Barrel Fever by David Sedaris Read Free Book Online Page B

got on my nerves in a big way. Even with tissue stuffed into my ears I could still hear him from my bedroom. I made it a point to avoid him, but certain people can’t take a clue. The moment I passed his window or open door he would call out, “Hey, Dale, you watching the game?”
    “No.”
    “You’re kidding me, right? The Stallions are ahead by eight points with twenty minutes left in the game and you mean to tell me you’re not watching? What are you, some kind of an apple-polisher, running off to polish some goddamned apple?”
    He would rapidly rub his hands along the sides of his sweaty beer can, a dopey illustration of the verb polish, and then, thank-fully, the televised ball would regain his attention and I was able to pass.
    The hands-down worst day of my entire life was the October afternoon when the Sportsman took me to an actual football game. He had bought the tickets in advance and arranged everything with my father. I would sooner eat a Vaseline sandwich than witness two minutes of a football game on TV, let alone an actual, live game. I began feigning illness three days in advance, unforgiving chills accompanied by memory loss and a stiffening of the joints. I was in my bedroom, moaning, when the Sportsman arrived at my door, accompanied by my father.
    “Who are you and what do you want with me?” I asked, my stiff arms raised against the light. “I’m so cold, so . . . cold. When will it stop being winter? So . . . cold. If you have any decency, sirs, you will leave me alone to die with dignity.”
    “Get up and get dressed,” my father shouted, ripping the blankets from the bed. “Either that or you’ll go in your pajamas.”
    I gave it another shot. “Go? Go where? Are you taking me to the hospital? Will it be warm there? Who are you? Are you one of the soldiers who visited yesterday? I told you, we have no more bread. We’ve had no bread for weeks.”
    “Hey, my man,” the Sportsman said when I met him a few minutes later on the sidewalk. “Give me five.”
    We took a bus to the stadium and this bus, it crawled while Mr. Congeniality struck up a game-related conversation with every passenger, all of whom seemed to find him charming. The stadium was even worse. Once the game began, the Sportsman was riveted, screaming and leaping up from his seat, rooting with the best of them. It was a safe bet that he wasn’t going anywhere until long after the last ball was mauled. I excused myself and took the next bus home. Nobody was there, so I rooted through the kitchen drawers and found the spare key to the Sportsman’s apartment, figuring I would go down and investigate for a while. I’ve done it with every tenant, and why shouldn’t I? It’s my house too, partly. I wanted to discover the Sportsman’s pathetic secrets: the sheets stained with urine and decorated with hairs, the magazines beside a foul toilet, the medication and letters they all keep.
    One time, while Tom Dodges was out of town, I found, beside a shit-smeared pillow, a magazine picturing naked men, women, and children summering at a nudist colony. These people went about their business, picnicking, cycling, enjoying a barbecue — they were just like anyone else except that they were naked. Most of them, the parents, were uninviting in their nudity. I mean, you really wouldn’t want to see them that way, but in this magazine you had no choice. Someone, probably Tom, had accentuated this magazine, with a ballpoint pen. The nudists were provided with thoughts and dialogue, crudely contained within cloud-shaped bubbles that poured from their mouths. “You want a nice big hot dog?”
    When Tom returned from his vacation I looked at him differently. I acted the same, but in my mind he became a specimen. Every time he greeted me I pictured those nudists and the filthy pillow. I had always liked Tom and my experience in his apartment made a deep impression on me. Any of us could die tomorrow. It happens all the time. Any of us