Recycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

  “I’m a one-man charity,” Perm says.

  “So this girl. She gets right up in his face and says”—Alvarez puts on a cartoon girl’s voice—” ‘Daryl, you can’t just screw me once and leave. I want more.’”

  Larson shakes his head. “No girl has ever said that to me. No girl has ever said anything like that to me.”

  “So Daryl, right?” Alvarez continues. “Friggin’ Gandhi over here, says to this chick …” Alvarez makes a grand gesture toward Perm.

  Perm clears his throat first. “What I said was, ‘When I screw a girl, she stays screwed.’”

  Alvarez lets rip with a riotous laugh. “How beautiful is that?”

  Larson rolls his eyes subtly. “He’s been Permascrew ever since.”

  “Lars, man,” Perm says. “You’re the one who came up with the name.”

  Alvarez leans toward me. “I have been in search of opportunities to steal that line ever since, but no girl has ever set me up for it. You see, you need the assist. You basically need a girl to ask for more.”

  “It’s amazing how rarely they do that,” Larson says.

  There’s a pregnant silence as they all stare at me. But I’m not sure what to say, because that is one of the most decrepit stories I’ve ever heard.

  I point to the name Alicia on the chart. “Is that the girl?”

  The three of them nod.

  “And the others?” I say. “Are these all the girls you’ve gone out with?”

  “Gone out with?” Perm says with finger quotes.

  “Why is that funny?” I say. “Don’t you say that around here?”

  “Do they say that in Mayberry?” Perm asks.

  “Where’s Mayberry?”

  The three of them look at each other, then laugh.

  Should I know where Mayberry is?

  I take a closer look at the chart. Most of the girls have at least two X’s in their row. Some have three or four. Perm has the most X’s in his column, followed by Alvarez, then Larson, then Sasha, a “member” in absentia apparently. The closer I look, the more ridiculous it seems that I ever thought this matrix represented a girls’ softball league.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “Are you guys trading girlfriends?”

  They all exchange nervous glances, then Alvarez shakes his head. “They’re not our girlfriends.”

  “No,” Perm says. “They’re softball players.”

  Larson chuckles quietly, obviously eager to curry favor with Perm at my expense. What a prince. I have a sudden desire to beat him senseless, which, on the bright side, is another Novel Sensation.

  “But you are trading them,” I say. “I heard you earlier.”

  “We’re not animals,” Perm says. “We don’t own these women.”

  Alvarez points to the name Kristabel and says, “Actually, this chick is into that.”

  “Really?” Larson says.

  Perm shakes his head. “Rez, man. She doesn’t want to be owned. She wants to be humiliated. It’s totally different.”

  Alvarez nods like a dim student who’s just had the difference between the Enlightenment and the Renaissance explained to him.

  “She wants to be humiliated?” I say.

  “Why not?” Perm snorts. “Some chicks are into that.”

  Alvarez looks at Larson. “So are some dudes I know.”

  “Shut up,” Larson says.

  “Anyway,” Perm says, “if you don’t mind, Mayberry, we’ve got business to attend to.” He turns his back to me and takes a pen from his back pocket. “Got another one for you losers, not that you deserve it.” He writes the name Melissa K. at the bottom of the list of girls.

  “Stats?” Alvarez says.

  “Oral?” Perm says. “A minus. However …” He cranes his neck over his shoulder to look at me again.

  I admit, I’m staring.

  “You going to refill our coffees or something, Mayberry?” Perm says.

  “Oral A minus?” I say. “What does that mean?”

  Alvarez laughs at me. “Man,” he says. “You are quite possibly the most annoying person in Williamsburg. Did you not hear me say this is a members-only arrangement?”

  “Yeah, but do these girls know you’re writing their names in a chart? And trading them like … like horses?”

  Perm shakes his head. “Any of these girls look like horses to you guys?”

  Alvarez shakes his head. “I do not date women who look like horses. Dude, rule number one is you do not bring dog meat to the party.”

