"I'm losing it baby. I'm going to lose my fucking mind." Jimmy was

pacing back and forth on the living room floor clapping his left hand

to his thigh while taking deep drags off his Marlboro.

"You're going to wear the rug out pacing like that. Walk around in a

square or zig-zag or something." Lila's plump body was wedged into a

worn overstuffed armchair.

"You need to listen to me." Jimmy slid to his knees at Lila's feet.

His hands were shaking, his eyes wild, darting from here to there and

there to here.

Lila raised a chicken leg to her mouth, dug her teeth in and pulled

the meat from the bone chomping with loud wet chews. Grease slid

down the side of her face as Jimmy's head fell into her lap. She

patted his hair with her chicken-hand. Jimmy was weeping now and the

wetness from his tears spread on her pink skirt.

"It's going to be fine." Lila said spitting chunks of chewed chicken

into the air around his head.

"I don't want to go." Jimmy was blubbering now. He looked up at Lila

with pleading eyes.

"But you promised, remember? And we must always keep our promises."

Lila lifted a strawberry shake from nowhere wrapping her lips around

the straw, sucking so hard her cheeks caved in and she looked like

fish wearing a wig with oily bangs.

Gently, Lila reached out to Jimmy's face with both hands and she

tenderly brushed his tears away. Long ropes of snot hung from his

nostrils.

"He's here!" Lila pushed Jimmy down to the floor. A dark figure in

black robes and no face stood over Jimmy. Wafts of the scents of cat

shit and basil filled the air as the figure moved closer to Jimmy.

Lila lifted her skirt revealing an unspeakable forest of hell between

her legs. And then Jimmy was gone. And the cloaked figure was gone.

But Lila remained. A brand new rotisserie chicken now at Lila's feet.

Tim Woods was one of those guys who couldn’t catch a break. Everything he did went sour. Like the time he settled in for a romantic evening with himself and he accidentally typed “Pornhub.com” as his Facebook status. Or when he learned to never trust a fart. Especially at a singles mixer. Still, every morning he’d wake up, look in the mirror and say, “Tim, today things are going to change. Today is YOUR day! Grab it by the balls!” Every morning he was convinced “today was a new day.” By mid- afternoon he’d be beaten back down. Some girl would trip and splash scorching hot coffee on his crotch or he’d have no cash when his metro card ran out and he’d have to walk home, or he’d find out the hard way that there was shellfish in the pasta primavera.

Bookkeeping work suited his shy ways and that’s what he did at a small adult entertainment shop in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. “Pleasures and Treasures” was owned by David and Harriet Hendler. Originally David wanted to name the place something like “Slippery When Wet” or “The Snatch Patch” but Harriet was a classy lady and back in 1978 when they opened the place there were rules about such things. So Pleasures and Treasures it was.

David Hendler walked like a man-shaped water balloon, jiggling with every step. He dabbed sweat from his hairy neck and flushed brow so often it became a tick. That Wednesday morning he had an extra bounce in his step and a gleam in his eye.

“Happy Hump Day!” Hendler gave a wink before slurping from the boob-shaped coffee cup. Tim peered over his readers which were held together with masking tape at the ear.

“Thanks, Dave. What’s up?” Tim smiled. He liked Dave. He was a good dude and a decent boss.

“I have good news and bad news.” Hendler squeezed himself into the armchair across from Tim’s desk, grunting until he got settled. “We’re retiring, Tim. Harriet wants to travel before we die, which I hope is soon if I have to spend so much time with her” he laughed but there was obviously some truth to his words.

“Is that the good news or the bad news?” Tim tensed up, ready for the other shoe to drop. It always did, and it usually weighed 50 lbs and landed on his bare foot.

“Depends on your perspective, Timmy old boy” sometimes Dave put on the Groucho Marx voice. It suited him too well.

"Harriet's cousin Julie is gonna take over here. We told her to keep you on, but you know. It's up to her now. I'm sorry we didn't give you more notice. It happened so fast."

