I had a pretty grueling day at work. My boss yelled at me for sending in the wrong version of an outdated contract to the another department head of some weird client who I could have sworn called me an asshole over the phone but I didn’t remember mostly because I was high like I was most of the time at work. So yea, I didn’t really blame my boss for yelling at me or the elusive client who might or might not have called me an asshole over the phone. Regardless, the day was still pretty grueling. I had to reply to ninety six emails and answer fifty two phone calls mostly from petulant agents, managers, actors, producers, who, all across the board, are dickish to an impressive degree.

However, there are some who are halfway decent like the anemic agent from ICM who had a kid last week. He had a thin bear and really blue eyes and didn’t yell out a thousand syllables per minute, which meant that I could usually understand what he was talking about, which apparently made the conversation more meaningful.

Anyways back to my day where the grueling occurred. On top of all the assholes, emails, phone calls, yelling, running and ducking, I was also cradling a hangover from the night before, which I was suckling at the teet. It was a friend’s birthday the night before (which by the way was a Thursday, like seriously, who celebrates a birthday on a Thursday?). It was supposed to be a “grown-up” shin dig full of sophisticated stupid things like hors d’oeuvres, champagne, and light conversations about what type of coffee table is best suitable for a crushed leather armchair; really pretentious since everyone was apparently practicing to be a grown up. So of course the night never went as planned and the lot of the guests ended up downing the champagne before moving onto vodka and eventually coke right before the after hour party where Rihanna looked bored and unimpressed as per usual. Fast forward to today where I had get stoned to mellow things down because everything was just a vibration of something that had doubles of nothing whispering echoes of phantom ghosts jabbing at the back of my skull.

But like all days previous to this one, it was coming to an end. The sun was setting, the phones were dying down, and not every asshole in LA was sending me their screenplays. Then I got a text from Lea saying, “Come over.” I’ve known Lea for thirteen years since we lived in the same dorm in college. She’s about five foot tall, petite, and Russian. She was a lawyer now, engaged to another lawyer (boring) and was living in Pasadena (yawn). Usually I went over to her house and forced her to feed me while she recounted her tales of juvenile delinquents the state paid her to defend. Those rants lingered on racist but was justified by the fact that if she, with her Dostoevsky upbringing, can make it in America, why the fuck couldn’t all these other financially inhibited losers without getting impregnated by some weird druggie boyfriend peddling pot to likeminded idiots (such as me).

“Hey I’m starving, can you feed me?” I said as soon as I arrived.

Then I noticed that this small potbelly Lea was formerly just humoring was now getting accommodated.

“Hey man, what’s going on with your stomach? It’s getting pretty fat.”

Lea started giggling at this point.

“What?”

“Cricket, I have to tell you something.” (Cricket was a nickname she somehow saw fit to bestow upon me when she first met me; probably because she thought me a cunt in the beginning, which is a pretty accurate assessment)

“Shut the fuck up. Dude, seriously I don’t have time for this, I’m like really hungry man.”

“No really!” She kept laughing while attempting to grab at me but couldn’t on account of her laughing so hard that she just looked like a wounded serial killer.

“Come on. I’m hungry! Seriously, don’t fuck with me.”

“Cracky!”

“Oh what the fuck???” It was starting to sink in. I felt this weird ticklish, nervous, yet heavy weight starting to anchor into my gut.

“Shut the fuck up.” This was about all I could say for a solid five minutes, which for some reason was making Lea laugh uncontrollably. She wasn’t able to talk at this point.

“You’re fucking kidding me, you’re fucking kidding me!!” I had to fight back this weird and unsightly wave of emotion that was starting to overtake me.

“Cricket!” She kept saying.

“Seriously?”

“Yes Cracky. I’m pregnant!”

“Holy shit.” I sat down and pulled her towards me because I meant business. “How long?”

“Three months.”

“What the fuck? And you kept this shit to yourself?”

“We couldn’t tell anyone until three months passed. It’s like a superstition or something.”

“Oh my God.”

Tears were starting to form in my eyes and I had to keep imagining a grandma punching a dog in the face to keep the tears from fully realizing itself onto my face. It was a turning point. My friend was going to become a mother and I was still taking hits of weed with an intern who was crushing on me in the back alley.

I wanted to cry. I hadn’t felt like this since I watched the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I pulled her tiny frame and hugged her, which made me feel like a bear since she was so tiny.

“Cracky…” she mumbled.

“I can’t believe it dude.”

Later, she finally fed me and we talked about the unborn little nugget growing inside of her. I was trying to convince her to name her after me but she said she couldn’t on account of my name sounding like a stripper’s plus she had to go the traditional route and name him or her after a dead grandparent from either side of the family, which was basically going to sound like an Edith Wharton novel.

“Cricket, you’re going to babysit my child so stop getting with all these hoes and find a nice girl.”

For the rest of the night, I kept imagining hypothetical fights between animals like a raccoon vs. a possum or a hamster fighting a mouse just to keep from crying. I kept rubbing her tiny little pot belly and wondering if the little nugget could feel me and calling me an asshole for all the future fuck ups I’d undoubtedly bear upon him or her.

Then I remembered a couple of New Years ago when Lea and me were at the Chateau Marmont surrounded by an awesome array of douche bags. She was in the dumps because she was convinced she’d be single for the rest of her life living with a bunch of cats that would eventual eat her withering carcass. I told her to shut the fuck up and drink more.

“Cricket, I am going to excuse myself to the bathroom to throw up.”

“Hey man, I don’t need an declaration.”

When she was in the bathroom upchucking her breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I cried into her turtle pillow.

“Congratulations” I thought but never said, because those things should only be said to acquaintances or people who you half give a shit about. Things like these between people like us, we just yell “shut the fuck up!” to each other and cry in private and feel a wave of relief and tenderness that you’d never imagine you’d feel for another human being. But only in fucking private next to a pile of dirty clothes and shoeboxes filled with memories.