Jeff Chon writes exclusively for the internet because he's awesome and was most recently published in the Chickasaw Plum. He turned to writing after losing in the prelims of the All Valley Karate Tournament and his so-called "friends" in the Cobra Kai deserted him. He is currently mocking your clever little quirky bio.

Release (November 20, 2009. Issue 11.)

Jenna told me all about her friend, the one I wasn’t about to acknowledge. I was told she was a complete emotional retard, the kind that liked to read stories about three–legged puppies or newborns found in Burger King dumpsters in order to tsk-tsk the sadness of it all. There was nothing resembling genuine empathy in her long-winded retellings of these tear-jerkers. She just needed to talk, and tragedy was always good for a reaction, so she peddled it every chance she could—peddled it no matter how hard I swatted her aside. Her icebreakers were clumsy, almost oafish, one maudlin human interest story after another—An entire ward of Iraqi war orphans born with heart murmurs, a mentally disabled teen performing CPR on her dead grandmother, feral kittens rescued from an abandoned pet shop—while I smoked and wondered why Jenna had invited her at all.

Most people find talking about these things to be depressing, she said, but I find it cathartic.

Cathartic... Or fun? I asked.

Sometimes both!

She laughed. I flicked a cluster of ash over the railing, the gray chunk of paper and tobacco twirling, drifting as the wind caressed its arc of descent. It was cold on Jenna’s balcony. The streetlights below bathed everything in a dull, noirish haze. Inside Jenna’s apartment, Jenna’s people were otherwise engaged as the Anthology of Bread sifted softly through Jenna’s speakers. Across the street, on a balcony a little higher than ours, a loud group of drunken dudes slurred the chorus to You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. I chugged the rest of my Heineken, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. She searched for another way in, grasping, fumbling for a segueway, anything to kill the silence.

…So, she chirped, do you remember 9-11?

There was no real sense of gravity to it, the way the cigarette dangling from her fingers swiveled on her skinny wrist when she spoke, just another conversation piece in her repertoire, cathartic and fun. She may as well have asked if I remembered England Dan and John Ford Coley. I took a deep breath, a deep tobacco flooded gasp, and expelled.

I remember I was doing my hair, she said. I was getting ready to go to work when my sister called me. I almost didn’t hear it over the blow dryer. They thought it was an accident at the time. I mean, none of us knew what was going on. It was totally surreal, almost like a bad Bruce Willis movie.

There are no bad Bruce Willis movies, I said. Your logic is flawed. This conversation is over.

Hahaha! Anyway, I’m sure we kind of all had similar experiences. It was when we realized that we were all the same, you know? Religion, race, social class: All that crap went out the window when that horrible thing happened to us. It was like, we all just sat there, collectively numb, staring at the chaos. I mean, we, you know, all of us…It was so completely messed up, wasn’t it?

I leaned on the railing, tempted to spit, watch it cannonball from four stories up before popping on the concrete, the sweet silence punctuated by a loud crack of saliva. She stared at me, the uproarious sound of banter leaking out of the living room. We had been the only two on the balcony all night. Cigarette smoke fanned from my lips. I faced her, resigned to speak.

I jerked off to porn, I said.

Another drag. A glorious pause. Smoke tumbled out of my mouth in a post-impressionist swirl, scattering in the wind. She stared at me, waiting.

Even with everything that was going on, I said, my girlfriend still had to go to work. This was before, way before, Jenna and I got together, obviously. I remember it was a Tuesday, because I had Tuesdays off at the time and usually spent them watching porn while she was at work. I’d return the tapes when I was done, usually at about 3:30 or so, and rent a chick flick of some kind to wipe the spiritual debt clean.

She leaned over the railing, a foamy white saliva sack, tear-dropping through puckered lips, releasing into the cold night air. The flattening snap on the sidewalk was piercing. It made me hate her even more. She turned back to me, the red-hot glow from her cigarette seeping up the paper.

So my girlfriend woke me up that morning and I knew something was wrong, because she usually let me sleep in while she got ready. Her sister had called to tell her. We turned on the TV and watched the smoking tower. They thought it was an accident at the time…Point is, nobody knew what was going on.

She took another drag from her cigarette and blew the smoke in my face. It was actually quite subtle, the way she did it, all things considered.

So while I watched the footage over and over again, she called work and they told her she had to come in. She was really nervous because she had to drive right past LAX to get to work, which seemed like an obvious next target, so we were on the phone the whole time. Then she got to work and I watched the footage for a few more hours before…You know.

People were dying, she mumbled.

That’s kind of why I needed to turn away...And I’d already rented the movies. Those things are seriously expensive. It’s a bitch to rent those after work, squeezing through those beaded curtains, trying to be discreet while soccer moms are arguing with their kids about The Brave Little Toaster. You have no idea.

No. I really don’t.

…Yeah, well, I just kind of powered through it. Wasn’t enjoyable at all. It was actually kind of depressing.

Our heads snapped in unison. A beer bottle shattered on the street, blanketing the blast area with shimmering shards of tiny glass. The balcony dudes celebrated. We both shook our heads.

Idiots…So, I went to return the movies and the little Vietnamese lady that owned the place was behind the counter, riveted to the TV. They kept showing the footage of Flight 11 hitting the North Tower, all those different angles, over and over again. She was looking up at the screen, watching the footage through the really shitty reception she got in the store, shaking her head. The place was totally empty. I dropped off the movies and just stood at the glass counter, watching it with her. Then she started crying, her hands resting on the red video cases I’d left on the counter, sobbing. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I went behind the counter and put my arm around her shoulder. She cried for probably a good ten minutes or so. It’s weird. I’d rented pornos from her for years and this was the first time I felt like scummy about it. I almost wanted to tell her that I didn’t watch the pornos, but it seemed kind of pointless.

...And a lie!

Kiss her! a dude shouted from the balcony across the street. His friends howled. She looked disgusted. I hoisted my empty Heineken in their direction. They cheered. I continued.

My girlfriend came home from work and we ate Jack In the Box while she told me about her day, which I’m sure was more in tune with what you were expecting.

She took a drag and blew more smoke in my face, not so subtle this time.

I’d rented Return to Me, but we didn’t watch it. She didn’t feel like it. So we ended up watching the news until it got too depressing and then we watched the Brady Brides marathon on TV Land before falling asleep on the couch.

We both leaned over the balcony, finishing our cigarettes in silence, backlit by the conversation in the living room. No one mentioned anything about orphaned ducklings or chimpanzees with leukemia. It was mostly about college basketball, reality television, seasonal ales—the sort of things people talked about when they weren’t desperate to hear the sound of another voice. She snuffed her smoke and went inside without a word. I heard her say good-bye. Jenna’s crowd protested. She insisted it was late, had errands to run in the morning.

I’ll walk you to your car, I heard Jenna say.

An old man walked his German Shepherd across the street. His shoe was untied. I looked down and watched Jenna walk her to a white Scion. They hugged and she drove away. Jenna crossed the street and looked up at me. The wind was really starting to whip around. The old man knelt down next to his dog and tied his shoe.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Jenna yelled.

I dropped my butt into the empty Heineken bottle and walked into the party. The dudes across the way applauded, voicing their approval.