Zane's the Other Side of the Pillow (15 page)

“The good part—if there is a good part in this cesspool of pure fuckery—is that I'm out of school for the summer. I'm going to
deal with getting Winsome the hell up out of here for good. I'm going to drown my sorrows with peanut butter cups and butter pecan ice cream. I'm going to try to understand why my judgment in men is so poor yet again.”

“There's nothing wrong with your judgment, baby. Not this time. I promise you that—”

“There goes that word again.
Promise!
Blah, blah, blah.”

I realized that I was fighting a losing battle.

I walked toward the door and paused in front of her. She looked away from me. “You're not even going to look at me?”

“No, it's too hurtful.”

I did as Jemistry wished and left. When I got into my car, I saw Winsome across the parking lot in her Toyota Camry, going off into her cell phone.
Bitch!

How could planning a romantic dinner and a proposal turn into such a horror story? Someone was playing a sick joke on me!

“Hate is easy. Love takes courage.”

—Unknown

M
any claim that there is life after death. I guess there is some truth to that because the biggest part of me died that night in Jemistry's apartment when she dismissed me from her life. My heart failed . . . it flatlined. I was like a zombie from
The Walking Dead
TV series. Sure, I was a functioning zombie, walking among a sea of functioning alcoholics, functioning gamblers, and functioning drug addicts. I went through the motions every day, even managed to stay on top of my game in the operating room, but once I left the hospital, all I did was go home, sit in the dark, and sink into a state of depression until the next morning.

I tried to call Jemistry but she blocked my numbers. She also blocked my email addresses. I staked out her parking lot a few times, but I never saw her enter or leave. Her car was never in the lot, which made me wonder if she had moved after all, or had left town.

After everything in her painful past that she had told me about, the last thing that I wanted on my conscience was her thinking that I was the kind of man who would do anything to disrespect or hurt her. Yet, that's exactly what she thought. In her mind, I was a liar and a cheater, one who would sink so low as to do something sexual with her own roommate.

To make matters worse, she had also lost her faith in her best friend that day. Even I was shocked that Winsome would do such a
thing, especially considering I barely knew her. Whether Jemistry believed that I came on to her or she came on to me, either way, the blow had to feel just as bad.

Floyd showed up at my house two Fridays later, with a pizza and a bottle of Crown Royal. When I opened the door and saw him standing there, my heart sank. I had hoped that it was Jemistry.

“Don't look so happy to see me,” he said as he brushed past me and entered.

“Floyd, I appreciate you coming by, but I wouldn't be much company right now.”

“So we'll eat all of these carbs and get drunk and pass out in silence. I know you're off for the weekend, as am I, so it's all good.” He put the pizza down on the coffee table. “I can camp out for a couple of days, if you want. Courtney's used to my long hours.”

“What part of me wanting to be alone don't you get?” I asked sarcastically.

“What part of ‘I'm no longer going to sit back and watch you sink into a state of depression' don't you get?”

I sighed and plopped down on the sofa. “What amazes me is the irony of it all.”

“What irony?”

“I warn you that you're going to lose Courtney when she catches you cheating, and I lose Jemistry instead, even though I wasn't cheating.”

Floyd shook his head and opened the pizza box. “See, sometimes it pays to do the wrong thing. Courtney's at home vacuuming and doing laundry after an afternoon of getting a pedicure, a manicure, and a facial that I footed the bill for. If and when I go home, she'll be in bed freshly showered and ready to please her husband in every way imaginable.”

“It still doesn't justify what you're doing.”

“No, there is no justification for what I'm doing. I'm a dog and there's no doubt about it. I even know what kind of dog I am. I looked it up.”

I couldn't help but ask. “Looked what up?”

“I went on the Internet and researched the traits of different breeds of dogs.”

“Are you for real?” I sighed. “You have too much spare time on your hands.”

