by S. G. Browne
I don’t know if it’s the intense look in his eyes or the way his fingers caress the surface of each vial or how his tongue occasionally flicks out to lick his lips, but I decide it’s time to share my concerns about his Ego usage.
“Hey Nat . . .”
“Yeah,” he says, without looking up.
“How’re you doing?”
“Great. Never been better.”
“Good,” I say, then I take a drink of my beer.
Neither one of us says anything for a couple of minutes. I’m trying to think of how to broach the subject, and clear my throat.
“Something on your mind, bro?” he says.
“No,” I say. “I mean, yeah, now that you mention it.”
Nat looks up at me. “Am I supposed to guess?”
I can hear the change in his voice. The cockiness. He’s more sure of who he is, which is a stark contrast to the insecure Nat I’ve known since we were kids.
“No. It’s just . . . I was thinking that maybe you . . . might have a little problem,” I say.
“What kind of problem?”
I point to the trays of Egos on the coffee table with my beer and give my eyebrows a single raise that says: what do you think?
He stares at me without immediately responding, then takes a sip of his beer. “Let me ask you a question.”
“Sure.”
“Do you have a problem with Egos?” he says.
For a moment I think he’s talking about the anomalies Angela found or about all the extra time I’ve spent testing the antidote for black market Egos, but then I realize that’s ridiculous. Nat can’t possibly know any of that. He’s just throwing my own question back at me to throw me off.
“No,” I say. “I don’t have a problem. But that’s not—”
“Then neither do I.”
And that’s it. That’s the extent of our little heart-to-heart. That’s the way some men share their feelings when they have something important to talk about. It’s the way they communicate.
Show concern. Deny there’s a problem. Go drinking.
None of the deeply involved, introspective, insightful conversations that women waste their time with. Talking about problems and issues and how to resolve them. After all, how are we supposed to get anything done if we spend all of our time talking about our feelings?
Still, the mood in the room has gone from anticipatory and charged to awkward and flat. Nat’s no longer hovering over the trays of Egos but sitting back on the couch, drinking his beer and pouting.
Nat’s always been a big pouter.
Whenever we would play one of our made-up games and Nat had to be the zombie or the bad guy or when things didn’t go his way, he’d pout. Like the time we played Armageddon and he was Satan and I was the Messiah and he thought Satan was supposed to win, only to find out he had to spend a thousand years in a bottomless pit.
It’s not my fault he didn’t do his research on the Christian interpretation of the epic battle between good and evil.
But I can tell from the look on his face that he’s settling into one of his I don’t want to play anymore moods.
“What’s the matter?” I say.
“Nothing.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Sometimes talking to Nat is like talking to a woman. What he says and what he means are two completely different things.
We sit there in silence for several minutes, drinking our beers, neither one of us making eye contact. Finally, Nat finishes his Guinness, sets the empty bottle on the table, then he stands up. “I think I’m gonna head out.”
“Really? You don’t want to Ego?”
“Nah. None of them really fit what I’m in the mood for, you know?”
I nod. Though I’m guessing I had more to do with his current mood and lack of enthusiasm than the selection of Egos.
“You want to hang out?” I say, trying to fix what I’ve broken. “Watch some Adult Swim?”
He shakes his head. “Maybe next time.”
I watch Nat leave with a sense of remorse. I know how much he looks forward to coming over and I enjoy getting to hang out with him, even if he has become something of an Egomaniac. Or maybe I’m just projecting my own Ego use onto Nat and thinking he has a problem when, in reality, I’m the one with the problem. Maybe I should just appreciate my best friend’s company without judging him.
So I grab another Guinness out of the fridge, pull out a pen and a pad of paper, think of some Egos Nat might like, then sit down at the dining room table and start making out a list.
CHAPTER 17
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, making out my Christmas list while my mother watches Jeopardy! in the living room. I could be watching it with her, but this is too important to put off. And with the big day less than a month away, I want to make sure I don’t forget anything.
I’m not complicated. I want the same things any seven-year-old boy wants for Christmas. Toys and a bicycle and books. Maybe an official Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle. What I want more than anything, though, is a video game system, like an Xbox or a PlayStation 2. And if not that, then I’d like the latest Harry Potter book, though I don’t think The Half-Blood Prince comes out until next summer.
Last year I wanted more or less the same thing but last year I apparently wasn’t a good little boy, so Santa didn’t bring me what I wanted. Instead, I got pajamas and a backpack and coloring books.
My father told me Santa was being practical and to be grateful I got anything at all.
This year, I did my best to be extra good so that I might get one or more of the items on my list. I’m just hoping Santa’s not in a practical mood.
My father walks into the kitchen and sits down across from me, his tie loosened and his face rough with a day’s worth of whiskers. When I was four, I wanted to look more like my father so I gave myself whiskers by using my mother’s mascara. When that wore off too quickly, I used a black Sharpie marker. I had whiskers for two weeks.
Even though he hasn’t said anything yet, I stop writing my Christmas list and set down my pencil and give my father my full attention.
“How old are you?” asks my father.
