Some years back I was self(un)-employed and spent most of my time reading, writing, and pining for the unworthy.  I'd write these short stories and, when I was done, I'd let them sit for a day or two and then read them.  And they all sucked.  Mostly because I couldn't write dialogue worth a shit.  So I had the bright idea to write this short story/play using dialogue only.  It's still not very good but I'm posting it here for the following reasons:

• It's based (very loosely...no really, like it's almost 100% bullshit.  I say this because the names have not been changed to protect the innocent) on an actual phone call I had with a friend of mine
• Even if it wasn't successful, it was still an interesting (to me) experiment
• I'm fairly confident that no one is going to read it after I post it here anyway.  If nothing else, it's size will scare off most people.

Reading over it just now one thing is very clear:  I was reading a lot of Brian Michael Bendis stuff.  Anyway, it's pretty long, but it's still a quick read.  In changing the format from Microsoft Word to html, I considered creating a table and then putting the name of the person speaking the dialogue in front of every line so it looked like this:

Tim:  Dude!

John: Dude!

But then I decided that was way too much effort for something as half assed and as old as this.  Besides, it's not like it's a complicated read or anything.  This fucking intro is more complex.  I originally gave this the title of "The Phone Call" but after re-reading it years later I have to change the title to...

THE LOSERS

Fuck the poor.

That’s how you answer the phone? 

Johnny!  How ya doin’ man? 

No no no, “fuck the poor?”  What if I’d been your mom?

Then my mom would have a penis.  Which is horrible.  Don’t ever say that again.

No, seriously, what if it was your mom calling?

She’d ask how I was doing while quietly wondering to herself where she went wrong.

…

Let it go, who gives a shit?  How ya been?

I dunno…just got back.

Yeah?  How was the trip?

Heh.  Fucked.

Yeah?  Why fucked?

Guess who I had to work with?

Oh jesus, Dian?

Right the first time.

How’d it go?

Well, I don’t know…I mean fuck, it’s like sometimes I look at that girl and don’t even recognize her.

Yeah, I know that one.

I mean, what the fuck?  I guess it just goes to show you don’t really know anyone.  I really thought we meant something to each other but I guess not.

You were only together a month and a half, dude.

Yeah, I know…

I mean, I’m not saying you two didn’t connect.  Lord knows, Judy and I connected after the first conversation, but I didn’t know her.  I thought I did.  And that’s the part that pisses me off actually.  No matter how many years pass or how many girls I meet, I always make that stupid fucking assumption.  I always think I know what kind of person they are and I’m wrong every time.  And the worst part is, I don’t even know if it’s because I’m a retard or if it’s because they’re all fuckin’ liars.

Yeah, okay Captain Tangent, thank you!

(Laughing) Fuck off asshole, I’m serious!

Yeah, well seriously then, what’s your point?

I don’t know…what was I talking about?

Uhh…we were only together a month and a half.

Right.  You didn’t get to know her.  Not really.  You didn’t get the chance.  If you’d had six months or a year that would have been enough time to at least sort of figure out what kind of person she was.  You had six weeks.  That’s barely enough time to figure out how she likes being kissed.

No, that I remember.

Really?  I’d have thought it would have been the deep, philosophical conversations.

(Laughing) Yeah she wasn’t a brain surgeon, that’s for sure.

My friend John, ladies and gentlemen, King Of The Painfully Obvious!

(Laughter)

Seriously, dude, if that girl were any denser she’d collapse in on herself and turn into a black hole.  Which would suck.  She only lives one town away from me; I wouldn’t even have time to make it to the car.

(Laughing) Where the hell would you drive?  The whole planet would be gone.

I’d try to get to Vegas for one last roll of the dice and a cheesy lounge act.

Why not Stateline?

No cheesy lounge act…you know, that black hole shit’s kinda scary.  It never occurred to me what a serious threat stupid people are.  They should be stamped out.

Not enough bullets in the world, Tim.

I don’t know…I could probably get my hands on five and a half billion bullets.

Yeah but what if you missed a couple people?  You know they’d start reproducing, that’s what stupid people do best.

Fine.  Then we make them come to us.

Okay, how?

I don’t know…maybe we could build a dipshit magnet.

(Laughing) Someone already built it.  We call it television.

(Laughing) That’s good…hmm.  No, wait a minute, that’s not a bad idea at all.  We could go on TV.

And do what?  Beg idiots to kill themselves?

No, really, check this out.  I was watching this infomercial the other night…

Which says what about you?

