Ray Hardy’s alcoholic scent could be smelled from a country
mile away, yet his equilibrium and speech remained normal enough for
functioning in society. Though it was hard for a cheap bottle of Thunderbird to
mess up someone’s balance when none of it entered the man’s mouth. Instead the bitter
liquid stained his white T-shirt to where it looked like he was sweating
bullets. Coupled with the venomous expression on his face, his fists at his
sides, and heaviness in his footsteps, Ray’s roommate Adam Victor was in for a
rude awakening as soon as the former crossed the threshold into the apartment.
Even though Ray was one hundred percent sober, he still had
a hard time fitting his key in the door on account of his trembling hands. When
he finally fit the damn thing in the lock, he made his wrestler-like entrance
by swinging the door open as hard as he could. Adam, who was previously channel
surfing on the leather couch in his sweatpants, jumped to his feet at the sight
of his roommate and best friend looking awful as fuck.
“Good god, are you alright? What happened to you?” Adam
asked.
Ray sucked in his belly and released a heavy sigh upon
formulating an answer. “Adam, I don’t think you give a shit how I’m doing
tonight. But to answer your question…I’m not okay. In fact, I don’t think
anything’s going to be okay ever again. There’s no way in hell I can show my
face at that bar again, not after what Ruby did to me.”
Nervous and fidgety, Adam said, “Okay, um…so…what did she do
to you? You can tell me.”
“Of course I’m going to tell you, dumb ass!” snapped Ray,
causing his best friend to lean back a little bit. “But then again, you can
probably find the whole thing on You Tube if you look hard enough. I finally
did it, Adam. I stepped out of my comfort zone. I approached the woman I had a
crush on for so long…” He pulled his glasses off and wiped a singular tear from
his face. “Ruby threw a drink in my face while her friends laughed their asses
off. That’s why I smell so bad.”
“Oh my god, that’s horrible! Why the hell would she do
that?”
“…Because…because she thinks I’m too fat and ugly.”
“She said that to you? What the hell’s wrong with her?!”
Holding his hands up defensively, Adam hurried his next words along. “Listen, I
had no idea this was going to happen, okay? I genuinely thought stepping out
your shell would do you some good. I didn’t anticipate her throwing a bottle of
Thunderbird in your face and…”
“Shut up, Adam!” retorted Ray while pointing an accusatory
finger. “You wanted this to go wrong from the start! Do you even know why they
call it a comfort zone in the first place? Because nothing bad happens there!
If I had just sat there staring at my shoes all damn night, I wouldn’t smell
like a bottle of hobo wine!”
In response to Ray’s heavy, beastly breathing, Adam kept his
hands up and said, “Calm down, buddy. The important thing here is that nobody
got seriously hurt.”
“Don’t give me that shit! I’m hurting now! I’m hurting
badly! And it’s all because you brainwashed me into believing that everything
would be okay!” Wiping away another angry tear, Ray said, “You know what? There
is one way this will all be okay. I tried my hand at talking to women and I
failed miserably. I lived up to my end of our little deal. Now it’s time for
you to live up to your end too. The wooden box, the one marked The Shit, where
is it?”
Backing slowly away, Adam said, “Um, Ray, now you’re really
going to be mad at me. There’s been a little bit of a snag with the box full of
shit. You see, I didn’t get my paycheck this week and…”
“Where’s the shit?!” Ray bellowed, causing an uncomfortable
silence to hang between the best friends. Adam slowly stepped to the side and
waved his arm towards the wooden chest, which was sure enough marked The Shit
with a permanent marker. “Yeah, I’m going to get the shit. DVD’s, gift cards,
money, CD’s…yeah, I could use some shit right now!”
Ray skulked towards the wooden chest and flung the lid open
as fast as he could, almost making a crack in the wall. His imagination ran
wild with the kinds of surprises that could be in there. Maybe there was a gift
card to McDonald’s. Maybe there was the latest Hellyeah CD. Maybe there was a
wad of twenty dollar bills. But when Ray poked his head inside the box, his
insane smile drooped into a saggy frown. “A mirror? A fucking mirror?! Is this
a joke?! Huh?!”
“Ray, as I was saying, I didn’t get my paycheck this week,
so I couldn’t buy you anything. I’m sorry.” No response, just a frozen stare
into the mirror from Ray Hardy. Adam swallowed a lump of saliva and said, “If
it’s any consolation to you, at least you learned something from your
experience. You can’t put a price tag on that. No Double Quarter Pounder will
ever replace a valuable lesson. Right?”
