Chapter One

The flight to South Africa is scheduled to depart in approximately two hours. I am at the airport, waiting at the end of a long check-in line, when I see him from across the terminal: a lone police officer, pushing four enormous designer suitcases stacked on a rickety metal luggage cart. The cart’s loose front wheels dart from side to side like the eyes of the village crazy. The cop is wearing a dark blue uniform and matching hat. There is a nightstick hanging from his belt and a shiny badge over his heart. His polished shoes are standard-issue black.

When our eyes lock he removes the nightstick from its holster and begins rapidly swinging it in the air in a circular motion. A mother grabs the back of her young son’s red suspenders and pulls the boy toward her. “Get out of the way, Jimmy!” she screams and shields his head.

I squint at the police officer then glance at my friend Libby, who is sitting beside me. She is perched on her suitcase, wearing sunglasses, her head tilted back like she’s relaxing on a beach of fluorescent lighting. She turns over her piece of watermelon bubble gum, pops a pink bubble, then holds out the pack. “You want some, babe?” she asks in her lulling voice, the auditory equivalent of two NyQuil doses. “I bought a bunch of packs so our ears won’t hurt from the cabin pressure.” I tell her not yet and with my foot absently push her an inch closer to the counter. Just then someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn and flinch. It’s the cop. “How goes it?” he asks. “Ready for our safari?” I do a double take. It’s my friend Max. Um, he’s a personal trainer, not a cop. Libby pulls her sunglasses to midnose. “Why are you dressed like that?” she asks. He frowns at her: “I don’t know, Fonzie. Why are you wearing sunglasses in an airport? You need a job.” It’s true. Libby does need a job. She was laid off a few months ago and hasn’t made progress in finding a new one. I have unemployment check envy. But now’s not the time to discuss that.

Max twirls his nightstick like he’s a Keystone Kop then gently pokes me in the stomach with it. “The reason I’m dressed this way is because I just came from Richard’s apartment building,” he explains.

Revulsion slowly spreads across my face like a blot of black ink on paper. Richard Stein is the guy I dated for two months. He made a fool of me this past Valentine’s Day, which was just three days ago. I haven’t fully recovered.

“I knocked on all his neighbors’ doors,” Max coolly continues. “I told some of them that Richard is under investigation for organ trafficking, I told a few others that he is a convicted flasher and that, if he is seen around the building in a coat, neighbors should under no circumstances make eye contact, although it would not hurt to say ‘We know about you’ under their breath as he passes. My crowning moment occurred at apartment Nine-C, where I told a sweet granny that Richard is running a retirement home scam. She was taking notes.” He tips his hat. “He’s not going to be popular there. You’re welcome.”

I put out my hands. My mouth falls open. Wait, what? Max puts the nightstick under my chin and manually closes my mouth. “I must have forgotten to tell you,” he says. “Did I forget to tell you? Yeah, I’m getting revenge on Richard. I’m not going to physically injure him, just really, really annoy, confuse, and inconvenience him.” He begins stripping off his uniform, underneath which he is wearing civilian clothes better suited for a sixteen-hour plane ride. “The plan is to loosen the screws in his brain just enough so that pieces start falling out and it hurts to think straight.” He stuffs the uniform in a suitcase then removes two stacks of papers. He places one on each arm. Suddenly he looks like Moses via Charlton Heston holding up a pair of Ten Commandments tablets. “Okay, I have no time for you two right now,” he says. “I have to pass out these flyers. On my right I have five hundred with Richard’s name and phone number advertising cheap laptops for sale, fifty dollars or best offer, and on my left I have five hundred advertising Richard’s male escort service. Yes, he has one. He just doesn’t know it yet. And as long as you’re asking I should mention that this morning I put up flyers on street lamps all over town advertising an open house at Richard’s place and about fifty advertising sheepdogs and greyhounds for sale. I’d love to be there when people start calling him up.” He tilts his head and lets out a burp, thoroughly pleased with himself.

“Gesundheit,” Libby offers. I turn to her and ask if she knew about this. She crosses her legs and nods. “Kind of,” she admits. “But not about the police thing. The other day I walked in on him while he was on the phone making doctors’ appointments in Richard’s name for oozing blisters or something.”

Max corrects her: “It was bunions, not oozing blisters, although that’s not bad, Lib.” She blows a bubble. He points at her mouth. “You got gum?” he quickly asks.

She hands him the open pack she’d been holding. “You can have the rest,” she tells him. “I bought a bunch for the plane.”

He takes it and stuffs it in his pocket. “Thanks. I’ll need this when we get back from South Africa,” he says. “I can smear it on Richard’s doorknob.” He pauses. “Come to think of it, I’m also going to need Vaseline so I can grease the handlebars of Richard’s bicycle and some itching powder so I can send it to him inside a greeting card.”

I fold my arms over my chest. “What the fuck is going on here?” I ask. “Who are you all of a sudden, Red Buttons? Harpo Marx? You’re going to send Richard itching powder inside a card?”

Max eyes me disinterestedly. “Uh-huh, sure am.”

When I ask the obvious question—Shouldn’t I be the one exacting revenge? I’m the one who dated Richard—Max responds that I would never properly exact revenge because I’m by nature too nervous of a person (this is true), and that, furthermore, I lack the creative vision for what he has in mind, something I do not doubt. He gives me a serious look. “Richard is...” he starts to say.

Max is momentarily distracted by a cute guy dragging a compact navy suitcase. The guy stops in front of a monitor displaying departure times. He studies his ticket, then studies the monitor. Max addresses Libby. “Libbers,” he says, “I need your help.” She stands up. He pulls her closer. “Is that cool drink of water straight or is he—” He whistles instead of speaking the word. Libby fixes on the cute guy. She takes off her sunglasses. She puts her hands on her hips, raises a manicured eyebrow, and pushes out her chest. Max stares at her expectantly. For a gay man, he has a shocking lack of gaydar, whereas Libby’s gaydar may as well be approved by NASA. She never misses. “He’s one of mine,” she quickly concludes and sits back down.

Max sighs with disappointment. I again try to get his attention. “Richard is what?” I ask.

He looks over at the cute guy one last time. “Richard,” he says, “is not an upstanding guy. He’s a douche bag. He needs a valuable lesson, and I want to personally deliver it to him. He messed with your head, and now I’ll mess with his.” He tells us to watch his bags and walks off whistling with the flyers.

Well, Max is right about one thing: Richard is not an upstanding guy. It was shameful what I put myself through waiting on his call. Bear with me for a moment as I explain how it went down, and then it’s off to Africa. So there I am, on Valentine’s Day, in quite a mood. I am lying on my lumpy deathbed in my studio apartment staring up at the huge piece of poster board that I duct-taped to the ceiling, with the words DON’T CALL RICHARD (AGAIN), YOU BIG EMBARRASSMENT scrawled in black Magic Marker, when the phone rings...

I'm with Stupid Copyright © 2008 by Elaine Szewczyk

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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