Monkey Business

jamie’s advice

10:45 p.m.

L ife’s a bitch and then you die.

Oy. Beer has made me feel even worse. Instead of drowning my pain, I’m now just drowning. Should have stuck to my nondrinking guns. Now all I can think about is how useless getting up in the morning is. What’s the point? What’s the point in anything? Why bother living when life is filled with so much unhappiness? I lean my head back against the leather cushion of the booth in the back of the Monsoon. Suddenly I have nothing. There’s now a massive hole in my life. An emptiness. What’s the point in going on with this kind of pain? I swallow another gulp of beer.

Why am I feeling so pathetically melodramatic? I’m all joked out. Even trying to lose myself in a movie doesn’t help. I can’t stay focused. I tried calling my sister, Amanda, but she wasn’t helpful. “You dated her for two seconds. Snap out of it.”

A blast of cold air blows in as the door opens. It’s Russ. He steps inside and looks around, confused, as though he has no idea how he got here. Kind of how I feel. His eyes are wide open like saucers.

He sees me, looks baffled, as if he doesn’t recognize me. Maybe he’s been hitting the bong too often. He orders a beer at the bar and then approaches the table, sliding into the seat across from mine.

“Oh, man,” he says.

Exactly. I don’t have much to say to him. I think what he’s doing to Kimmy is shitty. How he can take advantage of her makes me sick. I take another sip of the beer. Not that what I did was any better. Oy. Am I really no better than Russ? I lied to the woman I love. I used her to get what I want. Might as well drown in my own pain. I chug half of my beer and wave at Glenda for another. Then I go to work on the remaining half. I wonder if there’s a limit to how much beer a person can drink before exploding.

Russ runs his thumb around the rim of his beer. “I’m going to be a father.”

I spit the final mouthful back into the bottle. “What?”

“I’m going to be a dad.”

Holy shit. “Kimmy’s pregnant?”

“No. Sharon.”

Oy. “What did Kimmy say?” I ask.

“Haven’t told her yet.”

Glenda passes me a new bottle and I take a long sip. I don’t even like the taste of beer. “That might be something you’d want to consider letting her know,” I say.

Russ starts laughing and can’t stop. He drops his head onto the table and bangs it against the Formica. “I’m so fucking scared. I might get expelled and I’m going to be a father. I’m not ready to be a father. I can’t even floss properly. How am I going to be a father?”

Instead of feeling sorry for him, I feel envious. I wish the right thing to do in my life was so obvious. I wish I were the one becoming a father. He has everything and I have nothing.

“Once a night before bed and dig into those gums,” I offer.