Tell Me It's Real

by T. J. Klune

  “Forgive my friend,” Sandy said smoothly as the bike chick stared at me oddly. “He’s not normally so rude. He’s just a little flustered. Wonderful, exciting things are happening in his life, and he doesn’t know how to deal with them quite yet.”

  “Oh?” she said, recovering slightly. She looked me up and down. “Have you decided to make some healthy lifestyle choices and become a bike rider?”

  Before I could scratch her eyes out, Sandy spoke for me again. “The bike is for someone else.”

  “My boyfriend,” I said, quite loudly, sure she would also be a homophobe and wanting to stick it to her good. “I hit him with my car and broke his other bike.” Oh sweat balls.

  She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Is that so?”

  “It was an accident,” Sandy said. “Look, this probably wasn’t the best way to start this. Hi, I’m Sandy, and this is Paul. We’re here to look at bikes.” He shook her hand, but I didn’t, because I had convinced myself the little biker chick was evil since she thought my “lifestyle choices” included shoving my face with lard. I didn’t want her evil to rub off on me in case I became a weed-smoking hippie who went to music festivals in a skirt made of hemp.

  “I’m Jenny, and I think I can help you,” she told us, but really speaking only to Sandy. I had a tendency to alienate people with my mouth. You’d think I wouldn’t have been let out into public as much as I was. “It’s probably a good idea if I knew what kind of bike you’re looking to replace.”

  Sandy looked at me. “What?” I asked him.

  “What kind of bike was it?”

  “What do you mean? It was a bike.” How hard was that to understand?

  Jenny looked at me with bemusement. “There are many kinds, Paul. Was it a mountain bike? A road bike? Touring bike? Racing? Time trial? Triathlon? Track? BMX? Freight? Roadster? Cyclocross?”

  “It was blue,” I said hastily, not even remotely impressed by her listing off bicycles. “I think. Maybe a little bit gray.”

  “Were the tires thin or thick?”

  “Paul’s a size queen,” Sandy said. “That’s probably not the best question to ask him.”

  I glared at Sandy before looking back at Jenny. “Does it really matter what kind it was? I just want to get him a new bike.”

  Jenny nodded. “It’s very important. It’s almost like a way of life. The type of bike a person has can define who they are.”

  “I don’t think that’s a real thing,” I told her. “I don’t have a bike and I know who I am.”

  “Who are you, Paul?” she asked me, looking as if she was trying to peer into my immortal soul. I wondered briefly if bike-riding hippies had some kind of Wiccan voodoo magic that they ascribed to.

  “I just want a bike,” I assured her. “Not to be defined.”

  “Hmm,” Jenny said. I didn’t know what that meant.

  “Did you take a picture of the bike?” Sandy asked. “That could have made this easier.”

  “Of course I did,” I scoffed.

  “Well, then show it to her.”

  “Well, after I took the picture, I accidentally deleted it while trying to download an app that allows you to take pictures of guys and then tells you if they’re a top or a bottom.”

  Sandy looked interested. “Smart phones are way smart,” he said astutely. “Does it work?”

  I shook my head. “I think it’s broken. I took a picture of myself with it and it told me that I was asexual. I didn’t even know it could do that. Wait. What if it was insulting me?”

  “Technology hates you for some reason,” Sandy said. “Maybe you should get a shack in the wilderness in Montana and live off the grid.”

  I tried to picture that. “Would I have to grow a beard? I don’t know if I can, and even if I could, if it’s something I could pull off.”

  “No, I don’t think you’d need a beard. But one of these days your toaster is going to become sentient and stab you. I just think it would be easier if you didn’t rely so much on technology.”

  “But what would I do in my Montana wilderness shack? I can’t just live in the middle of nowhere without being able to provide for myself.”

  Sandy thought for a moment. “You could always start a small business that only a crazy person would have. Like making earmuffs for cats.”

  I frowned. “But wouldn’t I need a small business model that included some kind of online plan? I don’t think if I’m living in a shack in the middle of nowhere that people would come buy my Cat-Muffs, no matter how good they were.”

