By Ed Staskus

   Maggie Campbell sprays Lysol on everything. “It’s the Windex of germ killers,” she said. She buys it by the case. “It’s good for everything. It kills everything, every kind of flu, strep, anything.” She sprays it on her doorknobs, handles, couches, pillows, blankets, and her bed, as well as everything else in the house. It soaks in, dries, and afterwards it all smells good. She likes the freshwater scent best.

   She even sprayed Lysol into her water glass by accident and drank it. It just happened, not that she meant to, but when it did, she thought, all right, it will kill all the germs inside me from the inside out.

   When Jesse was staying at their house and caught the flu, she sprayed him on purpose.

   Maggie and her husband Steve de Luca were in Mexico, Kristen was watching their dogs, but she got sick, and got the vommies. Her old friend Jimmy Crack Corn happened to need somewhere to stay, so he took over from Kristen. Maggie told him to spray the house down.

   “Jewel, catching the flu is for weak people,” he said. 

   “Only the weak catch colds? He’s so big and strong? Of course, he got the flu right away, the bog oaf.” Which is why she had no problem spraying him the minute she got home. When they stepped into the living room, she told him she was going to have to spray him and the couch he was lounging on. He didn’t like it, but gave in.

  “Close your mouth and eyes,” she told him. The spray kills 99 per cent of germs. The ones that survive go back and tell their germ friends, don’t mess with Lysol!

   “I swear your dog tried to hop me,” Jimmy said afterwards.

   “Don’t talk about my dog like that,” Maggie said. “Which one?”

   “Veruka, she hopped me, held me down, I swear she was trying.”

   He told Maggie about it while he was lying on the sofa with Fat Pebbles. They are girlfriend and boyfriend. The de Luca house is crazy. They have six dogs ever since they got Hermy. You have to be a little crazy to hang out at their house. Jimmy was more than a little crazy.

   “I was upstairs sleeping when Veruka jumped me,” he said. “I was herding her down to the kitchen, to the basement where their couch is, when out comes your husband into the hallway. He was butt naked.”

   “I warned you, if you are going to stay here, Steve hardly ever wears clothes.”

   “I have nothing to hide,” said Steve.

   “Goddamn, I thought I was going to go blind,” Jimmy said. 

   Jimmy and Maggie have been friends since 5^th grade. They dated a little in the 7^th and 8^th grades but were both too controlling to be a couple. He’s controlling, Maggie’s controlling, but they stayed friends. He’s been Maggie’s best and worst friend ever since. They text each other every day, all day, forty times a day. If Steve and she are out to dinner, and Steve says something funny or interesting, she will call or text Jimmy right away.

   “Guess what Steve-o just said!” That’s the kind of friendship they have. ”He was talking about you!”

   They ran into Jimmy a couple of years after getting married. They were surprised. He was surprised. They had been on the outs.

   “What are you two doing together?” he asked.

   Steve and Maggie are not your typical couple. She was a good girl in high school, Steve was a drug supplier, and Jimmy was one of his drug users.

   “I married her,” Steve said.

   “You stole my girl,” Jimmy burst out..

    “Oh, my God,” Maggie groaned.

   Maggie ended up laughing about it and since then they’ve been back to being friends. She calls Jimmy her husband #2.

   Jimmy’s dad was once a cop in Cleveland. He used to sit outside Steve’s dad’s house in Little Italy in an unmarked car. The house was bugged. His dad’s job was to listen in. Sometimes he would hear Steve and his son hanging out together. They were both on a bad path.

   “Jimmy is in and out of our lives,” Maggie said. “He has a bad temper. He gets mad at you, cuts you out for a couple of years, but then comes back. He came back into our lives after a two-year stint of being gone. Something happened and he disappeared. After Kristen got sick and Jimmy took over, if he hadn’t been able to stay at our house, he wouldn’t have had a place to stay. He’s in recovery, like Steve, but unlike Steve he’s always slipping up and falling off the wagon. He got back on his feet with our help.”

   Jimmy works with heavy machinery and he’s going to start taking crane classes as soon as he’s done being down and out with the flu, which he caught even though he’s not a weak person. He is so strong, or so he says.

   Maggie made the mistake of getting Steve a hand bell when he got sick, Lysol or no Lysol. “That will never happen again. He completely abused the bell.” Most guys are like that. After the bell got lost and they couldn’t find it, Steve started called her Sharon. Sharon is rock ‘n’ roll Ozzie Osborne’s wife. She can never find anything in their house. 

   Maggie’s new nickname became Sharon soon enough.

   When Jimmy was feeling better, he and Steve went to Malley’s Chocolates and bought her a box of Bordeaux Chocolate. Malley’s is an ice cream and candy and chocolate store. There are 22 of the stores. They went to the original one in Lakewood, which opened in 1935. The Malley family lived in the back of the building back in the day.

   When they got back to their house Jimmy left the box of chocolate on the kitchen counter for Maggie. He didn’t know that dogs can and will eat anything if you let them. They have had dogs that would eat green peppers. Veruka, their spoiled rotten Leonberger, will eat fruits and vegetables. She will eat crumbs. She will eat anything.

   When Steve and Jimmy went upstairs Veruka strolled up from the basement. She busted through the baby gate in the kitchen doorway. Her plan was to sneak into the upstairs bedrooms and accost them. The box of chocolate stopped her in her tracks.

   She knew the chocolate wasn’t for her. But Veruka is the kind of dog who doesn’t care, just doesn’t care. She ate the whole box of on her way upstairs. Her dog mouth dog lips dog tongue got all chocolaty. She was licking it off her face when they saw her. There was no need for Lysol. Veruka gave them a look that said, “Don’t bother saying anything and forget the disinfectant.”

Ed Staskus posts on 147 Stanley Street http://www.147stanleystreet.com and Made in Cleveland http://www.clevelandohiodaybook.com. To get the site’s monthly feature in your in-box click on “Follow.”