chapter 1. chapter 2. chapter 3. chapter 4 part 1. part 2. chapter 5.
Tracy is listening to Gleesh in her undersized Japanese pickup when she rolls up in front of my house. She’s driven down from school for Christmas. I stand up from the stoop and wave.
“I have to charge my phone,” she says, “so put a tape on.”
After looking through the glove box, I load a disk sharpied “Apples in Stereo” into the top of the CD changer. A psychedelic garage rock song kicks in after a minute or so of instrumentals.
“More your speed?” Tracy says.
“Sure,” I say.
“So what’s this I hear about you and Jane getting back together?”
“Well, we’re not… exclusive.”
“But there’s something happening.”
The singer croons Iiiiii would do anything to do anything else. Tracy’s face betrays her amusement. “I’d say something is,” I say.
“That’s nice. They like you.”
“I figured.” We laugh. At a stoplight, Tracy lights a cigarette.
“Cross-Bronx?”
I nod. The clock on the dash reads 7:20. We’re going to be really early to Brendan’s Christmas Eve party. I loll my head back against the headrest. I was barely out of the shower when Tracy called me, letting me know she was arriving. Boring shift at Donnie’s. We are waiting on orders, so I sat with Rachel in the store and absently chatted. Rachel is buying a condo in Queens. Uma Thurman’s son came in and I didn’t notice. Dana called me and I took lunch early to talk to her. She sounds alright. She dumped her boyfriend last week.
“This record is boring,” Tracy says, after we haven’t spoken for ten minutes. I look up from my phone to the plastic click of her blasting the skip button. The jazzy intro to Brainbombs Jack The Ripper Lover makes her pause. “Nice. Forgot I had this one.”
“I like these guys,” I say.
“‘Anne Frank’s a whore’ and stuff.”
“Yes. Walking around campus wishing I could explode.”
Tracy laughs. “Facedown on a table in the library. Laptop open to the Lewis and Clark transfer information page.”
“One earbud in, in the campus center, two beers deep on Wednesday, frantically googling how to get a tech job with a degree in the humanities.”
“Pausing it to send my mom a teary voice message explaining how Zelle works.”
"You still dating three girls," Myra says. We're now on Brendan's roof; though it's December, it's mild, with no wind. Almost comfortable. A beanie with a wide cuff matts Myra's hair, which splays across the tops of her unzipped winter shell and the fleece underneath it. Pulling on her e-cigarette, Myra starts again.
"You still-"
"You've got long hair for a mercenary," I say. "And no. I actually got dumped that day you dropped me at my house."
"That's too bad. So two?"
"Yes- Do you ever feel… bad about the work you do?"
Myra scrunches her face in thought. "Someone's gonna do it."
"That's a cop-out."
"It's just work. I'm barely different from a lawyer. Entire industries are built on human suffering. It's capitalism."
"Alright, Sally Rooney," I scoff. "But you've got such a… broad skill set. Why do dirty work?"
"Look at that. 'Oh, you're such a sweet girl.' 'Dirty' work. Why do you have to go serve overseas. Why do you want to go to the shooting range. What's that all mean? I've heard it my whole life."
I look at her, incredulous. "Murder is immoral?"
"You're such a Samaritan."
"I think you're detached, and I think your work is bad for the world, even with all you've done for Bart and Beth."
"I like Bart and Beth. They're fun to work around." She smiles.
"Your work kills people-"
The door to the stairwell opens. I look over, but before I can recognize the silhouetted figures, Myra answers. "Fashion has casualties, sure. Bangladeshi sweatshop workers. Eating disorder victims. Environmental catastrophe refugees. But I don't… really think about them. I cast shows. I produce music videos. I DM celebrities about promotion. Do you? Think about them, I mean. Will you, when you end up at GQ or whatever?"
Mena and Dana walk over from the roof doorway. "That's a morbid outlook," Mena says. "Are all you guys like this?" She looks at me.
I laugh, stilted. "Yeah."
"I take you're not dating this one?" Myra says.
"Dana, Mena, you guys have met Myra, right?"
"Yeah, around," Dana says. "You're a laugh riot."
"Oh, yeah?"
I squeeze a Jello shot out of a small plastic cup into my mouth. The sharpness of its vodka is unsettling in a gelatin form. I hear Bart behind me ask for one.
"Here, buddy," I say.
He swallows it before speaking. "How're you-euuugh-How're you doing?"
"Alright. Just ran into Myra-"
"Did you see Mena's feature-"
"In Lovequake? Yeah."
"It's really really good. Beth loved the whole process." He reaches in the fridge, pulling out a Stella.
"I'm sure."
