SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY INSTALLMENT!
~::~Life Begins at 30~::~

It was about time I took a break from writing. All writing. If I had to crush my fingers with a monkey wrench to keep myself from sitting down in front of the computer to tap away at the keyboard every day, I knew I would do it without a second thought.

Deciding to punish myself even further, I left my home office and sat on the couch in front of the TV.

It was Sunday, so the video store was closed; that left me with two choices. I could watch sporting events on channel five, the only station my little TV would pick up with a $5 set of rabbit ears perched on top of it. Or I could settle in with the pirated copy of Grid Iron that Zach had risked violating his parole to send through the mail to me.

My decision had no bearing on what happened next.

I heard a strange, ape-like grunt from the street below, right before an enormous orange ball shattered the window near my TV. Glass flew in every direction, while the sound scared Mister Meme into near-insanity. In half a second, he was hanging upside down from the ceiling with his claws dug into the tiles like some cat in a Merrie Melodies cartoon.

When Mister Meme let go, he hit the floor on all-fours and shot off toward the bedroom. That's when I looked down and realized that it was not an orange ball that had been thrown into my apartment, but a pumpkin. There was a note attached to the side of it, secured with a Swiss Army knife:

"Goddamn it, LET ME IN! xoxo, Jim"

Then came a loud bellowing: "Is your leg broken? OPEN THE DOOR, or I'm gonna stab you in the eye with that knife you have up there but that you MAY NOT KEEP!"

I tugged at the knife until it came free from the pumpkin, and threw it out the window. "Here! Take your knife and go home, you crazy vandal!" I shouted.

The pumpkin was too heavy for me to toss back down to the street.

"Is that any way to talk to me on OUR ANNIVERSARY?" Citizen Jim yelled.

This confused me enough to go downstairs and open the door. "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked him, adding, "Don't come near me!"

"STIMPY! Don't you know? It was around this time three years ago you wrote the first stupid-assed Gentlemen-fucking-Callers story. Gah! Why do I have to make all the effort here? It's like you don't even care!"

"Oh, precious lamb, you're so sweet. I can't believe you remembered," I said.

"Well you're not gonna believe how black your eye's gonna be if you don't let me in," he said.

I started up the stairs. "Wipe your feet," I said.

"Yeahyeah, I'll wipe my feet, all right, with my shoe up your ass! MOVE IT!" Citizen Jim yelled.

"I love you," I said.

When we reached the top of the stairs, Jim said, "Hurry up! I have a pumpkin to carve, and you've got a story to—"

He cut himself off when he screamed like a woman.

"What's wrong?!" I asked him.

He pointed to the TV. "O MY GOD!"

"What is it?"

Citizen Jim blinked a few times, then covered his face with his hands. "It's two men having sex!" he mumbled.

I hit the stop button on the VCR and went back to pat him on the head. "I'm sorry. I forgot," I said.

"Can I look now?" he asked, hands still covering his eyes.

"Yes," I said. "Now what were you saying before?"

Citizen Jim shook his head violently, then stared at the floor in a daze. "I think I said something about the pumpkin, and that story you need to write."

I sat on the couch and drew my legs up under me. "You can carve your pumpkin, but I won't be writing any stories," I said. "I'm taking a break."

Citizen Jim's dazed state instantly turned into rage!

His head jerked up and he shouted, "The hell you say! It's our ANNIVERSARY! Don't sit there and act like you're not going to write a Gentlemen Callers to celebrate!"

"Sorry," I said.

"The one you write today'll make it an even 30! Thirty of those stupid, lame-brained, idiotic stories full of lies and truth-stretching and slander and libel and more exclamation points than a—"

"Save your breath. I'm not writing anything," I said.

"Oh YES YOU ARE!" Citizen Jim said, coming at me with his fist drawn back. "Or I'm gonna make your face look like panacakes covered with potted meat and molasses!"

"Too bad, too sad," I said, and shrugged. "You never liked those stories, anyway."

As soon as I said that, Jim's arm dropped, and he began to cry. His knees gave, and he fell to the floor, crawling over the the pumpkin and wrapping his hairy arms around it while he sobbed so hard that his whole body shook.

"I thought you loved me!" he said. "I superglued my feet to a skateboard and tied a rope around my waist so a pickup truck could drag me all the way from Alabama to see you! Oh, Stimpy! BWAAAAAAAAA!"

For once, my pity could not be stirred by Citizen Jim's tears. I pressed the play button on the VCR and watched the intricate plot of Grid Iron unfold, vowing to stick out my sabbatical from writing NO MATTER WHAT.

Citizen Jim took his cellular phone from the front pocket of his t-shirt and dialed a number. He looked at me and stuck out his lower lip while he waited for an answer.

"Yeahyeah...No, you can quit driving around the block...No, it's not time to carve the pumpkin...Because we're going home...Because she doesn't want us here...Because SHE'S A BITCH! Now come on back and pick me up," Jim said, and shoved the phone into his shirt pocket. "I hope you're happy, making all those people feel like shit."

"What people?"

"Oh, no! Don't try and make friends with me now. I had a great ANNIVERSARY SURPRISE for you, but now you're NOT GETTING IT!"

I hit pause on the remote. "I don't care. It's just another trick," I said. "Hahaha. Trick or treat, stinky feet!"

What might have been the air brakes on a semi sounded from the street, and Jim got up off the floor. "You just keep watching your porn, and I'll be seeing you," he said. He stuck his head through the window he'd broken with the pumpkin. "I'll be down in a minute, Senator. Tell Kiki to scoot over so I can sit between her and Erika."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "Whatever," I said. "You are one sick puppy."

"I was only trying to love you in my own way," Citizen Jim said quietly. "Apparently, you have a lump of coal in your chest where there should be a heart pumping blood into your icy veins. This abusive 'partnership' is over. Forever."

"Write if you get work," I said. "Thanks for stopping by."

He pulled the door closed very gently, and quietly walked down the stairs.

I immediately rushed over to the window to see who he'd really been talking to.

Taking broad steps, as if to stretch his legs, was Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) pacing in front of a tractor trailer. Matt Lemmer was in the driver's seat, and next to him was Lulu Whippy.

Instead of a trailer, the truck had a huge red wagon attached to the back of it. Sitting on several bails of hay in the wagon were Kiki, Erika Eleniak, Meredith, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), Mrs. King, Jodi, Sonny Brewer, Martin Lanaux, Nick Pappas, Jeannette, my mother, the runaway Farm Show Queen, the cheerleader (she was puttin' on make up), Vanessa (the girl), Vanessa (the cat), and Darby Lane, our head of outside sales.

I waved to them all as Jim limped toward the wagon. "Take care!" I shouted.

The sound of my own voice woke me up. My left hand was resting in a bowl of cold water, and I felt something weird and heavy on my face. My right hand came away with shaving cream on it.

"HAHAHA! You wet yourself! And you've got white shit all over your face! Don't go out with that white shit on your face!" Citizen Jim shouted. "HAHAHAHAHA!"

He kept laughing while he rolled on the floor and kicked his legs up in the air. He cut himself in a hundred places from the glass on the floor, but could not stop laughing. Finally, with his head resting on the pumpkin which he had fiercely embraced and kissed and tried to gnaw in his maniacal glee at having made a fool of me once again, he fell asleep.

This, I decided, was how I liked Citizen Jim best.

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