Notes, from the Upper West Side. A novel by Dan Wrench. Chapter 80, The Man Squad Road Show. The next morning I woke up in the sentence the charge into my skull was, the fuck is on.
Indeed, the fuck was on. But the mission at the moment was hide your excitement and I did a damned good job of it. I pretended to be an affable and attentive spouse while waiting for Junior to get out of the app so she could spend her Saturday going to movies and eating snacks with her ex-hooker gal pal. Then I sat the boys in front of some rocking and bowwinkle and ran downstairs to the stoop for a cigarette.
After a few puffs I unhulsed through the iPhone and called up Arvo to report myself sick. Take it from a pro. The trick to pretending you're physically ill when you just want one day is simple, try not to sound like you have a cold. You always end up overdoing colds.
Trust me, instead, sound really really depressed. When people are sick that's what they sound like, like they don't know if they'll ever be well again and it hit them like they just found an eviction notice on their front door. Arvo and sounded like the landlord was moving my furniture into the street. He wasn't buying it.
He said, dude, what can I tell you? I'm wiped out here. Maybe I'll be better by this afternoon, but fuck if I know. In Arvo's philosophy there are two sorts of maggot.
The sort that is curious enough to bite and the sort that just wants to bone other maggots and then maybe have an apple. Arvo's ass was usually plagued by the curious sort. I thought I should have just told him one of the boys had an emergency. But there's a reason I didn't make it a boy in an ambulance story.
See when you do that, you end up doing it for days. How's the kid doing, Paul? Oh, he hates the stitches, but at least the cast comes off next week. Your only way out of that extended excuse is by declaring false alarm.
How's the kid doing, Paul? Oh, he's great. It was a false alarm. But I already called false alarm a month or two before and I worked with a bunch of people who were parents like me, which means the false alarm card is always near the top of the deck for someone.
So I sounded really depressed and I told him I'd get somebody to cover my shift. I thought I could get Kenny or Carrie to fill in for me. Kenny was starved for the hours anyway, so right after I got off the phone with Arvo, I called up Kenny and sealed the deal. But I ran back upstairs so me and Sam could walk Harry to where his North Scouts troop was assembling before they deployed to the Woods of Mount Kisco for a weekend campout.
The boys managed to break away from rocking a bullwinkle so Harry could get ready for his trip. They were in their bedroom and Harry was wearing this massive backpack, a long black nylon cocoon girded to his back and shoulders with straps and a little metal track. An encumbrance that dwarfed him yet weirdly left him able to hop around normally. Daddy, can I have a backpack?
Sam asked, as soon as you rolled enough to join North Scouts. The place where the North Scouts were meeting up was the gym of the very same school Harry went to five days a week. I could never do that. When I was a kid Saturday meant one thing, sleeping in, maybe a sandlot baseball game in the afternoon.
But Saturday mornings were for snoozing. Harry was the exact opposite of me. He was up at like seven in the morning on Saturday even when he didn't have anything to do. And like I said, Junior was nowhere to be found because she and Sue Gasparino were traipsing around town on their long delayed plate date.
So it was the man squad road show just like any school day. When the three of us were on the sidewalk I looked really depressed. I caught and did my sore throat voice. Finally Harry asked, are you okay Daddy?
Daddy will be okay. I said, I think I have kind of a cold coming on. You sound really depressed. It's a cold I said.
When we get you home you're taking some vitamin C and alpha cell sir. Sam declared, he learned that from Junior. I was pretty pleased with myself. It wasn't until much later I realized I had no reason for the boys or Junior to think I was sick.
As far as they were concerned, the night was a normal work night for me. You make these sorts of mistakes when you put on the liar hat. That's why you end up getting caught. That's why your wife ends up draining someone else's pipe in Southern California for the summer.
But there was no denying at that precise moment I was feeling pretty good. The intrigue I had planned for later was considerably simpler than it was for the inaugural ball. And all because I had the foresight to call in sick. See if I went into work I'd have to schedule a fuck date too for after midnight again.
Then I'd have to make up some excuse to tell the wife like I did last time. And if you remember, last time she really really hated it. Also the only person who knew I was fucking around on Junior was Parp. And I didn't want to have to go to him for another alibi.
That's from the Upper West Side is a work of fiction. The people depicted in this work do not exist. Notes from the Upper West Side. Copyright 2021.
By Dan Rench.