"Mena told me you started seeing Jane again?"
"We slept together. Last weekend."
"You gonna lock it down this time?" The question hangs as he flicks through his carabiner for his bottle opener.
"I don't know," I say. "What--What is 'it' exactly?"
"Let love into your heart, brother. You deserve it."
"So… so do you."
"You're acting weird tonight." Bart puts his hand on my chest. “Before I met Beth, I was so cold. I was a pest. Then I let her in-” He gestures with his other arm. “Boom! Y’know?”
“‘Boom?’”
“Boom! Schwing. It just, it hits you right there,” Bart says, punctuating his sentence by poking my sternum.
“Ow.”
“Sorry.”
“Where is she? Beth?”
“Sicily, with Jenny. Her mom.”
“Not doing Christmas with her?”
“No… I mean, I wanted to, but it worked out this way. My parents are actually in town this week.”
“Ah, you must be happy about that, Bart.”
“Oh, yeah, I love it. No. I do. It’s great to see them. Probably won’t till graduation.”
I wince. “Man…”
“Beth and I are going to Montreal for New Year’s.”
I end up at Eve’s house before midnight. I know the code to her gate. “Door’s open,” she says. She sits at her kitchen counter, metal frames low on her nose, in front of her laptop.
“How’s your night going,” I say, flatly.
“Working. Thesis.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I’ve got beer in the fridge,” Eve says, not looking at me.
“I’ll grab one.”
“One for me, too,” she says, sighing.
“Clocking out?” I crack a Stella on the opener embedded in the wall, a relic from Eve’s uncle living in the studio when she was a child. I pass it to her.
She laughs, after a moment, nodding. I walk around the counter, spilling a bit of beer by her computer.
“Oh, watch it,” Eve says, pushing it away.
“Sorry.”
“I wish you’d done it, actually.” She laughs. “Fucking hate this paper.”
“Tell me about it.”
Eve squints, tilting her head. “You don’t want to hear about this stuff.”
“Yemen and stuff.”
“I’m going to work for the CIA or something, aren’t I?”
I plant a short kiss on her mouth. We pull apart, my lips clicking. Hers do not.
“Why don’t we just fuck,” she says.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I’m just, I’m fucking beat right now. Proofreading since like, 7. My parents have lunch reservations at fucking 30 Rock tomorrow.”
“Brutal.”
Eve’s expression changes. “You doing anything? You could swing by.”
“Is there a seat for me?”
“Mom always gives me one. For boys.”
“I’d have to get a change of clothes-”
“It’s at 2, there’s no rush. Like, you could go home.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah,” she coos. “We could… have sex and then you go home.”
We have sex. It’s alright. When Eve pulls my hand to her neck, I forget where I am for a moment. For a moment, I can sense only her and the sheets around us.
When I leave, it’s 12:03. I get on the 4 and then the 2 and head back to Clinton Hill.
In Brendan’s kitchen, Carter is flirting with Myra. He says that he doesn’t normally reveal his theories, but that Myra deserves to know that “big-headed girls have the best pussy.” She laughs and beckons to her head.
“I’ve always thought of it as a… well, a bigger target in say, a gun fight. But as an indicator of that, well…”
Carter gives a belly laugh.
I am walking back to the 2 train, alone, when I realize I don’t have my gloves.
Turns out Eve isn’t having brunch today, but on Boxing Day. I got my mother a new kettle and Bruce Springsteen tickets. I got my brother two refurbished GameCube controllers, originals, not the Smash 4 ones, and a monthly MetroCard. My mother got me a pair of Ace 55s she saw in a CCS email newsletter. My brother has given me his old Playstation 4.
My mom and brother are watching something loud on Netflix in the living room when Jane calls me.
“I figured you guys have done all the Christmas stuff already.”
“You don’t celebrate?” I say.
“Really, dude? I’m absolutely Jewish.”
“It’s Christmas,” I say. “It’s nice.”
“Are you like, mad that I’m Jewish?”
“No…”
Jane laughs. “God. What are you doing later?”
We see The Super Cops in 35mm at Metrograph. Metrograph is the sort of boring place they’d reference on Gossip Girl. When I watched it several years later after a girl I liked on the track team told me to, I would write down all the restaurants and bars they mentioned and look them up.
Wait, actually, we saw a 4K restoration.
Jane continues to sip on their soda after they’ve finished it, periodically pulling up melted ice. They only break their gaze at the screen to whisper at me, asking in a husky whisper what is going on.
Afterwards, we walk around the block to Clockwork.
“Not ready to drink yet,” Jane says, holding a Diet Coke and my G&T. “Too early.” They slide into the corner booth, beside me.
