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Chapter Twenty-Two

-Thirty! -

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Mortality sucks.

Not exactly profound, I know, but true nonetheless.

Rounding into the home stretch toward The Big Day was emotionally like linking every ride at Six Flags Over Hell into one continuous, random loop. There I was, bound, gagged, and blindfolded in the only car.

I wasn’t born lucky like women. I didn’t get a period every month, spread out across my life. No, I got them all at once this month. Pick an hour of any given day and I could be found alternately bopping around with a dopey smile on my face, or hiding in the men’s room, gasping for air and fighting back tears. Luckily, no one ever actually found me in that state. Yet.

The inertia from London did rev me up socially and put me somewhat back on my game. My signature acerbic wit leaked back into conversations. Coworkers no longer seemed to dread my presence. I may have even slept a little, though my journal doesn’t indicate that.

Yet, for all the ups and downs, I felt stronger inside, so much so that I planned a birthday party for myself. Not just any old party, no siree bub. If my twenties were going down, I was going to lay them to rest with full honors. A funeral would be held in their memory. were printed requesting my friends’ presence at a wake for my dearly departed youth. My Lawyer’s Son’s place (a.k.a. Party Central) could accommodate a lot more people than my little pad and location-wise was the perfect venue for the sad event. My Lawyer’s Son very generously offered use of his flat, but Timing, always the bastard, decreed the wake be held the weekend following The Big Day.

•••

THE BIG DAY

The exact day opened, as did the previous three hundred sixty four, with a few chants of the Mantra of Twenty-Nine.

“My career is nowhere, my marriage is a failure, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, and I'm turning thirty.

“My career is nowhere, my marriage is a failure, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, and I'm turning...”

Oh, wait. It’s official -- I am thirty. I checked myself out head to toe in the mirror inside my closet door. Nothing had changed outside. Inside, wellÉ A dense low-lying fog had come onshore and cloaked my brain during the night. I went through all the motions of getting through the day, but as a spectator, not an active participant. My thoughts meandered aimlessly through the universe, touching on everything, landing on nothing.

My mother, a newly organized woman as she approached retirement, kept a calendar of all the family members’ birthdays. The dates were marked with enough advance notice that she could simply grab a card from the supply she kept, personalize it with a brief note, post it with one of the stamps she seemed to always have on hand, and drop it in the mailbox with plenty of time for it to arrive well in advance of the actual birth date. No such card littered my mailbox this week.

Being the youngest child meant my milestone birthdays were milestones for my siblings, who always made a big deal of them. This one was apparently not that big a deal in their eyes. The Big Day was off to an inauspicious start.

•••

Age was the best excuse I had come up with for all the erratic behavior and violent outbursts that led up to this moment. You can get away with anything as long as you follow it up with a sincere “Hey, pal. I’m turning thirty, all right?” It wipes all anger right off people’s faces, as if you told them you had cancer. Of course, this only works on people in their mid to late twenties who are just beginning to feel the tap on their shoulder. Anyone younger is too self-absorbed to give a shit what you're ranting about, and those over thirty just give you that welcome-to-the-club smirk you want to slap off their faces.

Well, it’s my crisis and I'll cry if I want to. And when I woke up alone on my birthday, I wanted to. I hate being alone. I really hate being alone in Los Angeles. At least if you’re with somebody, you’re not entirely a Nobody. Nowhere else are the Nobodies made to feel so acutely aware of their standing. Every place has its caste system, but it’s usually small and relegated to the society column. But every time a celebrity farts it makes the front page of the L.A. Times, the place is so loaded with Sombodies. The Nobodies are inundated with minute details of the goings-on of the Somebodies on a daily basis, in every omnipresent media outlet. The Velvet Rope extends everywhere but is constantly shifting its position, so you never know exactly where or when you’ll butt up against it.

