* * *
Two hours later, I’m sitting on a picnic table in the woods by the dock when your rat’s jalopy comes into view. He gets out of the car, more puffed up than he’s been in a while.
“Jay,” he says. “It’s your lucky day. Where’s your buddy at?”
“Oh shit,” I say. “I should have texted you but my buddy had to go meet up with some chick he met in the airport.”
He is a deflated balloon—the poor fucker just tweeted about how much he loves to surprise his Philistans. He lights a Marlboro Red. “No big whoop,” he says. “Good to get out of the house.” He leans against a tree by my table. That’s Phil. Always leaning. “You been good?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Some shit went down with my mom, but it’s all good.”
Phil feels so sorry for himself right now. He drove here ready to dazzle a fan and now he has to listen to me talk about my mother. Ha. He has no choice but to ask me what happened.
“Oh shit,” I say. “I don’t know where to begin…”
“Women stuff?”
I nod and he snorts. “Try living with one.”
Bingo. “Hard times with the wife?”
“I’m in a fight for my life. It’s the kinda shit you can only understand if you’ve been married for twenty years…” Typical narcissist. “We’re doing it, ya know, we’re in counseling, we’ve both made some mistakes but tonight… tonight my boys are in town.”
“No shit? Where?”
He withholds the details. For now. “Point I’m trying to make… see my boys mean something to me, man. And my wife is acting like she’s my mother… They do that. They get mixed up in their heads.”
“Jesus. She won’t let you go see the guys?”
“She wants me to watch a movie with her. Says I have to. I been a bad boy…”
“Oh come on,” I say. “She married a bad boy.”
He smiles. “This is true.”
“I don’t know shit about marriage…” Yes I fucking do. “But to me, a marriage is kinda like a guitar, right? You need tension in those strings or you can’t make any music.”
Phil blows a smoke ring. “The protégé makes a good point, yes he does.”
I keep going, Mary Kay. I tell him that you want him to fight back, to be more like the rebel she married. He flicks his cigarette in the woods—such a fucking asshole—and the suspense might kill me. He blows a smoke ring.
“So,” he says. “How’d ya like to meet the band?”
* * *
A couple hours later, Phil and I are in the city. Free men. Ready to rage.
He lights a cigarette and I check my inside pocket for my Rachael Ray knife. Of course I brought a weapon. This is the city and as we all know, cities are not Cedar Fucking Cove.
He has to check in with Ready Freddy to make sure I’m good to get in and I check up on you. You’re making an Instagram story about getting ready for #DateNight—the denial is disturbing—and you’re dressing up like Winona Ryder in a flowery sack dress—not your look—and Phil finishes up his call with Ready Freddy and sighs.
“Jesus. She’s still bugging me about this fucking movie night.”
“Did you tell her you’re not going?”
“I told her I’m in a meeting,” he says. “She should know better than to bug me.”
We get into an Uber—I order the car, as if it’s my honor—and he’s lecturing the driver about music—Huh, I’ve never heard of “Drake”—and the driver will be right to give me a shitty rating. I make sure my phone is on mute and watch a new scene in your Instagram story. You changed into a Red Bed red T-shirt and pajama pants. Psychic Hotline Depressed Winona. You look scared. Defeated. You know he’s not coming to play husband. Why don’t you just give up?
Phil groans. “Another text. Jesus, woman, lay off.”
I keep my mouth shut and Phil whistles at the driver. “Hey man,” he says. “We’re gonna jump out right here.”
We’re two blocks away from the bar and we’re on the sidewalk and Phil tells me to stop.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I just gotta make a quick call.”
He leans against a building and he can’t call you right now, in front of me. I’ve managed to keep my life with Phil separate from our life and that’s no easy thing in Cedar Fucking Cove. If he puts me on the phone to back up whatever bullshit story he’s got planned, we die. He’s praying—don’t pick up don’t pick up—and I am on his side for once—don’t pick up, don’t pick up—and he bounces in his boots. “Voicemail!”