“Thank ya-You got big plans? It’s Christmas.”
“Well, not bars. Are bars open on Christmas?”
I shake my head. “Maybe. We’re in a bar.”
“Are you doing anything?”
“I’ve got… a thing tomorrow.” I gulp my drink.
“Still seeing that girl?”
“Ya,” I say. Found out.
“I’m not like, polyamorous, y’know.”
“What do you mean-”
“There might be an ultimatum in your future.”
I shudder before I can stop myself. Jane smiles.
“Don’t get too fucked up about it. It probably won’t even be from me.”
I stare at my drink.
“Thought you’d be a bit more defiant about the whole thing. I’m only a little jealous.”
I finish my drink. “It just happened, I swear.”
“I knew you were seeing that girl, that German girl, when we started hanging out.”
“Miranda. She’s not German.”
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot since we ran into each other. I missed you, Joy.”
“I missed you, too-”
“But I don’t want to share you like we’re on a commune.”
“I get that, and I’m not like, a hippie.”
“You can still come over, if you want.”
“I’m gonna get another,” I say.
“Get me a Genesee.
I am trying to stretch in the one swath of floor in my room when Bart FaceTimes me. He’s in Canada for some film festival.
“Not in Montreal, festival’s washed-why are you shirtless? Isn’t it like… 11 over there?- Anyway, we’re in LA and I’m meeting the parents.”
“That’s great, man. I just got up. Gonna go skate, I think. Carter’s still in town.”
“Weather must be awful.”
“It’s fine. Hi, Beth.”
“Hey, Joy. You hear about the subreddit?” She’s laying beside Bart in bed, propped up on a pillow against the headboard, typing quickly on one of those Thinkpad-looking gaming laptops.
“No, what happened?”
“We got banned!”
“I’m sorry, that’s terrible-”
“No, no, no-This’ll be really good for the pod.” She’s now picked up the phone. I can hear Bart stomping away. “Jimmy and I are working on a Discord as we speak. Got some of our brightest minds chiming in..”
“That’s great,” I say.
“You wanna be a mod?”
“Y’know, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. That sub wasn’t the best space for me-”
“You know what, Joy? I think you deserve it. Look, Bart is back.”
“What’s up, fucker,” Bart mumbles.
“Just got owned by your fucking… celebrity girlfriend.”
“Ooooh,” Beth says.
“I hate you two so much,” I say, laughing.
With the subreddit gone, so are all of my awful posts. I am thankful for that. I relied on the petty approval of internet strangers for too long. And look at me; I’ve got a career, nearly out of school, friends, including the subject of the sub herself. I don’t need more kids to bother. I don’t need more kids to listen to my worst ideas. To scratch that itch, need for attention. I would not do well in Beth’s position, I think. I do not know how she does it. Hence all that mean stuff I said about her. That was my core fixation, not just humiliating girls I knew.
Beth and I even argued a few times. On the subreddit. About her old boss, the alleged child molester. About the foot stuff on “Front Bunker.” About a junk indie she did with Peter Vack. Calling her bigheaded, malnourished, insane, a crackhead, a survivor of sex abuse. Saying I’d kill her, blow up her favorite bar with a pipe bomb. Slice her in half with garden tools. Impale her with rebar and set it in concrete. Her podcast started out in true crime, I guess. I fit in with the other freaks.
Beth says she remembers me then. If that’s true, she must not feel too strongly about it.
I had a hard time adjusting to Web 2.0. Everyone knows who you are, where you post. Regular social media masquerades as the forums of yesterday. You never post your face and yet screenshots circulate. Not even your worst shit, just the top layer. It’s alright for people to know, though you feel invaded. So you start a diary, like a normal person.
Chuckklostermnchildkiller will never return.
Myra sits on the bike rack in front of my deli. I notice her on the way in, but I decide I need coffee first.
“Bit cold for a skate,” she says, as I step out.
“I have hand warmers,” I say, motioning with my tote bag. “It’s still December.”
“New Year’s plans? One of your girls?”
I grin. “Yeah, all 8 of them.”
“D’you hear about Beth’s… internet thing.”
“Come on, Myra, stop messing around.”
She sighs. “The subreddit’s been archived-”
“By who?”
“On-on Wayback. But poorly. Material’s been lost.”
I drop my skateboard, rolling it under a foot. “How does this put Bart in danger?”
“I’m sick of the subterfuge-”
“That’s your job, right?”
Myra stands up. “My employers aren’t interested in Bart. Or Winkler, really.”
I choke on a bit of coffee.
“You’re my subject, Joy. We, well, I figured you’d do something drastic if you got close to Beth.”