Great. Just what Tim needed. A woman boss. Not that he had anything against women. He just had no luck with the ladies. They didn't find him attractive or charming or funny. They never seemed to have any use for him. He'd surrendered to the idea that he would never marry and would die alone with a load of crap in his shorts.

Sometimes Tim would get on Match or OKCupid and try to go on dates. There was the time he started getting close to a woman and they went back to her place. Right as they were getting heavy into it he got a massive Charlie horse and fell off the bed doubled over in pain. The girl laughed at him and called it a night. He tried to play it off like he was cool with it but... It stung. And it made him even more hesitant with women.

"You'll like Julie. She's smart. A real straight shooter.”

"I appreciate your telling me, Dave. I'm happy for you guys."

A woman with a gelatinous face framed by fluffy brown hair strode into the office and hugged Dave.

"Here she is!" Dave beamed with pride "Julie, this is Tim. He's wonderful. Tim, Julie, your new boss. I'll let you guys get acquainted." and he jiggled his way out of the office into the store.

"Well, this is awkward" Tim said trying to break the ice.

"Not at all. I'm excited to take over the store. I've been telling Harriet for years they should change it up. It could be a real destination if they could make it more modern." Tim looked her up and down. She wasn't the beauty queen type and he imagined she spent most Saturday nights with battery operated companions.

“I don’t plan on making too many changes, maybe brightening the place up, gearing it more toward women. We could do an evening of cocktails once a month.” When she said “cocktails” she emphasized the “cock” part and gave him a spastic wink. “We’re changing the name too, The G Spot! Isn’t that a goodie?” she laughed and he couldn’t help but smile along with her.

On the train home Tim had a renewed sense of hope. Julie seemed cool and he liked the idea of new energy in the shop. Maybe it was just the change he needed.

An old woman sat fidgeting next to him, distracting Tim from his reverie. She opened her old Nokia flip-phone then flipped it closed again. She did this repeatedly for a while then turned to him and said “Every time the train stops in the tunnel I get really scared this is it." Her voice quivered, "Is this it?” Tim tried to comfort her, letting her know they would be just fine. She rambled on about her anxiety and that she felt like she was losing her mind. Her eyes went wild and her head shook. He didn’t even see the straight razor coming when she slashed his throat right there on the R train during rush hour. Nobody noticed Tim’s corpse traveling back and forth from Brooklyn to Queens until after 2 am when the train stopped short and he flopped over on his side and tumbled to the floor.

There was a woman I knew, Eliza. She did everything she could to avoid leaving her DNA behind. I had to travel with her for work a few times. She was a real nice lady in her 50s. She grew up in a normal home with a normal family in a normal town. For some reason she had this crippling fear that she would leave pieces of herself behind. She brought her own towels and sheets and pillow cases whenever she spent the night away from home. When she cleaned her hairbrush she took every last strand and would set them on fire. That is until the time the smoke alarm went off at the Day’s Inn Schenectady. She stopped lighting crap on fire and started to flush the hair down the toilet. Only then she worried that not all of it would flush away and she'd spent an hour in the can flushing the toilet over and over again, pouring in 2 cups of bleach before every push of the lever.

I was surprised when she met a man. He was one of those guys who was neither hideous nor good looking which suited her just fine. I don’t know where they met but I came to find out that he had this thing where he refused to leave his trash outside the building like everyone else. He would get on the train and go 2 or 3 stops away and toss it in public waste bins. He thought his neighbors might go through his trash and know his business. Not that there was any business to know. He spent most of his time figuring out where to toss his trash and dealing with Eliza’s DNA hysteria. I got used to it after a while and we became close friends before they disappeared back in 2004. I miss them a lot. They were good people.

I went on a few dates with this sexy little man with a mustache and great dance moves. His name was Edgar. I liked him well enough. He was a serious guy but when we danced it was like magic. He just knew how to boogie. On the 3rd or 4th date I got all gussied up because we were going to a supper club to rumba. When he picked me up he slapped me across the face because I was wearing lipstick. After he recovered from my pushing him down the stairs he told me that covering my lips with vulgar paint hides the true color of the lips. The lips on a woman’s face is a mirror image of her downstairs parts (he used the word “pussy,” but I am a lady and don’t use such language). He told me painting my lips meant I was ashamed of my pink palace and he could not be with someone who was that uptight. Well, I was happy to part ways with him. And for the record, my hooha does not look the same as my face lips; it’s way prettier and I am glad he never had the chance to see it.

