Less Than Hero (13 page)

“I know bad news sells,” she says. “But only because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to buy.”

So far the conversation isn’t giving me much of an organic segue into telling Sophie about what’s going on with me, so I decide to tell her and get it over with before I lose my nerve.

“I have some news,” I say.

“Is it good news?” she asks, looking up at me.

I look down at her curled up next to me, her face inches from mine, her eyes big and blue—feminine Kryptonite to any sense of masculine resolve. “I think so.”

“Tell me something good,” she says, pressing tighter against me and talking into my chest. “Tell me something that will make me happy.”

Her body pressed against me like this—her face in my chest and her voice vibrating in my bones—isn’t helping matters. I’m pretty sure telling Sophie I’ve developed a genetic mutation that allows me to make people fall asleep isn’t going to make her happy. And as much as I want to tell her the truth, right now I’d rather give her some good news.

“I got an interview for a marketing job,” I say.

For some reason, this little white lie seemed like a good idea before I actually said it.

“Really?” Sophie sits up and looks at me with an expression of surprise and delight. “When?”

“Monday,” I say without thinking.

“With who?”

“Starbucks,” I say because it’s the first thing I can think of without hesitating. “It’s a corporate job.”

Never mind that Starbucks’ corporate headquarters is located in Seattle. At this point, I don’t know what I’m saying or why I’m saying it, but it just keeps coming out of my mouth like verbal vomit.

“Lollipop, that’s great!” Sophie gives me a kiss and a hug, followed by another kiss.

“I take it this makes you happy,” I say.

“Happy?” she says. “I’m thrilled!”

Apparently I overshot the target.

“I don’t have the job yet,” I say. “It’s just an interview. And I haven’t done any marketing in five years.”

“I know,” she says, curling up against me again. “But I’m sure they’ll love you. And even if they don’t, I appreciate that you’re looking. Just promise me we won’t have to move to Seattle.”

The two of us continue to sit and watch the news as I try to figure out how to get myself out of this one. While I know I can always tell Sophie that I didn’t get the job and she’ll believe me, the fact that I just told her a string of lies makes me feel like I cheated on her. Only in this case, the other woman is false hope.

On the television, a reporter is talking about a married couple from Michigan who discovered all of their money and valuables stolen with no memory of what happened. Before the reporter can continue, Sophie grabs the remote control and switches to Animal Planet to watch something more uplifting.

I
’m hanging with Randy and Charlie at a Starbucks on Broadway outside Columbia University, where the three of us are in the middle of a one-week trial for an experimental treatment to combat ADHD—which is appropriate, considering that lately we’ve all been easily distracted. Though when it comes to controlling our behavior, we’re not the ones who seem to be having a problem.

A couple of tables away from us a cell phone rings, loud and obnoxious—Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on steroids. A woman fishes the phone out of her purse and starts talking like she’s hearing impaired.

“Do you think we should be drinking coffee right now?” Charlie asks.

“Sure,” Randy says. “Why shouldn’t we?”

“Because of the ADHD trial,” Charlie says. “Won’t caffeine make it worse?”

“We don’t have ADHD,” I say. “We’re just taking the medication to test its side effects.”

“Oh,” Charlie says. “Right.”

While Charlie may not be the smartest monkey in the jungle, he’s got a heart the size of King Kong.

At the pickup counter, a monkey with an advanced case of male-pattern baldness flings his poo at the barista, who apparently put whipped cream on his mocha when he clearly asked for no whip and he doesn’t have the behavioral skills to explain this without belittling her.

“I went out with this barista once who loved using whipped cream,” Randy says.

“Did she make a lot of ice cream sundaes?” Charlie asks.

“More like banana splits,” Randy says.

“You know,” I say, “I could have gone without that visual for the rest of my life.”

A mother with a baby in a stroller in one hand and a venti in the other prepares to negotiate her way out the front door when a guy with short hair and sunglasses enters Starbucks and walks past without bothering to hold the door open for her.

“Does everything with you have to revolve around sex?” I ask.

“It doesn’t
have
to.” Randy gives a nod and an appreciative glance to a shapely redhead standing in line. “But that’s what life is about, man.”

“Life’s about sex?” Charlie says.

“Absolutely,” Randy says. “Sex is everywhere. It’s all around us. All you have to do is look.”

Charlie looks around the coffee shop and appears disappointed with the results.

“Sex is the reason we go to bars and join online dating services,” Randy says. “It’s the reason we start up conversations with people we
find attractive. It’s in the clothes we wear and the time we spend in front of the mirror and the perfume or cologne we dab behind our ears. It’s on billboards and in magazines and on TV, selling everything from beer to sports cars to fast food. You ever see a Carl’s Jr. commercial? You can’t even think about eating one of their burgers without wanting a hot woman with large breasts slathered in barbecue sauce.”

“Is that on the menu?” Charlie asks.

“Everything is on the menu,” Randy says. “You just have to know how to order.”

The poo-flinging monkey is now screeching at the barista for taking too long to get him his replacement mocha.

“Sex is why we were put on this planet,” Randy says. “Not to sit in front of a computer or watch TV or play video games, but to connect with each other physically and enjoy the carnal pleasures of life. To copulate and populate. It’s biology and evolution all rolled into one awesome package.”

