11
THIS MORNING AFTER SHE'S THE one kissing me on the cheek.
“I have to go, Jim.”
She runs her hand through my hair and I'm barely awake but still watch her cute little ass mosey on out the door. I smile like I'm on crack and sit up slowly, reveling.
It worked. The whole plan worked. I finally got her back, my one and only true precious, the girl I've drooled over for the last two years. All my regret, all my anger, all my pain, all my darkness, despair, despondency, and dickheadedness gone in the simple act of fucking Kara once again. I've achieved the whole point of this Dodger business, and finally understand the reason why I dodged the bullet to begin with. It was to stay alive and get Kara back. Simple.
I light a cigarette and smile.
Then frown.
Now what?
I immediately call Paiger. If anyone will have an answer, it's her.
Voice mail. Shit. I tell her to call me back ASAP.
Then I light up a bowl. And pace. And pace.
What the hell have I done? I'm exactly where I was the last time. The only difference is that Kara's single now too. Which bodes well in my favor. Or does it? When I asked her why she and Pete broke up she didn't get into specifics but specifically said she was tired of being with someone but still being alone. Makes sense. I guess.
But where do I come in? The whole time I was telling Paiger about everything it almost seemed like I was in therapy, only instead of paying a ridiculous amount of money and fitting all my problems into a fifty minute freak show with some pompous ass, I got to get drunk and stoned with a hot chick and spill my guts whimsically.
And after having told her the whole story... I really feel clean of the situation. Of Kara. Of everything.
Shit... do I still even want her back?
It's been two years, and she still fucked me right off the bat. What's worse, her doing that or her fucking me while she'd been seeing Pete for two months?
It remains a hard argument.
I smoke the bowl, pondering.
There's really only two ways this thing can go down. One, Kara and I follow the path I've envisioned all along and fall in love, and this thing I've been chasing after for so long, this elusive feeling of completion, will finally be complete. After meeting and losing her, twice, the fact that the fates have given me yet another shot speaks volumes. It's gotta be meant to be.
The other way is that she doesn't want anything to do with me and was really a crazy bitch who just wanted to say she fucked the Dodger, once before he was the Dodger and once after. It would have to be some kind of freaky sexual record, or a dubious distinction. 2012 inductee into the Sexual Misfits Hall Of Fame. Which I'd be proud to be a part of, incidentally.
But that'd be pretty fucked up.
So I'm hoping it's the first thing. But then what? We start dating? How long before things get too intense sparked by an incident sparked by alcohol, and one of us says something that we won't be able to take back? How long before it loses its magic and becomes a simple routine, and we discover that in reality, we actually did hate each other and that's what birthed our previous subconscious poisonous nature? It could all be a huge mistake. It probably is.
But fuck it.
I want her.
I hit the bowl again, and in midhale, Paiger calls me back.
“Hello?”
“Jim, what's up?”
Exhale. “Hey, Paiger. Not much. I slept with Kara last night.”
There's a pause on the other end. A long one. Finally:
“How was it?”
I shrug. “The sex was great. Even better than before. But now I'm in a pickle.”
“Yeah, I'll say.”
“I've kind of already made up my mind, but what do you think I should do?”
“If you've already made up your mind, why are you even asking me?”
“Shits and giggles.”
She sighs. “I think you're insane if you try and pursue this. I mean, I don't know exactly what happened between you two this time, but ---”
I cut her off and tell her everything. She sighs again.
“So it was a one night stand.”
“Yeah, but she yearned for me as much as I yearned for her!”
“Do you hear yourself? Are you drunk?”
“No, I'm just high from the incredible orgasms. Listen, I'm going for it. I'm gonna do it slowly, but I'm going for it. I can't screw this up. I can't scare her off this time. Third time's a charm.”
“You are drunk.”
“All right, I'm drunk. Bleh. How's the story coming?”
“Actually really good. I'd like to get a camera crew over to your place as soon as possible.”
“Camera crew? For what?”
