131 Different Things Read online

  “How do we know Vicki is here?”

  When we dated, Vicki had had affection for all openings and the dumb things that came after. Already on the cusp, she was still shedding her street-punk skin so we both pretended it was all funny. We’d go to snicker at our betters, maybe hold up the bathroom line while we made out but rarely fucked on one of those new-style sinks, the kind that’s flat marble with the water running over it. My jeans were usually wet and I was usually half hard and it was great. Eventually she did more mingling with our betters in those bathrooms. Then they were only my betters.

  In Vicki’s defense, my jeans were half soaked right up until she dumped me.

  I’d assumed that she’d stopped going to bars altogether when she stopped drinking, but maybe East Egg counted as work. She’d gone from stark black-and-white photos of gutter punks, like mine but better, to glossy magazine work; she’d become Terry Richardson without the sexual assault. The transition required constant socializing, alternating with enough hibernation that she wouldn’t be confused for a hanger-on. She’d gone from cutting down on drinking for early shoot calls to just being, well, gone. But if I could get inside the bar, I was sure a freshly drunked Vicki would be putting her panties in my hankie pocket in no time. Well, she had never done that. I was beginning to confuse the reasonable decadence of our shared past with a sexed-up fairy tale. Vicki needed me as much as I needed her. We were a team. I got her away from that jerk Flannery. I introduced her to people, was there handing out drugs and free drinks when she was schmoozing. I talked her through her work anxiety, taught her all the tricks I knew. I believed in her so much that I gave up my own photography when I compared our eyes and knew which of us understood sparks, or at least the world as it was. Yes, Vicki had treated me badly. But I would graciously buy her a drink and accept her apology. Or I’d apologize if that’s what was needed. I knew sometimes that was just something men had to do.

  “Sam, there’s something I should probably tell you. And I don’t want you to get weird about it.”

  I used my cigarette to light another and ground the original under my boot, handing the newly lit one to Francis, my friend.

  “It’s no big deal, but the reason I know Vicki is here is because Aviva told me.” Francis was smiling with all his teeth. He flinched when I took the cigarette from his mouth.

  “You’ve been texting Aviva? You told her we were looking for Vicki?”

  “Well, should she not know? What exactly is the issue with that, Sam?”

  “There’s no issue! There’s no fucking issue! Don’t turn this around on me. You clearly see the problem or you wouldn’t be sneaking around on your phone like some sort of phone asshole.”

  “Well, just because you get divorced from someone doesn’t mean all of us get divorced from them. You can’t have something as Antarctica for years and then one day decide it’s just the North Pole. And I am your best friend. There’s a lot of history there. And sure, I like Vicki; she says some funny shit and I don’t begrudge her anything; certainly not making a mess of you. You did that all on your lonesome. And I don’t begrudge Vicki snagging the one photo gig Vice offered you; you shouldn’t have given it to her. No, Vicki saw her chances and took them. I respect it, even if I could have passed on all the new-age shit. Vicki is what’s up and I guess we’ll see how that goes . . . but your ex-wife is forever.” Francis took a long drag. “So I keep in touch.”

  It was true that, when Vicki left, my friends all told me that she was a social climber and that she’d used my opportunities as her own, but really, weren’t they supposed to say that? I mean, I wasn’t going to take the Vice job anyway. I liked coke but not so much that I wanted it as my defining characteristic. I had friends who worked there, friends who maybe became better friends with Vicki while I was busy grooming my high horse. But Vicki and I were a team. Her victories were mine while I stayed pure. I put everything toward her career. Maybe Aviva had always pulled strings to let me use her friend’s darkrooms, but Vicki had provided a more . . . spiritual heat. I needed her, clearly, or I was a loser, a bartender on the shore, watching cooler ships sail off to a cooler shore.

  But I also didn’t like being a character in Francis and Aviva’s movie. In fact, I was suddenly feeling very angry. “That’s impossibly dumb. You’re impossibly dumb. You’re a fucking traitor. A Manchurian candidate.”