“I don't have any spare time on my hands, but I wanted to know. Think about it. From childhood, both of us have heard about all men being dogs. Hell, chicks started calling me a dog before I even caught a good whiff of a pussy.”

I chuckled. “That's true. Girls in middle school were calling us all dogs.”

“Exactly. So I decided to finally investigate and see what the hell they were talking about. Most dogs are loyal, sit up underneath their owners, protect them, and will even lay down their lives for the people who feed them. Yet, we're called dogs like it's a bad thing. If you ask me, dogs get a really bad rap.”

“Like I said, you have too much time on your hands.”

Floyd grabbed a slice of pizza. He was the only man that I knew who liked pineapple on pizza. That always seemed like a female thing. One day I had asked him about it and he said that he ate a lot of fruit to counteract the other ingredients so his ejaculate wouldn't taste fucked up when chicks sucked his dick. Couldn't argue with that rationale.

“So what breed are you?”

“I'm proud to say that I'm an Alaskan Malamute.” He pointed at the pizza. “You're not hungry?”

“Floyd, you know I'm not into pineapple on pizza. You should've brought me a meat lover's. That's my shit.”

“Well, you can pick the pineapple off, but I suggest you eat it, and you already know why.”

“I'm not having sex with anyone right now. I don't want anyone but the one I can't have.” I paused. “I must be bored to ask this. What are the traits of an Alaskan Malamute? Never heard of it.”

“Good question. And dig this. Alaskan Malamutes have natural hunting instincts. They're independent, resourceful, and highly intelligent. They're difficult to train but if an owner understands and keeps them motivated, a successful situation is possible. They rarely bark, but when they do, it comes out as more of a
woo-woo
than a bark.”

“You're crazy, man!” I chuckled. “How many breeds did you have to go through to find that one?”

“It only took me about fifteen minutes to define my character traits. Don't you think they fit me?”

“I have no fucking idea!”

“Well, let's break it down. I definitely have hunting skills. I can smell desperate pussy from a mile away. I'm independent and resourceful. I'm a wealthy doctor. I'm definitely hard to train. You're always saying how I don't let Courtney run all over me.”

“I never suggested that you let her run all over you. I suggested that you allow her to walk beside you.”

“Yeah, whatever. As long as Courtney keeps me motivated, the next trait on the list, our marriage will be successful. And I don't exactly
woo-woo
when I bust a nut, but it's definitely not a bark.”

I nodded my head. “Like I said, you're crazy!”

“I'm not crazy. I'm the shit and so is my dick.”

“Keep your dick out of this conversation. If I take mine out, this entire room will go dark.”

Floyd and I joked around for most of the night. I even ended up eating some pizza—after picking the pineapple off. We downed the entire bottle of Crown Royal. There was no way that I was letting him drive intoxicated. I sent Courtney a text from my phone—so she would know that he was really with me—and included a photo of him passed out drunk on my sofa. It was a “proof of fidelity” shot since so many men would lie and say that they were with a friend when they were out trolling for pussy. This was one time when Floyd was where he claimed he would be.

A lot of women did the same thing, though. One time, one of the nurses at Sibley asked me for hotel recommendations out in Northern Virginia. When I asked her why she was trying to pay for a hotel so close to DC, she said that she needed to get lost for the weekend because her best friend was going out of town to cheat on her husband and told him that they were vacationing together.

I couldn't decide whether it made her a good friend or a bad friend to agree to go hide out in a hotel. She said that her friend was going to foot the bill for the room, including room service, through her business account. That was an attempt to make it sound more kosher.

At the end of the day, I couldn't think badly of her. She wasn't cheating on her man and she was only trying to be supportive of a friend. Besides, I couldn't talk since Floyd was cheating and I was smiling in Courtney's face every time I saw her.

