Stupid and Contagious

by Caprice Crane

  Then I get this idea. The bathroom! I take the elevator back upstairs to the eighth floor and head straight for the bathroom. The man is going to have to relieve himself at some point, right? I’ll just hang out in the bathroom and wait until he comes.

  So I’m sitting in a stall with not even a scrap of reading material, and I am bored. Not just bored . . . I’m doorman bored. This is a term I coined years ago when I had a summer job as a doorman in a fancy apartment building. Your job is to just sit there and wait for people to come in and out. But I worked on the off hours when people rarely came in or out. And I’d just sit there. And I’d try to entertain myself. Reading wasn’t allowed, so it was all down to the imagination. Back then I had it bad for Stephanie Seymour, so I’d just think about her all night. Of course, that would inevitably lead to extreme discomfort. So I’d try to clear my mind and think about nothing. Just sit there, doorman bored.

  I wait in my stall, and people come in and out. I peek out, but it’s never Schultz. It’s been an hour and thirteen minutes, and I’ve heard things and smelled things that I couldn’t even do if I tried.

  Two guys walk in, one after the next, and they start going on about some race:

  “Hey, are you still going down to Portland for the Nike Run Hit Wonder 10K?” the first guy says.

  “You kidding me? I wouldn’t miss it for anything! I’m a huge Tone-Loc fan.” This person is admitting this out loud?

  “Who else is playing?” the first guy asks.

  “Tommy Tutone, Flock of Seagulls, General Public, and a mystery band. And Devo is headlining,” the second guy says. What’s this? Devo? Devo certainly had more than one hit, and they are not especially connected to the running world, so I don’t understand why they’re going to be playing. Why not get Bob Seger? Not a one-hit wonder either, but at least he was all about running “Against the Wind.”

  “Devo just doesn’t get the respect they deserve,” I find myself saying out loud, and then I actually cover my own mouth with my hands to physically shut myself up. Neither of the two responds, but they both make pretty hasty exits.

  A few minutes later someone else walks in. He gets in the stall next to me and sits down. I recognize the shoes. It’s David Spade. I actually hold my breath because I don’t want him to know I’m in here. I’m sitting here turning purple, but I don’t hear any action on his behalf. Not that I want to hear the guy do his business, but I just find it odd that he’s not doing anything. I’d suggest he eat some bran, but I don’t want to blow my cover.

  “Just so you know . . . we know you’re in here and have known since you came in,” he says.

  “Are you talking to me?” I ask, not in the De Niro way, but in an innocent who, me? way.

  “Yes, you.”

  I come out of my stall, and so does he. “How’s it going?” I ask. Totally nonchalant. I notice that there are two security guards standing at the door as well.

  “Listen . . . I understand this is important to you,” David says.

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “But the thing is . . . even if I wanted to let you back there to see him . . . it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” he says, “Mr. Schultz is in Barcelona at the Global Food Business Summit.”

  “Barcelona . . . Spain?”

  “No, Barcelona, Rhode Island,” he says.

  “He’s out of the country?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you let me sit here for over an hour?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I ask in bewilderment.

  “I don’t know,” he says, like he genuinely doesn’t. And it comes out so matter-of-fact that I want to punch him in the face.

  “You’re an asshole,” I say. Obviously not the right thing to say, because as soon as I say it, the two security monkeys grab me and drag me out. They escort me into the elevator, and just as the doors are almost closed, that Spade wannabe sticks his arm out and stops the door. It opens up again to reveal the smug little prick standing there with his arms now crossed.

  “Oh, and by the way . . .” he says. “Mr. Schultz has his own private bathroom here, so even if he was in the office . . . you never would have actually had your little toilet conference.” And he turns and walks away. Just as the doors are closing again, I hear him say, “Who’s the asshole now?”

  He won. The little bastard won.

  When I get to the lobby I see Heaven and Strummer right outside waiting for me. As I come outside, she can tell by the look on my face—and the two security guards attached to either side of me—that things didn’t go as intended.

  “Did you at least get to see him?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Did you get to see anyone?”

  “Yes, his receptionist. And, of course, the coffee teamsters,” I say, motioning at the two men who just tossed me at Heaven.

  “You were there an awfully long time,” she says.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “All . . . righty, then.”

  “What about you? I hope you had a better time than I did?”

  She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Well, I had an interesting one. Educational . . .”

  “Do tell . . .”

  “I learned that cat piss glows in the dark. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah, me either,” she says. I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff. Her mind . . . it’s like I’ve come upon this secret vault that science will someday discover—or probably never discover. Which is fine by me. Kind of like when there’s a band I really like but nobody knows about them. I want people I like to hear them, but when the whole world jumps on the bandwagon I get pissed. Because I found them first. Unless, of course, it’s one of my bands . . . in which case the world is more than welcome to jump. But Heaven . . . I’d prefer it if nobody else jumps on her.

  Heaven

  Brady and I grab lunch at this place called Honey Hole Sandwiches, which sounds slightly pornographic, but supposedly they make a mean sandwich. It has sort of a gothic bayou theme with a full bar that looks like a run-down bayou shack of sorts. The people that work here are friendly and seem to really enjoy making sandwiches.