Strange folks have come and gone over the years. I guess we are all a little strange in our own ways. That’s what makes us interesting. Me? I’m pretty normal. I eat raw ground beef from time to time. And instead of saying “um” I do a scale of “la la la la la la la.” That puts people off sometimes but I've learned to control that compulsion for the most part unless I am really nervous. I also never wear matching socks. I figure one of the pair will inevitably be lost so I am just being proactive. Other than that, I am pretty ordinary.

The day I met Nate was a day I will never forget. All friends start out as strangers. My 3rd grade teacher said that to me when I was shy and didn’t want to talk to anyone. It stuck with me all these years. I was sitting in Union Square Park, minding my business eating rice cakes with almond butter and watching the people when this enormous creature plopped down next to me. He was at least 6 foot 7 and about 600 lbs. A big bloop of a guy, as my dad would have said. He had a kind, round, hairless face. He started talking to me right off the bat. I remember giving him the side-eye at first but was soon drawn into a lively conversation about the color blue and the various shades and how blue can also be an emotion and we just sat there for hours talking about the color blue. Later that night I walked home and I thought about Nate. I thought about him a lot and how he would never slap me for wearing lipstick. I know, I set my standards high but that was the bar I had to measure against.

We met the next day and talked about kitchen utensils. All the different kinds and what they are used for and debated whether wooden spoons were better than a metal ladle or a silicone spatula. I was fascinated with his knowledge of different kitchen tools and his enthusiasm was contagious. He was very orderly with the topics he chose to talk about and he rarely deviated from the theme, but when we did, he would hold up one finger and say “hold just one minute” and switch gears. When he was ready to go back to the original topic he’d say “resume.” It was easy to follow his transitions and he had a laugh like a bird in a gully.

Every day we met up and talked for hours about various things. Squares, how they can be so many things to so many people and that people used to call nerds squares. We talked about olives and the varieties from the ones stuffed with almonds to tapenades and oils and beauty products made with olive oil, but also that olive was used to describe skin tones. On Wednesdays we talked about specific body parts.

Nate was the kindest, funniest man I ever met. We fell in love. Ain’t that something? And while it’s true that every friend starts off a stranger, it is also true you can never really know anyone. You only know what they let you know. I found out on our wedding night that he cried after sex. Not just tears of release but weeping and wailing cries. This really worried me the first few times but then I got used to it. It still made me uncomfortable, just like it made him uneasy when I ate raw meat, but we learned to live with it.

A year after we were married I caught him in the park talking to a pretty little thing. I hid in the bushes behind them and listened as they spoke about the color blue. She was just as captivated as I had been not so long ago. Reality was a blur. Was it really happening or was I seeing a memory from outside of myself? How could my gentle giant run the same scam on another woman? Why was I not enough? My heart thumped inside my chest with irregular hammering beats against my ribs; my face flushed hot and my eyes filled with water.

When Nate got home that night I told him what I’d seen and he didn’t deny it. The girl he was talking to, a blond of all things, was named Rose. And she understood him. And he wanted to be with her. So I left.

You find out someone is a stranger but they are really just like everyone else. Clichéd assholes. I did some sleuthing on Rose. Turns out she had webbed feet and an elongated coccyx bone which looked like a little tail. She was a frog-rabbit. She did freaky webcam sex stuff. There's a market out there for everything, I suppose. A tail and webbed feet? I could never compete with that. And I’m not sure I want to.

It's fine. Now I just stick to myself. Life is complicated enough with the people you know, or think you know. My sister likes to watch those YouTube videos of women whispering nonsense and scratching their scalp. Strange, but she’s no stranger. After Nate, there were no more strangers for me. I’m happy this way. I can't help but think about Eliza's obsession with leaving some of herself behind. She took it to a literal level with the DNA part, but the truth is, as we gather more of ourselves we inevitably lose bits too.