Home Is Burning

by Dan Marshall

  “I want to date other people now,” she said wagging her perfect ass back and forth—an ass that I then imagined a bunch of cum-easy San Francisco yuppies enjoying. I knew that Abby would have an easy time finding someone else, whereas it would be a struggle for me. I mean, who would want to take on the responsibility of dating a fat, depressed budding alcoholic with an offbeat sense of humor? At least they probably wouldn’t have to deal with in-laws, given the state of my dying parents.

  * * *

  As we walked around, I remembered that I had set up a spa day for us. I told her that I had ordered us surprise massages at the Nob Hill Spa, originally hoping they would be “Yay, we didn’t break up” massages. We were supposed to be there by 2 p.m., but I guessed since we had just broken up that we weren’t going. I took out my cell phone to cancel. “I got us nonrefundable massages, but I’m going to cancel,” I said.

  She stopped my dialing, the first time she had touched me since I started my crazy march on Berkeley. “Well, we can still go if you want,” she said.

  Still go? Are you fucking kidding me?

  I didn’t really know what to do, but I knew that I still wanted to ask her questions and spend time with her. I was still sort of in denial and holding out hope that she’d change her mind or something. Maybe the spa-day trick will actually work and she’ll remember why she fell in love with me, I thought. God, I’m such a desperate and pathetic piece of shit, I also thought.

  So I told her that we should still go, that we shouldn’t let some stupid little breakup of a five-year-long relationship ruin our day.

  We got into her car and headed into San Francisco, like some sort of happy couple. I didn’t talk on the way there. I just stared out the window, fantasizing about jumping off the Bay Bridge. That’d be a good way to get her back, right? Jumping off a bridge? Boy, would she feel like shit if I did something that stupid and dramatic, right? As we drove she kept on saying that I was acting strange and sad.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to act?” I wanted to say. Instead, I said nothing.

  We arrived in the city, found some parking next to Grace Cathedral—one of those two-hour-time-limit spots—and walked to the Nob Hill Spa.

  We arrived at their alluring sanctuary ready to be indulged and pampered. I gave the attendant our names and awkwardly mentioned that we just broke up, so we wanted masseuses who would be a bit easy on us. Our massages weren’t for a little bit, so we were encouraged to enjoy the captivating skyline views or go for a refreshing swim. We did.

  Breakups are weird because often the person getting broken up with starts basically acting insane, exhibiting horrible displays of self-pity and jealousy. Love is scary because of how crazy it can make you. It’s totally irrational because it’s not likely the other person’s going to say, “Your insane behavior is making me feel like we’re a perfect match! I really want to get back together with you!” It does the opposite. It pushes the other person further and further away and gives them more and more reasons to not be with you. “Hey, I just was thinking about slitting my wrists.” “Oh, really. That’s hot. I totally want to fuck you and have a family with you.”

  So, as we swam in Nob Hill Spa’s mesmerizing infinity pool, I started acting like an insane person in order to get Abby back. I started loading water into my mouth and spraying it her way. Abby might be in control of this breakup, but she’s at least going to get a little bit of pool water in her face, my crazy head thought, expecting her to say, “I love you,” in return.

  “Stop that,” she really said.

  A few weeks before my trip to Berkeley, I had gone out with some friends and met an attractive girl who I could tell wanted to hook up with me. But I decided against it because of how depressed empty sex was making me. Plus, Abby and I had started talking again. I loaded that bullet into my insanity gun and fired it.

  “A few weeks ago I could have fucked a girl hotter than you, but I didn’t,” I said while doing the backstroke and squirting water up in the air, doing a perfect impression of a schizophrenic person who loved water and the backstroke.

  “Who?” she asked, not really caring.

  “I’m not telling you because you’re a bitch,” I said in a supersmooth tone—a real-life Don Juan.

  Abby got out of the pool and went for a therapeutic steam in her locker room to hide from me. I decided to unwind in the fireside lounge, because apparently it was ideal for personal reflection, and I felt like a little personal reflection was necessary. While there, I decided that this was probably the worst day of my life. I pictured myself swan-diving off the spa’s balcony and exploding into pieces on the hard pavement below. It was probably the first time in Nob Hill Spa’s history that such things were thought by a person sitting in a nice robe in this meditative lounge.

  It was time for our massages. We were supposed to have a couple’s massage where we’d be in the same room so we could relax next to each other and maybe say “I love you” a couple thousand times while synchronizing our heartbeats. But, given the whole breakup mess, we decided to have our masseuses work on us in different rooms.

  Normally, during a massage, I close my eyes and relax. I think about how everything will definitely be okay, and how the world is a peaceful, awesome place full of butterflies and rainbows and rainbows made of butterflies. But this time, my eyes were open and I could only think about how I would probably never see Abby ever again after this stupid spa bullshit. I thought about how much I loved her and how badly I wanted her to just love me back.

  It’s strange: when you’ve been with someone for a significant period of time, you start to paint this ideal picture of happiness, and that picture includes the other person. When a breakup occurs, it totally fucks that picture of happiness up, and it’s stressful and awful to think about having to re-create the picture of happiness with someone else. It’s also painful to think about the other person creating that picture of happiness with someone else, because you’re fearful that that picture will end up looking just like the one you were hoping for, or better. You start to wonder whether your picture will ever even be achieved, and you start to feel like it was a miracle that you could even paint such a picture in the first place.

