Jennifer Johnson Is Sick of Being Single

by Heather McElhatton

  “Go get Prell,” she says.

  “I don’t have time to get anything.”

  “Then use dishwashing soap. Wash your hair as many times as you can with the cheapest dishwashing soap you have. Don’t dry it in between, just wash it over and over. Use the hottest water you can stand.”

  I take a deep slug of whiskey from a rarely used bottle above the refrigerator and grab an old bottle of Joy from under the kitchen sink.

  Joy. How ironic.

  I get in the shower and scrub my hair within an inch of ripping it out. I wash it over and over again, watching ribbons of vile red dye stream out in the water and swirl down the drain. All the while my cell phone is ringing like crazy, undoubtedly Christopher trying to tell me he’s breaking up with Jeremy for ruining my hair.

  I manage to shampoo my hair twelve times, and I nearly sear my scalp holding the blow-dryer so close to my roots as I’m drying it. When I’m done, I’m breathless, panting, squinting because I half don’t even want to look in the mirror, but as I shake my hair out and comb it back, I’m surprised. The dishwashing soap must be able to take the paint off cars. It’s not a hundred percent back to normal, but I no longer look like I work at the circus. So what if it’ll be dry as a haystack tomorrow? I’m trying to look on the bright side, and I will, as soon as I find it.

  My cell phone continues to ring like a four-alarm fire, but I know it’s just Christopher calling to check in/apologize/worry/scream/console. I do my makeup lickety-split, all the while keeping one eye on the clock. Hurry hurry hurry. Then before I go I have to eat something because I’m not eating in front of Brad, so I decide to slam a Hot Pocket while standing up eating over the sink. It’s not only not sexy, it’s a mistake.

  A big mistake.

  As my stomach seizes and cramps, it becomes immediately clear the Hot Pocket is not going to be staying with me long. I sit on the toilet and pray for relief. I eat two Tums and two Imodium ADs—I don’t know what the AD stands for.

  Another Dimension? After Dinner? Absolute Disaster?

  I don’t know, but I stay on the toilet for a full five minutes, praying the entire time.

  Please, God. I know we don’t talk often, or ever, but I need to not have diarrhea right now. If you do exist and you are in fact master of the universe, it wouldn’t take you any energy at all to seize up my bowels and make this stop, would it? Is it really asking too much to ask you to let me feel good for my date? This is an important date, God. After all, the way I’ve heard them tell it, you’re a big fan of marriage and monogamy and families. Well, I’m trying to freaking work that out, God, so do you think just this once you could suspend my absolutely shit luck and let me stop shitting? Could you? Just once? In return I will stop judging all the women at work and I’ll go to church on major holidays. Is that enough?

  Apparently it is enough, and Jesus takes pity on my diarrhea or the Tums kicks in, because my stomach slowly starts to ease up. I try to think of Christopher’s pep talk and hold that in my mind. I get my purse, my coat, and my car keys and I check myself one last time in the mirror. “Okay, Miss Sassy,” I say to the porcelain figurine in my window, “this is it. Don’t screw this up.”

  Against all odds, I get to O’Hooligans a full ten minutes early. Unbelievable. Crossing the parking lot I brace myself against the wind and feel my eyes tearing up against the cold air. Shit. My coat isn’t really warm enough, it’s my long black dress coat and it looks way better than my poofy down jacket, but it feels like it’s made out of felt right now. I can feel the wind cut through it and I break into a jog.

  Inside the warmth almost hurts. My cheeks burn and my nose runs as my body tries to readjust to the rapidly changing climate. I sneeze. Sometimes it’s easier to stay in pain.

  I situate myself at the bar and order a cosmo. I’m trying to take the edge off my nervousness by smiling so hard it hurts. I get friendly with the bartender, who’s busy making drinks.

  “I’m waiting for a guy,” I say over his blender. “It’s our first date.”

  He smiles.

  Whrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr goes the blender.

  He glops out a foaming concoction into a shamrock-shaped mug.

  I look around for Brad and check the time on my cell phone. I realize I never even asked him for his cell phone number, and more important, he never asked for mine. What does that mean? Is that bad? That seems kind of bad.