“It's a television news story. We need footage of you to intertwine with me delivering the voiceover.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“You knew you were going to have to be on camera again at some point. Look, the sooner we do it, the sooner the story airs, and the sooner they start throwing deals at us, okay?”
“What kind of deals do you speak of?”
“Reality TV, maybe a documentary, or if we're lucky, a book or a movie deal.”
“A book or a... Paiger, you realize I'm a writer, right?”
“You've mentioned it.”
“No, it's not like a hobby or anything. That's what I want to do for a career. It's my calling.”
“You mean to tell me waiting tables and dodging bullets aren't your loftiest aspirations in life?”
“Bite me. Look, if we get a book or a movie deal, I'm writing it. The book and the screenplay. Or the screenplay. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, Jim. Well, we'll see what happens. Let's just get the story done first, all right?”
“All right.“
“Good. I've got to go. Are you available to shoot tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I guess. Anytime after noon.”
“It's going to be more like nine AM.”
“Jesus, why so early?
“We follow a schedule.”
“Fine. Bye.”
I hit End. Hit the bowl. Contemplate. I knew Paiger would say I shouldn't pursue Kara. Of course she would. That would put an end to her perfect ending, where the Dodger, who hath dodged a bullet and most likely death, wasn't able to dodge the inevitable heartbreak we all encounter at some point, for he too lost the love of his life. It's actually a great angle now that I think about it. What better way to turn a superhuman into a mere mortal?
But I digest. Literally. The bad bar food from last night ambushes my colon and I head for the toilet.
Good morning.
I fight the urge to text Kara as the day goes on and work on writing. If we do in fact get a book or movie deal I need to have some samples ready so whoever makes the big decisions will know I'm not full of shit. I touch up some short stories, fine tune parts of my defunct novel, and expertly edit excerpts from a few screenplays I never finished. All in all I can probably salvage sixty pages for a decent portfolio, which isn't bad considering I haven't written in two years.
That was another thing. After I first hooked up with Kara and started acting like an idiot, I stopped writing. Just downright stopped. The whole ordeal stunted my creativity and aside from writing a few cheesy songs and playing bad lead guitar for Glass Cabin, I ceased doing anything creative at all.
Which sucks, cause it's all I've got.
I skim through the first short story. It's about Vic Damon, a well to do twenty five year old dragged to his girlfriend's business dinner with these two yuppies. He winds up getting into a huge argument with the guy, Channing Martin, after Channing fucks with the waiter by sending his fish back. So Vic goes and tells the waiter that it's Channing's birthday, and they serve him a slice of banana cream pie topped with semen. Not my best work, but it's got its moments.
The second one is about Ethan Douglas, a bartender that's roped into giving this disgusting pig of a woman who ho
sts the open mic at his bar a ride home. So she invites him in, and it's an absolute shitfarm – pizza boxes and clothes strewn about, cats flying through the air, and the ashtrays... everything in the apartment had been used as an ashtray, from the handles on the futon to the TV remote control. He winds up seeing a floater in the toilet and beats it out of there. Again, not my best work, but the thing read like a knife.
The screenplays I select excerpts from are both comedies, one which topped out at forty eight pages, the other at seventy nine. The first one is about comedian James Benedict, who insults a crazy professional baseball player sitting in the crowd at his HBO Special and winds up getting pelted with eggs as a result. He is therefore christened Eggs Benedict, and therefore, that's the title. He decides the best way to get even is to become really good at baseball and take the crazy player's spot on the roster. Forty eight pages. I stopped writing right when he made the team.
The seventy niner was all about these three friends who go out and do a bunch of coke one night and wind up having a threesome. Things deteriorate afterward because one of them is engaged and the other two are in relationships. The seventy nine pages all take place in one night and I literally had no idea how to write the morning after scene, never having had a threesome, especially not with two good friends while on coke. That script fizzled fast.
Then there's the novel. Dead Rock Stars. Man oh man. I invested so much time into this thing and it's some of my most beautiful work but the inciting incidents are unbelievable, literally, and it reads in places like I have no idea what I'm talking about. Which I don't. It's written through the eyes of a rock star, which I've never been, who gets into all these crazy adventures, which I haven't had, and winds up seeing a psychotherapist, which I never have. I was just so into the story I couldn't stop writing.
