Love Monkey (19 page)

I
'm at Shooter's house in the Hamptons, sitting by the pool in my swimsuit with a book I am not reading and a drink I am not drinking. She's at the Jersey Shore. With her mother, her father, her brothers, and her boyfriend. You just know they're playing
Frisbee
. As punishment for this treachery, I am not calling her. I have this week obtained a cell phone, my first ever, for the specific purpose of not calling her. Of course, she might want to call me.

The hunt is continuing but she always dances just out of range. I'm the chaser and she's the chaste. We go to parties together. We drink our drinks together. Complain about our jobs together. We drink, we whine. We drink, we whine. Blather, rinse, repeat. We go to movies. We go to dinners. They all end the same way. Every evening is a seminar in cruelty. Not an exercise in frustration: an entire workout. She's like a personal trainer, except one of them would cost me only $50 an hour.

At the end of every evening, we share the cab. We run our lines together, in our taxi theater: “Come up.” “I can't.” I worship her from anear.

I woo her with food. I woo her with booze. I woo her with goo-goo eyes and stolen kisses. (Stolen? I paid for these kisses, bub. Oh, how I paid.) I woo her in the park and I woo her in the dark. I woo her until my woo-woo is worn and then what do I do? I woo her some more. She is woo-proof. She is unwooable. Woe is my wooer.

Back at the pool, Alpha Dog emerges first, at 12:15. As usual he goes straight for my balls.

“Hey, Alfie, how ya—ow, don't stand on my testicles, boy. Yes, I love you too.” My face is covered in dog spit, but who am I to spurn unconditional love? Alpha's tail is operating at a thousand wags a minute. If he could figure out the angles, he could probably use it to rise vertically, like a helicopter. Then maybe he could fly around the neighborhood and discover there are lots of other guys' balls he could be stomping on.

“Heh, heh, heh,” says Shooter, coming down to the side of the pool and sticking a foot in the water. He's working on a large Bloody Mary, possibly not his first of the day. What a degenerate. Which reminds me. I reach down and take a gulp of mine. Ahh. How could I have forgotten? When I find myself in times of trouble, Bloody Mary comes to me.

Shooter sits down, his feet in the water up to the knees, and pats Alpha's rump. “Get a room, you two.”

“Pardon my screams,” I say. “I just wasn't in the mood for a savage nut crunching on this particular day.”

“You don't use 'em much anyway. Consider it exercise. Are you thinking about that girl again?” Shooter asks.

“You caught the dreamy look in my eye?”

“Yeah, that,” he says, taking a sip. “Plus the huge boner.”

Oh.

“Unless it's for Alpha, you sick fuck,” Shooter adds pleasantly. He chuckles into his drink.

“I need help. This girl, she's everywhere,” I say. “She's oozing through every cell of me. She's got a hold on every sector of my body.”

“Can't help you there, sport. I'm a lover, not an oncologist.”

“This girl is harder to get into than Rao's.”

“Listen,” Shooter says. “What did the wise old brain surgeon say to the rookie brain surgeon?”

“I don't know,” I say.

“ ‘Relax. This isn't rocket science.' ”

“I know it isn't rocket science. Rocket science makes sense. Earth's gravitional field doesn't pull things in on Tuesday and push them away on Sunday.”

“Been having a lot of Sundays?”

“
Hola,
” someone says.

Another Bloody Mary enters the yard, followed closely by Mike. Last winter he and Karin bought the house next door to Shooter's in Amagansett. Mike's house features a screaming infant and basic cable. Shooter's has a pool and seventeen movie channels. I spend more time at Shooter's.

“Hey,” I say.

“How's the water?” he says. Mike's also carrying a magazine and a boom box. He puts the radio down and plugs it in. It's tuned to the FM station for people who iron their jeans.

“Up to standard,” Shooter says.

Mike takes his
Wine Spectator
and gets on a float. He paddles his way around the pool as he reads, the magazine propped on his belly.

The radio: the most overplayed song since that annoying Sheryl Crow tune about the guy peeling the labels off his bottle of Bud.

“I love this song,” Mike says.

