Ex and bacon

‘Hi, is this Karl?’

‘With a sandwich in his mouth, who’s this?’

‘I know you don’t recognize the voice, but we were very close friends.’

I don’t like surprises, never have.

When I was six or seven my parents threw me the Woodstock of birthday bashes. They hired a couple of magicians and a DJ, and built a circular train track around the massive dining table, complete with a train set large enough to sit on (if I was so inclined) made entirely of cake.

They also hired a clown, and he wasn’t funny.

‘Then I’m sure I’ve missed you terribly. How’ve you been?’

‘Great, back in the homeland for a few weeks. Buy me a drink?’

‘Are you attractive?’

‘You once thought so.’

‘Hmm, did we date?’

‘I think I’ll tease you a bit more before I answer that. What’s in the sandwich?’

‘Bacon.’

I remember Bozo came up to me towards the end of the party with one of those party whistles, you know, the ones that unroll into an annoying fluttering piece of paper that looks nothing like a butterfly? He said something, pouted, then blew the non-butterfly right into my eye.

All the crying has made that part a bit fuzzy, what is crystal clear though is picking up the 5 kilogram, metal-cast xylophone I was playing with and smashing it on his skull. Turns out he didn’t like surprises either. Who knew?

‘Just bacon?’

‘Yes. Well no actually, an overwhelming sense of indifference just crept into my ketchup. Are we going to play 20 questions or something?’

‘That’s a capital idea. Hit me.’

‘I’d love to.’

Only one woman in my life has ever used the term ‘capital idea.’ My turn.

‘So, we were once an item?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is your cup size greater or equal to C?’

‘Umm, yes…’

‘Have I ever faked interest in what you had to say?’

‘How would I know that?’

‘That answers my next question, about your average IQ.’

‘Yeah I think I’ve had enough of this game.’

‘No, no I’m close. Did we date in late 97?’

She laughed: ‘You guessed it.’

‘Sandra! It really has been a while.’

Her name of course, was Mary.

We’d met in 1997 in a fair; she was in a clown suit wrapping up balloon sausages for orphans and spectators. Her mom – once part of an obscure European traveling circus – had her own clown getup going on. Her brother was dressed as a mime, and her little sister a penguin; a pretty colorful family really.

Mary went quiet, the way a thousand angry hyenas don’t.

‘You cheated on me?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘It doesn’t really matter now, but, well I guess it does matter. It sort of ruins the memory.’

‘I did not cheat on you.’

‘Yeah, it’s OK anyway. Look I’ll call you tomorrow and see what you’re doing.’

‘Sandra was your cat’s name, you idiot.’

Whatever she screamed into her phone jumped off the networks, routed through the depths of hell, caught fire in the devil’s loins and burned its way out of my earpiece, just barely missing my receding hairline. Yeah, I remembered her temper.

She regained composure: ‘Aren’t you just the sweetest thing; meet me at Pickwick’s?’

‘That place still open?’

‘Nope.’

‘See you in a bit.’