2.
Joey’s been sleeping single since Sunny left him. Three months together and he never learned her real name. He’s pretty sure it’s not Sunny because it’s part of the pickup line he uses when he meets a girl at a bar. It usually doesn’t work. It worked with Sunny. The night they met, Sunny took him home. The next day Joey moved in with Sunny. Joey doesn’t know it, but Sunny doesn’t know his real name either. She always called him handsome. He tries to think maybe he heard someone call Sunny by her real name. He thinks about it for five seconds, then his brain starts to ache from the exertion.
Sunny’s real name is Jody.
Joey and Sunny broke up two weeks ago. Joey’s still not over the breakup. As breakups go, this was a nine on a scale of ten. Ten being a domestic disturbance and call to the police. Joey’s still pondering why Sunny kicked him out. He apologized to her for sleeping with her best friend, Eileen, who is married but felt lonely because her husband was working the night shift. Eileen told Sunny because she felt guilty and wanted to know if they could still have girl’s night out on Thursdays. Sunny forgave Eileen because she was sure Joey seduced her.
Sunny confronted Joey. Joey told Sunny he was like Dr. Phil, the TV psychologist, and he was being a good Samaritan by helping Eileen out of her funk. Sunny didn’t buy Joey’s excuse and her answer was to give Joey the single finger salute with both middle fingers and throw him out. Before he left, Joey told Sunny he didn’t mind if she occasionally slept with Nate because Nate is Joey’s best friend. And, he reasoned, Sunny shouldn’t be angry if he occasionally slept with her best friend, Eileen. Sunny didn’t buy it because she already slept with Nate. And, her sleeping with Nate had nothing to do with Joey’s sleeping with Eileen.
Joey told Sunny he was going to go for a walk and he’d bring back a pizza and a six-pack for dinner. While Joey was walking down the hall, Sunny stood in the middle of corridor and tossed a string of obscenities at Joey that caused Mildred Opperman, a Eighty-three-year-old woman to step out in the hall and say, “You go girl. Men, they’re all the same. I should know, I was married five times. I buried three of them and the other two, they’re probably rotting in jail.”
Jody didn’t forgive as easily as Joey. She yelled at Joey, “I’m going to give your filthy, lousy, ugly, good for nothing, stupid Barlow’s Beer Stop t-shirt to the first homeless guy I see.”
“No, Sunny. No,” screamed Joey.
The eighty-three year old woman chimed in, “You shoulda said you’re gonna burn and then step on the ashes.”
Sunny went into her apartment and bolted the door. Joey banged on it for ten minutes until he heard the police sirens and he left down the back stairways.
When Joey told his best bud Nate why Sunny tossed him out. Nate confessed that he, Nate, met Sunny at Al’s Liquor Store where Sunny was buying a bottle of wine. Nate bought a cold six pack and asked Sunny if she wanted to go his place and share the six pack before the chill on the beer cans wore off.
Sunny, by nature, is the trusting sort, and agreed. Sunny and Nate only finished two beers each before they decided to take a nap and well, you can figure out the rest. Nate told Joey what happened to find out if Sunny had any STDs. Joey wasn’t angry with Nate. Joey said he’s pretty sure Sunny is STD free but they didn’t talk about much. They mostly sat together and looked at their iPhones until it was time to go to bed. Joey wasn’t upset with Nate. He told Nate that as manly as he is, which, in Joey’s opinion, is very manly, he was not a match for Sunny’s libido.
Joey believes you overlook most things in life and give other people second chances. When she said she was giving his Barlow’s Beer Stopt-shirt to some homeless dude she crossed a red line. She crossed a double yellow line. She ran a red light with a photo camera. She was speeding in a work zone with five police aiming radar guns at her. She may as well slit Joey’s throat it was how bad she made him feel. It was even worse than when his team lost the Super Bowl in overtime. It was worse than when his mom forgot to bake a cake for his birthday when he was ten. It was worse than when he got tossed out of school for three days for smacking Harry Larkin in the nose for not letting him copy his homework.
