You’ve practically crawled into the Subzero and I bet you’re thinking about Benji and it’s not in the way that I’m thinking about Benji and you emerge with your glass—red now, you chose cranberry juice, you choose me. And at long last, you correct her, you tell her I am Joe, not Joseph and I thank you as I raise my glass even higher because I can give her what she wants now that you’ve corrected her, now that you’ve picked sides.
“To you, Peach,” I say in the deferent voice I reserve for persnickety older ladies. “For schooling me on my favorite movie.”
She looks at you. You shrug like, yeah he’s that good, and she looks at me. I sweeten the deal. “In all seriousness, Peach, I could pick your brain for hours. I love Woody Allen.”
She doesn’t sip after the toast and she sighs. “Okay that’s one good thing about college. Staying up all night and talking about movies. You would have loved it, Joseph.”
Instead of punching her in the face, I raise my glass for another toast. She stares down into her asshole sangria and asks you if you told Chana that some guy Leonard is here. You step away from me to hunt for your phone. You’re sorry again and Peach forgives and this party is never going to end, ever. You are too tipsy to text and you growl in frustration.
Peach raises one eyebrow and she probably learned how to do that the summer her parents undoubtedly shipped her off to Stagedoor Manor Acting Camp, hoping that she might flower into Gwyneth Paltrow, the same summer she perfected the art of bulimia and learned how to insult people like me.
And then I look at you and what’s this? You’re cradling your phone in your hands and smiling. I have to know what has captivated you and Peach doesn’t exist anymore. Nobody does. When I stand behind you and look down into your phone, I see a clip from Hannah and Her Sisters, the part where Woody’s character goes to a Marx Brothers movie. It was all worth it and I put my hands on your shoulders. We watch the rest of the scene together and God bless Groucho Marx.
WHEN we get into the elevator at the end of the night that threatens to never end, you don’t wait until the doors are closed. Ever since I caught you watching my Hannah, you have wanted to be closer to me. And now, you are. I haven’t even pushed the button when you drop your purse to the floor. You pull my face to yours and hold me. You pause. You drive me crazy and then. And then. Your lips were made for mine, Beck. You are the reason I have a mouth, a heart. You kiss me when people can still see us, when we can still hear Bobby Short—I’m in love again, and I love, love, love it—because you made Peach play the soundtrack from Hannah and Her Sisters because you want to know what I know and hear what I like to hear. Your tongue tastes like cranberries, not like club soda, not anymore anyway. When the elevator doors close and we’re alone, you start to pull away. But I pull your hair and bring your mouth to mine. I know how to leave you wanting more. And I do.
13
I fucked up. The day after our date, I left you a voice mail asking to take you to a movie at the Angelika. Fucking amateur. You responded with a text two hours later:
Already saw it actually and still hungover kind of and have so much writing to do. But see you soon!
In truth, you hadn’t seen the movie and you weren’t hungover and you weren’t writing, unless by “writing” you mean e-mailing your friends about Benji.
Fucking Benji.
I look at my phone and it’s been fifteen hours and two long days since we kissed. You told Chana and Lynn that you’re not “ready” for me because you have “Benji Brain.” I can’t kill Benji until you kill Benji and I try to stay calm. I’ve spent two days selling books, minding Benji, and remembering our kiss, our kiss. You described it to Lynn and Chana:
Joe is really intense. I don’t know, he’s a maybe. . . . Anyway, do you guys think I should write to Benji?
Your maybe hurt worse than Benji and there was nothing maybe about our kiss. I win the case every time I go over it in my head: You like my hair. You said so in the cab. You grabbed on to me, Beck. You weren’t drunk. You find me intense and that’s a compliment. It is. I try to be calm. I won’t achieve definite status until you have the honor of receiving my cock. But this morning I woke up to this tweet from you:
That day when you can’t not go to IKEA anymore. #procrastinationation #brokenbed
I kicked one of my typewriters. How could you send #brokenbed into the world knowing that I would see it? Are you trying to drive me nuts? Chana wrote to you right away:
Broken bed. WTF?
