Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Married (25 page)

I ramp the Fang Gang show up to high volume. I tell Pho to use the house as cyber-ninja command headquarters. I tell Star Fan she can invite all her friends over anytime, day or night. I tell Bi'ch that she and her Hmong singing group can use the house as a rehearsal space. Soon my home looks like a Hmong rec center. To be honest, I've never had so much fun.

I call the animal hospital and tell Greta to send me their most unadoptable animals. That's how I wind up adopting a tattered band of abused alpacas. I start an alpaca refuge in the backyard, installing the beasts in a large pen that takes up most of the shoreline. I tell Brad the truth. They're rescue animals. That's why they spit. “If you knew what those poor creatures had been through,” I shout when Brad complains. I insist they eat nutritious homemade alpaca kibble made from a complicated, smelly recipe I find online.

I find a pan-flute player to stand on the front staircase and play the pan-flute five hours every day, even on the weekends, because the music soothes the alpacas. When the pan flute player is done, I let my old boyfriend rehearse in the garage with Obscure Cold. They practice at all hours of the night and keep their drum kit in the bay where the apple-green Lamborghini once lived.

Next I launch Operation Toothpaste Smear. I hit every surface of the bathroom day after day and tell him Trevor did it. Then I forbid him to say one word to Trevor about it . . . because if we yell at Trevor, that wouldn't look too good to his grandparents, would it?

I monkey with the neighbor's Swift-Away harmless insect replacement system. The Swift-Away system has intake pipes that peep up from the manicured hedges, like a row of miniature tubas crouched in the bushes, bells pointed up at the sky. The tubas suck up any flying insects within ten feet and shoot them headlong into the ether. If a bumblebee ambles by,
whoomph!,
the green tuba sucks the bumblebee up. If a butterfly flutters into the frame, then
whoomph!,
the green tuba swallows the butterfly whole. The intake pipes suck up the mosquitoes and moths and any other hapless insect that dares to trespass against them and shoot them cannon-style out of the hedges and into outer space.

I simply reposition the mouths of the tubas so they're aimed at our property, at about chest height. Judging by the number of dead, damaged, and wingless insects that pelt Brad as he tries to get in his car every morning for work, I don't think the engineers at Swift-Away have the “harmless” element of their technology down pat yet. Brad comes charging back into the house every morning with squashed bugs all over his shirt.

“What is happening?” he shouts. “Look at this!” He points to the pulpy yellow insect goo smeared across the lapel of his suit. “What the
fuck
is this?” he shouts.

“A dragonfly, maybe?” I guess, and he stomps off, muttering, to change his suit.

I mess with Brad's food. I grind up weight-loss pills and put them in his protein shakes so he can experience volatile gastric events at the store, just like I did. I set up a dating profile for Brad on ExplodingHearts.com. I make his profile pitch-perfect for every crazy stalker and gold digger in the nation and direct phone calls to his office.
Wealthy executive seeks loving woman to adore and pamper. Age unimportant. Kids terrific! Looking for one-night stands, meaningless hookups, and long-term relationships only.

I hire a stripper to be our new auxiliary maid. An actual stripper that I hire from an escort agency. She's also a local porn celebrity, and after she shares the titles of some of her favorite films that she's starred in, I'm inspired to make a list.

Top Ten Worst Porn Stars

  1. Great-aunts

  2. Cheesemongers

  3. New York cabbies

  4. Ladies of the PGA

  5. Hoboes

  6. Mermen

  7. Amish sadomasochists

  8. Hirsute Taco Bell employees

  9. Amateur taxidermists

10. Danny DeVito

 

My stripper's name is Diamond and she shows up wearing silver lamé shorts. I tell her all she has to do is cook and clean in the sexiest manner she can think of. I'll pay her five hundred bucks a day, and if she tape-records herself having sex with my husband, there's a thousand-dollar bonus. Diamond throws herself into her work, treating it as risqué burlesque. She's actually a better maid than Bi'ch and seems to have a real grip on what men like. Her second day here I find her grilling T-bone steaks outside while wearing nothing but stilettos and a purple thong.

“Did you see our new maid?” I ask Brad.

“Seems pretty creative,” he says, reading the paper.