  I stare at Alvarez, bewildered, because I was starting to like him. “Dog meat?” I say.

  “Rule number two,” he says, taking a sip of his coffee. “Never pass on a bad lay.”

  “But keep in mind,” Perm says, “that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

  I stare at Perm for a long time, slowly digesting his words, until he snaps his fingers in my face.

  “Are you blacking out or something?” he says.

  Perhaps I am blacking out, because suddenly it all starts to feel like a dream. A violent dream. In fact, I’ve never been so consumed with the desire for violence. I envision launching myself like a man missile at Perm’s freckled face, then grabbing Larson and Alvarez by the scruffs of the neck and banging their heads together Three Stooges-style.

  And I don’t know why.

  “Man,” Alvarez says. “Do you think he’s having a seizure?”

  Before my desire for violence gets the better of me, I put my coat on and head to the door.

  “Yo, Jack,” Alvarez says. “We were kind enough to share our life’s work with you. Now, I know you’ll respect our privacy, right?”

  I don’t answer. I just slip outside. As I make my way down Bedford Avenue, my whole body bristles with rage. But I’m not even sure what I’m so angry about. After walking a few blocks, I hear someone yell out, “Yo, Jack.”

  I stop and spot Larson speedwalking toward me. When he catches up to me, he’s out of breath. “Dude,” he says. “What was that all about?”

  “Huh?” I say.

  “Back there,” he says. “Why’d you get all weird on us?”

  “Weird?” I say. “I’m weird? You’re the one with the girl chart.”

  “So?” he says.

  As I stare into Larson’s confused face, it suddenly becomes clear to me why I’m so mad at him and his friends. “How would you like it if a girl put your name on a chart?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t mind, though. Especially if I didn’t know about it.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Right. So as long as they don’t know about it, it’s okay? Yeah. I think that was Gandhi’s underlying message. Or was it Jesus? Yeah, I think that’s what they call the golden rule, right? Do unto others whatever you want as long as they don’t find out.”

  Larson stares at me with his face all squinty, as if I were the one not making sense.

  Look, I know I’m not exactly worldly, and I suppose it’s possible that skipping high school has left me permanently ignorant about dating and stuff. But for crud’s sake, a girl has a right to expect that her name isn’t being put on a chart. I mean, come on!

  “We’re not doing anything against their will,” Larson says. “It’s just, you know, sometimes things don’t work out with a girl, but …” His voice trails off, and he shrugs.

  “But what?” I say.

  Very quietly Larson says, “Just because a girl’s no good for you doesn’t mean she’s no good for your friends.”

  My stomach turns over. “That’s your philosophy?” I say.

  “It’s not a philosophy,” he says.

  “No,” I say. “You’re right. Truth, justice, and the American way is a philosophy. Live and let live is a philosophy. Never bring dog meat to the party? That’s not a very good philosophy.”

  “Jesus,” he says. “Do you cry at the opera too?”

  “What?”

  “I hate to break it to you,” he says. “But you
sound like a girl.”

  The next thing I know, Larson is pressed up against a chain-link fence with my whitened fists balled around the collar of his jacket. The testosterone rush is overpowering, almost erotic.

  Larson goes limp, like a kitten that’s been picked up by the scruff of its neck. A few feet away, two girls selling used clothes from a blanket on the sidewalk stare at us. I look at Larson dead-on as hot, liquid rage courses through me. He doesn’t fight back. He doesn’t even try to get away. He just pulls his face as far from mine as possible without actually resisting my grip.

  “Larson?” one of the girls says. “Are you okay?”

  “Are you going to let go of me?” Larson’s voice and demeanor are unnaturally calm, as if being pushed up against a chain-link fence were an everyday occurrence.

  I let go, and Larson fixes his jacket. “Hey, Kendra,” he says in a lighthearted tone.

  The girl nods at him inquisitively. Larson steps a few feet away and gestures for me to join him, which I do.

  “Shit, man,” he says. “I don’t know what your problem is, but it’s definitely not in your interest to start spreading this around.”

