It Feels So Good When I Stop (5 page)

Richie was confused. “What the fuck?”

“Dude,” I whispered, “she said you guys were listening to Nick Drake all night.”

Richie’s face showed a different kind of concern. Either very small missing pieces of the night before were coming back to him or very large ones were not.

“Did you fuck her?” He didn’t answer. He made the slow, strategizing walk to the bathroom door. I took a cigarette from Josie’s pack and lit it.

“Is everything okay in there?” Richie asked. No answer. “Josie?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Well, I am.” She flushed the toilet.

Richie waited until it died down. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The faucet went on, then off. “You should just go to work.”

“I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“Go. I’m okay.”

“You sure?” No answer. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“Well, only if you’re sure.”

“I am.”

“But you’ll come by the restaurant so I can see you before you head back?” Josie didn’t answer.

It sucked for me to witness the whole thing. Richie really was a good guy, but every so often an innocent got chewed up in his gears.

“Okay? You’ll swing by the restaurant before you go?”

“Sure,” Josie said.

Richie had probably been banking on some quick, pre-dinner-rush skull in the alley behind Esposito’s. Now, if Josie showed up at all, he’d have to hide in the walk-in freezer until she left.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you later. I hope you feel better.” He walked back to the kitchen at a noticeably fast clip. He swept his keys up off the table.

“What about her?” I whispered.

“Just wait here until her ride shows up, please?”

“Christ.” Richie dashed out the back door. I could feel the kitchen quieting down, like a placid body of water that had just finished swallowing a cruise ship. I polished off most of the smoke before Josie emerged from the bathroom. Here eyes were puffy, and her nose was pink. She took the seat across from me and started sobbing. I touched her shoulder on the place where her bra strap was digging into her skin.

Her girlfriend knocked on the screen door.

“It’s open,” I said.

Josie ran to her girlfriend and gave her a weepy hug. My future wife scowled at me from over Josie’s shoulder. “What the fuck did you do to her?” Jocelyn demanded, holding Josie up so she wouldn’t leak through the floor.

I LET SWEET THUNDER recover against a chain-link cage filled with empty propane tanks, and went inside the Great Atlantic Job Lot. A true connoisseur of food can take a bite of the house specialty and identify its ingredients. I took one whiff and detected PVC vinyl, rubber cement, mothballs, a hint of tarragon, mesquite wood charcoal, and Absorbine Junior muscle rub.

A wind-battered elderly woman wearing an airbrush-on-white Robert Goulet concert sweatshirt stood at the only activated register. A tablecloth-sized piece of heavy clear plastic hung by its four corners from the high ceiling and served as a catch basin for whatever was dripping down into it. A length of rubber surgical tubing punctured the amniotic bulge and shunted the liquid out of sight through the “Employees Only” door. I grabbed a shopping cart and got down to business.

“Hello,” I said to Goulet.

“Uh-huh.”

I negotiated the narrow aisles, finding in logical order a twelve-pack of white tube socks; a six-pack of no-name briefs; a seven-pack of no-name T-shirts; a camouflaged knit hunter’s hat and gloves; a gray polyester hooded sweatshirt; a tube of green Close-Up toothpaste with a free, extra-firm bristled toothbrush; a spool of “Jackson and Jackson” dental floss; a bar of Lux soap; and a beach towel that said “Fisherman’s Friend,” with a cartoon depicting a naked-from-the-waist-down fisherman getting a blow job underwater from a fugu. I also picked up two tires and tubes for Sweet Thunder; two tins of salted cashews; a box of toffee popcorn; a can of Wyler’s “Limited Edition” cola-flavored drink powder; a couple of bungee cords, just in case; and a large backpack to carry it all in. I offloaded the cart’s contents onto the conveyor.

“Cash or credit?”

“Credit.”

Goulet merely glanced at the items going by and punched in what seemed to be arbitrary prices.

“Ma’am? I was wondering. Can you recommend a decent restaurant nearby? Nothing fancy, just diner food; eggs, bacon.”

“Open or closed?”

“Open would be better.”

“The Crow’s Nest, up the road.”

“Thank you.” She charged me only a buck and a half for the toothpaste and brush. I was curious. “One other thing, if you don’t mind, ma’am. Do you know Opal Cove Road, just back a way?”

“I live on Tide Pool.”

“I don’t know it.”

“It’s one street over. Lived there my whole life.”

“So if anyone could answer my question, it would be you. How far is Opal Cove Road from where we are right now?”

“Six-tenths of a mile. On the nose.”

Get the fuck out of here. I had biked only slightly more than half a mile. I felt like I’d just failed a cardiologist-sanctioned all-day stress test.

My pathetic, defining possessions were having an orgy at the end of the moving conveyor. Goulet and I were the only people in the store. It didn’t matter. She fixed a fluorescent orange PAID sticker to each of the bicycle tires. Three days earlier, Jocelyn said she’d love me for the rest of my life if I let her.

“Do you sell medicine cabinets? The ones with mirrors for doors?”

“In kitchens and baths. Left at the commodes.”

“What do those go for?”

“Thirty-six ninety-nine or forty-two ninety-nine.”

“Do you have one that’s thirty dollars?”

Goulet shook her head.

“Okay. Ring me up one of the thirty-six ninety-nine jobs.”