Normally, I just deal with having my face pressed up against the glass. But the cumulative effects of this year were starting to bear down on me. I understood my failed career, I was okay with a failed marriage, and I even accepted that I failed to accomplish anything (granted, I did make it to London). But now I’m thirty. Insult, meet Injury.

I did the best I could to pull it together and get out of the house. For some reason, I’ve never succumbed to vegetating in front of the TV with a bag of Cheetos and a two-liter Diet Dr. Pepper, but boy, that sounded tempting today. No, I stumbled out of my apartment and on to the Number 4. I staggered across Wilshire, unaffected by the hideously fast traffic, over to the Beverly Hilton and leaned on the fire hydrant, staring straight ahead like a sullen teenager. I couldn’t be bothered to play even a single round of “Guess If She’s Wearing Pants or a Skirt.” If the Eurasian Beauty passed, I missed her. The first vacant seat on the 320 was mine. I was stumbling across San Vicente toward the office before I realized there was no Bridget on the bus that day.

I dragged myself through the front door of the building and into the elevator. I passed a temp receptionist I didn’t recognize, then plodded down the corridor and into the office I shared with the rest of the department. Just like the mail at home, my inbox was empty -- thank god for small miracles. A pile of faxes would have crushed me that day. I logged onto the computer and spent the morning pretending to do something.

Here’s what I got for making it to The Big Day:

Phone calls: Two. The first call was to wish me happy birthday. Was it from my family who knew me just about thirty years? No. Was it one of the guys in the band who knew me more than ten? No. Was it my lovely ex-wife? Nope. It was Asian Mix, whose friendship could be counted in months, not years. She got a gold star and a place in my heart.

Cake: None. There was no office birthday cake celebration for me. The only thing that could have depressed me more than the office cake celebration was NO office cake celebration. Why didn’t anyone remember? Didn’t they love me? Didn’t I keep them in stitches with my witty repartee? Didn’t the secretaries owe me big time for all the massages I used to give them? Fondness is fleeting, I guess. I was perfectly miserable, but still I held it together.

Gifts: One, toward the end of the day in the form of the second phone call.

•••

Life always takes me around more interesting corners than I can ever plan for myself and somehow manages to steer me away from those roads I had set my sights on.

•••

I hate roller coasters, emotional or otherwise, but I was a good sport about The Big Day. I didn’t complain when I awoke not knowing where I sat on the roller coaster. There were no tears shed for the absent office birthday cake celebration, cards, and phone calls. It would have been nice to know which way the roller coaster was going, though. And maybe, if it’s not asking too much, how fast it planned to switch from up to down.

The second phone call came from one of my former Fuck Buddies who happened to also be a coworker. Yes, everyone at the place qualified as a potential Fuck Buddy, but that’s another story for another time. This Fuck Buddy worked in the video department and needed me to clarify an order someone from my department had put in with her boss. I always did the translating from Administration-Speak to Tech-Talk.

“Sure,” I sighed, “It’s almost quitting time. Let me pack up and I’ll be down in five.” I hung up the phone and logged off the computer.

Fuck Buddy locked her office door behind me.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered. Okay, so The Big Day wasn’t a total washout.

•••

Hell’s roller coaster took me way up high for a few minutes. Then, just as suddenly, I plunged back down to the bus ride home -- alone. The devil giveth and the devil taketh away. I mean really -- what’s it going to take? Any happiness I felt was vapor.

As I turned the key to my door, I stepped on a huge pile of mail the postman had managed to cram through the chute. Not one, not two, not three, but thirty, count ‘em, thirty individually posted birthday cards from my family had all arrived exactly on The Big Day. I lost it a little. Okay, a lot. Those bastard emotions poked their fingers in my eye and dug in with their nails.

Boo-hoo-hoo! Boo-hoo-hoo!

God, I was a mess. By the time I opened the last of the cards, I was curled up on the hardwood floor in a fetal position, bawling my eyes out. I don’t know where it all came from, but out it came. I also don’t know which was more wrong: being alone on my thirtieth birthday or being a grown man in need of a blankie.

