You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(54)

He makes it sound so easy and he ditches me to flirt with some girl and just like that…it’s official. I am Carrie Bradshaw. Obsessive. Needy. Annoying. My phone rings. It’s Dumber. He lays into me about jacking off in the shower and the Szechuan I spilled on the sofa. A Big (oh, stop it, brain) reminder that I don’t have a doorman or a California king or multiple hotel-grade bathrobes or a driver or a town car. It’s hard to respect yourself when you live in a cardboard box, when you can’t even jerk off in the shower without your roommate calling to bitch about it.

Dick is back. He wants to go to Chaos later, to a party for Details magazine.

“I know that place! They go to Chaos in the pilot. Samantha goes home with the guy Charlotte was into, and Charlotte doesn’t get mad at her. I don’t know if she finds out about it.”

Dick gives me the finger, and I can’t blame him. I do this. I go all the way. This one time, I almost drowned because I didn’t come out of the water and the lifeguard wasn’t having it. Why did you stay under? Were you trying to test me? That’s what I am, Vail. I go under. I stay under. I think I met you for the same reason you met me. We cannot become Big and Carrie on our own. We can only become Big and Carrie through each other.

Dick scratches the back of his head. “Joe,” he says, and you know it’s not good when he uses my real name. “Go home.”

Not possible. Not with Dumb and Dumber scrubbing Szechuan off the sofa that belongs to them. I miss you. I go on a walking tour. I see Sushi Samba and I go to Magnolia Bakery, but I do not stand in line. I buy a vintage coat in a thrift shop. Do I look silly? Is this me? I go uptown to Big Town and waltz into a cigar shop for some Cubans and I wind up on the corner of Seventy-second and Madison coughing up a lung. I feel lost and broke. Stupid. There is something wrong with me and I know it, same way Carrie knows she’s off. People are always telling me what to do, Dick and Mooney, but it’s worse, Vail. I am always asking people what to do, like Carrie and The Others. After a while, the cigar smoke settles. My lungs aren’t so full of Pop Rocks. A tall model type passes by and bones me with her eyes and just like that…

I am him. I am the man. I am Big.

I call you because I feel like it. Because I want to.

You pick up on the second ring. Desperate. Carrie. “Well, hello, stranger.”

“Hey, kid.”

That was my first kid, and it felt natural. You chuckle. Do you know? “Sounds a little funny coming from you, my friend.”

That’s what Carrie calls Big when she’s gun-shy and sarcastic. My friend. “So, what’s shaking?”

“Oh, you know, working around the clock and trying not to kill Barry…. I kinda thought I’d hear from you sooner. I feel like things got weird for no reason.”

Less is more, and I sigh. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to hear from me.”

You are quiet and you feel it…. There’s a new Joe in town. “Wow, well, yeah, okay, that helps…. I wasn’t sure either, but now that you’re calling, I mean, can we just decide that V-Day made us lose our little minds?”

It was never this clear, Vail. You want the back-and-forth, the up and down, the breakdowns and the fresh starts. But what about the good stuff? The in and out. I know. We’ll get there.

“So, I hear you guys are shooting a big Fleet Week scene, yeah?”

“Wow. How did you know about that?”

Gently, Joseph. “I saw something in the Post.”

“Well, look at you, reading about me….”

“Don’t flatter yourself, baby. I picked up that rag on the way home from Chaos the other morning.”

I can hear the wheels turning in your head. The horror in your heart, me in a bar full of models, models who kept me up all fucking night. It’s easy now. You crave pain, the possibility that I don’t want you, not the way you want me. It’s a joke (I want you!), but I can do this for us. Fuck with you to win the honor of actually, you know, fucking you.

“Anyway,” I say. “How’s tricks?”

It’s another Big line. How’s tricks? “Aw, tricks are for kids.”

That was pure unadulterated Carrie Fucking Bradshaw and the conversation flows and before you know it we are equals, fluent. You’re bubbling about the Fleet Week pinks, and it’s easier to talk to you now that I know Carrie and The Others. I end the call abruptly without so much as a goodbye. I shut my phone off. On the subway, I just sit there smiling. What a change! I learned your language, and I owe Dick a bottle of J?germeister or a case of Jim Henson. Does Big do shots? Whatever! Who cares! The world is on my side. Dumb and Dumber aren’t home, and you called my Motorola and my landline. I turn on some more Sex and hit the Mute button and I give you a call.

“What happened?”

“Not a lot,” I say. “Just life.”

You’re chatty like Carrie. You drop hints about the night ahead. You’re getting off early…. You’re dying for a drink and if I’m not sure about Chaos…

“Hey, pussy, that’s not your TV.”

I clamp my hand on the receiver and no. Not now, Dumber. You’re asking what’s wrong, and he’s grabbing the remote and he hits that damn Mute button—FUCK YOU, DUMBER—and the volume is way up—FUCK YOU, TV—and you hear that telltale heart, that goddamned calypso.