A COUPLE OF days after the Richie and Josie incident, I saw Jocelyn buying a newspaper and cigarettes at Ozzie’s Tobacco Shop on Pleasant Street. She was wearing a pink tank top and olive-green painter’s pants. Her toenails matched her shirt. I stayed out of sight behind a divider of greeting cards. When she started for the register I came out of hiding and followed her. I was shaking. I didn’t know what I was going to say or what she’d think of me for living with Richie. That whole “The friend of the enemy of my friend is my enemy” thing can be powerful. I stood behind her in line. She turned when I coughed.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked.

“Fine. You?”

I acted like a guy whose car is in the shop again. “Oh, you know.”

“I hear you,” she said. She asked Ozzie for a pack of Marlboro Lights. He put the smokes on the counter. “Oh, I’m sorry. I meant soft pack, not box. Thank you,” she said sweetly.

I went for it. “Isn’t it weird how you have to have the right kind of pack? I mean, are Marlboros in a soft pack better than Marlboros in a box?”

“Not better,” Jocelyn said. “Better for you.”

“Ah, so that’s it.”

“Keep it low. It’s an industry secret.”

“Huh. And to think all these years . . .”

“Same thing with Coke. A bottle’s better than a can.”

“Really?”

“Yup.” She pocketed her change and headed for the door.

I threw a twenty at Ozzie. “Coke or Pepsi?” I called after Jocelyn.

“Give me a break. Coke. Canada Dry or Schweppes?”

“Canada Dry, hands down. Canada or America?”

“Canada,” Jocelyn said. Ozzie didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

“Canada? You must be out of your mind,” I said. “Canada’s practically communist.”

“Oh, brother, you’re not one of those, are you?”

“I don’t think so. How do you tell?”

“You can never really tell, can you?”

“I can sometimes.”

“Well, lucky you.” She folded her paper under her arm. “Be good.” She stepped out onto the sidewalk.

“Hang on a second. Aren’t you going to have one of those smokes?”

“I plan on having all of them.” She was quick and she knew it. I loved both of those things about her.

“I meant now, while they’re still fresh.”

“I’m in a rush.”

“Come on. What are you going to say on your death-bed: I should have rushed around more?” Ozzie took his time with my change. “What’s one little smoke?” Jocelyn smiled. I watched her as she waited for me on the sidewalk. A dark blue station wagon parked in front of Ozzie’s appeared greenish, tinted by a dusting of pollen. By noon the air would be oppressively hot and humid. I knew the next thing I had to do was throw my good friend Richie under the bus.

“I still can’t believe what happened with my roommate and your friend.”

Jocelyn rubbed her irritated eyes. “He’s a real winner. A keeper.”

“I know. I feel bad about it.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I thought you’d think because I live with him that I—”

“I don’t.” She rubbed her eyes more vigorously.

“Are you okay?”

“Allergies.” She sounded like she just got whacked with a wicked cold.

“That sucks.”

“It does. I cannot wait to get the fuck out of here.”

“You going somewhere?”

“New York.”

“To visit?”

“To live.”

I felt a sting. “Cool,” I said. “When?”

“Middle of August.”

“That’s only a month away.”

“Less. Three weeks and some change.”

“You going for good?”

“Who knows?” Her eyes were red-raw. She tried blinking some relief into them. “People are going to think you made me cry.”

 

TWO NIGHTS LATER Jocelyn and I were sharing a smoke on the bench in front of the Amherst Post Office. I had less than a month to talk her out of moving.

“How could you even think of moving? You just met me.”

“Please. New York is crawling with guys singler than you.”

“That’s not even a real word.”

“Yes it is. So is
wealthier
. New York is crawling with men singler and wealthier than you.”

“I knew it. A gold digger.”

“That’s me: in it for the money. Like Gandhi.”

“All the guys in New York are junkies,” I said. “I read in the
Times
the other day—”

“That every year, thousands of people get hep C just from riding the New York subway.”

“Oh, they do, do they? I mustn’t have read the paper that day.” She was entertained. She had a smile that even she couldn’t stop once it started. “What day was that?”

“And the promise of hep C is what they use to attract tourists.”

“I see.”

“Hep C and the possibility of getting spermed on by homeless guys.”

“Eww. Fun is fun, but now you’re just being sick.”

“Come on,” I said. “Tell me with a straight face that you didn’t think that was funny.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

“Bullshit. You’re laughing.”

“I’m laughing now, at the ridiculousness of this little . . . I don’t even know what to call it . . . this little dance.”

“Don’t change the subject. I know you thought it was funny.”

“Oh, so you can tell what I’m thinking?”

“Yes.”

“What am I thinking?”

I rubbed her temples. “You’re thinking, Moving to New York is a mistake. An el giganto mistake.”

She slapped my hands from her head. “Have you ever been to New York?”

“Come on. Have I ever been to New York.”

“When?”

“Recently.”

“Recently, my fucking ass.” She laughed. “You know dick about New York.”

“Hey, listen here, toilet mouth. I find your language patently offensive.”

“You should talk.”

“Yes, I should. And I will. If anyone knows New York, it’s me.”

The last time I’d been to New York City was on a high school trip. I fucking hated it, not because New York blew per se, but it really brought out the more sophisticated urban asshole in some of the suburban assholes I went to school with.