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6
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Danny shut off his phone, ignoring Brooke’s tenth text of the night. A few were angry, then hurt, then apologetic, and now scared. He just felt done. It was too much. Brooke was too much. He was glad to be away from her and already dreaded heading back home. Danny knew he’d eventually need to be honest and tell her they were done.
Inside the small and cozy room of the B&B, Danny reached for his laptop and then sat back on the cushioned armchair in the corner. The lady who owned this was a sweet woman in her eighties maybe. She gave him a brief tour and then said he was the only one staying there. He had his pick of three rooms so he chose this one. It wasn’t the biggest but it had windows looking out onto the main street in Solitary. Danny figured he might be able to spot some local weirdos wandering down the street tomorrow.
He went through the familiar checklist of sites online. Nothing in his email looked promising. He checked Twitter and shared a couple more things. Recently he had crossed the 100K mark of followers. Danny used to follow everybody but a couple of years ago narrowed it down to about 250. Mostly famous people, some who followed him and some not. Some of his diehard fans were also on his list. He would tweet at least a dozen times a day. His last tweet had been an hour ago, taking a picture of one of the three French Broad beers he’d enjoyed.
The rest of the social networks followed, then he proceeded to go to his blog and read some of the comments on earlier posts.
“A horse has more common sense than you do, jackass.”
That was from HughFlight45.
Glad he keeps reading my stupid blogs.
HughFlight45 was one of the trolls.
“Keep the laughs coming.”
A newcomer. Always nice to see.
“This is by far the best post you’ve ever done.”
One of his longterm fans. He had written a funny piece on why women are right 98 percent of the time. Danny didn’t actually believe this, of course. Most guys were horny tools. That he knew. But a lot of women were entitled brats who loved working out and then walking around showing off in their leggings. No wonder guys were horny tools. Men got it wrong so often and no longer seemed to care anymore. Women knew the odds of them being right so they no longer questioned whether they were. Danny . . . well, he knew that he had more female fans, and he knew that he could mock his male fans simply because they’d agree with him.
I should write something about how to know when a relationship’s over.
Not feeling an ounce of guilt when not returning a call or a text. That’s a big one. Or feeling an overwhelming sense of freedom the moment you step out of their apartment. But those were obvious. He needed to find the utter stupidity of relationships and then highlight them in his wonderful little way.
Danny thought of the Mexican back at the bar. Vince. A good guy. Danny had a headache now after the potent beers and nothing to eat with them. But the conversation had been worth it. He shifted from thinking about writing about a girl to writing about this town.
Where do I start?
Who were these people in this town and why in the world did they think like they did? Vince just shrugged off these rumors. Really? Either he didn’t believe in the whole occult-ritualistic-death-practices or he actually was still involved with them. What if he believed? Why in the world would he still stay around then? To lose money on a pub?
The questions started at this place. Danny’s gift was figuring out a way to point out the stupidity and still sound like he cared. Even a bit. But like he told Vince, that was the beauty of Seinfeld, right? He didn’t want to act like he knew more than others but that was the honest truth. The vast majority of people–Danny had it at about 87.94 percent—were really, truthfully dumb. He loved that word because he could use other, creative ones, but dumb was just another four-letter word. It sounded a bit like bull or dull or oops or anything so ordinary and so blah.
There’s another one.
So many people out there today lived four-letter-lives. The kind you could sum up with a single word. So sad and yet, so funny. They had no idea how pathetic things were but they had their moonshine or their gin and juice so thank God and Hallelujah.
Uh oh racist alert.
Every week, maybe even everyday, Danny would get some of the most ridiculous comments on any one of his online avenues. Bigot and Nazi and hater and liar and so many others. Lots and lots of them. They felt like badges on his Boy Scout uniform. Look, mom, I got another one! The anger from the audience only incited more words and more commentary on the people shouting out loud.
For a second he felt his eyes closing and not opening. He knew he should get some rest.
His phone buzzed with another incoming text. Danny didn’t want to even look at it. Tomorrow he’d answer them.
Tomorrow he’d figure out something more to say to Brooke. Then he’d figure out how to start to make fun of this little town in the middle of nowhere, and really in a sense make fun of all those doomsday prophets who actually believed in things like Heaven and Hell and the end of the world.
Want to see the end of the world? Then go to the bathroom and look in the mirror, buddy.
Danny wasn’t a mean person. Just an honest one. And the world today needed honesty. That and a few laughs.
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