having begun as soon as he arrived without even saying hi, but this was an emergency. He was allowed to freak out.
His phone vibrated on the table.
“And that,” he said. “That keeps happening. Q-Bert only followed thirty-seven people before, and I’m the thirty-eighth. So now all his followers are starting to become my followers. I’ve gotten sixty new people on my Instagram account since last night. The last time I got so many new followers was after I played basketball in those tiny shorts with genital herpes!”
“He’s kidding,” Xander said quickly to all the people who had turned to stare. “He’s an actor. It was acting. He doesn’t have genital herpes. I don’t have genital herpes.”
“Isn’t it a good thing that he followed you?” Serge asked, his mirror shades reflecting Josy’s rather unattractive irate face back at him. “Won’t it mean he has no hard feelings when you basically shot him down in front of all his fans on accident? He’s obviously looked inside himself and centered his chakras, expelling all the negative energy, replacing it with light.”
“But what if he looks at my page and thinks I’m just one of those Instagays who only posts flattering pictures of themselves?”
Xander and Serge exchanged a look. “You are one of those Instagays who only posts flattering pictures of yourself,” Xander said. “We all are. I actually used hashtag Instagay this morning before coming to brunch because the veins on my biceps were really noticeable after my workout. I already have my half-naked accidentally-trapped-in-Christmas-lights photo planned for December.”
“And it’s not like you put unflattering pictures of yourself online,” Serge pointed out. “No one does that.”
“He does,” Josy moaned. “Because he’s a good person that cares about other people. And I have no idea how to even begin to handle that. It’s like he’s Jesus and Ryan Gosling all wrapped in one.”
Serge squinted at Josy. “This is going to sound sort of weird, so I apologize in advance. But do you… do you have a crush on this dude?”
Xander rolled his eyes. “That’s what I said. You should have seen him at the reading. It was surreal. It was like he’d been taken over by some weird Bizarro Josy.”
“I have a friend-crush,” Josy retorted.
“Is that a thing?” Serge asked. He frowned. “I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“It is. It’s something that I’ve decided is real, because it’s the only thing that makes sense for why I’m freaking out as much as I am. And it’s really not doing me any favors that you aren’t giving me the advice I want to hear. I need to speak to the expert.”
Xander groaned. “I swear to god, you have all week to talk to him, and yet every Tuesday brunch, it’s the same damn thing.”
“Well, maybe if you told me how to fix every problem in my life, I wouldn’t need to!”
“You don’t have problems,” Serge said sagely. “Only obstacles waiting to be overcome.”
“That’s what problems are,” Xander said slowly.
“Exactly,” Serge said with a serene smile.
“I don’t understand your mysticism,” Josy told him, phone already ringing in his ear. “And I don’t think you do either.”
“Thank you for calling Pastor Tommy’s—”
“I need him!”
“Josy?”
“Hi, Casey.”
“How’s it going, man?”
Josy sighed. “My life is in shambles and I’ve got a friend-crush on a guy who writes Sasquatch porn who I laughed at when he asked me out on a date. And then I accidentally stalked his Instagram and Frank made me like a photo in the bathroom, and now he’s following me and I don’t know what to do!”
Silence.
Then, “Jesus, I am way too stoned for this. Hold on, man. I’ll get him.”
“Thank you. Wait! Wait. Before you go.”
“What?”
“How are you?”
Casey laughed. “I’m all right. It’s been a good morning so far. The ferret with merit woke me up by chewing on my hair, so I can’t complain.”
“Harry S. Truman is pretty rad.”
“Oh, totally. I’ve almost got him trained to play dead when I shoot him with finger guns. Gus says it’s a pointless waste of time, but he has no idea how cool it’s going to be.”
“Gustavo thinks a lot of things are a pointless waste of time.”
“Yeah,” Casey said fondly. “He’s the best.”
Josy slumped farther down into his chair. “Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way, I need to talk to him to have him tell me how to fix all of this.”
“Ten-four, good buddy. Hold on.”
“Wait! One more thing.”
“What?”
“I have a confession to make.”
“Uh-oh. I’m listening.”
“This person. This guy.”
“What about him?”
“He’s….” Could Josy do this? Could he really tell Casey this?