  “Sam, you’re being an immanchurian candidate. I didn’t fuck her, just kept a respectful textful relationship. In case you ever change your mind. And, of course, to drive Sara Seventeen nuts.”

  “You were looking up Aviva’s skirt at the Package!”

  “Me and everyone else. She’s a friend.”

  “Yes, but for everyone else it was purely clinical. Or double-checking their orientation. You were filing away fantasy footage. Or taping over previously filmed fantasy footage! You were expanding your film library of my wife’s vagina! You prick.”

  “Ex-wife when it suits you, Sam.”

  This was throwing off my planned Vicki offensive. I was entirely disarmed and confused when we got to the front of the line.

  “We’re on Aviva’s list. Francis plus one.”

  I was the tagalong? To get my girlfriend back I had to be my best friend’s plus-one on my wife’s list?

  But it was cold, I was thirsty, I had to see Vicki at whatever cost. My ardor was real, even if the mark was now fuzzy and my eyes felt swollen. The clipboard glowed by the light of the phone. The moon was close. I followed the shade that was my friend inside. I felt as if an ending was coming up through my groin, past my sea-tossed tummy, up through my betrayed and betraying heart, up into my skull. It was pressing at my roof, trying to touch the moon. The tide carried me into East Egg.

  Inside was another sea, stormy with air kisses. If Francis and I weren’t such adept swimmers we would have drowned. And by drowned I mean we could have misinterpreted all that affectation for affection. I was all akimbo, an emotional muddle, and my metaphors were a fucking mess. We were embraced by people who hadn’t seen us in eons, in donkey years, in way too long.

  The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with curated street art. There was Neckface, Mike Giant, Space Invader. Hell, there was even some Shepard Fairey. Andre the Giant said OBEY from behind the bar, and enough time had passed so it was slick again. There was a large sign in the same font saying, No Bottle Service, as though East Egg’s subversion of the megaclub norm was an act of moral courage on par with Shirley Chisholm’s presidential bid. It was an act of pure contrariness. If it wouldn’t clash so directly with the aesthetic of the place, they’d have charged $260 for a bottle of Sky poured in an Absolut bottle. And they’d have sold fifty a night. It was still twelve dollars for a tumbler of call.

  I fished around in my pocket for twelve dollars.

  Francis was kissing too long a girl who was looking over his shoulder at maybe nothing at all. And it was only three a.m. But those who are game find each other. I was having my cheeks molested by a large dark-skinned trans named Jackie, who I was actually glad to see. It felt good to hold a real friend. I had a strict no-snitching policy when it comes to those who prefer to keep their specific genitalia a surprise to customers I didn’t know or care about. Jackie always appreciated it and she was one of the few beautiful types who still came by the bar after Vicki joined AA. I was finally within shouting distance of Vicki and my stomach was bouncing off my ribs in nervous anticipation.

  Since it was three, the crowd’s inhibitions were completely gone, along with any sense of their own speaking voices. I couldn’t hear anybody because I heard everybody. Jackie was shouting and Francis was shouting. Some girl I probably knew, in an oversized New Kids on the Block T-shirt cut into a dress and tightened at the waist by crisscrossing belts, was shouting. I didn’t bother saying real words. Francis put a drink in my one hand, took twelve dollars out of the other, and moved into the crowd. I’d see him again in an hour or a week. I drank. I rocked onto my toes and down again, tr
ying to see over tall rockers’ heads and through short girls’ still-in-fashion Karen O hairdos. Hands were waving in the air like their owners just didn’t care and I had to move some aside when they got too close to my eyes. Justice was playing at a deafening volume. Everybody was pulsating, mouthing the words or singing them. I was mouthing them too. We. Are. Your. Friends.

  “Sam! Oh my god! What are you doing here?”

  Vicki rose from a barstool and gave me the lightest of kisses on my cheek. Her shoes were black with just-outside-of-sensible heels. She was still wearing dark lipstick (that matched her nails), her eyes were still hazel, the mascara still seemed professionally applied, there was still a hint of blush on her cheeks but only just, and her hair was pulled back with the severity that libraries were burned to the ground in Greece just to dishevel . . . but there was something new about her face. She was smiling.