On the positive side, leaving so much of my insides on the floor that night allowed me to get through the rest of the week, which went by without incident. Making the funeral arrangements kept me happy.

On the day of, Party Central was decked out in black curtains and candles. There were little black candies and snacks strewn about and an alter/bar was staged for the mourners. There was enough pre-party buzz going on that I felt none of the jitters you get at seven o’clock and you’re certain that no one is going to show up.

All the preparations for the wake were complete: There was a casket full of booze, celebrity home porn on the big screen, and the VIP bedroom in the back of the house.

Once the decorating was done, I put on the tux I inherited from my friend’s dead grandfather. I was calm as can be when the first guests arrived. Resigned to my fate might describe it better.

The evening kicked off with some very somber organ music on the stereo. Soon it would have to give way to regular party fare, but I wanted the night to at least start in the right mood.

Only one problem in my plan: No one played along. Nobody wore black. Nobody. Seriously. In Los Angeles, no one wore black! Nobody got the gist of the invitation. I felt like such an utter dick in that tux. But really, what were the chances of no one in L.A. showing up to a party dressed in black? It’s the fucking uniform! It’s not like I was asking anyone to rent a costume, for Christ’s sake. Just pick up your shit at the cleaners and put it on. There were people there I’d never seen in anything but black. What on earth could have made the entire guest list of my Party of All Parties ignore the theme? What forces of the universe was I up against here?

Some of the people not wearing black shocked me just by showing up. Of all the beautiful people at work, there was a Fantastic Four who topped the list. They were the tops of the top, four girls who walked on the shoulders of mere mortals like me. The de facto leader of the Four was an Executive Assistant of the highest order. Ex Ass (That’s trimmer, much like her best feature), with her long blonde hair, athletic yet girly figure, and inviting smile was also the most accessible (to me anyway). The rest of the Four was made up of her best friend, the D-Girl (D for story development) -- sharp witted and bearing a vague resemblance to Michelle Pfeiffer; the quiet Paralegal with alabaster skin set off by jet black hair; and the bubbly African-American Beach Bunny who might as well have been a blonde surfer girl/underwear model. I’d been friendly with all of them, Ex Ass in particular, but these girls were off limits to all but the highest-ranking executives. Their very appearance lent my party a certain cachet.

As shocked as I was by the presence of the Fantastic Four at my party, I was more shocked by others’ absence. Namely, the people from Milwaukee who knew me the longest and who were arguably closest to me: 3b and my band mates. 3b and I weren’t in any immediate danger of getting back together or anything, but this was a huge day for me and she knew it. My band mates -- we’d been through thin and thinner together. We had been closer than I was to my own brothers. What’s more, I’d never known them to turn away free booze, so why tonight? And what about Conniving Friend? If ever she had an opportunity to fuck with me, tonight was the night. I was an open wound. She could have salted me, dried me on a rack, and I’d be pemmican by morning. Wasn’t I worth the sport?

Where was everybody?

I retreated into a mental vacuum. The roar of the party congealed into a glob of indistinguishable mush in my ears. My eyes sunk back into my face, giving me tunnel vision. I wandered from room to room internally scowling at all my ‘friends’ in their happy colors; the men whopping it up on my booze; the women salivating at Rob Lowe humping a French model on the television; nobody participating in MY funeral or MY party.

There was no one else to turn to except my old pal Booze, I thought. Digging through the freezer for ice, I dropped a few cubes on the floor in front of the refrigerator.

“Shit,” I cursed myself as I knelt down to pick them up.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” a voice cut through the roar.

Still crouching, I turned and saw two black high heels. My eyes drifted up two long, long legs to a short, tight, and more importantly, black dress. As I rose to my feet, my gaze crossed the slender, curvy landscape of that tight black dress till I saw all of her. Her face was partially obscured by a black lace veil and she held a single lily.

It was New Girl.

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