The woman with two diamonds starts talking about her two engagements and Phil isn’t listening. He takes his phone out and he’s typing and tapping his foot and is he… is he trying to turn this woman’s sob story into a song right in front of her? I want to call 911 and report a theft but the meeting is ending and it’s time to mingle and I’m nervous again. We’re milling around, eating more donuts, and your rat heads outside and if I want your present to be ready for Christmas, I have to do this.
I put down my donut. I chase your rat.
He’s on the way to his car and I’m catching up and I can do this. I am JAY ANONYMOUS: SACRIPHIL FAN BOY. I clear my throat—nervous, he’s a rocker—and I scratch my head—nervous, he’s your husband—and he opens the door and I fake a stumble—ouch—and he looks over his shoulder and laughs at me, just a little, and I apologize, just a little, and I pull out a Marlboro Red and I’m stuttering when I begin my first official outreach to the Phil DiMarco. “ ’Scuse me,” I say. “Do you… Do you have a light?”
He leans against his car like he did in the promo photos for Moan and Groan and I wish I was wearing a Sacriphil T-shirt but what can I say, Mary Kay? It’s a busy time of year and last-minute shopping is tough.
“Hey, man,” he says. “You all right?”
I nod, too starstruck to speak, and he passes me his lighter—Zippo with a naked girl, what a good dad—and I drop it on the pavement and he picks it up and lights my cigarette and thank God you can’t see us right now. I look at him like he’s the Arc of the Fucking Covenant and I breathe in, out. “Wow,” I say. “I’m having a butt with Phil DiMarco.”
His face is a Shrinky Dink in the oven, expanding, brightening. “Oh shit,” he says. “We got us a Philistan.”
“I’m so sorry. Shit. I know we’re not supposed to use our names.”
“Nah, man, it’s cool.”
“I had to come up to you, man. The whole time in there, I was like, I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath!” He likes to be quoted—all writers are pathetic that way—and he laughs and this is painful, but this is the only way for me to get you what you really want: me. “I thought I was tripping. Phil DiMarco, the most horrifically underrated rock star of all time, is ten feet away from me and man, I’m just… man.” I drop my cigarette—nerves on top of nerves—and he offers me one of his and I take it. “I can’t believe I’m smoking a butt with Phil DiMarco.”
“You’re hard-core,” he says. “What about you? You got a name?”
“Jay,” I say, happy I worked so hard on my character.
He hawks a loogie on the pavement. “No worries,” he says. “It’s not like you’re blowing my cover. Everyone knows who I am. What’s your name again?”
I literally just said it but then again he doesn’t even know the name of his daughter’s favorite book. “I’m Jay,” I say. “Jesus Christ, man. What are you even doing here?”
“Same thing you are, man. Day by day.”
“But you’re you. I mean… come on. You don’t need this. That shit you said about Phoenix. How do you even stand it?”
He chuckles. “Yeah, Phoenix sucked.”
“See, what you said in there made me think. A few years back, you told Mojo that you couldn’t go six hours without touching a guitar…” I smile. “Or getting laid.”
He laughs at his own old bad joke. “Well, that was then, man. Things change.”
He doesn’t really think things change and he’s right. They don’t. I smoke my butt and I hope I don’t get cancer from these fucking things. I can’t stand the idea of dying before you, leaving you here to miss me. He blows a smoke ring and I try and fail—perfect—and I ash on a pile of old freebie newspapers because he ashed on it first but that’s a fire hazard, Mary Kay. Your husband is a fire hazard.
“So,” I say. “Can I ask… Are you working on anything now?”
“Hell yeah,” he says. “Always.”
“Good, cuz I am dying for a new album. And a tour. People say it’s not gonna happen… I’m like fuck yes it is. Phil DiMarco is gonna come back in a big way.”
He picks at his dirty fingernail. “You can’t push. Every album comes when it comes.”
Spoken like a true procrastinator and I nod. “I never thought I’d get to meet you cuz you don’t tour anymore.”
“We don’t tour right now,” he says. Boom. “Your album’s on the way, I promise.”
“I gotta ask. Were you… were you writing a song in there?”
