Eating My Feelings

by Mark Rosenberg

  “I’m going back to the store to get another thing of mix.”

  “But, there are like two feet of snow on the ground right now,” Sally said.

  “I want brownie sundaes, goddamn it.”

  “You wouldn’t get me fried chicken, but you will go out in two feet of snow to get brownie mix?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well you can go, but I’m not leaving.”

  “Fine.”

  I put on everything I owned and walked out the door. I trudged through two feet of snow and back to the store (which hardly had anything in it, thanks to the mass hysteria caused by the snow) to retrieve brownie mix. When I returned, Sally was sprawled out on her bed with crumbs all over her chest.

  “Thank God you’re back, I was getting worried,” Sally said as she got up.

  “It’s miserable outside. I never want to leave this apartment again.”

  We made our brownie sundaes and lay about in our own filth for the next two days. When Monday came, I got up and had a message from my boss telling me that work was optional that day because there had been so much snow. I loved not having to go into work, but as I looked around my apartment, I had a realization. My life had turned into a real-life Grey Gardens. I had been living in filth for the last three-odd days. There were chicken bones and pizza boxes all over the place. The trash hadn’t been taken out for days and there was crap everywhere. I looked around and realized that this was it. This was what I had imagined my adulthood to be all along. I was thrilled to be living in filth, and continued to lay around with Sally for the remainder of the day.

  Happiness, however, never lasts forever. The two of us could only live in filth for so long before it was time to grow up. After living together for two years, Sally and I left La Boulaie. I was sad to go, but the place was honestly a shit hole and it was time to move on. I’m sure every deliveryman on the Upper East Side misses us, and the fact that we put them all in a new tax bracket, even if only for a few months.

  ALL SHOOK UP

  There’s something about other people’s bodily fluids that haunts our heroine. For one reason or another, people with either incontinence or acid reflux problems seem to find Mark in mysterious ways. On one particular summer day in 2005, Mark was pushed too far when a demon child found her way into Mark’s life and changed it forever.

  All throughout college, I had the good fortune of handing out flyers at the half-price theater ticket booth in the middle of Times Square. It was my job to persuade unsuspecting tourists into seeing the shows that I promoted. It was pretty easy. For one reason or another the idiots who strolled into Times Square looking for theater tickets always listened to whatever I said and I was good at what I did. I took pride in the fact that I could convince moronic hillbillies from Alabama that Good Vibrations, the Beach Boys musical, was going to change their lives forever.

  During the summer of 2005 I was also working for a little Broadway show called All Shook Up. The show took twenty-five of Elvis Presley’s biggest hits and threw them into a Shakespeare-themed musical. I loved Elvis and I loved Shakespeare, so as far as I was concerned, this was quite possibly the greatest musical I had ever seen. I loved this show and told anyone who would listen to go and see it.

  One particularly hot summer day, a burly couple and their daughter who were looking for theater tickets approached me at the ticket booth. At first glance, I thought they were a lesbian couple, but as they got closer, I realized they were just poorly dressed.

  “Hello,” the man said. “We’re looking for tickets to The Phantom of the Opera.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because we want to see it,” he replied.

  “No, you don’t,” I said.

  “Yes, we do.”

  “No. You want to go and see All Shook Up, the Elvis musical. Trust me. You won’t regret it.”

  “What’s it about?” the woman asked.

  “Who cares? It’s Elvis. When a musical featuring the songs of Elvis is on Broadway, you go and see it.”

  “Whatever,” the man said. “How do we get tickets?”

  “You have to get in line,” I said as I gestured to the massive line of people waiting for tickets behind me. “It won’t take you more than forty-five minutes.”

  The man, his wife, and their daughter got in line. I noticed that their daughter looked particularly queasy. It was a super hot day out, one for the record books. When I decide I care about my fellow man, which is sporadic at best, I like to check out a certain situation to make sure everything is legit and everyone involved is operating properly. I wondered what was wrong with this poorly dressed couple’s child that made her look that way. I made my way through the tourists to find my new hillbilly friends.

