A night with Fun Guy always delivers. After back-to-back shifts at the pulp mill you need a release. And who better to spend it with than Fun Guy? Fun Guy brings the drinks. Fun Guy knows where the music is playing, how to score tickets. Fun Guy high-fives everyone at the bar and introduces you. Fun Guy buys everyone shots and keeps the tab open. Fun Guy brings the cocaine and the other randos to the party. The guy who pumps gas at the station, the other dude who’s at the cash at Walgreens, the bass player from that band Loaded. Fun Guy knows everyone and for one night of debauchery you become this tight-knit posse. You find yourself comforting a fifty-year-old man whose wife recently left him. Another friend is giving you spiritual advice about how to orgasm without ejaculating. A trio is discussing new punk albums, while others are ranting about crypto.
After three nights with Fun Guy you start losing steam. You think maybe you drank too much. You say I’m not doing that again. You decide to get your shit together. You don’t return Fun Guy’s calls. You start focusing. You get serious. You pay your bills, clean your house, start exercising. You start worrying about Fun Guy. Is he OK? Maybe he needs to go to rehab or something. Who helps Fun Guy when the party is over? So you get a group of friends together to rally behind Fun Guy. A kind of intervention. The group tells Fun Guy, we think you should talk to someone. The group gives Fun Guy pamphlets for AA and a list of counselors. Fun Guy throws them in the trash but calls you drunk a bunch of times at 3 a.m. Fun Guy complains that his life is going nowhere, that he’s a bum. He cries that he’s going broke, lost his recent contract because he showed up pissed at the job site. You listen to Fun Guy but kind of want to get off the phone. Because it’s 3 a.m. and you need to get some sleep. Fun Guy isn’t even listening anyhow. He’s just slurring his words and being nonsensical.
A month goes by. You’re on some paleo diet, your body is ripped, you’re being promoted at work. You even have a girlfriend for God’s sake. She is pestering you to loosen up, to have some fun, to go out. So you decide to call Fun Guy. You tell your girl, I can’t wait for you to meet Fun Guy. He’s like one of my best friends. He’s hilarious. This night is going to be epic. And it is. Fun Guy never disappoints. He brings the drinks, the music, the cocaine, the random people, the bars, the high-fives, the open tab. But after a couple of nights your girl calls it quits. She’s had enough of Fun Guy. She wants to curl into bed with you and order sushi and watch a movie. She never wants to hang out with Fun Guy again. What’s wrong with that guy anyway? she asks. He seems sad and lonely. Maybe he should talk to someone. So you get your friends together to plan an intervention. You get to Fun Guy’s apartment, you bang on the door but no one answers. The door is unlocked so you go in and he is buried under a bunch of empty beer cans, a stained yellow blanket, Mario Kart on the big screen, him snoring like a baby. Your girlfriend looks at you, shaking her head. This is no fun, let’s go. You agree, ushering her out the door, hoping he doesn’t wake up. We’ll come back later, you almost say. But you don’t. You’ll catch Fun Guy on the flip side. When he’s more fun. More himself. Less sad. It’s just better that way, you think. It’ll be better that way.
Claire Fantus is a mother, writer, psychiatrist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in Rossland, BC. She loves a good jam band and the fiddle. She has been previously published in the Black Bear Review, Dreamers Creative, Spadina Literary Review and has an upcoming story in Room Magazine. You can find her on X @ClaireFantus.
The Disappointed Housewife 