But at page one hundred and two, I did.
Thank God.
I select a few juicy excerpts. That'll do, pig.
After printing everything I organize and collate where necessary, then stick them in a folder and write 'Jim's Crap' on it. There we go. Who wouldn't take me seriously?
The rest of the afternoon becomes a haze of pot and tequila. I clean the place up a little so Paiger doesn't think I'm a complete slob and try to prepare myself for whatever the hell she's going to do tomorrow. Will I have to wear makeup again? If so, will Colleen be the applicant? And my hair is much longer now, so long to the point where I don't even put product in. How's that going to affect my photogenicism? Are they going to need to cut it right here in the apartment? Are we even going to shoot in the apartment?
Ugh. All these questions. All these questions, and there's only one I want answered.
What the hell am I going to do with Kara?
I'm just waking up from my evening pot nap when the answer comes.
There's a knock at the door. I stumble over, open it, and literally feel my eyes light up.
Kara.
“Hi, Jim.”
“Oh... shit. Hey. Come on in.”
She does. I lick my hand and attempt to flatten what I'm sure is an extreme case of bedhead as she sits on the couch. I sit across from her and smile, still a little high. But I maintain.
“So what's up? You, uh... it's good to see you.”
She looks at me, really looks at me, and for the first time since the first time, I can truly feel her. Her want. Her desire. Her love.
“Jim, about last night... I just, I'm sorry. I just missed you so much. Seeing you and hanging out with you again was so nice and it put me so at ease. It was like the first time we hung out. Remember?”
I nod. If she only knew.
“I know you have a girlfriend now,” she continues, “but I also know I made a huge mistake two years ago. You're the only person who's ever gotten me on a level that's truly scary. I mean, with you, it's just so... God, I don't even know how to describe it.” She runs her hand through her unparalleled red locks. “All I know is that sometimes when no one else is around, I talk to you. I just talk to you in my head. Because... because I know you listen. And I know you understand.”
She comes over and sits next to me, takes my hand.
“I wish I'd handled things differently back then.”
I almost laugh, exhaling an inhale I didn't even realize I was holding. “You? I'm the one who acted like a baby. I pushed you away.”
“I know. I know you did.”
“Because I sabotage myself.”
“I know you do.”
“And I've regretted it for the last two years. You were my...”
I pause, staring into her eyes, which are slowly welling up with tears. I feel mine start to do the same.
“Your what?”
I sigh. “You were my last worst mistake. No one's ever touched me like you. And if you wanna start this over... so do I. It's too special not to.”
She smiles, and squeezes, and I kiss her, long and hard. She kisses back with equal force and our tongues fuse together, coiling like crazy.
On the way to the bedroom our clothes come off faster than a Kenyan runner and after we explore every inch of each other for hours on end we lay in post coital bliss, sweat dripping off our bodies, floating on an orgasm cloud that feels like it could stay in orbit forever. I hereby leave this planet and plane of existence in search of a higher meaning. I'm taking this woman with me. Fate, you'll have to fight me Scott Pilgrim style to take her away a third time, so don't even think about it, you bastard.
We float on, Modest Mouse style, and sleep occurs swiftly.
Orgasm sleep.
The best kind.
“I knew we'd have another shot at this.”
I watch a spider run across the ceiling as Kara plays with my chest hair. Then my navel. Then my nipples. I shudder in pure ecstasy.
“Yeah, so did I. I just... miss you. Being around you makes me so happy.”
“You make me happy.”
She kisses my neck with those succulent lips and I close my eyes, enjoying every second. Her tongue is a swizzle stick of pure pleasure and I'm the sweet little universe it revolves around. If time could only stand still.
And then I realize that it is.
“God, I'm crazy about you.”
“I'm all yours.”
Our lips connect and don't break until sunrise.