  In a bar crowded past capacity, the stool next to her was empty. She patted it. I stood there motionless. Vicki patted the stool again.

  “C’mon, Charlie Brown, kick the football.”

  I sat down and had to grip the stool with both hands. I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice, “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Vicki glanced over my shoulder and then gave me a distracted grin. “Cool! What’s up?” The black-and-white vertical stripes of her dress under the club lights gave the appearance of movement, of a reel running out of a film projector.

  This was not what I was expecting, to be greeted like an uncool younger cousin out on the town for the first time. “I miss you.”

  “Oh, I’ve missed you too! What have you been up to? I thought of you the other day when I went to get an egg cream and saw an issue of Thrasher! I can’t believe that still exists! You should send them some your stuff.”

  I said, “I haven’t been shooting much, to be honest.”

  Vicki raised both hands in mock horror. “Oh, but you must! It’s so important to have a hobby! Oh, don’t look at me that way. I’m sorry! I mean a release.”

  A man with a mustache, who might have been Terry Richardson, gave Vicki an affectionate arm grab as he passed. She waved and then gave me a look of Okay, you have my full attention that I gave to boring sad guys I served.

  I said, “Vicki, I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Here I am!” She did a small wrist twirl with her drink. Martini glass. I hoped to god that it was a martini.

  Was she talking like that because of the volume? Was she very drunk? I wanted her drunk, but I wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with. Maybe I should touch her knee, move things along.

  I moved in and said, “I didn’t know where you went.”

  “I was in LA for a bit, did some yoga—Bikram, you know, the hot kind—had a bit of work there besides, did the bicoastal thing. Really, really great.”

  I involuntarily put my hand on my groin. “I brought your scarf.”

  Vicki motioned to the bartender for another drink. He smiled and didn’t charge her.

  “Keep it, lover. Or toss it. I’m telling you, Sam, letting go has brought me to the best place.” Vicki pulled the red straw from her mouth and tapped me on the forehead with it. She was pretty drunk. “It’s not good to hold on to the ephemeral. I stopped doing that and I feel so free. And frankly, my work reflects that. You should really try it. Release yourself from the parochial. Embrace the big city, sweetie. You’ll thank me.”

  “Vicki, do you remember when we first met? You were with Flannery at Pym’s Cup and you had a Chelsea cut that you were growing out and were wearing a tight Fred Perry shirt, black with a white collar, and a red skirt over ripped black stockings, and I saw you at the bar and I said to myself, If I get that girl to look at me, it’s all over. And then you finally did, I mean really did, when we walked over the bridge? Do you remember?”

  “Oh gosh . . . Flannery. That guy. I really thought he was the love of my life for a while there, you know? What a psycho. But sweet in his way. God, life is so funny.” She took another sip from her martini glass.

  “I left my wife for you.” I didn’t know why I said that. I flushed deeper.

  “Well. Sam. I didn’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask me not to.”

  “Aviva maybe needed a little push onto her path too. She always acted like she was better than me.”

  “I guess you showed her.”

  “Oh, Sam. People like you and Aviva love to wallow in drama. I bet it was exactly what you both wanted. A little disaster. I can’t be blamed for my journey.”

  I could see the bathroom lines behind Vicki. Francis was in one line and my wife in another. They were talking. Aviva’s layers were gone. There were visible straps of maybe a bustier. I thought I saw leopard print around a breast.

  “What the hell does that even mean, Vicki? Your journey? Aviva was always kind to you!”

  “She was always kind to one of us.”

  Francis and my wife were in the same line now.

  “No. Don’t make this about me. Don’t be a bitch.”

  “Please. I think, in our little threesome, there were enough bitches to go around.”

  Francis and my wife were no longer in view. Vicki herself was looking a little fuzzy.

  I stood. “Don’t call any of us a bitch. I won’t have it.” My voice was cracking. “I won’t have any of this.” I threw the scarf at Vicki but my aim was weird or maybe it was just the scarf. It gently descended onto her shoulder, with a fringe falling into her glass. Vicki’s smile grew fixed and she raised her arm to motion for a fresh cocktail.

