Life: Commentated (part two)

Inside the bathroom Jeffrey sprints towards a stall and the sounds of heavy vomiting is picked up by the mics. The camera is pulled from Jeff heaven over the toilet and back to the commentators, now behind the makeshift stand again, pressed up against the urinals. They groan in disgust.

“Aw jeez!”

Is it the chow mein? Could that be it?”

Jeffrey continues. There’s a lot he wants to get out.

“We should definitely check that. It must be, right?! Let’s go back and have a look at that! Dr. Emil Hartman, could you tell us what could be wrong with our man tonight?”

The view cuts from the commentator stand in the bathroom and back out into the restaurant. A man, Dr. Emil Hartman, is standing beside the table where Lena is sitting concerned. She’s periodically glancing back towards the men’s bathroom. Dr. Hartman’s white overalls stand out from the rest of the place.

“I sure can, Jon! If we look closely at O-kay’s chow mein dish, we can see small traces of crushed peanuts! Very popular additions to any chow mein, and especially this one, an inspired Malaysian dish, and Jeffrey is allergic to peanuts!”

An old photograph of Jeff as a small boy flips onto the screen.

“In this photograph supplied by Jeffrey’s mother, we can see the allergic reaction has taken hold of him. His face is extremely swollen, and I’m told he needed a hospital visit for this one, which does not surprise me.”

The image disappears and the view cuts back to the commentators in the bathroom. Much more so than on Lena, concern is plain on their faces. This is not good.

“Thank you, Dr. Hartman. Andy, how is he going to deal with this? What are his options?”

In the stall, Jeff has stopped vomiting, instead sitting upright against the wall. He gets up and sluggishly makes his way across the floor towards the mirror.

“Well, we don’t know the damage, but here he comes now and we can get a closer look.”

He splashes water on his face from the tap, and he eyes his reflection. His throat is already starting to swell. “Oh come on,” he says, “not now.” Both commentators stand up and inch closer. They grin in alarm.

“Aw jeez!”

“This could be it, Jon. The date seems to be over. There’s no way to salvage this now, is it.”

For a long time Jeffrey only views his reflection. He can already feel it getting harder to breathe comfortably. His eyes scan the room, and after a few moments he rushes into another stall.

The commentators appear to be packing up. They’ve disassembled the makeshift stand.

“Wait, what’s this now? He’s on the move!”

Jeff emerges out of the stall carrying what looks to be the ragged remains of a dark towel. He whips it in the air, clearing it of dust and god knows what else.

“What is that? Some sort of cloth?”

Despite initial qualms about touching the thing, Jeff wraps the piece of cloth around his neck. He straightens at it, washes one of the ends in the sink, and throws the rest over his shoulder to hang down his back.

“He’s creating a scarf of some kind!”

“Andy, has he found a way? Could this work?”

Through the broadcast, the sounds of hundreds of stamping feet arise. The camera focuses on Jeff, and then cuts to his image in the mirror, and the commentator’s surprised faces. Was he pulling off some feat?

“It doesn’t look great, Jon. But it doesn’t look that bad either. He could work with stylistically challenged. That could be understandable.”

“He has been single for a long time, Andy. I’d believe it.”

He curses under his breath, but he’s been in the bathroom for a long time now, and he needs to hurry out to Lena again. Taking one last look in the mirror, he braces himself and enters back into the restaurant.

“Are you alright?” she asks the second he sits down again.

With difficulty, he smiles, attempting to disguise his discomfort. “Of course, I’m good. Just got a bit of an ache.”

Her face turns sympathetic, but she still eyes him up and down. “What’s with the scarf?”

The commentators have taken their place beside them at the makeshift stand. They seem to be holding their breaths.

“Oh,” he says, struggling to continue, but then he does; “I don’t know about this place. That bathroom had a broken window. So cold! I have this tucked away in my pocket, just in case. Do you mind?” There’s a certain rising octave in his voice just there, which tells all about how he’s expecting this to fail.

“Ooh, will she be buying this then?”

Though the classic ‘um, what’ look takes up residence on her face for a moment, it is only fleeting, and she smiles and says, “Of course not. It suits you.”

“Hah,” he shoots back, “I don’t know about that.”

“Has he done it?”

“I think he did it! Success!”

‘Success’ might be a bit too much though. At least too early. Jeff’s voice has gotten kind of raspy at this point. He clears his throat and peers down at the plate before him. There’s still a lot left.

“Now there’s the rest of dinner though.”

“There is that problem remaining, yes Jon. How should he approach this? Avoid the nuts and get done as quickly as possible?”

Lena’s plate doesn’t have an awful much left on it. Despite her words, it’s clear she knows something is up. “What’s up?”

An awkward silence develops, grows and then stretches on. She’s about to speak again when Jeff does; “Lena, uuh,” he begins.

“Is he…”

“Yeah Andy, I think he’s attempting to just hit it with the truth here. Going clean.”

