You Love Me(You #3)(31)
Good.
Mrs. Kahlúa talks about how much she loves Kahlúa, how hard it is to go to holiday parties, and Princess Percocets gripes about her self-righteous daughter, and finally, your rat raises his hand. “Can I butt in?”
He rubs the back of his grimy head and takes a long, ten-months-pregnant kind of pause and I try not to picture you on top of him, grabbing his hair until he finally cuts into all that overblown, selfish silence he imposed on us. “So the wife finally got back from Thanksgiving. Felt like she was gone forever.” No shit, Shercock, but this is pretty exciting. I get to hear Phil’s side of the story, a side even you don’t get to see. “But it’s like we’re right back to fighting the way we were in Phoenix. It was rough. Thing One was in a mood, man.” I know we can’t name names but seriously, Phil? Thing One. “Me and Thing Two… we couldn’t do right by her…” Thing Two is Nomi but Nomi is not a thing. “Thing One was all over Thing Two about some book she’s reading…” Oh come on, Phil, the book is Columbine. “And she was all over me about my cigs.” Cigs. “I’m not gonna say that cigarettes are good for you, but you know what else isn’t good for you? Being nagged.”
I start to clap and stop. Starstruck. Fan boy. Phil winks. Thanks, man.
“Thing One’s got daddy issues but lately it’s outta control…” I’ve made you think about things, Mary Kay. I’ve made you grow. “The whole damn week, she’s on me to participate in the family. I try to ‘participate,’ man, I do. A local bar invites me to play…”
Bullshit. He tweeted that bar and four other bars. He invited himself.
“I score us a table and they’re cool with my kid and Thing One flies off the handle. We don’t want to go to a bar! My dad can barely walk right now! Thing Two is seventeen! Man, I know I’m not supposed to say it…” Say it, Phil. Say it! “But Thing One… she botched the turkey, she can’t stay off Instagram and for someone who loves to read so much… well she ain’t reading lately…”
You love me too much to concentrate and soon, we’ll be on my sofa reading together.
“And Thing Two is seventeen going on twelve. She needs to grow up… All she does is ride her bike around on her own in la-la land…” Phil shakes his head. “We used to be a dynasty… I was her king. She was my queen. We were heroes…” Another pregnant pause and the woman with two rings bites her lip. She’s not alone. Your poor husband is a recurring joke, Mary Kay. “I didn’t cave,” he says. “But the thing is… yes, I fucking did cave, man. I didn’t get to play for a whole week.” Lie. “I know I’ve said it before…” Say it again. Please. “But man, is this it? Is this my life?” He shakes it off. “Never mind,” he says. “You’d have to be in my shoes to… Never mind.”
The woman with two diamonds starts talking about her two engagements and Phil isn’t listening. He takes his phone out and he’s typing and tapping his foot and is he… is he trying to turn this woman’s sob story into a song right in front of her? I want to call 911 and report a theft but the meeting is ending and it’s time to mingle and I’m nervous again. We’re milling around, eating more donuts, and your rat heads outside and if I want your present to be ready for Christmas, I have to do this.
I put down my donut. I chase your rat.
He’s on the way to his car and I’m catching up and I can do this. I am JAY ANONYMOUS: SACRIPHIL FAN BOY. I clear my throat—nervous, he’s a rocker—and I scratch my head—nervous, he’s your husband—and he opens the door and I fake a stumble—ouch—and he looks over his shoulder and laughs at me, just a little, and I apologize, just a little, and I pull out a Marlboro Red and I’m stuttering when I begin my first official outreach to the Phil DiMarco. “?’Scuse me,” I say. “Do you… Do you have a light?”
He leans against his car like he did in the promo photos for Moan and Groan and I wish I was wearing a Sacriphil T-shirt but what can I say, Mary Kay? It’s a busy time of year and last-minute shopping is tough.
“Hey, man,” he says. “You all right?”
I nod, too starstruck to speak, and he passes me his lighter—Zippo with a naked girl, what a good dad—and I drop it on the pavement and he picks it up and lights my cigarette and thank God you can’t see us right now. I look at him like he’s the Arc of the Fucking Covenant and I breathe in, out. “Wow,” I say. “I’m having a butt with Phil DiMarco.”
His face is a Shrinky Dink in the oven, expanding, brightening. “Oh shit,” he says. “We got us a Philistan.”
“I’m so sorry. Shit. I know we’re not supposed to use our names.”
“Nah, man, it’s cool.”
“I had to come up to you, man. The whole time in there, I was like, I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath!” He likes to be quoted—all writers are pathetic that way—and he laughs and this is painful, but this is the only way for me to get you what you really want: me. “I thought I was tripping. Phil DiMarco, the most horrifically underrated rock star of all time, is ten feet away from me and man, I’m just… man.” I drop my cigarette—nerves on top of nerves—and he offers me one of his and I take it. “I can’t believe I’m smoking a butt with Phil DiMarco.”