I have her do striptease acts while cleaning the stove, her head stuck up in the vent; I tell her to polish the woodwork by oiling up her lunch box and sliding down the banister repeatedly; I have her design a “cleaning supply saddle,” which she wears on her back like a horse, and crawl butt-naked around the house, wearing nothing else but kneepads and cowboy boots.

Nothing. Zilch. It's like Brad is gay . . . but even a gay man would adore the production value we're putting into this show. Lenny stops by to drop something off one day and I hear him hollering in the front hall. “Lenny?” I shout. “What's wrong?”

“Oh Jesus!” he hollers. “Oh God, I saw naked titties! Big ones! Pressed up on the window outside!”

“Sorry.” Diamond shrugs. “I thought he was—”

“Never mind, Diamond. It's okay. Lenny, you can open your eyes.”

He shakes his head and moans. “Oh Jesus . . .” he says. “
Diamond?
The porn star?”

“Um, yeah.” I nod.

“Lord, why'd you say her name? Now I know her name and Hailey's gonna
know
I know her name. She's gonna
know
I saw naked titties!”

“Don't be ridiculous. I won't say anything.”

“
You don't have to,
” he whispers while looking around the room, as though Hailey might spring out at any moment pointing her accusing finger at him.

“Lenny, forget about it.”

“Sorry!” Diamond grins.

Lenny's phone rings. He looks up at me, ashen, and says,
“It's her!”

“Are you serious?”

Lenny leaps out the front door while answering the phone. “Hon?” he says. “Hang on, I got bad reception here. Hang on . . . Stop yelling at me!”

He runs out to his truck. At least he cares what his wife thinks. My husband—and I snort every time I use the word—could care less what I do or think.

I'm out of ideas.

I can't take this house or this life anymore. I tell Pho to make the Ice Empress normal again. “Okay,” he says. “And what's normal this time?”

“Make her like when she first came to us. Mean and nasty. At least one of us will be who we really are.”

Mom calls to wish me a happy birthday. She's one of the few who remembers. I get my annual Bacon Club rasher of bacon from Christopher. He signed me up for it like five years ago and it's sort of lost its . . . charm. I'm not complaining. At least he remembers. Well, the bacon people remember. Brad forgot my birthday last year and he got me a gift certificate for a massage two days later. He told me to go buy something sexy. Wow. Right on. Nothing says Mr. Great Big Hard Cock . . . like a gift certificate. Mom reminds me about Supper Club and she asks if everything's all right. I tell her everything's fine . . . pretty okay . . . sort of all right . . . actually, not so good. She says I can always come home for a while if I want to. “We're always here for you, sweetheart.”

I smile and say, “Mom, you're awesome.”

“But, honey,” she adds quickly. “Don't drag over a bunch of stuff you can't use.”

“What?”

“I just got the Salvation Army to pick up all those garbage bags of old clothes I had on the back porch all winter. The ones I cleaned out of the attic. Say, I pulled out a cute little dress you threw away. You said you didn't want it, but it's just adorable. It's a white dress with blue piping?”

“Yeah, Mom . . . I remember it. The armpit is torn. I don't want it.”

“Well it has a cute little jacket and everything.”

“I don't want it.”

“It's perfectly good. It just needs a few stitches in the armpit.”

“Mom, I don't want it. It never fit me right, the armpits always pinched. I only wore it twice in ten years. Plus I got ink on the front and the hem pulled out.”

Silence.

“
Mom?
I don't want the dress.”

“You can fix the hem.”

“No, Mom, I can't.”

“I don't see why not. It'll just take a few stitches and a little bleach to fix it.”

“Then
you
fix it.
You
wear it. I don't want it. If you like it, keep it.”

“Me? Well, I don't want it, honey.”

“Why not?”

“Because it's all torn up and there's ink stains on it.”

“Good-bye, Mom, love you.”

I hang up the phone and close my eyes. How can you love someone and be so . . . so . . . thoroughly irritated by them at the same time? I'd donate any organ that my mother needed, both my eyeballs, both my kidneys, all my teeth. I'd defend her to the death if I had to, but one thing is for sure: I cannot live with her. I cannot move back in with my parents.

