I’m so sorry we weren’t able to meet up with you at Pride Day in Sydney back in February. Terry has become very antisocial, and not to mention a real environmentalist.
Back in March, he stopped showering and now cleans himself weekly with only baby wipes. He said each person has to do their part to combat climate change, and this is his way of doing it — by not showering.
Anyhow, he and I are sitting here at a coffee shop in Montana and —
“For crying out loud, Terry, get your fingers out of your mouth, you disgusting slob.” I’m so sorry, Jasmine. Terry has really let himself go in every way imaginable. He has the manners of a ravenous raccoon rummaging through a dumpster.
For the past two years, he’s been sending weekly fan mail to Crispin Glover. He said something about Mr. Glover having “all the answers to life.”
Anyhow, do you think you can make it out to Montana for a few days, Jasmine? I know it’s a long way from Sydney, but we’d really love to see you.
Ever since Terry and I moved out here two days ago, we’ve been at each other’s throats. He insists we need to downsize from our Lumberjack Weed-Pro 420 camper. However, I beg to differ.
It’s almost like Terry’s become a different person since finding that Dwyane The Rock Johnson mask on the side of the road back in Ding Dong, Texas, where we lived for a short while. He wears it all the time. I just want to punch him in the face when I see him with it on.
Oh, Jasmine, I’m sorry. I’m going on about Terry and I forgot to tell you I —
“Terry, what the hell are you doing? Get the fuck off me. I’m trying to write a letter here to Jasmine and I can’t do it if you’re cradling me and making crow noises.”
Jasmine, listen, I’m so sorry. Terry’s been speaking in tongues and trying to lick his elbows ever since he took a high dose of DMT at the Dua Lipa concert in Albania.
It’s just ridiculous.
I mean, when was the last time you saw a grown man rub garlic aioli on his bare chest? Well, Terry did that to himself last week after his stupid friend Ferris dared him to. I swear, he’s so immature sometimes, Jasmine.
By the way, I should probably tell you why I’m writing. I just — just feel so badly still about hanging off The Sydney Harbour Bridge that one time, and I —
“Terry, knock it off right now, please! Stop doing The Sprinkler dance right in front of me. You’re not a rap star, Terry. I told you that I don’t know how many goddamn times.”
Jasmine, I’m quite sorry again. Please do consider visiting me and Terry, will you? Montana has the best Bison burgers and cinnamon rolls in the country. If it would make you happy, the three of us could sit around Terry’s new battery-powered interactive teaching globe and listen to Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” to our heart’s content.
“Terry, you fucker! Stop eating the flower petals off the flowers I just picked not even a half hour ago. Have you no shame, you son of a bastard?”
Jasmine, I really must go now. Please write back and let us know if you’ll make it to Montana. Maybe at that point, Terry will have stopped eating everything he looks at.
This morning, I awoke to the crinkling sound of wrapping and saw a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed, eating a Kit Kat. When I inched closer, I immediately got a whiff of the halitosis and this meant only one thing.
It was fucking Terry. He’s back from the dead.
Apparently, he was so thrilled two people showed up at his memorial at the local dump — one a maintenance worker on lunch break — that he asked God if he could come back to life for a few days. And can you believe it, God obliged?
If you remember the last time I saw Terry alive, it was in our backyard. He was playing with an injured squirrel, making crow noises again , and in between singing Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.”
To be honest, I wasn’t missing him all that much. A week before he died, he told me he’d eaten breakfast with an extraterrestrial he met in our backwoods near a muddy creek. Now that he’s back, I suppose I should want to make the best of it.
I’ve planned for an evening at The Improv. Since I’m the only one who can see Terry’s shadowy figure, things might get a bit awkward when I start talking to the empty seat next to me. I hope nobody smells the awful Yeezy cologne Terry told everyone Willow Smith gifted him last summer when he showed up at her new Chanel eyewear launch event at the Malibu Village Mall. Willow was overheard saying to her assistant, “Girl, who is this weirdo? Just give him the cologne to get him out of here.”
As if things couldn’t get more hokey, Terry has now requested we ride a tandem bicycle to The Improv, stopping first at a Chipotle to crush two chicken burritos with extra sides of guac, go halvesies on a cheese quesadilla, and order two Keto Salads Bowls to-go.
Say, do you remember the time he embarrassed us at the town’s public pool by whacking those two Goth kids with a pool noodle?
Their parents were horrified, but Terry kept at it, saying, “Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins is a recidivist who deserves to be back in jail for writing too many metaphorical lyrics!” We both know Terry was not a fan of literary devices such as metaphor, allegory, juxtaposition, and alliteration.
Terry! Get off me, you animal! I’m so sorry, Jasmine. Terry won’t stop dry-humping my leg and whispering in my ear, “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.”
Anyway, I hope we can catch up now that the 2024 US presidential election is over. Terry has a crush on Tulsi Gabbard and thinks RFK Jr is making the greatest conspiracy theorist.
Sorry, Jasmine, I must go now. Terry just urinated on the kitchen floor for no conceivable reason.
Over a decade ago, my wife and I lived in New York City for three years. From Manhattan to Brooklyn and then back to Manhattan, we lived in three different apartments during that time. Our last apartment, on East 93rd Street in the Carnegie Hill section of Manhattan, was just around the corner from the famous 92nd Street Y, also the former home to the great writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, where today famous authors, poets, and celebrities give engaging talks.
