dogface returns. Last chapter. Chapter 2. Chapter 1.
Sunday afternoon, coffee. Fucking Greenpoint. Dana, coffee at So-Star 9. I wish I was fucking Dana, but coffee's okay. Anyway, normal, normal, normal.
Before she arrives, I thumb through one of my journals, as if I am trying to figure out why I gave that girl so much trouble. Everything fades, I guess. I leave an annotation of that on a page from last year, underneath a penciled scrawling of her Prius. Psycho shit.
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, job's fine, work's… and everyone's cool. My part's almost done."
"I don't want to talk about skating - I know it's very close to your heart - How are you? Senior year's fast approaching. Have you been taking care of yourself?"
No. "I'm doing alright, not like last time-"
"But are you building up to a last time again?"
"Hey, I mean, thanks for looking out."
Dana grips my hand. "I care about you, Joy."
"Uh, I care about you, too."
"Oh, come on, Joy. I know what your deal is."
"I'm not doing anything."
Dana sighs. "How's that incomplete?"
"I did it. How's your dad?"
"Still projecting…" She lifts her mug. "Are you seeing anybody?"
"Here and there."
"Well, I hope--fuck, that's, uh… this guy…" She fiddles for her phone. "Sorry. I'll just call him back.
"No, don't worry about it."
“Do you ever wonder…” Dana starts, looking out of the cafe window. “What if we weren’t crazy?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if I’d never left, if I didn’t have to?”
“This year?” I say. She nods and sighs. I lean back to gather a thought but she’s grabbing her bag and her mug before I say anything.
“I still love you,” Dana says, with a little pout. “You know that.”
“I, uh, also love you, Dana.” I watch her leave, descending into the G train station.
Myra quietly disassembles a Glock 17, a weapon, she explains, that is often mistaken to be Israeli.
"It's Austrian…” she mumbles. "Mahal," she says later, "it's like the French Foreign Legion, but for the cause, y'know… I left after I got selected for special forces… I mean, so much Torah reading, man! I just wanted to kill shit and then I didn't."
"Do you… kill much at your thing now?" I'm fidgeting in the corner of Myra's garage. It's a bit barren for a career killer. A motorbike, sheathed in plastic, a wall-mounted gun-rack, a mini-fridge, a Herzog poster, a fold-out table and the office chair Myra's sitting in.
I suppose the worst thing she is isn't ex-IDF.
She looks up suddenly. "What?"
"I said, do you kill-"
"No, not really," she says, eyes back to her work, left arm darting across the table for a squirt bottle of oil. "Lotta paperwork."
"Oh yeah?"
"It's a Bloomberg/Bratton deal, very low-key. Though bozo right now isn’t doing anything about it. Keep it quiet and we don't get any trouble from 'em. Newark PD's different, obviously, but I keep quiet here."
Myra bagged me crossing Central Park from Bart's place one night, rolling up in a Benz van around 3 am. "Just tell your friends you got laid," she said, "and don't worry, I won't pull nothing." We stayed in her room in the Chinatown three bed she rents from a family of first generation immigrants, out-of-pocket and off-book. I slept on the floor. Her company apartment in Tribeca is drab, she said. Drove out to Jersey in the afternoon.
"I don't know much about this Bart thing, to be honest. S'not my gig."
"That's fucked, Myra."
"Huh?"
"That shit at the club! Fucked me up."
"I thought you knew about this shit-- prep school, Springer College, fucking fashion kid job-"
"I'm on scholarship!"
"It was a bad call, my fault--but he is in a shit position."
I squint.
"Joy, it's this Beth. They don't like it."
"Whose they? Like, the mob? The Bloods? David Geffen? The fucking Chinese or-"
"Yes. In terms of majority holdings, it’s ‘the Chinese,’ yes."
I make Myra drop me off at the gas station by my house, claiming that I need cigarettes. I'd rather not explain anything to my mother, and I figure she's out grilling on the porch or smoking on the stoop. It doesn't matter much; when I arrive at our house, I encounter her on the stoop, sharing a cigarette with Miranda Greene.
"Where've you been," my mother says, "and why haven't you introduced me to this sweet girl?"
Miranda grins, bashfully. "Joy," she says.
"I was out late with Bart," I stammer.
"Wanna cig? Augusta and I were just talking about you."
"Really?" I grip my canned cold brew as if I am readying a sprint.
"No, she's just messing. Look at him--so embarrassed his mum met his girlfriend!"
"Yeah." Miranda's smile turns sheepish, now revealing teeth.