  I also started to worry about Abby leaving me at this spa. The whole not-picking-me-up-at-the-airport bullshit had really hurt me, and I started to think that she’d probably weasel out of here as soon as her massage was over and leave me. I didn’t want this to happen, because it would be too much grief and loneliness to take all at once. Loneliness is very, very painful when you’re not used to it.

  “Boy, you’re really tense,” my masseuse said.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m just not relaxed today,” I said.

  “You okay?” she said.

  “Yeah. Well. I don’t know. My girlfriend just broke … My dad has … My mom is … My little sister just … Yeah, I’m fine,” I said.

  I then started to tear up. When someone asks if you’re okay and you’re not okay, it can open up a shitty floodgate. My eyes swelled up and a few tears hit the ground. This fucking sucks, I thought. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have carried on with this stupid spa day. What the fuck was I thinking? The second Abby said, “We should date other people,” I should have called her heartless, left, and never talked to her ever again. That’s what I should have done, but that was the impossible thing to do. So here I was, crying while getting a massage, which is probably just about as pitiful as crying during sex.

  I got up and told the masseuse that I was sorry and that I just couldn’t do this right now, that it was me, it wasn’t her, that she was great and would undoubtedly go on to give several great massages to more well-adjusted people, that I was the fucked-up one. I put on my robe and went to the locker room to cry a little bit more in the steam room.

  I stayed in there for a long time, my tears blending with the steam. I wasn’t just crying about Abby. I was slowly losing nearly everything that I loved. My dad was one of my favor
ite people and the rock in my life. And Abby had been the best thing to happen to me. She’d made me happier than anyone else ever had. I was going to have to figure out this world without two of the people most important to me. I was half expecting a call from a friend telling me that the Utah Jazz were being moved to Las Vegas or some shit.

  I cried and cried. I wanted to go back to Utah to be with my dad.

  Someone else finally entered the steam room, so I figured it was about time to get my shit together and start getting on with my life. I showered and dressed.

  When I went out to the main spa area, Abby was nowhere to be found. I started to really panic. Did she leave? Was she already out there dating other people? Was that the last time I’d ever see her? Was my last interaction with the girl I loved going to be me floating around a pool squirting water in her face like an insane person?

  I started asking around the spa. No one had seen her. I even had one of the female attendants go into the women’s locker room and yell her name. She wasn’t in there. She was gone. That was it. She had left me there. I was to be alone forever. I almost started to cry again.

  Then she walked back into the spa, looking more beautiful than she ever had.

  It felt like a miracle. I was so happy to see her that I finally cracked a smile on a day that was supposed to be smile free. I knew that she didn’t want to be with me anymore and that love can’t be forced. It was time to go our separate ways, but seeing her again—when I thought I never would—gave me some sort of hope in life, some sort of feeling that there would be ups after all the downs.

  “I had to move my car. The two hours were up,” she said, forcing a half smile.

  “Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, San Francisco parking is a bitch. I was just hanging out, enjoying the spa,” I said, trying to hide the fact that I had just been casually crying and having panic attacks for the last two hours.

  “How was your massage?” she asked.

  “Oh, it was great. Yeah. Really relaxing. Deep. Sort of painful. But, you know, pretty great in the end,” I lied, hoping the masseuse wouldn’t come out just then and say, “There he is. There’s the pathetic small-dicked bastard who cried during the massage. Let’s get him.”

  “That’s good,” she said.

  “Well, should we get the fuck out of this bubble of peace and relaxation? Get on with our lives?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we’ve gotten all we can out of this thing,” she said.

  I smiled at her. “Yeah, I guess we have. Time to move on.”

  * * *

  I was supposed to leave on Monday, but I decided to catch an earlier flight back. I got home and was greeted by Mazie and Berkeley, who jumped all over me and made me feel important. It was good to be back where I knew I’d be loved no matter what. I tossed my bag aside and ran upstairs to check on my dad.

  “Hey, DJ!” he said as emphatically as the disease would allow him to. “How was your trip?”

  “It was real garbage, Dad. We broke up. It’s official,” I told him. He got a little teary eyed and shook his head. He knew how much I loved Abby, what an important part of my life she was.

  “That’s too bad, DJ. But there will be other girls. Other fish in the sea,” he said.

  “I know, but I liked the fish I was fucking,” I joked.

  My dad laughed a little bit. “I know, DJ. I know. Seriously, you’ll find someone even better than Abby, someone who deserves your love.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said.

  I believe that once you love someone that you always love that person a little bit, no matter the circumstances or the amount of time that’s passed. The pain would lessen. I’d eventually move on. I’d meet someone else. I’d find someone who deserved my love. But I knew I’d always have some love for Abby.

  “Bad timing, but I’ve got to take a shit,” said my dad.

  I helped him out of bed and onto the commode. It was like all the other shits he had taken before. But, for the first time, I could no longer say, “At least I have Abby.”

