Couch Potato

The Cooler: Chapter 22

“That is a really nice television set, but it’s not as nice as the console we have over there,” the salesman said to JJ, pointing to the most expensive store brand television in the store.

On his way home from the California, JJ decided that he needed to get himself a TV and invest in a set of pajamas or at least pajama bottoms and a few t-shirts so he could be another resident standing on the walkway smoking a cigarette during commercials. A life that did not include the risk of jail or prison appealed to him. He had the cab driver drop him off at the Boulevard Mall, where he could get everything he needed to join the ranks of retirees keeping big tobacco in business. He had already settled on a half dozen pajama pants and a package of Fruit-o-Loom t-shirts. When he realized he could use a pair of jeans or two, since most of his had more holes than was normally acceptable in polite company. Once he paid for them, he went into a bathroom and put on a pair to replace his clown pants. Now he was in electronics, trying to decide on a TV that would be big enough to keep him in the butt impression on his couch, he planned on making.

“No, I don’t think I can get it up the stairs or in the door of my apartment,” JJ responded. “I think this 19-inch will be just perfect.”

“Let me check my inventory list one second,” the salesman said, giving in rather quickly and not trying to upsell him to a higher commission television. He stepped away to his podium and looked through a stack of papers on a clipboard, and then came back with a smile on his face.

“Good news, I have that very one in stock, in fact, we have five of them,” he said. “Let me just,“ the salesman bent over to write down a series of numbers that were on the corner of the price placard. ”ring you up,” he finished as he stood up and walked over to the register. “Can I interest you in an extended warranty?” He asked as he walked JJ back to a register.

“Does it cover damage by gunfire?” JJ asked, remembering the police activity just a few days before.

“Uh, no,” the salesman said, looking a little pale.

“Then no, I don’t think I need the warranty,” JJ said.

“You know the manufacturer’s warranty only covers manufacturing-related issues. If you had some kind of electrical problem that would not cover it, then you would be out the cost of a new one, and you know electrical surges can happen anytime. You could get this home today and have to be back tomorrow because someone hit a transformer. It really is good insurance, and so cheap it’s really throwing money away if you don’t get it,” the salesman pressed.

“No, I’m good, I’ll just take the TV,” JJ said.

“You’re making a big financial mistake. This,“ the salesmen continued, pulling out a glossy trifold brochure with the words ‘Congratulations on purchasing an extended warranty,’ “warranty is backed by Sears itself. If anything happens to it—”

“You mean besides gunfire,” JJ interrupted him.

“Uh, yeah,” the salesman said, putting the brochure back. “Why don’t I ring you up for the TV?” He busied himself writing down pertinent information on a three-sheet sales slip. Finally, he asked, “Will that be cash or Sears charge?”

“Cash,” JJ said. Being Vegas, the salesman wasn’t all that surprised when JJ pulled out a stack of hundreds to pay. He finished the transaction and then directed him to the warehouse door, where he could get his TV.

***

The TV was just small enough to fit in the trunk of the taxi cab once he took it out of the box and removed the vast amount of styrofoam. Back at his apartment building, he was able to get it up the stairs and into his door, onto the waiting table set up just perfectly for it. Now, JJ could start drinking from the source of all knowledge, Judge Wapner.

It didn’t take long sitting on the couch before JJ was trying to figure out something more to fill his day. “I guess you have to work up to the level of couch potatoes my neighbors are.”

Not at the level of slothy-ness that his neighbors were he decided he should take a nap right there on the couch without even bothering to shut off the TV. That didn’t last long with the sounds of annoying commercials interrupting his sleep. He woke up to a loud voice yelling, “We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only use the edge.” He gave up trying to take a nap and remembered that every piece of clothing he owned was well past the bio-hazard level of dirty, and he should wash them or burn them.
Once he was able to beat the clothes unconscious and stuff them into a bag, he went to the manager’s office to get change and a box of the overpriced boxes of single-use detergent, then finally directions to the building’s laundry facilities.

It only took JJ four hours to do one load of laundry, and in the process, learning that it was not something he should attempt again, and the manager would inforce that with a sign with his picture saying he was not allowed in the laundry room, ever, under any circumsatnaces. In the future, he was going to either throw away his clothes when they were able to stand on their own or find a service.

He got his now mostly clean clothes, except for the few items that burned up in the chemical fire or landed in the unidentifiable liquid on the sidewalk, up to his apartment, where he dumped them on the floor in the corner of his bedroom.

“Now, back to working on my butt indentation,” JJ said to himself as he settled down onto the couch and turned the TV back on.

