You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(27)

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY PORTNOY?

“Oh.”

“It’s just…it’s so rare to see one in the States. I mean…you’re uncut.”

I’m not un-anything. I’m natural. “Yeah.”

“You don’t see that a lot…not that I see a lot. And we did an episode about this.”

Great. You made fun of my dick on national fucking television for girls. “Oh.”

“Was your mom…Is she a hippie or something?”

You study me like a book, like suddenly you read dicks. I bet Tom Hanks is cut. I bet his mother was all over that shit and I don’t want Alma Goldberg in my head, but she’s there, lurking. I can’t introduce you. I won’t introduce you. It’s my dick and the Mister Softee truck is ringing the bell, gunning for my Portnoy. You think you want my stories, but you wouldn’t want my stories if you knew my stories are all laced with salmonella and I’m losing it. Us. You.

But then my chin is in your hand. “Baby,” you say. “Relax. Tell me what you want.”

Anything. Everything.

And then we’re back. I want what you want. Portnoy wants to run, yawp, and jump out of his foreskin and slide into your Moleskine. Down, boy. But now your hands are faster and wait…Do you want it to end now…like this? I haven’t touched your Beckinsale, and you order me to come, come for Mama, baby. No. That’s not how it works. Not in the pornos or the poems. There are rules about this. Mama don’t take my Kodachrome until I give you your greens of summer, and no cookies for me without cookies for you. I throw you onto your back. You squeal. You like it. I grab onto the waist of your tights. You wince. “Um, I sort of have my period.”

A crackhead won’t notice a little blood, and neither will I. “I don’t care.”

“That too is very seventies, baby, but…Wait.”

Uh-oh. Is it my dick? Me? You sit up. “Did you, like…Did you invite friends over?”

You pull your shirt over your head, and you reach for a boot, and I hear it now. The elevator. I tell you I’m sorry, and you laugh. “It’s fine, Cusack. All good. Totally!”

But I’m not laughing and I’m not Cusack. We got past that, I am baby, I am Joe, and you’re regressing and the elevator is rising. Our love nest is collapsing, the living room isn’t sinking, it’s in free fall like my fucking Portnoy. Our first date flashes in my mind, the way they say your life does right before you die. Houston and Mercer. Philip Roth and Mr. Tongue. And now it’s over. He’s coming, not me, not you. Him. Angus Fucking Kaplan.

I rub my forehead, and you kick me like we’re buddies, like I’m some random guy you hooked up with. You say it will be nice to meet my friend—HE’S NOT MY FRIEND—and you pull lipstick out of your bag and rub it on your mouth like I might just be the way you meet some other guy, some better guy with HBO and a common American cock.

The elevator groans, and I just fucking say it. “We should have gone to Serendipity.”





10


Thirty seconds later, we’re walking the plank on this sinking fucking ship because he’s here. Angus. Slimy green robe. Velour. Same green as those pillows in India. Cigarette holes in the sleeves, and I am silent. Dead. He isn’t holding a Heinie, and he isn’t holding a crack pipe.

He’s holding a fucking gun. You put your hands up and I put my hands up and my Moleskine heart is pounding—this is the worst kind of first—and you extend a hand like he doesn’t have a gun, like this is fucking normal and you smile at the gun-toting crackhead.

“You must be Uncle Andy, right? I’m Joe’s friend Vail.” Friend. “And I gotta say…I am kind of in love with your robe.”

He looks at you and he looks at me, and he takes the two steps down into our sinking ship. Your scarf is right there, and I’m begging that fucker, please. Don’t touch that fuzzy red scarf. Don’t kill us. Don’t wreck us.

He spits. “The hell do you think you’re doing, Jimmy?”

You get it now—this ain’t my Uncle Andy—and that’s why you put your hands back up. You’re scared again. I want to tell you it’s not loaded, but last summer, he got mad about something Oprah said and shot a hole in the wall. It very well might be loaded, and you are never going to forgive me for this, for any of it.

“Angus,” I say. “I can explain.”

He leers at you and laughs. “Did you get me a present?”

You are not a present and I howl at him—Drop the fucking weapon—but you rest a hand on my arm—Gently, Joseph—and you look at me like I’m a child. “Let me, Joe,” you whisper.

I can’t say no to you. I am useless. I’m the reason you’re in this mess, and you are so good at the world. You negotiate like a pro, like that lady on SVU. You ask Angus if you can sit down, and when he says no, you say that’s okay, that we will do whatever he wants.

“You’re the boss, babe. Truly.”

He waves the pistol at you, at the sofa. “Sit, Ubu, sit.”

You sit, and he calls you a good dog. I’m still standing here like the teenage loser that I am, and you’re a genius, a regular Miss Frascatore. You stay calm, asking questions about his day, about his night. His answers make no sense. I didn’t have a day…. I don’t do night. You know to let it go, to let him lead, and so he leads. He says I don’t belong here. He says I’m a book bitch and sometimes he calls me Jimmy and other times it’s Jerome or fucking Jimbo and all the while I stand here with my hands up because he never told me to Sit, Ubu, sit.