Maybe use some Mitchum, maybe some Right Guard?
Maybe some Secret? Cuz I got a secret, you stink.
P.S. P.U.!
Say it with me! P.S. P.YOU!
I fucked this old lady one time.
I fucked this old lady.
Philanthropist.
She was so old her eggs were rushing down to meet the sperm. It was like the man who never came to dinner.
I opened her legs and it was like CAVIAR?
This bitch is classy.
Who’s got a cracker?
Can someone get some champagne up in this bitch?
HEY!
I’m Drivin’ Miss Daisy.
My mom was just in the Senior Olympics. Who cares?
You want this?
There’s a line to get in it. I’m like McDonald’s—over 100 billion served.
Boom!
Hey, I think this is going pretty well for a first date. You wanna come up to my place? BOOM!!
Coney Island
Tanner Efinger
A MAN, mid-30s to 40s
A MAN gets on the subway.
A MAN Excuse me. Wow. Crowded! Pardon me. Pardon me.
[He holds on to the railing above him and smiles at the woman who is sitting down near him.]
Excuse me. Do you know if this goes to Coney Island? It does. Oh good. All the way to the end of the line. Got it. All the way to the end!
[He laughs at that. Beat.]
It’s my first time. To Coney Island—not riding a subway. I’ve done that before. Lots . . . I’ve always wanted to go. Since I was a little boy. Have you been?
Oh sorry. You’re reading.
[Beat. Another passenger bumps into him.]
Excuse me. [Smiles at the passenger.] I’m going to Coney Island today. I saw a picture of the Ferris wheel when I was a kid and I imagined sitting at the top, looking over the water and wondering if I could see the North Pole. You can’t, obviously. I mean I know that now. You can probably see the Bronx or something, right? Or Staten Island? I don’t actually know much about New York geography. Or maybe you can’t see anything. Just water as far as the eye can see.
Oh, this is your stop. Okay. Excuse me . . . Bye!
[Another Beat. He looks at the woman reading her book. He smiles at her.]
You can’t put off your dreams, you know! I’ve learned that the hard way. If you want to go to Coney Island, you should go. Right? Because suddenly your thirty-seven with a wife and a three-year-old living in Ohio. OHIO!
How did I end up in Ohio?
Is it a good book? I haven’t read it. I haven’t read very much in the past decade, to be honest. I should read more. And drink more water. And go to church. Quit smoking. I know I should . . . but Life, man! Am I right about that? Life!
[Beat.]
I left them, you know. I left my wife and my three-year-old. Her name’s Thomasina. My daughter.
Come with me to Coney Island! I know it sounds crazy. We barely know each other—okay, we don’t know each other—but have you ever been before? See! You’ve never been and you’ve never gone on the Coney Island Ferris wheel.
Come on, I’m offering you a day of adventure. Let’s do something crazy. We’ll ride the Ferris wheel, have a Coney Island hot dog—I hear they are infamous—for being big, or particularly hot doggy, or something.
And then let’s get a hotel.
With two separate beds!! I didn’t mean that. Really, I didn’t. I meant that we could disappear from the world for one night. And we’ll tell each other secrets and prank call the lobby and fill up the ice bucket for no reason whatsoever. I wonder if they have a candy machine. A candy machine. Can you imagine that?
I know it’s silly. I know. I’ve got my kid and you’ve got your . . . book.
All the way to the end of the line.
[Another passenger bumps into him.]
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
Baseball
Rachel Raines
TONY, 18 to 25
TONY is addressing his attorney.
TONY Okay, so here’s the thing. I wanted to do it. I mean that, I WANTED it the way all children want things, like, really really intensely wanted to play baseball. I wanted it so goddamn bad I was willing to kill myself over it.
