I Just Want My Pants Back

by David J. Rosen

  Eric and I didn’t hang out one-on-one all that often, but I was always pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was when we did. He wasn’t caught up in a lot of the pop-culture bullshit I was, and we tended to have conversations about real things, often politics or health topics I had read about in the Times. He also wasn’t afraid to cry. I mean, he should’ve been more afraid, he was kind of a bawler. I had seen him tear up at least a half dozen times, most recently after he, Stacey, and I watched the old film Heaven Can Wait on cable. Over lunch I’d done my best Al Roker and predicted that his wedding day was going to be partly cloudy, with a passing shower of man tears.

  As we stood there, faces pointed at the sun, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head to see a petite blond girl in a black sweater.

  “Hey, Jason, how are you?” the blonde said, beaming. I knew that smile. Intimately.

  “Holy shit—Annie!” We hugged. “I didn’t know you were in New York.”

  “Yeah, I moved here about a year ago, I got a job at People magazine as a photo editor. I live up on the Upper West Side.” She flipped her hair. She was dressed way more stylishly than the last time I had seen her. She actually did look like a photo editor. The trendy tight sweater, fancy jeans, some kind of stylish boots. “And you? What’s your story?”

  “I live in the West Village.” She made a face, as if she were impressed. “Yeah, I was really lucky, and got this great place.” I realized Eric was standing there awkwardly. “This is actually the guy who found me the place, Eric. He went to Cornell too, but he was a couple years ahead of us.”

  Eric reached out his hand and shook Annie’s. “Hi, I’m old Eric.”

  “Hi, nice to meet you.” Annie turned back to me. “I love the West Village, good for you,” she said, grabbing my arm. “So what else? What are you doing for work?”

  “Nothing too exciting, really. Right now I just work at this casting place around the corner.” I shrugged.

  “You don’t sound that into it,” she said, seeming genuinely surprised.

  “Oh, you know, it’s fine.”

  She fingered an earring, smiling. “When we broke up, I always had nightmares that the next time I saw you, you’d have models on your arm, a famous record producer or something,” she said.

  “Oh, well, I am hugely famous in Croatia. People have posters of me there.” I laughed.

  Eric excused himself and popped into a deli on the corner. Annie and I talked and caught up for five minutes and gave the brief versions of our deals, until he came back.

  Annie looked at her watch. “Shoot, I better get going.” We hugged again and said our good-byes. Then Eric and I continued around the corner.

  “So what was up with that girl?” he asked. “You used to date her?”

  “Yeah, it was after you graduated, spring of senior year. She’s a year younger. I was working crazy hours at the fucking Sam Goody because I was saving up to go traveling, and she had a pretty easy semester. I’d close the store at ten, get home exhausted, and she’d force me to motivate. All I did that spring was re-stock CDs, smoke pot, and have sex.”

  Eric opened a pack of a gum and offered me a piece. “That doesn’t suck. Annie, hmm. I feel like Stacey has mentioned her.”

  I took the stick and popped it into my mouth. “That was really weird seeing her again. She was like the only ‘girlfriend’ I ever had—even if it was just a few months. What kind of gum is this?”

  “It’s called bubble mint, it’s some hybrid of bubble gum and mint gum.”

  “Hybrid, eh?” I grinned. “Okay, Doctor.”

  “Shut up.” He blew a small bubble, pulled it back in his mouth, and cracked it. “Maybe you should have gotten her number.”

  “Nah. I mean, she was a crazymaker.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It just means we drove each other crazy all the time, in good ways and in bad. It’s a chemical thing, I think. We had a lot, a lot, of screaming white-trash-type fights. We got thrown out of a bowling alley once because we were fighting over the right way to score spares, Jesus!” I laughed. “She also had a pretty bad eating disorder, which I didn’t realize until later. She only ate baked potatoes and frozen yogurt. At the time I thought she was just ‘quirky.’” I spat the gum into a trash can on the corner. “I’m not into it,” I said, wiping my lip.

  We began walking slowly in the general direction of my office. A river of people rushed around us like we were a rock in a stream, splitting and then re-gelling on the other side. It was sunny out, but the buildings were so tall in this part of town that we were always in shadow, no matter what side of the street we walked on.

