"Good stuff. I'm sure it'll be a smash. Though you can always cross over to the dark side. Be the Sundance to my Butch."

"Why does that sound dirty?"

"It might if we were lesbians," he says. "I could see the correlation there. However, today we are not. Therefore, it is not dirty."

"I stand corrected," I say. Zach and I think alike. We take turns being the straight man. (There has to be a better way to say that.) It's only fair. That was a layup. "How's the quest for the perfect crime today?"

"Not so loud," he says. "It's not a quest. I'm not searching for the Holy Grail. Well . . . I guess metaphorically I am, but it's not like that. I'm not out there searching in the hope of one day finding the perfect crime tucked away in the attic of some old lady who forgot she hid it there when the Alzheimer's kicked in." He takes a sip of his Mojito. "This is years of thought. Planning. Precision. And I'm almost there, my friend. Almost there."

"That would have had the desired effect," I say, "had you not stopped to delicately take a sip of your fruity little drink."

"Fuck you," he says. Then he leans close. "Okay, try this one: You kill a farmer's wife. Then just before harvest time . . . set her out in a wheat field on one of those huge corporate farms, covered in straw . . . and have one of those enormous combines take care of her. Chopped up in a million pieces, and served up on tables across this great land of ours. Not a chance of IDing the body."

I look at him quizzically, then down at the bread basket. "That's just a means-very unsettling, I might add-to dispose of a body," I say. "Why would you kill the farmer's wife? What's the motive?"

"Okay, okay," Zach says. "You get a gig as a butler to a wealthy couple. After ten or fifteen years they totally trust you. You've got access to everything. So you pull off an inside job. Snare all the jewels . . . all the art . . . all the collectibles-"

"But wouldn't you be an obvious suspect?" I ask.

"That's the perfect part," he says. "You stay on the gig for another ten or fifteen years to avoid suspicion."

"So when do you get to enjoy the fruits of the heist?" I ask.

"I said I worked out the perfect crime. Not the perfect getaway." And he slumps back down in his chair.

"How are the ladies?" I say, broaching another great crime-i.e., his charmed love life.

"Beatin' 'em off with a stick. And you? Heard from Psycho Sarah?"

"Yes, actually. She was kind enough to send me my toothbrush and a note requesting I die nineteen times. And then actually wrote 'call me' after she signed her name."

"In blood?"

"No," I say. "Not this time."

"Damn."

"Oh, and get this. My nutty new neighbor from hell delivered the letter to me . . . opened . . . and commented on it."

"She hot?" he asks, with a raised eyebrow and a grin that veers dangerously close to the outskirts of juvenile city.

"No. Kinda."

"Knew it." He laughs, which annoys me.

"How?"

"Because she is your 'nutty' new neighbor from hell as opposed to your 'psycho' new neighbor," he informs. "Nutty implies wacky, quirky, Kate Hudson meets Drew Barrymore meets Christina Applegate meets-"

"No, no, no. She's psycho. She is. I was just being polite."

"I gotta meet her," he says, and as he says "gotta," his head jerks forward like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. "Gotta."

"Really, you don't."

"One of us needs to."

"I already have, and it was as unpleasant as could possibly be. I have to live next to this girl. So forget it."

"Fine."

"Good," I say. But something tells me that everything is not good. I can still hear the wheels turning in his head. If I start counting backwards I doubt I'll get to seven before he pipes up again. Ten . . . nine . . .

"She got a nice rack?"

"Zach!"

"Rhymes with rack," he says, looking off and pondering this as though he's just chanced upon Newton's First Law of Motion. (For those who need a refresher, Newton's First Law is: Objects in motion stay in motion. And objects at rest, like Zach, stay at rest. Come to think of it, Zack would never ponder Newton's Laws. So to that end, Zach looks as if he's contemplating building a chair out of Cap'n Crunch, and whether he'd actually be able to sit in it.) "Never thought about that. Coincidence?"

"Yes, unless you're planning on growing some man-breasts."

"Please. With breasts I'd be unstoppable. It almost wouldn't be fair."

Heaven.

I'm not crazy. I've been to a therapist, a psychiatrist, and a shaman healer, and all three have confirmed I'm not. The shaman was at the suggestion of my friend Zoe. She told me this woman would cleanse my aura and cut the imaginary strings that were attaching me to my negativity. I lay faceup on this massage table and watched her actually miming a pair of scissors as she cut the imaginary strings. I wished I paid her in imaginary money.