I played like crazy. Every day I got home, got my shit, my ball, my glove, and if my dad wasn’t back from work, I threw a ball against the side of the garage until he got home. (Mom never woulda let me bounce that fucker off the house, woulda ruined the siding. I don’t know anything about siding and I doubt my dad cared, but Mom did and that was that.) He got home and we “played catch.” I think that’s so fucking funny to say now, we “played catch.” Because, yeah, technically that’s what we were doing. But come on, kids play catch. Little Leaguers play fucking catch. I was training. Even when I was a Little League little shit, I was always training. By the time I was in seventh grade, I had to stop practicing as much because the doctor actually told my mom I was gonna blow out my shoulder.
In seventh grade.
I was twelve fucking years old. That’s how intensely I wanted this. I was seriously gonna be a ball player and there was no backup plan. My folks actually banned me from playing. They said “just for the summer.” So ya know what I did? I hopped the fence of the field and played anyway. Ran the bases. Sprints, ya know? But I got caught. I actually got caught a couple of times, and there is nothing better than watching a spare tire jiggle away on some rent-a-cop trying to keep up with you when you have been doing sprints for an hour. One day I came home and my mom noticed a big fucking tear in my shorts. I felt like an asshole . . . I had caught them on the fence running from a guard with a beer gut bigger than my parent’s wraparound porch. I had to lie to Mom and I was scared shitless for a few days that he would show up. I didn’t know then, that tubby bitch was more embarrassed than I was.
I don’t have a lot going for me, even then I didn’t. I wasn’t, ya know, “promising.” Like, there was this kid on the team when I was, shit, like sixteen or something, and he was fucking magic at chemistry. He awed people in class with that shit. He was the dick that did the “volcano” project but made goddamn Funyuns erupt from the top as a surprise. And he was a damn good shortstop, never missed a catch. That kid could be somebody. Point is, he was promising. He coulda done something even if he hadn’t done ball. Fuck man, I even remember the guy they rotated in for him, that kid always missed shit. Like, constantly let hits fly through his legs. It got to a point where other teams knew to swing low ’cause if they popped one off close to the grass, he was gonna fucking miss it. Guaranteed, they’d get somebody on first. That dick let a ball pop between his knees one day when he was making the jack off symbol to the third baseman ’cause he had told him he’d fucked his sister. Kids, ya know? And that kid teaches fucking English or something now. I was never gonna do anything other than pitch. That was it for me.
So I played some college ball, but the fact was even though I was really fucking good, I just didn’t get seen. I was constantly gettin’ that glazed-over, unimpressed shit look from scouts. I dunno why. Still don’t. I was good. Really really good. My batting average was better than anyone’s.
Ya don’t realize it’s over until it’s over. My grades tanked, no one was interested in recruiting me, and suddenly, fuck, cut from the team. Dropped out. So yeah, I was pissed. Really pissed. But ya gotta understand, I was pissed for a reason. There was literally nothing else I wanted to do.
So there, that’s it. I tried to smash the goddamn coach’s knee with a bat and he fucking deserved it. I thought about it first . . . I used a wooden bat for less damage. He would heal, and you can still coach with a busted fucking knee. Scout after scout never noticed me and I know it was him because I was really really good. He never pla
yed me when the big guys came through. He constantly pulled me right when I was hitting my stride. He told me to “take it easy.” Are you fucking kidding me? Why would I want to become some pudgy fucking asshole like him? So I did it. I feel bad, felt bad when it happened, but I don’t regret it. I’m not a monster, but I got a sense of fucking justice, ya know?
He tackled me. It fucking sucks to say, but he did. I was crouching, which I thought would give me the advantage but it didn’t. He saw, he tackled. So next fucking thing I know, three goddamn cops have me pinned ass up to the ground and I suddenly realize if this shit gets photographed and put on the goddamn Internet, I am gonna look like some ass-up dumb-ass.
Which, of course happened.
It didn’t help I was high and holding a burrito.
Three Minutes
Meryl Branch-McTiernan
AARON ANDREWS, 29
AARON ANDREWS, athletic, is talking to a friend on the phone at his girlfriend’s Brooklyn apartment.