He lights a cigarette and he’s a hands-free smoker. “Hey, Em, so listen. My sponsor thinks it’s not a good move for me to go on the date night thing. The therapy we’re doing is great, but it’s a lot on me.” He’s not a musician, Mary Kay. He’s an actor. “I’m in the weeds and it’s not about the boys. I just can’t do a big-ass night with book people… I love you, Em. I just… I can’t be your guy. Not tonight.” And then he winks at me. “And come on. You said it. It’s just one night. You know if I’m not sober, I’m nothing. Dresser gets done tomorrow, I swear. Love ya, babe.”
It’s a miracle that I don’t throw up on the sidewalk and we walk to the Tractor Tavern and it’s not what I expected but it’s what I should have expected. The goons at the door are right out of central casting and they need dental surgery and you can feel them hoping they get to bust out the pepper spray. There’s a poster that makes big promises—ALL religions. ALL countries of origin. ALL sexual orientations. ALL genders. We stand by you and YOU ARE SAFE HERE—and I bet these guys piss on that sign every night.
“All right,” Phil says. “Lemme do some business first. You’ll meet the guys after they jam. You don’t wanna meet them now, when they’re all nervous and shit.”
I happily hide by the bar like a shy fan boy and Phil’s boys are not happy to see him. This isn’t even a real concert, it’s a glorified open mic, but the way they suck up the oxygen makes me want to jump on the bar and scream YOU ARE NOT WARREN ZEVON NOT ONE OF YOU. My phone pings. You added to your story and the story is a sad one. Reality Bites is a bust. Only four couples showed up—three Mothballs and one we-just-moved-here newlyweds—and none of them are in costume and there you are in a sleeveless red T-shirt, stuck in the movie without Ben Stiller, without Troy. And you know what? Fuck the fecal-eyed multigenerational family and fuck the knit skullcap couple too because how dare they do this to you?
Your rat is begging his boys not to go onstage—You’re gonna ruin our name, the acoustics are shit—and Ready Freddy is mute and Little Tony does all the talking—Nothing’s ever gonna be perfect—and the three of them remind me of my kittens. Our kittens.
The boys head backstage to warm up and Phil whistles at me like I’m a dog. I obey and follow him toward the stage as he mutters about how the show is gonna suck. One band leads to another band and you’ve gone silent in your stories and it’s crowded. It’s loud. I read Killing Eve and I saw Killing Eve and I could stab your rat with Rachael Ray right here on the dance floor but if I did that, the management would have to take down the sign that promises safety inside. I’m not heartless. I don’t want the Tractor staff to suffer for Phil’s crimes.
He elbows me and screams into my ear. “See that bass player dancing? Fuckin’ A, man. Never trust a bass player who sways his hips. You feel the music in your hands, not your hips.”
I check my phone. No more scenes in your story and you really did give up. I bet you’re home by now, crying as you pack his trash bags and throw them out the window. I deserve a fucking break so I tell him I need a drink and fight my way through the crowd.
The bartender screams in my face. “Whaddya want?”
He takes my card and I order a vodka soda and he’s slow and the glasses are plastic and I look up and no. No.
It’s you.
You’re here. Less than twenty feet away in your costume and my plan backfired. The rat will want you to meet his fan boy and the bartender has my
credit card and you are hugging Little Tony and the band is covering “One.”
I did all of this for you and you came here to forgive that fucking rat and now you turn around and, Shit, Mary Kay. Do you see me?
28
You didn’t see me. Right? Right.
I slipped out the door and caught an Uber to a ferry and I made it home and I took care of myself because no one takes care of me. Now I blast the U2 song on repeat on my sound system—sorry, cats, but Dad needs this right now—and I sit in the shower in a ball of nudity, like David Foster Wallace in the asylum except nobody’s watching me because I’m not special. I’m not a writer and I’m not a rock star and I saw a side of you I’ve never seen until tonight. You love being with the band. You’re probably mounting your rat right now and I put on my pants and I throw on a T-shirt—Nirvana—and you “worry” about becoming your mother? Well, I am my mother, blasting my music and slamming cabinets and wiping my hands on Kurt Cobain’s face.
You think Phil is special? Well, I am not a rock star. But I am special. I’m special because I actually take responsibility for my actions. I don’t live my life on a wagon and make you think it’s your fault every time I fall off. I’m special because I’ve never even done a line of cocaine, let alone heroin, and if you knew anything about my fucking childhood, you’d know that I’m the special one. Not him. Me.