JJ started to flip channels, looking for something to watch where the cast weren’t yelling at each other. He finally settled on Wheel of Fortune.

He spent the night watching the Wheel and finally realized he was not prepared to be a hermit when his stomach started informing him it was time to fill it.

“Tomorrow, I go shopping. I have to fill my refrigerator full of TV dinners. But today I will test the 30-minute or less pizza promise,” JJ said as he extracted himself from his couch and went down to the second closest payphone, in the bar. He would have gone to the ones at the Quickie Mart next door, but they were always occupied by the local entrepreneurs.

They delivered the pizza in about an hour after he had called in, and when he asked the driver about the promise.

“Were not that company, we don’t promise to deliver in thirty minutes,” the driver said in response. “Hey, if you don’t want it, I’ll keep it.”

“No, I’ll take it,” JJ said, paying the driver.

When he got it in he saw that it was cold and had taken quite a trip to get there. There was more cheese stuck to the lid than there was on the pizza. The pizza was undercooked and had obviously been stuffed back in the box after it had fallen out. There was a receipt from a liquor store stuck to the lump of dough.

“Great, they take over an hour to deliver this mess.” JJ resisted the urge to fling the box, realizing at the last moment that he would just have to clean up it up. Instead, he went to the dumpster for the building and tossed in the box, and then decided to get an overcooked hot dog at the quickie mart covered in a red material labeled chili. Along with the … uh … hot dog, he grabbed a few beers to chase the demons of regret away.

He downed his hot dog and beers back at his apartment and fell asleep to some late-night B-movie about something coming out of a toxic swamp. Or maybe it was a bikini clad model, it was hard to tell after the beers.

***

JJ was woken by the banging of a hammer on Roger’s door. After trying to ignore it and the occasional saw for a few minutes, he finally gave up and got dressed and headed out.

He was surprised to see Roger standing at the railing smoking a cigarette.

“Howdy, neighbor. Did you turn off the oxygen?” JJ asked.

“Piss off,” Roger said as he took a quick glance at the knob on the oxygen tank and then turned it off.

JJ stepped up to the railing next to Roger. “I thought you were arrested?” JJ asked, trying to make conversation.

“Can’t you take a hint? Piss off.” Roger said, then dropped his cigarette and slowly shuffled into his now repaired front door, dragging his air cylinder behind him.

JJ spent the rest of the morning perusing the frozen offerings in the nearest grocery store, trying to decide what would be palatable. In the end, the only thing that looked edible and that he could prepare, were some frozen burritos.

“I won’t survive on frozen burritos,” JJ said as he grabbed a few and then went over to the produce section and grabbed some fruit.

He made his way up to the cashiers, where he negotiated the process of purchasing the food.

“So how does everyone do this, and not just go out to eat every day?” JJ asked himself while he was sitting outside on a bench, waiting for a cab.

“You learn to cook,” an older woman sitting on the bench next to him said.

“What? How?” JJ asked, turning to the woman.

“Buy a few cookbooks and start watching cooking shows,” the lady said. “Good luck,” she said as she got up to take the cab that drove up.

“I get the feeling I am not equipped for modern life,” JJ said.

A cab showed up a few minutes later.

***

Roger was again out at the railing smoking.

“Hey Neighbor,” JJ said, walking up to him.

“Hhh,” Roger said as the only response.

“Can I ask you a question?” JJ asked.

“Piss off,” Roger said.

JJ ignored the imperative. “I was at the grocery store today and couldn’t figure out what to buy. I finally settled on frozen burritos.” JJ said.

“I feel sorry for your toilet,” Roger said.

JJ looked at him for a moment in silence, hoping that Roger wasn’t right about what he planned to eat for the foreseeable future. “What do you eat?” JJ asked, hoping to find the secret to surviving.

“Cereal, lots of cereal,” Roger said.

“I guess I need to go shopping again,” JJ said and then grabbed his bags and headed into his place.

After putting away his groceries, he sat down on his couch to peruse the offerings on the television. He barely got through the five channels when he realized he was hungry.

Once he found the directions on back of the burrito he went about turning on the oven and putting the burrito in.

After he put the burrito into the oven, he checked the lone clock on the wall so he knew when to take it out.

He went back to the TV and found some mindless program to watch while he waited for dinner.

He was watching the second show or maybe it was the fifth show when he noticed smoke coming out of the oven. JJ jumped up and ran to the oven and tried to grab the burrito.

“Ow ow ow,” he said, dropping it to stop the pain. After cooing off his hands with some water from the sink faucet, he shut off the oven.

