You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(38)

“I told you. I want this.”

“Then learn from the past, my boy. Look around. Women don’t like ‘nice.’ Soft and snuggly? Dude, come on. They want to want nice. They’re all high on rom-coms, but deep down, chicks want to be choked. Tortured. They can’t help it, kid. It’s in their DNA and no rom-con is gonna change that. So what do you do? Here’s what you do. You erase the words Tom and Hanks from your vocabulary and grow a set.”

He sniffs and wipes his nose, and oh, okay. They’re not just high on bombs and Jim Henson. They’re on cocaine.

Dick waves his dog tags. “Check it,” he says. “Shit happens. But the shit gets worse if you want someone else to wipe your ass. Man up and wipe it. You want the girl?”

“Yes.”

“You want a bump?”

“No.”

“You want to know how to get the fucking girl, Joe-boy?”

It might be the J?ger bombs talking, but who knows? Maybe Dick has the keys to the castle. Maybe this is the brother that I never had. “Yes, I fucking do, Dick.”

“First things first. Tomorrow, you get a buzz cut.”

“But she likes my hair. She said so.”

“Second things second, son. That’s why you cut it. Fuck with her. Take it away. Third things third…A buzz cut is good because when you go down on her…”

I never did that, but I laugh like I get it, like I did do that.

He rubs the back of his head. “It’s all about friction.” I never felt like my ID was quite so fucking fake, and he laughs. “You ever see Magnolia?”

Schlitz goes in for a high five, and the girls around us shake their tail feathers like hope is all they have, like Dick and Schlitz are all they want. A girl with red hair buys them a couple of shots (what the fucking fuck) and they don’t say thank you and she doesn’t get mad.

“Seduce and Destroy,” says Dick. “It’s all about Seduce and Destroy.”

I Seduced you, but I do not want to Destroy you. “Okay.”

“The trench coat vibe you got going on…” I am not wearing a trench coat, but it feels like my sweater just grew three feet. “Lose it, Joe. Man up.”

He gets my digits, and he says there’s more where that came from. He winks at the girl who bought them the shots, and that’s my cue. I get it. I stand.

“Oh, and Joe. If she does call…fuck that shit. No contact. Zero. Make her come to you.”



* * *



—

On the way home, I stop at the only video store still open.

There are couples milling about, a few loner-sad stragglers like me. I pick up Magnolia and get in line, and my Motorola comes to life.

It’s you. You’re calling.

The guy behind the counter groans. “Dude,” he says. “You renting that or what?”

I want to know where you are, how you are, but it’s late. So late. Dick told me what to do and the clerk is impatient and the couple behind me is antsy. Everyone knows what they want, how to get it. You are here but not here, and J?germeister is a bad influence or a good influence—I DON’T KNOW WHERE JIM HENSON ENDS AND I BEGIN—and it’s a fork in the road. I’m drunk behind the wheel and I am not Robert Frost, and the music is too loud—If my train runs off the tracks, pick it up, pick it up—and do I do it, Vail?

Do I pick it up? Or do I let my new friend Dick lead the way?





14


Life is confusing sometimes. Like with Magnolia. Tom Cruise doesn’t have a buzz cut in the movie. He has long hair. He has a fucking ponytail, but Dick says we’re not Tom Cruise.

So I did it, Vail. I shaved my fucking head. You don’t know it, because we’re on a break. I send you to voicemail every time you call, and it’s not easy; it’s fucking hell. I haven’t listened to any of your voicemails, and Dick is right. Talk is cheap. This is a long road. As the man, I have to show you that I’m worth it. Teach you to respect me as I transform and begin to look like I respect me.

I’m not buff. Not yet. It’s only been five days. And it goes without saying that lifting weights is not my thing. It’s also not easy with Mooney and his cheap shots—You look like a skinhead who wandered out of Auschwitz—but Dick says that pain is the way you know you’re doing it right. Soft and snuggly is why you ditched me. Hard as a rock is why I’ll get you back.

“Excuse me.”

Customer on the floor. A woman. This is practice, so I make like Dick. No eye contact. Let her look at me. “What do you need?”

“Do you know the Amelia Bedelia books?”

It hurts. You know the Amelia Bedelia books, but I push you outta my head and laugh at her like she’s dumb. “Sure thing, whatever.”

She tucks her hair behind her left ear. “I mean, thank you.”

Dick says you girls like to be spit on, so I bolt to Kids without checking if this chick is with me—she is—and I don’t elaborate when she asks how I like working here. I swear, Vail…It’s not like I don’t feel guilty being such an ass (I do!), but it makes sense when Dick explains it. It’s not your fault that I taught you that I think I’m not good enough. I’m the one who messed up and brought you to Angus’s fucking house, so now I gotta get strong so I can teach you that I am good enough.