Chapter 13 #2
Dennis rubs the back of his neck. “It’s alright. I have a past I’m not proud of and it’s time to set the record straight.” He glazes off somewhere in the middle distance, opening a window to his sordid past. “Inkblot Books will always haunt me. I didn’t mean to soak all those books.”
“Soak in what?” I hold my breath, imagining all manner of foul substances.
“I had a Starbucks mocha frappé with me,” Dennis says. “And I set it down on the shelves and forgot. The cup tipped over.” He shakes his head. “I’m disgusted with myself. I ruined the collected works of Socrates.”
“Not Socrates!” Elliot mutters.
“Stop it,” I say, then turn my full attention to Dennis. “You’re into Greek philosophy?”
Dennis exhales. “The meditations of Marcus Aurelius soothe me in these times of chaos.”
“Wow.” My voice is a hushed whisper. I touch his utility vest like it’s a sacred Biblical robe. “You’re a sensitive man.”
Elliot drags a hand through his hair. “Oh come on…”
“But I can be forgetful at times…” Dennis’ words drip with remorse.
“As forgetful as you were in Ikea when you urinated in their display toilet?” Elliot asks, going for the jugular. “Did you miss that big sign that read ‘This is not a toilet’? Or did you deliberately ignore it?”
Dennis gazes at the ceiling with a martyr-like turn of his eyes.
“I wasn’t intentionally trying to vandalize the Ikea bathroom display.
2011 was a rough year for me. I’d just been laid off.
I’d taken to the drink. Then the bong. I was stoned out of my mind when I went to Ikea to buy a hotdog.
I don’t remember much of what happened. Probably blocked it out.
I really had to pee. I saw a toilet, so… I just went.”
I listen to Dennis’ story with a pitiful shake of my head, my heart breaking for all he had suffered.
“We all go through tough times,” I lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “during the Great Crystal Shortage of ’21, when my gift shop was in the toilet, I could power through an entire six-pack of sparkling rosé in a day. ”
Elliot side-eyes me. “You’re telling us you can ‘Rosé All Day’?”
I glare at him, unamused. “Is that a joke?”
Dennis comes to my rescue. “She’s sharing a painful story, man,” he says, “have a little sensitivity.”
“Thank you, Dennis,” I say.
“You may continue,” Dennis says, glaring at Elliot to behave. “This hardware store is a safe space.”
Outnumbered and thoroughly chastised, Elliot takes a deep breath and sulks into his notebook.
“When October came,” I continue, “I’m ashamed to say that I slipped brandy into my pumpkin spice latte…”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Dennis says. “Everyone spices up their pumpkin spice, if you know what I mean.”
I cast my head down. “I might have gone overboard on the spice…”
Elliot, ever sensitive to my trauma, chimes in, “You were a bankrupt alcoholic.”
Dennis rolls up his sleeves, displaying more of that sexy forearm. “You want me to toss him out?”
“It’s okay,” I say. “He’s not wrong. I remember visiting a pumpkin patch that year, parking myself on a hay bale, knocking back pumpkin spice lattes and drunk-singing every Taylor Swift song from her 1989 era.”
Elliot makes a muffled sound and mumbles, “That’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard.”
“So you understand,” Dennis says, clutching my hand.
I sniffle. “To this day, I can’t enter a pumpkin patch without yearning for a drink.”
“I understand your troubles… All too well.” Dennis pulls a travel pack of tissues from his utility vest, “As the great Marcus Aurelius once said, ‘Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.’”
I blow my nose. “That’s very deep. As the great Taylor Swift said, ‘Shake it off.’”
Elliot clears his throat. “Not to interrupt this touching moment,” he says, “but back to the public urination incident.”
“Let it rest, Elliot!” I snap. “Dennis is sorry for what he’s done.”
“I can’t let it rest,” Elliot says, flipping aggressively through his notes, “soaking the collected works of Socrates in coffee… peeing at Ikea… What I see here is a pattern of one disturbed man cavalierly dispensing his fluids upon other people’s property.
So the question is…” He steps up to Dennis until they’re face to face. “Have you upgraded to solids?”
Dennis takes a step back. “I don’t know what you mean…”
“Shit. Did you do it? On the night of November 24th, 6:03 pm, did you or did you not take a dump under Ms. Lo’s tree?”
“No!” Dennis sputters. “I was in the yard!”
“Did you take a dump in her basement?”
“What?” Dennis blinks. “What dump? What basement?”
I pinch my brow. “Someone also pooped in my basement. Technically, on the stairs. We think there’s a second shitter. I know… it’s a lot to process. A lot of turds.” I pause, searching for a more poetic way of putting it to impress Dennis. “A surfeit of shit.”
“Nice alliteration,” Dennis says.
“Thanks.”
“How about a ‘deluge of dung’?”
“A cornucopia of crap!”
“I’m glad you two are exercising your word smithery,” Elliot says, “but let’s talk about the ‘shit on the stairs.’ Hey! I can play too. Did you defecate in her basement, Dennis?”
Dennis slips behind the cashier counter. “I went nowhere near your basement.”
“And yet you said you smoked right next to it,” Elliot smacks his palms on the counter.
“You were puffing on your vape and your stomach started to ache. Was it the turkey? The stuffing? The sweet potato casserole? Something you ate didn’t agree with you and just like your indiscretion at Ikea in 2011, you looked for the nearest available toilet… ”
“It’s not true!”
I tug on Elliot’s arm. “Stop badgering Dennis! You’re scaring him!”
Bracing his weight on the counter, Elliot leans forward and growls in a voice worthy of Dirty Harry. “Look Holly in the face and tell her you didn’t shit in her basement.”
“I didn’t shit in your basement,” Dennis says, looking over my shoulder at the elderly couple that just came in. “I have to help the customers. I’m sorry about what’s happened to you, but I had nothing to do with it. If you want to talk about it later,” he glares at Elliot, “I’ll buy you a coffee.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Elliot steps up and slings an arm over my shoulder. “Back off, mullet man, she’s with me.”
Dennis turns to me. “Really?”
I give him an apologetic shrug. “What he said.”
“We’re in love,” Elliot adds, then turns to me for assurance. “Tell him.”
“What can I say? I have horrible taste in men.”
Backing away, Dennis holds up his hands. “Understood,” he lowers his voice, “but if your situation changes…” He brings his hands up to his ears, mimicking a phone and mouths, “Call me?”
He winks at me.
And I couldn’t help it. I wink back. I turn around to find myself face to face with my glowering, over-possessive fake boyfriend.
“I saw that,” he says.
“You’re just jealous. Dennis is a poetic soul. All you think about is literal shit.”
“You’re the reason I have shit on the brain!” Elliot slams his notebook shut. “You know what I dreamt about last night? I was in the North Pole and everyone there were turds. Santa was a turd. Mrs. Claus was a turd. The elves… all little pieces of shit in pointy shoes.”
I peer at his distraught face. “Did Mrs. Claus have any spectacles on?”
“What does that matter?”
“I mean, you have the caca elves in pointy shoes. What was Mrs. Claus wearing?”
“She had glasses perched on her poop face.” Elliot drags a hand through his hair, disheveling the dark strands. “Who does that creep think he is? Hitting on my girlfriend right in front of me!”
“I’m not really your girlfriend, remember?”
“I know that…” Elliot gestures down the aisle to where Dennis is assisting the elderly customers with drywall screws.
“But he doesn’t know that. I’m siding with your mom on this.
I don’t like the looks of that mullet and I’m bumping him up on the suspect list. One thing I’ll say for Dennis Buckminster III,” he says, opening the door for me, “he and his mullet better not leave town.”