I visited the shrinks on occasion; at times I thought that I might have, in fact, been crazy. But each time I went they told me I'm not. The thing is . . . I have this book called DSM-III-R. It's a quick reference guide to diagnostic criteria from the American Psychiatric Association. I got it at a flea market from a guy who looked like he'd stepped directly from its pages. I think they're up to DSM-IV by now. So mine's outdated, though I doubt it's changed all that much. In it are diagnoses for every possible mental illness out there. The problem is, sometimes the descriptions are so vague you can convince yourself you have every mania known to mankind.

For example: 307.52 Pica A. Repeated eating of a non-nutritive substance for at least one month.

B. Does not meet the criteria for either autistic disorder, schizophrenia, or Kleine-Levin syndrome.

When I read that it sent me into a tizzy. I have definitely been known to repeatedly eat non-nutritive substances. It's what I do. I find something I like and eat it. A lot. It becomes my phase. For a while, I was in my pretzel phase. Then it was muffins. Then peanut-butter frozen yogurt. There was a pickles and coleslaw phase. No, I wasn't pregnant, and it had to be that kind of slaw with caraway seeds. I'd search high and low for it. Only the best delicatessens have it, but when it's good . . . it is good. Right now I'm in an oatmeal phase. Odd, considering I'm a carb-conscious eater. But I eat oatmeal every morning without fail.

My phases usually last a month. Sometimes six months or even years. But when I stop, I stop. And rarely do I go back to it. So you can imagine my fear after reading the diagnostic criteria for pica.

That time I read the diagnosis for pica I made an appointment with a psychiatrist. After an hour of telling her my fears of pica and possibly worse, she informed me that while pretzels and coleslaw aren't the most nutritious foods, people who suffer from pica eat non-food items altogether. When they say non-nutritive substance they mean: Chalk.

Kleenex.

Xerox paper.

Etc.

Anyway, you can imagine my relief. But then she hands me this bill for a hundred fifty bucks! I almost told her to eat it. But then if she actually did, she'd be the one with pica, and her diagnosis of my sanity would count for nothing.

The other times I happened upon mental illnesses with descriptions I might fit, the psychiatrists assured me that I was sane as well. Apparently, my handy quick reference guide to mental health omitted the details that prove it. So I am not crazy. And the only common problem that each of them found was that I had no business reading a psychiatric diagnostic book.

However, certain things do make me crazy: 1. People who are mean to animals 2. People who are selfish and self-centered 3. People who abuse their car horns, which is a major problem in New York City These are things that are allowed to make me crazy. They are legitimate gripes.

Here's an example of something that might make you crazy, but is not legitimate: You're on an elevator, zooming up to your desired floor, when suddenly it stops and someone gets on. Then they get off on a different floor. All during your ride, which you got on first. Some people might get mad at this. As if their own personal elevator had just been invaded by someone with the audacity to need also to be somewhere that required the use of the elevator. Granted, this has pissed me off on occasion too, but I know that it's wrong, and that is key.

Brady.

I don't lie much, but when I have to, I'm alarmingly good at it. Sometimes it's best to go big or go home. I need time to write out the business plan for Cinnamilk. So when I tell Phil my grandfather in Florida has broken his hip and needs assistance, and I'll be taking the week off to visit him, he believes me and understands.

Phil's understanding is not of the situation as I presented it, however, but it's as Phil sees it in Phil's world.

"Goin' to Florida, eh?" he says.

"Yup," I say.

"Will maintenance?"

"Huh?"

"Making sure you're there in the end so you get good placement in the will?"

"He's not dying. He's just got a fractured hip."

"We're all dying, dude. And he's in Florida. He's halfway there." This is true. I've always called Florida "God's Waiting Room," but what he's saying is just plain wrong. I wouldn't go visit my grandfather just to angle for his will. Plus, he died three years ago.

"How was your date last night?" I ask him.

"I think I blew it."

"Why?"

"When the bill came, I didn't have enough money," he says.

"What about a credit card? Don't you have a credit card?"

"Maxed out. Shit, I maxed that puppy out the first month I got it."

"So what did you do?"

He doesn't answer at first. Then he tries to throw a balled-up piece of paper at the wastebasket, arcing it high, like he's LeBron, and missing badly. "I had to ask her for money."