AARON Three minutes is a long time. When you’re waiting in line at the post office with a Vietnam vet behind you muttering to himself, or watching Portugal tie with the U.S. in the final three minutes of the World Cup game, or walking through an ally in Harlem at night, it’s a long time. But waiting three minutes for Gina’s pregnancy test to determine the rest of my life is interminable.
We bought the test at Duane Reade this morning. Or actually, I bought it. I insisted. Making our way down the Family Planning aisle, I looked across at the feminine hygiene section for the first time. From the look of it, owning a vagina required as much maintenance as owning a car. We debated the merits of each test and decided to go with the cheapest one. Gina’s period was only a week late. If it didn’t come for another few days, maybe it was worth the splurge.
One pregnancy test and one six-pack of Coors Light. I smiled at the cashier and said “Thank you, Belinda.” I’d never called a cashier by her name before. Somehow it seemed appropriate today. And I wondered what Belinda thought of us. If she had kids of her own. If she assumed we were a happy couple who wanted to hear the news that we were pregnant. That a positive test would be a cause for celebration, a chance to whip out special cigars saved from our wedding.
Belinda didn’t know that Gina and I weren’t married. We had started dating three months ago after meeting at a friend’s party. At first, I thought maybe she was the one. She was smart and pretty with cleavage that I could poke all night. Neither of us had dated anyone for a while and we were both kind of hoping to find that person who would be our plus one at the billion weddings that thirty-year-olds had to budget for.
Last week, it sunk in. We weren’t growing closer. After we spent the first couple months telling each other our childhood stories and our pet peeves, we ran out of topics to talk about. We watched My Cousin Vinny together. A classic she’d never seen. She didn’t laugh. I looked at her face when Joe Pesci came out in his orange suit. Not even a smirk, a smile, nothing. She always looked bored. Even when we were having sex. Especially when we were having sex. The only time she smiled was when she scrolled through her Facebook feed. I was gonna break it off on Tuesday. And then she texted me and told me she had missed her period. I made a bad joke about how that was a problem, since she was an editor. She found that less funny than Joe Pesci.
After we bought the test, I suggested we stop for bagels. She was in a rush to get home. I was in a rush to turn back time. So we went back to her apartment, which always had the faint scent of cat litter. It made me sad. When I met her, I thought I would save her from being just another thirty-year-old cat lady. But now I didn’t want to save her. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her cat or her ovaries. I just wanted to go to Prospect Park and play soccer with the guys. If this was the consequence of sex, I wanted no part in it.
We opened up the test together. I read the instructions carefully, like it was a new board game, with challenging rules to be mastered. “Well, I guess I’ll go pee now,” she said. I asked her if she wanted me to join her in the bathroom. We didn’t have that kind of relationship, but I wondered if the circumstances changed things. “I’ll be fine,” she said. I cracked open a beer, and asked if she wanted to chug it. To get the juices flowing. She shook her head and I wondered if that meant she was keeping the baby. If there was a baby.
There was no way she could raise my son in this tiny studio. He’d choke on cat toys and stumble over empty bottles of flavored Absolut. Not that my place was a better option. My three roommates were not into joining the Babysitter’s Club. Why was I already calling it my son? I guess I’d always wanted a son.
When I grew up.
But I forgot to grow up. My father’s accountant still does my taxes. I’d never bought my own car. Or had a threesome. It is way too soon to be a dad.
Three minutes has ruined my life.
So, I guess this ten-minute wait for a table isn’t so bad . . .
The Rise of Everyone, the Fall of Me
Jeff Passino
JEFF, 27
JEFF is an aspiring writer who is living in Los Angeles but working way outside the industry he wants. He has always taken a more passive approach to his life, but as all of his friends finally start having noticeable successes in their lives, JEFF has to learn to put his all into what he wants in order to dig himself out of the hole he now finds himself in. The setting is JEFF’s apartment.