He grabbed a plate and a fork and was able to roll the now black and smoking burrito off the oven rack onto a plate.

“Great, now it’s burnt,” JJ said. He grabbed a knife, intending to try to cut off the burnt tortilla. It took a few minutes of careful surgery, when he finally had the black tortilla off the interior. What was left was holding its shape as a brown log, when he finally got the courage to see if it tasted better than it looked he found that it was still completely frozen.

“Ahhhhh.” JJ yelled in frustration and was again about to deal with his anger and frustration with a plate smashing throw when he thought better of it. He had seen how much the apartment management would charge to replace a plate.

He was just finishing cleaning up the last of the crumbs from his first cooking experiment when there was a knock on his door.

“I’m not interested in buying anything,” JJ said as he opened the door, thinking it was probably some kid trying to sell candy.

“That’s good because we aren’t selling anything,” Peter said.

Raul and Peter were standing on the walkway outside his door.

“Interesting neighbors,” Raul said, indicating the collection of men standing at the railing smoking, in their T-shirts and boxers.

“Yeah, they are uhm …” JJ said, not able to come up with the proper phrase to express his disgust with their fashion. “There is no dress code here. Come on in.” JJ stepped back and let them in.

“Trying to cook?” Peter asked, waving away the smoke that wafted out the open door.

“Trying,” JJ said.

“Why don’t we go to a resturant I know, a good one just around the corner?” Raul asked.

“Didn’t I say I didn’t want to see you guys again?” JJ said.

“Yeah, but you need to eat, and Raul says the food is good. My treat.” Peter said, trying to entice JJ.

“Oh, alright,” JJ said, giving in to his hunger and stepping out.

“What did you try and cook?” Raul asked. “It smells really bad like burnt dung.”

“A frozen burrito,” JJ said.

“You probably did yourself a favor by burning it,” Raul said.

***

“So what’s good here?” JJ asked before he even had a chance to look at the menu,

“Well, since you were trying to cook something claiming to be a burrito, order the chimichanga,” Raul said. He obviously knew the menu well enough that he didn’t need to look at it. His menu was still sitting on the table unopened.

The waitress was over quickly to at least say hi to Raul. After a few flirtatious comments by her that Raul completely missed, she finally realized there was someone else at the table and took their orders.

“How do I learn to cook?” JJ asked when the waitress walked away with the promise to bring their beers back quickly.

“That’s an odd question,” Raul said.

“You’ve never been a good cook,” Peter said. “I can’t tell you how many meals I had to make as your apprentice. After the first burnt bowl of cereal you made, which was quite an accomplishment, I did all the cooking.”

“So how do I learn?” JJ asked.

“Get a cookbook for kids,” Peter said.

The conversation was halted with the arrival of the beers.

The table was silent while everyone took a long drink. The whole time JJ was waiting for them to tell him why they came to his door.

Finally JJ couldn’t wait any longer and decided to ask. “Now that you’ve had some liquid courage maybe you can tell me why you guys showed up at my door.”

Peter spoke up while Raul almost choked on his beer. “We found Arnie,” Peter said.

“I don’t care,” JJ said. “Is he ok?”

“I figured you would say that,” Peter said not registering the concern in JJ’s voice with the question of his health.

“He will be. He’s in the ICU. He’s conscious but sleeping a lot,” Raul said.

“Oh,” JJ said and then took another drink of his beer.

“Why is he in the hospital?” JJ asked after swallowing.

“The doctors don’t know, he is severely dehydrated and malnourished,” Raul said.

“How did he get that way, he was fine just a week or two ago,” JJ said.

“I don’t know but Peter,” Raul looked at Peter as he talked trying to get him to tell his thoughts. “Has some ideas.”

“He doesn’t care why should we tell him,” Peter said crossing his arms in anger, just to uncross them a second later to take a drink of his beer.

“He’s just upset that he spent another night in jail. He cares,” Raul said to Peter.

JJ sat for a moment in silence trying to decide if he was upset with them or Arnie or just the circumstances. After another long drink of his beer he realized that it wasn’t them he was upset with nor even Arnie or Kevika or Kapo. He was upset with having to spend a night in jail but it wasn’t any of their faults. “You’re right Raul, I am just upset that I spent a night in jail and sat in piss and I can’t do my own laundry and I can’t cook and and …” JJ put his head in his arms almost knocking over his beer in the process.

Raul and Peter sat and drank their beers letting JJ get his emotions under control.

