Today’s soundtrack: at last
Today at 8:02pm: downloading old Seinfeld episodes


Mike lets himself into my apartment carrying a meat cleaver and a coconut.

“The hell is that,” says Shady.

“Coconut,” says Mike. “I been buying ‘em ‘cross the street. So cheap! Just a buck-fifty. You want some? I’m gonna drink the juice.”

Mike puts the coconut down on our floor and starts hacking at it with the meat cleaver, making an awful din. WHACK WHACK WHACK. The shell remains unscathed.

“That’s not working,” says Shady. “Gimme that thing.”

“No no no,” says Mike. “I been cutting these things up all week, it just takes a little while.”

“Gimme that thing,” says Shady, pointing to the cleaver.

Sara comes out and looks at the coconut. “That’s not how you do it,” she says, having had experience with such things. “You need a machete.”

“I got a machete,” says Shady. Mike continues pounding at it with the cleaver while Shady begins rummaging through a box in his room labeled WEAPONS.

Soon enough Shady produces a machete. Mike hacks the top off the coconut, revealing a small hole leading into the center of it. I stick a straw into it and take a sip.

“How’s it taste,” says Mike. “Tell me that isn’t refreshing.”

“I dunno,” I say. “I think it’s gone bad, man. Something doesn’t taste right.”

“That’s the way it’s supposed to taste,” Mike insists.

“That coconut’s no good,” says Sara, inspecting it. “It’s gone bad.” Mike ignores her and begins drinking the juice.

After he drains it we hack it completely in half. Coconuts are hollow, but clinging to the inside of the shell is a thin, hemispherical layer of white “meat.” Mike and I each take a half and pry the stuff out with spoons.

The texture is rather radish-like, moist but crisp. The flavor is unsweet and surprisingly buttery. Eating it is a chore. “Hey Sara, what’s inside these things?” I ask. (Sara is ridiculously smart, way smarter than the three of us, and she knows a lot of things. At the moment she’s on the computer.)

“Coconuts? They’re mostly saturated fat,” she yells down the hall. I spit my half into the garbage but Mike keeps eating his.

Eating coconut in turn leads the three of us guys into a conversation about Gilligan’s Island.


MIKE: Ginger or MaryAnn?

SHADY: Come on, man, MaryAnn!

ME: MaryAnn, without a doubt.

SHADY: She could cook and everything, she was a farm girl! Ginger couldn’t do *shit.*

ME: Yeah man the only people on that island who pulled their fucking weight were MaryAnn and the Professor.

SHADY: True.

ME: Ginger didn’t do shit, the Howells didn’t do shit--all they had was money, what good is it?--and all Gilligan did was fuck things up.

MIKE: What about the Skipper? He helped out.

ME: Bull, shit. All the Skipper did was keep Gilligan in check and he couldn’t even do that right. If it wasn’t for the Professor and MaryAnn all those motherfuckers would be dead.

SHADY: True.

ME: If I was on that island I would’ve beat Gilligan’s ass Week One.