Friends, Family and Phone Calls
The phone was ringing. Kid idly thought that he should probably answer it; it might be something important. But if it was, whoever would leave a message or call back, or both. So he didn't bother to get up.
He was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. The lights were off, though twilight and the lights of the city poured through his open window. He didn't care, he wasn't staring at anything in particular, just sort of staring, taking up time, waiting to feel miserable enough to bother to get up and start stealing his father's beer.
The answering machine picked up and played aloud, as it always did. He didn't really listen, just stared. The staring was making him numb, but not as numb as the alcohol eventually would.
"…reached the Ballatt residence, we're not in right now. Please leave a message with your name and number, and we'll call you back as soon as we can. Thank you."
It was his mother's voice on the message, and Kid Blink suddenly finally felt something. He felt angry, he wanted to march into the kitchen and break the machine, or at least record over the fucking message. He hated it, he hated hearing her every time it picked up, she'd been gone for years and his father was still in denial and…
He sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the bed, then stood. The machine beeped and for half a heartbeat, he wondered if maybe it would still be her voice–if maybe she'd remember that it was her only son's birthday, if maybe she'd care enough to call… But she had only called once in the five years since she'd been gone, for Christmas that first year, and he hadn't heard from her since.
It wasn't her. Of course it wasn't her.
"Kid?" the voice asked hesitantly. "Kid, pick up, I know you're there. Stop sulking in your room and pick up, damn it."
"No," he snapped at the machine, but the voice–Mush's voice, he recognized it easily–continued.
"Seriously, I'll wait for your machine to hang up on me and then call you back, because I know you're there."
"Fuck you," he told the machine, but Mush continued, obliviously.
"Seriously, Kid. Don't make me sing happy birthday to your answering machine, that would be just pathetic. But I'll do it. I swear to god if you don't pick up your damn phone, I'll sing at your answering machine."
Kid waited expectantly, and heard Mush clear his throat.
"Haaaaaappy birthday to yoooooooou, happy birthday to yooooooooooou, happy biiiiiiiirthday Kid Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiink, happy birthday to yoooooooooou." There was a pause. "Okay, seriously. Next time I do it Marilyn Monroe style, so you should really pick up and save us both that pain, okay?"
Kid sat down on the couch and expectantly listened to the machine. He felt himself almost smiling.
"Ahem and man, are we both going to regret this in a minute, happy birthday… to you…" Mush's voice dropped into a breathy, throaty parody of Monroe. "Happy birthday to yoooooou…"
The machine clicked off, and Blink shook his head a little. "That guy's fucked up," he mused to himself, then reminded himself that Mush couldn't even touch him on the screwed-up-o-meter.
The phone rang again, and Blink started to answer it, then stopped with his hand on the receiver, and clenched his teeth and bit back the urge to break something as his mother's voice invited someone to leave a message.
"Happy birthday… Mister Pres-i-dent… Happy–"
"Mush, seriously, you need a life," he said into the receiver, and turned the machine off.
"I knew you were there!" Mush answered triumphantly. "Happy birthday, Kid."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Aw, come on. You skipped out on work today, right?"
"Yeah."
"So it can't have been a really bad day, then."
"I spent the day watching bad soaps, Mush."
"Why?"
"Because there's nothing else to do here. And you were at work. And I have no other friends, because I'm a total loser, and a freak, and–"
"Okay, woah, hold up, bro. You do so have other friends."
"Uh huh."
"Hey, you do. What the hell did you think Jack and Race and everyone else are?"
"That would be your friends, Mush. You're the popular one."
"Blink–"
"No, really. Think about it like this. If our life were a sitcom, you'd be the main character, and I'd be the loser best friend who spends too much time at your house, and explores relevant social problems by being really messed up."
"Um."
"Like Sean on Boy Meets World."
"Okay, seriously, you watch way too much TV. And I'm saying that out of love, bro; I'm going to stage an intervention soon."
"That would be wacky sitcom hijinks, right there. See? You're totally the main character, and I'm the loser best friend. It works out."
"Ummmmmm… Right. Look. How about you come hang out for awhile; we'll watch some movies and I bet my mom would bake you a cake or something."
"Nah."
"Why, you got other plans?"
"Nope. See, I told you I'm a loser."
"Then why not?"
"I don't feel like hanging out, okay?" Blink groaned. Explaining to Mush that sometimes he just didn't want to be around other people–not even his best friend–was impossible. He'd tried before, and Mush just didn't get it.
"Yeah, so you'd rather sit at home, alone, and sulk, then get drunk, right?" Mush demanded.
"Yeah, pretty much. You know me too well."
