Your rat groans. “Emmy, stop it already, man. We’re not starving to death.”
“No,” you say. “I know I have a candy bar. It’s in here somewhere.”
You and I are the same, aren’t we? We sacrifice our feelings and our desires for the people we love. The Meerkat is annoyed—Forget it, Mom—and Phil is disinterested—Em, I’m gonna eat with Freddy. But you’re still looking for it, determined to provide for your family, and then you prevail and wave a 3 Musketeers bar in the air.
“Got it!”
It’s impossible not to love you right now, the sheer joy on your face, the win. You bite the wrapper of the candy bar that you knew was in your purse and you are the girl who dreamed up the Empathy Bordello. You care about everyone and that includes your rat husband. You tear the candy bar in half and I love you for the big things and the little things, the pleasure you take in sharing. But there’s a fine line between selfless devotion and self-destruction and you give one half of your 3 Musketeers to Nomi and the other half to Phil and what’s left for you?
We disembark and I stay out of the way and let you and your family cross the bridge into the city while I take the stairs down to the street. I watch Phil wave goodbye to you and the Meerkat and of course this rat stayed with you—who would leave you?—and you couldn’t leave him. He’s too pathetic, exposing his legs so that everyone can see his Sacriphil tattoo. You stayed because it wouldn’t be fair for Phil to fail as a rock star and a husband.
And I didn’t see any of it coming.
I got soft when I moved here, trying so hard to be “good” as if being good is ever that simple. Life is complicated. Morals are complicated. I wouldn’t even be here today if I hadn’t bent the rules. I slip into a tourist trap restaurant—I really do prefer our small-town life—and I order a cup of coffee and begin my work. Your husband’s band is in shambles but he “works” nights hosting his own radio show called Philin’ the Blues—ugh—and if he’s up all night, well, I bet you haven’t had sex in a long time.
He doesn’t care about you, not really. The man lives his life for his fans—they call themselves Philistans—and he encourages these loud, lost losers to keep on rooting for a Sacriphil comeback. Our world is fucked—Phil has fans—and your life is fucked—Phil has you—but now that I’m indoors, on my own, I don’t feel so bad about any of it. I’m happy that the jig is up. We’re not teenagers and I have no interest in love triangles—never did—and I’m a New Yorker, Mary Kay. I’ve dealt with rats all my life. It’s nothing personal. I don’t “hate” them. But rats carry diseases and you’re in luck because I know how to get rid of them.
I go to the rat’s YouTube channel. I only know the song about the shark, Sacriphil’s legitimate hit. But it’s time to get into the liner notes, the deep tracks that tell your story. The first song at the top of the page is ten minutes and thirty-two seconds long—gimme a fucking break—and it’s called “Dead Man Running,” and oh Phil, my man, don’t you worry.
Your time has come.
9
In the sixth grade there was this kid in my class named Alan Brigseed. Obviously they called him Alan Badseed and he was portly. Walked with a limp because of an issue with his bones. Wore football jerseys to school every single day and was determined to be a quarterback for the Giants. Real life isn’t Rudy and back then I knew that poor Alan Badseed would wind up working at a Dick’s Sporting Goods in New Jersey—I was right—and two years ago, poor Alan Badseed died in his mother’s basement while he was jerking off.
Your husband reminds me of Alan, Mary Kay. I spent the past thirty-six hours learning everything there is to know about Phil DiMarco. I read every profile. I watched every ancient onscreen interview where he talks over the other guys in his band. I dug into the Philin’ the Blues archives and I went on his Twitter—he doesn’t understand hashtags and writes Peace# at the end of every tweet—and most of his followers are aging dope whores—apologies to dope and prostitutes—and they tag him in pictures of their implants and sometimes he likes those pictures and do you know about this? Or did you just stop caring a long time ago?
Like Alan Brigseed, Phil won’t give up the dream. And like Alan Brigseed, Phil would be better off dead. He doesn’t work. He makes pennies hosting his graveyard-shift radio show—it’s a glorified infomercial—five nights a week and okay, so he does make good money on royalties, it’s one of his favorite subjects on the Blues, but it’s a little less every year. There are few things more tragic than a man hell-bent on becoming something he just can’t be. You probably expected more “Sharks” to come along, but like so many artists, that was the best Phil had in him.
He was famous for a second. And fame is poison.
Rock star fame is especially vile. It’s a drop of food coloring and one drop—one innocent hungry shark in the water—is enough to turn all the clear water red and make it stay that way. Every Sacriphil album is less successful than the one before and it’s some Edgar Allan Poe shit, Mary Kay, the slow demise of his falling, rising star, the way he fights it every night on the air, gaslighting Philistans, raging against the industry, thanking you for saving his life as he blames you for domesticating him. He plays his part well, claiming that he put his “art” in the backseat so he could throw his soul into being a dad. In reality, Phil just fucking failed. The turnover rate in his band is high—scary high—and if he managed a Dunkin’ Fucking Donuts he would have been fired because of his inability to play well with others.
I turn on the heat in my car. It’s cold tonight and I’m parked outside of your rat’s recording studio. I bent the rules for us and bent rules are meant to be broken. I brought two Rachael Ray knives and Phil’s untimely death won’t tarnish Bainbridge’s reputation as a safe haven. He’s just famous enough to be a wild card and when an early morning jogger finds him on the street tomorrow, it will seem like the work of a Philistan gone crazy, karmic payback after years of getting close with his fans, following them back on Twitter, encouraging them to pop by and hang. The cops might also think it’s a drug deal gone bad because I’ve also learned that your husband is in recovery. I listened to every song he ever wrote and I’m sorry to say it, but you are nothing compared to his true love: heroin.
I know it all, Mary Kay. I know that you had to “downsize” a few years ago—it’s all so fucking relative—and move to what Phil calls your sellout, suit-and-tie saltbox in Wesley Landing. He is pretty funny, I’ll give him that, but the privilege of it all! Like he deserves a Led Zeppelinesque castle in the woods because he has one song that some people know by heart. I’m so happy I’m not famous. And I have a whole new outlook on you.
You got together with Phil in high school. He was in a band. You were into that.
You got pregnant in college. He put a needle in his arm and penned the best songs of his life.
You were his muse and then when he couldn’t pull off the magic again, you were the one he blamed.