It Feels So Good When I Stop (9 page)

I WAS INTO MUSIC, so it was bound to come up at some point. When it did, Jocelyn told me, not every detail about it, but enough. There was a band from Boston called Fifi, and before Jocelyn and I met, she had a brief fling with the band’s front man, Roger Lyon III. Fifi never got famous—not like Third Eye Blind famous—but the cool kids knew who they were.

When I asked Jocelyn what had happened, meaning why it ended between her and Lyon III, she downplayed it and said there was “nothing there.” I asked her if there was nothing there for her or nothing there for him. She said for either of them, which was a load of crap. There had to be something there for one of them. People don’t feel the same amount of nothing for each other at the same time. She told me, well, that’s the way it was. After that, I took every opportunity to assassinate Roger Lyon III’s character.

I was eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal without any milk. I had
Option
open to the cover story on Roger Lyon III. “This guy’s a fucking ponce.” And he was, which made hating him a breeze. The two-page, fish-eye-lens photo elongated his already model-quality features. He towered over Sunset Boulevard in a shearling overcoat-and-hat ensemble that must have been rated for twenty degrees below zero. Jocelyn had her back to me. She was trying to light one of the gas burners. “I wonder if he still gets college girls wasted after shows,” I said.

Jocelyn didn’t answer.

“What do you think? Still getting college girls wasted?”

“He didn’t get me wasted. It was two Rolling Rocks.” She remembered the brand. “Give me your cig.”

“Hang on. Listen to this. And I quote: ‘I have tapes and tapes full of songs that are so much better than
Genius IQ
, but I’m not sure if I’m into the whole “releasing thing” anymore. I’m really into collecting opals.’ End quote. Collecting opals? What the fuck is that all about?”

Jocelyn plucked the smoke from my fingers and used it to light the burner. She was wearing the boxer-briefs I had taken off when we got into bed the night before. She did that a lot.

“Holy fuck, get a load of this Q-and-A.”

Jocelyn sighed.

“And I quote:

“ ‘OPTION: Where did the band name Fifi come from?

“‘ROGER LYON III: The poodle protagonist from Van der Vleet’s novella.

“‘O: Very cool.

“‘RLIII: Yeah.’

“What a fucking asshole. I bet he likes rape jokes.” Jocelyn finished my cigarette at the stove. She looked good in my underwear. The kettle rumbled above a blue flame, but was still minutes away from boiling. “I bet Van der Vleet doesn’t even exist. I went to college—”

“Sort of—”

“And I’ve never heard of fucking Van der Vleet. Have you? I bet that asshole made the—”

“Please. Enough. You have nothing to worry about. You’re the asshole I love.”

I WAS JUST wrapping up my morning shower when I heard a key opening the front door. “Yo, it’s me and Dogshit,” James hollered.

“Give me a minute,” I yelled. I could hear James giving Dogshit instructions as I got dressed.

“Where the fuck this medicine cabinet come from?”

I opened the bathroom door. A draft further chilled my wet feet. “You don’t have one, so . . . It’s for letting me crash.”

James appeared in the doorway. The medicine cabi net box hung from his hand like a Kleenex. “Fuck that. The listed price for this place does not include a medicine cabinet.” He meant it. “I can use this, though.”

“Whatever, man. It’s yours.” I put a sock on one foot while balancing on the other like a pelican. I could hear Dogshit revving the motor of a small electric tool.

“You want all three of these, Jimmy?” he asked.

“Yeah. And don’t lose the screws. They’re brass.”

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Taking down the sconces. Look, you’re going to have to clear out of here for a few hours tomorrow. A real estate agent’s showing the place from noon to three.”

“No problem. I won’t be here.”

“And stuff all your shit in the back bedroom closet before you split.”

“Will do.”

“I don’t want them thinking this is a crack house.”

“They won’t.”

James let go of the medicine cabinet box and pressed down with both middle fingers on a door hinge pin that had risen nearly two inches out of position. It wouldn’t budge. It upset him. “You got a hammer out there, ’shit?” he yelled.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Whore,” James said. “Run out to the truck and get me one.”

“Eat me,” Dogshit said.

James bit his bottom lip and grunted as he tried again to pop the pin back into position. It finally snapped into place with a loud, metallic click. “Fuck you,” he said to the hinge. He swung the door back and forth a few times to bask in the beauty of a specimen in perfect working condition. “Why don’t you come to lunch with me and Dogshit?”

“Is it that late already?”

 

I SAT IN THE BACK, next to Roy’s empty baby seat. It was a given that Dogshit always rode shotgun. James controlled the radio. He went right for a local oldies station.

“What sconces?” Dogshit said like a gangster film thug who understands that he, if questioned by the cops, is to play dumb. His thick navy blue hooded sweatshirt was faded and covered with smears of hardened epoxy, fiberglass dust, and small wood slivers. He wore a pilly black-and-gold knit cap commemorating the Boston Bruins’ 1988 Stanley Cup run. “I never seen no sconces.”