You wrote back:
Not broken, just old and creaky. I figure some dude is more likely to help me if it’s broken, right? Would you want to help if I made you dinner or something?
Chana didn’t respond. You e-mailed a few guys on Craigslist who assemble furniture for cash:
Do you go to IKEA and bring stuff back to NYC or do you only assemble stuff?
Upon learning that assemblymen do not double as slaves, you reached out to me:
Do you like Ikea? Hint hint.
It goes without saying that I don’t like IKEA. But of course I wrote back:
Love it actually. Go there every day. Why?
It’s not romantic and it’s a daylight date but I understand that your attraction to me is so intense that you need to keep a safe distance. That’s why you wrote back:
Want to get on the boat with me? There will be meatballs.
Meatballs is a sexless word and the boat is actually a ferry that goes to IKEA. Furniture shopping is a thankless task but you murmured I like you about a thousand times in the cab after Peach’s party and those murmurings trump whatever bullshit you spew to your friends on Twitter. I wrote back:
No meatballs required, but I’ll get on a boat with you.
So this afternoon, you and I will go to IKEA, where there will be no chance of us having sex. I know how you girls operate and I know the three-date rule and all that shit. But I also know for a fact that we have a bigger obstacle between us: Benji. After you invited me to IKEA, you e-mailed Lynn and Chana and told them to look at Benji’s Twitter:
Scary, right? I’m worried about him.
I’m obviously not doing a good job with the Benji tweets. They’re supposed to turn you off but you still care and Lynn and Chana tell you to stop:
Lynn: Beck . . . it’s okay to get dumped. It happens.
Chana: I’m sure he’s on a yacht in St. Barts with some art whore telling her how worried he is about you. Honestly, B, you’re starting to make me think that Peach is right. And it’s awful to think that Peach is right. But you need to let. Him. Go.
They’re right, but you love hard and it’s my fault that you’re jammed up like this and I promise to do better with the tweets. You deserve to cut the cord with Benji. And you can’t very well fall for me if you’re worrying about him.
I have a heart just like you, so I splurge. I gather some of Princess Benji’s favorite things: a vegan burrito, a soy latte, a pint of fake ice cream, and the New York Observer. He responds well, grateful, and he’s inhaling that burrito like an animal and mourning the loss of Lou Reed.
“He’s the reason I did so many good things and so many bad things.”
“What’s your favorite song?”
“They’re all equally vital, Joe,” he lectures. “You can’t break down an artist’s impact on the culture by citing specific songs or lyrics. It isn’t about favorites. It’s about the value of his entire oeuvre.”
Typical, and I’m ready to send his last tweet as he licks the lid of the pint. He’s perpetually ravenous. There’s emptiness in him that can never be filled, emptiness that dresses up well at prep school, where a lack of willpower is called creativity. I tune him out and tweet for him:
Smoked it to the filter, licked it to the bone. #gotcrack #gotmeth #aintgotnothingatall #LouReedRIP
I hit TWEET. It’s too quiet. I look into the cage and fuck me if Benji didn’t get into his stash while I had my head buried in his phone. His packets are on the floor next to his card. I call out,
“Benji.”
Nothing. This isn’t a part of my plan. I walk up to the cage. I call again but he doesn’t move. There’s powder on his upper lip and drugs have never looked so unglamorous. I know he’s been taking a line here and there. But I’ve ignored it all because I hate drugs. I have never done drugs. Is this my punishment for being drug free? I wish I could take a picture and send it to you so that you could see what Benji boils down to, but I can’t. Finally, he comes to and I’m so relieved that he’s alive that I could kill him, which feels clichéd as all fuck and I raise a fist.
“Okay,” he says and he shakes. “Benji out. Kill Benji.”
“Quit the dramatics,” I say. “I’m not in the mood.”
And I’m not. It’s not like I enjoy having to put somebody to sleep, even when said somebody is so lacking in courage and imagination that he needs to fill himself up with drugs at the very moment when he should be fighting for his life.
“Did you kill me yet?”
“Eat your fucking ice cream.”
