Obviously if he really was in a Springsteen kind of blue, in the grave of his mind, he wouldn’t have the energy to pontificate. He’s just in whiny dick mode. “Jay” texted him to check in and he was rude to “Jay”: No offense man, but someday if you have a family you’ll understand that family shit eats up the time. Peace out. I’m in the zone writing.
It worries me to think of you under the same roof as him, but you’re right. He’s the father of your Meerkat and these things do take time. And I didn’t kill him, Mary Kay. You love me so much that I don’t have to kill him. You chose to end it with him, and that’s why I’m lying low, why I just have to be patient and listen to you, to the sweet things you say to me all day. You’re selling your house and you’re talking to real estate agents and you’re using the D-word on a regular basis.
The irony is that Melanda was sort of right. We were holding each other back and who knows? If she never left… maybe I never would have gone through with a divorce.
I spoke to an attorney in the city. He thinks it’s gonna be quicker than that other woman I spoke to, and he had good candy.
I am yours and you brought me candy from the divorce attorney’s office and you left it in my backpack because once again, it’s a secret. All of it. Us. I pop the red-and-white old-school candy into my mouth and I don’t have a jacket—it’s getting warmer all the time, as if Mother Nature is so excited that she can’t sleep—and I head out the door and we have the night off—you have to see your Friends—but it’s a small island and I’m a restless man. With great sex comes energy so I go for a walk and I pass by Eleven and it’s not my fault that the place is all windows and it’s not my fault that our attraction is the invention of electricity and you see me. You catch my eye and wave and I wave and we don’t text—we are too good in person and we know what we have is special—so you have to wait until the next day to see me, to tell me what I did to you. You lean over your desk in your office.
“Buster…” That’s me. “When you walked by last night… it was like my body and my mind and my soul… I know I’m probably not supposed to say this to you but I have to say it because it’s all I can think about.”
I was right. This is an Everythingship. Not that we need a silly name for what we are. “I didn’t sleep a wink.”
You smile. “Oh come on. Yes you did. People always say that they didn’t sleep but everyone sleeps a little, at least a couple of hours.”
This is why I love you and I laugh. “Okay I was up most of the night, just sitting on my couch literally doing nothing but thinking about you…” Except for the part where I was listening to your husband’s show. “But I admit, four to six… that’s a little blurry. I might have slept some.”
You beam at me. “Good,” you say. “This is good because I slept a couple hours too, and, well, I like the idea of being in sync with you, Buster.”
It’s not my imagination. RIP Whitney and Eddie are sparkling for us—I windexed them for you—and you can’t touch me, not right now. You wave a hand—get back to work—and the day is long, it’s a sidewalk that will not fucking end—sorry, Shel—and the bass throbs in my head—Hare Mary, Hallelujah—because as it turns out, you are my true savior, the reason I’ll be in such great shape when my son comes to find me, the reason that for the first time in my fucking life, I feel excited about my future. Do good and you get good and the day ends and Oliver’s running out of wall space and you wish me a safe trip home as if there is any danger, as if anything could hurt me now.
Eventually, night falls.
I go for a walk up Madison and what a different world it is, knowing that we’ll be in that movie theater, at that diner, walking these streets until our bodies break down on us. I reach the library and take the steps to our love seat in the garden and whaddya know, Mary Kay. The door to the lowest level is open. You didn’t lock up. I walk into the library and there you are on the Red Bed, as promised.
Naked.
You want my hand on your neck and you want my other hand above your Murakami, not on it, not yet, and the silence is deafening, equal parts sex and love and after we finish we are mute. And then it’s time to play.
“Okay,” you begin. “We would need chain saws.”
“And a truck.”
“And a dolly.”
“A few dollies, Mary Kay. This thing is big.”
This is our plan. We’re going to steal the Red Bed. I squeeze you. “Do you know about secular hymns?”
You nuzzle your head into my chest and your hair is a scarf, a blanket, a godsend. “You mean songs about religion that aren’t quite about religion?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes, I know about secular hymns.”
“Well, I really like them. I think it’s because my parents were messed up about religion, a little Catholic, a little Jewish… and my whole life, music was the thing for me, the thing that made me feel connected to something larger, especially secular hymns, or songs that have that theme about the collapse into the dark and the climb back into the light, you know, where you remember that you can’t have the rise without the fall.”
You kiss me twice and then you speak into the hairs on my chest. “Hallelujah, Joe. I know exactly what you mean.”
I kiss you. “Being with you… it’s like it turns out that there really is a crescendo. And it isn’t just about sex…”
You hold on to me and you are perfect. “I know,” you say. “The sex is… yeah… but it’s like the magic is real, as if you really did pull a coin out of my ear.”
“I get it, Hannibal.”
Your hands are on my head, on my temples, and you purr. “Can I kidnap you and lock you in a basement, Clarice?”
“If you insist,” I say. “But a little hint. The best way to kidnap someone and lock them in a basement is to not give them a heads-up about your plan.”
