It Feels So Good When I Stop Page 20

  “Dude, wrap that shit up.” He boosted himself up onto the railing and yelled, “Sub Pop is going to sign the Young Accuser. Mark my words.”

  “You’re fucking insane.”

  “And you are afraid of success.”

  “Oh, I am? ”

  “That’s okay, though, because I’m not. You can be the shy, moody one in the band. Just grab on to this little old belt loop and hang on tight. We’re going places.”

  “I’m not grabbing on to anything. Would you put some fucking clothes on.”

  Richie wasn’t listening. “Okay, what we do is we start four-tracking our asses off. Eight days a week. Morning, noon, and night. None of this ‘I don’t really feel like it right now’ bullshit. And we get salty. We get tight. But not too tight. We don’t want to turn into fucking Tim buk Three.” He had a revelation. “I got it. Maybe we ask Melanie to play with us. Nothing too over-the-top. Just a kick and snare. Dyke drummers go over huge in Seattle. I’m serious. They eat that shit up.”

  “At least put your towel back on.”

  Richie went on with rattling off his plans. They were like cracks in the ice spoking out from a single point of impact.

  I read the letter a few more times to myself. I wished it had been even more discouraging. I didn’t know how to tell him I was moving to Brooklyn as soon as I could find someone to take my room.

  DONNELLY’S PARKING LOT was empty. My hands were shaking as I fed change into the Coke machine right outside the front door. I shielded my bad molar with my tongue and drained most of the icy soda in the first go. I inhaled my cigarette like a POW upon liberation. Goddamnit, it felt good as the caffeine and nicotine exerted their influence.

  I heard someone riding a go-kart out back. The driver knew the track like the back of his hand. He stepped on and off the gas pedal in a regular, predictable sequence. I closed my eyes and imagined it was me—younger and unspoiled—tooling around and around the track. I moved Sweet Thunder’s handlebars like I was steering the kart. I might even have been making audible, muffled motor sounds. In my mind I know I was.

  “Do you need help, son? ”

  I opened my eyes, startled. Mr. Donnelly Jr. was standing close enough to touch me. “No.”

  “You sure about that? ”

  “You scared me.” I could still hear the sole kart going at it out back.

  “You looked like you were going to have a seizure.”

  I laughed it off. “No.”

  “That’s good.” He waited a couple beats. “Well, what were you doing? ”

  I didn’t feel like lying. “I was listening.”

  “To the engine? ”

  “Yes.” That didn’t seem so strange to him. “And imagining myself behind the wheel.”

  He chuckled. “Why pretend? ”

  “I wasn’t exactly pretending.”

  He patted me on the back. “Why not come and try it for real.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Come on. I won’t even charge you.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’d rather just think about it.”

  “You would? ”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay. Suit yourself.” He was shaking his head. Once again, he did not know what the fuck to make of me. “Suit yourself.” He opened the door to his known quantity and disappeared into it.

  I LOOKED OUT Jocelyn’s front window. A maroon Lincoln Town Car was parked on the opposite side of Sixth Avenue. The driver was leaning against the outside of the door, reading a paper.

  “Our car’s here,” I said. Jocelyn was buzzing around the apartment in her underwear, stuffing clothes and toiletries into a backpack. “You go down. I just need a couple minutes.” She gave me a peck, then took my face in her hands, looked it over, and planted a longer kiss, into which I fell. She pulled herself away from me. “Do you have everything? ”

  “Yes,” I said, mildly annoyed.

  “Passport? License? Birth certificate? ”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  “Just checking. I don’t want this to fall apart at the eleventh hour.”

  “It won’t.”

  She straightened my tie beneath my denim jacket. “I like the Sam Shepard thing you have going on. You look handsome.”

  “You too.” I touched the front clasp of her white bra and ran my finger down her stomach. She sucked it in out of reach before I could go too far.

  “Later,” she protested playfully.

  “Now.”

  “Don’t be greedy. We’re going to have each other for the rest of our lives.” She bounded off to the bathroom. She looked like she was crossing a river by stepping on the heads of crocodiles. “Now go, or we’ll lose the car.” I looked out the window. The Lincoln was still there. I was closing the apartment door behind me when I heard Jocelyn call out like a Hollywood cowgirl, “Oh, yoo-hoo? Yoooo-hoooo? ” I poked my head around the door to see Jocelyn poking her head around the bathroom door. We were two heads.

  “What? ” I asked.

  “Are you still here? ”

  “No. I am not.”

  “Good.” She was all smiles. I might have been, too.

  I MADE IT about a mile, a mile and a half, back toward East Falmouth, when a cop car coming in the opposite direction flashed me. I stopped on the sandy shoulder and watched him pull a U-turn. He parked in front of me and got out of the cruiser. He stared at me. I stared right back at him. Neither one of us wanted to be the first to laugh.

  Thanks to:

  The Pernice family; the Stein family; Megan Lynch, Sarah Bowlin, and everyone else at Riverhead Books; Joyce Line han; Marian Hebb at Hebb, Scheffer and Associates; Chris Parris-Lamb at the Gernert Company; Nicola Spunt; Jill Holmberg; Lou Barlow; Ken Harrington; Neal J. Huff; Dr. Gordon Yanchyshyn; John Niven; David Barker; Adam Pet tle; Jo Ann Wasserman; V. Paul Coyne; Benjamin Wheelock; Richard Bonanno; Peyton Pinkerton (Connecticut is actually the state in his way); Bob Pernice; James Walbourne; Patrick Berkery; Thom Monahan; Jose Ayerve; Ric Menck; Michael Belitsky; Joe Harvard; and Michael Deming.

  Most of all, thanks to my wife and son for their unending love and for daring me daily.