You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(117)

Not where I thought this was going, and I nod like it is. “Yikes.”

“It was bad. He’s, like, thinking about it all the time and I’m sort of the first girl he can talk to about it for whatever reason.”

He is dead, but you talk about him like he is alive. This too shall pass. “Well, you’re easy to talk to, Vail.” Among other things, but no. I will not be that asshole, not even now.

“All right,” you say. “So his dad was on the mower, behind the wheel, and I think that’s why he was so…Well, of course he was so insecure around guys. Unresolved anger at his dad, I mean, you know about that anyway. The whole show he put on, the hypermasculine macho act…”

See that? Already it is passing. You speak of him like he’s gone, which he is, because of me. “It could be a bit much.”

“I know,” you say. “And the nonstop womanizing…so embarrassing, right?”

You’re smart and you see things, and we are safe in our snow globe. Free. I pat your hand and kiss it. “Agree.”

“Anyway, the accident…Dick was just a toddler, just lying on the grass minding his own business, playing with his G.I. Joes, the poor kid…” I never had a lawn or G.I. Joes or a father who mowed the lawn, but yeah. Let’s feel sorry for Dick. “And then his dad got distracted by a neighbor and he just…he ran over his own son…” My dad gave me cigarettes for breakfast sometimes. “It was bad, Joe.”

“I had no idea.”

“And he had to have surgery on his…you know…”

“Dick.”

I don’t buy it, Vail. It never came up once in your instant fuck-me messages. You’re on your feet and okay. Even if it’s true, if Dick had a bad dick. It wasn’t that bad. It didn’t stop him from swinging that thing into half the women in this fucking city.

“Joe, I’m just gonna say it. The surgery was bad. He couldn’t come.”

I saw the pictures, Vail. He can come. “What do you mean?”

“They call it dry ejaculation or something. He gets excited and he climaxes, but nothing comes out. Meaning he can never have kids. Meaning he ran from girl to girl so he could avoid telling girls about his issues. That’s why I was so shocked when you said he has a girlfriend.”

No. You weren’t shocked. You were jealous. You called him. “I had no idea.”

“Was she nice?”

HE IS DEAD AND SHE IS FAKE. “I don’t know. I didn’t end up seeing either one of them. Last time I saw him…I can’t even remember.”

“Well, anyway…I told him over and over that girls don’t care, not really. And when he and I met…Well, part of the reason he told me was my job, you know? He wanted me to tell the writers so they would do an episode about him, so it would be, like, a thing girls know about, that some guys…some guys don’t jizz.”

A user even then, and it’s starting to feel like it is the truth, but is it? “So what happened with the show? Are they doing an episode?”

You shrug and say it’s not your decision, but the answer is probably no. Too dark, too rare. Now you’re psychoanalyzing him and talking to me about those days after September 11, when he was crushed, confronting the reality that he would never be a father, not the old-fashioned way. And even though I knew you were with him, it doesn’t exactly feel good to have this fresh fucking image. The two of you walking and talking your way through the city while I was in the basement of a bookstore. And it’s hard, Vail. It is hard for me to leave the AOL IMs where they are, in the computer. Hard for me to accept that I only saw part of the conversation. Maybe I’m stupid or maybe stupid is code for young or male or Joe, but somehow I never let myself go there. You and Dick did what we do. You hung out together. Ick.

“Oh, Joe, if you could’ve known him the way I did, the real him…I tried so hard to lift his spirits, you know? And sometimes I made him come around. I would be like, ‘Well, what if you met a girl and she couldn’t bear children?’ And he’d be like, ‘We’d adopt. I wouldn’t care.’ And I’d be like, ‘Okay, this is no different, your issue.’ But then you know how it is. He’d get with some girl and turn into the same old douche, push her away before he let her get close. I showed him my foot. I…Remember when I came in and bought Everyone Poops?”

“Of course.”

“Dick couldn’t accept himself. So ashamed, so self-conscious, and like…Why?”

You didn’t give that book to your cousin. You gave it to him. “You’re a good person.”

“No.” And you smile at the floor. “Is this too much? Am I making you uncomfortable or anything?”

Yes. “Of course not.”

“Thank you because talking like this with you…it helps. So many memories…Oh God, this one time, early on…he left his brother’s dog tags at my place, I wore them to work and…Never mind. It’s too embarrassing.”

Did you find out they’re fake? Do I tell you they’re fake? No. A body in motion is meant to stay in motion. I nudge you. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Oh, but it is. I mean, he left before I was up and I find them in my bathroom. I squealed…Oh, I squealed. I put them on. Pranced around at work like he was my boyfriend…And halfway through the day he calls, which is a miracle. Usually after we hook up he disappears for a few days…. Anyway, he invites me to dinner with his parents and…This is it.”