I’m not sure if he doesn’t really know or if he’s testing me, but I answer because by now I know it’s a bad idea to answer my father’s questions with questions—especially with Christmas just around the corner and Santa keeping an eye on everyone.
I’m still not really sure how he watches more than six billion people all at the same time. That’s a lot of customers. Even if we’re just talking kids, that’s at least a billion of us to keep track of. With less than ninety thousand seconds in a day, that’s around ten thousand kids he has to keep track of every second, so chances are he’s going to slip up somewhere. Maybe that’s why he has elves. He must send them out as spies.
“Seven,” I say to my father. “I’m seven.”
“And what’s that you’re working on?” He nods at the single piece of paper next to me.
“My list for Santa,” I say, with a certain amount of pride and satisfaction.
This isn’t just some haphazard list I threw together on a whim. I spent a lot of time on it, adding and deleting items and moving them around. I’m only seven, but as far as I’m concerned, this is a literary masterpiece.
This year, my Christmas list includes, in order of preference:
1. Video game system
2. Bicycle
3. Books
4. BB gun
5. Toys
When it comes to asking Santa for presents, I’ve learned not to list brand names or models or to get too specific about color or style. According to my mother, Santa likes some flexibility. According to my father, Santa doesn’t like to be told what to do.
Nat told me that Santa knows what you’re thinking, even if you don’t say it out loud. He says Santa’s
a mind reader. I told him if Santa were a mind reader, it would be in the lyrics to the song and it’s not. Plus with more than a billion kids, even if Nat is right, I figure Santa doesn’t have time to read everyone’s mind.
My father reaches over and slides my Christmas list across the table toward him, then he picks it up and starts reading. I watch his face and notice his eyes moving back and forth. I notice the pores on his nose and the hair on his knuckles and the armpits of his shirt stained with perspiration.
When he’s done reading, he sets the list down next to him and looks at me over the pores of his nose.
“There is no Santa Claus,” he says.
That’s it. No warning. No gradual buildup. No gentle breaking of the news. Just a quick jab to the face. A kick in the crotch. Then he picks up today’s newspaper and starts reading.
I stare at my father, not really sure I understand what he’s talking about. Or maybe I’m just in shock. Of course there’s a Santa Claus. It’s like saying there’s no Easter Bunny or no Tooth Fairy. It doesn’t make any sense.
“What do you mean, Daddy?”
“Santa Claus isn’t real,” my father says. “He doesn’t exist.”
I look at my father reading the newspaper. I look at my mother watching Jeopardy! in the living room. Then I look down at myself. At my hands and my legs. At the chair I’m sitting on. At the table. At the floor.
If Santa Claus doesn’t exist, then none of this can be real. But I know I’m sitting on the chair at the table in the kitchen. I can see the linoleum and I can feel the seat I’m sitting on. I can smell the onions on my father’s breath and I can hear Alex Trebek on the television. So it has to exist. Everything. My father. Alex Trebek. Me. We all exist. We’re all real. And so is Santa.
I look back at my father and I wonder if this is a test. If he’s trying to get me to do something bad so I won’t get what I want for Christmas. I keep waiting for him to smile and nod and tell me how good I am and that I passed the test. Maybe even pat me on the head or ruffle my hair and make me a hot fudge sundae, then sit down with me and ask me about my Christmas list. He’s never done that before, but I figure there’s a first time for everything.
Instead, he keeps reading the news.
Finally I let out a little laugh to let him know I get the joke, to let him know I know it’s just a test, but he doesn’t laugh along with me. Or even give me a smile. And I start to worry that it’s not a joke. That it’s not a test.
“You’re just kidding, right?”
“I’m not kidding, son,” he says. “Your mother and I are the ones who buy your Christmas presents and wrap them up and put them under the tree and in your stocking. Santa Claus is just a story. And you’re too old to keep believing in stories. It’s time you realize that life isn’t make-believe. Sooner or later, you have to grow up.”
But I’m not even eight years old.
“What about the reindeer?” I ask, hanging on to my belief that is unraveling like a spool of Christmas ribbon. I can feel my eyes filling up with tears but I don’t want to cry. My father always says real men don’t cry. “What about the sleigh? And the elves?”
“There are no elves,” says my father. “No reindeer. No Rudolph. No toy shop at the North Pole. No sleigh. No Santa Claus. I told you, he doesn’t exist.”
I sit there, staring at my father, fighting back tears. Then I look down at my list, my hopes and anticipation for a merry Christmas crushed, and I’m thinking that things couldn’t be any worse.
“And neither does the Tooth Fairy,” says my father. “Or the Easter Bunny.”
CHAPTER 18
Chloe is on the karaoke stage singing “Like a Virgin.” With her dark hair and exotic mix of French and Korean genes she doesn’t look anything like Madonna, but she’s nailing the performance. Or maybe I just think that because she keeps glancing my way during the chorus and I wonder if she’s singing to me.
Touched for the very first time.
“She’s good,” says Vincent, sitting next to me and taking a drink from his pint of hefeweizen as he watches Chloe channel the Material Girl.
I get the feeling Vincent is thinking the same thing I’m thinking.
