MARV, JONESY & THE ANTI-MATTER WAVE

                          Marv’s kindness had been his undoing.

                    His mortal, acting nemesis Bill Pettibone had mentioned in passing, while the both of them competed for a shot as the wacky neighbor on the TV show “’Git Some,” that he had no plans for Christmas Eve.  Marv, torn between hating the man for always booking commercials that Marv was up for and being a caring human being, chose the latter over the former.

                “I gotta’ party I’m going to that night,” Marv said.  “Wanna’ go with?”

                “Kick ass!” Pettibone exclaimed.  “Anybody I know?”

                “Naw, you know.  Just an old friend of mine from back in the day.  We drink, do dirty Santa, watch some flicks.  Shit like that.”

                “Would I know him?  He been in anything I might’ve seen?”

                “Bill, it’s not actually an actor party.”

                “Huh.”  Pettibone had that confused look that Marv had only seen at callbacks.

                “Hey, the invitation’s open, you know?  If you got other stuff you can get into that night . . .”

                “No!  No, that sounds cool.  A non-actor party.  Sounds great.  I’ll be there.”

                By the night of the Christmas party, Marv had all but forgotten about inviting Pettibone, even when he got an email through the grapevine revealing that Pettibone had landed the wacky neighbor role over him.  When Marv got the call from Pettibone asking for directions that night, it all came flooding back.  As he described the most out-of-the-way description of how to get there, Marv’s mind scrambled through all of the different scenarios in which Bill Pettibone met Marv’s non-acting friends.  Every scenario played out badly.

                Pettibone’s metal-orange Toyota Caliber pulled up and Marv stood on the steps, cell phone in hand, frantically making a call to the party’s host, Jonesy.

                “He’s here, man,” Marv nervously whispered into his cell.  “Tell everybody that I’m staying at your place tonight, so we can close this bitch down if it gets hairy.”

                “And why is this?” Jonesy asked.

                “He’s an actor, Jonesy.  He’s gonna’ overstay his welcome, I guarantee it.  This is just in case this thing gets out of hand.  You can say you’re closing the party down early, going to sleep, shit like that.”

                “I’m on it.”

                Marv barely got the phone shut off as Pettibone walked up.

                The next three hours were the most excruciating any of the party-goers had ever faced.  Pettibone, always trying to be the center of attention, made sure that no matter where the conversation strayed, it always came back to him.  Concerts he’d gone to, film projects, brushes with success, star-sightings, his acting class exploits, smarmy actor friend’s adventures, you name it, he found a way to slide in an anecdote about himself.  And the stories had no clear endings, each one dove-tailing into the next.  At one point, Marv and Jonesy retreated to the sanctity of the kitchen, free from the eyes of Pettibone and some patient guy who’d just showed up for the free booze.  Jonesy began to put dishes into the sink as Marv helped by shuffling bags and vodka bottles around, giving the audible equivalent of cleaning up.  He poured Jonesy a short glass of watermelon-flavored vodka out his glass.

                “You owe me, Lindeman,” Jonesy whispered.

                Marv clinked glasses with Jonesy.

                “In the worst way, man,” Marv replied, quietly.

                          As the party guests slowly gave up on Pettibone throughout the night and Pettibone continued to regale and harangue the last of them, Marv and Jonesy stayed in the kitchen, hiding and comparing the event to a recent comic book they’d both bought, the crux of which involved superheroes being slowly decimated as an anti-matter wave swept over their universe.  




-SLL