He had to. He owed it to his friend. Aces Unite.
“He’s also an author. But I want you to remember that you were always my first author friend, and nothing can take that away from us. Even if I end up liking what he writes more than your young adult postapocalyptic vampire/werewolf books, you will always be special to me.”
“Whoa, really? Dude, rock on. That’s righteous. Do I know him?”
Josy frowned. “Do all authors know each other?”
“Sometimes.”
“Oh. Q-Bert. He writes monster porn.”
“Monster porn.”
“Yeah. Like full-on Sasquatch having sex with newly woke bisexual frat boys. And sometimes there are dinosaurs.”
“Huh. Respect. No idea who that is. I’ll have to look him up.”
“It spoke to my soul when I heard him read it,” Josy said seriously. “Like, you have no idea.”
“I can only imagine. No worries, my dude. I got you. Bros forever.”
“Bros forever,” Josy agreed. “I’m done with you now.”
Casey laughed again. “Later days. Good luck with your friend-crush.”
The phone was muffled. Josy could almost picture it in his mind. They would be standing inside the video store, a line of customers out the door. Gustavo would be working hard, but as soon as he heard it was Josy on the phone, he’d tell all of his customers that he had to take a very important call and they’d have to come back later.
Gustavo really was the best.
“What do you want now?” Gustavo asked gruffly.
“Everything is terrible and I made it worse,” Josy moaned into the phone.
Silence. Then, “And you thought you’d call me about it for reasons I don’t care to understand.”
“It’s Tuesday. I always call you on Tuesdays.”
“Yes. But why.”
“I can’t afford a therapist.”
“I’m not—that’s—oh my god. Casey said you had a problem with your Instabook.”
“I can’t believe you’re a real person.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Yes. I’m having a problem with my Instabook. I met someone who I wanted to be friends with, but then I messed it up and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“And you’re asking me… what.”
“How to fix it!”
Gustavo sighed. “How did you mess it up?”
“He asked me out on a date, but I don’t like him like that. I mean, maybe one day I could, but why can’t we just be friends first? I laughed at him, though, when he asked. I didn’t mean to. And then I stalked him on his Instabook, and now he started following me.”
“Wait. What? He’s following you? Like right this second? That’s something you need to involve the police over. You’re kind of famous to insomniacs who watch infomercials at two in the morning. He might try and murder you and wear your face like a mask.”
Josiah couldn’t even with Gusta
vo. “Not literally. He’s following me online.”
“Oh. Is he a scammer, then? Casey made me get an email address, and I got a message from a Nigerian prince that said I had forty million dollars waiting for me. I thought it was too good to be true, and guess what?”
“What?”
“It was,” Gustavo said savagely. “It was a lie. Did you know that people can lie on the Internet about anything they want to? Who does that?”
“Apparently Nigerian princes,” Josy said. “What the hell.”
“Right? This is why I don’t Instabook or FaceSnap or whatever. And the only people who send me emails are the We Three Queens. Bertha forwards me dog videos. I hate them, oh my god.”
“Ooh, did you see the one where the husky howls at his owner when he doesn’t want to leave the park?”
“No. That sounds terrible.” Then, “Send it to me later.”
“Will do. Now fix my problem.”
“You’re asking me how to talk to other people.”
“Yes,” Josy said. “Exactly.”
“I don’t know how to talk to other people.”
“You’re doing okay right now.”
“Dammit. Okay. Fine. He asked you out. You laughed at him and said no. Now he’s following you on Instabook. Is that right?”
“Yes. You’re very good at keeping up, unlike other people I know.” He glared at Xander and Serge. Xander flipped him off. Serge was taking a selfie. He looked good. His teeth were very white.
“Okay,” Gustavo said slowly. “Why not just apologize?”
That was baffling. “What? Just… say sorry?”
“Yes. Tell him you’re sorry, that you didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and then ask him to go do whatever it is kind-of-famous people do. Bowling or whatever. I don’t know. I’m not famous.”
“You’re famous to me.”
“That doesn’t make sense at all,” Gustavo said. “Oh my god. You should be ashamed of yourself. Are we done now?”
“Yes. No! How do I talk to him and make him be my friend?”