  A group of hearty midwestern girls shows up at the bar, each of them flawed in some major way that makes me feel a little more secure. One is chunky around the butt, and another has a tattoo on her ankle of a blurry lavender butterfly, and it shows right through her sheer tights. There’s a girl with a horse laugh who has a wide, droopy nose that seems like a kindergartner could have made it out of Play-Doh and pressed it over her real nose. Not to be braggy, but I feel the littlest bit superior, because I’m sure I look better than all these girls, which makes me feel friendly toward them.

  “Girls’ night out?” I ask.

  “Double-date night!” one girl shrills. Then I see a group of men coming in from the cigar bar and they descend upon the girls with a shout, and every man seeks out his individual partner. That’s when I realize they’re all married. Every one of them, even Play-Doh nose. They’re all wearing these deliberate, smug wedding bands. “Time for dinner!” the girl says. “Bye!”

  “Bye-bye!” I say with forced gaiety. “Have fun!”

  Brad is now ten minutes late. Ten minutes. Ten minutes isn’t that bad. If I say, “Brad was ten minutes late last night,” that doesn’t sound bad. Nobody would feel sorry for me over that; even fifteen minutes and possibly twenty minutes are within the realm of okay. Anything could hold a person up for twenty minutes. Traffic, an unexpected phone call, a work situation, even just losing track of time. You could lose track of twenty minutes and not be a bad guy.

  It’s twenty-five minutes that’s the real problem. Twenty-five minutes late is not okay. If I say, “Brad was twenty-five minutes late last night,” people would definitely be concerned. They would definitely have questions. Brad would have to have a really good excuse to get out of that one, like his toilet exploded or his cat threw up. And at thirty minutes late—I don’t even want to think about thirty minutes. I really can’t handle that idea right now.

  I sip my cosmo, which is fruity and icy and delicious. It hardly tastes like liquor so I order another one. Two drinks before Brad gets here should probably be my limit. Maybe three? No, two. After three drinks, things can get fuzzy, and I don’t want to be fuzzy tonight. I want to be here and alive and having fun, like all these other Goddamned people.

  Crap.

  I look around. Nobody is really watching me or anything, but I act as though they might be. I mean, if I was here on a date and I saw a woman alone at the bar I might say, “Look at that poor woman over there. She’s obviously waiting for someone. Let’s see if he shows up.” Then I would study her like Dian Fossey does in Gorillas in the Mist. What is her facial expression? How is she holding her posture? Does she seem agitated? Is she looking over her shoulder a lot, and possibly at the entrance? Is she trying to attract a potential mate? Where is this potential mate? Is he fictional or just late? I decide I’m not looking over my shoulder anymore. I’m only looking at the bartender, the television, or my drink. I’d rather look like a skanky barfly drinking alone than a woman being stood up.

  Now Brad is twenty-five minutes late.

  I stare at my cell phone. I really want to call Christopher, but I know what he’ll say. He’ll tell me to leave and I don’t want to leave. As soon as I leave, the potential fairy tale is over. This dream bubble has burst. As long as I’m sitting here, pretending to be oblivious to the time, then everything could possibly work out, right? Plus, if I call someone and whine about my stupid date, I just know Brad will turn up and hear me. That’s what I’ll do! I’ll make a fake phone call and it’ll be like when you get up to go to the bathroom so the food comes.
/>   I flip my cell open. “Hello?” I say to no one. “Oh, hi!” I pause to let my imaginary friend talk. “Absolutely,” I say, “that isn’t a problem at all. I was glad to do it.”

  I smile at a guy who comes up to the bar next to me. He orders a drink.

  “Really?” I say into the phone. “I’m flattered—that isn’t necessary though. Like I said, I was happy to help.” I look back over at the door. I don’t know how long I can keep up an imaginary conversation.

  Then, as I’m holding my cell to my ear, presumably already on a call, it rings loudly. I almost drop the phone on the floor.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Miss Johnson,” Mr. Jennings says. “We need to discuss your account. Wondering when we can expect that payment.”