“Because of my posts.” I give a short, stilted laugh. Today, she kills me.
I walk Myra to an Indian place underneath the elevated subway line and she explains what’s going on over curry. She was a layperson, a desk-jockey, at a consulting firm working closely with the agency that represents Beth. Myra was managing an astroturf project for a Marvel thing Beth had a recurring on when she noticed the sort of things people would say on the subreddit. Beth’s podcast had not yet produced any marketing utility, but Myra saw potential in its emotionally unsettled fanbase. She spoke to some spooks, Mossad buddies, a fed she dated back when she was in the Navy, and developed a pitch based around entrapping one of these guys into an extreme act of violence.
“You tried to make a John Hinckley Jr. to push a bit role on a superhero show?”
“Ariana got attacked by ISIS. Same idea.”
“No… okay, keep going.”
“Well, America has a glut of unhinged individuals capable of incredible violence. The government makes a concerted effort to provide these individuals soft targets - i.e. children, old black people in church, college students - in an effort to dissuade, y’know, revolution, assassination of politicians or execs or whatever.” Myra waves her arms about like Kramer.
“So, I figured those individuals could approach hard targets, in a way that’d benefit my firm and its clients.”
“But you wouldn’t like, murder the mayor or something.” I burp, casually.
“No, no, we’re capitalists. We’re driving buzz so people sign up for Disney+.”
Branding, she says, is vital to celebrity, and tragedy is a great brand. Downtown won’t sell forever. Accessibility won’t sell forever. It girls get old. But who’s been shot at? Stalked? Bombed?
Myra’s employers didn’t think much of it. Her mentor let it slip that this could be her last project. That she should start looking. That’s when she met Bart.
“That bit was easy. It’s easy to trick young men like that. Stakes are low. I knew he knew Beth… But she liked him too much.”
“Isn’t most violence against women interpersonal? Wouldn’t Bart make more sense than someone who’d never met her?”
“Someone who’d violently threated her something like 20 times?”
“Right,” I say, ashamed. “But I chilled out.”
“I thought you hadn’t, though. I thought you were gonna pop. So I took it in a different direction.”
“That’s when you started following me around, warning me that Bart was in trouble? And I was the risk the whole time? That really fucked with me, man. That wasn’t-”
“Joy!” Myra closes her eyes for a moment. “You’re… getting ahead of yourself. I used a different friend of Winkler. Old friend. You went to school with her.”
Miranda.
“Most of it was easy. Find an apartment by your mom’s. DM her when she mentions she’s looking. Spoof the real estate company, cut rent by 50% using company money, pay off her roommate. Misdirect Manhattan Liquors using hacked emails so her favorite beer is only at your deli. A month’s work.
“Problem was, I didn’t know what to do from there. I figured you guys would hang out, maybe spur something in you-”
“This plan doesn’t make any sense. Why would I do something to Beth? She’s a bit corny, I guess. But she didn’t do anything to me. She’s dating my best friend. I care about her, even.”
“Well, that’s why I got sacked.”
“Good for you. You’re… dumb. You’re like, flippant and stupid. Are you on the spectrum or something? There’s some sort of lack in your brain-”
“Joy-”
“No, come on, man! This is some stupid fucking shit! I was just posting! You couldn’t get some fucking ad buys? Get an agency to write her tweets? Buy a Conde feature? Call of Duty TV spot? Entrap someone who might be dumb enough to do something? What were you thinking?”
“It was just work-”
“Fuck off. Get a real fucking job. You’re fucking inhuman. You shouldn’t be trusted with a fucking Amazon truck. And what about all that gun shit? The ‘license to kill’ stuff?”
“It was the frame to the whole thing. I was going to convince you-”
“So none of that shit is legal. None of it happened. That guy on the bridge-”
“Killed himself.”
God. “What’s stopping me from going to the police, right now? With all this shit you just told me?”
“I’ve got the company lawyer on retainer for a year. And I don’t think you want anything to do with this, anymore.” She slides out of the booth.
“Wait,” I say. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Look, Joy, I’m sorry. You’re actually a nice guy-”
“I know that. Any sane person could see that.”
“I’m sorry I used you… I’ve had some trouble… adjusting to civilian life with my skillset.”
“Why not go Reality Winner, then. Manning.”
“I didn’t do or see anything wrong.”
“Fuck off, man. In Israel? You should probably be at the Hague right now.”
“I mean it,” she says. “I’ve never even killed anyone.” She’s looking at me but I won’t look away from my plate and my Diet Coke. DC goes down a lot easier than regular Coke. Regular Coke tastes like there’s rum already in it. It reminds me of being a fat middle schooler, being hormonal and clumsy, crying a lot. DC tastes like a freshman year Ritalin bender, without the body aches afterward.
