Chapter 32 #2
“Jeremy should know that she loves him. And if she did step out…Again. Every chance she got, she told me how much she loves him. People make mistakes. So maybe remind him of that, you know?”
—
Jeremy doesn’t exist, so I don’t go meet up with him.
I’m alone. Can’t call Mooney. He hates me.
Can’t call Jeremy ’cause…Yeah. Nothing exists.
Nothing but me and the Dick pics. I am Woody in Hannah.
Walking through my own blues, all the way to the East Fucking River.
I tear up the pictures. One by one. I tear his face in half.
I tear your face in half. Off they go into the wind.
Shards of confetti at a funeral and I need to snap out of it.
I need to do something. I need to know how deep it goes with you two.
—
I forgot about real life, Vail.
I became so dependent on Craigslist that I forgot about who I am.
I don’t need anyone. And the good thing about having such a crap childhood is that I’m all good with the golden rule: The only person I can truly count on is me.
You are different. You Can Count on Me, but I can’t count on you.
You’re a girl. The world is harder for girls and them’s the breaks and that’s okay.
I dip into an internet café that smells like pineapples—why—and I sign up for a new AOL account. It’s pretty amazing, Vail, how easy it is to build a whole person. I like this kind of production more than my movie. Less stressful. No actors in a fucking Starbucks.
I name the girl LucyGoosey87. She’s a silly soph at the Dalton School, the kind of teenage girl who only exists in porn (I hope). Lucy met Dick at the Beanery; she asked someone else for his deets because she liked what she saw.
I’m a good director. But the question is, can I channel a teenage girl in a fucking chat?
LucyGoosey87: Whatcha doing hot stuff?
DickHead111: lol who dis?
LucyGoosey87: Extra hot latte three Equals. People say I look like Britney lol I heard I could find you here so here I am. I have a free period and I was thinking about u…
DickHead111: Ha. Same here. What’s up?
LucyGoosey87: Meeee cuz there’s a rave in Bed Stuy if u wanna come my parents are away hint hint heehee
DickHead111: whoa someone’s really begging lol u alright there kid
OH FUCK YOU, DICKHEAD. But I know Dick.
LucyGoosey87: You are so funny omg are you like hot AND smart?!
Dick is in, so I give him the address of that warehouse where I got jumped. Criminals aren’t the only ones who return to the scene of the crime. And then I remember part two of my mission: the computer. I need him to bring his precious laptop.
LucyGoosey87: can you bring your computer? Mine broke and in the morning I have to do homework
DickHead111: You coulda just asked me to sleep over but yeah kid all good
—
It’s on! And I got a lot of shit to do before the big rave!
I buy a ski mask at a We Sell Ski Masks and Empire State Building Trophies kinda joint.
Then it’s off to a sporting goods store for shitty black sweatpants, you know, kinda like the shitty black dress that Miranda got for her mother’s funeral.
I score some juice off a guy who sells at a Crunch downtown, and I hightail it to the East Village, where I buy coke and rocks off a kid who dropped out of school the same week as me.
There’s a woman on the sidewalk selling candles.
I buy a candle—it is dark in that warehouse—and I feel smart, Vail, like the person who invented the disposable fucking camera.
It only takes an hour for some stoner to turn that piece of plastic into twenty-four glossy pictures and then poof, it’s in the trash.
I made a girl! I have a backpack of customized weapons!
I get out of the subway and I love it when night falls while you’re underground.
The air is crisp. I am here in Bed-Stuy, walking into the rat-infested warehouse.
I never felt like more of a baller. Large and in charge, what Dick wanted me to be.
I blew you off both times you called—you shouldn’t have called, you know Jeremy needs me right now—and I’m hunched in the back of the warehouse, just like the guys who mugged me.
I almost don’t even hate them as I sit in the dark waiting for Dick to show up. And then…
He is here. Dick. Messenger bag included.
This is so obviously not a rave, but he is idling, horny. Tossing his bag and flexing like he thinks he’s about to get jumped in the fun way.
“Lucy…Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
This is it. My big moment. And I know. In an ideal world, violence is never the answer.
But this is for you, for all the women on this fucking island.
I mean, the more I think about it, the more Dick needs a good ass-kicking.
A little tough fucking “love.” He joked about putting you in prison!
He came here to have sex with a fifteen-year-old girl.
If you think about it, I have a moral obligation to emerge from the shadows in a ski mask and kick this predator in the fucking balls.
Those guys who jumped me needed the money and they did whatever it took to get it, and I need Dick’s computer and he goes down easily.
My fist connects with his right kidney and it feels right to kick him when he’s down.
And then he’s out cold. Perfect. I’m shaking, but all first times are like that. You get nervous. You fumble. First things first: I tie him up with cuffs I bought at a sex shop by Crunch. I lift him up and put him down into a broken freezer and I tape his legs together.
I’m not a monster, Vail. I am the good guy.
And good guys care. I love you too much to shame you.
I can’t ask you about your birthday. I can’t ask you if it was a one-night stand, a mistake you hid under your sofa.
It’s possible you’re just a slob. Possible you never even opened that envelope.
Possible you don’t remember what you did to me. (I hope.)
You can’t defrost a freezer without blood and sweat, tears and time.
And that’s what I’m doing in this warehouse.
I am here to defrost our misguided, malevolent “friend” Dick.
Chip through the ice to get to the steel walls, to see what, if anything, went down with you two, and, I hope, make him want to stop being such a, well, dick.
It’s a lot on my back, yes. I am sore from cleaning your floors, putting your Skittles where they belong, and bloodying my knuckles to serve you for the second time in a matter of fucking hours while you’re probably at home shoving a boot into your sofa. I say it again.
Girls.
My senses are in overdrive. Every little thing I do is magic.
Even sitting in a chair feels like action, like the first time.
I keep looking up to make sure he’s there, to make sure I did this—he is; I did—and I take his laptop out of his messenger bag.
There’s a blue Post-it taped to the underbelly of his bag.
PROPERTY OF DICK PALMER
DICKPALMERRULEZ@
AOLIM PASSWORD: #1DICKIZTHEMANNN69
HOTMAIL PASSWORD:
#1DICKIZTHEMANNN69
MOM EMAIL:
MAMAPALMERRRRR@
I sigh.
Men.