  After lunch Brady changes out of his nice(r) shirt and throws on his old CBGB T-shirt. We get back into the car and drive over to the Convention Center, but there’s nothing going on.

  “Hmm . . . that’s strange,” I say. “I guess it’s not as big a deal as I expected.”

  “Guess not,” Brady says.

  “Then let’s just go to Viretta Park,” I say. “It’s right across the street from his old house.”

  “Lead the way,” he says, and I pull out our map of Seattle as we drive to pay our respects to Kurt.

  When we get to the park, which is right across from Kurt’s old house, I get chills as soon as we pull up. The neighborhood is extremely nice. Really big houses. Obviously an exceptionally wealthy neighborhood.

  I think we’re both surprised by how few people are there. It’s certainly not empty, but it’s not the thousands upon thousands of kids that were at the Seattle Center ten years ago. Then again, those kids are now grown up and probably have better things to do. We park the car and walk onto the grass.

  There are two hippie guys, stoned out of their minds and stinking of patchouli oil, leaning up against a tree. One of them looks at Brady and scoffs.

  “Hey, Trendy Wendy,” he says.

  “Trendy Wendy?” Brady says back, not sure what his deal is.

  “Yeah, Trendy Wendy,” he says and points at Brady’s CBGB T-shirt. “Where’d you get that shirt . . . at the mall?”

  “I’m from New York. And I got it in New York—where I live.”

  “Poser,” the stoner says.

  “Um . . . no. I live in New York,” Brady says.

  “Just ignore him,” I say.

  “Oh, no
w you’re the voice of reason?” Brady says to me.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Fine,” he says, because he knows I’m right. And any other day, in any other place, I’d have told the kid to fuck off myself. But not today. Not here.

  There are people sitting on the grass, leaning up against the trees, playing guitar and singing Nirvana songs. The bench seems to be an altar. Kids have come here for the last ten years and scrawled messages to Kurt on it, but today it is overloaded with a bunch of candles, flowers, and pictures of Kurt. There are also poems and letters written to Kurt, and there are even a couple Teen Spirit deodorant sticks on the bench, which I think is pretty clever. The kids are singing “All Apologies.” As I stand by the bench looking at the makeshift altar, having my own private moment, a tear forms in my eye. I can’t help it.

  We get to talking to a few of the kids, and I meet a girl who came out here with her mother from Kansas. Just for this. She tells me that they happened to meet Kurt’s grandfather earlier in the day, and he invited them over to his house for tea. He actually gave the girl a few childhood pictures of Kurt. That’s a pretty cool story—and keepsake.

  What strikes me, actually, is the age of these kids. The people you would think make sense being here aren’t the majority. The majority are younger. There’s a little girl in a Nirvana T-shirt who can’t be more than thirteen years old, which means that she was three when Kurt died. And they don’t seem like depressed or fucked-up kids. They seem like good, intelligent kids who just love the music. They relate to it because they think that Kurt was real. And he was. A lot of people are crying. Others just sit quietly, drinking their coffee. What’s weird is everybody here has a cup of Starbucks coffee.

  Then this idiot comes from out of nowhere. It’s been pretty peaceful so far, but he’s some local cable access TV host who’s got all kinds of conspiracy theories about Kurt’s death. He starts screaming all of this crazy shit . . . rattling off statistics, pointing the finger at Courtney Love, and just making a giant fuss. He has one camera pointed at the crowd and another one attached to his hip, so he can also tape himself. He’s making a scene, and it’s really uncomfortable.

  “Get out of here!” one kid yells.

  “It was all a cover-up!” he yells back. “You’re all content to sit here and cry, but none of you are doing anything to fix it! What have you done for Kurt?” He starts to follow some of the kids around with his camera, shouting in their faces. When he picks on some poor fourteen-year-old and actually pokes him, Brady steps in front of him.

  “Dude, chill out,” Brady says. “These people came here to pay their respects to Kurt. They don’t need you screaming in their faces.”

  “Courtney’s own father thinks she did it!” he yells.

  “Shut the fuck up,” says the hippie dude that was calling Brady “Trendy Wendy” ten minutes earlier. It’s true. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, and Brady and hippie guy, along with everyone else, are now on the same side.

  “You’re all accomplices then! Murderers!” the wacko yells.

  “Listen,” Brady says, and he suddenly gets in the guy’s face. “There are a lot more of us here than you. If you don’t take your little cameras and your big mouth and get the fuck out of here, we will tear you apart limb from limb, and then come back here ten years from now and celebrate your death.”

  Everybody starts cheering, and the hippie guy actually hugs Brady. Then everybody goes back to playing songs and singing along.

  I walk back over to the shrine and notice a sign that someone made and put under the bench. It reads DON’T FORGET LAYNE STALEY. He was the lead singer of Alice In Chains, another Seattle band. Layne died of a heroin overdose two years ago this month (bad month for Seattle rock stars) at the age of thirty-four. And almost as soon as I notice the sign I see a three-legged dog walking over to the vigil. I swear to God, this is true. It freaks me the hell out because the cover of one of Alice In Chains’s records had a picture of a three-legged dog. The only difference is that the dog on the album cover was missing a front leg, and this dog is missing a back leg, but it’s almost like a sign. Like Layne is here with us, too. Or maybe he’s with Kurt, and they’re both okay.

