“You come here, wake me from my slumber when you have your own keys, give me a headache that even Tylenol can’t cure and you have the nerve just to stand there and gawk at me without answering my question. Now tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. Just please let yourself in next time, granted you don’t wake me up in the process.”
“Let me in Nick, I don’t have time for this crap.”
Now I was getting furious. Howie the peacemaker was being rude to me; well I was this close to cramming the peace so high up his ass that he would feel it at the back of his throat every time he swallowed. Instead of using the violent matters that I intended to in the first place, I proceeded to slam the door shut until Howie learned some manners. This kind of behavior was very un – Howie - like.
Howie caught the door with his foot and if he had pushed me further I would’ve squashed his foot with the doorframe until he screamed bloody murder. Instead, I gave him a chance to explain himself because I was very curious.
Howie told me he needed to get his keys because he left them inside. When I offered to get them for him if he told me where they were, he refused, saying that he preferred to get them because he needed to visit the bathroom. I didn’t want him to do that because I had left the cracked scale out in the open and I was afraid that he would notice it. So I pried at him instead.
“There’s plenty of bathrooms in club, why didn’t you go to those?”
“Let me in NOW you little shit head!” he screamed at me. Then I shut the door right in his angry face. I sat down by the door, partly afraid that he might break the door down with his fists and partly afraid that he would turn into the Asian burglar and break through the window to get me. The door was the farthest from any window, and was the safest place to be at the time.
He kept on banging the door with his fists, knowing that he was making my headache worse. I get terrible headaches, and this one was oddly similar to the kind I got when I was a little kid. There were hundreds of little Japanese drummers now, each one with its own individual drum. I plugged my ears and held my head between my knees, silently willing Howie to stop; hoping he would see that I wouldn’t open the door until he apologized to me. Ten minutes later, my prayers were answered…sort of.
Howie’s pounding fists must have been getting sore, either that or thing he really wanted was important for him to have. He paused for a moment, searching for the right words to say to apologize to me, I thought. A moment later, he spoke.
“All right! I need my prescription, so would you let me in already!”
“What’s it for?” A question out of pure curiosity.
“That’s none of your damn business!” Boy, he was grouchy that night. At first I suspected that someone put a little something extra in his beer.
“Let me get it for you,” I said quietly through the door so it would take him awhile to figure out what I said. Every kind of medication we owned was put away in our medicine cabinet. I decided I would slip it under the door instead of opening it to give it to him. His keys would be left on the table though, because I was afraid that he would come inside and pound the living daylights out of me.
When I got in the bathroom, I could hear Howie screaming at me from outside. He was swearing like a sailor, but he didn’t move to the bathroom window like a thought he would. I thought for sure that he must have been drugged.
Our medicine cabinet was like a personalized drug store. There was at least one of every kind of medicine; Pepto Bismol, Tums (three of us the Tums, two the Pepto Bismol), Tylenol, etc. It was all neatly organized in section; one for cold treatments, flus, etc, one for tummy aches and other various pains. The last section on the bottom shelf was for our personal prescriptions. It was way better than having them lying around, but when they were all tucked away, sometimes we forget to take them like poor old Howie D. I had few, but mostly for calcium and vitamin supplements. What I really used was the Tylenol for aches and pains on the second shelf. There’s a whole row in there just for me. I don’t think I’ll ever need that much, but my management prefers safety over sorry. All the medication was neatly arranged so that we didn’t have to go searching if we needed something that belonged to just us.
Howie didn’t have very many prescription drugs in his section. Despite this, I still couldn’t find the infamous prescription. It was far, far in the back, hidden behind an empty box of Tylenol for pain and fever, which was placed in the wrong section, possibly a fault of mine. I reached in to get it so that I could throw it out and found Howie’s prescription bottle hiding behind it. Kneeling so that I could reach in farther, I stuck out a long arm and seized it.
My hands started to shake because I was so eager to read the label. An evil grin tugged at the sides of my mouth, then slowly dissipated because my mouth was getting sore from smiling that way. Who said it took more muscles to frown?
I tried to read the Latin (hey, don’t laugh, that’s what they teach in home schooling), but the name beyond my pronunciation and even with all they taught me, I still didn’t get it. It was a pretty heavy prescription “two pills, twice daily,” the label proclaimed. With some difficulty I twisted the cap (damned child lock) and peeked inside. Nothing but a bunch of immaculate pills there, obviously no help for me. The only pills I can tell the difference between are Advil and Tylenol. I peered back into the cupboard, looking for a pamphlet of any kind. My hand groped at the back of the cupboard, and felt for it. There was nothing. I was starting to feel discouraged, because Howie would never tell me what the pills were for. He was still banging at the door; taking breaks every now and then. This was my new mission, for some reason I thought it would make me feel better about myself. If he wanted to hide this badly, then it had to be something.
Then success. It was creeping somewhere behind Kevin’s stuff, but I knew it was Howie’s because the Latin name on the paper matched the one on the jar. Quickly, I scanned the paper, trying hard to figure out what the pills were for. Maximum effect…side effects…yada yada. I was so excited that I had to read it twice because I wasn’t really concentrating. In fact I had missed it completely, even so it was in bold lettering on the top.