  “I still say you should’ve gotten her number. Just think, you could show her how much better in bed you’ve gotten.” He slapped me on the shoulder with one of his big man-paws, and we hustled to beat the light and cross Sixth Avenue.

  Eric dropped me off at the office and thanked me again for agreeing to shoulder the rabbinical duties. I took one last breath of spring air and then went upstairs, my posture immediately beginning to slouch as I passed through the entrance. It was still totally quiet. Melinda wasn’t in yet and I had no new e-mails, certainly no reply from Jane. Damn it. I checked out nytimes.com, but there was nothing interesting; apparently it was the dullest day in American history. I leaned back in my chair and cleaned my glasses on my undershirt. Maybe Eric was right. Maybe I should’ve gotten Annie’s number; even though she drove me nuts, I sort of thought I was really in love with her for a moment there. But it wasn’t love. It was some kind of unscratchable itch. It was crying three a.m. phone calls and screaming in an un-air-conditioned car at stoplights over directions and generally expending vast amounts of energy and passion playing devil’s advocate on points I really didn’t care about but couldn’t leave alone. But maybe that was love, someone who could drive you crazy, someone you couldn’t ignore even when you wanted to, who got under your skin. I mean I sure as hell wasn’t sure as hell about what “love” was. Anyway, had I gotten Annie’s number, I knew where it would eventually lead.

  Beer. Intercourse. Tears.

  * * * * *

  Melinda never came back to the office, which meant I had to run the late-afternoon casting session. Toddlers for a Charmin commercial. After only about ten minutes I wanted to Krazy Glue the tip of my penis shut so that I’d never, ever impregnate anyone.

  Kids were running around like they were on fire, crying, pulling each other’s hair, spazzing out. Each one was trailed by a mother suckling another younger child, or perhaps, in their eyes, another “gold mine.” These mothers were the worst, just the absolute worst. Their voices were so shrill they could pierce steel, the government should have considered employing them to sonically shoot down enemy missiles from the sky.

  “What did I tell you, Charlemagne? Do you want to watch Toy Story later or not?”

  “Brooklyn! Stop touching that girl!”

  “Magellan, you do as that man says or I’m telling Daddy!”

  All of the kids had ridiculous names like that, soap-opera-character names. There were Dakota and Blaze and Kash and Sodapop (“We both really loved The Outsiders!”) and D’Artagnan and Chynna and Pacifica and Charisma. Charisma—what the fuck, why not just name your kid Personality Plus? And, of course, all of the moms wanted me to know they were more than mere moms, they were also actresses. As they each approached me, their shrill commanding voices instantly softened, their thin frowns were replaced by flirty smiles and batting eyelashes. “Chynna shines when we are in scenes together. It really saves the directors a lot of time.” A sudden blast of authority. “Chynna! Quiet! Mommy’s talking!” Then back to flirty. “So”(hair-flip, stomach-in, boobs-out) “can I give you my head shot?”

  The place smelled of forty kinds of fecal matter. There was a puddle in the corner and I was pretty sure it didn’t come from a juice box. A rotund ten-year-old with bushy hair sat against the far wall, away from the action. He was chain-eating mini Snickers
bars from a Halloween-sized bag, waiting for his mom and younger sibling. I got the sick feeling his folks kept him obese; he was a shoo-in for any “fat kid” role.

  The only thing the toddlers had to do was smile to the camera and say “soft.” Maybe one had actually done that, the rest just started babbling or playing with the only toy we had at JB’s for sessions like these, a Fisher-Price xylophone. Cling clang clang! Cling clang clang! I was ready to shoot heroin directly into my eyes.

  * * * * *

  The day and the week finally came to a close, and I headed home. I stood among the zombies on a rumbling subway car that smelled of human rot. I looked around and saw the cause. A sleeping homeless man, filthy, sprawled in a seat, an open Styrofoam container filled with lo mein on his lap. The stench was awful, as if he were decomposing in front of us. He might have been, too. But no one complained. Or, for that matter, attempted to see if he needed help. We held our breath and waited for our stops, the homeless man finally snorting and coughing in his slumber, proving he was alive, probably spewing an invisible plague onto us all.

