What he said was ...

The phone rang, and I scowled. He wouldn’t answer the phone, now would he? Ring, ring, ring. Scowl. Ring, ring, ring. Sigh and roll my eyes.

But it did answer.

“Hello, Jerry?” I said into the text-happy, e-mail-dinging, contacts-out-the-wazoo, neurotic-social-avoidance-excuse smartphone.

Nothing. And then I heard “Hello … Jerry?” come right back to me.

“Hello?”

Hello?

“Jerry, is that you?”

Jerry, is that you?

I hung up and called again. Ring, ring, ring – scowl. Ring, ring, ring –

“Ben, you really shouldn’t be calling me at 8:30 in the morning. You know that’s my shower, shit, and shave time.”

“Oh, Jerry!” What would I do with him? Hopelessly neurotic. That gave me a thought. “How’s your mother?”

“How’s yours?” Jerry said, and giggled in that ticklish sort of way.

“I called because Connie wants to know about your love life. It’s all he lives for.” Yeah, right, I thought – that and his Tenderloin tricks. That slut I married … ah, well, relationships.

There came Jerry’s perky giggle again. Odd, when we were together, I wanted to strangle him when he giggled like that. So I giggled right back when he told me, “No action. Nothing since the Napa Narcissist.”

“You and me,” I said. “Two sides of the same coin. You had the Napa Narcissist, I’ve got the Tenderloin Tessie.”