  “I can’t really talk now,” I say. I hate it when he gets through to me. Every time he calls me I store his number and save it as DO NOT ANSWER. I have seven DO NOT ANSWERS in my phone but he’s got all these new numbers now. It’s like a game and he gets a point every time I pick up. I get a point every time my phone rings and it flashes DO NOT ANSWER.

  “We really need to resolve this,” he says. “We’re going to turn your account over to a collection agency if we don’t get a payment from you.”

  “The thing is, if I had any extra money, I would give it to you. Really. Right now is a bad time.”

  “We can set up a payment plan.”

  I glance at the old-timey clock behind the bar that has four-leaf clovers instead of numbers on it. Brad is forty minutes late.

  “Can I ask you something, Mr. Jennings?”

  “We have many payment options,” he says.

  “Why do guys stand you up? I mean, in general, why does a guy say he’s going to be somewhere and then leave you waiting around in a bar? Why did he even ask me out in the first place?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, “we’re going to have to settle this…”

  “No, I mean just as a friend,” I say. “What should I do?”

  He doesn’t say anything. The noise and laughter of the bar close around me.

  “Do you have a daughter?” I ask.

  “No,” he says after a pause, “but I have a younger sister.”

  “Well, if a guy stood your little sister up, left her alone in a public place, what would you do?”

  “I’d bash his face in.”

  I’m impressed. I may even pay the bill.

  “Look,” he says, “I can give you two weeks. That’s it. Then it’s out of my hands. I’ve been delaying the collection agency as it is.”

  “Mr. Jennings,” I say, smiling, “you have unsuspected depth.”

  “I’ll call you in two weeks,” he says and then adds, “but be careful out there.”

  He hangs up.

  I can’t believe it. My debt collector turns out to be a nicer guy than my date.

  The bartender sets down an enormous ceramic elf in front of me. Seriously, it’s the size of one of those garden gnomes, only this one is filled with liquor.

  “You sip from the straw in his hat,” the bartender says. “There’s over twelve different liquors in there, and it’s on the house.”

  I try to tell him I don’t want to drink from a lawn decoration, but he sails down to the other end of the bar. I stare at the elf and the elf stares at me. He has a pointy green hat and a big knobby nose. I wait awhile, look around, and finally take a long sip of the fizzy orange liquid. It’s not bad. Like a Dreamsicle and rum. I take another sip.

  I’m alone at a bar with a pity elf.

  I decide I’ll wait here until the bar closes. It’s simple math. The pain of having Brad stand me up is far greater than the humiliation of having him be late, even five hours late. I’d much rather have him be late than not show at all. I can’t even mathematically quantify how much more I want one more than the other.

  I suck ferociously on my elf, but I don’t know if there’s enough liquor in this world to get me through this. I break down and call Christopher. No answer.

  Brad is fifty-five minutes late.

  Right now I don’t care if he ever comes. The hearty midwestern girls reappear. They’re going outside for a smoke.

  “You’re still here?” one asks. “You want to come join us?”

  I tell them no thank you, and point to my elf and say I’m not really alone. They all laugh and I just want to die. I wonder if it’s quicker to kill myself by ramming the elf hat repeatedly into my eye or electrocuting myself with the margarita blender.

  Then I hear Brad’s voice. “Why are you French kissing a leprechaun?”

  He looks confused. “How long have you been here?”

  I shrug.

  “Didn’t we say nine?” he asks. “I changed it and…my secretary was supposed to tell you.

  I shrug. All I’m thinking is Thank God I didn’t leave.

  “So why were you making out with this leprechaun?” he asks again.

  “It’s an elf.”

  “That’s a leprechaun. He’s holding a shillelagh.”

  “It’s an elf.”

  “Well, whatever you were doing to him,” Brad says, “it looked like it belonged on some kind of porn blooper reel.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll call him—Blooper the Elf.” Brad laughs and I feel fantastic and sick all at the same time.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “No, this is nerve-wracking. I just want it to be over.”

  Brad smiles. “You really say the worst things to me.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Well, I love it,” he says and helps me up. He asks me where I want to go.

