Jeff

It can be difficult to call someone out on peculiar behavior…

Jeff sat down smugly on the tan lay-z-boy recliner against the wall in the backroom of my parent’s basement, where my friends and I would often gather to decide what we should do for the day. Pulling out a small clear glass jar about half the size of his palm from his pocket, Jeff revealed a pristine-looking cannabis bud. He had been bragging about this particular bud’s excellence for the past several days. Although I had never been particularly interested in marijuana, the connoisseur friend I was with, as well as the hype from Jeff, had caused a sense of intrigue to arise in me.

“Crack that bad boy open, Jeff. Let’s take a look!” was the general consensus of the room. It had appeared, for all intents and purposes, that Jeff was now ready to open the jar and present its contents for mind-blowing inhalation. However, the party was quickly halted when Jeff had run into an “unplanned” snag. The jar’s lid was stuck.

Or so Jeff claimed. We all knew he was lying and that he just didn’t want us to smoke the drugs he had been bragging about for the past few days. My friend and I had watched, dumbstruck, as Jeff pretended to try and twist the lid off the jar, hands and arms shaking as he feigned to conjure all his might with a clearly fabricated strain, all in a failed attempt to get that damn lid off.

“I guess it’s stuck,” Jeff said as he exhaled before pretending to, very briefly, try again to overpower the stubborn jar’s lid. “Yep, stuck. Sorry, man.”

My friend and I had given each other the side eye because we both knew the absurdity of the situation. It was such a strange excuse that he was not strong enough to open the jar that he himself had originally opened to place the contents into. It had caught everyone off guard. Everyone but Jeff. He must have decided at some point that this was the strategy he was going to employ. A strategy so fiendishly clever it would force us not to further inquire out of fear of his next bizarrely chosen strategy. Jeff ultimately went on his way, probably thinking he outsmarted my friend and me, leaving me with the feeling of being oddly violated for having been put into a situation where it was too awkward to call out someone’s peculiar behavior. I am left to this day wondering if I should have asked for the jar. What’s the worst thing that could have happened? Having him hand me the jar and for me to expose him in the strange lie that he had so poorly concocted? Unfortunately, no, things could have gotten infinitely worse.

You see, while I could have simply said to Jeff, “Hey, you know what? I actually have a pretty strong grip. Why don’t you let me have a go at it, and maybe I could jostle the ol’ lid off of the jar,” Jeff wouldn’t have to comply. He wouldn’t have to comply at all…

“No,” he could say.

To which I’d reply, “What?”

“NO! You can’t have the damn jar!” Jeff’s voice would crack slightly as he would swat at my hand, turning his body away from me and tucking the jar into his selfish arms.

“Give me that FUCKING jar, Jeff!” I’d yell as I would lunge for his precious jar.

“Help!” he’d squeal as he’d shoot up from the recliner and bolt towards my parents’ basement room door. Not being able to simply let this façade go, I’d chase after Jeff. Bursting with adrenaline, I’d lunge at him, throwing my hand out and trying to snag the hood of his black sweatshirt advertising some shitty emo band of the early 2000s. Jeff would cleverly evade me with an abrupt spin, but the auspiciousness of his bush league acrobatics would only be momentary. As he’d reach the bottom of the stairs, his luck would end. I’d dive towards the steps, able to wrap my arms around Jeff’s ankles, causing a bola effect and forcing him to fall facedown onto the staircase. Obviously, Jeff would manage to wrestle one of his legs free and deal my face a few unfortunate blows, but I would remain undeterred. As I’d spit out the teeth that were kicked loose (and only slowing me down), I’d begin twisting my hands around the denim on his stupid skinny jeans, using the leverage to pull myself ever closer toward that glorious jar.

Things, unfortunately, would get worse as Jeff would take advantage of the drag, caused by my forceful tugging, to successfully wriggle out of his skinny jeans while inching towards the top of the staircase. Typically, this type of situation wouldn’t be so inexplicably terrible, but that day would have been different. For you see, that day would have been the day that Jeff chose not to wear underwear. As I would feel my world slipping away (not unlike Jeff from his jeans), I would make one last vain attempt to grasp for the jar, only to snag a fistful of matted ass hair. As the hair audibly would tear from Jeff’s greedy ass cheeks, he’d let out a scream comprised of equal parts terror and victory from his successful ascension of the stairs. Escape would be all but guaranteed for Jeff, which he would celebrate by running out of the front door of my parents’ house. Meanwhile, I would lay at the top of the stairs, angrily hurling the wad of hair from my hand, and out of sheer rage, decide to chase Jeff out the door onto the lawn.

The next thing that would have happened, if I had actually asked to see the jar myself, would undoubtedly have been the police pulling up to see a man in a hoodie, naked from the waist down, running out of my house. Jeff would get the first crack at the police and tell them his name was something else; he would scream how he was running for his life and protecting his chastity.

“I want that goddamn jar, Jeff!” would be the last thing I’d say before being hauled away in handcuffs.

After being arrested and spending a few nights in jail, I’d be sitting in my jail cell, and out of boredom, tonguing the gap in my recently kicked-out teeth, only to look up at the TV that is barely visible through the crack in my cell door and see the headline: “Local deviant sexually assaults man’s ‘jar’ after calling him the wrong name” flashing across the chyron on the news channel.

But it didn’t have to be this way, and it wasn’t. On that day, I avoided this clearly probable exchange. I will continue to avoid any other till my untimely death, which will inevitably occur from me being too afraid to say something…

It can be difficult to call someone out on peculiar behavior.