  THE DILDO SHOW

  So I was back home trying to mend a broken heart. Nights were starting to get lonely, especially since I still wasn’t very social. Sure, I’d go out every now and then, but I was mainly hanging around my dad. It sucks when you have a significant other you can talk to, and then suddenly don’t. All the emotions build up, especially if you’re spending your nights staring at your dying father.

  Even though most of us don’t admit to it, when you’re in a relationship you keep a mental list of people you’d like to fuck if you were single—a little “fuck list,” if you will. While I was with Abby, I certainly kept one. It consisted mainly of girls from college I wished I had hooked up with, and a few from high school. As I entered the lonely world of the single male loser in his mid-twenties, I did a quick mental scan of my fuck list and realized that most of the people either weren’t in Utah or were in relationships.

  But one who wasn’t was Becca, my dad’s best friend’s daughter. Becca was also one of Greg’s best pals. They had met in the first grade and had been close ever since. Most of Greg’s friends were scared of me because of my bully ways, but Becca never was. Her parents were so focused on making her a good girl that she turned into a bad girl. She was sexy and wild. She had tattoos, she drank and smoked, and it was rumored that she had her clit pierced. A couple of Thanksgivings ago, she’d been giving me fuck-me eyes and trying to get me super drunk. I was with Abby then, so we didn’t hook up. But I was single now, so I figured Becca might be interested in finally firing up a little fling.

  But would it be shitty to make a play on one of my dad’s friends’ daughters? Would that secure me a place in hell? Would that make me some sort of filthy asshole with no chance of ever being a good person ever again?

  Fuck it, I thought. I can’t lose much more.

  I decided to figure out how to contact her. Greg was always weird about me trying to hook up with his friends. So I used good old Facebook—the site started for creeps by our society’s most successful creep, Mark Zuckerberg. I sent her a message saying that we should get a drink, catch up, hang out. She said that sounded nice. We set a time and arranged for a few other people to be there so it didn’t seem like a date.

  I picked her up, and we went to a bar in downtown Salt Lake. She was good at drinking. Probably even better than me. It’s rare to see a girl who can really put it away. I was impressed. We flirted. I forgot how sweet she was. She had a big heart and a kind soul. I guess all the drinking and rebelling she had done over the years hadn’t worn down that part of her. I was more and more into her as the night went on, and was thinking that it was looking pretty good. Fuck, she’s pretty awesome. Maybe I should actually try to fall in love with her, I remember thinking.

  However, after a few rounds, she started talking about a boyfriend. I hadn’t realized she was in a relationship. She was going on and on about him. There’s nothing worse than listening to someone you want to fuck talk about some other person who’s actually fucking them. Once a girl starts talking about another guy, I assume it’s over—a coded way of saying, “It’s not going to happen, fat loser.” So I just got drunk and cracked some jokes. Alcohol is always a nice silver medal to real intimacy.

  After drinks and listening to boyfriend problems, I drove her home. She lived alone in a house by the University of Utah. Before she got out, she turned to me and said, “So, that boyfriend of mine, he’s actually out of town at a weeklong bachelor party in New York.”

  “Oh,” I said, thinking that there still might be a chance.

  “You want to come in for a drink? I have Wii Bowling. It’s fun,” she said.

  “Yeah, absolutely. Love Wii Bowling,” I said, even though I had never played it.

  Inside, she mixed up a couple of really strong drinks and fired up some Wii Bowling. We played a round. She was better than me. Drinking and Wii bowling: two things she was better at than me.

  After the game, she set down the remote and hit
me with a bit of a shocker. “Hey, have you ever tried ecstasy?”

  “No, I haven’t, actually,” I said. Back in high school, the administration got word that ecstasy was really big with students at our school, so they made us all sit through several videos explaining how horrible ecstasy was for us. Though it was meant to scare us away from the drug, it made most of us want to try it. “I never even thought of doing it, but now I have to,” I remember my friend Henry saying. One of the videos went into detail about how it puts holes in your brain. I’m not that smart, so I have to do everything I can to keep my brain intact. I decided then and there to never try it under any circumstance.

  “Do you want to try some?” she asked.

  “Nah, I told myself that I wouldn’t ever do it. And putting holes in my brain isn’t really my thing. I’m not that smart as is,” I explained.

  “Well, I want to do some. I don’t mind the holes in my brain. I think it’d be fun,” she said. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure. I shouldn’t. But, by all means, you can do some. You have some here?”

  She didn’t, but her drug dealer was always up because he’s a drug dealer. She called him. It was two in the morning, but he answered as if it was two in the afternoon. He said we could swing by and pick up a few pills. Becca hung up and said, “Let’s go. I told him we’d need two of them, just in case you change your mind…”

  I drove us around town trying to find this drug dealer. I shouldn’t have been driving that drunk, but the chance of getting some action made it seem worth the risk. Becca had a vague recollection of where he lived, but we still drove around lost for about an hour. Finally, we got to the house and made the exchange. “Enjoy, kids,” this loser said, assuming we were going to take them together and then probably fuck each other.

  “Oh, I’m not taking any,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” he said and winked.