by JACK PHILLIPS LOWE

I offered her some Prozac.

“I don't want any!” she said, all pissy-like. At first, I liked this college girl's attitude and fancy talk. It was fun---like a little girl telling her big brother what she learned in school that day. But after a while, she decided to “educate” me, make me see “the other side of things,” and her talk started feeling like sand in my crack.

“I don't have any,” I said, “but if I did, I'd give it to you. You're fucking nuts.”

“Why, just because I don't want to be famous?” She did that “blazing” thing with her eyes that always made me horny.

“Exactly. Every real American wants to be a star.” I poured cream in my coffee. “Stars coast through life on clouds. Do I have to list the perks?”

She picked at her raisin toast. “No, I realize there are 'perks.' But there are also dues. You pay them after you die.” She was weird that way. Pick, pick. I never saw her just eat anything.

“Okay by me. Famous guys get the cash and the babes. What else matters?” I sipped my coffee. The damned cream was sour.

She put her chin on her palm and gave me her “silly boy” look. “Mimmo, try to think of it this way. Before your body hits the morgue, the tabloids hit the stores---chock-full of stories about what a bastard you were.”

I hated her “silly boy” look. “Big whip. Unless St. Peter subscribes, I'll never see them.” Brat. That showed her, I thought.

“Later come the hagiographies---”

I couldn't even say it, so I just looked at her.

“---or books about saints. Tributes written by your mailman and your pool girl, who signed million-dollar contracts based on the grand total of ten minutes you spent with them. Of course, they never shared those compliments with you. You were a pampered star and didn't need to hear them.”

Sometimes, if I just let her blab, she'd blab herself out. She was a hottie, but she had mouth trouble. So I tucked into my waffles. They were good, but I knew I was screwing myself. I was one chin away from being a blimp and I had to be careful. Fat guys slept alone.

“You get planted in some ritzy bone yard.” She took a drink of her tea. “Your spouse takes your cash and the 21-year old gardener to live in luxury on the tropical island getaway you worked to pay for.” It was green tea. She actually drank that shit.

“Wait. When you say 'you,' you mean me, right?” I asked.

She gave me the eye-roll and heavy sigh combo. “You're forced to become a tourist attraction. Your tombstone poses for pictures with Bob and Fran from Peoria, who pay their respects by showering your grave with a cheap beer you wouldn't have touched.”

I grabbed a few packets of sugar and looked at the little pictures printed on them. “Whew! Sounds like somebody's car stalled at the corner of Bitch and Whine today!”

“A few years pass, and serious scholars reappraise your career in books published by universities. They dissect your body of work---symbolically your body---only to agree that those tabloids were right. You really were a bastard.”

I scratched the stubble on my jaw. “Wave a flag when you get to the point.”

It sucked. I shaved every morning, and by eleven or so, I was all stubbly again.

She folded her arms. “Mimmo, that was the point! What do we have beyond our identities? What do we leave behind besides remembrances? Dead celebrities are robbed of these and become public scapegoats. Truth is seasonal, but lies can last forever. Give me privacy and the treasured memories of a select few any day.”

I wiped syrup off my mouth. “Sweetie, like a wise man once said, better to hump supermodels today than to worry about how shit falls when you're gone. No matter. You and it will both be fertilizing the lawn.”

She grabbed her tea, threw it in my face, and stomped out. We broke up two days later. That's how I remembered she drank green tea.

 

First published inThe Circle's Fall 2003 issue.

JACK PHILLIPS LOWE I am a lifelong resident of Chicago.  I've contributed short stories and poems to Barbaric Yawp, Lucid Moon and Pulp & Dagger Fiction, among other publications.  I have also authored three chapbooks of poetry and fiction: So Much for Paradise (BoneWorld Publishing, 2000), Long Form (Free Thought Publications, 2003) and What's Passed Is Past (Onzo Imprints, 2005).  I am currently trying to "find myself"; if you see me, be sure to let me know where I am.