I'll never make it out alive.

I stop going to the country club. I've been declining all social invitations, but that's been the hardest one to pull off so far. Ellie isn't too pushy, but God help you if Addi feels scorned. That woman will go teenage batshit crazy and leave drunk messages on your phone demanding answers, which she's done now several times. She corners me in the bathroom. She asks why I've been avoiding her and I tell her I've just been busy. I'm just working on things and Brad and I are spending more time together.

“Bullshit,” she says.

Didn't sound true to me either, but still, I personally don't need more than a hint when someone wants me to go away; Addi needs a frying pan to the head. We get into a huge fight right there in the bathroom, yelling and shouting. The fight bleeds out into the dining room as we stumble toward the front door, two grown women yelling at each other right there in the club in front of everybody. I feel bad for Addi, but it's not fair that she doesn't respect boundaries. “See, you push people until they get to this point,” I tell her. “To where they have to hurt you in order to get you away. Now . . . who else on earth has that problem but a junkyard dog?”

She gasps at me. “Did you just call me a junkyard dog?”

I did, and even I'm flummoxed by the statement.

“Why you filthy little piece of . . .”
Sploosh.
She throws a drink from a nearby table right into my face. Louie arrives and says, “Okay, Ms. A and Mrs. J. I think you gotta go or things are gonna get real messy today.” Louie hustles me out to the valet stand, while the rest of the staff keeps Addi inside. “Guess I won't be coming back around here again.” I sigh remorsefully. Louie nods at me sadly as my car rolls up.

“Prolly not, Mrs. J. Okay. Bye-bye.”

I refuse to go home and sink into a sticky mire of self-loathing; instead I drive straight to the gym to see Big D. It's not our normally scheduled time, so I don't know where to look for him. He's not on the loading dock, where we usually meet; he's not inside the gym on the floor. I ask the fake-tan blonde behind the counter if she's seen Big D. “Um . . . Yes. He's standing right next to you.” I look over at the black man standing beside me, writing on a clipboard. He has coiled pythons tattooed on his arms. “Your name's Big D too?” I say. “That must get confusing.”

“Ma'am?” He looks at me. “I'm Big D.”

“You're a trainer here too?”

“Cardio, weights, Pilates . . .” He watches a brunette passing by. “Hey, Laura! I still need a ride downtown.”

“Fuck off,” she says.

“I don't think I have any open sessions right now,” he says to me. “But you can check the schedule in the front office.”

“I already have a trainer. The other Big D.”

“What other Big D?” He looks at me. “There
is
no other Big D.”

“An older gentleman? Gray beard?”

“Don't think we have any trainers around here with gray beards . . . We like to keep it tight, right, ladies?” He smiles at a group of women walking by. “Hey now, Mrs. Magney, Mrs. Jewson . . . how you doing, Mrs. Hoyos? Looking good, ladies! Looking good!”

“Um, Big D . . . you never worked with a woman named Ellie Rathbone, did you?”

“Sure!” he says. “How is Mrs. E? Haven't seen her in a while now . . .” The brunette appears with a stack of towels. “Need help with those, Laura?”

“Fuck you,” she says.

I shake my head, confused. “I usually meet Big D on the loading dock, but—”

“Oh, you mean Dizzy Bee?” says the blonde. “He lives back there. The manager said as long as he didn't build another smokehouse he could stay.”

“Stay where?”

“In the alley. He lives right out there.” She points to the loading dock. I make her come outside and show me. She points at a pile of garbage on the other side of the alley.

“Hey, Dizzy Bee!” she shouts.
“Hey, Dizzy Bee!”

The pile of garbage moves.

“Why you holler like that?” Big D shouts at her. “Do I come to your house and holler when you in bed? A black man did that at your house, the police would kill him! Just kill him right there. Tell everybody he slipped an' hit his head. Shit. What you want, girl?”

“He's
so
sweet,” the blonde says. “We just love him.”

It turns out Big D isn't a trainer. He's a homeless man living in the alley behind the gym. He gets his clothing from the Dumpster behind the gym, which is why he wears sweatshirts with official Sweatbox logos. “Big D,” I say. “What are you doing here?”