Bladder control, they were pills for bladder control. My laughter bounced off of the walls and back to me. It was so funny and I was laughing so hard that I fell to my knees. I had once thought that bladder control problems only existed amongst the elderly women in “Depends” commercials. Poor Howie, I just couldn’t resist an opportunity to get back at him for calling me names.
When I calmed down I walked back to the door and called for Howie’s attention. The bottle wouldn’t fit under the door for obvious reasons. If it had the ability to do so, Howie would’ve been poking my ass with a stick while I was sitting with my back to the door. Instead, I was going to throw two pills under the door in his general direction. Then I had second thoughts. Why not make him apologize when I had the chance. He was getting proud, and I wouldn’t be able to bribe him any more perfectly.
“Nick what are you doing?” A question asked a little timidly.
“I’m having second thoughts, actually.”
I think he figured he had me foiled by hiding that paper. And I also think his ideas changed. He saw my golden opportunity, just as he saw Sweet D. Inc. as a great investment. The stakes were getting higher, but I’m not much of an opportunist, all I wanted was an apology.
“Gloat in my face and get it over with. I’m only interested in getting those pills and sending you off to Jenny Craig in a box.”
I gave the pills a little shake, in case he had any doubts about who was in charge. “Tsk, tsk,” I taunted, “still acting a little rude aren’t we? I wonder if you could tell me what the hell these colorful little pills are for?
“Cut the crap. I heard you laughing. Hand them over and hurry up with it. It’s raining out here you know.”
“Yeah, I know, I nearly pissed myself laughing. Excuse the pun.” I checked the window across from me. “And it’s as pretty as a peach outside. You thought for sure I’d shut the blinds didn’t you? Well natural sunlight is my light night.”
I could hear Howie fuming outside. His language would be reduced to a bundle of furious screams in a matter of moments. He told me over and over to hand them over, but I ignored him and cradled my headache instead. I didn’t think I’d be the first to start yelling, but I was.
“You know, all I wanted was an apology, but now you’re just going too far!” I screamed, “But now I’m going to raise the stakes. You have to scream “I have a bladder problem!” and apologize to me or I’m pouring this damn things down the drain and shouting that exact same phrase out the fucking window!”
I could hear him mumbling outside and I knew he knew I was serious. When he still didn’t say anything, I started to count down, starting from only five. I heard him say, “OK Nick, I’ll do it!” and I stopped counting.
“Nick is so fucking fat that when he goes to Sea World all the whales start singing, ‘We are family’!” I heard his laughter and I made a beeline for the sink, unlocking the window as I let the water run. At the bottom of the jar, there was still a price tag, and the pills inside had cost Howie close to $100. Good, I was hurting his wallet just as much as his bladder. Hey, he started it.
“Howie has a bladder problem everybody! I can’t control my wee-wee mommy, I can’t do it captain, I don’t have the power.” A combination of my two all-time favorite voices to imitate. Howie D as a child and Jim Carrey.
I shut the window and locked it just to be safe. You never know who’ll break into your indiscreetly marked tour bus and whack you upside the head with a pan. It could be just an Asian burglar, or maybe even a Howie D gone completely mad with rage. There are a lot of weird people out there these days.
I made sure that Howie could hear everything, from the sound of running water to the pills plunking into the sink. He was screaming my name and other various curses and fat jokes my way, but I was winning. Howie was going to break any second; I could taste it.
But suddenly he stopped his madness. I paused for a moment, curious, but then remembered that curiosity killed the cat so I continued dumping pills down the drain. That was when I heard the key turn in the lock. I was more scared of that then I was of the Asian burglar. Howie was somehow breaking in. I thought about the bum across the street and swore profusely. Of course, Howie had the perfect motivation, money, something I already neglected to give the bum earlier that morning. Curses.
The doorknob twitched once before turning and I had just enough time to put the pills into my baggy front pocket. Howie didn’t quite storm inside, but it looked like he was just about holding back. Why didn’t he just get it over with? I wondered. Then the answer came out of the door after him.
It was Brian. I checked my watch and sure enough an hour had passed. Howie certainly couldn’t kill me on Brian’s time, but later he could come back. Or he could just wait until Brian left. Howie now had his keys in his front pocket and I cursed at myself for not being intelligent and thinking to hide the keys from him.
“Hey Nick, why didn’t you open the door for Howie?” Brian grabbed himself and glass and slowly poured himself some water. Howie scowled from behind him; it was obvious that his impatience was getting the best of him.
“Oh, uh, I was sleeping.”
“Come on, he had to have woken you up.”
“Yeah, and I thought it would be funny to leave him outside for awhile.” I was lying through my teeth because Howie was making a point to slide his finger across his neck in a mock attempt to symbolize what would happen to me if I spilled the beans.
“Well, you seem to be doing fine, do you want me to leave?”
“No, no, if you’ve got some time on your hands, just stick around for a while.” The look on Howie’s face was absolutely priceless. Despite the circumstances I was in, it was still the best face I’d ever seen him pull.
Chapter 45
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