But this miss is so far off the mark. The clock has run out. The game is over. There will be no postseason for this relationship. "Oh, Phil."

"Did I blow it?"

"I don't know the girl."

"She was pretty pissed," he offers.

"Then yes."

"I knew it," he says, pressing his palms to his forehead like it's just hit him. "Fuck. But she had no right ordering the duck anyway. It was like forty dollars. That's just mean!" he adds, like a wounded child.

"I don't think she meant it as a personal affront."

"I think I love her."

"It was a first date."

"And?"

"Never mind," I say. I can't be bothered to get into it with him. There are days I can, and days I can't. This is one I can't. I can't because today I'm troubled.

I'm troubled because I had a dream about John Ritter again last night, which involved the entire cast of Three's Company, including both landlords. I wasn't going to mention this. The only other person who knows about it is Zach-and he's sworn to secrecy.

What started out as a funny anecdote to tell your friends at cocktail parties has turned into a guilt weighing so heavy on me that I almost feel like I need to apologize to his family. But I guess this is confusing you, so I'll just go ahead and explain.

A few months ago, while having drinks at Temple, this new hip restaurant that Zach insisted we check out, I playfully tossed an olive from my martini glass at Zach. But he ducked and it missed him and hit John Ritter instead. Three days later John Ritter died.

Of course, maybe I had nothing to do with it-and God, I hope I didn't. But I keep having this recurring nightmare where Mr. Furley blames me, Mr. Roper blames me, and Chrissy and all her replacements start circling me, as in Lord of the Flies. Then there's Janet and Larry. They're all pointing at me and telling me I killed him. They all start throwing olives at me, and it hurts! It feels like they're olive bullets being shot out of an AK-47, and it fucking hurts. So I'm all crouched down trying to block them, and then I wake up with my heart racing, and well . . . this was one of those mornings.

So I think I'll start my week off this very second. I grab my shit and leave.

"Hi, this is Brady Gilbert. I missed your call, but you missed a scintillating moment with me. If you'd like to try to recapture that moment . . . leave a message, and I'll call you back." Beep.

When I get home there are seven messages on my answering machine from Sarah. Five hang-ups and two actual messages. Call me an analog geek, but like one of those people who swears on his life that he can hear the subtle nuances of music better on vinyl than on CD, I prefer the warmth and hissing and popping of this old cassette recorder to a digital machine. Plus, I've been able to assemble a truly uproarious Sarah's Greatest Hits tape to play at poker games and parties.

But now that red blinking eye has become my tormentor, bringing ill tidings into my home on a daily basis. It's bad enough that I have to listen to that detestable outgoing message of mine every time-now I have her clogging up the airwaves. In one message she reminds me of the time-and it was a brief time, I'll have you know-when I was having some "troubles" in the sex department. Fact: Every guy at one time or another has a problem. I am no exception.

It started when we were first dating. I think it was partly because I was so nervous about performing that I just couldn't get it up at all. Plus, she insisted we get AIDS tests first. So it was like a month before we even had sex. It created such a buildup that by the time we were all checked out and ready to go, I couldn't do it.

Then the next time I was so freaked out about the first time that again I couldn't do it. She told me to relax. But then she suggests fucking Viagra, which only made matters worse. I mean, I did not need Viagra. I was suffering from nerves. Normal first-time jitters. I do not have a problem.

So I took the Viagra. And it worked. If by working you mean I got cold sweats, hot flashes, and felt like I was going to have a heart attack. But yes, I was also able to have sex. To some extent it was a relief-yes, the little bastard still worked-but it was also terrifying, because what if that was the only way I'd ever be able to have sex?

As it turned out, I didn't need the little blue pill after all. I was able to "perform" on my own. And I really don't like to brag, but for the better part of the last two years I made her scream so loud that my next-door neighbor used to actually give me the thumbs-up every time I'd see him in the elevator.

Sarah's message was as follows: "Hi, asshole. Remember when you couldn't get it up? And I stuck by you, you pathetic piece of shit! How many girls do you think would have coddled you and nurtured you through that? None. But I did. And this is how you repay me? I don't know why you think you're better than me or that you can possibly do better than me, because you can't. And your little penis problem? It will come back. And if you think I didn't know you were taking that yohimbe every day, you're sadly mistaken." Beep.