“You don't, really,” says Shooter.

“What's it called?” Mike says.

“ ‘Drops of Jupiter.' By Train.”

“I'm gonna get the CD,” Mike threatens.

“That's a little extreme,” Shooter says.

“Please don't,” I say. The next thing you know, he'll be falling for that song that sounds like Superman talking to his shrink.

“Why?” Mike says.

“There's nothing to it,” I say. “It's a string of nonsense—‘since the return of her stay on the moon, she listens like spring and she talks like June'?—what's that? It's just killing time till you get to the chorus.”

“Love that chorus!” he says. And here it comes.

We listen.

“What's that line?” Shooter says.

“ ‘Man, heaven is overrated'?” Mike says.

“No,” I say. “I think it's, ‘Manhattan is overrated.' Don't you get it? It's an anti-New York song.” Sometimes people don't get New York. The place is dirty and dangerous and crowded and costly, and every other place is even worse.

“Do you want to come over for a movie tonight?” Mike says.

My mistake: I agree. So hours later Shooter and I sit down with
Mike and Karin for some nice TV. The baby, having been “put down” (apparently this doesn't mean given a lethal injection, just as animals who are “put to sleep” won't be needing a wake-up call), isn't available for an in-person performance, so we watch a video of the baby.

In the video, the baby is getting a bath. That's it. This isn't any special bath; it isn't My First Bath or My First Shampoo or My First Breaststroke or anything; it's just A Bath. For fifteen minutes. Mike sits on an ottoman about six inches away from the TV, almost directly in my line of sight, peering at the footage as intently as Stanley Kubrick in his editing room. I consider telling him he's blocking my sight, but then again, what am I missing?

We watch A Bath.

“The film quality is pretty good,” I say to Mike.

“Yeah,” he says tersely, in a shushy kind of way, as though I were chattering away during the climax of
The Godfather
.

“But I guess you can't edit on these video cameras, huh?” I say.

“Actually,” he says, “I edited out the part where I admit I've never changed Alexandra's diaper.”

Ah, I get it. So this is not the rough cut. This is the finished drama of A Bath, edited down to its essence. Which consists of a mom splashing water around on a confused-looking little person who looks as if she's considering submitting a complaint to Amnesty International.

“So pretty,” says Karin.

“Isn't she pretty?” says Mike.

“Pretty,” says Shooter, dutifully.

“Actually,” I say, “the phrase that comes to mind is below average.”

Except I don't.

“Yes,” I say, because it is the easiest thing to say. I wonder, when did people stop cooing over me? Or, given that I am Manboy and my
mother can't deal with me as an adult anyway, is she still talking about me this way? “Oh, Tom, he's great. He's 397 months, 180 pounds, 5 ounces. Got a big, full head of hair!” Well, that last part isn't exactly true anymore. Let's face it, I was much cuter then. That's why it was so much easier to get a breast in my mouth.

My cell phone goes. I knew the calls would be rolling in soon.

“Tom?” A female voice. Nasal and impatient.

“Well, if it isn't,” I say. I try to hide my genuine delight under a layer of sarcastic delight.

“I'm bored,” says Bran. “You bored?”

I admire a girl who admits she's bored and home alone on Saturday night. “Yeah,” I say. “Only I'm not in the neighborhood. I'm in the Hamptons.”

“You dit'int invite me!” she says. I love the way she says “didn't.”

“I'm sure,” I say, “that I can make it up to you. Movies on Thursday?”

“Yeah. Hey, I may have a girl for you.”

“Is it you?”

“Show up and find out,” she says.

“Would this person have deep and abiding contempt for me?”

“I don't have contempt for you.”

“Aha! So it is you.”

“You're pretty cocky for a guy who sucks in his gut when he's trying to hit on girls.”

“Girls adore my gut,” I say. “Makes 'em feel thin.” Besides, my gut is shrinking. The swim trunks are getting baggy.

“Um,
oh
-kay,” she says. “And girls like ugly guys because they make us feel pretty. And girls like short guys because they make us feel tall.
That's
why Danny DeVito is such a sex symbol!”