  “Spreading what around?” I say too loudly. “The fact that you and your posse have to share girlfriends to avoid ass-drilling each other?”

  Kendra looks up from the blanket, where she’s just spread out an old skirt.

  Larson smiles weakly at her, then looks at me. He’s not a fighter. That’s obvious. I’m not sure I am either, despite that sudden burst of malfeasance with the chain-link fence. Now that the testosterone rush has dissipated, I’m starting to feel guilty.

  “Look,” Larson says in a mood of conciliation. “I don’t know why you’re getting all high-and-mighty. It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong.” His eyes keep flicking back to Kendra and her friend, who are obviously whispering about us while they arrange their sale items on the sidewalk.

  “You think they don’t talk about us like that?” he says. “You think they don’t manipulate us? This is defense, man. They’re in control of everything.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s a chick’s world.”

  “Like you’d know,” he says. “What are you, sixteen?”

  “Eighteen,” I say. “And actually, I know a couple of things about girls.”

  “You don’t know shit,” he says. “Whatever you think you know, that’s just Mayberry.”

  “What the hell is Mayberry?”

  “Mayberry is every place that’s not New York,” he says. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s different here. It’s not like high school. If you keep thinking it is, they’re going to eat you alive.” Larson turns around and slouches back down Bedford Avenue.

  “Oh yeah?” I say to his retreating back. “Nothing’s going to eat me, pal.”

  The girls selling clothes on the sidewalk look at me and giggle.

  “Except for my girlfriend,” I say for their benefit. Then I head home.

  Alone.

  And that is my first morning in New York City.

  •

  Thankfully, Ramie gets home around four-thirty with thrilling factoids about the history of textiles. I do my best to feign interest. I want to tell her all about my eventful morning, but by the time she finishes talking, we’re already taking off each other’s clothes. I told you I was a love god.

  Around seven o’clock, spent and starving, we pick up a pizza and some ginger ale, then take it to the roof for some alfresco dining Brooklyn-style.

  As the sun dips behind the Manhattan skyline, I tell her about the girl-traders and my brief flirtation with violence. I’m a little scared of how she’ll react, but keeping secrets from the human mind probe is virtually impossible. Besides, I preface the whole tale by explaining my entirely defensible aim of making new friends.

  “They had a chart?” she says. “I have to puke now.”

  “So I did the right thing?” I say.

  Ramie crosses her legs in the little beach chair and has a good, hard think about this. Then she nods. “I’m a pacifist, so normally I would oppose the use of violence, but in this case it was justified because it was targeted and non-malicious.”

  That sounds like an excellent definition of justifiable violence, but in all honesty, my actions were neither targeted nor non-malicious. I was, at the time, a mindless force of destruction and probably would have strangled a kitten were it at hand.

  “Were they trying to recruit you?” she asks.

  I shrug. “At first they were all mysterious and secretive about it. But then I think they were showing off, like they were proud of it.”

  “Proud of it?” Ramie holds her stomach. “Mal. It reminds me of that time Brandon Dietrick circulated the Least Doable List all over the high school. Poor Stephie LaForge ran out of English class crying. Why are guys like that? Why do they think it’s cool to be mean to girls?”

  I shake my head. “Beats me.”

  “Thank God you’re not a guy.”

  “I know,” I say. “This one dude, Alvarez, actually referred to girls as dog meat. Wait. What do you mean I’m not a guy?”

  “You’re deeply not a guy,” she says.

  “How am I not a guy?”

  “Duh,” she says. “There is nothing guylike about you.”

  “Excuse me?” I say.

  She looks right at me with those dark eyes. “Jack, please. Trust me. You’re not a guy.”

  “Do you mean I’m not a perverted girl-trading jerk, but I’m still, like, a man?”

  She looks at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “You have to think about this?”

  “Jack,” she says. “Stop being so conventional. Jeeze.”

  I take a few breaths to calm down. “Ramie,” I say. “I hate to break it to you, but you know that person you’ve been having sex with since June?”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “He’s a guy.”