You pinch my ears and I move my mouth along your body, down, down, down, where I pull a rabbit out of your hat, your Murakami, your soul.
30
You pulled it off. You took a “personal day”—I love that you didn’t call it a sick day—and you told me to be in the parking lot of Fort Ward at 11:00 A.M. We take separate cars—secret lovers—and I get here first—I wanted to make sure that RIP Melanda is still sleeping—she’s right where I left her—and it’s not the easiest way to start a romantic day in the woods, but when is anything good ever fucking easy?
I am leaning against Nomi’s dollhouse-roof shack when I see your car. The mere sight of you gets me going and I am wearing a backpack—I really am Cedar Cove Joe—and you were nervous that we would get caught but there are only two cars in the lot. One is a truck with a trailer—those people are out on their boat—and the other is a family truckster with Oregon plates. We are safe and you are in clothes that are new to me, there are stars on your tights—a galaxy in between them—and a long, soft black pullover, a mirror to my black sweater.
You say hello and you hear a branch snap and your pupils dilate but it was nothing, just the woods. You’re a little nervous—this makes sense—and I don’t take your hand—we’re in a parking lot—but I hold on to your eyes. “We’re okay,” I say. “And remember, if anyone does see us, we just bumped into each other on the trail.”
My words mean something to you and you nod. “Well, the bunkers are up the hill. But since you’re the first timer…” Hardly, my night with Melanda is unforgettable. “Do you want to take the long way or the short way?”
“What do you think, Mary Kay?”
You are red. Hot. In love. “Okay,” you say. “Long way it is.” You look up at the roof. “Nomi used to love this.”
“Right,” I say, wondering if the door is locked, if it would be too much for us to just go at it right here, in the shed. “She told me about that when we were doing the tech help session.”
“Come on,” you say, and you’re right, Mary Kay. We can’t have sex in a house that reminds you of your daughter and we are moving up the hill, on
the paved path, and I wonder if the blanket I brought is big enough and you blurt, “Hey, do you believe in heaven?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “Do you?”
“Sometimes,” you say. “It’s more like you lose someone, you want to think that they found something new, something they couldn’t find here, you know?”
I picture RIP Beck in a clean, well-kept home finally finishing a book and I see RIP Candace writing songs about how she would do it all differently and I smile. “I hear you,” I say. “I think heaven is a great idea.”
“Who did you lose?”
RIPCandaceBenjiPeachBeckHendersonFincherDelilah. “No one yet. I’m lucky that way.”
“Yeah,” you say. “But let’s get down to it. Do you believe there’s more than all this or do you think that when we die… that’s it?”
“What do you think?”
“No,” you say. “I’m not falling for that trick twice.”
You nudge me and you want to know me as badly as I want to know you. “Well, I think it’s like Santa Claus.”
“How so?”
“When I was a kid, I didn’t ‘believe’ in Santa because I knew no matter how many flyers I left out on the table with the G.I. Joes circled in red… I mean my mom flat-out said, You’re not playing with dolls.”
“Oh Jesus.”
I tell you that she was a piece of work and a crow flies overhead and I wonder if she’s dead. “The thing is,” I say. “I remember that moment, you know, when you’re starting to understand the world… and you see some kid at the playground and that kid’s actively trying to be good because that kid actually believes in Santa but then you see his mom and his snacks and his brand-new sneakers and it’s like… well of course that kid believes in Santa. Santa shows up at his house. He has reason to believe and I guess I always had reason to question things.”
You link your arm through mine. You don’t care about anyone seeing us, not anymore, and you don’t push me for all the gory details about my shitty childhood. You know that I need your warmth and you give that to me and then you sigh. “For me it was Glamour Gals.”
“I saw those dolls on your Instagram.”
I love that I can say this to you, that there’s no implication that I’m stalking you and this walking, this talking, this is my reward for being a good man even though the world wasn’t good to me when I was a boy. You’re telling me about Glamour Gals, the worst dolls you can imagine, no jobs, just ball gowns and big hair, and then your grip on my arm tightens.
“So here’s one nice thing about my husband.”
Ex-husband and this is our date not his but you are you. Always thinking. Always yeah. “What’s that?”
“Well, that shack with the roof. Nomi wanted it for Christmas and she wouldn’t let it go and we told her we can’t steal a roof and it was driving me nuts all month because I kept asking her what she wanted and it’s the roof the roof the roof and Phil’s kinda checked out all month but then Christmas morning, he drags this giant present out of our shed. I mean the man had never touched wrapping paper in his life… and there it was. Nomi’s roof. He had the grass, he even planted a few tiny flowers on it. And it wasn’t just a present for her, it was a present for me.”
My heart is turning white and it used to be red and this is our date and you’re staring at the sky when you should be staring at me and I can’t go back in time and build Nomi a fucking roof and she’s too old for that now and you take a deep breath. “Okay,” you say. “I know that was weird just now.”
“It’s not weird.”