“Wow,” I say.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just. Give me a second.” Sniff, sniff.

“Tom, you okay?”

“Sort of,” I say. “No. I mean. You just, kind of hurt my feelings.”

“I'm so sorry! Really?”

“No. In your face, Lowenstein!”

“You twat,” she says, and laughs. “I'll see you Thursday.”

M
y friend couldn't make it,” Bran tells me.

“Oh really.”

“Yes, really,” she says. “How does this thing work?” She's pushing buttons on a computer monitor. It beats dealing with the minimum-wage drones who sell tickets in person. But nothing is happening. When she touches the button saying “9:30
P.M.
” nothing happens. Nothing happens the second time. Nothing happens the fiftieth time.

“This fucking thing,” she says, looking around for someone to berate. I'm a little fearful at these moments.

“Let me,” I say, being all manly about it, assuming control. I figure if the screen gizmo happens to work for me, I'm a golden god, her box-office hero. But if it doesn't, she can't very well blame me, can she?

I haven't seen Bran for a while, but looking at her now, with her cool flowy black hair and her just-about-to-laugh mouth, I start to
remember why I used to phone her every other day, why I thought for a long time, Would it be so bad if I ended up with Bran? Before I gave up and accepted my demotion to non-potential sex partner, to Him? Oh, He's Just a Friend. Last spring we went to a play. Afterward we stopped by Langan's to get companionably drunk. She told me about the coolest moment in her life: when she was a college sophomore and just aching to become one of those Serious Young Journalists, she went to a job conference crawling with other Serious Young Journalists and met Barbara Walters. I laughed. She said I was mean.

I've been nice. I took her to many dazzling parties, got her drunk. Even got her high. What I did not get was in her pants, nowhere near. Yet we make each other laugh. We're like a married couple, except we're still attracted to each other. My problem is, after an evening together, I get all warm and cuddly like and I start cutting out the self-censorship button, the way I do when I'm with my guy friends. Guys make fun of each other mercilessly. Do it with a girl and…you can forget about doing it with that girl.

We talked about relationships that didn't work out and we got drunker. And lamentier. We had a nice cab home together since she lives a few blocks from me. “Thank you for being my friend,” I said, with barroom sentimentality. “I'm glad we've gotten closer,” she said. We went into the clinch. It wasn't a phony see-ya-later hug. It was a real boy-girler.

At the Union Square manyplex, we stroke the screen, we tap the screen, we rub the screen, we press the screen. Two college graduates are unable to win the rights to buy tickets to a movie.

“Do you really want to see this stupid movie?” I say.

“Of course not,” she says. “I thought you wanted to see it.” “Are you kidding me?” I say. “You thought I wanted to see a movie about a ditzy blonde with a passion for designer labels? How gay do you think I am?”

“In those pants? Not very,” she says.

“What's wrong with my pants?”

“They hang loose in the back,” she says. “How am I supposed to check out your butt? And the less said about the mustard stain, the better.”

“This? No one can see this. It's really small.”

“No, you're right,” she says. “Only
you
can see it. It's in
vis
ible to everyone else.”

We're strolling down University Place. She pulls up in front of a Korean flower shop slash deli.

“Ooohhhh, I
love
these,” she says, sticking her whole face in a big barrel of flowers. “Lilies of the valley are the
best
. Remember that.”

“You want to go back to a time when if a guy liked you, he'd keep sending you flowers. I want to go back to stewardesses being chosen primarily for their looks. Unhappiness reigns everywhere.”

“Tom, can we be real for a second?” she says as we head back down University. “I'm worried about my friend Sharon. She might get fired. I've known her since I'm eighteen!”

“I like that, ‘Since I'm eighteen,' ” I say.

“Are you making fun of me?” Her eyes are blazing.

“I just said I liked it!” I say.

“What did I say?” she says. “ ‘I've known her since I was eighteen.' ”

“No, you said, ‘Since I'm eighteen.' It's a very New Yorky way of talking. People didn't say that in Rockville, Maryland.”

“Jesus, you are such a snob,” she says.

“What'd I say?” I say.