“You bet I was. See, as an artist, I go to these meetings for the pathos. Not to sound like a douche…” As if the disclaimer doesn’t classify him as a douche. “But as an artist I get more out of it. Ya got a beast in you, ya gotta feed the beast. I get a lotta good material in there. Tons.”
“That’s so rad.” I was right. He’s a thief. “You know, I’m thinking I might go get a guitar… a Schecter…” Find a new plaything. “You can say no… but is there any way I can hit you up for advice?”
He gives me his number and says he has to get home as he quotes his own song—I got a crate in a barrel and a barrel in a gun. “Here’s my advice about finding a good Schecter…” Pregnant pause. “Get a Gibson, man.”
I laugh as if that was clever and he starts his car and did I do it? Did I get in his head?
I tune in to his show at midnight, and sure enough, he’s wailing about the holidays, pining for the good old days when he had time to focus on his true calling, his music. The man is in pain, Mary Kay. And you can’t make him happy. Listen to his “show” and look at his body. He has a Sacriphil tattoo. He bled for that band. He took a needle for that band. But your name’s not inked on his skin, and it’s time for you both to realize it.
11
The next day, I walk into the library and I slink into the back without saying hello but an hour later, you find me. You’re frisky. You put your hands on Dolly and you tell me that Nomi wants to get a kitten for Christmas.
“Are you allergic or anything?”
“No, I love cats, but she’s going away soon…” You look right at me. “Do you like cats?” You are so hot for me that you are planning our life together and you squeeze Dolly. Nervous. “I ask because our friends… they have three kittens, so you know, you could get one too.”
You want us to adopt kittens together and I smile. “I love cats. It’s tempting.”
You pull your hands off Dolly. “Well, it’s something to think about. Our cats would be siblings.” You fiddle with your belt. “Well,” you say. “Let’s both think about it, yeah?”
I give you a yeah and already my plan is working.
The next day, I go to a meeting and Phil bitches to me… about cats. “Cats are cool. But do I need one more thing to take care of? Already I don’t have enough time to play.”
In a normal situation, you can’t advise someone to leave their spouse because when they don’t, you become that asshole who talked shit about the spouse. But nothing about our situation is normal and I am #TeamPhil. “You don’t need a cat,” I say. “You need a studio.”
“Tell that to the wife. Man, we’re so close to freedom. My kid’s on her way to college in a few months and the wife wants to tie me down with a new cat.”
“Does she not… I don’t wanna overstep… but does she not get who you are?”
He flicks his cigarette into a pile of leaves. “Nope,” he says. “Not lately.”
The next day I march into the library and walk into your office. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s get cats. I’m in.”
You fix your eyes on your computer screen. He fights you every step of the way and I am on #TeamYou. “Well,” you say. “That was fast. Do you have a name picked out?”
I sit in my chair and you scratch your collarbone and I latch my hands behind my head and smile. “Riffic,” I say. “Little Riffic Goldberg.”
“Ah,” you say. “I do love me some suffixes.”
Suffix sounds like sex and you are the smartest, sexiest w
oman on the planet and you are the fan to my tastic, showing me a picture of your favorite kitten, the one with a natural tuxedo. “Look at this little guy. He’s all dressed up and he will find somewhere to go.”
I tell you his name should be Licious and you groan—anything but Licious—and I dream of a long slow Saturday, you and me naming our kittens. “Well,” I say. “There’s three of them, right?”
You nod. “Yes.”
“Okay, so after work, let’s go pick up Riffic, Tastic, and Licious.”
But you throw your empty coffee cup in the trash and tell me that now Nomi’s on the fence. You’re doing it again, you’re protecting your rat. You tell me that Nomi wants a kitten, not a cat, and kittens grow up fast. You shrug. “There’s no way around it. It’s the fate of all kittens.”
You’re a fatalist and you need to believe in fate. Me. I pick up one of your tchotchkes and I make a proposal. “How about I get all three kittens, Tastic, Riffic, and Licious and then, when you’re ready, you can take one.”
“You’re so sweet, Joe…” Yes, I am. “But three cats… what about your furniture?”