“You should work in fashion. Production.”
“What?”
“I could refer you to somebody. Truthfully.”
Myra slinks out of the restaurant, her tote bag swaying with the weight of something heavy. I watch her cross the street, step into her panel van.
I'm walking back to my house, watching the cracks in the sidewalk. A man in a puke green M65 jacket explodes around the corner, running past me, his face twisted in pain. A group of teenagers, yelling, come around the corner after him. The man stumbles over a bag of trash under some scaffolding and the first kid - a smaller boy, maybe 15, potbelly in a Nike Tech jacket - picks it up and swings it into his face. He then kicks the man with his sneaker. Other kids join in.
An older boy, in double denim, elbows the girl beside him, saying something like "shouldn't have stepped on his shoes."
I pull my skateboard to my hip and let my bag drop from my shoulder to a cellar door beside me. I need to run. This is just New York. I need to get home.
8 kids - none of voting age - surround this man, who is spitting blood onto the sidewalk. I can see it in the glare of a streetlight. I look at the green wood of the scaffolding and forget myself for a moment.
"HEY!" This is not my voice. I can feel my throat already ragged. "STOP IT!"
Before I know it, I am surrounded by these children. "You guys should stop that. He didn't do anything."
"Why don't you mind your business?" says the older boy.
"This is not… right," I stutter. "This is bad."
"You want some?" another kid asks.
I grip one end of my skateboard. "I'll hit you-"
"You hit me with that and I'll kill you," the older boy says. He is getting rather close.
"I'd win that fucking… court case, you retard." The word feels bad in my mouth, but I’m riding the bad for energy.
He takes a step. I swing at him and he rears back. The boy in the Nike Tech swings his foot at me. I shove him with my skateboard, as if I were playing hockey. He falls over. I watch the other kids, through tears. "I'll kill all of you," I say.
The older kid stumbles as he turns around, saying that he has something for me. He runs off. I can't watch him and the other kids. I swing my board. A girl calls me a faggot, tells me to drop my board. I will not do that. They will kill me. I can't lose another phone; we haven't paid this one off yet. This jacket was a gift from my mom.
There's a pop, like a firework. And then another. The kids by me scatter, some into the street, some right by me. I swing at Nike Tech and my Independent 149 connects with his head. I hear my board swing by his head. Myra's van is pulling up beside me, in the wrong direction. The three-letter bubble along its door reads "DOA." The door slides open. I look to the end of the block; a figure in denim lies in the curb cut.
The van door slides open and I step in. Myra pulls out, taking a hard right on the next block.
"You lied to me," I say, after something like ten minutes. I've since stopped crying.
"You're lucky you know me," she says.
"Can I sit in the front?"
"Whatever."
The dashboard reads 8:34.
"Where was everybody?"
"Your mom lives in a bad neighborhood."
"Who was that guy?"
"A bum, probably. Some badass little kids."
"You killed one of them… They didn't-"
We're on the Bruckner. I'm breathing heavily.
"They were rubber."
"Huh."
"I hit that guy with a less-than-lethal round. He'll wake up sore."
"That's not comforting."
"Doesn't matter, anyway. Bloomberg deal."
"So you lied back there."
"I did serve."
"Can you drop me off… Fuck, I am at a loss."
"You seemed over it. I was giving you an out. Movie's almost out of post."
"Huh."
"Beth's movie. She works."
"You said it was a show. Are you taking the tunnel? To Newark."
She nods.
"Drop me in Tribeca."
I tell Mena some things. I leave Myra out. I ask where Mena's parents are.
"Joy… They must hit you pretty hard. My dad is on Long Island, y'know. That's where he lives."
"And your mom?"
She frowns. "Joy, my mom is um, overseas. In a treatment center in Sweden."
"Right. I'm so sorry! What kind of friend am I-"
"Don't worry about it," Mena says, but her expression is forced.
"Do you pay for this place?"
Mena laughs a little. "No, well, I don't pay the mortgage. Joy, you just got jumped - are you really alright? You want some water? Aspirin?"
"No, I'm alright."
"If you were alright, you wouldn't have come here. You're still in shock, probably. I don't know."
"I'll take an aspirin."
I'm sitting on her couch, staring into the glass of water on the coffee table, bouncing my knee. I'm seeing the kids again.
"We don't have to talk about it. It'll come." Mena sits on the floor below me, and she has wrapped an arm around one of my legs.
"Thanks, mom," I say. "Sorry."
"Can I just ask," she starts, tilting her head. "Why'd you come all the way to my place? Not Bart? Or one of your um…“
"I thought of you first."