  I emerged from the Germ Express and power-walked toward home. I got to my apartment, turned on an old Hank Williams album, and plopped down on my shitty green couch. Hank sang, “Yeah, my bucket’s got a hole in it. My bucket’s got a hole in it.” It was the kind of music you could make love to, or curl up in the fetal position alone and cry to. I had a lot of records like that. Ones that made you feel like you were in a movie somehow when you listened to them, like every move you made had meaning.

  Back in St. Louis, my house had been a short bike ride away from the local hip used-record store/head shop, Vintage Vinyl. It became the place where I spent the majority of my allowance and where I learned all about “rock and fucking roll, dude.” It was intimidating to go in there; the music was blasting, it smelled like clove cigarettes, and there were a lot of Iron Maiden–type posters up replete with skulls and axes, all of which were frightening to a thirteen-year-old.

  The first time I went in, after about ten minutes of wandering around not knowing what to look for, I placed Styx’s Cornerstone on the counter. I knew nothing about the band—or any band for that matter. I picked it solely based on the NICE PRICE sticker, the cool Styx logo, and the simple fact that I had been in the S section, seeing if there were any “Striders.” The cashier, wearing a skinny tie and a handful of pins on his shirt, snickered as he bagged it. I went back a week later, and as I walked past the register the same guy looked at me and sang, “Babe, I love you, oooooooooh ooh babe.” He clapped his hands together. “You didn’t like that piece of shit, did you?” I shook my head. He asked me my name and I told him. “Okay, Jason,” he came out from around the counter. “I’m Mike. Allow me to assist you.” He led me over to rock/pop, humming something to himself. “Today’s letter is the letter ‘B.’ No reason, I’m just feeling it. Let’s see,” he said, click-clacking through the discs. “The Buzzcocks’ Singles Going Steady, and”—click-clack—“Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited.” I don’t know why they kept Bob Dylan under B, but that was their system. Whether Mike turned me on to bands or I found them on my own, I discovered all kinds of great shit in that store. It was where I first bought albums by They Might Be Giants, Built to Spill, and the Dead Milkmen just because I liked their names, only to discover when I got home that I had scored, big time. Every so often you’d see members of local bands like Uncle Tupelo and Enormous Richard (despite Tina’s efforts, Enormous Richard remained the best band name ever) in there, browsing. One time Mike was talking to this chunky guy who wore a cowboy hat and a neckerchief. It turned out to be Big Sandy, of Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys. He was a Western-swing legend from California. We all got high, right in the store, back by the discount rack. On the bike ride home I swallowed about six bugs because I couldn’t get the goofy, open-mouthed grin off my face.

  * * * * *

  I sat there for a few minutes, decompressing, listening to Hank, thinking of nothing. I studied the ceiling. I tried to focus on only the white of it without my peripheral vision letting anything else in. It was really hard to do. I tried but I couldn’t hold it, so I gave in and let my eyes slowly wander around my apartment. It was dusty. The late-afternoon sun streamed through the window and lit swirling particles floating in the air. Something about it made me feel like I lived inside a giant nostril. There were clusters of stuff everywhere—black-and-white photographs on the mantel, piles of CDs on the floor, take-out menus on the countertop. One cabinet was open, and I could see an old package of green tea beckoning me in the back. Tea, why not? Antioxidants might come in handy.

  I boiled the water and washed a mug. I had no sugar so I poured a few drops of lemon-lime Gatorade in, the theory being that lemon and tea went together. I took a sip. The theory was proven correct. I opened my window and climbed out to the fire escape, then sat blowing on the tea as I watched people on their way home from work. It was the end of another nice spring day, it seemed a shame we’d all wasted it.

  “Hi, neighbor!”

  I looked to my right and there was Patty, leaning out her window. “Good evening,” I said nodding.

  “Enjoying a beverage on your veranda I see,” she said. “You’re not going to jump, are you?”

  “No, I love life,” I said, taking a sip of tea.

  “Good, because you wouldn’t die from this height anyway. Just break your legs and embarrass yourself. But have you ever been up to the roof? A fall from there would probably be fatal.”