“Here you go,” the waitress said stepping up to the table with a tray full of dishes. “I remember you like the churros so I brought you a few.” She said to Raul.

“Thank you,” Raul said, not realizing that maybe she was interested in him.

JJ lifted his head and moved his arms out of the way so the waitress could set down his plate. He didn’t need to after she set down Rauls plate and positioned his flatware and even opened his napkin to put it on his lap she finally dropped the rest of the plates at the empty spot on the table and left.

“So how long have you two been going out?” Peter asked Raul.

“Huh, what do you mean?” Raul asked.

“She obviously likes you,” Peter said.

“Nah, she’s just a good waitress,” Raul said.

“Uh-huh,” Peter said, and then grabbed his dish, which was almost what he had ordered.

JJ grabbed his plate and dug in so he wouldn’t have to talk about his breakdown, again.

After a few bites of food, when the calories started to hit his bloodstream, he finally had his emotions under control and was ready to talk.

“Mmm this is good what do call it?” JJ asked.

“Its a chim… oh wait she gave you a tamale without anything else just a tamale.” Raul said and then turned to get the waitreses attention.

“No don’t this is good,” JJ said, stopping Raul before he made a fuss.

They sat again eating for a bit.

“Peter, what do you think happened to him.” JJ asked.

“I think someone or something was draining his life force to power dark spells,” Peter said around bites. “That is the only thing that could explain a rapid decline into malnourishment like his.”

“Do you two know who?” JJ asked, feeling better now that there was something besides himself to think about.

“We have a suspicion that it is the guy we met at his shop when we tried to visit,” Raul said.

“Is he still doing it?” JJ asked.

“I couldn’t see any connection while we were visiting him, and he didn’t have any memory of anything recent,” Peter said.

“He thought it was the day after the last time you visited him at the shop,” Raul said. “He was saying he needed to leave so he could get back to the shop and pick up some material for the meeting of the group.”

JJ took another bite of his meal and thought about what the two had said. He thought about everything they said and more about his frustration and anger about his circumstances.

“How did I deal with life? I can’t seem to do anything.” JJ asked Peter.

“Buck up,” Peter said.

“What? What does that mean?” JJ asked.

“When things were hard for me, you would always just tell me to buck up. I learned from you to power through the problems,” Peter said.

“But I’m not even capable of doing basic things,” JJ said, feeling a little of the frustration peeking through his resolve.

“No one can do everything. You either have to learn it or pay someone to do it. I can’t work on cars, so when I have one, I pay a mechanic to fix it,” Peter said.

“So I have to pay someone to do my laundry?” JJ asked.

“Yep, there’s a service. You pay someone to drive you, what’s the difference? You have to recognize that you can’t do everything, no one can,” Peter said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” JJ said. He was silent for a bit, contemplating his food and how to “buck up,” as Peter said.

After a bit, Peter finally spoke up. “Telling you about Arnie wasn’t the only reason we came to see you.”

“Uh, huh,” JJ said now that the other shoe was about to hit the floor.

“Well, uhm, we need your help,” Peter said.

“With what? Cooking?” JJ asked.

“We need your magic stamina,” Raul said.

“You know I don’t know any magic,” JJ said.

“We know you don’t remember much,” Peter said, ignoring a snort from JJ. “But you still have unmatched magic stamina. That’s what we need.”

“Hmm,” JJ said and then took the last bite of his tamale.

“We would give you everything you would need,” Peter said.

“Ok,” JJ said then took the last drink of his beer wiped his mouth and stood up. “I’m not saying no, but let me think about it. Magic does seem to be the only thing I can do. I think I’ll walk back. It feels like its only in the eighties and I think I need to think.”

***

Raul and Peter didn’t really protest his discision to walk, they didn’t want to endanger their chance of getting his help. The whole way back JJ kept thinking about his situation.

“Hey Roger,” JJ said after walking up the stairs to find his ever present neighbor at the railing smolking again. This time JJ didn’t ask just bent down and shut off the oxygen.

“Can I buy you a drink?” JJ asked him.

“Huh what do you think I am?” Roger said shuffling away from JJ.

“I want to talk to you. I saw what the goverment say you were and I want to ask you some advice.” JJ said.

“You don’t seem to be … uhm … florist material,” Roiger said.

“I’ll make it two or three drinks and its not about your past profession I want to talk about,” JJ said.

“Ok,” Roger said stubbing out his cigarette. “But I want to go to the bar in the Desert Inn and I’m going to make you pay.”

“Not a problem,” JJ said remembering he still had most of the walking around money that he had gotten from the Riviera.