AFTER THE BLACKOUT MEAL Lin excused herself and retired for the night.
Chip drained another can of Coors Light, and tossed it at a basketball hoop that hung over a garbage can in the kitchen. He missed, and the shiny cylinder banged across the linoleum.
“Your turn.”
Beside him on the sofa, Dean raised a can. “Thanks, but I don’t think your mother would appreciate half a can of beer sprayed across her kitchen floor.”
“Half a can? Sounds like ol’ Dean Cook is getting too old for drinking.”
Dean rolled his eyes and tipped the can at the ceiling, finishing the beer in a few swallows. Emulating a participant in a game of darts, he made several careful motions at the kitchen target, then tossed. The can bounced off the basketball hoop and spun into a pile of books on the living room carpet.
“That’s the spirit,” said Chip.
He opened a hatch in the sofa arm and handed Dean another Coors Light.
“Ingenious contraption, your little fridge there,” said Dean.
Chip raised his beer to Dean. “Thank you. Also doubles as a urinal.”
“I see.”
Dean held the top of the unopened beer with his fingertips and pulled a tiny bottle of clear liquid from his pants pocket. He squeezed Purell over the surface of the aluminum can, an act of unexpected cleanliness which unfortunately sounded like unexpected flatulence.
Chip watched this process with stunned boredom. He waited until Dean had finished the can-cleaning ritual, then poked him in the shoulder.
“You should be nicer to my mom.”
Dean shrugged. “She’s paid a fair market wage, commenss ... commits... equal with her experience in life.”
“That’s crap and you know it. She does everything for you, from typing up fan letters to Richard Hatch to camping outside the Apple store.”
“That was worth it, though. It’s quite an amazing phone.”
Chip leaned closer. “Three days, man! You could have given her a sleeping bag!”
“It’s very important to keep costs down, what with the bad economy and ... what else? I’ve got it! Global warming.”
“Just treat her like a human being, okay? That shouldn’t be hard, even for you.”
“As long as there’s no direct cost involved, I promise.”
Chip made a sound between a squeal and a gurgle, then drank the rest of his beer quietly. Dean heard the faint ticking of a clock somewhere.
“How’s your book coming along?”
“That’s a matter with which my proverbial plate is loaded down at the moment, metaphorically speaking,” said Dean. “I have a slight disagreement with a publishing editor, but things should be Nagasaki very soon.”
“Naga-what-ee?”
“Looking up. You know, like there’s a bomb coming and you’re looking up at it saying, ‘Hey, there’s a something coming straight at me. It’s probably really cool!’ ”
“Dean, stop trying to come up with the next hot expression. We’ll never have another ‘Where’s the beef?’ ”
“Sorry.”
“What kind of disagreement between you and this editor?”
“She threw my book in my face and called security.”
“Every relationship has ups and downs,” said Chip. “Your girlfriend kicked you out, too. Do you have a problem with women, Dean?”
“I don’t have a problem with them, but somehow they find problems with me. My father’s a woman and my mother’s a woman, so I’ve got twice the women in my life.”
“What did you say?”
“Somehow they’ve got problems with me?”
“After that,” said Chip. “Did you say your father’s a woman?”
Dean cleared his throat. “No, I definitely did not say that. There was a thing that I said that sounded like woman, another completely different word that doesn’t have that kind of fatherly-womanly meaning, and it was ... Mormon. That’s right––my father’s a Mormon. Is this normal beer? It seems very strong.”
Chip shifted his weight on the couch. “It sounded like ‘woman’ but whatever, dude. I still say there’s something wrong with you, Dean. You don’t drive, talk like Doctor Who, and dress like Oliver Twist. One of those might be the reason that females look at you like you’ve flung open a trench coat and exposed yourself.”
“I’m getting fashion tips from the owner of a pink ambulance?”
“It’s the PPPP, get it right.”
“Pretty Please Pass the Peas?”
“No, ding-dong––PewPew Party Patrol. Woo, woo! PPPP coming code three to Dean’s house with an emergency organ transplant for his girlfriend, yeah!”
Dean stood up from the couch.
“Too soon?” Chip smacked the couch. “Come on, sit down. I’m sorry. When I get drunk I tell it like it is, and it is what it is, whatever it is.”
Dean sat down and drank the rest of his beer. He missed the garbage can and Chip handed him another Coors Light. Dean opened the top and drank it all in a few gulps.
Chip nodded. “Nice.”
Dean crinkled the hollow aluminum in his fingers. “I’ll tell you what the problem is, Chip or PewPew or whatever who drives a pink ambulance. It’s not that no one wants to publish my book. It’s not that Joanie kicked me out of my own house. The problem is tomorrow’s my birthday.”
“Sorry. I didn’t get you anything.”
Dean shook his head and spoke thickly. “You don’t understand. I have never, ever had a normal birthday. Something always goes wrong. Not the TV-sitcom wrong that you’re thinking about where the cake is made from concrete or full of laxatives. Every single year my birthday is the apogee of pain, anguish, and dead zoo animals.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. It can’t be that bad.”
“Okay. On my sixteenth birthday our cattle broke out of the fence and rampaged through the school football field.”
“So?”
“It was during the game!”
“I see your point.”
“Not to mention my best friend used me to break up with his girlfriend, her brother punched me in the ear, and my cousin started a forest fire we spent the rest of the day fighting. There was absolutely no time for a party.”
“Was your dad a firefighter?”
“No, my mother,” said Dean. “She’s like a pit bull when there’s a fire around. I take it back, she’s like that all the time.”
“A very nice, motherly pit bull?”
“I wish. Every year she tries to organize my birthday party, which either means fifteen boxes of wine and a car chase from the police, or ten cases of cheap beer and a car chase from the police.”
“Now I know you’re kidding.”
“I’ve never, ever been more serious in my life,” said Dean. “Apart from one day I spent in Berlin.”
“What happened there?”
“Nothing. I was just very serious.”
Chip sighed. “Can I turn the lights back on?”
“In a bit.”
“Whatever. Oh, and cheers, birthday boy. It’s midnight.”