The apartment was located on the fourth floor of a co-op building once lived in by the Marx Brothers. It came equipped with marble countertops, cherry-wood cabinets, and a tin ceiling in the kitchen. There were ceiling fans throughout, a large yellow and white artificial fireplace backdropped by a deep red wall adorning the living room, crown moldings on the ceilings, and respectable hardwood flooring. It also had a very impressive bathroom: an NYC subway-tiled shower and bath with large sliding glass doors and a toilet the size of a throne with a big silver French handle on it.
Our landlord, a quirky, pseudo-intellectual retired UPS driver who loved to use big words and make obscure literature and film references, lived out of state in Florida but was previously a New Yorker for many years. Richard was the kind of guy who wore fluffy Christmas sweaters and, I’d surmised, had a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace sitting on his nightstand.
On day one of the lease for our new apartment, we found him inside camped out on the living room floor. A sleeping bag, a half-pot of cooked rice, and some empty water bottles were scattered throughout. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he perked right up upon sight of us. “David, it’s good to finally meet you,” he said, standing up. “And this must be Kathleen.”
My wife immediately turned red, something that happens when she’s embarrassed for everyone in the room, including herself.
“David, quick, let me show you something first,” Richard said, walking toward the fireplace. “This is the new play I wrote.” He grabbed a thick, handwritten packet of white paper from the mantle and opened it to the first page so I could see it.
“Wow,” I said, feigning interest. “That’s impressive.”
Afterward, he told us he’d been wandering the city by day visiting museums. When asked if he’d be cleaning the place and making minor repairs before our move the next day, he said, “You know, I meant to spend the day cleaning yesterday, but I got bogged down with other stuff.” He assured us, however, that he’d be gone before the movers arrived—a welcome relief.
The first few months in the apartment were great. But then, things took a sudden turn. We started having issues with the heat; there was an exploding pipe; loose handles and knobs on cabinet doors, vanity doors, doors of all kinds; things just randomly falling off. A neighbor in the apartment next door beyond our shared wall did clumsy Tai-Chi sessions and organized furniture every night between three and five in the morning.
And then, there were the mice.
Because of the nature of our quirky interactions, the emails between Richard and me became more and more fanciful and ludicrous.
On the day after the exterminator came, I wrote him an email:
Hi Richard,
I don’t know what Kathleen responded but I wanted to let you know the outcome. Yes, the exterminator, a very large man who, if you ask me, seemed to be posing as an exterminator, came out yesterday.
He greeted me at the door by yelling, “Rent reduction, rent reduction!” and said the stairs were “too much.”I’m not sure what he did since it was such a quick visit, but that’s not the point. The guy was all about enthusiasm. “We’ll get the little fucker,” he kept saying.
As for our mouse friend, it seems he’s trying to save face. I told him he has no business up here. Of course, he didn’t listen at first, continued to peek out from behind our bookshelf as any mouse would (some taunting going on, too), even feigned like he was sniffing out one of the classics.
When he inadvertently brushed up against Kafka’s The Trail, however, that was it. His whole demeanor changed. I’m guessing he thought his prospects would be better elsewhere.
Also, I’m happy to report that we’re now the proud owners of six mouse trap bags.
-David”
I signed off my iPad feeling accomplished.
But the problems wouldn’t stop. Needless to say, we had had enough and wanted out. So, one day, I got Richard on the phone and we came to an agreement: Kathleen and I would begin the process of subletting our apartment and breaking the lease.
But first, we would need the blessing of the head of the apartment building’s co-op board, a small, fiery Asian woman named Sherry. That’s just the way Richard wanted it.
He and I began emailing again, of course, about the situation, and about Sherry. And each email became more preposterous than the last.
Feeling silly and determined to get us out of the lease, I dug deep one afternoon. Richard, although a good, honest man, was a completely preposterous individual, so this would not have worked on any other person. But I came up with an email that would ultimately get the ball rolling:
Hi Richard,
If there was ever a time to remain steadfast to your position that the building heed your concerns, then certainly it is now. Sherry’s countenance — sufficiently peevish, no doubt — might well call to mind for you a character in the movie RAN, but one would be remiss in failing to understand her true nature.
A complimentary encounter such as, “Oh, hi, Sherry. By the way, the flowers out front look great. Are those new shoes you’re wearing?” which I, with your encouragement, would so graciously initiate, might not reveal much more than what we already know about her, I’m afraid.
Have there been misunderstandings? Certainly. Sherry and I have, by our own admission, been a complete nuisance to one another. Sure, righto, of course.
That said, Kathleen and I are responsible renters and always have been so. “You guys are always on time with the rent. Wow, you keep the place so clean. You’re so quiet and respectful of the other neighbors,” they invariably say. (Or maybe that’s us just saying it to ourselves.)
In any case, the decision to eschew a future sublet arrangement is yours, yes. However, I implore you to consider that in recognizing the co-op board’s fiduciary responsibility, the power might not lie solely with Sherry.
-David
After that, Richard fell in line quickly, as did Sherry and the others. And ultimately, we moved out for good.
Now I’m just wondering if I should send him another email, thirteen years later, with wording even more ludicrous than the last.