  “That’s, uh, good to know. Just in case.”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Ah, it’s just beautiful out, huh?”

  We stayed like that, me on the fire escape, her stretched out the window, for a few nice, peaceful moments. Then those passed, and we stayed for a few more quiet, awkward ones. She pushed her hair off her forehead and thought for a second. “Oh, hey, you totally piqued my curiosity the other day. So what was”—she deepened her voice dramatically—“‘the big secret’?”

  “Oh, basically my friends want me to preside over their wedding ceremony. As like, a Universal Minister.”

  She clapped her hands together and chuckled. “Oh my God, that’s funny. I mean, it’s an honor, no?”

  “It is, it is. And a big responsibility.” I took another sip of my tea.

  “Sure, it’s their big day.” Patty began to pull her head back inside. “Well, I’ll leave you up here to contemplate the mysteries of life, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Oh, by the way, do you know Robert Green, he lives in 2B?”

  I thought for a second. “Oh, is he the guy who wears a cowboy hat sometimes?”

  “Yeah. He’s a drug dealer, you know.”

  “Really, that’s weird. I mean, here in the West Village?”

  “There are drug dealers everywhere, silly! Don’t get excited, though; it’s nothing we’d want. He used to sell pot and give us all a bit for free, to keep us quiet I suppose. He cleaned himself up for a while, probably as long as you’ve lived here. But now…he’s selling crack. That’s the worst, those guys get bloody desperate. That’s the only reason I’m telling you, it’s not like I’m a big gossip or anything. See those guys hanging out across the street? They’re waiting for him to come home.”

  There were two scraggly-looking white dudes sitting on the steps of the brownstone across the street, smoking. I guess they did look like crack addicts, it was kind of hard to tell. Still, I found it hard to believe I had a crack dealer in my building.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, they won’t do anything here, they don’t want Robert busted. But you should know, just so you keep your eyes open.” She coughed her smoker’s cough. Again, you could hear the mattresses in her. “Ahem, sorry. Hey, speaking of drugs, you wouldn’t happen to have any pot, would you?”

  “Why, Patty, what ever gave you that idea?” I laughed at the unabashed question. “Has the hallway been reeking?”

  “No! I mean, I’ve smelled it, but only a little. I just though
t you might. If you could spare any, may I borrow a joint?” she asked, quite seriously.

  “Of course, anytime. Oh, do you mean, right now?”

  “No, no big rush. Now I have things to do, people to see. Boring things. But maybe I could stop over when I get back, or if you’re going out, maybe you could slide a joint under my door? I’d really owe you one.” She took a deep breath, like she was trying to eat the air, digest it. “God, these first warm days, they just sneak up on me. All of a sudden I walk outside wearing my winter coat and…it’s spring.” And with another swallow of air and a bony-armed wave, she slipped into the darkness of her apartment.

  I carefully pulled my mug from where I had set it on a stair. I was done with this tea. I wasn’t much of a hot-beverage guy, to be honest. I was the only person I knew who didn’t drink coffee. Whenever I’d tell someone I didn’t drink coffee I’d get a look like I’d just said, “Mmm, puppies, delicious!” in a PETA meeting. Glancing down to make sure I wasn’t about to scald anyone fifteenth-century style, I slowly dumped the rest of the tea to the sidewalk. The pause while it fell, followed by the slap slap slap slap slap as it hit the pavement, was surprisingly fulfilling. I thought of David Letterman and his watermelons. Probably even funnier in person. I considered dropping the mug but thought better of it.

  I stayed sitting there for a bit. The crack addicts gave up on Robert and walked off toward the river. I stared at the clouds hanging above the buildings across the street, looking for animal shapes. There was nothing I wanted to do but I felt like I ought to be doing something. I yawned and covered my mouth. So Jane had completely blown me off, huh? Fuck. Maybe I just wasn’t sexually experimental enough for her, maybe she was looking for a guy with an extra ball or who liked to role-play “school-bus driver/little retarded girl.” I was digging the idea of her, fine, I could admit that. I tried to think about where it might’ve gone wrong. I mean, she still had my pants; why would she have borrowed them if she knew she wasn’t ever going to call me again? It didn’t make sense.