You

40

TAKING care of Nicky is going to be easier than I thought. He’s a do-gooder, Beck, and once a week he takes the train out to the part of Queens that’s still all about crack and crime to council druggies who are trying to get sober. But tonight, he’s gonna become a cautionary tale for all the UWS assholes who think they can atone for their sins with four hours a week. Tonight, Nicky not-a-doctor-except-to-you will be mugged by drug addicts.

I take a swig of Jack and open the front page of a self-help book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Nicky Angevine’s friends will give his wife that book when he’s found dead in Queens. Nicky’s death will be looked upon as a tragedy. His daughters will grow up without a father (until his wife bangs a replacement, which will probably happen in a matter of weeks) and there will be a simple, perverse beauty to his demise. No suspects, no confusion, no malfeasance, a straight-up mugging, wallet gone, the guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Marcia Angevine’s friends will hover around her with coffee cakes and their own kids and bottles of wine and tell her how sorry they are for her loss. But I know that she’ll be thanking the Lord for her gain.

It’s time, Beck. Nicky emerges from the sober house and looks both ways like a good little white boy. He hangs his head and starts down the street and his wife must have laundered his Vans because they’re especially bright and white tonight. He’s a mouse in your house and I wish you didn’t want him. But of course you do, Beck. He’s like the father you never had and you want to break up his family. And that’s natural. That’s the cycle of abuse and it was Nicky’s job to help you overcome that desire.

But Nicky didn’t do his job. He is a pig. And there’s no possible happy ending to this mess. If I let him live, you will eventually get what you think you want. He will fuck you in the beige room and cry to his wife and beg for a divorce and he will go to you—because he’s right, you are sex—and the truth is, the second he becomes available, no ring, no more teeth whitening, you won’t want him.

He is leading you down the path to hell and he was supposed to keep his distance from you and he didn’t. And you were supposed to call me—you miss me—and you didn’t. And I know you so well, Beck. You are charisma, you are sick, and for some reason you are a magnet for weak, spineless people like Peach, like Benji, like Nicky. I pick up my pace and I hold my new nightstick. (I went to the Army Navy store to cool off after that bullshit with Officer Minty; it’s only fair that we all be armed against cops who think they’re above the law.) I clench my jaw. I am gaining on him and I can do this, one fell swoop. But then I feel a vibration in my pocket. I have no choice but to duck into an alley. Nicky will turn around if he hears the phone and I can’t make it stop and I can’t breathe and my hands shake and I look at my phone.

It’s you.

You are calling me.

You have, at last, decided to act on your feelings.

Your name looks beautiful in my phone, shining in the dark above the picture of you in your white bikini. I stare at you, aglow. I smile; I too glow. You surprise me, you delight me, and you miss me. I try to make my heart slow down and Dr. Nicky is already blocks away and I bring the phone to my head and I speak. “Well, hello, Beck.”

“Joe?” you say, soft as your skin. “Can you hear me?”

I lose my voice and cough. I’m not myself because I was just about to kill Nicky with a nightstick because he was trying to have sex with you. I am dizzy and you sound tipsy when you speak again. “Joe? Can you hear me?”

“Bad signal,” I say. “I’m waiting for the train.”

Forward as a dictator, you make your demand. “I need you to come over. Can you come over? Can you come over right now?”

I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life and I answer, strongly, “Yes.”

I hit END and I can’t believe your timing. I need a minute to get my head right. You called. I ditch the nightstick in a trash heap. My hand is still sore from gripping it and my heart hurts from the whiplash. You called. You’re back! I’m calmer now and I’m walking and it will be nice to get out of here and get to you. You called and I can’t help but believe that for all of Nicky’s idiocy, he might be good at what he does after all. Clearly, you are in a better place now; you called me, not him. I hop in a cab because I’m too happy to get on the subway. I wonder what you’re wearing and I can’t get to you fast enough. I leave When Bad Things Happen to Good People in the backseat of the cab. I don’t need it anymore. I have you.