You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(42)

He rambles in the roundabout, blogging-out-loud way that he does when he doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t mind him, and I do like Martha. She gave me my first Paula Fox, and she makes a killer meat loaf.

Oh no. It’s happening. I’m backsliding and getting soft and no. I’m too close. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Like Dick said yesterday, this is crunch time. V-Day is D-Day, son. Every chick in this city is on a post-9/11 mission to lock it down. Vail will run back to you, and you gotta be ready. I don’t want to hurt poor Mr. Mooney, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

“Hey, I’m gonna hit the road, but thanks to Martha.”

I expect him to snap at me to sit, but then he pulls a rabbit out of his hat. There it is, Vail. The pink fucking Polo shirt.

“Well,” he says. “To each his own. Enjoy your pink blouse.”



* * *



—

An hour later, it’s game on. I’m climbing the subway stairs at the Throop and Gates, back in the old neighborhood. I don’t call it home (it’s just where I started), and the directions I printed off MapQuest are shit. Orange cones, dead ends, and more cones, but I’m the man, so I find where I’m going.

The buyer is a liar. He described the building as a “warehouse turned speakeasy,” but it’s just another shithole pile of rubble, the kind of place where perverts and junkies huddle in the dark.

I take out my phone to call my source, but oh, that’s right. I don’t have his phone number. I wish I could email him, but even the Motorola has its limits, and the building is scary. A kid in my fourth-grade class died in a place like this, but that wasn’t me, and now is now. No lock on the front door, and the rats are already scuttling. Shaky. There’s a staircase made out of rust that leads to what used to be an office. Lights on somehow, someway up there.

I take Emily Dickinson out of my bag. “Yo. You guys up there?”

“Come up, Kevin.”

That’s my fake name (I had to protect myself), and the lights in the hidden second story go out. My skin crawls. That voice again. “Come on up.”

I channel my inner Dick. “Nah, you guys come down.”

It occurs to me that Cusack had his Piven, that Dick has his Schlitz, and I have no backup and wait. Did it just get darker? I think it just got darker. I hold on to Hope. I remember the first time I read it, sitting on the stoop by my school and looking at pigeons, wondering what Emily thought of those birds, the only ones I knew. That’s a story I could tell you, a story I will tell you, and a rat crosses over my foot. Is that an omen? No. I’m the man.

But I’m only one man. They come out of nowhere, two of them, maybe three. Something lands on my left foot and something else crushes my kidney and the third fist mashes up my face.

I hit the ground hard, and I let go (when you’re done, you’re done). All the punching bags I’ve been whaling on at Crunch didn’t prepare me for this. Those bags that can’t hit back, and I failed you and me and Emily Dickinson. The bad guys have her, and they’re on the run. I am passing out and bleeding and I can almost smell the meat loaf, same way I hear the old man in my head, what he said when he locked me in the cage.

A little bit of hope can do a whole lot of damage.



* * *



—

I come to on the floor of the warehouse and I’m not gonna call the cops.

I wouldn’t even if I could. This is on me, Vail. I came here alone. I thought book people weren’t violent people. Well, I was wrong. They got my Emily Dickinson and all the cash I made off the other books. I reach for my groin, and yes, they got me there too. Back in the day, getting my ass kicked wasn’t so bad. I was kinda chubby. I had a gut. Padding. Pain hurts more when you’re strong than when you’re weak.

I fumble in my bag. It’s not a total disaster. I have my wallet. I have my cell phone. And there’s a light in the darkness of my screen, a thing with feathers in the form of three words.

One new voicemail. From you.

Jackpot and I owe Dick a case of Jim Henson. Once again, he predicted the fucking future. You came back for me, and I am the one who got away. You miss me and you want me so much that you don’t care about timing. You are openly chasing me down a few days before V-Day. I am ready to receive you, Miss Lonely. I got jacked for you—wait till you see my arms!—and I got jacked for you—if that’s not love I don’t know what is—and gone are the days of jacking off over you. We’re about to get real. I press the best button on the phone: Play.

“Joe, it’s me. Vail. Look, this is ridiculous. We’re adults…. At least that’s what I thought. And honestly, I’m fed up. Okay? Okay. Ten voicemails and you ignore me and that’s it. The end. Be at the Beanery at 8:30 tonight and please don’t feed me a line about how you’re ‘busy.’ I don’t want you. It’s over. It’s like I’ve said for days now. I just want my scarf.”

Click.





16


I didn’t go to the Beanery. I couldn’t go, Vail. You don’t really want your scarf. And you’re not done with me. You called me! I know the way you are. You miss me. You wouldn’t come out and say it, and you probably think you’re playing hard to get, preserving dignity or whatever, but I know you. I don’t care about the stupid fucking words. I heard it in your voice. The yearning.