Hungry

by Daniel Parme

  “Those boxes – that’s all mail? For me?”

  “That’s what I told you, Travis. Good thing you finally got home, or I’d have started throwin’ ‘em out.” The man was frighteningly skinny, like someone had felt bad for a Halloween decoration, pulled it down from the door, and said, “Now be free!”

  Mr. Hanlon didn’t watch the news. Or read it. Or listen to it. He was skeptical of all things media. “That’s why kids are so stupid nowadays,” he’d say. “It’s because of all those idiots on the television telling lies. And the radio and newspapers, too. If it ain’t lies, it’s just propaganda. Or else there’s subliminal messaging in there. You can’t trust any of ‘em.”

  Mr. Hanlon knew nothing of the news, so he knew nothing of the accident. I didn’t have it in me to tell him, either. It wouldn’t have mattered much. He’d still have to fix my broken bathtub, and I’d still have to pay him the rent on time.

  “I gotta try to take a shit,” he said. “Get them boxes out of here, if you don’t mind too much. Don’t worry about locking the door.” And he left. To this day I still find myself hoping he had a successful shitting experience.

  I grabbed the boxes, three of them, and lugged them to the third floor. I set them on the floor, unlocked the door, and saw my apartment for the first time in what seemed like forever. It was exactly as I’d left it. Finally, something was the way it was supposed to be.

  Picasso and Dali prints on the wall, dishes clean and stacked neatly in the cupboards, blanket folded and atop the couch. Oh, it was comforting.

  I set the boxes on the kitchen table and went to take a shower. Then I took a nap. And, to me, this was incredibly exciting shit. It’s all about perspective.

  I woke up and looked at the clock. Five o’clock. Time to eat. To cook in my own kitchen, eat off my own dishes and wash them in my own sink.

  This was a Friday, and there’s really only one thing for a twenty-six year old man to do on a Friday night in this city: BAR. My bar of choice was in the South Side, on East Carson, down nearer the end of the strip, where most of the halter tops and frosted tips never managed to reach. My bar of choice was called the Lava Lounge; plaster stalagmites and -tites and painted lava running down the walls, threatening all the drinkers without volcano insurance. It wasn’t the nicest place in town, but I wouldn’t call it a dive, either. To be honest, I never really liked the place. But my friends did, and it’s not about where you are, it’s about who you’re with.

  I used to come here with Jason and Erica, and a few other friends, just about every Friday and Saturday night, and the thing about going to the same bar all the time is you get to know everyone else who’s in that bar all the time. It’s actually quite comforting, especially once you get to be good friends with the bartender. There’s just something about getting to the bar to find your drink waiting for you. And you didn’t even have to ask.

  I had to ask this night, though. This was a new bartender. And this new bartender made me wait a good five minutes before she closed her copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and asked what I’d like.

  I told her Woodford Reserve on the rocks, and she tilted her head a little and almost smiled. She had black, thick-rimmed glasses and large breasts that were hard not to notice, the way she made them bounce as she walked. Some women just know how to get your attention.

  “He went to Pitt, you know. Michael Chabon, I mean.” I put a ten on the bar.

  “Um. Yeah. No shit.” She picked up the money, but didn’t do anything with it. She just sort of sneered at me, but not altogether unpleasantly. “Says so in the bio.”

  Straight out of the gate I knew I wasn’t ready for this. This bitch was intense. “Where’s Causi? Doesn’t he work the weekends?”

  “He used to, but he moved. North Carolina, I think.” She scanned the bar, but it was still early, and no one needed anything. “Why?”

  “I used to come here all the time. That’s all.”

  She looked at me a little sideways. “Are you... Are you Travis?”

  I lit a cigarette. God, it felt good to be sitting at the bar, the burn of bourbon on the back of my throat, the rush of smoke past my lips. “Um, yeah. I’m Travis. I’m sorry, but have we met?” I wouldn’t say she was hot, exactly, but she was definitely sexy, and it’s hard to forget people who just reek of sex.