When time stands still there is one little issue – remembering to set the alarm. I don't and nine AM rolls around in a heartbeat, which is what it sounds like when Paiger starts banging on my door.
Thump thump, thump thump.
I sit up. “Shit, it's Paige.”
Kara sits up quicker. “Shit.”
Thump thump, thump thump. Kara leaps off the bed and starts putting her clothes on while I sift through the sheets for my boxers. Thump, thump. I give up on the boxers and just grab my jeans, sliding commando into them. Kara's trying to button her blouse when, all the way from the bedroom, I see it.
The bottom lock.
I look at Kara. “It's open.”
I say it rather loudly and no sooner do the words come out of my mouth that I slap my hand over it. The knob turns, and I frantically zip up.
But too late.
Paiger stands in the doorway, staring at us, me shirtless in my jeans with my happy trail hanging out, Kara with her shirt open and black bra on display. I smile.
“Hey, Paiger.”
She scoffs and turns away, and the door slam can probably be heard down the block.
I explain to Kara how things really weren't working with Paiger and that it was probably going to end anyway, and it in fact already had in my mind, that we were pretty much broken up, minus the formality of actually having talked about it. It'd been mostly a sexual thing anyway, I say, and that she was just too crazy for me.
Kara reminds me that she's crazy. I smile.
“Yeah, but I like your kind of crazy.”
We spend the day together talking about the hard stuff. She and Pete broke up because he did in fact cheat on he
r while he was on the road, while she was watching his daughter over Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's.
“Yeah, Happy fucking Holidays,” she says.
“What a catch,” I say. “There hasn't been a greater catch since syphilis.”
I tell her about how the band broke up and how my parents died and how I feel time is running out for me, that I need to get my shit together and put myself into something serious soon. She tells me I should be an English teacher and I say I could never because I'd wind up going on all these madcapped adventures to unearth the original manuscript of Catcher In The Rye and all the girls would have crushes on me because I'd be the Indiana Jones of the English department. She says I'm not that cute and kisses my face all over. I wind up crying my eyes out and she just holds me, strokes me, loves me.
She gets me.
I almost tell her that Paiger was never my girlfriend and is actually a reporter doing a story on the Dodger and that the whole thing at Snakepit was an act, that we had been keeping tabs on her for a week before that fateful encounter, that Paiger was just holding up her end of a bargain, a bargain that revolved around me telling her everything. My story. Our story.
But I don't.
What good can come of that?
I convince Kara to stay the night and while she's in the shower, I go outside to smoke and call Paiger.
“Hello?”
“What's up, Paiger?”
“Oh, hello.”
“Hey, sorry about this morning, we lost track of time. You guys can come over and shoot tomorrow. Nine AM works for me.”
There's a long pause. I check my signal.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, I'm here. It's just...”
“Just what?”
She sighs. “It's the story, Jim. It's dead in the water.”
I blink, drag, feel an anvil drop from my heart to my stomach. “Um... what?”
“The story,” she repeats. “This is actually what I was coming over to tell you. The network doesn't think the story's going to have the appeal that our viewers are looking for. Nobody's interested anymore. It's just... old news.”
I almost drop the phone. My stomach is turning round and round.
“Hey, it happens. I tried.”
Her calmness irritates me. “So, what, you're telling me it's over? No reality shows? No books? No screenplays?”
“No nothing, honey. Sorry.”
I suck the rest of my smoke down. “Well, what the fuck, Paiger? Now what? I mean, I told you everything!”
There's another pause. Then:
“I know, Jim. And I appreciate it.”
Either she hangs up or the line goes dead or the call drops but it's irrelevant because Paige Scott, the Paiger, is long gone. I stare at the phone and consider calling her back but know she won't pick up. She'll probably never pick up again.
And now here I am, a man without a story.
The door opens behind me and Kara, hair wet, face glowing, pokes her beautiful head out. Her smile sparkles in the shine of the moonlight.
“Hey baby, are you coming to bed? I want you.”
I take one long look at her, flick the cig, pocket my phone.
“Hell yeah.”
Fuck it. My story's just begun.