Tuesday 4/14/20
From the pages of the forthcoming Meatheads Say the Realest Things: A Satirical (Short) Novel of the Last Bro.
***
He had recently learned the phrase “glad tidings.” It was Christmas and his therapist had advised him to be more in touch with the season this year. “Time and tide wait for no man,” the therapist had said. “Get festive.” Which Chad heard as, “Balls deep.”
*** “Chad, bro,” a meathead named Chad said to himself as he looked at himself in the mirror, wrapped in his New England Patriots towel. “I know you got this, bro, and I got you.”
Chad liked post-shower Chad.
***
We may say many things about the meathead. But the meathead can have true value. He can remind us that at any time in this life, someone may surprise us. And that is not a bad thing.
***
“I’m Dolores,” she said. “I always get left behind.”
“That blows, Little Miss. People be like, ‘Yo yo yo, let’s do yo yo yo,’ and sometimes there aren’t enough yo’s, you know?”
***
Normally when he was supposed to visit his mother because something was wrong with his phone plan and there were lots of cars outside he just drove by because he did not want to be caught in one of those interventions. On TV they always seemed like a giant ass buzz kill.
***
Mental discipline was what allowed Chad to do so many more reps than other people who would literally be shitting themselves. The word “literally” echoed often in Chad’s brain. He thought it meant “extra really” but was not totes sure.
***
Chad and some bros had decided to go drunk-fishing off of Cape Cod. As Chad liked to say, fish tasted better when you were drunk. Everything did. Except subs, because they always tasted the same, which was great, and not possible of being improved upon.
***
Chad gave him one of the blank stares he reserved for matters not having to do with football, superheroes, beer, subs, the value of protein, the essentiality of hydration, the demons that are carbs, or social solecisms—that is, the improper use of “bro,” “chill,” or handshakes without enough parts to them.
***
“What I’m saying, bro, is you get to play in the NFL. That’s like you getting to be Christmas at the North Pole. So, like, if you take a risk or two, that’s not really a risk any more than if you’re with this hot girl, and you’re like, okay, I got the hip control, I can disengage when I need to, I can say ‘Hello, Mr. Stomach.’” Then he thought. “Mrs. Stomach.”
***
Clearly it would be a great idea for them to get drunk together and have some deep convos.
“I have a heavy burden I carry around inside of me,” Chad said.
“I have sensed that,” Eve replied. “Your takes are not just hot. They are deep.”
She was right. Anything deep was also heavy.
***
The tourists from Texas would see Chad running up the stairs and tell him he was not going to make it, he needed to pace himself, and Chad, caught in Chadian throes of passion, would say, “Pace this, bitches,” and grab his own ass—it felt so fine—as he blew past.
***
“I am feeling you, bro,” Ungar had said. “I know Alysha was your baby girl but she is gone now and your forever baby girl will a different girl be.”
Shit Ungar read a lot. That’s how he could talk like a faucet you turned on and golden streams of words came out.
“Not like piss, bro,” Chad clarified. He was very down/sad.
“No, I get it, Note,” Ungar conciliated, and he punched Chad hard in Chad’s bicep four times, because that was what you did when you were tight.
***
They had humped behind a table in Cancun on spring break while people were gathered around. They had humped on the roof of her building after he had cheated on her and they were together again celebrating in nature. There had been a bus hump when she took him to meet her pops. But he could not remember if it was she whom he humped in the bathroom of an academic building at school as the students filed past outside. But he did remember exclaiming, “Tell them to work harder, tell them to work harder,” whomever he had been humping.
Beauty was so potent.
***
“So you’ll do it?”
He stuck out his lower jaw which was his go-to pose to indicate strength, sacrifice, or when he was about to cum.
“I will, girl bro.”
“I love you, Uncle Chad,” Remy replied, and hugged him around the bellybutton, because that was all she came up to.
“Just Chad,” Chad said, because the term uncle made him feel old.
“JC,” the child replied, and Chad thought of another JC, and understood much, and under- stood much indeed.
***
When it comes to the world of literary arts, any meathead worth his salt—not that he wants to have too much sodium, because it dehydrates you and hydration is King—knows that you are supposed to say the words “prose” and “piece” a lot, and you cannot go wrong.
Besides, “prose” only meant sentences. And people talked about it like it was complicated.
***
Chad was trying to extend his radius. That was the term his therapist used.
“You just see these same people, don’t you? They seem very similar to you in terms of their interests.”
Chad pondered for a moment.
“We all like the Patriots. But everyone likes them.”
The therapist said that he did not like the Patriots and Chad was aghast. There was only one thing to say.
“Bro?”
“I root for my patients,” Chad’s therapist concluded.
Well, whatever. Chad just hoped he was the starting quarterback.
***
“I’m not feeling this, Ung Man,” Chad said to his friend Ungar as they crept around the pond with their BB guns ready to fire or to protect themselves in case they were attacked. “I am not comfortable making this beaver my bitch.”
***
“What is your name, baby girl?” Chad asked in his most soothing tone.
“My name is Cate with a C,” came the reply. “And aren’t you not supposed to gender people who call?”
“Life genders people, baby girl. We are all equal in suicide. I got you."