"I'll leave you two alone," my mom says, standing up and brushing off her lab coat.
"Well, I told you she's a riot," I say.
"Long day at work, she said. Figured she knew what I was doing, lurking by your house."
"You were here when she got home?"
"Got some big news today," Miranda says. "Don't sit down, let's walk."
We're planted on a bench by my childhood handball courts, walls a deep green, no longer a layer of graffiti bleeding through the paint. It is big news, but Miranda's tone betrays the inevitable.
"This summer's been amazing, Joy, but--"
"No, no, I get it. A residency in Berlin is like, career-making. Shit really happens out there, with the, uh… with DJing."
"What I'm trying to say is that you don't have to wait around for me. You've got a ton of stuff coming along, like senior year, and you're right by a great city, and--I don't want to hold you back from that stuff."
Just get it over with. "Yeah, I understand that."
"Lotta great girls in your future," she says.
I force a smile. "I know…"
"And, you know, I won't be a stranger, if you don't want me to be. You're a good kid, Joy. Good heart, and all."
Miranda offers to walk me home, but I tell her I'm staying to smoke, think some stuff over. "You can call whenever," she says. "I'm putting my two weeks in at my day job anyway."
Once she's disappeared, past the aboveground train tracks that divide our--my neighborhood, a "Fuck" comes out with a breath, and another with the next.
I know it’s confirmation bias, but I always start liking a girl before they get rid of me.
I always knew Dana, but we really found each other at a bad time for both of us. So bad that it seemed like the right move to shack up together. It was last January at a show Tracy’d booked. It was low-stakes, all Springer bands, and I had a six pack I was working through in my parka’s pockets. I watched Dana and her friend Lola emerge from the space’s small bathroom dusting their noses. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I had not encountered hard drugs very often; I was not interested in them, and many of my friends were not either. We had lead quieter lives, where middle-school is an opportune time to start an SSRI and confrontation ends at “see you later.” Of course I knew people who used, but stuff like that is just such a downer. I am not curious in that sense. I like to booze, so I understand the urge. Life is shit. Modern society is built to kill you. Sad things like drugs do not stir a lot of emotion in me.
I always liked Dana, but I often thought she was a bit of a malingerer. Often, as an emotional invalid, neglected by peers and my overburdened parents, I encounter people with a functional amount of empathy and it catches me off-guard. There were a lot of white women I’d encounter in my first few years of college who had clearly been nurtured the way a human should. Olivia Hirsch was one. Strong, motivated, constantly pushing herself. Self-reliant, empathetic, curious. Constantly knew what direction she was going. Dana was not one of these people. Everything was a cry for help, one too pathetic to spur you to do anything. Life was survival. A chat over dining hall lunch became about Dana and her misgivings as soon as she could make it so. This was an attractive person, easy to talk to, friends with people you’d like to be friends with. I knew better as an underclassmen, that something was clearly up with her. This essence reminded me of childhood, of cruel friends and uncaring authority figures. I did not like it, deep down in my heart. I stuck to my groups, though I’d see her around.
I kept my distance from Dana until sophomore year. By that suicidal night in December with the snowball fight, I’d fall into a trance around her. I think I was fed up with the happy-go-lucky positive slop with which I’d surrounded myself. What was happening was a backslide into hateful thoughts and useless actions. It is not a coincidence that I was most drawn to Dana at some of my lowest emotional points through my time at Springer. I would chase her, if only in my head, watch her closely. I grew miserable in romance. By junior year, I’d been with a few girls and I’d blown off others, girls I feared would ruin me. I just wanted something easy, as vile as it sounds.
I always thought I should’ve dumped Dana, right before she dumped me. When she dumped me I was sorta into her again. But it was too much for my little brain, dating her. Dana needed a lot. Affirmation, constant comfort, weed, my agreement that yes, her friend was being a bitch. Up close, she was actually alone, more so than I’d ever been. It was miserable for a while.
"I'm not happy about it," she said, through tears. "I just know I'm dragging you down right now. I'm not right for you."
"Jane speaks highly of you," Tracy says, on my mother's stoop. The U-haul she drove down looms over our heads; with enough space to carry most of our furniture, with it I enter my senior year of college. Tracy's got a new tattoo, her haircut's changed, and her t-shirt is an incomprehensible sludge metal scrawl.
I nod. "Oh, yeah?"
"Good egg, that Joy, real joy, I told them.
"Right."
We sit for a quiet moment. A police cruiser blips a block away. "You get that History class?"
