You (You #1)(18)

I am the kind of guy who prepares for emergencies like this, so I already have an e-mail account called [email protected]. You don’t do your research so you don’t know that Nathan Herzog is the food critic at Vulture’s new Eats section who sucks the tit of pretentious beasts like Benji and his Home Soda. I read the guy’s stuff; I’m not impressed. But Benji kisses his ass, tweeting his reviews in a flagrant effort to get his own puff piece on the site. And over at the exhilarating news blog on HomeSoda.com, “fans” of Benji’s pussy water grumble incessantly about why Home Soda has yet to be featured on Vulture.

Until now.

Obviously, I use my new e-mail account to impersonate food fuckwad Nathan Herzog. And soon, Benji will receive an e-mail from Nathan Herzog, who just sipped the most fantastic club soda of his life and realizes he is late to the party but remains desperate to meet Benji. He writes: Is there any way you could meet now? There’s a bookstore on the Lower East Side, Mooney Rare and Used, and it’s a great place to start. There’s a café downstairs; nobody knows about it.

Sincerely,

N.

It takes Benji only nanoseconds to reply:

Absolutely, Nathan. I’m flattered and I’m en route.

I don’t respond. What kind of an asshole says en route?

I am on the subway thinking about you when I realize that I have fucked up. Something is missing.

The Western Coast.

With my signed inscription.

I left it on the sidewalk when I took a minute to recover after realizing you blew me off and Mr. Mooney was right. I will never be fully capable of running the bookstore. I am not a multitasking businessman at heart. I am a poet, which is why I know that I am four stops, one transfer, three blocks, two avenues, and one flight of stairs away from stopping at my apartment to pick up some treats for Benji. I text Curtis: No need to come in today, I got it covered.

He writes back: Sweet.





9


I round the corner and see Benji yanking on the door to the shop and I caught him too, even better. I smile broad. I own this fuck. “There he is,” I call. “The Home Soda man!”

“Mr. Herzog, it is a true honor,” he coos, that fucking kiss-ass in a Brooks Brothers blazer and for what?

“Sorry I’m late,” I say and I fake a fumble for the keys. Food critics who are part owners of café-book hybrid places are, by nature, a clumsy folk. “But it’s worth the wait. I promise.”

I unlock the door and we’re in and Benji is too nervous to notice that I lock the door behind me.

“This place is a gem,” he marvels. “They serve coffee here?”

“Now and then,” I say and I could work for New York Magazine’s bullshit website. I watch Mad Men and know about Jay Z and overpriced ramen. “For now though, would water do?”

“Excellent, Nathan.”

Excellent, Nathan. So while Benji prattles nervously about how much he loves books and bookstores and people who read books I am pouring a baggie of crushed Xanax into a glass of water. He’ll gulp. He’s nervous. He takes the water. He thanks me. He can’t even say thank you without sounding like a phony. I let him go on and say I’ve just got to tend to something behind the counter and he is all apologies and that’s perfect, Nathan and I cleared my calendar for this and I’m moving papers around and listening to the Xanax overtake him. Did I put enough in? He’s woozy and he wants to sit down.

He almost wobbles toward the counter. “Do you mind? Is there somewhere I could sit a minute?”

Punching him is gratuitous. But then, he did use the word excellent a dozen times in twenty fucking minutes. He’s out cold and on the ground and I walk into the main floor and lift his feet. Here he goes, down the stairs. He doesn’t wake up while I drag him into the cage and I lock him in there and smile. Excellent.

His Brooks Brothers blazer provides a wealth of goods. There’s his drug purse, packets of heroin or coke or Ritalin or whatever the kids are doing these days and a plastic key card (I leave that). There’s his wallet (I take that). And then there’s the grand prize that is his phone (I don’t have to tell you that I take that). Benji is as fearless as you? Beck, and within seconds I have access to his Twitter, his e-mail, and the Home Soda blog on the website. Naturally, his phone is full of pictures of the Monica performance artist person. She is nauseating, splayed, always posing. I pick a “sexy” one and tweet it from Benji’s account. Two words accompany the photograph:

#Beautifulovely #Yes

You are meant to interpret this as Benji’s way of calling you

#Inadequate #No

And you do. Oh, Beck, it hurts to see you cry, feel so rejected. Don’t you know how much I’d like to go hug you and prop you against that green pillow and fill you with love and mass-produced club soda? I want all that. But I can’t intervene. You need your space to detach from this asshole and I wait for your sadness to turn into anger. And then it does and you write like a snake, you slither:

I am not your fucking plaything, Benji. I am not a no-hearted phony piece of shit performance artist cum Dumpster. I am a human being. A real human being, just like the song, and you do not blow me off. Do you hear me? This is not how my life goes. Treat me like you treat your soda. Or you know what? Better yet, fuck your soda. Give that a shot. Stick it right in there into that glass bottle and fuck your soda because that’s what you love. You don’t love me. You don’t love anyone.