“No shit,” James said. “I can get seventy-five bucks for those.”

“Minus my twenty percent,” Dogshit said.

“You can have twenty percent of this.” James lifted his crotch off the seat.

“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Dogshit said, and slurped the air.

“Not as much as you.”

“Hold up,” Dogshit said. “This is a good tune.” Neither James nor I knew it. “You kidding me? It’s Mel Tormé.”

“That’s what I like about this station,” James said. “They’ll throw you a curveball. It’s not just ‘Respect’ and ‘Get Off My Fucking Cloud’ all day. The oldies stations ruined Aretha Franklin for me.” Dogshit shushed him. James turned it up. We all listened in silence.

I always thought of Mel Tormé as singing exclusively bouncy, shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo-wah numbers, but this one was doleful and so slow, it almost went backwards.

James pulled onto a winding wooded road that soon presented a decent ocean vista on our left. The road rose above sea level and briefly wound around a craggy outcropping of rock. I looked down at the water and counted three staggered white stripes of breaking waves. The ocean absorbed all of the sun’s component light except the bluest green, and melted seamlessly with the sky somewhere closer to England. My feet were still cold. I missed Jocelyn, even though she could suck the life out of me.

The song cross-faded into a commercial for East Falmouth’s only authorized dealer of Dittler Aquatic machined stainless steel crankshafts, camshafts, and valve lifters.

“I don’t buy it,” James said.

“Buy what?” Dogshit was already taking it personally.

“The whole thing.”

“What? You think Mel Tormé doesn’t mean it?”

“I think Mel Tormé means it. You can tell. He’s really putting his dick into the song. It’s the song itself.” They had cigarettes going, like French cafe intellectuals.

“What’s wrong with the song?” Dogshit asked.

“It’s supposed to be about love, right?”

“You think? The word
love
is in the fucking title.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Dogshit turned and high-fived me. James started over. “It’s about love, and how it lasts forever and all that shit. Well, maybe, but it’s not all fucking and flowers like the tune says. It’s a grind. It’s a second, low-paying job.” He reloaded. “Mel says he’d break his balls at work all day for the rest of his life just to be able to come home to what’s-her-face—”

“Monique.”

“Whatever. Maybe when you first start screwing you feel like that. But that shit goes. Get married and have a kid, Mel. We’ll see how fast you race home after work.” Our eyes met for an instant in the rearview mirror.

“Okay,” Dogshit said. “But did you ever think—and I don’t mean anything by it . . . I’m just saying . . . did you ever think that maybe what you and Pamela had wasn’t love?”

“Listen to Mr. Fucking Romance Novel here. I was there, asshole. And for what—two-plus years, maybe—it was love.”

“Fine.” Dogshit let it go.

I started thinking about getting Jocelyn pregnant. We were in Ray’s Pizza in SoHo—not for the actual conception, but when we found out. I was so anxious I couldn’t wait until we got back to Brooklyn for her to take the test. She didn’t want to do it in Ray’s Pizza, but I wore her down. She came out of the restroom looking too calm for it to be positive. I honestly thought I was off the hook until she formed a cross with her two index fingers. I made her say the words. Even then I didn’t believe her. Did I want her to go dig the stick out of the trash? You’re goddamn right I did. I grabbed her by the wrist when she got up. She told me to face the facts. I felt condemned to death. I said “Holy shit” about a hundred times. She told me to stop saying that. There was plenty of time to figure it out. Figure it out? What was there to figure out? The paisan behind the counter came over to our table and gave us free slices. Time to figure what out?

That night Jocelyn was especially worked up, which got me going. She said it was the hormones. She begged me to fuck her without protection. I went at her pretty hard. In my wildest, desperate dreams, I thought I might dislodge whatever it was clinging to the inside of her uterus. I resented her for getting us into this situation, though I was as much to blame, if not more. I made her come twice. I had to look away from her face or I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did. I pulled out at the last second. Afterward, she mopped herself with my Teenage Fanclub T-shirt. I didn’t care. We fell asleep without talking.

The next morning she shook me awake. Her face was sapped of some color. She said she’d just miscarried. I sobered up. Was she sure? Definitely. Did she want me to call an ambulance? No, she just wanted to sleep. A drink of water? A cup of coffee? No, just sleep. Another blanket? Please, no more questions. She curled up like a fetal pig on the beige top sheet. I combed her scalp with my fingers. It looked like someone else’s scalp. The sharp edges of the Brooklyn street noise were rounded over some by the apartment walls. Jocelyn drifted off. I sat up in bed, chewing my nails. I didn’t exactly feel like I’d dodged a bullet. It was more like the bullet had passed through me without damaging any vital organs. The next time I might not be so lucky. I wondered how long I’d have to wait before I broke up with her.

 

“I’D JUST LIKE IT BETTER,” James said, “if the guy who wrote the song wasn’t trying to put one over me.”

“You know that’s Cole Porter you’re talking about? ”

“I don’t care if it’s Peter Fucking Frampton.”