You are changing in my mind and it hurts but I can’t stop it. Even your office looks different to me now. You sit in there and look at pictures of Whitney Houston—Buried—and Eddie Vedder—Married—because you like to love “special” people from afar. I was your star—Volunteer of the Month—and I was your rock—Fiction Specialist—and how come I don’t know how to make you see that I am the special one?
You just don’t love me, do you? I keep seeing you in that bar, hugging Phil’s boys.
I’m not a star and I’m not your star and my doorbell rings—fuck you, Oliver—and I ignore it so now the asshole is pounding on my door and he has some nerve and I will knock his materialistic head off—fuck it, you don’t love me, why bother trying to be good?—and I open the door and it’s not Oliver.
It’s you.
Bono wonders aloud if he asked too much and you tossed your Winona Red Bed T-shirt costume—you’re back in your trademark tights—and your arms are two bare branches, no leaves. You’re here. Did you see me at the Tractor and am I about to get run over, bitten by reality, and why aren’t you saying anything and what do I do and then you open your mouth.
“It’s over, Joe. I did it. It’s done.”
I can’t speak. I just said goodbye to you because you went to Phil but now you changed your mind. You’ve come to me. You throw your arms around me and I lift you up and your legs are vines growing into me, onto me, and the recording of this song is bombastic. Live. There are strings in an orchestra, superior to guitars, and it is opera, it is rock, it is you, loving me with your whole body, not just your fox eyes but your paws and your toes and your fingernails and your lips—both sets—shoes are off, tights are shredded—and I deliver you to the Red Bed and this time there is no hesitation. No boundary. No sit.
This is your one life and we are one and you are my soulmate, wet and warm, and I am inside of you, reborn. I shake, you shake, and we are virgins who know what we’re doing, we are teenagers in a car—there is steam on the windows all around us—and your Murakami is below and then it is on top and I am a boy and I am a man and you are a girl and you are a woman. We are reverberating, multiplying—you are coming, oh this is a big one—and you are special—you know how to touch me—Oh God, Joe, Oh God—and I am special—you taught me how to touch you—and then we finish.
“Oh God,” you say. “Oh God, Joe.”
We are alive and dead and you just keep saying the magic words—Oh God, Joe. Oh God—as you tell me you felt me in your toes and your eyeballs and the hairs in your nostrils and in the lining of your stomach and you are funny and gross and it just comes out. I can’t help it. “I love you, Mary Kay.”
You don’t miss a beat. “I love you, Joe.”
The L-words drag us down. Heavy as the music, the music that makes it okay for us to be wordless and I can’t tell if that’s your heart or my heart and I know you love me and I know I love you but it didn’t need to be said. The kittens know we’re finished and they’re making the room theirs again. You laugh and blow a kiss to your favorite and you roll into me and your eyelids hit mine. Your nose too. You’re so close that I can’t see, that I can see. You aren’t getting Closer anymore. You are closest.
“Joe.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. We can forget I said it. We can… we can not say it.”
You wrap me up in your branches and you say there is no need to be sorry and you kiss my hair, you kiss my head, and you say you wish you could reach inside my body and kiss my liver and my kidneys, and I squeeze your ass—you are my own little Hannibal Lecter and you laugh—you are sick—and I laugh—Okay, Hannibal—and you tell me you wanted Hannibal and Clarice to get together and I tell you I did too and you sigh. “I wish I could understand why Nomi can’t let go of Klebold.”
“Do you remember when it started?”
You sigh. “Maybe it’s because I used to joke that Hannibal Lecter is my book boyfriend, which is evidence for my Worst Mother Ever award… In the middle of the night I get fired up… I’m gonna drag her to a therapist, gonna full-on intervene. But in the morning, I don’t have that urgency… I should probably do something but I just want it to go away on its own.”
“It will,” I say. “Don’t forget that she’s yours. You made her…” Same way I made my son. “And you’re right to trust the day. Nights make everything worse.”
You tell me I’d be a good dad and I am a good dad and you laugh. “Wait… is this song on repeat?”
You love me so much you didn’t notice the music until now and I tell you I’m weird and you tell me I’m passionate.
