So you’re probably reading all this, and being like, “Wow, Greg was really sad about Rachel, to the point where his entire life was in this tailspin. That is sort of touching.” But honestly, that’s not accurate. It’s not like I was sitting in a room, with tears running down my face, clutching one of Rachel’s bedroom pillows and listening to harp music all the time. I wasn’t wandering any dewy meadows, ruefully meditating on the Happiness We Could Have Had. Because maybe you don’t remember this, but I really didn’t love Rachel at all. If she hadn’t had cancer, would I be spending any time with her at all? Of course not. In fact, if she were to make a miraculous recovery, would we stay friends after that? I’m not even sure if we would. This all obviously sounds terrible, but there’s no point in lying about it.
So I wasn’t sad. I was just exhausted. When I wasn’t at the hospital, I felt guilty for not being at the hospital trying to cheer Rachel up. When I was at the hospital, most of the time I felt ineffective and useless as a friend. So either way, my life was deeply fucked up. But I also felt like a moron feeling sorry for myself, because I was not the one whose life was literally about to end.
At least I had Earl some of the time to cheer me up.
EXT. GAINES BACK PORCH — EVENING
EARL
suddenly
So you can be a heterosexual, or a homosexual, and I feel like I understand that, like you’re a woman in a man’s body or some shit, but I been thinking about it and how the fuck can somebody call theyself a bisexual.
GREG
Uhh . . .
EARL
Man, ain’t nobody like, that fine-ass girl is making me hard right now. Oh wait, my mistake, that dude over there is the one that’s making me hard. That don’t make no goddamn sense.
GREG
I guess sometimes I also wonder about that.
EARL
Goddamn. If you’re seriously like, “For real, I’m a bisexual, any person can get me hard,” man, you must get a hard-on from all kinds of freaky shit.
GREG
I think, uh . . . I mean, some scientists think that everyone’s actually a little bit of both. Homo and hetero.
EARL
Naw. That don’t make any damn sense at all. You tellin me right now, you can look at some titties, get a hard-on, look at some dude’s funky dick, get another hard-on. You gonna tell me that for real.
GREG
I guess I can’t say that, no.
EARL
determinedly
Dog taking a dump: hard-on. Wendy’s double cheeseburger: hard-on. Computer virus that destroy all your shit: hard-on.
GREG
Business section of the Wall Street Journal.
EARL
Big-ass hard-on for that shit.
Contemplative silence.
EARL
Yo, I got a line for you. You wanna get with that girl, with the big-ass titties?
GREG
Yeah, give me a line.
EARL
You walk up to her, say, Girl, you might not a known this about me, but I’m a trisexual.
GREG
uncertainly
OK.
EARL
Girl’s like, What the fuck?
GREG
Yeah.
EARL
You like, Yeah, trisexual.
GREG
OK.
EARL
She like, Whaaaaaat. You with me?
GREG
I’m with you.
EARL
Awright, she all confused. Then you drop the bomb, you’re like: trisexual, girl. Cuz I’ma try to have sex with you.
GREG
Ohhhhhh!
EARL
Try-sexual.
GREG
I’ll definitely use that.
EARL
Mack.
All right. Now we’re reaching the part where my life really started accelerating toward the edge of a cliff. And actually, this part wasn’t even Mom’s fault! It was Madison’s. It’s definitely messed up that they played similar roles in my life. I’m trying not to think about this too hard, lest I never get a boner ever again.
It was the beginning of November, and I was in the part of the hall where they had tacked up a bunch of vaguely terrifying pilgrim-and-turkey paintings by the ninth graders, when Madison appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. Our skin was actually touching, specifically in the hand-to-arm format.
Suddenly, I became terrified that I was going to belch.
“Greg,” she said. “I have a favor to ask you.”
It wasn’t like I felt a belch forming in my stomach. It was just that, in my mind’s eye, I could foresee myself belching at Madison. I saw this extremely vividly. Maybe there would be a small amount of barf in there.
“So I promise I haven’t seen any of your movies,” she said, sort of a little impatiently, “but Rachel has, obviously, and she really likes them. And I just had this idea—you should make a movie for her.”
I wasn’t really sure what this meant. Also, to distract myself from the Belch of Doom that was lurking in my esophagus, I was looking away at a picture of a turkey. It was not all that well drawn. For some reason it seemed to have blood shooting out of all parts of its body. It was probably supposed to be feathers, or rays of the sun, or something.
“Huh,” I said.
Meanwhile, Madison sounded confused by my unenthusiastic reaction to her idea.
“I mean,” she said, and stopped. “Don’t you think she would love that?”
“Hummmm.”
“Greg, what are you looking at?”
“Uh, sorry, I got distracted.”
“By what?”
I really couldn’t think of anything. It was like I was on drugs. In fact, that reminded me of the inexplicable badger picture that showed up in my head after Earl and I ate Mr. McCarthy’s pho. So I said, “Uh, there was just this badger picture in my head for some reason.”
It goes without saying that the moment those words left my lips, I wanted to do serious injury to myself.
“Badger,” Madison repeated. “Like the animal?”
“Yeah, you know,” I said feebly. Then I added: “Just one of those badger head pictures you sometimes get.”
I wanted to eat a power tool. Incredibly, however, Madison was able to ignore this and move on.
“So I think you should make a movie for Rachel. She just really loves your movies so much. She watches them all the time. They make her so happy.”
As if the badger thing weren’t enough, it had suddenly become time for me to say a second stupid thing. Actually, it was time for another episode of everyone’s least favorite show, Excessive Modesty Hour with Greg Gaines.
“They can’t make her that happy.”
“Greg, shut up. I know you have issues with being complimented. Just take a compliment for once, because it’s true.”
Madison had actually observed and remembered one of my personality traits. This was so astonishing that I said, “Word,” completing a personal trifecta of Consecutive Inane Utterances That Will Prevent Sex from Ever Happening.
“Did you just say ‘Word’?”
“Yeah, word.”
“Huh.”
“Word, like, I agree.”
Madison, crafty girl that she is, managed to turn this last one on its head.
“So you agree! To make a movie! For Rachel!”
What the hell could I possibly say to that? Except yes?