Chapter 28 #2
Hell finds new ways to be terrible, and I am dragging a giant cardboard fucking cartoon character to the front of the store.
I miss Mr. Mooney, but you’re right. I deserve better.
I have potential. Within weeks, I might be Barbara Walters’s right-hand man, and I won’t let Satan win.
I won’t tear SpongeBob in half and set this place on fire, and I won’t jump on the table and pound my chest and tell everyone in hell that I love you.
Hours later, we’re settled into a wobbly, tiny table at Caroline’s Comedy Club of Horrors. I’m the (unofficial) opening act and you’re busting a gut laughing at my SpongeBob hell schtick. You are all over me, and I like it. Gentle and warm. Showy.
“The thing is, though, my dear boyfriend, we are supposed to be in hell in our twenties.”
I look at you like you’re crazy, and you smile.
“Oh,” you say. “Fuck, I almost forgot. I didn’t tell Dubs and Cynthia about your age yet. Is that okay? I didn’t want you to feel weird, and you do seem older….”
I love you for lying to them, and I feel a little better about my imaginary buddy Jeremy and his girlfriend. “All good, dear.”
Cynthia slams her briefcase on the table. She groans. “Stop being the perfect couple until Mommy gets a drink.”
You ask her what’s wrong, and I tune it out.
Miranda Hobbes and Carrie Bradshaw were right.
Comedy clubs truly are the modern-day equivalent of hell, and I am a little nervous.
Dubs is older than I am. His name was outside, on the marquee, like he’s important.
And you’re always not quite you when Cynthia’s around.
I feel for you, the way you go her way, the way she never goes your way, and it’s a relief when the lights get low.
He walks onstage, and you scream, Cynthia screams. It kills me a little, but I do it too; I scream.
He starts his “act” and there’s a little light at the end of the tunnel that is a five-minute “set.” The spotlight is harsh.
Dubs is not as good-looking in real life and he is “actually pretty funny.” He’s speaking my language, going off on karaoke, about this girl who made him do “Father Figure” as a duet.
It’s hard not to nudge you and remind you that I am just as witty.
But I hold back. No pain, no gain. And it’s okay.
It’s enough for me to make you laugh. I don’t need a bunch of drunks howling like a giant collective clitoris under my clever, knowing thumb.
I’m lucky. Dubs will ditch Cynthia the second he gets a big break, and he will break her heart, but you’re not going to break mine.
Your hand doesn’t leave my leg during his set, and when he wraps up and walks offstage, you squeeze my leg before you fall in line, before you rise to hug him.
He shakes my hand and looks me in the eye. “Hey, Joe. Thanks for coming to hell.” Wink, wink. “You want a cosmo?”
The joke was on me, but in the good way where you touch my arm and claim me. “Sorry, babe, but I told our friends how much you love comedy clubs…and Sex and the City…”
Dubs elbows me like a buddy. “Fuckin’ A, Joe…I might have to riff on you in my next set, if that’s cool. The only guy in New York who watches Sex…You might be onto something.”
I say that’s cool and you whisper that I’m cool and I’ll tell you what’s cool, Vail. Me. The waitress asks if we want another round. I am first and fast: “Abso-fucking-lutely!”
Now I’m the funny one, and the night is in full swing. “Ooh,” you say. “Let’s play pointers.”
Pointers is a drinking game. I didn’t do this kinda shit in college like you people, but I know better than to ask how it works, and you are kind and sensitive, explaining the rules, in case anyone “forgot.” It’s simple.
We go around the table and ask a question.
You start with something banal: “Who’s had the most sex? ”
Now, as you say, we all point at the person who’s had the most sex. We all point at Cynthia, including Cynthia, and she laughs. She drinks.
You tap my arm. “You go, Joe.”
“Who’s the best kisser?”
You point at me and I point at you and Dubs points at Cynthia and Cynthia points at you, and damn, if I’m this good of a kisser at seventeen, imagine how great I’ll be in my twenties!
After the show, the four of us share a cab and go downtown.
Dubs is a step up from Dick and Schlitz.
He pays for the cab even though his parents cut him off when he turned down a job at Lehman Brothers to pursue stand-up.
He’s like the good version of the younger comic book guy that Carrie dates in season 2, and when I say that, you laugh. Cynthia laughs. Dubs laughs.
I am the funny one, so I keep it up as we walk through the Village, riffing on the Virgin Fucking Megastore. Dubs says I should try stand-up, and you say the perfect words: “Joe would never.”
The line at Sweet and Vicious is too long, so we dip into a speakeasy that Dubs knows about, and I could do this, Vail.
I could grow older with you in clouds of cigarette smoke.
You tell me that I should be the one working on your sitcom as we hold hands in the dark and Dubs and Cynthia disappear while you and I are making out.
The way I performed tonight, I know you can’t wait to get me in bed, so we head outside.
“See, Dubs is great, right?”
“Very great.”
“I can give you his number if you guys want to hang out.”
I can’t help but laugh because come on. Me and Dubs? No and no. I hail us a cab and open the door and I do a Big voice. “Your place or mine, kid?”
You close the door of the taxi that I hailed and the cabbie takes off.
Are we here again? In the bad place? You kiss me.
“Look, Joe, I’m not…I’m not pumping the brakes on us, but…
” You lay a hand on my chest, a brake pedal of a fucking hand.
“Babe, I just…I need some space this week, a little time to do my own thing, you know? Do my hair, get into Fast Food Nation, and just kinda…”
Live in a world without me. “Whatever you want, Sitcom.”
You look into me and smile. “Honestly, Cusack, we’re good. This is not me freaking out like I did before my birthday. I just don’t want us to get sick of each other.”
“I could never get sick of you.”
“I know, but…Joe, I think you need to do some check-ins, you know? Call Jeremy, see how he’s doing. Maybe go make things right with Mooney.”
“But you hate Mooney.”
“But you don’t. And that matters to me. I know you left things bad with him. I feel responsible…See me getting all neurotic? This is why I need some alone time!”
It doesn’t feel good to hail you a cab, but I do it. And I’m not worried as I close the door of the cab.
You roll down the window. “Can I be crazy?”
“Of course.”
“For all my ‘alone time’ and my very sincere intentions to read that book and finish it…I also reserve the right to call you in the middle of the night if I get, you know…”
I give a thumbs-up to the cabbie. “You know where I live, Vail.”
“Oh yes, I fucking do, baby. See you soon…sooner than you think, no doubt.”