Ray stood up and slowly turned to face his best friend with
a vicious gleam in his eyes, causing Adam to tremble and back away a little
bit. “Lesson? Yeah, I learned a couple of things, actually. One, women aren’t
worth the trouble anymore. And two, neither are best friends! I was counting on
there being some good shit in this box! I needed these things to be there for
me when I failed!” Pointing his sausage-like finger, he yelled, “I! Want! A
safety net!”
“You want a safety net?!” belted Adam, sending a shockwave
throughout Ray’s tense muscles. “No, you don’t get a safety net, my friend! You
know why? Because safety nets are nothing more than rewards for failure! You
don’t get rewarded for failing! You get rewarded for succeeding! I put a mirror
in that box because I wanted you to take a good long look at yourself! I wanted
you to realize that there are no participation trophies in life! But you should
know that because you’re a college kid! If you get too many F’s and D’s, you
don’t get gift cards and CD’s! You get kicked out! I put that mirror in the box
because I didn’t want my best friend to coast through life, that’s all!”
Adam’s burst of rage muffled back into fear at the sight of
his friend huffing and puffing like a rabid wolverine. Ray growled, “Coasting,
huh? Do you even know what it means to coast? It means to become comfortable
with your own success to where you become complacent. Let me ask you something,
Mr. 4.0 GPA: how am I supposed to be comfortable with my success…when I don’t
fucking have any to begin with?!”
Adam tucked his chin to his bare chest and solemnly said, “I
don’t know, Ray. I just don’t know. Look, I know how much that box of shit
meant to you, but…” He let out a sigh and continued. “I shouldn’t have yelled
at you just now. I often forget that you didn’t have it easy growing up and you
don’t have it easy now as an adult. I guess what I did doesn’t make me a very
good friend, does it?”
Ray slammed the lid shut and sat down on the box, his
glasses in his pocket and his head in his hands. The two friends had a cold war
of silence between them for the longest time. And then Ray wiped away his few
tears, sniffed mucous up his nose, and softly said, “You know what? Can we just
end this night right now, please? I don’t want to think about this shit
anymore. I don’t give a damn about Ruby and I don’t give a damn about anything
else. Tell you what, Adam, if you really want to be a good friend, do me a
favor. There’s a bottle of pills in the kitchen with my name on it.”
“Wha…wait a minute…your medication? You mean the stuff for
your…” Adam tapped himself on the head to signify a mental illness of some
kind.
“Yes, those pills. I’d get them myself, but I don’t feel
like getting up right now. I need two pills and a bottle of Perrier. If you get
those things for me, I’ll completely forget that you screwed me over tonight.”
“Well, of course you will, because that’s what your
medication does.”
“Don’t be a smart ass, Adam!” snapped Ray before taking a
few deep breaths and calming down once again. “Just please, get me my pills and
something to swallow them with. I’m not going to make any decisions about my
comfort zone until the morning. Right now I just want to go numb for the rest
of the night…and try to forget that I smell like the world’s worst wine.”
Adam nodded and said, “Okay” before fetching the two pills
and bottle of sparkling water. He gave them to Ray and allowed the big guy to
medicate himself for the evening. He shivered in disgust at the bitter taste of
the pills, but otherwise remained peaceful with his head in his hand.
“How do you feel?” asked Adam.
“…A little bit better. I’m actually surprised at how quickly
this stuff works.”
Adam took a seat on the wooden box next to Ray and put a
gentle hand on the back of his neck. Mr. Victor then sang the lyrics to “Rx” by
Theory of a Deadman, a song about taking medication and being depressed. This
got a sad chuckle out of Ray, who then said, “You know what? Maybe I won’t go
to bed just yet. I’d rather just sit here and listen to you sing goofy songs.”
“So in other words, me hanging out with you and being there
for you during your time of need is safety net enough?”
Ray sighed, “I almost hate to admit it, but…I guess that’s
what I want.”
Adam patted Ray on the shoulder and said, “Truth be told,
buddy, you don’t need a woman like Ruby if she’s going to treat you like that.
You can stay in the comfort zone for as long as you want. Come out only when
you’re ready.”
“I probably won’t be ready for a while…but if I crash and
burn again…will you be the one who gets me my pills?”
“Not only that, but I might have to fill that wooden box up
with pills and call that The Shit.”
The two friends laughed and sang together for hours that
night. They even sang a Pantera song whose title fit the situation perfectly:
“Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills”. How convenient. Then again, safety nets
usually were.