JEFF There’s one phrase I always heard growing up. From my mom, dad, teachers—other adults who, evidently, had no idea what to say to me. They’d say, “Jeff, you’ve got so much potential.” Sweet thing to say. Of course, they’d never elaborate on it. I mean, potential what? A potential first-round draft pick . . . good. Potential serial killer . . . not gooder. And my mom, especially, would tell me she doesn’t care what I do with my life as long as I’m happy. Which is one of those things a mother will say to you over and over as you are growing up, but then as soon as you are making decisions for yourself it quickly turns into, “Oh. So you’re not going to finish college then? You’d rather move across the country to Los Angeles. Well that’s just fantastic.”
Now I’ve always been a reasonably happy guy. And the last five months? Fantastic. A steady job, the most incredible girlfriend. Of course, it’s not like the job is actually IN the career that I want . . . And Karen has been pretty busy the last few weeks with auditions. So, do I exaggerate to make myself look better than I am? Yes, maybe. But just because I want to be perceived as a happy and therefore likable guy, and just because I may not be as carefree as I would like you to believe (as I would like to be), that doesn’t, necessarily, mean I am not a happy and likable guy. And you will notice I did say “reasonably” happy, so I am not completely trying to be misleading. Hey, I’m someone who will post a picture of me bored at jury duty on Facebook so that it doesn’t look like my life is all fun parties and beautiful hikes in Griffith Park. Admittedly, it took about twenty selfies before I got a “bored” picture I was happy with posting, but . . . uh. I feel like I’m straying away from the point I was trying to make, which was . . . what was I saying? I may potentially have ADD. Oh yeah, my job, Karen.
Just because I hope that things can always get better or progress does not mean I’m not appreciative of what I have. How many double negatives did I just use? Like I am aware that I live in a nice apartment. It is very spacious, rent controlled, and in a safe neighborhood. But I’m also aware my roommate is a complete weirdo. I know what I have and when I have a good thing. Or had. I swear I’m not a pessimist! My life is going to shit.
See, I just turned twenty-seven, which I would have assumed was too young for a midlife crisis, but evidently not. And so now, more than ever, I need to live up to whatever that “potential” is. That’s if I even have any potential, ’cause if not . . . how do you tell your mother she’s a liar?
Therapy Breakup
Gina Nicewonger
GRANT, late 20s or 30s
GRANT wears his heart on his sleeve and thinks every girl is “the one.” However, he’s never had a real relationship for longer than a year. He’s broken it off with many girls. GRANT thought therapy might help in his search for love, so he started seeing Dr. Jill Mitchell over a year ago. He thinks his therapist is good at her job, but like all his romantic relationships, he believes he and the therapist are missing the “magic” needed to be effective. GRANT wants to follow Dr. Mitchell’s advice of “trying something different” and has come to her office to tell her in the only way he knows how he won’t be returning to therapy.
GRANT Listen, we need to talk. I know we always talk, but we need to really talk. Don’t you hate those words? They’re almost as bad as, “It’s not you. It’s me.” But in this case, it’s not you. It’s totally me.
[She speaks.]
I guess I can’t hide anything from you. I’m awfully sorry, but yeah, I’m breaking it off with you.
[Moved.] This is what makes it so hard. You know me so well. And you get me.
[She speaks.]
I know I didn’t have to come down here to tell you that we can’t be together anymore. I know. But come on. We’ve been seeing each other for four years. I’m a better guy than that.
[She speaks.]
[Smiling.] No, no, no. I DO understand that you’re my therapist and that our relationship is “strictly professional.” But, Dr. Mitchell, I don’t know if you understand how much you’ve helped me get through some really tough times.
[Laughs.] God. We’ve had some good times, haven’t we?
[She speaks.]
Jill, I’ve got to stop you right there. Is it okay if I call you Jill?
[She speaks.]
Stick with Dr. Mitchell? Fine. Dr. Mitchell, do you know I’ve been seeing you longer than I’ve seen any other woman? You’re so encouraging, but at the same time you see through all of my bullshit. And the best part thing: you always laugh at my jokes. God, I’m going to miss your laugh.
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