But your arm isn’t linked through mine. You stop walking and you’re stiff. You’re going to tell me you can’t leave him because of one nice fucking thing he did a hundred fucking years ago on a holiday, which doesn’t even count because everyone gets off on doing nice things on holidays, glorified fucking Sundays when men get trophies for emptying the dishwasher or building a dollhouse as if one good deed makes up for being an INVISIBLE NONPRESENT SELFISH DRUGGED-UP ASSHOLE every other day of the goddamn year.
But then you take my hands. “Joe, I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist.”
You pretended I didn’t exist. “I know that.”
“And I don’t want to make him out to be the bad guy or anything.”
He is. “Absolutely.”
“And I don’t want to check myself every time I think about him because… you know, one of these days… in theory… you’ll meet him.”
Already did! “I know.”
My heart is pounding and RIP Melanda is in the Whisper Room in the sky and your husband is not. He really is here and I really will have to meet him and I really do need to tell you that I already did meet him and at least, if I tell you right now, you can’t run away because we’re alone in the woods, on a trail.
“And all my stories, well this is the weird thing about us. I made up this other version of myself the first time we talked on the phone, when I talked about me and Nomi, about our life… I erased him. But most of my adult life… he was there or he was nearby. He’s a part of all my stories and I don’t want to lie to you anymore. And I don’t want you to shut down on me every time I say his name.”
Most marriages end in divorce and most women don’t want to praise their vile ex-husbands, but you’re not most women. You’re sensitive. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mary Kay. You guys have a lot of history together and I get it.”
You kiss me. “You are fucking amazing, Joe Goldberg.”
Yes I am! Phil ruined enough already and this day is ours and we’re walking again, lighter on our feet and I smack your ass and you jump. You liked it. I tease you that this is hardly what I’d call a hike, and you tell me the hill is gonna get steeper and I tell you I don’t believe you and you’re flirting up a storm and then my phone buzzes. Fucking Oliver.
You glare at me. “Come on, really?”
“It will only take a second.”
“I turned off my phone before I got out of the car, Joe.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, that’s why I like to hike because for me, you turn off the devices and are just in the moment, you know?”
I turn off my phone and you smile—good—but then you pull a Polaroid camera out of your purse and I tell you that you’re cheating but you are a sly fox. “This is different,” you say. “It’s not a communication device. Say cheese.”
I hate having my picture taken and Melanda is in the trough in the backdrop and the world is full of murder podcast people who want to think the worst of people and I see a headline from hell. ACCUSED MURDERER SAYS CHEESE IN FRONT OF THE SPOT WHERE HE BURIED LOCAL FEMINIST.
But I didn’t fucking kill her, I really didn’t, and you snap a picture and whistle. “Now, that was a real smile.”
Life is for the living—it’s a well-known fact—and on we go, and you are my tour guide, telling me about the origins of the bunkers that are right around the bend. “They built a base here over a hundred years ago. It was the last line of defense for the Bremerton naval shipyard.”
“Pressure much?”
You smile like a teacher intent on finishing her lecture. “This was a lookout and soldiers watched for any warships entering the sound. And then it was a camp for needy kids…” And then it was a place for us to fuck. “And then it was a camp for sailors…”
You glimmer at me the way you did that day when you were pushing Murakami on that old man and I want school to end. Now. “You really know your Fort Ward, Mary Kay.”
“No questions just yet,” you say. “See, it really gets interesting in 1939. This was a radio base where they intercepted messages about the war, trying to protect us from an attack… but then they shut all that down in the fifties.” You scratch your head in your head but you make eye contact to make sure that I’m in there too. And I am. “Well,” you say. “That concludes my lecture but I just… I love it here because it reminds you of how things change and don’t change all at once. I mean look at these fucking bunkers
!”
You jump onto a step and I join you and I do what you want. I look at these fucking bunkers. “They’re still here,” I say.
“Yeah,” you say. “Bunker rhymes with hunker, you know? That’s what I thought for a long time, that I had to be like those soldiers, you know? Hunker down in the bunker in case something bad happens and well… here we are.”
I kiss you but you deflect and grab my hand like we’re in high school and you just have to show me your favorite graffiti—GOD KILLS EVERYONE—and I cringe at the big brown poop emoji and you don’t like that either and you show me what you do like, the lower levels of the bunkers, and I squeeze your hand and you squeeze right back. “I knew you’d get it.”
“Well of course I get it. I get you.”
There is no more getting Closer. Finally we are there. Here. The sidewalk ended and the pavement gave way to dirt and your hair went from a bun to a ponytail to a mane that runs down your back and you lead me down steep, deep steps into a little square cave and it’s a filthy, musty, rectangular hole in the ground and you pull off your black sweater and sigh.
“Well, City Boy, tell me there’s a blanket in that backpack.”
* * *
We did it.
Your favorite place is now my favorite place and we’ve had sex in the bunker at Fort Ward and we feasted on beef and broccoli—I came prepared—and we passed out and woke up and did it again and went back to sleep and the floor is fucking concrete and isn’t that how you know you’re in love?
You Love Me Page 24