“What about connecting with someone on more than just a physical level?” I say. “What about emotional intimacy and developing a meaningful relationship?”

“Not everyone wants a relationship,” Randy says. “Or even knows how to be in one. The fact is that there are two kinds of people: marionettes and hand puppets.”

“What does that mean?” Charlie asks.

“I think he means that some of us prefer not to have any strings attached,” I say.

Randy taps the end of his nose with his index finger and grins.

Two tables over, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony starts up again, flexing its ringtone muscles.

“When it comes to sex and romance,” Randy says, “some of us are early Beatles and some of us are Rolling Stones.”

“Well, thanks for enlightening us on our primal nature, Mick,” I say. “But I think it’s time the three of us got down to business.”

“Can I pick first this time?” Charlie asks, looking back and forth from me to Randy like an obedient dog.

“Be my guest,” I say.

Charlie purses his lips and looks around, then nods toward the counter, where the courtesy thug who couldn’t be bothered to hold the door open for the mother with the stroller is placing his order. “Him.”

“Randy?” I say. “Whipped cream or Beethoven?”

“Definitely whipped cream,” he says.

“All right,” I say. “Let’s teach these douche bags some manners.”

Randy takes a deep breath, Charlie closes his eyes, and I think about Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist in
Little Shop of Horrors
. Then we all take aim.

The hearing-impaired woman talking on her cell phone slumps over on the table and starts snoring; the monkey drops his mocha and scratches at himself like he has a flea infestation; and a middle-aged woman standing near the counter drops to the ground and goes into convulsions while the courtesy thug stands a few feet away, unaffected.

“Oops,” Charlie says.

When it comes to Charlie’s ability, it’s often
oops
.

Randy shakes his head. “You really need to improve your aim.”

“I know, I know,” Charlie says. “I’m working on it.”

Charlie sits on the subway facing the opposite side of the train and watching the darkness of the subway tunnel flash by in the windows. He’s on the number 1 train uptown on his way to Zabar’s for some chocolate rugelach before heading out to the Hudson River to watch the sun set over New Jersey. He does this a couple of times a week, always by himself. If he ever got up the nerve to create an online dating account, he would list
watching sunsets on the Hudson while eating chocolate rugelach from Zabar’s
as one of his favorite things to do. Maybe he would find someone who liked to do the same thing.

He’s thinking about this while sitting next to an attractive brunette who smells like vanilla. Charlie catches her scent every time he inhales and he wants to say something about how good she smells, that she reminds him of fresh-baked cookies, but even in his head that sounds creepy. Maybe he could say it another way, ask her what she’s wearing, but he can’t seem to come up with the nerve to talk to her.

Women have always confused and flustered Charlie, with their smiles and their breasts and their long hair pulled back in ponytails. If only he could figure out how to approach them, but he’s never known what to say or when to say it. They’re a mystery to Charlie. A language he doesn’t understand. An algebra problem he can’t solve. A riddle to which he doesn’t know the answer.

Take the woman sitting next to him. She’s pretty but not in an intimidating kind of way. Still, there’s something about her long hair and smooth skin and feminine figure that causes Charlie’s brain to short-circuit, preventing him from speaking. It’s like her breasts have cast a spell over him, causing him to lose the ability to form a complete sentence.

But even if Charlie could summon the courage to speak to her, he doubts she would be interested in having a conversation with him. She seems more interested in the guy sitting across from her wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and a T-shirt that says
FUCK NEW YORK.
Charlie keeps expecting someone to say something to him, to give him some shit or maybe tell him that the Red Sox suck, but no one says anything.

So Charlie sits there smelling the woman next to him, becoming more intoxicated by her scent and her presence, trying to find the courage to talk to her, to let her know he’s interested, to let her know he exists. But his courage remains buried beneath a steaming pile of self-doubt and insecurity. Instead he remains silent and imagines how things would be different if he was more confident and charismatic, like Randy.

Even though his father and stepmother loved Charlie and appreciated everything he did for them, Charlie never felt like he
mattered much. But then, you tend to feel that way when most of the other kids in school call you a pathetic loser and make you feel less important just because you’re not attractive or popular or smart.

Dropping out of high school wasn’t so much a personal sacrifice for Charlie as it was a much-needed vacation.

Over the past few years, Charlie has finally begun to feel like he matters. Part of that has to do with volunteering to help test drugs. Even though he’s getting paid for it, he’s doing something to help others. And that gives Charlie a sense of self-worth that working in a fast-food restaurant or delivering pizzas can’t.

But the biggest reason Charlie feels more important is because of Lloyd, Vic, Randy, Frank, Isaac, and Blaine.

Growing up, Charlie never had much in the way of friends. No one to go to the movies with or read comic books with or pal around with during summer vacations. The most social interaction Charlie had was going to Forbidden Planet and Bergen Street Comics and talking to the staff or other customers about their favorite superheroes.

Then he met Randy and Vic and Lloyd a few years ago, and for the first time in his life Charlie had a group of guys he could hang out with and joke around with and count on if he needed help. Even though they make fun of him sometimes, he still knows they’re his friends. And that makes him happy.