Bran and I often have conversations like this. Things are going perfectly smoothly, I make some light remark, she takes it as an insult, she scolds me for a while, my balls become Grape-Nuts and my A-Rod turns to shrimp cocktail.

There's a giant pile of garbage outside a dingy office building on University. This being New York, casual mountains of garbage are not news, but in this case, a dozen young hipsters are going through the refuse. It's mostly paperwork and vinyl records in blank white paper sleeves. Every so often a bored-looking middle-aged blue-collar white guy comes and adds another barrel or bag to the dump.

“There's a noodle shop around the cor—,” I am saying when I realize I have lost her. Unlike me, Bran is a real reporter: she actually wants to go and see what people are doing with their lives. Me, I prefer not to think about it.

Bran is talking to someone sifting through the paperwork and records.

“You know what this is?” she says, sparkling. “This is KK-Killuh's garbage!”

In Manhattan below Fourteenth Street, it's the equivalent of finding Princess Diana's used tiaras. And it makes sense: as Mr. Killuh is, according to tabloid news reports, currently an involuntary guest of the state of New York, what use does he have for an apartment on University Place? You know how they say people comb the obits looking for apartments that have suddenly become vacant? Maybe they should start checking
Vibe
while they're at it.

Bran is going all Lois Lane on me. “This is a ‘Talk of the Town'!” she says.

“You need to know someone at
The New Yorker
to get into ‘Talk of the Town,' ” I say. Wait a minute: I actually do know a couple of people at
The New Yorker
. A girl I went to school with and her friend. You know how they always say you have to know someone? I'm somehow one of those someones.

And see how far it's gotten me? I start picking through the garbage on the off chance that I might get paid to write about what I find. This puts me below the level of garbageman: they at least
know
their interaction with trash will earn them money. I'm collecting garbage on spec.

The site of a well-dressed twenty-nine-year-old woman picking through garbage, even in New York, even in this century, is unusual. People stop to stare. Some figure this must be really good garbage, and they start picking through it as well. Soon half a dozen well-dressed New Yorkers with degrees from top eastern universities and 401(k) plans are trawling through the detritus of an illiterate criminal from Staten Island.

There is a black guy next to me. We rummage together, joined in our celebrity worship.

“You like K-Cube?” I say.

He looks at me, gives me a little pat of recognition. “You all right,” he says. “Can't judge a book by its cover.”

I happen to know the etiquette on the matter of Mr. Killuh's name; he is addressed as K-Cubed (pronounced “K-Cube,” of course), never as K-K-K. If you call him that, you're a racist.

“Look,” I say conversationally, showing him a booklet. “Blank deposit slips.”

“Give 'em here,” he says, his eyes twinkling with bank fraud. “No, wait. Never mind. You see any withdrawal slips?”

Bran is running around interviewing people. I help pore through the pile.

I'm finding ICM contracts, riders listing demands (“Artist will travel in first class at Promoter's Expense”), scripts for music videos (“This video will be about the NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL KK-Killuh. We want to make it as THUGGED OUT as possible.”), lists of producers and songs, and a long, tangled exchange between KK-Killuh and some party promoter about whether or not his mother was treated with the deference due a woman of her stature at some awards dinner. Bran is talking to the guy who was standing next to
me a minute ago. It turns out he's a rapper too; he's doing a gig at Joe's Pub tonight.

“Why don't you get with me instead of him?” he whines. “Look,” he says, rolling up his sleeves. “I got bigger arms than that guy. Feel.”

Is this how people ask each other out in the 'hood? So much simpler. On the other hand, if I were black, I'd get no dates at all.

A guy who looks like he invests in socially progressive stocks is rustling through a box of blank fax sheets. Bran grabs him for a quote. “I don't know if I feel bad about being here, or if I feel bad about not being here soon enough,” he says. “You should never be late to a good pillaging.”

“Bran,” I say. “We gotta eat something.”

Bran and I gather up a bunch of documents and records and stick them in a box. She carries it proudly in front of her belly: her baby. We go to a diner for a burger.