"The Gulf War thing? I'm trying to add it."
My brother's already flown back to Duke for preseason. My dad and I watched a soccer game the other day. I had some drinks with Rachel and the folks from work. Bart's bringing Beth up later, for the official move-in weekend. Mena's classes start a bit after ours. My mom had a cry with me this morning, didn't want to see me off. Dana offered to buy me a drink when we're both back. I heard Dealership's been quiet this summer. An art critic came through once, lost on her way to Bard and Tivoli. Rumors of a young actor hanging about, a rising sophomore who no one's met. Miranda tells me she had dinner with Olivia Hirsch her first night in Berlin.
"They're transferring, you know."
"Dana," I say, distracted.
"No, dude, Jane is."
"I knew that… Living in town, too."
"In Yura's old place," Tracy says.
"No shit."
Another silence.
"You meet Bart's new girlfriend?"
Tracy squints. "They're going steady, huh?"
"She really digs him."
The drive is short. Tracy talks about Dogface, selling out of t-shirts for the first time in July, a split she's working on with some Wesleyan act, soldering guitars all summer to pay for it. I talk about Bart's video, thinking I might hit two minutes this time around, getting chased three times filming Stills's last trick, getting Donnie's to sponsor a premiere. Tracy describes the boredom of the summer after Independence Day, the long days working and short nights spent drinking and bugging Zack Marino for sex that was only okay. I bring up Mena, how I came back, grovelling after blowing her off at first. I don't name Miranda, but I mention "the other girl," who moved overseas and left me messed up.
"Don't dog yourself. Mena's a grown-up."
"That's what Bart said."
At one point, we pass a car accident on 9G. Tracy tries not to slow down, instead asking if I want to stop for a smoke.
That Saturday, move-in night, I sit around in Bart's apartment and watch the underclassmen we skate with drink and pinch each other in his living room. These guys I hang out with when Bart’s not around--he’s picking Beth up from the airport in Albany.
"Invite that girl over," says Carter, a loud 19 year-old boy from Simi Valley. He wears an oversized skate tee, pleated pants and Clarks - Wallabees. He grew up the youngest of seven, tending a backyard chicken coop. Nevertheless, Carter is as boisterous as they come.
"No, she's not talking to me." Paul. "Not after Berlin, man. She is not happy about that." Paul is one of those art kids from an international school in Asia whose understanding of American culture runs deeper than mine. He's well-liked for his emotional understanding. He's wearing a wool v-neck over a bootleg concert t-shirt,.
"When you saved her from kidnappers?" asks Carter.
"I was the one who convinced her to go out that night. We had class in the morning; I thought I could smash."
"Instead, you got smashed up by a bunch of Arabs."
"They were German, Carter."
"Oh, right, man. They were wearing masks."
"It's always white locs now," says Rico, a 22 year-old sophomore who beat a graffiti-related felony last year. I respect him deeply. His hoodie reads at its center, 'Metropolitan Museum of Art' in small text. I'm not sure if it's recent merch. The cut-off for vintage is 30 years, right? "Nigga stole my bike out of my car this summer was white."
"You saw him?" says Paul.
"Cops showed me some surveillance tapes. No mask, either."
"What about Claire," Carter pushes, "from that film class you had, Paul?"
"She doesn't like me that way-"
"No, for one of us, man.
Rico laughs. "No, for you. I get pussy."
"What about Joy?" Carter looks over. "You just got dumped, right?"
"I'm good on chicks… I got some stuff going on."
"Right," he says.
Paul leans up from the couch, murmuring about the time. "I gotta eat something, let's just do something later."
Carter looks over. "You wanna dining hall? Jenny's on tonight, I could get Joy in, easy."
"We could go into town," I say, "Need to get Bart more beer, anyway--you guys drank it all."
Rico points at me. "Isn't your homie Jane working Pizza Pizza tonight? New girl."
"Yes," I say, though I don't think she is. They are. Their spending money is skimmed off the top of one of their mom's investment portfolios.
"What if we brought beer to the dining hall," Carter's saying, and I'm thinking about Jane and her money and how she fucks me good.
"And which party?" Carter continues. "There's the thing at 32, on Clement and those Israeli girls at FuckHaus are doing some theme thing--"
"You're bugging me about bringing somebody around," Paul says, "While there's a FuckHaus party?"
Carter pauses, his gaze to the ceiling. "They have a keg, too… Easy. FuckHaus it is."
"Yeah, whatever," Rico says.
I snort. "I'll come by, I guess."