You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(99)

I am holding the dog tags and I can feel the dog tags. But obviously I can’t.

“Joe,” he says. “I got those stupid dog tags at a bar mitzvah. Got my first handie that day too, but that’s another story. You got another bump?”

The plane hits the ground and there are no survivors. Only quicksand. I give him a fucking bump. It’s better than using my voice. I’m not sure that I still have one.

“So it was a Top Gun–theme bar mitzvah. Ya know…theme party. Ray-Bans and leather jackets and fucking…They had some guy making party favor dog tags but the dude screwed up on mine. He put David Arnold Palmer instead of Richard Arnold Palmer.”

“I don’t…”

“Few years later, my freshman year, my roommate’s little sister visits. She’s not hot, maybe a six at best…Anyway, she goes through my stuff, she finds the dog tags and she’s like, ‘Oh no, did your brother die in war?’ and I’m all ‘Hell yeah.’ Next thing you know…Chicks love that shit, Joe. They love it when we’re all ‘emotional’ but what you don’t get…I still can’t…You fell for that shit…You’re not supposed to show ’em your real ‘feelings,’ ya dummy. Are you really that…Christ. Gimme another bump. I don’t even…. I can’t.”

I give him another bump because I don’t know what else to do. He’s not scared of me, Vail. He talks like we’re still friends, like it’s cool that I got all macho and knocked him out. He thinks this is a joke and he thinks life is a joke and DAVID ARNOLD PALMER HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?

Dick whistles—he can whistle—and he wants more coke and I give him more coke and HOW COULD I DO THIS TO ME? He’s higher by the second. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s cuffed in a freezer. I didn’t plan for this and I couldn’t plan for this—FUCK YOU DOG TAGS FUCK YOU—and I shouldn’t be pacing but I am fucking pacing and he whistles and we get it, Dickwad.

You can whistle. You want more blow.

“Goldberg, it’s cool. I’m not gonna like…I told you. You stepped up and manned up. We’re cool. If the shoe was on the other foot, if I saw you and her on my laptop, you’d be six feet under in a Hefty bag. We’re good, bro. I’ll back off Vail and you…Fuck that.”

“Fuck what?”

“Obviously she’s dead to you so let’s blow this Popsicle stand and pick up some hotties.”

Am I not a man? Am I not the key master and the one in fucking charge?

“Tell me something, Dick. Did you take Psych 101 in college?”

“Joe, come on. We’re good. I won’t tell anyone about this or how you’re the first dude who bought into the dog tag bit and you…You’re free. It’s over. Slut’s outta the bag.”

I can’t let him out into the wild like this; he’s too dangerous. I have to tame this cunt, I do. “So, Dick, if you had taken entry-level psych you would’ve learned that lab coat types lock up hamsters to learn about punishment and rewards and stuff like that.”

“Happy to finish this conversation in a bar over some Jim Henson, bud. Come on.”

The Henson reference was a failed fucking neg, and I am back. “First, you put the hamster in the cage. You feed it every three hours. Hamster’s happy. All good.”

“It’s not hamsters. It’s lab rats, Goldberg. And I get it. You’re pissed. You’ll get over it.”

I’m pacing in the good way now. Dick can eat my fucking dick. “Once the hamster is adjusted to the feeding schedule, you skip a feeding. You fuck with it. Hamster’s going hungry, going crazy. What did I do? Where did I go wrong? It blames itself.”

“Let me outta here, Joe. This isn’t funny anymore.”

“You feed the hamster. Hamster is happy, but hamster is confused. I got a treat! I must’ve done something good! What did I do right?”

He bangs his head against the freezer wall and I am better than Judd Hirsch and every rabbi-priest-Frascatore-guru combined. I wait for him to stop making noise. He stops.

Good dog, and I give him the treat in the form of a bump. He sniffles. “I’m good.”

Like I give a fuck and I smile. “So! Our hamster is officially fucked. It doesn’t know when food is coming and how could it? It’s hungry. Confused. It looks inward instead of calling out the lab coat. The hamster…It blames itself.”

“You got another bump, kid?”

I pull up a chair. I smack his fucking face. “Do you get it, Dick?”

“Yeah. Mommy never got you a hamster. Gimme a bump.”

“Vail is not the problem. You are the reason a lot of girls in this city are what you call ‘crazy’ and ‘needy’ and ‘slutty.’?”

He smiles ever so slightly and I smack the grin off his face ever so harshly. “You put Vail in your cage and string her along. It was one thing when I thought you lost your brother. But nope. You have it all handed to you on a silver fucking platter in Turks and Fucking Caicos and still you’re an ungrateful shitbag of a dick.”

“So kill me.”

I smack him again and doesn’t he get it? He laughs like this is a joke and cocaine really is a terrible drug. I give him a bump and you never know, Vail. Maybe he’ll overdose. But then sometimes you do know. He laughs. “The dog tags…You dumb fuck.”