  “No. I don’t think we’ve met. I saw you on television the other day, in here, and some of the guys said they knew you. That you used to hang out in here.” She was still eying me, maybe. Maybe she just always looked at guys that way, like she was thinking dirty thoughts.

  I still wasn’t used to people recognizing me from television, but I have to admit, it's pretty fucking sweet. “Oh. Right. Yeah, I’m Travis. And you are?”

  “Virginia.” She held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you.” I tried to sound only vaguely interested. “When did you start?”

  She looked up at the neon-bordered Coors Light clock above the bar, which said eight twenty-one. “Four,” she said.

  I laughed. “No, no. I mean when did you start working here? Like what time of the year? You know?”

  She put her head down, laughing at herself. “Oh. About two months ago.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yeah. The money’s good. And most of the people are all right.”

  I knew a lot of the people who came into this bar, and some of them were not all right, so I asked, “And what about all those drunken assholes that constantly hit on you?”

  “I don’t mind them so much.” She took a shot of Jameson, “I know how to handle those kinds of guys. Most of them are just talk, and they know it.”

  We stalled out. I still wasn’t used to normal conversation. Everything had been about the accident and the recovery and the people-eating. I had trouble remembering how to keep a conversation afloat. “Yeah, well...”

  “What was it like? I mean, if you don’t mind, what was it like, being all alone for so long?” Thank god for bartenders and their conversational prowess.

  “It was lonely.” I took a sip of my drink. “And scary. And hard.”

  “I can’t imagine. Was it pretty? At night, I mean? All the stars had to be completely amazing.” It actually sounded like she was a little jealous.

  None of the interviewers ever asked me if it was pretty at night. I suppose it wouldn’t have made for good television.

  “Yeah. It was gorgeous at night.” I studied the burning end of my cigarette before dragging on it. “Actually, some nights it was so beautiful I almost forgot where I was.” I smiled for a moment, but then it was gone, and I drained my glass.

  “You ok?” she asked as she refilled it. “What’s the matter?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing really. It’s just sort of a shame that every time I see a sky full of stars, I’m going to be reminded of... well... you know.”

  “Oh. You mean your friends dying and you having to eat them and everything.”

  I laughed. It’s a defense mechanism. “Yeah. That’s what I mean.”

  We heard the door squeak open but paid no attention until, “Yeah, buddy!”

  It was Adam, all six-two of him and his long almost-red hair, blue jeans, cowboy boots, and vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt. He was all smiles as he and his smoke came towards me. “I see you’ve met Virginia. Hey.”

  “Hey, Adam. What can I get for you?”

  He ordered a Miller Light, told Virginia we’d see her in a little while, and we moved to a table along the wall, about halfway down the bar. A big table with bench seating.

  Adam and I had been roommates in college. Ah, college. We were a good match. He was a literature major, and I a creative writer, so there was always at least the potential for a decent and fairly intellectual discussion, unlike with most of the people I’d met at school. This, however, does not mean that the two of us ever shied away from all the healthy nights of drinking and smoking
and getting high and getting laid and overturning garbage cans and stealing beer from girls’ refrigerators and pissing on the front doors of the frat houses. We were, after all, college boys. We do what we do.

  Adam was the kind of guy who could say “righteous” and sound perfectly natural. He was also the kind of guy who most of us would love to look like, but he never understood the power of his good looks. Most importantly, though, he was the kind of guy who would feel so bad about dating one of your ex-girlfriends that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to talk to you for months afterwards. Hell of a guy, that kid, even if he was sort of a pussy.

  He lit the next link in his never-ending chain of cigarettes and drank half his beer. “What took you so long, man? Get lost or something?”

  “I took the scenic route, Adam.” I already felt comfortable. Or maybe it was more in sync, like when the windshield wipers and turn signal fall into step for that beat or two.

  “So how you doin’, brother? Good to be home, I bet.” Adam had a gift for hitting the nail on the head, which is more important than most people think.

