Moodswing - Just show up

I seriously don’t know how Lary thinks his cat will survive, because he’s asked me to care for her while he’s gone again and, I’m telling you, I can’t even get the first step right, which is to show up. Thank God there are lots of rodents running around in Lary’s warehouse, and mysterious puddles of non-urine related condensation that crop up on his concrete floor now and then, because if not for these, that cat would be a sack of maggots by now.

But Lary keeps trusting me to show up, and eventually I do. The last time it wasn’t until the day before his return. His cat was looking pretty skinny, so I had to force feed her three cans of cat food, which puffed her up pretty good, even though all her bulk was in her belly like an Ethiopian drought victim. I left hoping she’d stay that way until Lary got back. Maybe he’d think her huskiness developed evenly over the duration of his absence. To back myself up I decided to tell him she was a binge eater, “an obvious sign of trauma due to the fact that you’re never home, you heartless piece of cat-killing crap.”

That’s right. Before I’ll deal with the guilt of letting Lary down, I’ll invent a reason why he deserves it. He gets away with way too much anyway. The other day he met Grant and me at some Thai restaurant hidden away in the corner of an abandoned strip mall near the airport, and it was the best cheap Thai food ever. They probably had decapitated ducks hanging from hooks in the back. I mean we are talking authentic, minus the fact that the place was packed with airport employees milling about with their badges clipped to their shirt pockets like a pack of bovines tagged for scientific study.

So there we were in the middle of all these people with places to go and time cards to punch, when Lary looks up, points to someone who just walked through the door and says, “That’s my boss.”

Grant and I looked at each other like we just heard Lary confess to a mass killing. Lary’s boss? Up to then we never thought of Lary having a boss. We always figured people just paid Lary to stick around or stay away, depending on their tolerance for a guy who likes to throw bricks at police cars from the top of Philips Arena. He actually did that while on the clock once, but even then I never thought of Lary as having an actual boss. I swear I thought he just showed up with a tool belt and put his palm out like everyone else at the end of the day.

This mindset is based on Lary’s vehement distaste for being directed to do anything. Believe me, I have in the past, many times, demanded all kinds of crap out of Lary. Like the time I moved out of the Telephone Factory, and Daniel and Grant, the pussies, disappeared the minute they saw me back my borrowed truck up to the loading dock, so that just left Lary to help me.

“Goddammit, get your worthless wet-diaper ass over here and help me move,” I shrieked into his answering machine, and sure enough he showed up with a hand truck 10 minutes later. It wasn’t until I unpacked that I noticed half the stuff he touched he demolished. My sister had entrusted me with a beloved talisman years ago, the tackiest Mexican-plaster panther statue on the goddamn planet. She even labeled the box “Super Fragile! Handle with Care!” and damn if that thing wasn’t dust by the time Lary tossed it off the truck and kicked it into my new address. It was the “Handle with Care” label, I tell you. Lary hates being told what to do.

So Grant and I gawked at Lary’s boss, the person who tells Lary what to do and lives. He was a totally normal looking guy who did not seem to be heavily armed. “Hey, fucker,” Lary waved to him across the restaurant. Lary’s boss laughed and waved back. After that, Grant and I determined that if anyone was going to be Lary’s boss and live, it would have to be someone who was good-natured about being called “fucker.” Upon meeting the guy, we further concluded that he was so good-natured he probably didn’t tell Lary what to do after all, as the smartest option is always to let Lary just show up and do what he wants.

On that note, looking back at all my stuff Lary demolished, I realize he was just trying to tell me something. “You don’t need half this shit,” he was saying, and he’s right. I seriously do not need my sister’s tacky-ass Tijuana-plaster statue weighing me down for the rest of my life. If nothing else, it made for a lot less stuff Lary had to move for me the next time.

And as far as me neglecting Lary’s cat is concerned, I’m just trying to tell him something with that, too. “We miss you, you crusty fermented shithead,” I was saying. He’s been gone so much this summer I could have sublet his place to circus performers and had it all cleaned up by the time he got back. Yes, just me and his cat sitting there all innocent, waiting for Lary to do what he does best; just show up.

hollis.gillespie@creativeloafing.com


Hollis Gillespie is the author of Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood, published by Harper Collins. Her commentaries can be heard on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” To hear the latest, go to Moodswing at www.atlanta.creativeloafing.com.