Chapter 12
Neither can you, apparently. You pick up on the first ring. “Joe. Joe! Are you alive?”
You sound like a wife on a widow’s walk who fears her fisherman is never coming back. I cling to your scarf. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You had me a little worried there….” Drunkylocks.
“Oh, I’m fine.”
You drank your weight in cosmos and you were slurring in public. Of course you’re a wee bit defensive. I am yours, undeterred. “What a night, right? We’re lucky to be alive.”
“Aw, come on. That was nothing.”
WE ALMOST DIED. “Oh, okay….”
“I mean, me and Cynthia have been in some crazy fucking places. Last summer, we met these guys and…” That’s my punishment for ditching you. You want me to picture you with other men. “Anyway,” you say. “Your uncle isn’t scary. Just sad. Wait…Is he your uncle?”
It’s a fresh start, and I don’t want you to worry about my gene pool, so I tell you the truth, mostly. “No, he’s a customer slash crackhead. He gave me the code, I hang there when he’s out of town, but you saw how he is.”
“Ah, well, I still can’t judge the guy. Addiction is a tough thing, you know?”
I am Gollum. I am sniffing your fucking scarf. “I know.”
“Did you ever see our episode about the guy who’s in AA and gets addicted to Carrie?”
“No.”
“Huh.”
The silence is the bad kind, so I fill it up fast. “Anyway, the thing is I really am sorry. I was just…The truth is I live in a shithole with these idiots who get high and quote Dumb and Dumber. I didn’t know how to tell you about my situation; they’re pigs and I hate it but…. I’m sorry.”
There’s a silence. I can’t read it; I’m too scared to fill it. Are you still there? Did you hang up?
“Okay, Joe. I get it. We’re all self-conscious.”
“Thank you.”
“Wait. The thing is…It’s like your uncle.”
“Customer.”
I did it again, I corrected you, and you sigh. “Once again, my dear…everyone poops…. This is New York. Friends or my show…People like us don’t live in places like that. I mean, first of all, Carrie and the girls are in their thirties. We’re in our twenties, you know?”
I don’t tell you I’m seventeen. I don’t want you to feel like a cradle robber. “Mm-hmm.”
“So, you know how it is, then. We all live in a shithole. There is literally no shame in it, in stumbling along the way as you figure it all out, what you’re gonna do, who you’re gonna be.
And second of all…I’m flattered. You wanted to impress me.
You meant well. I know you care…. But, Joe, I wasn’t expecting a penthouse. ”
I’m seventeen and I live in a box and life moves forward so that’s what I do. I push us ahead. “I know, but anyway, can I make it up to you? Take you to Serendipity sometime this week?”
You tell me this is a week from hell and you have to deal with Barry and you promise to call a little later.
But you don’t call a little later and you don’t call at night.
In the morning, I don’t have a voicemail from you, and it’s a lot later. I try you first thing, and five rings later, I reach you in the bad way. Your motherfucking voicemail: “You went to Vail and all you got was this lousy voicemail.”
I chuckle to seem calm, cool. So not Gollum. “Yeah, Vail, it’s me. Just wanted to make sure you got my new number. Also, I really like Vail. I can’t wait to go again….”
So much for the coolness, and I blame that bastard Angus but then, when I’m dug in with Mooney, you call me and get my voicemail, so now you are the Gollum, the seeker.
“Howdy, partner! I’d call this phone tag, but I hate that phrase. I mean, this kind of communication has its merits or You’ve Got Mail wouldn’t be such a good movie. Byeee!”
You called me your partner, and it feels good.
Right. On we go like this for another day, and then another day, trading voicemails, ships passing in the night, a couple of put-upon “twentysomethings” trying their damnedest to keep the love alive.
I want to see you and you want to see me, but your week from hell is getting worse every day.
Barry is riding you hard, I get it.
Cynthia is having an STD scare and she needs you, I get it.
You have to see the dentist and your cousin from California, I get it.
And I mean it, Vail. I do get it, and that’s because of you.
Constantly assuring me that this is your hell week, that you do want to see me, and I don’t mind the distance.
We’re bonding with our voices. Trading details about our lives.
Old-school love letters via matching Motorolas.
I’ve told you about my plan to ask Dumb and Dumber to move the cardboard box, give me an extra couple of feet, and you’ve told me about this potential new job in fundraising for the arts.
We’ve Got Mail, yes. But my Portnoy is antsy, and I am too.
I want the back-and-forth. The ping-pong. And your period is over by now, right?
