How I know J.J. Dufresne, Why I Love Him

When we, the Administrators of "I'm Just Drunk in Someone's Garage," made the switch from old Blogger to New, it, for some reason, outed us, stripping us of our more glamorous identities, forcing us to claim our more mundane selves.

I was Betty Sue, the Sexy Librarian. My connection to J.J. Dufresene is this: I'm the one who gave him two rolls of toilet paper.

Let me start again.

Something in me loves a stray. I was the girl who, in fifth grade, wanted to keep the really cute, really nice stray dog that followed her home from school. Please, I asked my mother, please. Can I, can I, can I? What I didn’t say was that after my first encounter with dog – in the Fast and Friendly parking lot, during which I petted it and it wagged its tail and looked forlorn – I raced home, got a stick of margarine out of the refrigerator, and ran back to the Fast and Friendly, where I found a group of other children petting what I had already come to think of as my really cute, really nice dog. I was going to name him Sweetie, and I was already thinking of him as Sweetie and calling him Sweetie because once you name something, it’s yours. I unwrapped the margarine, encouraged my cute, nice dog Sweetie to sniff then lick the margarine, then I lured the animal home. I said can I keep him? Please? Can I, can I, can I?

My mother said no.

My husband says he would have told me no, too. He also says he wouldn’t have given J.J. Dufresne two rolls of toilet paper. He wouldn’t have given the guy one. “Isn’t he, like, thirty years old?” Al demands. He doesn’t think J.J. Dufresne is cute. He thinks J.J. Dufresne is a pain-in-the-ass, a slacker, lazy and a mooch because that Sunday afternoon wasn’t the last time J.J. Dufresne would stop by. In fact, the guy showed up at our house again just last night. It was suppertime – “Of course!” Al says – when J.J. came waltzing in, carrying a basket of dirty laundry. He ate our food. Drank our beer. Washed his clothes. Crashed on our couch. Then this morning, the guy slept late – “Unbelievable!” Al says – and we all tiptoed around him, speaking in hushed tones like he’s an infant or an invalid or someone really important. Today when he finally woke up, at noon, the first thing J.J. Dufresne did was turn on ESPN. Then he drank three Diet Pepsis, one right after another. Then he griped that he had to pee but he couldn’t pee because somebody was in the bathroom. While he was waiting, his cell phone rang, and after checking the number, he determined that since it was probably a collection agency calling, he would let it go to voice mail.

“And you!” Al says. “You fixed that joker up a plate of cheesy eggs and buttered him some toast! Like he’s His Majesty King Farouk and you’re King Farouk’s mother!”

I nod and pretend I am likewise aggravated, but the truth is I’m not aggravated at all. Part of it is about loving a stray. Spoiling him. Indulging him. Doing all you can because he’s so grateful for it. J.J. Dufresne ate every bite on his plate. He even drank some of the milk I poured him that I didn’t know was spoiled until I caught a whiff of it. “I wasn’t going to tell you,” he said. He didn’t want to embarrass me or hurt my feelings. He was going to drink sour milk because he wanted to be nice.

But part of it is about that night last December. The night I berated J.J. Dufresne at a party in front of a roomful of people. I called him out, I called him a loser, a slacker, a lazy bastard. I accused him of sloth and inadequacy, I accused him of inventing ineptitude. I’d been drinking, of course, and things were stressful at work, and J.J. Dufresne was such an easy target especially because he agreed with me, he agreed with everything I said – “I know,” he said, “you’re right. It’s true” – and the next day, after I begged him to forgive me for picking on him like that, he did. So nicely that I still feel obligated and indebted to him. I still feel responsible for him. You break it, you bought it. You name it, it’s yours. I feel like I owe him, like I need to do for him whatever I can.