“I have plenty of room. And I can get the toys, scratching posts…”
I am a homebody and Phil is a home-wrecker and you fiddle with your pen. “I always had this idea that when I had my bookshop… well, every bookshop needs a cat.”
“Just like every bodega. How about this? I keep one. You keep one. And Licious will live in your Bordello.”
You practically purr at me. “Well, on one condition. The little guy in the tux cannot be named Licious. You can’t do that to me, Joe. You have to give up on that name.”
I purr right fucking back. “Giving up’s not really my style, Mary Kay.”
* * *
Three days later, my arms are all scratched up and I am a man with three cats. I am also the owner of a Gibson and I sneeze—my body will adjust to the dander—and Phil waves his hands. Frantic. “C’mon, man. I don’t wanna catch what you got.”
He was grumpy in the meeting and he’s grumpy after the meeting. I tell him I’m sorry and he shrugs it off. “It’s not you,” he says. “The wife’s holding a grudge about the kitten thing. Showing me videos of the kittens.”
I send you my videos and you love that I don’t post them online, that they’re only for you, for me, for us. And now I find out that you show the videos to him—ha—and he takes a drag of his cigarette. “All right,” he says. “I gotta split.”
He goes home to you—the injustice—and I go home to Riffic and Licious and Tastic and they’re not just exceptionally cute. They also give us a reason to communicate around the clock. You send me links to cat toys and you’re “too busy with Christmas” to come over and meet our future cats and I’m a busy man, pushing Phil to man up and put his music first. Christmas is getting closer—every day Phil is a little bit closer to the edge—and every day I send you photos, mostly of Licious. You tell me that you’re going to die of cuteness and somehow I go to sleep and the next day, I go to a meeting and Phil spends the whole time writing a song in his phone about how his wife is riding him about cats and bookstores.
I go home after the meeting and play with my kittens and I check Phil’s tweets.
Can’t fucking wait to tour. Philistans# Peace#
Did someone say SacriPHIL surprisealbum# ChristmasIsCanceled# Peace#
Fixin’ to put another shark inside your shark, Philistans… Peace#
What do you do when your wife drives you crazy? Asking for a friend Peace#
Licious and Tastic and Riffic are so cute—they’re scratching the Sacriphil albums I bought on eBay—but I can’t just sit here. Not tonight. I want to see you. I want to see what your marriage looks like when it’s imploding. I put on a hoodie and I pick up my binoculars and I’m out the door.
It’s cold in the woods and it’s dark in the woods and your windows are bright and I see you, Mary Kay. You’re turning the pages of a book and your rat walks into the room and you don’t look up. You flip him the bird and he slams the door and you are mine. You don’t love him anymore. You love me.
The blow comes out of nowhere.
Something hard hits the center of my back. Binoculars: Down. Me: Down. The blow comes again: A boot in my back and heavy breathing—my poor ribs—and then another kick. POW. I am on my side and I taste blood and another kick knocks me into a rock. Roots punish my back and the boot punishes my front and I know that boot. I’ve seen that boot. A heavy, militant-but-also-fuck-me Sorel.
In a wheeze, I get her name out of my mouth. “Melanda?”
12
“I knew it!” Melanda grips a pink can of pepper spray, pink as your mother’s Cadillac. “I knew you were a pervert the day we met,” she says. “Two words: Woody. Allen.”
Fuck. Fuck. “Melanda, no, this isn’t what you think.”
She grunts. “For the last fucking time, you don’t tell me what I think. I know what you’re doing, pervert.”
“You’re wrong. Let me… please listen to me.”
She grinds her big angry boot into my chest and there will be a bruise. “Aw, do you want me to listen to you, Joe? Are you gonna tell me you were out here bird-watching? Are you gonna tell me that you didn’t even know that Nomi lives in this house?”
Nomi. No. Not her. NO. I can’t breathe and I am the bird, dying in the dirt. “Melanda, this isn’t what you think.”
“He loves books! He adores film. And he does love birds. Birds as in teenage girls.”
My vocal cords freeze up on me. The boot. The lie. “No, Melanda. No, no, I was not looking at Nomi.”