“It’s not ice cream.” He laughs. “It’s nondairy.”
I roar, “Shut up and eat!”
He laughs and it’s called smack because I want to smack him, with his arms flailing. He’s licking the pint of not-ice-cream like the junkie he is. And this is what you love, Beck? He picks up the Observer and tries to tear it in half but he’s too fucked up and he staggers to his feet.
“Sit down, Benji.”
“Did you kill me yet?”
He is a zombie and a cripple and he is talking again. “Joe, my man. Come on. You don’t think it’s funny? This girl stalks me for like a hundred years and now here I sit. Dead! Because you’re stalking her!”
“Nobody’s a stalker.”
“Except you, Joe,” he snips. “You know, I have nothing to do in here but think. And I get it. You didn’t happen upon her in the subway that night. And honestly, if you want her that bad, if you really, really don’t want to believe me when I tell you that she’s crazy. Fine.”
“Fine.”
He groans, again, and it’s typical of a guy like Benji to accuse you of being a stalker. I hear pinheads all over the city bragging about being “stalked” by girls and what a joke, right, Beck? Like any man could ever be troubled by your interest, let alone threatened. Stalker. What bullshit. What infantilism. I turn to go. But he calls out, “Wait.”
He crawls to the cage and drops his plastic key card from his drug kit. “Take it.”
“Why?”
“Storage locker,” he says. “I’m a klepto, Joe.”
“I’ve got things to do.”
“That key opens the locker,” he says, desperate. “The address is on the back. And nobody knows about it. I’m Stephen Crane.”
“You’re not Stephen Crane.”
“I am to the guy who rented me the locker.” He smiles, fucking heroin. “The Red Badge of Courage. That’s the one book on that list that I read.”
Of course that’s the only book he read. Guys like Benji do all their homework in middle school so they never have to try again.
“Take all of it, Joe. Sell it. Pawn it. Do it.” He’s whimpering and I can imagine him at Disneyland, throwing a fit about the heat. “Please, Joe. There’s a ton, Joe. I started stealing when I could walk. Just ask my parents. Hi, Mummy.”
He nods off and he better not die. I care about him because you care about him and I want him to die honorably, when the time is right. I don’t want him to die high, pissing his pants, giving his shit away. There are two more bags that flew out of the blazer and I have to go in and get them so he doesn’t overdose while we’re at IKEA. He starts to sing again, and the colored girls go do do do. I hit the cage with my machete. “Stop.”
“Joe Joe mad.” He drools and his words are melted butter, like his brain.
You text:
You ready soon?
I don’t know what to say to you and he is eyeing me, amused. “She’s not worth it.”
I text you:
I need an hour, work is tough.
He pulls an electronic cigarette from that fucking blazer and whistles and somehow I’m the one caged. “She’s crazy, Joe.”
I tell him he’s high, but my voice is weak. He pulls hard on that fake cigarette, an addict to the bone. He is the storyteller and I am the listener and I could smash my machete into my foot and that wouldn’t change things.
“Wanna know about Beck?” he says and he doesn’t make me say yes. “I’ll tell you about Beck. All she wants is money. A rich dude, anyone. My senior year, she showed up at my place and pretended she was a maid. I knew she wasn’t the maid, obviously, but I let her in. And I didn’t ask her to suck my dick, Joe. Same way I didn’t ask her to scrub the toilet. But she did.”
“You’re high,” I say but I sound even less convinced, pathetic.
He cackles. “Well, shit, Joe. Of course I’m high.”
I try to erase the image of you sucking his dick and I can’t. “If she cares about money so much then why is she all over me to go out today?”
“Today?” He laughs again. Fuck. “That’s cold, Joe. She won’t even give you a night.”
He’s a bird soaring in the cage and Mr. Mooney was wrong. The bird that thinks it’s flying really is happy. He hates you and you love him and everything is wrong. I’m standing and I don’t mean to be and he’s still flat on his back, the fucker.
“The date is today because we’re going to IKEA to get her a new bed,” I say and fuck him once and for all.
