Gary was the more laid-back of the two. He didn’t know what his major was, but he’d shown a great talent for keg-tapping with a minor in drooling. From the kitchen he said, “That’s so cool,” as regards my immortality. He said this every twenty minutes or so, usually unprompted. In the kitchen, he was fighting a losing battle with a team of roaches that reportedly held a box of Cocoa Crispies hostage this morning and were unwilling to end the siege twelve hours later.
“It’s not cool if it gets me an F on this,” Nate barked.
“So, you’d rather just regurgitate what these books tell you than know what really happened?”
“Exactly.”
“No quest for truth? Where’s your spirit of exploration?”
“You never went to college, did you?” Nate asked.
He had me there. So, I let him be and joined Gary, which was just as well. When you’re immortal you find there are only so many faces in the world, and to me Nate looked exactly like a Bantu tribal prince I used to hang out with. I kept having to remind myself not to speak to him in Xhosa.
In the kitchen, Gary was standing on the counter with a can of Raid and firing indiscriminately into the cupboard, undoubtedly rendering everything in there inedible, including the compromised Cocoa Krispies.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“It’s only a matter of time, my friend. They can’t hide behind the macaroni forever.”
My money was on the roaches, and I was about to say something to that effect when something under the kitchen sink made a loud bump.
“The hell was that?” Gary asked.
I shrugged. “Really big roach?”
Granting the bugs a temporary reprieve, Gary hopped off the counter and pulled open the door leading to the sink.
“Aahhh!” he shouted. He scampered back like he’d just seen a human head.
“That’s who you remind me of!” I exclaimed.
He looked at me like I was insane. (Not an unreasonable assumption. I was insane for about eighty years in Macedonia. Long story.) “What??”
“Roman soldier named Cassius. He was afraid of anything with hair.”
Gary pointed to the sink cabinet mutely, bringing me back to the present. Nate popped his head in. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Tell me you see that too,” Gary said.
I leaned down and pushed the door open. He was hiding behind the garbage disposal.
“Oh, hey, Jerry,” I said. “What are you doing down there?”
Chapter 2
I first met Jerry about two years ago, in Pittsburgh. Nice guy, but one of those types you can only stand in short bursts. First time we met we were inseparable for about three months, during which time he managed to nearly get me arrested five times. Which may very well be why I left Pittsburgh for Cleveland—I can’t remember. Jerry never got arrested either, of course, and if he had they wouldn’t have been able to hold him for long, given he’s only about ten inches tall.
Gary was decidedly freaked. He held up the can of Raid defensively as Jerry rose to his feet and crawled out from under the sink.
“You wanna tell frat fucker to ease up over there?” Jerry asked. When he spoke Nate leapt five feet straight backward, knocking over the overflowing trash can behind him. “Christ,” Jerry said, spotting Nate, “another one. Boo!”
They both screamed.
Jerry is an iffrit. Iffrits are crude little beasties with poor impulse control and vast appetites for all sorts of debauchery—basically Freud’s id personified. It makes them a tremendous amount of fun, but only when one is in certain moods.
“It’s a… little person…” Gary observed.
“HEY!” Jerry blasted. It’s hard to believe a voice that loud can come out of something that small. “I’ll fuck you up, frat boy.”
“Guys, guys. He’s a friend of mine. Calm down.” Neither of them looked interested in calming down. “Look, he’s harmless.”
“Fuck you, Adam,” Jerry said. He liked to think of himself as a bad ass. Hard to pull off when the only thing you can justifiably intimidate is a Ken doll.
“Jerry…”
Nate stepped cautiously closer. “He’s… naked.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Gary agreed.
Like every other iffrit I’ve ever met, Jerry preferred to go without clothing. And, he had a hard-on. Again, pretty much like every other iffrit I ever met.
“Suck on it, asshole,” Jerry said, grabbing himself demonstratively.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Nate muttered.
It was all starting to come back to me. Jerry showing up unexpectedly in Boston, following a crowd to the party…
“Must’a passed out…” Jerry began. Then he noticed the empty keg we had yet to return, and looked at me, aghast. “Are they OUT OF BEER? What the FUCK are we still DOING HERE?”
“There’s some in the fridge,” Gary pointed out helpfully.
“Aces,” Jerry said. He ran to the refrigerator, yanked it open, climbed in, and shut the door behind him.
Gary and Nate stared blankly at the door, then at me, then at the door again.
“Wow,” Nate said.
“Totally,” Gary agreed. “Dude, we gotta throw another party.”
There are a lot of human-like species out there, on the fringes. An average person might encounter one such species in an entire lifetime, if lucky. (Or unlucky. Many can be quite nasty.) I, of course, have met all of them.
You’ve probably come across an iffrit once or twice without even realizing it. You just mistook it for something else. For instance, Jerry told me he once lived for nearly a year in the Metropolitan Museum in New York pretending to be a very excited Greek statuette. When the place closed down at night he’d sneak into the executive
