Down with the Sickness

Another new year, another lonely meal for Anthony Robertson. He absentmindedly twirled his shrimp linguini with his fork while gazing with a silent fury around Red Lobster’s clientele for the evening. So many happy people. So many successful couples with adorable kids. Men in suits and ties. Girls in cocktail dresses. All of them beautiful and perfect like the Mary-Sues they were. All Anthony had to show for his troubles was a doughy body covered by a Star Wars T-shirt and sweatpants along with a permanent resting bitch face.

He sighed and twirled his food some more, only occasionally taking a sip of his diet cola. He could see his reflection in the drinking glass and though distorted, he hated that image with fire and fury. Anthony could easily join a gym, shave his face, cut his hair, maybe even speak up for himself every now and then. But what was the point of it all? How would any of this make a difference at thirty years of age? How would this set of New Years resolutions be any different from the others? He thought maybe he should have the waitress box his meal up so he could eat it when he got home. No sense in taking in this circus of conformity any longer.

Of course, no circus of conformity would be complete without its own set of clowns. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Anthony mumbled to himself. Dancing happily towards their booth was the tuxedo-wearing Ryan Lawrence and his new wedding dress-wearing wife Lillian, their faces familiar to Anthony dating all the way back to high school. Prom king and prom queen. Football stud and cheerleader chick. Cult of personality and goddess of love.

The newly-minted Lawrences occupied the same side of the booth so that they could spoon together like the lovebirds they were. At some point during Anthony’s silent apoplexy of jealousy, he had forgotten that there was a plate of shrimp linguini in front of him and a cup of diet cola not too far off. He closed his burning eyelids and took a bite of his meal. Creamy sauce, check. Soft noodles, check. Garlicky shrimp, check. Lillian’s lipstick, check…wait a minute…

Sure enough, the jarhead Ryan and his blond bombshell were playing a Stanley Cup-worthy game of tonsil hockey, much to the ignorance of the other patrons. Every time their tongues bathed in each other’s mouths, Anthony could feel the same sensation just from eating his meal. Suddenly his entire pasta dish looked like saliva and dentistry. His stomach felt like it was pregnant with a bag of bowling balls.

Yet Anthony couldn’t look away from this romantic display. He could have heard their lips and tongues smacking even if he was in Scotland….during a rock concert…with plugs in his ears…and permanent ringing. The PDA even included Ryan fondling his wife’s breasts through the dress. Any chance of Anthony getting a boner that night had died a long time ago with his high school self-esteem.

The lonely juggernaut waddled over to Ryan and Lillian’s table and slammed both fists on the wooden surface to snap them out of their little love fest. With a gaze as scalding as the coffee pot on the table, Anthony said, “Now that I have your attention…and everyone else’s attention in this fucking restaurant…could you do me a favor? The next time you plan on shooting a porn movie in a public place, make sure to send me an advance copy so that I can rub one out instead of crying myself to sleep at night.”

While Lillian folded her arms and pouted in shock, Ryan laughed it off and said, “Listen, buddy, I know it’s hard for a big guy like you to get girls, but if you look hard enough, you’ll find one someday. Maybe you’ll get to shoot your own porno in public. Until then, could you please get the fuck out of here so my wife and I can enjoy our suppers?”

Anthony stood up straight and hollered into the waitress’s vicinity, “You hear that? These two want to enjoy their meals! Don’t bother bringing them crab legs and cheddar biscuits! They already have someone, I mean, something to eat!”

While that last joke earned a few awkward chuckles from the other patrons, Lillian’s expressed the opposite of humor when she stood up in the booth and asked, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Ryan barricaded his wife with his arm and sat her down again while saying, “It’s alright, honey, I got this.”

“That’s right, Lillian, there’s no need to fight your husband’s battles for him,” mocked Anthony. “As soon as the two of you have a daughter together, that’ll be her job, not yours.”

Ryan stood up and was nose-to-nose with his assailant, teeth gritted and fists clenched. “What the fuck is your deal, you ignorant cow?!” He muttered. “This is not the time or the place for your jealous bullshit!”

