What is Wrong with You?!

I was dusting all the picture frames containing photos of Citizen Jim that line the walls of my apartment when I heard a knock at the door. I went back to what I was doing, waiting for the sound of banging and cursing and threatening from below, but there was just silence until the phone rang.

I answered it, "I love you!"

The person calling said, "Um. Is this Chicken Sheets?"

I recognized the voice: it was Darby Lane, head of outside sales, and my very good friend of 20 years. I tried not to sound disappointed, as I'd thought it would be Citizen Jim. "Hi."

"I'm standing outside your front door. I knocked, but you didn't answer," he said. "Is this a bad time? Can I come up?"

I sighed. "Yeah. Sure. Just a second," I said, and hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

I guess I was just missing Citizen Jim, because I decided I would make Darby wait. I was sure if I did, he would get upset and bust open the door and charge up the stairs cussing and promising to break my legs the way Citizen Jim always did.

I love that!

After five minutes, the phone rang again. I picked it up on the seventh ring and said, "What?!"

"Um. It's Darby again. Is everything okay? Should I come back another time?" he asked.

"Oh, Christ!" I yelled as I stomped down the stairs and unlocked the door. "You can come in now."

I ran as fast as I could up the steps and hid behind the rocking chair by the window. Darby walked in and looked around, totally confused.

"Ha!" I said, leaping up. "I guess now you want to beat my face in because I took so long to answer the door!"

Darby didn't make a move in my direction, or ball up his hands into fists, or scream at me. He just laughed.

LAUGHED!

"You're so crazy," he said, still chuckling. "How's it going?"

"I suppose if I tell you the truth, you'll call me a liar, and if I lie, you'll bust my head open with a brick?" I asked.

"Well, I hadn't planned on it," he said, frowning.

"Why not?" I whined.

"What is wrong with you?" Darby asked, laughing nervously.

I knew that laugh of his from our teenage years: it meant, In about two seconds, you're going to throw something across the room, aren't you?

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?" I asked.

"Do you need to eat or something? Why are you so crabby?"

I stared at him for few moments. "You don't get it," I said. "You're not going to grab me in a headlock or pinch me or pull my hair no matter what I say or do, are you?"

"Hell no! I came by just to say hi because I was in the neighborhood," he said, laughing a different nervous laugh: Please don't smack me.

"Right. You'd never make a special trip to scream at me, would you? You'd never ride a horse 900 miles to kick me or trip me, would you? You'd never get on a Razor Scooter and travel through five states in the middle of winter just to tackle me on the hard floor, would you?" I demanded to know.

"I don't know why you'd want any of that from me," Darby said. "I guess this is a bad time."

He turned around and started walking toward the door.

"Oh no you don't! You get back here!" I said, lunging forward, hoping that it might provoke a reaction of any kind from him.

No dice. He ran down the stairs and closed the door quietly behind him as he walked outside.

I threw open the window and yelled, "You don't love me! You never did!"

Darby looked up, and laughed his nervous laugh again (I'm down here and you're up there, so I'm safe. . .), then lit a cigarette. "You need to get some sleep, Chicken Sheets," he said. "Call me later."

As he drove away, I felt more empty than I'd ever felt in my life. Not because he was gone, I realized, but because Citizen Jim wasn't there.

I went back to dusting pictures and staring at the phone, willing it to shriek and tremble with Citizen Jim's rage.

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