  The line to the bathrooms was getting longer and more aggressive. Girls in short high-waist dresses and impractical tops were kicking all five doors.

  I stormed to the bathroom. I screamed my name, Francis’s and Aviva’s names, till the door cracked open and, ignoring the shouts from the line that followed me, I was in.

  It was a small bathroom for three people. Pretty quiet too, but for the pounding on the door.

  Me, my wife, and Francis. Looking at each other. All three of us smiling, except me and Francis. Francis’s belt buckle was undone.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Aviva was applying lipstick. She seethed through it, “How did that go? You back together with Vicki? If you’d waited another minute I’d probably have had to fuck this trashbag.”

  “I thought better of it.”

  Aviva fixed me with a look full of frustrated pity. “That’s not really your thing, Sam, thinking better of things. You wanted her to take you back and not give a shit about you and then you’d be free. No adults in the room. An endless bullshit party of baby town abnegation.”

  I was entirely ignoring Francis and he looked okay with that. I pointed at Aviva and said, “I don’t know what that last word means, but I’m not a baby, baby. I’m a man, baby.”

  Aviva took my finger into her hand and made like she was about to suckle it; an electric charge moved through my parts. Then she jerked it back hard.

  I yelped. But she hadn’t actually done damage. It was like she used to do, in the last hour of our hours-long fights. I said to Francis. “This is your fault. I can’t believe you told Aviva. Is there anything you won’t ruin?”

  Francis had his hands up. “I’m just doing what I do.”

  I was seeing double and there were just so many of Francis and Aviva in this bathroom that there was less than one of me, like I was on the ceiling or a stain on the wall.

  Francis tried to arrange himself. “Who wants drugs?”

  “Give Sam some, maybe that’ll straighten him out. Give him some clarity.” Aviva was shaking, the lipstick tube looked at about shattering point.

  “Sam does not do drugs. Too much not doing them, if you ask me.”

  The knocking on the bathroom door grew louder and steadier. When it got to double-bass velocity that meant it was a bouncer and we’d have to address it. We had a couple minutes.

  “I want to know what the fuck y
ou two are doing,” I demanded.

  “You haven’t any right to ask. None. Francis, if you tell him, I’ll stab you in the face.”

  Francis looked either pained or confused. “We didn’t do anything.”

  Aviva pulled out a cigarette, thought better of it, and threw it back in her purse. “Jesus, Francis, what are you good for?”

  “What am I good for? I’m not the bad guy! I never pretended to be anything other than what I am. You two are the ones keeping all those nice people outside waiting. You deserve each other. Someone has to say it and I’m willing to be that brave soul. I’d say there’s no need to thank me, but I see now that gratitude is out of fashion.”

  I yelled at him, “I’d say this is beneath you, but it’s not. Nothing is!”

  “You’re one to talk,” Aviva turned on me.

  Francis was yelling too: “Really? You fucking coward. And you,” he shifted to Aviva, “you clearly won’t fight for what’s yours. I’m disappointed in both of you.”

  I had my hand on Francis’s hand and I would have punched him, but Aviva beat me to it—she slapped us both in rapid succession, hard. She said, “Fuck you both in the eye, pricks. I’ll wear red to your funerals.”

  She opened the door, body-checked the girl knocking, and slammed the door fast behind her, giving us time to lock. It would be a sec before the knocking started again.

  I still had my hand on Francis. I could smell both of our night sweat over the piss and paint of the room. I was tempted to wrestle the drugs from him and throw them away. He saw what I was thinking. Throwing away the drugs would have been dramatic. I wasn’t dramatic. I let go of his hand.

  Francis put the drugs and his keys in his pocket. When he looked back up his smile was in place.

  “So, how’d that go anyway? You and Vicki back together?”

  I grabbed his head. The tips of our noses touched and one or both of our breath was wild, in scent and rapidity. “Francis. I think we need a break.” I let go of his head too fast so it jerked back and he looked at me like an animal hit by its owner for the first time. I backed out of the bathroom.