  “Yeah, man. Good to be home. You have no idea how the thought of this stinking city can come close to giving you a hard-on. And man, coming in through the Fort Pitt Tunnels – you should have seen it.” I lit a smoke. “All right. Pirate game to the left, skyscrapers all lit up on the right. Only partly cloudy. And then the fireworks from the stadium just as I was coming out of the tunnels. Unbelievable, right? The timing? It was astounding, Adam. Astounding. Like the city was welcoming me home or something. I mean, I guess that sounds a little cheesy, but what are the chances, you know?” I think it was the first time I was able to string more than two or three sentences together since the rescue. Well, the first time it wasn’t about the accident, anyway.

  And, to Adam’s credit, he just let me ramble on, even if I did sound like a fucking idiot. “Wow, dude. That is sort of, uh, freaky.” He waved to Virginia, and then looked back at me. “So, how are you?”

  I could tell he meant the big how are you. “I don’t know, man. I –”

  “I’m sorry I asked, man. I just... I don’t know... I just figured you’d know I’m gonna want to know, so we could get it out of the way. Talking about it, I mean. I’m sure you’ve already talked about it more than enough, so if you don’t want to, that’s cool.” He fidgeted as he spoke – folded his napkin and unfolded his napkin, ashed his cigarette every couple seconds.

  “Adam. Come on. Of course we can talk about it. You think I don’t think you want to know? I mean, you’re my friend. You better want to know. If it happened to you, you’d better believe I’d want to know.” For a moment, an extremely brief and guilt-inducing moment, I wished it would have happened to him. And yes, I felt like a dick about it.

  Virginia brought two beers and another bourbon, set them on the table, and stood there too long to have merely been bringing our drinks.

  I looked up at her. “You want to hear about it, too?”

  Her face told me I was fucking stupid. Her mouth asked me, “Are you fucking stupid?”

  “Adam, give this girl a cigarette.”

  He tried, but she refused, and she sat across the table from me, next to Adam, who put the cigarette back into its pack and turned to me the way he used to turn to a professor at the start of class.

  I got as far into it as the plane clipping the summit of one mountain, splitting apart like a florescent bulb, and landing all over the side of another. I told them about the life flashing before your eyes thing being a total load of crap. I thought I was going to die, and I didn’t see my family or friends or my cat or my favorite childhood memories. All I saw was a mass of shit flying all around the cabin and smoke and snow and bodies and blood.

  Or maybe I just knew I was going to live.

  I was, in my story, just waking to realize my suddenly dire situation, when a group of blonde girls showed up at the bar. All the same height, same build. All the same hip-huggers and tiny purses.

  Adam let out one of those whistles that show up when you realize that a full tank of gas runs you thirty-two bucks, or when you see a man who’s nine feet tall. “You have customers, Virginia.”

  She looked at the girls and groaned. “Oh, shit. It’s like they came straight off the assembly line.”

  “Aren’t you going to serve them?”

  “Hell no. Not right now, anyway. Besides, they’re all going to want fucking apple martinis or something.” She was disgusted. “I fucking hate those girls. How do they even tell each other apart?”

  Adam was smoking and drinking and staring. “Maybe they don’t have to. Maybe they’re all clones of the same girl.”

  I was staring, too. “There’s seven of them, right? Maybe Hugh Hefner’s in town.”

  “What?” They both said it, and they both sounded confused.

  “He has seven girlfriends, and they’re all blonde and look a lot like those girls. I met him at NBC studios.” If you’ve never been able to drop famous names, I apologize. It’s a lot of fun.

  Adam sat up straight, making him a good three inches taller. “You met Hef? No way!”

  “Yeah. In the lobby when I first got there for Leno. He was doing some other show. He said he saw me on CNN. Hef watches CNN. Can you believe that shit?”

  Virginia crossed her arms over those spectacular breasts. “That’s ridiculous. What did you say to him?”

