Pop Kids (12 page)

“Okay Dad, it was self-defense. That spider was the size of your steak.” I point at the massacre pooling on his plate.

“Well that raises another good point!” Conducting his speech with a bottle of A-1. Frank insists, “At least I eat what I kill! You don’t even eat the spiders!” He snatches one of my baked thick-cut fries and bites it in two. “I think you should start eating spiders, Mike.”

“You two are ridiculous,” Gina intervenes. Confiscating his bottle, she tightens the cap, sets it on the far end of the table, and points at me. “You. Leave your father alone. You had sushi last week and eat calamari every Vigilia.
Marrone
…” She settles back in, and sips her Cabernet. “So, rehearsals should be starting soon. “

“They don’t start until school’s back in. Remember? I told you. Mr. Nalon is having the set built in Hess.”

“Oh, I don’t remember you telling me that.”

Gina likes to forget when I tell her things that she doesn’t want to hear, and insists that rehearsals keep me “busy and out of trouble.”

“Yeah, I told you.” I scoop up dripped pesto with my last fry. “You just said ‘oh, okay’.”

“Oh, okay.” She offers me a bowl of greens. “Did Barbara Johnson’s daughter get the lead again this year?”

“Actually, Sarah didn’t even audition. I asked her why and she said ‘high school musicals are so high school.’ She wants to spend more time making videos for her blog.”

I steal Frank’s last fry. He motions to stab me with his steak knife.

“I did meet the female lead though. She just moved here. She seems pretty cool.”

At this small, accidental, complimentary description of Becca, Gina Massi’s face lights up like a church dipped in Sterno. I rarely mention girls at home and make it a point never to do so in a positive light. Though she regularly cautions me, “If you ever get some young girl pregnant, I’ll put my head in the oven,” she loves babies and wants grandchildren. But because both my parents are convinced that my brother is gay, Gina is counting on me to procreate. She is, thus, conflicted and whenever I mention a girl other than Stella, this conflict results in her matronly excitement.

“Really? What’s her name? What is she like? Is she Italian?”

“Her name’s Becca.” Standing, I clear my place. “She’s very blonde, and I think that her last name is Rose, so don’t start making any wedding invitations.”

Frank chuckles at my preemptive defense.

“Maybe it’s short for Rosetti, Mike. Ya never know!”

Laughing, I pull his homemade sorbetto from the freezer. My fingertips stick to the frozen cardboard.

“Oh, that is NOT what I meant Michael. I was just thinking that it would be fun to have another family in town to share recipes with.” After insisting that I don’t eat straight out of the carton, she huffs, “It would be nice to have grandchildren someday, you know. But if you’re not giving me any, I guess I’ll just die never knowing what it’s like. That could be any day now too … I’m no spring chicken.”

She’s forty.

“Mom, Joey is not gay. And could you please not hurl me into seventeen-year-old paternity?” I rinse our ice cream scoop and dig into the pint. “I’ve told you, I’m never getting married or having kids. The whole concept of marriage is obsolete … and this world has yet to prove itself deserving of my progeny.”

“That reminds me!” In that mother-sing-song voice she says, “Someone has a birthday coming up! Eighteen!” Then points her spoon at me. “Should I still invite Pinky this year? Or is the concept of a birthday cake obsolete?”

Every year, Gina makes a red velvet cake shaped and decorated to look like a cat’s face. Every year it comes out pink instead of red. Its name is Pinky. Frank likes to think of it as a mystical, Clausian feline that brings me my gifts through the cat door on the Eve of October 10. I like to think this as well.

“Of course, not.” Kissing her cheek, I serve her a purple scoop in a frescoed arancio dish. “I’ll always love Pinky.”

Squishing my earbuds into my head, I clean the entire kitchen to the sound of my latest ‘dishwashing playlist’ before putting my own body through a similar rigorous ritual. In the shower with my new olive fruit oil Kiehl’s conditioner stimulating my follicles and mind, I begin contemplating the first ‘Premiere playlist.’ The other night at The Palace, after a Marina and the Diamonds song ended, my iPod shuffled to some interview with two British guys. It killed the dance floor. I can’t let that happen again. Especially if Becca is there.