Bran is humming the latest Madonna song. Producing a TV news segment involves months of work to put together a twelve-minute collage of pictures. This, though, could be an actual written story to be printed in a magazine next week. Her name in black ink. She doesn't get to see that often.

“Do you think it's a story?” she says.

“It's a story.”

“I'm going to stay up all night writing it. I'm so excited.”

“Bran,” I say. “It's a five-hundred-word story.” I take my cell phone out of my backpack to make sure it's still on. You never know when Julia's going to call.

“You shit,” she says. “What are you doing with my phone?”

“My phone.”

She starts pawing through her five-gallon bag, the one I mock-ingly called “fake Fendi” the first time I saw it even though I, obviously,
can't tell the difference. It turned out that I'd stumbled onto the truth. She didn't talk to me for a month after that.

“So what's that?” I say, as she unearths a scratched Nokia.

“You got the exact same phone they gave me?”

“Looks that way,” I say.

“You have to get a new one, then.”

“Uh-uh.”

I pay for the grub, then Bran and I head across the street to one of those cool old-fashioned quasi-Irish pubs, with carnival glass and conspiratorial little booths and beer by the pitcher.

“You're buying this time,” I say, sitting at the bar.

“I don't have any money,” she says, and opens her wallet. This is the cartoon moment when the moths fly out, but she's right: she's busted. Girls never have any money. Girls get away with a lot, if you ask me. I hear the Kennedy kids walk around without cash too. And royalty.

I order a Guinness. She looks at the beer list as if it's written in Urdu. “Stella Artois,” she tells the waiter. I grimace, involuntarily.

“What?” she says, all defensive. “I've never had one. I want to see what it's like. Why do you have to always insult me?”

“I'm not insulting you,” I say. “I've had every one of these beers.” Many times. “I could have described them for you.”

Bran is tall, looks taller in her gray wool suit. Wide lapels, shoulder pads, baggy pleated pants. Girls dressed this way for a brief moment, in the late 1980s. Then they came to their senses.

“You're looking at my suit,” she says.

“Where did you get it?” I say, dodging.

“It was the first suit I ever bought!” she says, brightly. “It was three hundred dollars. Then the next week it was on sale for a hundred and fifty so I returned it and bought it again.”

She's still wearing the first suit she ever bought. In the late eighties.

“This girl at work asked me if I was a lesbian,” she says morosely.

“You do dress like Ellen DeGeneres,” I say.

“Why are you always saying such hurtful things?” she says. “You're such an asshole.”

Gaffe!
Backtrack. “All I'm saying, you're a cute girl. Dress like one.”

“How?”

“You're wearing, like, thirty percent too much clothing,” I say.

I give the bartender a bill. Bartenders like me. I always overtip them. Give them an extra buck, they give you an extra six-dollar drink. What goes around comes around. It's barma.

She takes a sip. I drink half of my pint in a gulp.

“Do you ever think,” Bran says gently, “that you drink too much?”

“Actually, since it hasn't started working yet,” I say, “I was thinking I should up the dosage.”

The J box starts up with “Tangled Up in Blue.” The strumming hits me like intravenous beer. Ahh. Muscles going slack with joy.

“Did you know that in the original version of this song, the one on the New York sessions bootleg—” I say.

“What song?” she says.

“This song. On the original version, it's—”

“What song is this?”

“ ‘Tangled Up in Blue,' ” I say.

“By who?”

“Oh come on,” I say. “Dylan! It's the first song on
Blood on the Tracks
!”

“What
cen
tury is it from?” she says. “Don't they have any new music?”

Let it go. “Anyway,” I say, “on the original version of this song, it's all in the third person.
He
was married when they first met, soon to be divorced.
He
helped her out of a jam
he
guessed but
he
used a
little too much force.' On the Minneapolis session, the one that was used on the commercially released album, it's all in the first person. Makes it so much more personal, don't you think? More powerful. And the language is so beautifully economical. Instead of saying, I met her, we cheated on her husband, I talked her into dumping him, he just says, ‘She was married when we first met/Soon to be divorced.' And then he kills her husband, but Dylan never comes out and says that. It's just, ‘Helped her out of a jam I guess/But I used a little too much force.' ”