We’re at the Blue Goose Lounge in Hollywood on a Thursday night a couple of weeks before Halloween. Not all departments at EGOS get together outside work, but when I was promoted to manager of Investigations, I thought it would be a good idea to promote team unity by having all of us go out socially once every couple of months.
“I like it here,” says Angela, grooving to the beat of the song, looking around the bar, her mouth and tongue searching for the straw sticking out of her second margarita. “It’s fun!”
Emily nods her conservative assent, enjoying the music somewhat less enthusiastically than Angela while using her fingers to guide the straw of her Cape Cod between her lips.
I seem to be fixated on mouths and straws this evening.
Like a virgin. Feels so good inside.
Up onstage, Chloe glances my way again, the lyrics coming out of her in a breathy purr. Next to me, Vincent takes another drink of his beer and nods along. Across from us, Neil sits next to Emily dressed in an all Dodger blue ensemble, which makes him look like a giant Smurf. In front of him sits a bottle of Newcastle, the label facing directly toward him. Neil cleaned off the top of the bottle with a sterilized hand wipe before he took his first sip, which makes me wonder what the flavor sensation of Newcastle and hand wipe tastes like.
“It’s unsanitary to drink out of glasses in a public place,” says Neil, pointing to Vincent’s beer. “Do you have any idea how many people have had their lips on your glass?”
“Probably a lot more than have had their lips on yours,” says Vincent before he drains the rest of his beer and heads to the bar for a refill.
On his way he walks past Kurt, who orders a drink while chatting up a brunette who looks so hot she should carry around a fire extinguisher.
“It’s not only a matter of how many people use the same glass,” says Neil, talking to whoever will listen. “But the bartender takes money from his customers, then he touches the cash register, which has been touched by other bartenders, who have touched money from all of their customers, then he touches your glass. So in effect, everyone at the bar has transferred their germs to your glass.”
When it comes to loosening up, Neil is like a social corset.
“Which is why I only drink from bottles and cans,” he finishes. “It’s safer.”
Angela and Emily look at Neil, then back to their glasses. Angela shrugs and sucks down half of her remaining margarita through her straw while Emily pushes her glass away, discarding it unfinished like her daily Cinnabon, and excuses herself to go use the restroom.
“Make sure to wash your hands!” Neil shouts after her.
Neil volunteers once a month at the St. Francis Center serving meals to the homeless. He told me it was a way to help others while helping him to tackle his fear of germs. I don’t think it’s working.
Angela holds up her empty glass. “I need another before it’s my turn to sing. Anyone else need a refill?”
Neil and I shake our heads and Angela heads to the bar as Chloe finishes her song and exits the stage to applause and whistles, then makes her way back to join us, fending off several salivating drunks along the way.
While we’ve gone out before as a group for drinks, meals, and to the movies, this is the first time we’ve done karaoke. Chloe is the one who suggested it. And so far, she’s the only one who’s been brave enough to get up in front of everyone and sing.
Some local karaoke bars don’t allow their customers to sing while using Egos, claiming it somehow defiles the history and tradition of the art of “empty orchestra.” Other karaoke bars aren’t so uptight and sponsor Ego nights or take a more relaxed position and allow anyone to sing, regardless of who they think they are.
The Blue Goose enforces a strict No Ego policy, which means that everyone here tonight is
just being themselves. Or nearly so.
When you’re onstage singing along to Madonna or Sinatra or Adele, channeling your inner Toby Keith or Lady Gaga or Neil Diamond, you’re technically still pretending to be someone else, even if it’s just for a three-minute, thirty-eight-second song.
“Nicely done,” I say, raising my scotch on the rocks to Chloe as she sits down at the table. “Though I wouldn’t have pegged you for a Madonna fan.”
“I’m not. But for some reason I felt like singing that song.” She takes a drink of her beer, staring at me over the rim of her pint glass.
Is it just me, or did it suddenly get warm in here?
“You missed a great conversation,” says Neil. “I was just talking about how many people drink out of every glass at the bar . . .”
Chloe holds her hand up to Neil. “I don’t want to hear it. What I want to hear is your voice coming out of those speakers.”
“I don’t sing,” says Neil, as some guy with a wide grin and narrow eyes gets up onstage and launches into an unfortunate rendition of “Desperado.”
“Well, I already signed you up for ‘I Will Survive,’ so you better take your name off the list if you don’t want to do it,” says Chloe.
Neil gets an expression on his face like he just soiled his Smurf-blue briefs, then he gets up and walks toward the karaoke machine, taking the long way around to avoid as many people as possible, leaving just Chloe and me at the table.
“So . . .” Chloe leans on one elbow and places her chin in her palm, her eyes never leaving mine. “What do you think?”
“I think you were the best one tonight.”
“I appreciate the flattery, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” she says, giving me a playful smile.
“What are you talking about?” I say, though I’m pretty sure I know the answer. I’m just not going to say it out loud.
“I thought the lyrics were self-explanatory,” she says.
We sit there and stare at each other for a few seconds, neither one of us blinking. Literally or figuratively. And the image of Chloe in leather and thigh-high stilettos pops back into my head.