  “HEY,” I yelled.

  “We know, we know. All Shook Up is going to be a life-changing experience—we got it.”

  “I’m not worried about that. I know you’re going to love the show. Everybody does,” I said. “I am concerned about your daughter.”

  “Why?” the man said.

  “She looks like she may be getting sick,” I replied. “It’s really hot out. Do you want me to grab her a bottle of water or something?”

  “She’ll be fine,” the woman said. “We just got in today and she had a big lunch. She’s probably just tired and needs to nap. We’ll go back to the hotel after we get our tickets, but thanks for your concern.”

  I looked at the little girl deep in her eyes. He appearance was reminiscent of what that little bitch from The Bad Seed looked like. Besides that, this young lady, who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, looked like she was turning a shade of yellow. It almost looked like she had a severe case of jaundice. Having just gone through this with Jessica on One Life to Live earlier in the year, I knew a bottle of water and a nap were exactly what this girl needed.

  I ran across the street to the deli, leaving my coworkers to fend for themselves, and grabbed a bottle of water for my new friend. It happens about quarterly, and when something horrible happens at the half-price ticket booth I feel as though it’s my duty to correct the wrongs of Times Square. I also saw a lot of myself in this little girl. She was overweight, poorly dressed, and had two spastic parents. If she had an affinity for Susan Lucci, I would have thought she was my intellectual equal. I brought the bottle of water back to the little girl.

  “Thank you, but that was not necessary,” the woman said.

  “Well, she looks a little yellow in the face,” I replied.

  The little girl took the bottle of water and chugged it down as if she was fighting off some sort of bad hangover. Her parents watched in awe.

  “Cindy, are you all right?” the woman asked.

  “I’m okay, Mom,” Cindy said.

  I watched as Cindy then began to shake uncontrollably. Normally, I would have lost interest in what was going on and left to smoke a few cigarettes and get a Pop-Tart, but I felt connected to Cindy. Suddenly, her face went from yellow to green.

  “I think you guys should skip the show and get little Cindy here out of the heat. What do you say?” I said.

  “She’s going to be fine. Don’t worry about it. We can take it from here,” the woman said. I began to walk away in hopes that my beloved Cindy wouldn’t meet her maker in line to get theater tickets. I mean I loved All Shook Up as much as the next guy, but I wasn’t willing to die to get tickets. Or was I?

  “Wait!” Cindy said as she grabbed the back of my shirt.

  I turned around and bent down to meet Cindy at her level. She was such a little cutie. As I looked at her, I could see her face was turning from green back to a healthy yellow.

  “Thank you,” Cindy said.

  “Awww … you’re welcome, honey,” I replied.

  “Thank you for the …” She paused.

  Suddenly, I could see something well up inside of her. As Cindy tried to finish her sentence, she literally could not talk. It was as if the devil was inside of her. Perhaps she was the
little girl from The Bad Seed live and in person.

  “Thank you for the …” She paused again. Her parents looked at her. Being on Cindy’s level, I looked up at her parents. When I tilted my head back to meet Cindy’s eyes, she opened her mouth and projectile-vomited all over my face.

  “OH MY GOD!” I yelled.

  Her mother looked horrified, but I think her father may have been chuckling.

  “WHAT THE FUCK?” I screamed. “What the fuck is wrong with your daughter?”

  “I think she may have eaten too much at the Olive Garden,” her mother said. Why tourists continue to eat at the Olive Garden when there are so many amazing Italian restaurants in New York is still beyond me.

  “I’m feeling much better, Mommy,” Cindy said.

  I gave them the finger and hailed the first cab I could find.

  “Thirty-fourth and Eighth, please. As fast as you can get there!” I yelled.

  The Persian cab driver turned around and looked at me.

  “What the hell happened to you?” he asked.

  “A child just threw up all over my face! Can you please focus on the road and take me home. NOW!” I yelled.

  “Oh, no, that’s horrible,” the cab driver said. “The smell of throw-up makes me want to throw up.”

