The Deep Whatsis by Peter Mattei

Author:Peter Mattei [Mattei, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443422956
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2013-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

2.14

After hanging up I wander into the Starbucks on Thirtieth about a block from my office and sit down and wait for Seth to swing by in his Range Rover, which he has agreed to sell me for a yet-to-be-determined price. I came in here because I thought I was going to throw up again, and ended up sitting in the bathroom for a good forty-five minutes just waiting. Then I felt guilty using their bathroom for so long, and so I bought a green tea and sat down and called Seth and told him I wouldn’t be coming to Brooklyn, that he should bring the car to me.

“What am I, homes, like your freakin’ delivery bitch?” he says at me with a laugh but I can tell he isn’t happy about it.

“I’ll add a c-note to the price for your trouble,” I tell him and he says OK.

An hour later he pulls up and honks outside. I clean up my spot at the table, throw the remains of my tea away in the hole in the counter where the half-and-half is, and go outside. I am the one who replaces the will to survive with the need to consume, I tell Seth. He asks me if I am OK and then we drive downtown.

“Without me there would be nothing but the pure anguish of being alive, which is too difficult to bear, so I am providing a pubic service.” I use the word “pubic” as a joke and as a means of telling Seth that we are friends for the time being.

“Dig it,” Seth says, and turns up the Odd Future track that he is playing via his iPod in the car’s music system. “We be bangin’!” he says as the music shakes the vehicle’s chassis. I roll up the passenger-side window lest Earl’s lyrics offend someone on the street, I’m very sensitive to the feelings of strangers. Then Seth says something about where he got the system, how it was custom or something, a significant feature that you can’t get off the lot, and if I want it it’s an add-on, an extra One Large, because it’s removable and imminently salable, but I don’t even listen to him. We drive down Eighth and he turns the music off and when we stop at a light he looks over at me.

“Are you OK?” he asks again.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, just, you don’t look so hot, man.”

“I almost puked in the Starbucks if that’s what you mean.”

“Just now?” he asks.

“Yep,” I say, “ten minutes ago.”

“Cool,” he says. “Why?”

I don’t answer and he says I need to get laid more is my fucking problem. I need to use my bone more. I needs to be bangin’ my hos more. Of course he doesn’t know anything about Intern and so I don’t bring her up. I let him tell me a lame story about how he’s been seeing this girl that lives in his building, she sells macramé unicorns on Etsy or

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