That I hate getting laid on Thursdays and that you can blow me.  Anyway, I was watching this infomercial for this product called Exercise In A Bottle.

Oh my god!  Tell me you’re kidding.

Nope.

You’re serious?

Yeah.

Exercise In A Bottle?

Yeah.

…No!

Yeah.

Who the hell would buy that?

Only and idiot, that’s my point.

Jesus.

Yep.  So here’s what we do.  We put an infomercial on late night TV.  The product is called “Gets You Skinny, Rich, & Laid.”

(Laughter)

Okay?  And we air it after a Springer repeat or some crap, right?

Alright…

And then we print up a bunch of labels, slap ‘em on empty bottles and fill the bottles with cyanide pills.

(Laughing) Where the hell do you get that much cyanide?  Hell, where do you get any?

(Laughing) I don’t know, but it can’t be that hard to make.

Make it?!  Where you gonna get the ingredients?  What’s it even made of for that matter?

Dude, I’m a writer, how the hell should I know what it’s made of?  Anyway it’s a moot point.  It just occurred to me that we could never afford to air the infomercial nationally, let alone globally.

Yeah, well, it was a nice dream.

Hey instead of a dipshit magnet, we could build a dipshit bomb.  Man, could you imagine what the world would be like if all the morons just dropped dead all at once?  Think how great traffic would be.

AHH!!!

What?

Don’t even get me started on traffic!

Oh yeah?

Christ!  It took me three hours to get home tonight.  Three goddamn hours!

Yeah, well, what the hell were you thinking?  Four in the afternoon at LAX?  Why’d you even bother trying?  I mean, dude, you’re single, you got money in your pocket, and you’re in Los Angeles, there were a thousand things you could have done that didn’t involve rush hour traffic.  You should’ve taken one of those drink cart chickies to dinner or something.  Not that I’m not flattered that you raced home in shitty traffic to call my pathetic ass. (Lights a cigarette and exhales)

(Pissed) Tim!

(Aping John) John!

Dude are you smoking again?

Oh.  Yeah.

What the fuck?  You haven’t smoked in months.

I haven’t been single in months.

Oh shit.

Yeah.

Beth dump you?

Yeah, well…it was sort of mutual.

Sort of?

Sort of.

What’s that mean, sort of?

It means she got fed up with my bullshit about a week before I got fed up with hers.

We got in a fight.  Well, actually, she came home and started yelling at me.  Which really pissed me off but rather than give her the satisfaction of yelling back at her, I just pointed out that she was standing in front of the TV and asked her if she could please move.

(Laughing) What’d she do?

She talked…well, screamed at first, but talked for about an hour about how we’d grown apart and weren’t having a positive effect on each other any more.

(Disgusted) Jesus.

(Resigned) Yeah.

What’d you do?

I told her that I loved and that she was right and that maybe we should spend time apart.

Oh, so you might not be through then?

Oh, we’re through.  She had all her shit out of here the next day.

Really?

Yep.  Bitch even took the toothpaste.

Where’d she go?

You know that nine foot tall lesbian at the gym?

Shut the fuck up!

Swear to god, dude.

Wow!

Yeah.

They hate each other!

They bonded.

I guess.  So…is she, like, the total man-hating dyke now?

No, John, she still loves the wiener dog.  She just needed a place to stay.  But even if, it’d be better than another guy.  Whatever.  Who cares?

Tim, you have to care.

Yeah, I care…shut up and let me pretend though godammit.  Besides, I was totally getting fed up with her shit too, so it’s probably a good thing.

Yeah, I’ve been there.

Yeah.  And hey, one good thing has already come of it.  I got rid of that fuckin’ dog.

(Laughing) She even took the dog…

Not quite.

Tell me you didn’t kill the dog.

Of course I didn’t kill the fuckin’ dog!

Good, I like that dog.

Then you have shit taste in dogs.

Oh, the dog wasn’t that bad.

John, it was uglier than any land-dwelling creature should be.  It should have been shot at birth.

Dude, it was not that ugly.

It made children cry when we took it for walks!

(Laughing) It did not!

Whatever, it’s gone.

What’d you do with it?

Gave it to some kids outside this morning.

And they just took it?

Totally.

Did you tell them its name?

Oh you bet.  “Hi kids, please take my dog, its name is Spock.  Yeah, my ex was a trekkie and she named him.  Yeah I was dumped by a trekkie.”  Wake the fuck up, I told them its name was Binky.

(Laughing) Why didn’t Beth take it?  It was her dog.

No dogs allowed on Amazon Island.

What?

