The caller ID on my phone read, Virus. I let it go to voicemail. Somedays, I can't cope with a needy, neurotic narcissist. And, I'm talking about myself.

Virus, AKA Iris, only calls when her life is circling the drain, or she's craving corned beef on rye. My intuition-needle pointed to the former.

I only say this because I'd not heard from Iris since she started shacking up with Just Jim, of the notorious Smith family.

That was three months ago when she showed up on my doorstep with her new love train-wreck trailing along behind her.

"Zee," she said as if I were her best friend. (I am not. I am no one's best friend.) "I just had to introduce you to the most wonderful man (Giggle Giggle). Promise you won't try and steal him away!" (More giggling.)

I reluctantly opened my door and led them to my living room.

"Hi," he said, thrusting a limp appendage in my direction. " I'm James Smith. Just Jim to my friends.


"Of the infamous Smith tribe?" I said, firing up a cigarette and blowing smoke in his face.

"Pardon me?"

"Have a seat," I said, wiping my hand on the sleeve of his paisley print shirt.

They seated themselves on my white couch. I sat in Q's Eames Lounge Chair. The one I bought him ten years ago. The one he refuses to allow me to sit in while smoking.

"Iris says you've moved in with her." A statement, not a question.

"Ahhh...yes," he answered. "My home in Wentworth is being rehabbed."

"Really? A home in Wentworth...? How lovely."

"I don't want to brag, but five bedrooms is a bit much," he said with a double wink. As if one "wink" is insufficient to downplay his wealth and privilege.

I lit another cigarette and calculated how many times I'd have to hit him with a golf club to render him unconscious.

"And, between you and me. (Double wink.) I like living close to the action," he said, as he chubbed Iris's double chin with his trout like hand.

And, Iris, in true love-sick fashion, wiggled about like a cocker spaniel having its tummy rubbed. I settled on five if I used an eight iron.

"I see you smoke," he said and pulled out an ornate pipe worthy of a prop in a Charles Dickens play. "Do you mind?" He asked.

(I hate men who smoke a pipe.)

Mr. Smith crossed his legs and showcased his worn in the heels Tom McCane loafers.

(I hate men in cheap shoes...who smoke a pipe.)

"So, James, what do you do for a living?"

"Just Jim," he repeated while tamping down his Captain Jack with a stained tobacco finger. "I am devoting myself, full time, to making this little lady happy." (knee pat, knee pain, wiggle, wiggle.)

"So, you're unemployed," I said.

Now...I know what you are thinking. "Give the guy a chance. He makes Iris happy."

First, let me continue. Besides the cheap shoes and pipe smoking. (As if that were not enough) Just-Jim wore a lice-infested hairpiece, a full face beard, and a Handlebar mustache you could mount on a Harley Davidson. (I'm only guessing about the lice, but I thought I saw something crawl out of it and land on my white couch.)

"Alexa, remind me to call an exterminator," I said.

"Pardon me..." he said, his voice trailing off in the direction of Iris.

"When do you want me to remind you?" Alexa asked.

"Hopefully, in the next hour," I said.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand." Alexa said.

"Not to worry. Life is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," I said in my best Winston Churchill voice.

Just Jim turned to Iris, "What did she say?"

"She's a writer. You never know what she is going to say," Iris said, giving me the fisheye.

So that's how the next half hour unfolded. Just Jim blathered on about his collection of stuffed walleyes (now objects de art in Iris's living room) and his master plan to corner the market on pickled herring. (Soon to become an endangered species of minnow.) I drummed my fingers on the arm of Q's Eames Lounge chair in anticipation of their departure.

I smelled rotten fish, alright. And his name is Just Jim.