I still want to invite her.

Thinking of her side-boob, I lather vigorously. I don’t find shower masturbation sensually ideal, but it’s the least messy place to spread my joy.

Bitter product drips down my face. I rinse my mouth, rub my eyes, and find myself high above downtown LA, stretched out in a cabana, atop a steaming, sudsy, spot-lit rooftop pool. Becca and Stella are naked and besides my McQueen skull tie, I am wearing nothing but their two scented bodies. World famous DJ Steve Aoki spins “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff” by London’s own Deadmau5, and Leo DiCaprio peeks his head in through the white, skull-printed, chiffon curtains to compliment my performance.
Great work Score
. When he says my name, I spread glittering joy everywhere. Sparkling, it floats into the sky, filling it with stars.

I turn off the faucet. Grabbing a towel, I wrap it around my waist and quickly pad to my room. Inspired and moist, I sit down at my Mac. I name a playlist ‘Premiere Party Sunday, August 31.’ I download and drag in “Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff,” then research the artist. Deadmau5 isn’t from England. He’s from Canada. Wikipedia says so.
It’s fine.
His beats sound British. I’m leaving the track in.

Chapter 17

I awake at 3:14 in the afternoon. I check my phone. Nothing from Stella. With a few hours to spare before work, I get up, grab a scone from the bakery bag that Gina wrote my name on, brew some Sencha, then take them both back to bed. Contemplating which movie to show next, I open my Mac and begin surfing celebrity sites. Overall, I find these online tabloids loathsome but I feel that I must study them. Daily. They’re educational. They’re helping me prepare for the day I’m a primary focus of Perez. Plus, they give me something to talk about with Stella. Forwarding her a new candid of Kate Moss, I type, “
Breeding might not be totally unacceptable if every mother could keep this figure
.
I still totally would
.” I hit send then click through pics of a Nicki Minaj nip-slip.

As I make my way down the porn hole, Lynch messages me with a link to a video. In the short, Alvin, wearing nothing but a yellow bikini top, back flips off of a coastal deck railing, through the night, and into a pool. A stew of tattooed guys and girls receive him, cheering from the packed adjoining hot tub. The ocean is their backdrop. They’re all topless.
I wonder if they’re all bottomless.
I watch the video three times before leaving my kudos amidst a string of comments.

As his behind the scenes laughter foretold, Lynch is with his brother. In his message, he’s attached a picture of himself standing in the hot tub with a topless girl posing on his shoulders. His stringy hair is plastered to his head. He’s giving two thumbs up, grinning like a water-loving cat that swallowed the canary. The canary looks like an extremely young Cameron Diaz. Below the shot he’s typed, ‘I miss you.’ Trying to suppress my feelings of being left out, I lament the terrible looking wreath of black flowers tattooed around the girl’s navel, then type ‘Something About Mary’ into PornoTube’s search engine.

After spending two minutes in web heaven with a homemade video featuring a buxom college girl named Mary, I shower off the joy, put together an outfit—black Ksubis, black short sleeve button up, black skinny tie and black Chucks—and take the long way to work. I wheelie through Fountain Square, wave at Gina through the window of Cherie Cherie, turn up Reisling, and see DJ Prius’s Prius. It hasn’t moved since yesterday
. I can’t believe he spent the night.
I dial Stella. I hear
“I’m a free bitch, baby.”
I bang on her front door. Donny answers. I am horrified. He’s wearing Joey’s shirt.

“Hey my brother! Glad you came back!” His snow-white smile gleams as his stupid, luxurious, unleashed hair crawls beautifully over my brother’s vintage tee.

“Donny! Still here, huh?” I peer over his shoulder. The Pink Door is shut. “Stella must be a virtual Guetta by now with all this DJ training. Over twenty-four hours? Wow. You two gonna hit Ibiza soon? I see you’ve let your hair down.”

Propping his arm above me on the door’s frame, he tosses his mane. My shirt rides high on him. From it, an inch of a happy trail crawls under the low riding waistband of his distressed grey jeans. He’s no longer wearing those awful necklaces.