  “OH GOD!” I yelled. “Please don’t.” Suddenly, I remembered that the smell of throw-up made me want to throw up as well. I sat in the back of the cab, covered in a little girl’s vomit, trying not to vomit myself. Because I was being personally tested that day, my possibly retarded cab driver took Ninth Avenue, which was bumper to bumper.

  “Is there any way we could move this along?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m trying to get you out of my cab as quickly as I can.”

  I concluded that it would be best if I got rid of everything I was wearing to try and get rid of the smell. I took my shirt off and threw it out the window.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” the cab driver yelled.

  “TAKING MY CLOTHES OFF!” I yelled.

  “You’re going to get me fined,” he said.

  “Well, it’s either that, or we both throw up all over the place.”

  The people in the cars next to me were looking in my cab as if I was putting on some sort of peep show. If only they knew what was actually going on. Damn Cindy and her Olive Garden-eating parents. I vowed revenge.

  After getting rid of my clothes, the cab still smelled like throw-up. I could tell my cab driver was now feeling the smell and was beginning to get nauseous himself. Come to think of it, I was feeling pretty sick as well. Our cab was still only on Fortieth Street. I was now not only covered in vomit but shirtless as well. It was too many blocks to walk. Meanwhile, the cab driver decided to roll down all of the windows in the cab to air out the smell, which, when you’re in a cab that’s going nowhere in 103-degree heat, only makes it worse.

  I was disgusted with myself. I double-checked my driver to make sure he was okay.

  “How’s it going up there, buddy?”

  “Don’t buddy me,” he said. “You smell like shit. You owe me fifty dollars. I am going to have to get my cab cleaned extra special now.”

  What I should have told him to do was fuck off. Instead, I gave him fifty dollars and told him to book it to my place as fast as he could.

  As we inched closer to my apartment, I thought I’d make it back to my place relatively unscathed. When we turned the cab onto Thirty-fourth Street, I felt relieved. I had almost made it home and neither the cab driver nor I got sick. As I reached into my other pocket to get my keys out, I stuck my hand into a pocket that was filled with vomit. Somehow, Cindy’s vomit had made its way into my pocket as well. That was enough to throw me off the edge.

  “I gotta get out! Now!”

  “I can’t pull over here,” he replied. I felt vomit welling up inside me. Before I could stick my head out of the window, I vomited all over the guarder between the cab driver and me. Had that plastic window not been up, the driver would have been covered in puke as well.

  “Goddamn it! Goddamn it! Goddamn it!”

  I jumped out of the car and began running, shirtless, back to my apartment building. I had already given the cab driver fifty bucks to clean his cab and felt that a thirty-five-dollar tip sufficed the fact that I had thrown up all over his car.

  “Mark,” said the doorman as he gave me the once-over. “Are you hammered right now?”

  “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” I replied.

  “It’s Saturday,” he said.

  “Oh, I didn’t think of that. I would tell you what just happened to me but you wouldn’t believe it.”

  I went up to my apartment and showered for two and a half hours.

  The next day, Cindy and her hillbilly parents swung by the half-price tickets booth to apologize. I did not accept the apology and told them that their daughter’s digestive tract had sparked a chain of events that cost me not only fifty dollars but a Diesel shirt, neither of which they were interested in reimbursing me for. Had I not once been that little girl who ate too much at the Olive Garden on a hot summer day, I would have been pissed.

  THE FLYER BOY FOLLIES

  After college was over, our beloved heroine found himself in quite the quandary. How was he supposed to support himself while trying to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a famous author? After waiting tables, telemarketing, and a brief foray in prostitution didn’t work, Mark found himself standing back in the middle of Times Square handing out flyers while being tempted by the evil seductions of every chain restaurant that ever existed. Will our champion Mark be able to survive his job and keep his dignity?

