Delilah and the Shortcomings of Men

 

I should’ve known Des was going to be a total drag.  She could get like that sometimes, all surly and shit.  This usually followed the random, little spells of our not talking to one another, no matter how inadvertent or trivial the reason.  And sure, I admit I probably hadn’t been the best, the most communicative, of friends the past couple of weeks, but I had a lot going on, what with my own stint in the hospital and then my subsequent recuperation in the church rectory.  Thanks for asking, Des, I’m fine, by the way!  But she’d clearly taken my silence personally.  The first thing she said when I got in the car was that it was typical of me, of men in general, to call only when I, or we, needed something.  Without asking her to give an example, I reminded her that, technically, Reverend Al had called her, not me, and that, quite frankly, I was pretty foggy on what had been going on the last few days.  Deep down, though, I knew that Des’s sulky attitude stemmed from my budding romance with the lovely Dr. Kelley Tablebottom, as the majority of my bandwidth lately had been dedicated to her.

Not that Des was jealous or anything.  I’m not saying that.  Selfish, maybe.  Crazy? Definitely.  But jealous, no.  She’s made it abundantly clear, on countless occasions, in no uncertain terms, and to any audience who cared to listen, that she and I were simply friends, that our friendship was strictly platonic.  Eww, no!! she’d shriek when our friends tried to play matchmaker.  Sterling’s like my retarded little brother!!  When the laughter subsided, I’d pull her aside and assert that, though I was certainly an idiot, that didn’t mean I was also intellectually and developmentally disabled, and that, what the hell, Des, I’m older you!  She’d laugh and brush it off, rejoining that she was just “bursting my balls,” unaware that having one’s balls burst was definitely more painful than busting them. 

Anyway, before they sent me off, Rev. Al and Ms. Spigot had assured me that the knot on my forehead was gone.  The frequent probing I did with my fingers seemed to confirm their assurances.  Yet every time Des drove over the slightest bump, each time she jerked the wheel in that maddening style of driving she called “defensive”—“I took a course, Sterling, with an instructor.  Trust me.” Oh right, of course.  You mean the one mandated by the court, no?—my forehead pounded, and the pounding grew in intensity with each bump, with each jerk, a throbbing ache that would soon bust—or burst—through the surface of my skin. 

Suddenly, looking through the windshield, I saw in the middle of the road a pothole, dark and menacing, and I swear to God Des swerved towards it.  She missed it, but still I winced in apprehension, feared the imminent splitting open of my head, the volcanic eruption that would no doubt leave behind a prominent cinder cone jutting out from my cranial topography.     

Des looked over at me and said, “I’m sorry, am I boring you?”

I told her that my head was still a little tender and asked if she could perhaps try to drive a little less “defensively.” 

She rolled her eyes and turned on the radio, and, as if she wanted to stress the point that she was annoyed with me, wanted to drown me out, she cranked the volume knob, and then the unmistakable jingle flooded the front of the car and assaulted my ears, DE-LI-LAHHHHHHHHH.  Her voice soft and soothing, but at the same time jagged and irritating—at this point I wasn’t sure what hurt more, my eardrums or my forehead—Delilah asked who was on the line, and the caller introduced himself as Toby.

“Hi, Toby, what can I do for you?”

The volume still at full blast, which didn’t seem to bother Des at all, Toby went on to describe his dilemma, which wasn’t immediately clear because, one, the dude was an unintelligible wreck, fighting through tears, sniffling and getting all choked up, and two, with each fitful and snot-filled utterance from Toby, it felt like Mike Tyson was punching my head, bashing my ears.  Slowly, though, I gathered that Toby and his wife had gotten into a huge fight, their row having begun over their opposing views as to which of the two Aunt Vivians from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was the better, and Toby, the moron, had said that he’d taken the side that the re-casted Aunt Vivian, played by actress Daphne Maxwell Reid, was the superior version—which was probably the most retarded thing I’d ever heard.  (No offense to Daphne, of course.  It wasn’t her fault the show’s producers and the Fresh Prince himself disrespected and lowballed the shit out of the original Aunt Viv, Janet Hubert.  And, as a professional actress herself, sure, Daphne didn’t want to simply imitate Janet’s Aunt Viv; she wanted to make the character her own because, well, it was hers.  I just didn’t care for it, that’s all.)  Des didn’t seem to be on Toby’s side, either.

“This guy fucking stinks,” she screamed at the dashboard.  “Get a grip, you fucking fruit!”

Meanwhile, Delilah commiserated with the poor fool, said that television shows, while entertaining, were oftentimes a source of strife in our relationships.  She then told Toby that the Lord worked in mysterious ways, that he needed to trust in Him, that there was an underlying reason to his and his wife’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air quarrel—there’s a reason, a purpose, in everything, Toby, remember that—and that while it may not yet be evident, she, Delilah, was confident that the Lord would reveal it in time, but, in the meantime, he and his wife had to work together to overcome this obstacle.  Delilah concluded her sappy homily by telling Toby that she had the perfect record for them.

“Thank you, Delilah.  And can I say one thing, before you start?”

“Of course, Toby.”

“Okay, well, um, Snookums, baby, I, I”—

“Oh my God, this guy is the worst,” Des interrupted.  “He deserves to be alone forever.”

—“if, if you’re listening, if you’re out there, I just wanted to say, please come back from your sister’s.  She hasn’t liked me ever since that thing at SeaWorld”—

“What the hell happened at SeaWorld?!”

—“but I promise I will never denigrate—I think that’s what you said, yeah—I promise I will never denigrate your opinions when it comes to 90s sitcoms.”

If Toby said anything else, I didn’t hear it.  Des had lost it.  She’d turned down the volume, finally, and was now ranting and raving about how disgusting and piggish men were, how frustrating Delilah was—“Did you know she’s been married like ten times?  What a fucking hypocrite.”—how there needed to be some kind of test that men underwent once they turned twenty-five.  She hadn’t worked out all the particulars yet, but the consequence for failures would be forced vasectomies.  (Remember what I said about her being crazy?) 

Well, Des was still hot when she pulled up to my house, and I was more than thankful when she gave me the proverbial—and literal—boot.  She squirmed to get it up from under the wheel, but she got it, her right leg, and she reached over the center console and gave me a quick kick as soon as I’d opened the car door.  I stumbled out, and Des sped off before I’d even regained my balance.  I figured she must’ve had a bad date recently.  I decided I’d ask her about it, once she’d cooled off.