  “I said I was a big fan of the magazine. He said he was, too. Then he said he only eats people if they’re alive, female, and well-groomed. He was pretty funny. Anyway, he got my number at the hotel so he could have someone call to make travel arrangements.” I was back in the swing of things. Dictating conversation is easier than it should be. I suppose it just took a little booze to loosen me up.

  Adam bit first. “Travel arrangements?”

  “Yeah, man. He flew me to the Playboy Mansion for two days. Well, one really long day, really. Like I was going to sleep at the Playboy Mansion, right? And man, that place is crazy. All day and all night, those girls – that look a lot like the girls still waiting for booze – they were running around in bikinis and half of their bikinis and none of their bikinis. And food and drinks. And, apparently, it’s like that every day.”

  Virginia stood up. “Ridiculous.” She went to wait on the Barbie dolls.

  Adam leaned in. “Dude, did you nail a playmate?”

  I don’t know why I didn’t anticipate this question. I mean, I’d spent the night in Dionysus’ pool house, excess spilling out of the sinks and bath tubs and blooming in the gardens. The walls were built with nakedness and the foundations were solid sex. Of course I’d fucked a playmate. I was, after all, a celebrity, sort of.

  So how did I go about telling Adam that I did not, in fact, have sex with a Playboy Playmate? There were options. I could have said I was too busy telling everyone about the crash and partying and hanging out with the Hef, and it just never came up. Or I could have told him I passed out drunk in the garden, a bottle of Jack in my hand.

  Then there was the truth: all the malnourishment and stress and mental anguish had an adverse effect on the willingness of my dick to give a damn about anything. The poor little guy was depressed and spent all his time lying down. There was no coaxing him. He was perfectly comfortable all wrapped up in his lethargy.

  But none of this would do. Particularly not the impotency thing. “Of course I did, Adam.”

  “Righteous. You’ll have to show me which one.” Adam had been a subscriber for six years. Still had every issue. And, to the man’s credit, he really did read the articles.

  “I don’t know if I’ll recognize her. I mean, I was pretty ripped, and they all looked so much alike, you know?”

  “Awesome.”

  We sat and drank, watched as Virginia mixed seven drinks that are the reasons every bartender really ought to despise Sex and the City. Cosmopolitans and peach/mango martinis. Obnoxious.

  I was
thinking about the Playboy Mansion, this mythical land of bare breasts and total lack of inhibition. I felt, in some way, like I’d been to Atlantis and could tell of the golden streets and elegant men and women with their smiles and wealth of money and knowledge. I’d been to a place people have heard of, and maybe even imagined, but that couldn’t have really of existed. It’s impossible.

  But it’s not impossible. This is a real place. Acres and acres of well-kept lawns and gardens. Acres of filet mignon and Cristal. Acres of soft, golden hair, of soft, golden skin. A Neverland for those who dropped their innocence on the sidewalk and simply didn’t pick it back up.

  I was there, and then I wasn’t. The same as I’m no longer in high school or on vacation in Egypt. The same as I no longer speak to childhood friends or remember barely any of my five years of German. The story changes because the character changes. Or maybe it's the other way around.

  Even now, when I talk about the women and the nakedness, the partying, the gardens and the mansion, the details are a little different each time. They never stop changing. There’s nothing I can do about it.

  But let’s get back to Adam and me in the bar.

  “Duder, that place must have been incredible.” He was still stuck on it, too.

  “Yeah. But I couldn’t handle it all the time, especially now. I mean, I’ve had enough excitement to last the next decade or so, you know?” I caught my face pulling a somber moment, so I took a drink and asked him what had gone on since I left.

  We drank as he told me about the wedding of some old friends from school, and we drank some more as he told me random stories from parties and bar nights. “We’ve all just been working, drinking, and sleeping,” he said. “You know, same as always.”

  We were in the beginnings of a discussion about why it was that everyone we knew was in the same place they’d been since graduating college: small apartments, not quite full-time employment, and educational loans in deferment, forbearance, or default. It would have been a damned fine conversation, but it never had the chance to get going.