Still, it was getting to the point where women would soon not be able to talk a bunch of shit about men. They were on the brink of being at least as trifling as we were. But I couldn't really blame them. A lot of them were simply adapting to the environment around them. They had developed an “if you can't beat them, join them” mentality. The only problem was that it meant the imminent demise of the nuclear family and it meant becoming bitter,
and thus even more conniving. We were in serious trouble, though. Women used both sides of their brains while we used half of our brains and our dicks to guide us.

I couldn't stand the thought of Jemistry back up on that stage at The Carolina Kitchen on poetry night, reciting a poem that had something to do with me and her hatred toward me. I had to keep looking for her. I had to make things right.

“When I say I love you, please believe it's true. When I say forever, know I'll never leave you. When I say good-bye, promise me you won't cry. Cause the day I'll be saying that would be the day I die.”

—Unknown

F
or the next week and a half, every day when I left work, or all day if I was off, I sat out in Jemistry's parking lot waiting for her to go in or come out. No sign of her and no sign of Winsome. I knocked several times as well—no answer. So then I resorted to becoming a slipshod private detective and knocked on a few of her neighbors' doors to ask if anyone had seen her. One elderly woman said that she
thought
she had seen Jemistry putting some trash in the outdoor dumpster “a week or so ago.”

I was so serious about it that I would bring something to eat and drink with me and make sure that I had plenty of gas to run my air-conditioning in the car as long as possible. It was extremely hot that summer and the humidity was high. One thing that I did notice was that, outside of parents or nannies bringing young infants and toddlers out to the play area, there were hardly any children between the ages of five and twelve outdoors doing
anything
. And if they were out there, it was because their younger siblings were on the playground. The younger kids would play under the watchful eyes of the parents and the older ones always had some kind of electronic gadget bolted to their hands. Either a handheld videogame system, a cell phone, or a
tablet. It was preposterous and made me see firsthand why so many kids were overweight.

Sucking up a bunch of unhealthy calories from sodas and juices. Eating a bunch of fast food or processed, microwavable foods at home. Being too sedentary and not being forced to exercise. Sure, there were parents who still insisted that their kids play sports, but letting them sit on their asses was quickly becoming “the new normal.”

When I was a child, my parents made my sisters and me stay outside all day on the weekends, and for at least two hours after we completed our homework and dinner during the week. They didn't care what we did, as long as it was some kind of activity. My sisters did a lot of Double Dutch, Hopscotch, and and-patting games. Or they played Mother, May I?, Red Light/Green Light, or Simon Says. My friends and I either skateboarded, rode our bicycles up, down, and around the block, or played stickball. We found something to do because there weren't any other options. Nowadays, kids were playing high-tech video games, ruining their eyesight, encouraging migraines in the near future from looking at screens so long. They didn't even know about the majority of the things we used to do outside.

I was sitting there shaking my head and running all of those thoughts through my mind when I heard a tap on my driver's side window. I looked up to see a Metropolitan Police officer standing there, with the billy club that he had used to hit the window in one hand and his other hand on the latch of his gun holster. I never even saw him pull up in his cruiser, I was so busy daydreaming.

I nervously rolled down my window. “Good afternoon, officer.”

“Sir, may I ask what business you have here?”

I shrugged. “I'm waiting for a friend to get home.”

“A friend? What's your friend's name?”

I thought about it for a second. I didn't want to bring any more drama into Jemistry's life. For all I knew, she could have called them.

“Why does it matter? I'm not bothering anyone, but I'll leave immediately if you want.”

“License and registration.”

“Oh, wow, do we really have to go there?”

“Sir, I'm not going to ask you again. There have been several complaints by residents stating that you are out here every day sitting in your vehicle for long periods of time. Why would you wait for days on end for your
friend
to return home?”

I carefully took my wallet out of my back pocket and reached over to my glove compartment to get my registration. He bent down to watch my every move. I was a big dude and there were a lot of trigger-happy cops in DC. I could see the newspaper headline in my head:
PROMINENT VASCULAR SURGEON FROM SIBLEY MEMORIAL SHOT DEAD BY METROPOLITAN POLICE.