SF Chapter 10: TAHM Pilot IV
Daniel, Charlie, and Jake went to the supermarket since the Malibu house basically had only alcoholic drinks in the fridge, and some snacks to go with wine.
After a while, they came back.
♪It's got oats and corn and wheat
It's the sweetest breakfast treat
It's maple maple ma...♪
"Jake, Daniel, buddy. Take a break." Charlie ended the singing of the two.
"What took you so long?" Alan asked, finding the delay strange, since there was a supermarket close by.
"We stopped for ice cream because I'm a babe magnet," Jake revealed everything. "I got to take a squirt." He ran to the bathroom.
"Why do you assume he learned that from me?" Charlie played innocent, seeing his brother's stone face. "It could very well have been Daniel."
"It totally could," Daniel agreed, without a hint of shame.
"Because I learned it from you. And because of that," Alan pointed at his younger brother's last line, "in his own world, Daniel thinks it is totally okay to have some immoral behaviors."
"We got three phone numbers," Daniel revealed to his brother. "It was a great morning walk," validating Alan's point.
Charlie changed the subject and commented while taking a look around the house. "Hey, thanks for cleaning up."
"No, it wasn't me. Rose was here," Alan clarified.
"Rose? You let Rose into my house?" his brother asked in disbelief, while Daniel, who was about to eat a yogurt with a spoon, stopped and went to wash it.
"She said she was your maid."
"Hell, she glued the damn cabinets shut again," Charlie complained while trying to open the top cabinet.
"Oh, we need to call maintenance again," the younger brother said, already dialing.
"So who is she?"
And Daniel answered, "Some crazy chick Charlie hooked up with once. I'm telling you, that's because our brother didn't respect the L.G.L. chart."
Alan was confused again. "What?"
"It's a chart where on the x coordinate we have how hot/beautiful a woman is, and on the y coordinate how crazy she is."
"Then we have the L.G.L., which is a line as a function f(x) = (f; m; g), being fame, how much money, and how great you are. Rose is too crazy, not worth it. She's over the chart on the Y coordinate."
"And the L.G.L?"
"Let's Get Laid," Daniel replied as he answered the phone.
"It really impresses me how you can say things like that with such normality," Alan remarked sarcastically, stone-faced.
And he turned to Charlie. "You've got somebody who comes in regularly just to glue your cabinets?"
"Believe me, Alan, gluing the cabinets is the least of our brother's problems," Daniel chimed in again. "Oh, that just reminded me of American Pie. Funny movie. Do you think she's seen it?" He asked Charlie.
"Just get the help on the way, smart mouth," Charlie scoffed. "At least you never let her in..." he muttered.
"Oh, so that's my fault?" Alan looked indignant. "You're a deeply disturbed man, you know, Charlie?" He waved his hand, motioning for him to move aside, since he was still trying to open the top cabinet. "Move it. Come on."
"I'm deeply disturbed? Who came here in the middle of the night with his own sheets?" his brother retorted.
"At least I care about what I sleep on. Or should I say, who I sleep on," Alan shot back.
But Charlie finished, "Hey, pal, between the two of us, I'll bet I'm the only one who's slept with a married woman recently."
"That's a rule violation, bro," Daniel noted after calling maintenance. "Rule number four: not with a married woman, or anyone who already has a partner."
But he added exceptions, "Unless her partner is a cheater or an abuser."
"At least my youngest one hasn't turned into a complete degenerate like the oldest," a woman appeared in the kitchen.
"Hi, Mom," Charlie and Daniel said in unison, and Alan comically fell to the floor as the cabinet door finally came loose.
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Evelyn Harper was standing there, ranting at her middle son. "Do you have any idea how hurtful it is to hear about your own son's divorce on the street?"
"What divorce? What street?" Alan asked, sitting alone in the armchair.
"How did you get into my house?" Charlie narrowed his eyes.
"Maybe she still has a copy since she sold this house to you, brother, or maybe she flew in through a broom," Daniel commented from the couch, sitting next to his brother, eating a yogurt.
"You stay out of this," she snapped, first looking at Charlie and then at the youngest. "And save your sarcasm, Daniel. You're hurting your poor little mother!"
Daniel burst out laughing and then nudged his brother. "Come on, that was a really good one. I miss that sense of humor of yours, Mom."
The two brothers looked at him with a bit of envy, impressed by how effortlessly he avoided being guilt-tripped.
[Evelyn commentary]
Evelyn sat with her legs crossed in her beautiful Beverly Hills mansion. "I have three sons, and not one of them makes me truly proud."
"But one of them is by far the hardest to deal with. Daniel is, by far, the most difficult one!"
"He doesn't follow normal rules or behaviors." She sighed and started telling a few stories. "One time, I grounded him because of his misbehavior."
"But after two days, I started to get a little worried, since he hadn't come out of his room," she put a hand over her heart, feigning concern.
"But when he finally opened the door, there he was, with a girl in his room and a mini fridge God knows where he got it from."
"He had the audacity to say, 'Hey, Mom, I've rethought my behavior. I'm grounding myself for two more days.' And he actually did it… even when I tried to stop him."
Evelyn told another story. "There was another time I tried the 'silent treatment,' when you stop talking to your young son for a while."
"It was maddening. He just acted normally, with his usual smile, as if nothing was going on, as if I weren't angry at him at all."
"He spent an entire dinner talking to me without receiving a single reply, and without a hint of embarrassment or concern. Like a crazy person talking to himself!" she added, frustrated.
"That reminds me of another irritating person, my older sister, Beverly..." she put a hand to her head and lit a cigarette.
[Commentary ends]
[Daniel commentary]
"What does a person find most irritating when they're already irritated?" he repeated the question out loud.
"I'd say it's when you don't act or behave the way they're expecting," he pondered.
"I don't think there's anything more maddening than wanting the other person to get irritated too, and all you get in return is normal behavior and a smile on their face."
"Oh, there's another one," he remembered, "when you normalize crazy behavior to the point where the other person starts thinking they're the crazy one."
[Commentary ends]
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