05 | Tom Alone

From Talking Mouths. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of our i, capital L, v, e, s. [00:01:00] VOICE MAIL: Please enter your password. You have two unheard messages. One saved message. Check. Unheard messages, press 1. [00:01:12] VOICE MAIL: One. [00:01:13] VOICE MAIL: Main menu. To listen to your message, the following two messages have not been heard. First unheard message. [00:01:24] ITALIAN MALE: I want to toss your salad—with syrup, not jelly. [00:01:25] VOICE MAIL: End of message. To delete this message, press 7. To save it in the archives, press 9. To hear more options, press 0. Message deleted. Next message. [00:01:36] SUSAN: Tom, it's me. I heard what happened to Fred. I hope he's okay. And you, too. Look, I didn't mean what I said this morning about doing that again. It must have been the endorphins talking. The truth is, I don't think that's something we should ever repeat. For all kinds of reasons. We had a good thing going, didn't we? Me, you, the kid. And I think you and Fred have something really special. I don't want to come between you two. You and Fred seem so good together. I'd hate to see anything jeopardize your relationship. I don't know if it's possible to put the genie back in the bottle, but I think we should all do our best. Avoiding liquor with no labels on it might be a good first step. Sorry, I feel like I'm rambling. Thanks for getting Jake off to school this morning. Let's talk soon. Bye. [00:02:38] VOICE MAIL: End of message. To delete this message, press 7. To save it in the archive, press. Message deleted. [00:02:47] Hello, Tom speaking. Hey, Sam. Yes, I just got home from the hospital. I literally just walked in the door. No, you're not on speakerphone. I only use that when I'm checking voicemail. How did the meeting with the new DM go? I'm sorry I had to bail. Yes, I know I shouldn't be worrying about work right now. Mongolian easy listening. It's Fred's favorite. I don't know why he can't pretend to like the heavy metal like everyone else. Sure. Fred was tired, but in good spirits. The last time I saw him, he was goofing around with a half empty bottle of barbecue sauce. A previous patient must have left it in the room. The brand? It might have been President's Choice, Smokin' Stampede. What difference does it make? No, it definitely wasn't Newman's Own. Even if it was, you wouldn't have wanted it. We threw the bottle out because he was squirting it into an adult diaper. You don't understand. Fred was actually wearing the diaper. Down the front. He was too lazy to get off his ass and reach around the back. Pardon me? Depends. I don't know. I think it was a flexi-fit. Why does everyone but me seem to know so much about adult diapers? So, once Fred had a full diaper, we called the nurse back to the room to show her what he'd done. But she wasn't impressed. Not at all. Yes, I suppose it was kind of immature, but you're only in your mid-to-late 40s once. I left as she was marching him off to the shower. He had a lot of Smokin' Stampede on his wiener. And I'd be very surprised if there wasn't still some butter down there, too. The butter...? Um, that one's harder to explain. I'm glad I didn't stick around for the clean-up. Sure, that would have been way worse. Honestly, I'm not sure what I would've done. Thank God the diaper was just a precaution. Oh, it's because he has giardia. He must have picked it up from the Canada Games Centre pool after they brought in all those beavers. I can't believe how far they're willing to go with this "Wilderness City" shit. Those beavers were the stupidest thing the City of Whitehorse has done since it put those ads with a comma splice on the back of its buses. "It is the law, yield to buses." They couldn't have paid a writer five bucks to do it right" "Yield to buses. It's the law." How fucking difficult was that? Do I? I guess I am. It's been a long day and I didn't get much sleep last night. No, my prostate's fine. I just had it checked. Oh, God, where do I start? Let's just say that things took an unexpected twist when Susan and Jake came over for dinner. Well, first Fred and I did some routine maintenance on Susan's bike, which she really, really appreciated. Then we had a few drinks. We were having a lot of fun. Eventually, I opened an unlabeled bottle I found in the liquor cabinet. It had been sitting in there since, well... I can't remember when. Maybe the last big party we had. It smelled horrible and tasted like shit, but we were on a roll. And there was no other booze in the condo. The next thing you know, Susan, Fred and I are all in the sack. I have no idea what came over us. We were out of control. We went through a pound of unsalted butter. It was for this excruciatingly painful yet weirdly erotic and super delicious thing called a "Butternut Squash." It's hard to describe. Two tablespoons in the microwave. Friction melted the rest. There's a how-to video on the Internet. Look, I'll send you a link if you really want to know. Don't open it at work. Afterwards, I had the craziest dream about Fred, Susan and me. When I woke up this morning, I told Fred about my dream while Susan quietly slept and off-gassed in the bed beside us. It's totally irrelevant. I'm not gonna bore you with the content of the dream. It has nothing to do with this story. Sam, we've worked together for almost 15 years. Do I really have to give you the whole backstory too? Seriously? Okay, one last time. Pay close attention. I won't be doing this again. I'm gay. Fred's gay. At least mostly gay. We've been in a relationship for a while. Susan is one of my dearest friends, and she's straight. I'm the father of her son, Jake. She chose me as the sperm donor. Life was pretty normal, in a Yukon sort of way. Until last night when Susan, Fred and I drank that mysterious liquor and wound up in a wild threesome while Jake, the kid, was hopefully fast asleep. I apologize if I'm repeating myself. I tried to make light of the situation in the morning after Susan finally woke up, but I'm honestly not into women. I'm afraid Fred maybe doesn't feel the same way. I've been dying to talk to him about what happened, but he had to rush off to get a mole removed at the doctor's office this morning. When he fainted in the waiting room, he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. It wasn't until he was in the MRI that we discovered he also had giardia. That's right, from the Canada Games Centre pool. With the beavers. You should have seen the look on the face of the guy getting the MRI right after Fred. On top of everything else, I broke Jake's Nintendo DS while I was waiting for Fred to wake up in the hospital room. Hang on a second. I've got another call. Hello? Hi, Devin. You're welcome. Okay, I'll see you at the pile. Sorry about that, Sam. It's been a crazy, confusing, complicated day. It seems like the past 12 hours of my life have taken weeks to play out. I feel as though I'm living on soap opera time. How long before Fred and I start having candlelight dinners that drag on for months? Sorry, it's the call waiting again. Hello? Hey, buddy. How's life up the hill? No problem. Devin was confused as well. Hey, I gotta go. I'm talking to Sam on the other line. Alright, bye. Hi Sam. My apologies for all the interruptions. I have a couple of friends who are listening to a podcast that they find a little hard to follow, so I wrote them a clever synopsis to clear things up. They were just phoning to thank me. Anyhow, all I wanna do now is just sit on the couch, crack a radler, and open a bag of chips. Maybe I'll watch that YouTube video of Fred's one and only briefing as White House Press Secretary. It always lifts my spirits. It just might be the greatest 10 minutes in television. You're right. It would be hard to beat Rob Ford discussing his options for eating out. I'm so lucky that Fred's White House job didn't last. I really missed him for those three days he was in Washington. I don't think I could have handled a long distance relationship. I'm not sure yet. It depends on Fred. I definitely won't be at work in the morning, but I'll try to make an appearance in the afternoon. I'm eager to meet the new Deputy Minister. Alright. Thanks for calling, Sam. I appreciate your concern. Yes, I'll pass that on to Fred. I'm gonna go put the video on now. Nighty night. Show me "Fred Trump press conference on YouTube"....