Back in college his roommate, Fairfax, made this flow chart for him.
He was pre-med and not interested in most of the biology. So in his spare
time he would get a Taber’s dictionary and make flow charts for diagnosing
diseases. He left them around the common room. His guests would pick
them up and after a few seconds of reading would announce that they
think they have something: “I think I have syphilis!”
“You don’t have syphilis; you probably just have acne on your
dick,” He would laugh, probably putting on his jacket as they would head
off somewhere and then say, “Although the only way to know is to see a
doctor.” He was crass. Women liked him anyway. Even with a name like
Fairfax, he was not unfamiliar with the patient’s end of penicillin. David
started many bowls of Count Chocula with an awkward smile and wave to
frizzy-haired women either amazingly overdressed or underdressed to be
in the common areas of their student housing apartment.
Fairfax had a car. A black BMW 7-series paid for with his family’s
money. Fairfax was the different one in a family of performers. His dad was
the drummer of some esoteric band that was big in Europe, but apparently
only known for the female vocalist. His mother starred in indie films. His
family wasn’t famous, but rich anyhow.
He would run errands for David sometimes and take care of him when he
was sick. David paused the cartoon on the PlayStation 3 and pulled himself
from under his fleece blanket to paw at the plastic bags Fairfax had just left
on the coffee table. Looking through the bags David asked, “Why did you
only buy Nyquil? Don’t I need Dayquil?” Fairfax was heading off to class.
“You’re a programmer. You never go to class and all you do is jack
off, watch cartoons, and play Nintendo 64 all day.”
“That’s not all I do,” David protested.
Fairfax wasn’t buying it, “It won’t matter if you sleep for a week.”
“I wanted to finish ‘Tsubasa Chronicles’ this week.”
“That’s the one where they have to collect like infinity magic
feathers, and it takes like five episodes to collect just one? Yeah, fuck that
waste of time.”
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