Wonder Woman reference, forget it.

Well, that’s too bad, I’m gonna miss that dog.

Should’ve been around this morning, I’d have given it to you.

Godammit, why didn’t you hang onto it for a day?!

It shit on the bed again!  Which is, like, the only trick it knows so you can’t even punish the stupid thing.  It had to go, I was too fucking angry to deal.

Well that sucks!

(Lighting another cigarette) Dude if you don’t stop talking about the fuckin’ dog I’m gonna come over there.

Fine.  So Beth leaves and you decide to try getting cancer again.

That’s about the size of it.

How long ago did you quit?

Been a little over eight months.

Do you have any idea how fucking stupid that is?

Yes.  Do you have any idea how powerful the memory of smoking combined with stress is?

No I guess not.

It makes gravity look like a weak little bitch.

Then how is it some people quit for the rest of their lives?

Not some people, strong people.  Guess I’m weak.

That’s lame, dude.

Yeah, I know.  Shut up about it.

Alright, alright.  At least you’re not drinking this time.

Yeah, well, it’s just not as serious this time.  That’s not a bad idea though, you wanna go to the pub?

Nah, I’m in too shitty a mood to deal with the pub.

Me too, it’ll be perfect.  C’mon!

No, I’m really in too shitty a mood.  If I go to the pub tonight I’ll wind up killing someone.

Why?  What’s up?

This fucking flight today…man.

That’s right, you said it sucked.  What happened?

You’re not gonna believe this.

Okay.

About half way back from London, I leave the cockpit to take a piss.  Just outside the bathroom I run into Dian.

Mhmm.

I ask her what’s up and she asks me if it’s possible to work things out between the two of us.

(Eyes rolling) Oh my god.

No shit.

After the last conversation you two had, she has the balls to ask you that?

It gets better.

Great.  Go ahead.

So my eyes roll damn near to the back of my skull, and I tell her to quit fucking with my head.  And she just looks at me like I’m speaking Latin.  She has no idea what I’m talking about.

(Pissed) Bullshit, dude, she totally knows what she’s doing to you, that’s why she’s evil.

Whatever, that’s not the point.

Sorry, go ahead.

I tell her that I don’t mind working with her and all but, other than that, to stay the hell out of my life.  Then I start thinking about all the shit she’s put me through and I get really pissed off.

Uh-huh…

So I tell her that, other than her body, she never brought anything worthwhile to the relationship.

Wow.

Yeah, then I tell her that no matter how well she learns to suck a dick, I’ll never want to be with her again.

Jesus, dude, that’s pretty fuckin’ harsh.  I mean, I’ve wanted to say that to a couple of girls but still…So what’d she do?

Well, she gets this look on her face.  Sort of a hurt look at first, but mostly…I have never seen anyone so angry in all my life.

Yeah?  What’d she say?

Nothing, she just walks away.  So I go back to the cockpit for the rest of the flight.  When we’re getting off the plane, she’s nowhere around but a couple of the other flight attendants are giving me these pissy looks.

Great.

Yeah but there’s more.  On my way out of the airport I get grabbed by an airline official who asks me to come into his office for a minute.

Oh fuck.  What’d she do?

Basically I’ve been accused of sexual harassment and I’m grounded for the duration of a company investigation, which could result in my termination.

…

Yeah, pretty cool huh?

John, what are you gonna do?

I don’t know man.  Jesus, I do not know.

You just bought a house!

I know.

Oh my god.

Listen, I gotta go, I’ll talk to you later.

You gonna be okay?

Fuck, no!  I’ve had my whole life taken away from me!

I know dude, I’m sorry.  Man…

I know you are, I just…I’m going crazy, my stomach’s in knots…I’m gonna go work out or something.

Alright man.  Hey, I’m having lunch with Chris tomorrow, why don’t you join us?

I dunno…maybe.

Not good enough, I want to hear a yes.

Maybe.

Dude, if you don’t come tomorrow, I’m gonna go up there and watch all your movies and eat all your food.

You were gonna do that anyway, you’re single again.

Fuck you!

(Laughter)

I’m serious man, I want to see you there.

Alright, alright, where and when?

Tony’s, one thirty.

I’ll be there.

You’d better be.

I swear to god, I’ll be there.

Cool, I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.  And hey, I’m gonna be up for a while, so if you wanna talk later on, give me a ring.

I doubt it, but thanks.

Alright man, take care of yourself.

You too.

Later.  (Hanging up phone and lighting another cigarette)  Jesus.  Fuckin’ chicks.