The Two Loneliest Men in the World

Written By: TMC

Posted on May 1, 2007

[Tom Brady dials Randy Moss’ phone number after getting word that the Patriots have traded for him, and Moss answers after 19 rings.]

Moss: If you’re calling to invite me to that surprise party for Al Davis, I already told you– I ain’t going!

Brady: Hey, Randy, I heard we traded for you.

Moss: [inhales deeply, as if smoking] Who’s this?

Brady: Tom Brady.

Moss: Like the Brady Bill, with the guns and all?

Brady: No, like three Super Bowls Tom Brady. Best quarterback in the league Tom Brady.

Moss: [coughs painfully, as if forcing a golf ball from his throat] Doesn’t ring a bell.

Brady [sighs]: The dude who knocked up Gisele.

Moss: Oh, Tom Brady! I know how that is. I’m on the hook with four kids—she get you for all the babymamma money yet?

Brady: Not yet. [scratches chest with receiver so Randy can hear the manly bristling of his chest hairs, which are going prematurely gray, but no one knows that except for Andruzzi, and he’s sworn to secrecy.]

Moss: She got me man… draining me, dude.

Brady: How much you paying?

Moss: I don’t know—I don’t pay no attention to that shit. I just go by the house with a sack full of nickels. You know how it is— when you’re rich you don’t write checks, right?

Brady: Yeah, I guess. Coach B holds my money for me. [yanks his empty pockets outward into Hoover flags like a cartoon cat who can’t afford to buy the ukelele he’s set his eyes on, and then remembers Randy can’t see him, and then smacks himself in the head for being so stupid, and then wonders if Randy heard the smack on his forehead.] He promised he’ll give it to me when I retire.

Moss: How you know he ain’t spending it?

Brady: Have you seen how he dresses? He looks like my retarded cousin after a shopping spree at the thrift store.

Moss: [laughs] True.

Brady: I mean, I’d actually like him to spend a little—hey, wait, he’s not there or anything is he?

Moss: [misses his parents and his high school girlfriend, wishing that he’d never made the mistakes he’d made in high school. And college. And the NFL. And this morning, when he punched that old lady in the elevator, even though she was kind of a bitch, and she did deserve it, because, what the hell, nobody pushes the elevator button before Randy Moss pushes the elevator button. Nobody.] No. I’m completely, utterly alone.

Brady: Alright, well, don’t tell him I called him Coach B. Only his girlfriends are allowed to call him that.

Moss: Oh yeah, he some kind of pimp?

Brady: He doesn’t look it, but he’s crazy, man. Nobody ever introduces him to their wives anymore. First it was that construction worker in New York, and then Vinatieri—

Moss: The kicker?

Brady: Yeah. That’s why they didn’t re-sign him. [takes an exaggerated deep breath like a carnival barker about to unveil the Illustrated Man] See, it was like this: Bill stole Adam’s wife, then Adam got pissed and tried to kick him in the balls—

Moss: Listen, I don’t care. You white people are fucked up. Why you calling me?

Brady: Nobody ever listens to my stories. [feels breastbone for malignant lumps.]

Moss: Cause you ain’t got no stories except some OC shit about how Bobby and Janie don’t get along no more ‘cause Billy is holding hands with Bobby, and it’s just stupid man. Stupid. Listen—you want good stories, you call my man Smoot, and you’ll be rolling in it.

Brady: Sounds like fun. [applies lipstick and smacking lips because it just makes him feel pretty—even prettier, that is—and he needs a break from being such a brute all the time, from always being the manly man for everyone. Just once he’d like to be able to see what he’d look like in a ponytail, but no one accepts that unless you’re gay or Italian or a grad student, and he’s none of those things.]

Moss: We done then?

Brady: Actually, no. I wanted to talk football.

Moss: Football ain’t ‘till August. [wishes he hadn’t blown his savings on that golden statue of himself. Or the pair of Asian elephants that ended up dying in his backyard.]

Brady: Um, well, I’ll be quick. See, they said you’re kind of an asshole.

Moss: That’s right.

Brady: Well, maybe you could, like, be less of an asshole?

Moss: Nope.

Brady: [crawls into cabinet beneath kitchen sink and nestles between
the pipes and bottles of Drano] Could you at least promise to try hard every game?

Moss: Nope. [drinks his own tears as they stream down his face. They are less salty than usual.]

Brady: Don’t you care at all? [wishes he could shrink until he was the tiniest man in the world and slide down the pipes into the sewer.]

Moss: I care about getting paid. Straight cash, homey. [regrets being born.]

Brady: Oh.

Moss: Look, I like you, but the thing is, ain’t no one changing me– I might even moon retarded Coach B if I feel like it.

Brady: I don’t think you should do that. [wonders if anyone truly loves him.]

Moss: Way I see it, I got no choice. It’s who I gotta be. You wanna keep me calm, you throw me the damn ball, and whatever happens happens.

Brady: But Coach B likes me to share. [bites lower lip just to taste his own blood.]

Moss: Long as you’re giving the ball to someone else, you’re sharing, right?

Brady: I guess so.

Moss: We done now? [represses traumatic childhood memories by stabbing self in the ear with a Q-Tip].

Brady: Sure, Randy. See you in August. We’re gonna be great together.

Moss: Make it, September. I don’t feel like going to training camp this year. [hangs up phone and stands alone, the buzz of a neighbor’s lawnmower cutting through the melancholy silence].

[The dial tone drones in Brady’s ear and he hopes no one ever finds him beneath the sink.]

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