I miss you. Your red scarf is losing its scent, I am losing my mind and finally it happens—you are calling—and I want it so bad that I let it ring so I don’t sound so fucking desperate. I picture you, crossing your fingers, hoping to hear my voice, and then I give you what you want. Me: “Vail!”
“Joe!”
“How goes it?”
“You first, Joe. Did Dumb and Dumber let you move the wall?”
“Nope.”
“Fuck.”
You know things now. You know about the astrology sluts who make me uncomfortable, and you know I don’t belong with Dumb and Dumber. You’re investing in me, in my journey. Gollum isn’t nuts. He’s just a guy who knows what he wants. So here I go again.
“Hey, what are you up to later?”
“I have to meet Cynthia in midtown.”
“Right.”
“I mean, I wish I could see you. I do…. Next week will be better.”
I feel your scarf in my back pocket. Still there. “Don’t even worry about it.”
“Are you sure? Because I really do feel bad. It’s just one of those weeks….”
“I know, I know.”
We hang up, and you said it—this is one of those weeks—so on the way home from Mooney’s, I stop by the video store to pick up You’ve Got Mail.
The snarky shithead behind the counter grunts at me. “Chick flick,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “My girlfriend’s coming over.”
The lie felt good. At home, I drag the TV stand into my cardboard box.
Dumb and Dumber are out with their astrology sluts.
I have your scarf on my lap, and I turn out the lights and I feel you, Vail.
It’s like you’re here in the dark with me, watching Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan talk pencil sharpeners and New York City.
I picture you out with Cynthia, talking about me, thinking about me, picturing us as them, You’ve Got Voicemail.
After I finish the movie, I jack off. I do not rub my hands on your scarf.
And then I call you and get your voicemail. The words I know by heart: “You went to Vail and all you got was this lousy voicemail. Beeeeep.”
I do it, Vail. I do my best Tom Fucking Hanks.
“So, I’m pretty sure you already know this, but Meg Ryan…
” I count to three. I make you wait. “Well, she kinda looks like you. You’re like that, you know?
You bounce when you walk and…” I laugh a little so you can blush and feel like the princess that you are, my princess, my ring, mine.
“The thing is, though…” I want book club with you, I want connection with you.
“Tom Hanks is the man, always, but am I on crack? Because he’s also kind of…
I mean, you know he’s the worst, right? He’s Joe Fucking Fox.
He’s Fox Books and he’s putting the good gal out of business and he’s lying about who he is and I would never…
” People in cardboard boxes shouldn’t throw stones.
Gently, Joseph. “Anyway, I saw in the Voice that Hannah and Her Sisters is playing at the Forum this week. And it’s only this week.
So if you can, tell Barry I said to fuck off.
Tell Cynthia I said to have some water. Let’s go see Hannah on the big screen, yeah? See you on AOL IM tomorrow.”
The night is like the others (it never fucking ends!), and the morning is no better.
You didn’t leave me a late-night treat, but you might call while I’m in the shower, so I put my Motorola in a plastic bag and leave it on the sink.
You don’t call. And it’s fine. I didn’t go too far with my voicemail, right?
I have to be patient like Tom Hanks. I get dressed.
I walk to work. I think Tom Hanks kind of thoughts—I love New York in late January, when pink hearts pop up in all the windows—and I make it to Mooney’s.
I turn on the lights in my Shop Around the Corner and I make small talk with Mooney—you still haven’t called—and I log on to IM—you’re not there, not yet—and I don’t “obsess” over you.
I do the Tom Hanks thing. I charm customers.
I help a divorced dad pick out the right book for his sad thumb-sucking offspring, but then… wait.
Am I the Meg Fucking Ryan? The wide-eyed duped bookseller in the dark?
I laugh like you’re here to tell me I’m being silly, and see how you do that?
You make me feel better even when you’re not around.
Life is so different with you in it, Vail.
I am never really alone because I get to talk to you in my head.
And I’m on. I’m being the man I know you want me to be in case you walk into the shop and surprise me.
Nothing gets me down, not even the bitter woman who tries to return a battered Good in Bed.
No one would do that in Meg Ryan’s fucking shop and okay.
By 3:02 p.m. the wait for you to pop out of the blue has me turning blue.
Tom Hanks was the captain of his ship. He was in charge, testing his potential bride, helping her soften and grow.
Where are you? I get so blue that I leave my cell phone on the counter when I hit the head—I am Dumbest—but then I go back up front, and the light is blinking.
One new voicemail.