“Yep, still here!” He looks better today, leaning in the setting sunlight, all rock n’ roll. Still awful, but better. “We didn’t actually work too much last night.”

“Oh no, why’s that?”

Prius squints.

“Too much sex.” Putting on his aviators, he produces a cigarette from some nether region in his hair. He lights it, takes a drag, and then squeezes my shoulder. “But it’s never too much with Stella, right?” Exhaling, he grins. “She’s a good girl.”

“That she is … “

As he stands in my clothes, having a smoke after a full night of banging the girl whom I’ve spent years trying to establish a sexual relationship with, I try to keep my cool. But I just can’t avoid the issue any longer.

“Hey, man.” I point to his chest. “Great shirt. Where’d you get it?”

“Oh yeah. Weird. Weird.” Shaking his head, looking down, he addresses the garment. “Actually, Jamie from The Kills left it at my place. It’s his. Weird, right?”

I just saw a picture of that guy on WWTDD. He dates Kate Moss. If Donny’s not lying, she may have touched that shirt. I want to smell it. He’s gotta be lying.

“Yeah. Weird,” I wave away the smoke.

Prius stares at the tee, pulling it taut away from his lean torso. The cherry of his cigarette is far too close to the sacred cotton.

“So, is Stella still asleep? I lent her something. I’ve gotta get it back.”

“Oh, she’s not here.” He drops the endangered hem. “She got up early to get breakfast croissants with her mom. Now they’re at a bake sale or something. They left a note… ” He looks over his shoulder, as if expecting to see a Post-It fluttering around his hair. “You hungry? I’m about to make some pancakes with fresh huckleberries. Gluten-free, I make them with—”

“Wait, you’re here alone?”

“Yeah,” Taking another drag, he exhales. “You wanna come in?”

Kinda.

“Oh, no, no. Thanks man, no.” I back-step, “I’ve gotta get to work. I’ll text Stella and tell her that I came by.”

“Don’t bother. Her phone’s in her room charging.”

He follows me to the edge of the porch as I scurry down the steps, and hop on my board.

“If you wanna come by later we’ll both be here!” He hollers. “I can make more pancakes! I’ve got tons of batter, my brother.”

“Okay, thanks!” Escaping, flying off the curb, and bombing down the street, I yell back. “Maybe I’ll get some syrup and come by.”

Chapter 18

In the lobby, Shane is tearing tickets and wearing a nametag.

“Hey Mike, you here to see ‘
Attack of the Vampire Scarecrow’
?”

He giggles, tickled by his commentary on my aversion to skin cancer, my outstanding fashion sense, and my runway physique. Every time I see this animate action figure, he calls me a ‘vampire scarecrow’ and tells me to pump some iron and get some sun. We’re friends. During our freshman year, Shane saved me from being beaten by one of his wrestling teammates. I’d made the mistake of trying to talk to a sweater girl that the smaller, yet still gigantic buffo had a crush on. Shane didn’t know me at the time, but he’s an unlikely sympathizer of fragile, sensitive, stylish, artistic-genius types such as myself. He wears self-tailored indie rock tees and power lifts to Antony and the Johnsons.

“Good variation Shane.” His biceps strain to tear through the sleeves of his Death Cab For Cutie shirt as I ask, “You work here now?”

“Yeah, I heard that they were hiring. And I was bored.”

“Oh. Well, welcome to the fun.”

“Thanks! It will be great working together!” He directs some rich tourists to theatre number two.

“Yeah. So, I’ll be in Booth Six.” I walk down the matted red carpet then pause at the projection room door. “And you might want to get a tighter shirt.”

“And you might want to do some pushups!” My new coworker’s deep voice turns into his unsettling, falsetto laugh.

Shaking my head, I climb the stairs. Shane just doesn’t understand. All the biggest celebrities are smaller in person.

Swollen huge, from having just accomplished eight pushups in the privacy of my dark shelter, I google the actor on the screen: Russell Brand is a vegetarian, a writer, and British. Katy Perry is his wife. Stella may have an uber-hip DJ but she’ll be jealous when I’m hanging out with the Ameripop Star and her husband. Our friendship is inevitable. Russell and I have so much in common.