  “Man,” Sandy mused. “Technology is a vicious circle. You can’t escape it, no matter what you do. Even if I were to take care of the Internet side of it for you, how would I tell you about the orders that you have? I can’t call you on the phone because it might try and electrocute you. But I like the name Cat-Muffs.”

  I grinned. “I thought you would. I even thought of a jingle already.”

  “Lay it on me, baby doll.”

  “If your cat is cold and its life is tough,” I sang, “all you need are Paul’s Cat-Muffs.”

  “Testify!” Sandy exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

  “So, are you guys going to buy a bike or something?” Jenny asked.

  “That’s why we’re here,” I reminded her.

  “I just wanted to make sure,” she said. “It sounded like you were about to make a foray into domestic terrorism.”

  I scowled. “How are Cat-Muffs domestic terrorism?”

  “I think they’re amazing,” Sandy said, just as baffled.

  “Most people who live in the middle of nowhere in a shack are looking to blow something up,” she explained.

  “Do I look like I want to blow something up?”

  “You probably shouldn’t answer that,” Sandy interrupted. “Paul, why don’t we just look around at the bikes and see what we see?”

  It was probably better than nothing, though I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to find the right one. There literally had to be at least eight trillion different bikes in the shop, each with a different sized frame and tread. I saw one that I thought was perfect, but Sandy said he didn’t think Vince would appreciate a pink bike with streamers and a basket on the front that had butterflies on it. “Besides, that bike is for eight-year-old girls,” he said, pointing to a sign next to the bike that said, Perfect for eight-year-old girls!

  “What is this world coming to?” I sighed. “Little boys are going to fall into these predetermined gender roles and never be able to choose the bike they want to ride? We haven’t come as far as we like to think we have.”

  “His dad bought him a butch bike when he was a kid,” Sandy told Jenny. “He’s never been the same since. You should ask him how he knew he was gay.”

  Obviously unable to stop herself, she asked, “How did you know you were gay?”

  “I was eight years old when I realized that my G.I. Joe and Optimus Prime were more than friends,” I told her. “Theirs was a forbidden love that dared not speak its name.”

  “Optimus Prime is a robot,” Jenny said. “Humans and robots can’t be in love.”

  “Oh,” Sandy groaned. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Blasphemy!” I hissed at her.

  “It’s true!” she insisted.

  “I hope you never have children,” I snapped. “Obviously you’d want to destroy their imaginations.”

  She was indignant. “I have two kids.”

  “Is your last name Dream Killer?”

  “It’s Lopez.”

  My eyes went wide. “Your name is Jennifer Lopez?”

  “I go by Jenny,” she assured me.

  When was I ever going to get this chance again? “I’m not fooled by the rocks that you got because you’re still, you’re still Jenny from the block.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Like I’ve never heard that one before.”

  “It’s not every day you meet someone named Jennifer Lopez,” I tell Sandy.

  “I wo
uld be more impressed if her name was Gwyneth Paltrow,” he replied.

  “Because she’s an ice queen?” I glanced at Jenny. “That’s not a very nice thing to say right in front of her, even if her kids are probably dead inside because she won’t let their Optimus Prime ever know love outside of his species.”

  “Can I please sell you a bike?” Jenny begged me.

  “I don’t know what kind of bike Vince had,” I admitted.

  “Vince? Vince Taylor?”

  I was startled. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection to begin with. You’re Paul Auster!”

  “It’s like you’re famous,” Sandy whispered. “See if she’ll let you sign her boobies with a Sharpie.”

  I ignored him. “Do I want to know how you know my last name?” I asked Jenny.

  She grinned. “Vince told me all about you. And I have to say, he was right on the money.”

  I groaned. “I really didn’t want to know.”

  She patted my arm. “You know he adores you, right?”

  “I’ve known him for a week. Well, almost a week. I’m still unclear as to what day counts as the first one.”