He stares at me. Nothing. But then he writhes like a dog in the sun and laughs. “She did the same thing to me, rode my dick all night. Then she went off about the stupid fucking red ladle and tried to get me to go to IKEA.”
I don’t know about a stupid ladle and you’re texting:
See you in forty-five
You didn’t ride my dick all night and Benji is imitating you: “Take me to IKEEEEEAAA, Benji. Pretty please with red ladles on top.” He laughs and groans and he’s not imitating you anymore. “If she wants to get spanked with a ladle, she should find some creep on the Internet, you know?”
No matter what I do or how hard I try I will always wind up like this, trapped by a guy who has more, knows more. I will not let him win. I unlock the cage and he tries to escape. I kick him into the corner like the dog that he is, pick up his leftover drugs off the floor, and flush them down the toilet. I thank him for the crap in his locker and he cries and I feel better already. I was wrong. I am the one in charge. He may have the red ladle, but I have the key.
14
YOU haven’t been able to wipe the shit-eating grin off your face since you put your hand on mine to insist on paying for the IKEA ferry tickets. You look prissy in white jeans I’ve never seen before, jeans that tell me you’re not breaking a sweat today. You’re in flip-flops and your toenails sparkle and your hair is in a bun and you don’t have any hickeys, so there’s that. You are “thrilled” that I am “up for a jaunt” and you promise to make it fun and you better try your damnedest because the whole time you’re talking to me, I’m just seeing your mouth as an orifice for Benji’s cock and I’m thinking of the way you joked with your friends in your e-mail:
You: Joe is a go. Slave for a day. Score one for Beck!
Chana: LOL you know you have to blow him or give him a handy.
You: No no he’s not assembling, just going with.
Lynn: Do you think if you asked him he would install my AC unit?
Chana: Lynn, are you offering to blow Joe?
Lynn: You’re disgusting.
You: Nobody is blowing anybody. Trust me.
WE meet at the docks and kiss hello like platonic European friends or some shit. At least once we get on the boat and sit down we are close. You wrap your arm through mine. I can’t tell if you’re cold or hot and you smile.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been to IKEA,” you say.
“And I can’t believe you have.”
“Oh
, I love it there,” you say and you’re leaning into me more. “Wait until you see it, all these little staged rooms. You just walk from one living room to another living room and you can’t leave without going through the entire store. There’s something magical about it. Do I sound crazy?”
“No,” I say and you don’t. “I’m the same way about the bookshop. You know, I walk around and I feel like the whole world is in there, the most important stories of all time. And then downstairs, in the cage.”
“Excuse me. Did you say, the cage?”
“Rare books, Beck. Gotta keep ’em safe.”
“I guess I hear cage and I think animal.”
Benji’s probably awake by now and the air feels good out here. “Nah, it’s like a casino. They keep the money in a cage.”
“What is it about stores?”
“Huh.”
“You like selling stuff and I am full on addicted to buying stuff in the most stereotypically girly way. I love to shop. I mean I can be in the worst mood and I go to IKEA and come out of there with . . .” You pause and is this it? Red ladle red ladle red ladle. “I come out of there with a couple of place mats, and I feel renewed.”
Fuck. “That’s good, that’s a good way to feel.”
Maybe if I share an object with you, maybe then you’ll share the ladle with me. I take the AC remote out of my pocket and I remember fantasizing about this moment before I had you. You look at it and you don’t touch it and I tell you that you can touch it and you take it out of my hand. You smile. “This is high-tech.”
“It’s the most important thing I have. It controls the humidifiers and the AC units in the cage,” I say. “If I were to jack up the heat and let those books get moist, they’d be gone, forever. Gertrude Stein is dead and she’s not coming back to life to sign books.”
“I just got the chills,” you say and you smile. Ladle? “You would be a good writer, Joe.”
“How do you know that I’m not?” I say and you like it and I try again: “Your folks must be proud of you, getting your MFA.”
You’re entertained and you look out at the water and I follow your eyes and you’re still touching me and I wish I could kiss you to get Benji’s cock out of your mouth and you play with your hair instead of holding my hand.
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