“Don’t even try, pervert.” She presses a number on her phone and she thinks I’m a pervert and you don’t come back from a pedo accusation and I am not a fucking pedophile and Melanda may be skilled in the art of self-defense, but she has a lot to learn about offense. I grab her by the Sorel and I yank. Hard. She goes down and her phone goes down and I clamp my hand over her big vicious mouth. I pick up the closest rock.
Crunch.
* * *
I’m still shaking, Mary Kay. My attacker is locked up downstairs in my Whisper Room and this sort of shit isn’t supposed to happen in Cedar Fucking Cove. I moved here to be happy. I moved here to make peace, to find peace, and now my ribs are flaring, hot like McRibs.
My kittens are useless and clueless, meowing and playing like nothing ever happened—thanks, fuckers—and I pick up my phone with my trembling hand. I set up security cameras downstairs so that I have eyes on her, and she’s still asleep for now.
I didn’t ask to be tangled up in your Blues, Mary Kay. The situation is calm for now, but I can’t keep her here forever—she’s not a fucking cat—and I can’t let her go—and I don’t want to be the guy who killed your best friend. (Even though it would be self-defense if one thinks of the reputation as part of the self, which it is.)
At least I have her phone—thanks for the thumbprint access, Apple!—and I’m getting a Master’s in All Things Melanda. She’s been scheming to move to Minnesota to chase down the only decent guy she ever dated, so I informed the school that she was taking a leave to go out of town for some job interviews. They didn’t seem surprised—she fights with everyone at that school—and I had to give her an alibi, Mary Kay. We live in America and a single, relatively attractive woman can’t just “disappear,” because there’s nothing women love more than stories about missing women.
But she does have to go, Mary Kay. As it turns out, your “best friend” is a double agent. She’s always whining to you about her old friend Netty—they met on Melanda’s semester abroad—and you are supportive. But then she talks to Netty… about you. We have to end their toxic friendship—we can’t have Netty calling Interpol—so I send Netty a text from Melanda’s phone, a text meant for you.
So I’m horrible lol but once again I’m done with Netty. She’s whining about her birthday like she’s in sixth grade and it’s like Netty honey get a life you know lolol horrible I
know.
Netty got the message—oops!—and she snaps right back: I think this was meant for Mary Kay. Have a nice life. Block. Mute. Bye.
Netty unfollows Melanda in all the stupid places—that’s one achievement unlocked!—and she shares a passive-aggressive meme about fake friends and maybe I could do this for a living. Take your phone, fix your life.
My ribs are cooling off and in a sick way, I’m happy that Melanda came after me. See, Mary Kay, you never told me that we have an enemy in our midst. She’s been campaigning against me for weeks—I knew it—and you always defend me, and women are on guard when it comes to men—I get it—but never mind me, Mary Kay. You should see what she says about you. I screenshot one of the worst entries in her notepad app:
MK and those skirts honestly we get it you have legs lol and MK shows up with no call bc I live alone as if I have no life HELLO I HAVE A LIFE—and I know you love her, but this woman is not your Friend. This is why I don’t try too hard to keep up with Exclamation Point Ethan, Mary Kay, and this is why Friends is a lie.
Most people wouldn’t like their friends if they got into their phones.
You would want me to have empathy for Melanda, and okay. She does try to be a better person. She bought nine meditation apps—they’re not working—and you warn her that Alice & Olivia are like her drug dealers and she sends you excerpts of her food diary—NINE SAFEWAY DONUT HOLES I HATE EVERYONE BUT HATE ME THE MOST RIGHT NOW GRRRR FUCK YOU PATRIARCHY FUCK YOU SAFEWAY—and you rightfully tell her that she isn’t fat—fuck you, United States of Body Dysmorphia—but there’s a lot you don’t know, Mary Kay.
Would you still have empathy for Melanda if you knew that she manipulated two unpaid, uncredited interns into building her feminist incubator? That’s right, Mary Kay. Just ask the interns, Eileen and DeAnn. Your best friend doesn’t support other women. She erases them.
You Love Me Page 10