  “What’s that have to do with anything?”

  “He doesn’t know me well enough to adore anything about me.”

  She shook her head. “Since when does that matter? What he does know is enough for him. That should be enough for you.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see that this was a bike shop and relationship counseling all in one. Unless I missed the sign out front that listed your credentials.”

  “Do you need a therapist already?” she asked, concerned.

  “Yes, but not for what you think,” Sandy said.

  “That’s not funny.”

  Jenny clapped her hands together. “But this makes my job so much easier. He called on Thursday to let us know he needed to order a new bike. I thought it was going to take a couple of weeks, but I called our other store and they already had his bike there, so I had it delivered over here. I was going to call him today to have him come pick it up.”

  I was relieved. “So I can just pay for it and take it with us? I brought some bungee cables so I can put it in the back of my car.”

  “You can.” She called out to the other chick working in the shop, who went to the back and brought up an almost exact replica of what I remembered Vince’s bike looking like. I was absolutely convinced that I was probably the best boyfriend of the history of boyfriends who had struck their own boyfriends with their car door and sent them to the hospital. Then I got hung up on the fact that I was using the word boyfriend three times in a single thought, and I got this goofy smile on my face that I couldn’t seem to get rid of. I grinned at Sandy and Jenny and let them see just how happy I was.

  Jenny laughed as she went to the front desk. “I can see why he likes you. There’s something about you, Paul. In all the years I’ve known him, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this happy before. It looks like you two have got a good thing going.”

  I flushed as she typed something into the computer. “He’s pretty okay,” I allowed.

  “I bet he is,” she said with a smile. “Okay, that’ll be $1,976.25.”

  “The fuck you talking about!” I shouted at her.

  She recoiled as if I’d slapped her. Everyone in the store stared at me.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I was just startled. I thought you said that bike was over nineteen hundred dollars.”

  She nodded slowly. “It is?”

  “For a bike? I didn’t put that much down when I bought my car!”

  “It’s a 2012 Diamondback Podium 3 road bike,” she said as if that explained everything.

  “I bought a Prius,” I said as if that made everything better.

  “These things can be expensive.”

  “Is it made of blood diamonds?” I asked incredulously. “Did children forced to work in deep, dark mines dig up the diamonds with their bare, bleeding hands?”

  “Paul’s very… particular… when it comes to money,” Sandy said.

  “That makes me sound cheap,” I growled at him.

  He shrugged. “You just screamed at this woman about the price of a bike. You sort of are.”

  “I am not. I just want to know why a bicycle has any right to cost this much. You know, I bet those poor blood-diamond children have never even seen a bicycle before, and here we are exploiting them just so we can ride in luxury!”

  “You’re not doing any riding,” Sandy reminded me. “Well, not of the bicycle variety.” He winked at Jenny. “Paul prefers the reverse cowgirl position.”

  Jenny smirked. “I sure hope Vince knows this about him. I think that’ll make his day.”

  “I wouldn’t be sad if either of you were kidnapped by Serbian nationalists,” I said, grinding my teeth.

  “Are you going to buy this bike or not?” Sandy asked. “And if you are, can you please be my sugar daddy too? I like blood diamonds. Lots and lots of blood diamonds. As a matter of fact, I want a tiara made of nothing but.”

  “This will probably guarantee you all the reverse cowgirl you want,” Jenny said. “I know if someone bought this for me, I’d let them tear my vagina apart.”

  Sandy and I both stared at her, horrified.

  She glared at us. “Oh, you two can talk about getting it up the butt, but I can’t talk about my vagina? Men. So typical.”

  “We’re gay,” Sandy said. “Paul, give her your credit card so we can leave before she starts using words like clitoris and cervix. What is the service industry coming to?”

  “No.”

  “Paul.”

  “No.”

  “Paul.”