  When I published my first book, I was saddened to find out that I was still going to have work full time. Apparently, the Jackie Collins style of living I had hoped for was going to have to wait. Luckily I have a job handing out flyers outside of the half-price ticket booth in Times Square. The money is good, but since jobs are scarce, people get stuck working there for a long time. Meanwhile, Broadway is dying for the fourteenth time this year, and the only shows that any tourist wants to see are the wildly popular ones with big advertising budgets (Wicked, Jersey Boys, etc.). More than half of the tourists who come to the half-price ticket booth are looking for discounted tickets for sold-out shows, so it becomes my job to try and coax them into seeing one of the shows that I work for. This is a clear example of how capitalism continues to screw me. The following is a typical day at the half-price ticket booth. Welcome to hell.

  Wednesday, December 2

  8 a.m.: I wake up, brush my teeth, and take a shower. It’s Wednesday, so it’s a matinee day. Meaning there are two shows today and an eleven-hour day ahead of me.

  8:20 a.m.: I get dressed. First I put on two pairs of underwear; it’s going to be a cold day so I need to make sure my Johnson doesn’t freeze. Then I put on a pair of long johns, a pair of sweatpants, and a pair of jeans over that. Then I put on a T-shirt, two thermals, two hoodies, and a coat. Finally, I put on four pairs of socks. I put plastic bags over the socks before I put them into my shoes. It’s going to rain today so I need to make sure my feet don’t get wet; it’s a little trick I learned from a homeless man named Felix. Anyone watching as I attempt to put my shoes on over four pairs of socks and plastic bags would have had a stroke from laughing. I fall over twice, then realize that I look homeless as I glance in the mirror. No time to think of that now, I need to get to work.

  8:45 a.m.: After grabbing the biggest cup of coffee I can find, I put my earphones in and blast Britney Spears on my iPod. I need to get pumped for the day that lies ahead, and no one can do that better than Brit.

  9:30 a.m.: I arrive at work. The half-price ticket booth is located in the middle of Times Square, on Forty-seventh Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, and is surrounded on all sides by cars. Meaning I literally spend my day playing in traffic while handing out flyers. Not only am I handing out flyers in the middle of the largest intersection on the E
ast Coast, every fifteen seconds there is a toothless homeless person screaming for money or fourteen fire trucks zooming by blasting their sirens requiring me to scream over all of the noise to be heard. I thought there was a law against adding to the noise pollution in New York, but apparently I was wrong. By the time I’ve arrived, I am sweating my ass off from sitting on a subway car while wearing fourteen layers of clothes.

  9:31 a.m.: “Do you have tickets to Wicked?” I’m asked the first question of the day and am already annoyed. “I am sorry, ma’am, we do not sell Wicked tickets here, you have to go to the theater,” I reply. “Oh, you mean I have to pay full price?” What a concept.

  9:44 a.m.: I begin handing out flyers to the people in line. Today I am telling everyone to go see The 39 Steps, a rollicking comedy based on the Alfred Hitchcock film. I start working the line and a woman stops me. “Excuse me, sir,” she says. “Can you take this for me?” she asks as she hands me her garbage. “I am sorry, miss, but I am not a trash can,” I reply. “Well I don’t want it,” she says as she throws her garbage at me. Seriously? We’re going to play this game right now? I pick up the garbage that she just threw at me and throw it in her face. “Fuck you,” I reply. “Oh, and go see The 39 Steps,” I say as I throw a flyer her way.

  9:47 a.m.: I tell all of the other flyer people about the bitch who is coming their way. I have to repeat myself twelve times because a brigade of police cars roars past us causing a minor scene with the tourists who automatically think another terrorist attack is going down.

  9:59 a.m.: The little old ladies have come out in droves. They love matinees. It’s a chance for them to see the revival of Bye, Bye Birdie before they die … later that day. It’s not uncommon to hear things such as, “Gladys, remember when we saw the original South Pacific on Broadway? What a show!” or “Teddy Roosevelt—now that was a president.” And the best part about matinees is that all of the old women love me. I always remind them of a great-great grandson, so they naturally listen when I tell them to see the new revival of Finian’s Rainbow.