“So, I’m at Jerry’s housewarming party, right?”
“Right.”
“And we’re all sitting in the living room, and we’re all talking, having a good time I guess. I mean, they were all having a good time, I was friggin’ seething to myself like I always do. You should’ve been there with me, or I should’ve been somewhere else with you. I don’t know. If I had done that I wouldn’t have wanted to blow my godamn brains out the back of my head” Drew sounded frantic, she thought, even though he always sounded frantic. It still worried her
“So.”
“So?”
“So, you’re all talking?”
“Shit, yeah, right. So we’re all talking, and soon enough the topic of conversation just so happens, by some pre-ordained friggin’ miracle, to fall on literature.”
“Oh geez”
“’Oh Geez’ is about how I felt. I tell ya Rose, I tell ya these guys made me sick. And I like these friggin’ people, they’re my friends ya know? But Jesus, they think cus they read of Mice and Men in the 10th-godamn-grade all of a sudden they’re on the Nobel prize committee for literature”
“And what, you are?” She thought that it had always been kind of grating how Drew thought he knew more than everyone else. In most cases he did, but still she thought, it’s not becoming to express such things all the time.
“Listen, I’m not fuckin’ Harvard Lauriat-“
“Drew”
“Sorry, shit, I forget you don’t like that word. But what I’m saying is, I’m no friggin’ Harvard Lauriat, okay. But I’ve at least read more than half a James Joyce Novel, and a few poems by Shelley.”
“And how do you know they haven’t?’ She fell back in bed, closing her dull brown eyes. She loved him, very much, but oh how tired he made her.
“Because the way these friggin’ jokers talked. You should’ve been there, it was friggin’ crazy. Most people in the first place make me friggin’ squirm, but Jesus, these guys. They were talking about how Hemingway was a hack. They said he was all flash, no substance. Can you believe that garbage?
“It’s just an opinion, Drew.”
“Yah, whatever. I didn’t expect you to be as outraged by that as I was, you’re more of a Faulkner. But whatever. That isn’t the point.”
“Can you remind me of the point again, darling?”
“The point? The point is I’m on the verge of insanity here Rose. All because this rat toothed, friggin’, Tim-buck-tooth, friggin’, Beaver looking braud insulted some book I don’t even like that much.”
“Drew?”
“No, listen. So I’m sitting there, keeping quiet, biting my godamn tongue at their borderline retardation, right? And they start talking about Salinger.”
“You don’t even like Salinger.”
“Babe, I do. I mean I don’t love the guy, but he’s a good godamn writer. No one can really argue against that ya know.”
“I know, Drew.”
“So they’re talking about Catcher in the Rye, and that squirrel faced friggin’- Agh, what’s her name again?”
“Carrie.”
“She says she didn’t like it. Which is fine, I get that, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, whatever. But then, She friggin’ says, with a straight godamn face, or as straight as she can twist those two friggin’ sandwich boards coming out of her godamn gums, that it was too childish. I was floored. I was floundered.” At this point he was more or less yelling into the receiver.
“Drew, calm down.”
“I mean, I can understand not liking the damn book. I get that. I mean it’s a little long-winded and it’s a little preachy, I get that. It isn’t the best book ever written, that’s not what I’m sayin’. But childish? Are you kidding me? Are you friggin’ kidding me?”
“Drew, what’d you do.”
“I cussed her out.”
“You what?”
“I told her she was a godamn dolt. I told her, ‘if you spent half as much time looking into orthodontic surgery as you do coming up with vapid criticisms of American masterpieces, maybe you wouldn’t look like a godamn llama.’”
“Drew...”
“Then I stormed out. I think I threw Jerry’s lamp at the wall on my way out, I don’t know. I went for a walk for a couple of hours, and I came home and I called you.”
“Drew.”
“Rose.”
“are you okay?”
“What?”
 “Are you okay, Drew?”
“Yah. Yah I’m always okay. You know that”
“You don’t sound like you’re okay.”
“Well what the hell do I sound like?”
“I don’t know. You’ve been like this lately. What’s wrong?”
“Isn’t nothing wrong. Nothing new anyway. Same shit.”
“I’m sorry”
“Doll, it isn’t your fault. It’s mine”
“it’s nobody’s fault”
“But it is. I’m the one feeling it, I’m the one going fucking crazy- Shit, I mean friggin’ crazy. I swear, some days I wake up and it feels like I’m slipping down some hill that never ends, like I’m some sort of manic depressed Sisyphus or some shit.”

Cunnilingus ;^)