  “What’s with all of the Starbucks cups?” Brady says when he notices that there’s actually a table full of canisters of Starbucks coffee and coffee cups. “It’s like they’re here to mock me.”

  “The dude who owns Starbucks lives right up there,” I hear someone say, and Brady and I both turn around.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brady says.

  “I shit you not. Howard, I think, is his name. I come here all the time to pay my respects to Kurt. I’ve met him. He’s really cool. He donated all the Starbucks coffee for anyone who was going to show up here today.”

  “What house?” Brady asks.

  “First house to the right,” the kid says, pointing.

  “Un-fucking-believable,” Brady says.

  “You need to go over there,” I say to Brady. “You must. I mean . . . you absolutely must. This is fate!”

  “That is kinda weird.”

  “Totally. You were psychically brought to this spot.”

  “Wow,” Brady says. “Thanks, Kurt.”

  “Go over there,” I urge.

  Brady turns to the kid, “That house right up there?”

  “Yup,” the kid says. Brady looks at me, runs to the car, grabs his proposal and a baby bottle, and takes off toward the house.

  I walk back to where the kids are sitting in a circle, singing.

  “Can’t believe it,” some girl says. “Dead at twenty-seven. Too young.” And I’m once again reminded of my fear. I still haven’t found a husband. I haven’t even gone on a date. Unless you count Darren the other night, but we didn’t even go out to dinner. I start to get anxious and try to push it out of my mind. I don’t want to think about this right now. Or the fact that my professional career in PR is a fading memory. Or that I can’t even hold down a fucking waitressing job, let alone a serious relationship. And I’m going back to . . . what?

  I try to quiet the inside of my head and just be here. Where it’s calm, and people are singing and remembering Kurt. But they start singing “Something in the Way,” and my brain starts replaying my breakup with Darren and the two failed mini-relationships I had after Darren. And then it fast-forwards into all these little movies—little full-color vignettes of all the stupid things I’ve ever said or done. Maybe it’s giving me examples of why I’m still single? Why I’m unemployed? Why nothing is going my way? Maybe it’s all my fault.

  But wait—fuck that! I’m single because I’m picky. I’m single because I’m not going to settle. Yes, I’ll find a job, but not just any job. And yes, I need to get married relatively soon or I will die, but I still will not settle. It’s not all my fault. Stop the tape.

  “ I guess we’re playing for keeps now. I guess the kidding around is pretty much over, huh?”

  —Carl Spackler, Caddyshack

  “But how can you be sure?”

  —Buttercup, The Princess Bride

  Brady

  I walk up to Schultz’s house and my Y chromosome kicks in immediately. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, I start comparing his house to my would-be millionaire’s mansion. This place is impressive and everything. But I’d have at least five cars out front—just like any self-respecting rap star does. And I’d have someone there making sure they are waxed to perfection. Daily. I know . . . I’ve seen too many episodes of MTV Cribs. But you know what you don’t see on those MTV Cribs episodes, where they flaunt famous people’s wealth? Moats. When I make my money I am going to build a moat in front of my house. Just because. Because someday when Howard Schultz and I are hanging out, shootin’ the shit, doing those things that guys do—rating supermodels, berating pro-sports coaches, debating who has more hair—I’ll always have my moat. My trump card. Oh yeah, Schultz? Well, you don’t have a moat! Take that!

  Just as
I’m standing there nodding this very self-satisfied, moat-having nod, I’m snapped out of it when a gardener walks onto the property and leaves the gate wide open. Now I’m not a person who believes in signs and all that. But if Heaven were standing here, she would insist that that was a sign. And that I am supposed to just walk in behind the gardener. So I do.

  Okay, the guy may not have a moat, but his house is pretty fucking nice. I don’t know exactly what to do here, so I just start walking up the lawn with my proposal. And that’s when I hear this shrill Mexican woman’s voice come out of nowhere.

  “What you want?”

  I don’t even know where to look, but I answer like I’m talking to Oz.

  “I just . . . have something for Mr. Schultz,” I say as I raise the proposal and baby bottle over my head to show that indeed I have something.

  “Mr. Schultz no home. You no invited! You trespassing! I call the police!”

  “No, no need for that!” I say, still wondering whether she’s invisible, or perhaps communicating through some tiny speakers implanted throughout the lawn.

  “I call police NOW!” she says, and I hear a snap. At first my panicked brain thinks it’s a gunshot. But no, it was more like a door slamming shut. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she means business. And then there’s the matter of the gardener striding toward me with a menacing look in his eye and an enormous metal lawn rake in his hand—so I take off across the lawn, through the gate, and down the hill over to where Heaven is talking to a couple of little kids.

  I’m out of breath when I reach her, and I bend forward with my hands on my knees and just pant for a few seconds. Strummer comes over and licks me on the face.