Anthony grabbed Ryan by his bowtie and growled, “Speaking of not being the time or the place for anything, I think you’re pretty much forgotten that this is a restaurant! A restaurant where people eat food! Nobody wants to eat their food with a bunch of disgusting tongue warriors next to them! You know that old phrase get a room?! Well, that sounds like damn good advice right now, don’t you agree?!”

Ryan kneed Anthony in his pudgy gut and dropped him to the ground. Waitresses, waiters, and patrons scrambled onto the scene to hold the husband back and prevent further violence. Their tight grips on his arms and legs didn’t prevent Ryan from shouting a few choice swear words at his opponent, who grabbed the edge of the table to pull himself to his feet.

Lillian, who didn’t have the disadvantage of a crowd blocking her path, stood up from the booth, slapped Anthony across his bearded jowls, and sneered, “Serves you right! Come on, honey, let’s eat somewhere else!”

The knee to his stomach and the slap across his face lit a fire within Anthony Robertson’s soul. If his pent up rage of twelve long years of loneliness and disgust was an actual fire, the governor would declare a state of emergency. Anthony didn’t have the power of pyromancy at his side. He didn’t have a flamethrower or cigarette lighter handy. But he could burn it all down anyways. In one swift motion, he spun Lillian around by her wrist and splashed scalding hot coffee in her once beautiful face.

The blood curdling scream caused Ryan to push the now weakened onlookers aside and kneel by his wife’s side. Her flesh peeled, reddened, and in some places bled profusely. Her tongue grew pitch black like she had just swallowed a lit cigar. Steam rose from her blistered face like a California wildfire.

Anthony’s grin grew wider than even his jowls could allow. “Go ahead, Ryan. Kiss her. Kiss her deeply. Show her how much you love her. Go ahead and cannibalize her. She’s what the steak chefs would call…well-done!”

Holding his wife tightly while patrons scrambled to call 9-1-1, Ryan’s visage was a cauldron of rage and sorrow. He looked so heartbroken that he couldn’t bring himself to his shaking legs to bring the fight to Anthony. Instead all he asked was, “What the fuck is wrong with you, man? All we did was kiss each other! There’s nothing wrong with kissing! It’s all about love, right?”

Anthony leaned closer to Ryan’s melting puddle of a face and said above the din of Lillian’s slowly calming screams, “I wouldn’t know what good kissing is like. According to you and your football friends, the only kissing I knew was with a hideous pimple faced princess named Jennifer. You think I forgot about those lies you spread about me, Ryan? Sure, it was over a decade ago, but try explaining that to my traumatized mind. Try telling me that as I eat my meals and see Jennifer’s face in my plate. That disgusting, disfigured, retarded face chewing my food for me! It’s a shame, too. I was enjoying being on the honor roll. They don’t let traumatized kids on the honor roll, Ryan. They don’t even let them have English degrees.”

Ryan’s face softened from rage and agony to shame and regret. His wife was still a fucked up mess with her acid-like burns. No more kissing for this triangle of terror known as Anthony, Ryan, and Lillian. Nobody knew what Ryan was thinking, but it probably had something to do with Anthony’s mental scars being just as painful as Lillian’s physical ones. At least that’s what Mr. Robertson hoped as he waddled away from the scene of the crime.

A whole litany of racing thoughts burned through Anthony’s mind as patrons scrambled to administer first aid to Lillian. He secretly wondered if Ryan would divorce his wife on the basis of her not being attractive anymore. But then again, he believed those two deserved each other until the end of forever. While Anthony couldn’t have his cake and eat it too, he could eat something else that was probably more nutritious and realistic: the plate of shrimp linguini he had been nursing for half an hour.

But that wasn’t how revenge worked. Instead of healing his mind, Anthony’s thoughts raced faster and faster, each damning trauma flaring in his mind ever so painfully. He knew he was destined for the hellhole of prison for his actions. He knew the food would taste even more disgusting than a false high school girlfriend’s mouth. Maybe it would have worms and maggots in it. Maybe there would be more traumas waiting for him behind bars. There was no turning back now. Anthony sucked in a deep breath and prepared to surrender his body and fucked up mind to the colorful police sirens outside Red Lobster.