"I know I know you too well, and I know you'll have a much better birthday if you come hang out here and instead. I'll even let you sulk for ten minutes before I make my family sing happy birthday to you."
"See, that? Not convincing me I want to be there."
"Awww, come on. To tell you the truth, I already convinced Mom to bake your cake, and it's cooking now, and if you don't come to eat it she'll be really pissed off."
"Why's that?"
"She's dieting again. And paranoid that the rest of the family is trying to break her will power. And if I managed to convince her to bake a cake and then no one else eats it…" he trailed off. "Well, it might be funny, in that sort of way where it's mean to give my mother a nervous break down."
"Mothers seem prone to those," Blink said bitterly.
"Ouch. Sorry," Mush apologized. "You miss her, huh?"
"No."
"Liar."
"Am not."
"Are so."
"Not."
"So."
"Not."
"So–what?!" Mush yelled, the second part clearly to someone else. "No I am not tying up the phone with stupid–yes this is an important–aaaaaaaaugh. Fine! Give me ten more minutes!"
"Nah, they just hate listening to us fight like that, old married couple that we are."
"In your dreams, Mush."
"Oh, you know it, loverboy," Mush said in a fake lisp, and Blink could practically hear him batting his eyelashes. He couldn't help himself; he laughed. "See? See! I told you you'd be better off coming to my house and having fun."
"Mush–"
"We'll walk to the video place, you can pick whatever you want, and I won't even complain when you rent some stupid action movie again."
"Walk?"
"Uh, yeah. I kinda got grounded from using the car–I swear, the dent is tiny, but–"
"Mush, what the hell did you do?" Blink asked, suddenly feeling panicked. "Oh, god, were you in an accident?"
"No, Mother, just a little… I hit a lamp post a tiny bit when I was parking at the mall last night, and there's a tiny dent and–"
"Are you okay?"
"Dude, I dinged the car. No one was hurt. No airbags went off, no hospital trips, no–"
"See, this is why I don't drive."
"In case you get grounded for denting the fender?"
"Because–because accidents–never mind."
"You okay, bro?" Mush asked hesitantly.
"Fine." He took a deep breath and locked back memories of the car crash that had taken his eye. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Glad to hear it. So, you'll be over in, like, ten minutes, right?"
"Wrong."
"Oh, come on, Kid. Won't your dad wonder what happened to all his beer?"
"No. He'll figure he drank it all last night and doesn't remember. Happens around here a lot."
"Right, which is why you should get out of there and come hang out here."
"Mush–"
"Why are you arguing with me, Kid? Seriously? I mean, we both know I'm going to win, and then gloat, and I'll gloat a lot less if you just agree. So we can argue for the next ten minutes, or we can just skip that, assume I win like I will anyway, and you change out of your pajamas and get over here."
"Hey, I got dressed. Just 'cause I didn't go to work–"
"Let me guess, you got dressed halfway through Chicago Hope, when you finished your third bowl of Cheerios and realized it was almost three o'clock, right?"
There was a long pause.
"Blink?"
"Shut up."
"Ha! See, I do know you too well! Which is how I know that you're going agree to come over eventually, and since there's a bus leaving from your corner in, like, five minutes and the next one isn't for half an hour–"
"Okay, okay, fine!" Blink yelled. "Gyaaah, you're annoying, you know that, right?"
"It's what I do best, bro."
"You know, you call me that, but I've never heard you call any of your actual brothers that."
"Well, yeah. I like you a lot more than my actual brothers–ow!" he yelled, clearly to someone else. "I was kidding! God, can't you take a joke?"
There was a mumbled reply, which Blink couldn't hear through the phone.
"Okay, I'm sorry. Geeze, blow it outta proportion, why don't you…"
More mumbling, though a little louder and angrier.
"Okay, Blink, I gotta go explain to my parents that I'm not the world's worst, most evil brother ever. See you in fifteen minutes, right?"
"Right."
"Okay. Happy birthday, bro."
"Uh, you too, Mush."
"Ain't my birthday."
"Fine. Happy my birthday, Mush."
Mush laughed. "See you in a few. 'Bye, Kid."
"Bye."
Blink hung up the phone, and glanced at the machine for a second. Someone else had called while he was talking, and without even thinking about it, he turned on the message. There was a second of silence, then dialtone. He turned it back off.
"Yeah," he muttered, imagining who that could have been. "I don't miss her at all…"
He grabbed his wallet and his keys and left, deciding that maybe Mush was right. Maybe it would be better to spend his birthday watching movies with a friend who was worth his time, than dwelling on the people who weren't. He hummed a bar of Happy Birthday as he walked, suddenly feeling a bit better.