You Love Me(You #3)(79)
Naturally, Phil isn’t being a very good sport. You told him that you can’t forgive him for bailing on you that night and he’s Philin’ the Blues in a major way. Last night, he spent the whole show ranting about how Courtney Love should be behind bars because she murdered Kurt Cobain because he knows better than to lash out at you and even the Philistans who called in were annoyed.
Phil, man, just play some damn music.
Phil man, you know you’d be up there with Nirvana if the world was a fair place. Can you play “Sharp Six”?
Phil, man, when are we gonna get a new album?
He ignored the requests and degraded himself further, accosting Eric Crapton for writing about “Tears in Heaven” as if the only hell on Earth is losing a child, as if the pansy’s ever been to heaven. Oh, you should have heard him, Mary Kay. “I have a daughter, man, and don’t get me wrong. I’d die if something happened to my kid, man, if someone harmed her… but Eric Clapton walks around like he cornered the market on sorrow and no he didn’t… the guy’s still going! Still living! Got a wife and a big rehab resort in the Bahamas or some shit and let me tell you a little something about the blues, man. The blues are blue. Not blue as in the Bahamas. They’re midnight, man. Real blues shut you down and shut you up. Trust me, I know.”
Obviously if he really was in a Springsteen kind of blue, in the grave of his mind, he wouldn’t have the energy to pontificate. He’s just in whiny dick mode. “Jay” texted him to check in and he was rude to “Jay”: No offense man, but someday if you have a family you’ll understand that family shit eats up the time. Peace out. I’m in the zone writing.
It worries me to think of you under the same roof as him, but you’re right. He’s the father of your Meerkat and these things do take time. And I didn’t kill him, Mary Kay. You love me so much that I don’t have to kill him. You chose to end it with him, and that’s why I’m lying low, why I just have to be patient and listen to you, to the sweet things you say to me all day. You’re selling your house and you’re talking to real estate agents and you’re using the D-word on a regular basis.
The irony is that Melanda was sort of right. We were holding each other back and who knows? If she never left… maybe I never would have gone through with a divorce.
I spoke to an attorney in the city. He thinks it’s gonna be quicker than that other woman I spoke to, and he had good candy.
I am yours and you brought me candy from the divorce attorney’s office and you left it in my backpack because once again, it’s a secret. All of it. Us. I pop the red-and-white old-school candy into my mouth and I don’t have a jacket—it’s getting warmer all the time, as if Mother Nature is so excited that she can’t sleep—and I head out the door and we have the night off—you have to see your Friends—but it’s a small island and I’m a restless man. With great sex comes energy so I go for a walk and I pass by Eleven and it’s not my fault that the place is all windows and it’s not my fault that our attraction is the invention of electricity and you see me. You catch my eye and wave and I wave and we don’t text—we are too good in person and we know what we have is special—so you have to wait until the next day to see me, to tell me what I did to you. You lean over your desk in your office.
“Buster…” That’s me. “When you walked by last night… it was like my body and my mind and my soul… I know I’m probably not supposed to say this to you but I have to say it because it’s all I can think about.”
I was right. This is an Everythingship. Not that we need a silly name for what we are. “I didn’t sleep a wink.”
You smile. “Oh come on. Yes you did. People always say that they didn’t sleep but everyone sleeps a little, at least a couple of hours.”
This is why I love you and I laugh. “Okay I was up most of the night, just sitting on my couch literally doing nothing but thinking about you…” Except for the part where I was listening to your husband’s show. “But I admit, four to six… that’s a little blurry. I might have slept some.”
You beam at me. “Good,” you say. “This is good because I slept a couple hours too, and, well, I like the idea of being in sync with you, Buster.”
It’s not my imagination. RIP Whitney and Eddie are sparkling for us—I windexed them for you—and you can’t touch me, not right now. You wave a hand—get back to work—and the day is long, it’s a sidewalk that will not fucking end—sorry, Shel—and the bass throbs in my head—Hare Mary, Hallelujah—because as it turns out, you are my true savior, the reason I’ll be in such great shape when my son comes to find me, the reason that for the first time in my fucking life, I feel excited about my future. Do good and you get good and the day ends and Oliver’s running out of wall space and you wish me a safe trip home as if there is any danger, as if anything could hurt me now.
Eventually, night falls.
I go for a walk up Madison and what a different world it is, knowing that we’ll be in that movie theater, at that diner, walking these streets until our bodies break down on us. I reach the library and take the steps to our love seat in the garden and whaddya know, Mary Kay. The door to the lowest level is open. You didn’t lock up. I walk into the library and there you are on the Red Bed, as promised.