“…I’m sorry; I’ve kind of had an allergic reaction to the food.” He stares hard down into the plate of chow mein, not meeting her gaze.

Unsurprisingly, she reacts with empathy. “Oh god, why didn’t you tell me? I’m so sorry! Are you alright?”

“No, no, I’m fine. I should just get home to put in a shot.” Appearing rather nonchalant he might receive some cool points here.

“Shouldn’t you hurry?”

At that he got the attention of one of the staff who fixed up their bill. “It’s cool. I can walk you to your car.”

“Good so far, Jon.”

“Just a bit more. It hasn’t exactly turned out excellent, but this ending…this ending.”

Lena’s car feels like it’s parked about a mile away, but in reality in only takes three minutes. Yet by the time they get there Jeffrey’s face is starting to swell. He’s sporting duck lips.

“You really don’t look good,” she says.

“Not the greatest of compliments”

“Thanks,” Jeff returns, smiling.

“I mean, shouldn’t you get to a hospital?” She’s standing by the car, close to the door.

Jeff tries to cut some distance between them and he leans against the car. “It’s cool. Done it many times. Just need my shot.”

“Well, you should get going, Jeffrey. I don’t want you to get hurt or something.”

Feeling the last opportunity upon him, a desperate Jeffrey leans in, in hopes of a goodnight kiss, which is the ultimate first date ending, at least in his previous experience. And yet, she sort of sidesteps him, instead going in for another quick hug.

Then she gets into her car. “Text me, okay? Or, like, I’ll text you, okay?” She smiles weakly. “Really, get going now, take your shot. See you!”

“See ya,” Jeffrey says, more to himself than anyone, for she’s already speeding off down out of the lot and down the street.

Behind him, propped up against the side of the O-kay restaurant’s exterior wall, the commentators sit by their makeshift podium. On the left Andy is writing down notes on a pad of some kind. Jon looks defeated.

“Well, that’s it for tonight folks. It was a hard battle, but in the end, Jeffrey didn’t really stick the landing on this date. Lena forwent the kiss and left fairly abruptly.” Audience booing cuts in, and Jon puts his hands up defensively. “There shouldn’t be assigned any blame on a night like tonight, folks. It was a bad day. That’s it.”

Before the makeshift podium, Jeffrey stumbles before them, pausing. At first, it almost appears as if he’s aware of their presence, but he is merely paused momentarily, before falling to the ground, the blacktop slapping into his face.

“Andy, perhaps you could phone an ambulance?”

He’s already on the phone, giving directions. On the ground, Jeff makes whimpering noises. He sounds like a dreaming dog being chased by something.

“While we wait for medical personnel to arrive, here’s a look back at tonight’s highlights.”

The image shifts from the men behind the podium to a clip for earlier that night. The screen is tinted a faint blue, and the words ‘playback’ cover the bottom section of the screen.

It’s a quick image of the camera crew hurriedly following Jeff through the hallway of his flat. The image freeze on the counter, where the daffodils lie.

“Big error came early, as Jeff forgot to bring the flowers for Lena. They would have not only provided a sweet gift, but also an interesting talking point and callback to an earlier fun conversation they’d had.”

The screen flashes forward further into the night. Jeff’s arriving late to the date, and then it winds forward a bit more, to show the fumbles and awkward attempts at communication and compliments.

“These scenes do speak for themselves. He arrives late for the date, and then proceeds to induce awkward moments. It’s not good.”

Then it cuts to the meal, with fancy edits. Jeff’s there, and he’s obviously got troubles with the grub.

“Lastly, it all came to a halt here at the table, during the meal. Unbeknownst to Jeffrey, the chow mein they’ve ordered has nuts in it. Something he’s allergic to. What about you, Andy, you got any comments?”

“Jon, it’s hard to step back and look at the positives after a match like tonight’s, but if you do, you’ll see some positives too. I think, for me, Jeff’s greatest maneuver tonight was this one, in the bathroom.”

It cuts back to the bathroom where Jeffrey is constructing his makeshift scarf out of something that in retrospect was absolutely not a scarf and should not have been touched. This restaurant has upcoming inspections and a lot of already existing dots.

“I’m inclined to agree there, Andy. What we’re seeing here is A-level creative solution skills. All in all I am very excited to see where Jeffrey is headed the rest of this season. He’s got a special, one-of-a-kind head up there between his shoulders, and it’s sure to give us all some great moments.”

“It sure will, Jon, and I believe the ambulance is here.”

The view shifts back to them. Light flicker in their faces.

“All that remains is to thank you all for tuning in tonight, and we’ll be back next Saturday at eight! I’m Jonathan Manga—“

“And I’m Andy Cohen, wishing you all a good night!”

An ending shot of paramedics loading a dazed Jeffrey into the back of an ambulance plays out, and then the credits roll.