  “No he isn’t.”

  “Well, he’s a man. He’s a boy at the very least.”

  She stares at me for a few seconds, then smiles mysteriously. “Sure he is.”

  “What does that mean? Are you telling me you don’t even see me as male?”

  She takes a giant swig of ginger ale, then comes over and plops herself in my lap, which almost collapses the beach chair I’m sitting in. “What do you think it means?” she says. “You are a complete original.” She kisses me on the forehead. “You would never act like those guys. You could never act like them, because you’re different.” She pulls back and looks at me seriously. “Right?”

  I look into her dark brown eyes. Of course I would never act like them. But I’m still a guy. Why do they get to define it? Why can’t a guy be someone like me?

  Ramie wraps her arms around my head and pulls my cheek to her breasts. Before long, I get lost in the moment. It’s easy to do when the moment comprises Ramie sliding her hands up the back of my shirt. But the tiny portion of my brain reserved for extraneous non-sex-related thoughts keeps dipping into the darkness of a new and terrifying question.

  If I’m not a guy to her, what am I?

  The first thing I notice when I open my eyes is the sound of heavy breathing. The second is the fact that I seem to have grown a third arm. Realizing that neither the arm nor the breathing is my own, I roll over to discover Ramie lying facedown in my bed, her arm slung over me. We’re both wearing Jack’s boxers.

  Mal, why can’t they use her bed?

  I peel myself out from under her arm as sneakily as possible, then tiptoe out and head to the bathroom for a shower.

  In the old days, I would begin my first day back by obliterating all memories of Jacktime through my brilliant self-hypnosis regime known as Plan B. Not anymore. I’m trying to reverse all that. So, as the warm water envelops me, I try to relax and let the Jackmemories surface. It’s not that I enjoy these memories. Believe me, it was much easier being a cyclical amnesiac. But if I’m going to be a respo
nsible adult who makes important life decisions with both of our interests in mind, I have to make an effort to know my alter ego. I guess you could call this Plan C.

  Per usual, only a few dim memories survive the journey from Jacktime to Jilltime: pizza and ginger ale on the roof, sex with Ramie, more sex with Ramie.

  “Hey, babe!”

  The shower curtain whips open, and there is Ramie, topless and yawning ferociously.

  “Oh,” she says, staring unabashedly. “Sorry. I lost track of time.”

  “Noticed,” I say.

  She keeps staring at me, her toes curling against the cold tile floor.

  “Ramie?” I say. “Do you mind?”

  She cocks her head to the side. “You look great with short hair,” she says. “You should ditch the wig.”

  I run my fingers through my wet hair, which is still only about two inches long.

  “No thanks,” I say. “Too butch.”

  Ramie nods, then backs out of the bathroom, but she keeps staring at me. “Hmm,” she says.

  I yank the shower curtain closed. I don’t want to know what she means by “Hmm.” With Ramie, it could be anything.

  “Yes, Mom, I love being a temp secretary. It’s deeply fulfilling.”

  There is a brief pause over the T-Mobile network while Mom scrolls through her database of anti-sarcasm defenses. She’s a smart woman. She always calls between 8:35 and 8:49 a.m. because that’s when I’m walking from the subway to whatever glass-and-steel tower needs a temp for the day.

  “That’s a nice bit of snark, young lady,” Mom says. “But when are you going to start thinking about college?”

  Just to keep her on her toes, I say, “Mom, I’m already gainfully employed typing spreadsheets and answering phones for important people. College is for losers.”

  “Don’t be cynical,” she says. “You don’t have the cheekbones for it.”

  “Huh?”

  I arrive at the glass-and-steel tower that needs me for the day and look at my reflection in the lobby window. What exactly do cynical cheekbones look like?

  “Jill, honey. Listen to me. Can you be serious for a minute? Can you do that?”

  “All right.” I pull the heavy door open and head into the gaping marble lobby. “I’ll be serious. Just, you know, next year.”