The song ends and it begins again, and the audience cheers and it sounds like a hundred candles lit in the dark and the solo twang of the instrument leads to more cheers and the people in the audience sing along and we sing along too, in our own way, with our bodies, our bodies that we already know by heart.
29
We are three and a half weeks into our show: The Office: NC-17. XXX. I am on my hands and knees and I am wiping down the Red Bed and you are ten feet away, clothed. Tights on. Professional. But that’s not how you were last night!
Oh, Mary Kay, I read about this kind of sex and I thought I had had this kind of sex but I was wrong. Your Murakami is my favorite place on the planet. Your buns have given way to ponytails—you had to do something to express the new love in your life—and we are a secret for now and there is nothing more fun in this world than a really good, juicy fucking secret.
I walk outside to go to Starbucks and Oliver is on my tail. A buzzkill. A housefly.
“FYI,” he says. “It’s illegal to fornicate in a public library.”
I don’t kiss and tell and I don’t fuck and tell but Oliver is no dummy. We all know when our friends are getting laid. “So call the cops, Oliver. Or arrest me. Can you do that? Or is that just some Police Academy bullshit?”
He stops walking. “She has a husband.”
“And he slept with her best friend.” Oliver is an Angeleno so this doesn’t land the way it should. “He slept with her for ten-plus years.”
“Yikes,” he says. “And the kid? Does the kid know?”
“About the affair? Hell no. Oliver, it’s fine. They’ve had problems for years. The kid’s on her way to college…” It’s really hitting me, Mary Kay. Spring has sprung—it’s drizzling but the rain has purpose, flowers are blooming, and we really are on our way.
“If he loses his shit and kills you…”
“He’s not that type of guy. And the woman he had the affair with… well, you’ve seen her. Sort of.”
Once in a while I like to remind Ol
iver that he knows where a woman is buried and it’s like those cartoons where you can see his blood pressure rising and then he coughs. He shifts. He tries to be the boss of me. “You say this, but I listened to this Sacriphil stuff, my friend, and there’s a lotta violence in there.”
“Exactly, he’s a musician. He has drug issues. He beats himself up, not anyone else.”
Oliver yawns. “All right,” he says. “I sent you some Eames chairs.”
“How many fucking chairs can you fit in that place?”
He’s placated and I carry on to Starbucks and I buy his stupid chairs and I buy myself a Frappufuckingccino because it’s all finally happening. Your rat has moved into your junk room, where he sleeps on a futon—he doesn’t even get a mattress but then he did fuck your best friend—and we have to take baby steps because of the Meerkat but soon you and the rat will be like Billy Joel’s Brenda and Eddie: divorced!
You really are getting a divorce as a matter of course and it begins with an indoor separation, behind closed doors so that Nomi can get used to the idea of you two moving apart. You’re feeling good about it because Nomi is doing better—She says she saw it coming and I guess in a way she’s lucky because with my parents, I was floored—and I’m so happy for you and the Meerkat, for us.
Naturally, Phil isn’t being a very good sport. You told him that you can’t forgive him for bailing on you that night and he’s Philin’ the Blues in a major way. Last night, he spent the whole show ranting about how Courtney Love should be behind bars because she murdered Kurt Cobain because he knows better than to lash out at you and even the Philistans who called in were annoyed.
Phil, man, just play some damn music.
Phil man, you know you’d be up there with Nirvana if the world was a fair place. Can you play “Sharp Six”?
Phil, man, when are we gonna get a new album?
He ignored the requests and degraded himself further, accosting Eric Crapton for writing about “Tears in Heaven” as if the only hell on Earth is losing a child, as if the pansy’s ever been to heaven. Oh, you should have heard him, Mary Kay. “I have a daughter, man, and don’t get me wrong. I’d die if something happened to my kid, man, if someone harmed her… but Eric Clapton walks around like he cornered the market on sorrow and no he didn’t… the guy’s still going! Still living! Got a wife and a big rehab resort in the Bahamas or some shit and let me tell you a little something about the blues, man. The blues are blue. Not blue as in the Bahamas. They’re midnight, man. Real blues shut you down and shut you up. Trust me, I know.”
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