  Before I could respond by running out of the shop, Sandy moved quickly and snatched my wallet out of my back pocket like he was some Cockney thief out of a Dickens novel. I made a grab for him but ended up almost plowing into an innocent bystander who was checking out the pretty bike with the streamers and basket. Before I could recover and apologize profusely, Jenny already had my credit card in her hand and had run it through the machine. She handed the card back to Sandy, who put it back in the wallet and then handed it back to me. I grabbed it out of his hands and held it to my chest. “My precious,” I snarled at the both of them.

  “And I just need you to sign right here,” Jenny said.

  “You can go fuck yourself.”

  Sandy stepped forward and forged my signature. “That’s a federal crime,” I told him. “Punishable by three to five years in a minimum-security prison. You’ll get passed around like condiments at a barbeque.”

  “My hole is already quivering,” he said.

  Jenny grimaced. “I can’t talk about my vagina, but you can talk about your asshole quivering?”

  We both glanced at her. “Uh, yeah,” Sandy said. “We’re gay.” He shot me a look that said, What is up with this chick?

  I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response because I was pretty sure he was now my mortal enemy.

  “Vince is going to go through the roof when he sees this,” Jenny said. “Cyclists go through withdrawal if we can’t get a ride in.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it’s just awful,” I said. “I don’t know how you guys survive.”

  Either she didn’t hear the sarcasm or she’d already found a way to be able to ignore it. “I just want Vince to be happy,” she said. “We love him here, and were so happy when he moved back to Tucson. He’s been coming in here since he was fifteen years old, and it’s nice to see him home again. I just wish it was under better circumstances. It’s got to be hard on him, given his dad and all.”

  “His dad?” I asked. “What does his dad have to do with anything?”

  She didn’t understand my confusion. “His dad,” she said again. “You know, the mayor of Tucson?”

  Oh. Fuck. “His dad is Andrew Taylor?”

  “The Republican?” Sandy said, sounding a little gut-p
unched.

  Jenny’s eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”

  “I’ve only known him a week!” I tried to think back as to what he’d said about his parents, but I could only remember a couple of off-the-cuff remarks about his dad that made me think they didn’t have that great of a relationship. That must have been an understatement when your own father was essentially a political homophobe who publicly decried passing gay civil-rights laws, saying they were unconstitutional. I remembered hearing a few years back that he had a gay son and thought how shitty it must have been to know that your own dad didn’t believe you should have the same rights as everyone else.

  She started to backpedal. “It’s not that big of a deal,” she stammered. “They don’t talk that much. Not anymore.”

  “Then why’d he come back to Tucson?” I asked. “What circumstances were you talking about?”

  She looked away. “It’s not my place, Paul. You should hear it from Vince. Though you only have to turn on the news to know.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Sandy whispered.

  “What?” I asked, looking back at him.

  He looked miserable. “It’s his mom,” he said. “It’s been in the news for a while now.”

  “What has?” I racked my brain, trying to remember anything I might have heard, but nothing came to mind.

  “Paul, she has cancer,” he said. “They tried to keep it quiet, but it got out. She has cancer, and she’s dying.”

  Chapter 12

  I’m Sorry About Your Mom. Here, Have A Bike.

  PLASMA cell leukemia. Apparently it’s a rare type of cancer involving white blood cells called plasma cells. It’s extraordinarily aggressive and results from Kahler’s disease, in which the infected white blood cells accumulate in the bone marrow where they interfere with the production of normal blood cells.

  Or, at least that’s what Wikipedia told me on my phone as Sandy drove us home.

  “That’s what he’s probably doing today,” I said as we neared my house. “He told me that he had to go visit someone and that he’d call me later.”

  Sandy just nodded.

  Lori Taylor came out publicly with her fight against cancer last year, but only after it somehow leaked to the press. She had smiled in an interview with the local media, laughing off the rumors of her failing health, her husband by her side. She looked healthy, if a bit thin. She did admit that while traditional avenues like chemotherapy hadn’t given the results they’d hoped for, she was optimistic about her chances and would continue to fight as best she could. She looked so much like her son when she laughed that I had to look away from the screen on my phone to be able to hold myself together.