  “For real, for real?” I ask, feeling a little wobbly.

  He nods.

  “I want to get chilidogs,” I say, “really cheap, greasy chilidogs and eat them by the river.”

  His eyes widen the slightest bit and then he throws his arms up. “Then that’s what we’re going to do,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  We march outside to the valet stand and get inside his car (a dark blue BMW 5 series, not that I noticed), and we drive to Dairy Queen, where we load up on every type of junk food possible—chilidogs, french fries, cheeseburgers, onion rings, caramel sundaes, Chocolate Xtreme Blizzards, and paper sacks packed with other things too disgusting and wonderful to mention.

  I show him where you can get on the old defunct railroad tracks and drive across the river. We park directly over the black swirling waters of the Mississippi River, which is my favorite place in the world to be.

  “This is disgusting,” he says, shoving a big bite of chilidog in his mouth.

  “I know. My mother never let us have junk food, so now it’s all I ever want.”

  “Where are the cheese poppers?”

  “Blooper ate them.” I hook a thumb at the ceramic elf seat-belted into the backseat. We liberated him from the bar.

  After we’re done shoving about six thousand calories each in our mouths, we sit back, relaxed, and let that I-just-ate-something-terrible-for-me malaise sweep over us. It’s like a coma, but you can still talk.

  “Tell me something about yourself no one else knows,” Brad says.

  I think for a second. I want to tell him something true.

  “I wanted to be an old black man when I was in high school,” I say, “a blues singer like Muddy Waters. A Delta blues musician.”

  Brad looks concerned.

  I keep going. I don’t know why, I’ve never told anyone else. Not even Christopher. “I wanted to be seventy and wear long-sleeve plaid shirts with suspenders and porkpie hats. I even had a name picked out for myself.”

  “What was it?”

  “Catfish Johnson.”

  There’s a moment of horrible silence in which I feel he must be calculating the immense geekiness of my very sad personage…and then he bursts out laughing. A giant belly laugh. He hammers the dashboard and holds his stomach.

  This goes on for some time.

  “Catfish Johnson?” he says, tears
in his eyes. “You’re the whitest woman on the face of the earth.”

  “But I have soul. Even a white woman can have soul.”

  He wipes the tears away and nods.

  “Well, white woman,” he says. “Wanna dance?”

  I do. I really do want to dance.

  We walk to Nye’s Polonaise Room across the river and I carry Blooper.

  “Why not leave him in the car?” Brad asks.

  “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that. What if someone stole him?”

  “We stole him.”

  “Not the point,” I say and charge onward.

  Inside the hot and sweaty bar the band is in full swing. The place is packed to capacity with every type of cold-weather citizen. Old men, art students, housewives, republicans, Union members, steelworkers, Goth kids, retro-junkies all drinking and dancing side by side.

  We set Blooper on the bar and order Leinenkugels. Then the band starts playing a fast accordion version of “Funkytown.” Brad says he’s sorry, but he has to dance. I can tell I’ve definitely had too much to drink, because I agree to dance, too. I don’t care. He’s insanely funny, a really crazy dancer with leaps and jumps and weird jerking. I think he’s trying to be weird on purpose, which is adorable. For sure no one’s looking at my crappy dancing when he’s on the floor. I dance so hard I take off my shoes and dance in my stockings. Brad grabs me by the waist and twirls me around, crashing me into the bathroom door. It’s the best night of my life.

  Brad grabs Blooper and starts to dance with him, which makes everyone laugh. He does this tango thing, and then the people make a circle and Brad pretends to moonwalk while he spins Blooper on the floor.

  “Surf him!” someone shouts, “surf him!” and up goes a cheer as Blooper is passed overhead from hand to hand across the bar. He goes full circle around the room, some women stopping to kiss him or take a picture with him, and he comes back to us relatively unharmed.

  “He’s back!” Brad says. “You filthy elf!”

  “You better ground him for staying out so late,” I say.

  “I had a stern talk with him,” Brad says, “and he’s gay.”

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s gay. Our elf is gay.”