Your rat is begging his boys not to go onstage—You’re gonna ruin our name, the acoustics are shit—and Ready Freddy is mute and Little Tony does all the talking—Nothing’s ever gonna be perfect—and the three of them remind me of my kittens. Our kittens.
The boys head backstage to warm up and Phil whistles at me like I’m a dog. I obey and follow him toward the stage as he mutters about how the show is gonna suck. One band leads to another band and you’ve gone silent in your stories and it’s crowded. It’s loud. I read Killing Eve and I saw Killing Eve and I could stab your rat with Rachael Ray right here on the dance floor but if I did that, the management would have to take down the sign that promises safety inside. I’m not heartless. I don’t want the Tractor staff to suffer for Phil’s crimes.
He elbows me and screams into my ear. “See that bass player dancing? Fuckin’ A, man. Never trust a bass player who sways his hips. You feel the music in your hands, not your hips.”
I check my phone. No more scenes in your story and you really did give up. I bet you’re home by now, crying as you pack his trash bags and throw them out the window. I deserve a fucking break so I tell him I need a drink and fight my way through the crowd.
The bartender screams in my face. “Whaddya want?”
He takes my card and I order a vodka soda and he’s slow and the glasses are plastic and I look up and no. No.
It’s you.
You’re here. Less than twenty feet away in your costume and my plan backfired. The rat will want you to meet his fan boy and the bartender has my credit card and you are hugging Little Tony and the band is covering “One.”
I did all of this for you and you came here to forgive that fucking rat and now you turn around and, Shit, Mary Kay. Do you see me?
28
You didn’t see me. Right? Right.
I slipped out the door and caught an Uber to a ferry and I made it home and I took care of myself because no one takes care of me. Now I blast the U2 song on repeat on my sound system—sorry, cats, but Dad needs this right now—and I sit in the shower in a ball of nudity, like David Foster Wallace in the asylum except nobody’s watching me because I’m not special. I’m not a writer and I’m not a rock star and I saw a side of you I’ve never seen until tonight. You love being with the band. You’re probably mounting your rat right now and I put on my pants and I throw on a T-shirt—Nirvana—and you “worry” about becoming your mother? Well, I am my mother, blasting my music and slamming cabinets and wiping my hands on Kurt Cobain’s face.
You think Phil is special? Well, I am not a rock star. But I am special. I’m special because I actually take responsibility for my actions. I don’t live my life on a wagon and make you think it’s your fault every time I fall off. I’m special because I’ve never even done a line of cocaine, let alone heroin, and if you knew anything about my fucking childhood, you’d know that I’m the special one. Not him. Me.
You are changing in my mind and it hurts but I can’t stop it. Even your office looks different to me now. You sit in there and look at pictures of Whitney Houston—Buried—and Eddie Vedder—Married—because you like to love “special” people from afar. I was your star—Volunteer of the Month—and I was your rock—Fiction Specialist—and how come I don’t know how to make you see that I am the special one?
You just don’t love me, do you? I keep seeing you in that bar, hugging Phil’s boys.
I’m not a star and I’m not your star and my doorbell rings—fuck you, Oliver—and I ignore it so now the asshole is pounding on my door and he has some nerve and I will knock his materialistic head off—fuck it, you don’t love me, why bother trying to be good?—and I open the door and it’s not Oliver.
It’s you.
Bono wonders aloud if he asked too much and you tossed your Winona Red Bed T-shirt costume—you’re back in your trademark tights—and your arms are two bare branches, no leaves. You’re here. Did you see me at the Tractor and am I about to get run over, bitten by reality, and why aren’t you saying anything and what do I do and then you open your mouth.
“It’s over, Joe. I did it. It’s done.”
I can’t speak. I just said goodbye to you because you went to Phil but now you changed your mind. You’ve come to me. You throw your arms around me and I lift you up and your legs are vines growing into me, onto me, and the recording of this song is bombastic. Live. There are strings in an orchestra, superior to guitars, and it is opera, it is rock, it is you, loving me with your whole body, not just your fox eyes but your paws and your toes and your fingernails and your lips—both sets—shoes are off, tights are shredded—and I deliver you to the Red Bed and this time there is no hesitation. No boundary. No sit.
This is your one life and we are one and you are my soulmate, wet and warm, and I am inside of you, reborn. I shake, you shake, and we are virgins who know what we’re doing, we are teenagers in a car—there is steam on the windows all around us—and your Murakami is below and then it is on top and I am a boy and I am a man and you are a girl and you are a woman. We are reverberating, multiplying—you are coming, oh this is a big one—and you are special—you know how to touch me—Oh God, Joe, Oh God—and I am special—you taught me how to touch you—and then we finish.
“Oh God,” you say. “Oh God, Joe.”
We are alive and dead and you just keep saying the magic words—Oh God, Joe. Oh God—as you tell me you felt me in your toes and your eyeballs and the hairs in your nostrils and in the lining of your stomach and you are funny and gross and it just comes out. I can’t help it. “I love you, Mary Kay.”
You don’t miss a beat. “I love you, Joe.”
The L-words drag us down. Heavy as the music, the music that makes it okay for us to be wordless and I can’t tell if that’s your heart or my heart and I know you love me and I know I love you but it didn’t need to be said. The kittens know we’re finished and they’re making the room theirs again. You laugh and blow a kiss to your favorite and you roll into me and your eyelids hit mine. Your nose too. You’re so close that I can’t see, that I can see. You aren’t getting Closer anymore. You are closest.
“Joe.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. We can forget I said it. We can… we can not say it.”
You wrap me up in your branches and you say there is no need to be sorry and you kiss my hair, you kiss my head, and you say you wish you could reach inside my body and kiss my liver and my kidneys, and I squeeze your ass—you are my own little Hannibal Lecter and you laugh—you are sick—and I laugh—Okay, Hannibal—and you tell me you wanted Hannibal and Clarice to get together and I tell you I did too and you sigh. “I wish I could understand why Nomi can’t let go of Klebold.”
“Do you remember when it started?”
You sigh. “Maybe it’s because I used to joke that Hannibal Lecter is my book boyfriend, which is evidence for my Worst Mother Ever award… In the middle of the night I get fired up… I’m gonna drag her to a therapist, gonna full-on intervene. But in the morning, I don’t have that urgency… I should probably do something but I just want it to go away on its own.”