he peed in my closet
As soon as I got home I called Todd. Trusty Todd. My best male friend and former husband from age seven. I threw down my bag and took off my still-damp sweatshirt, waving my arms over my head in self-directed disgust, while I recapped the unfortunate evening I’d just suffered through. My frantic motion and bra-clad figure was no doubt creating a spectacle for anyone who should happen to be peering in through my tiny window. A horrible thought crossed my mind: What if Spandex Man could see in my window from his and saw my distress as an invitation to come save me with his ka-ra-tay? Suddenly, desperate to leave the building, I asked Todd to meet me for late night coffee.
My relationship to coffee was like no other. Much like my relationship to Todd. Both perked me up when I was down, helped keep me going when I was low on energy, and made me have to urinate constantly. There is a downside to having a friend who’s a laugh a minute. Todd had grown up well. He was skinny but not in a nerdy way. He was more of that hipster skinny. He lived in T-shirts of bands a normal person would never have heard of, jeans, and Pumas. He worked as a graphic designer at another ad agency, and although his was a real agency peopled by something other than misfits, he got it when I complained about the bullshit I dealt with and, in our own private game of My Job Sucks Worse poker, he would see my ad woes and raise them with his own.
As we were picking where to meet, I noticed a large cockroach unapologetically crawling up my wall. I recognized him. I’d seen him before and named him Major Deegan after an expressway here in New York. Major Deegan briefly stopped when he saw me, and we had a bit of a stare-down. A Mexican standoff with la cucaracha. Me and the roach. Each claiming our rightful territory. This was New York, after all, and anyone knows that a New York apartment for under $1,200 a month comes with roaches. In any other part of the country $1,200 would rent you a pretty decent place. In New York, it will get you a shoebox-sized apartment with dozens of six-legged roommates who won’t contribute to the rent yet still feel free to leave their shit all over the place.
I was so focused on the roach that I couldn’t even hear Todd speaking into my ear anymore. Finally the roach got bored and continued up the wall and I returned to the conversation, during which we’d apparently agreed to meet at Cozy’s Soup ’n Burger.
“See you in fifteen,” he said. I put a dry sweatshirt on and headed out the door, knowing full well that I’d feel infinitely better once I’d bitched and moaned to Todd, and Major Deegan would be happy to have the place to himself.
On my way to meet Todd, I walked past my lyrical drifter, and she stopped to look me up and down. Then she said, “‘Now there’s trouble bussin’ in from outta state . . .’” and she whipped her head up, one eye on me, waiting.
“‘And the D.A. can’t get no relief,’” I replied, both eyes on hers, head bowed a little. She accepted my reply with what looked like it was going to be a sly wink, but was actually the beginnings of a sneeze. Springsteen. I wasn’t going to miss that one. As we both continued in our different directions, I wondered if she ever thought about me when I wasn’t around and tried to come up with a lyric that would stump me. Or maybe if that would make me like every other person she accosted, so my actually knowing the proper response was a welcome relief.
When I got to Cozy’s, which was our favorite twenty-four-hour diner, Todd was already seated at our booth and had us each a coffee and slice of cake. One cheesecake and one chocolate blackout cake. Todd was the perfect gay male best friend except he wasn’t gay. He actually got more chicks than any guy I knew—including all of Dirk’s lothario law buddies. There was something slightly Woody Allen–ish about Todd but only in his neurosis and brilliance, not in the looks department. The hipster-cool thing that women in New York seem to flock to was working for him big-time. Yet as much play as he got, none of the girls stuck—and not for a lack of their trying. There was always something he’d find wrong with them—some ridiculous thing, like finding a copy of Jewel’s poetry book on her bookshelf or a Phish bootleg in her CD collection or a pair of Uggs—and that would kill it.
Todd hated Dirk.
“You must, must stop seeing him,” he urged.
“He’s not that bad.”
“No, you’re right.” He shifted in the booth and looked alarmed. “In fact, Jesus, I think he’s right here—I’m sitting on him! Oh, no, wait—it’s just a festering boil on my ass. You can understand the mix-up.”
We sat there quiet for a moment. I knew he wasn’t finished. He was planning his strategy. He’d remind me of some of the unspeakable things that Dirk had done and I would defend him until I couldn’t anymore and we’d both know that he was right and I should break up with Dirk but that I didn’t have the balls to do it.
“He forgot your birthday,” he began.
“I hate birthdays anyway.”
“Nobody hates birthdays,” he said dismissively. “People hate getting older, but everybody loves a birthday.”
“No, I actually hate birthdays,” I countered, standing.
It was true. It had started on my sixth birthday, when I thought for sure my dad would be there, because even though he said he might not see me for a long time, I really didn’t think he meant that long and he’d surely be back for my birthday. He, of course, was a no-show. And then there was my ninth birthday, the year we had boys and girls. Walter had planned a hip-hop dance party because hip-hop was taking off and he thought the kids would love to dance. Boys stayed on one side of our house, girls on the other, and the only mingling was a softball that got hurled by Billy Engbert, which was meant to just show off his throwing arm, but landed square in my face. And who could forget my fourteenth birthday, which got completely overlooked, in what I thought was an homage to Sixteen Candles and surely a practical joke to be revealed at my surprise party—a party that never took place. For these and several other unfortunate birthday debacles, I genuinely didn’t like birthdays. Todd was going to lose this one. So he tried another route.
“He hit on your sister.”
“He was just trying to get to know my family.”
“In your family do you greet new people by sticking your tongue down somebody’s throat?” he goaded in a decibel way too high for a place called Cozy’s.
“There was no tongue,” I defended. “And Sam is a slut.”
“Fine, so they’re both assholes. That doesn’t make him any less of an asshole!”
“I know . . . I know.”
“Do you need me to go on?”
“I think so.” I shrugged.
“Fine. He peed in your closet. I mean . . . there are no words.”
“I already told you! He was sleepwalking after having many, many beers that night. He thought it was the bathroom.” Todd’s look said, Come on—who are you trying to kid? “He did!” I squealed.
“He didn’t go to your grandmother’s funeral.”
“Funerals weird him out. He doesn’t like dead people . . .”
“And the rest of us just love ’em. C’mon, Jordy! He’s a total asshole. As your husband, I demand that you break up with your boyfriend. Don’t you have to listen to me or obey me or something?”
“Fine. I’ve heard enough for tonight,” I said. “I’ll think about it.” Dirk was a jerk and I knew it. If I could only hold on to the feeling I had right that minute, then I’d have the courage to break up with him. But I’d head home, go to bed, wake up, and it would be a new day. I would be filled with the same naive hope that maybe this day would be different. I’d think that maybe he’d do a turnaround and be nicer, treat me better, remember how things used to be, and try to recapture what we had, making it all worth it. Maybe. Yeah, sure, and maybe they’d also invent that pill where you could eat whatever you wanted and never get fat.
The rehabilitated Dirk was an illusion, but a necessary one. I held onto the fantasy that things would be like they were in the beginning because, besides my issues with confrontation, I just didn’t like to give up. You may think that’s a weakness, but you can also look at it as a strength. A strength of hope and a resolve to continue to work at something because I didn’t want to accept failure. Even though sometimes the strength it takes to admit failure is probably worth as much as the determination not to quit. So there you have it. I was stuck fighting for a relationship with a boyfriend who, truth be told, I’d much rather forget ever existed.