Phony: A Short Story

If I’m going to be completely honest with you, I’m still a goddam madman. You know, after that whole mess around christmas time last year, you woulda thought I might’ve changed or looked at the world a little differently, but I still see everything as phony. It all really depresses me when I think about it, I swear. If you want to know the truth, I did try to be a hell of a happy person after I went back to school. I swear I did. But you see, once I got to this new fancy school, it was just filled with more phonies. Well, anyway, I did end up passing all my classes except one, this one class nearly killed me. I did apply myself like that D.B. asked me to, but I just couldn’t pass that class. Nowadays I work for this lousy newspaper editorial.

I mean I still hate a lot of things, but thanks to good old Phoebe, I found some things to like. After she told me I didn’t like nothing, and she told me to name something that I did like, she got me thinking. I couldn’t believe how hard it was to think about something to like. Old Phoebe was so smart for her age. Now she’s doing better than me and D.B. She’s a writer just like D.B. is, but she hasn’t gone to Hollywood with all the phonies. If I’m being honest, I like Phoebe’s stories better than D.B.’s. His were different after he wrote for Hollywood movies and all, but old Phoebe, her stories stayed the same. She still kills me though, you bet ya. She’s a lot older now, but still stubborn as hell. I’ll tell ya, last summer I called her up to tell her I couldn’t make it home to see her and my parents and all. I promised I would, but old Jane wasn’t feeling too well, so I stood back with her to help and all. Boy, old Phoebe was mad as hell. She wouldn’t talk to me for three whole days. But what I did was, after Jane was feeling better, we went and surprised my parents and Phoebe. I brought her out to the theater and all and the movie killed her. I still hate the goddam movies, but I didn’t hate it too much when old Phoebe was with