You’ve made your point. Is that why I suck?
No. You suck because it’s not even like you’re making an effort in these dreams.
What dreams?
What dreams. See? This is what I’m talking about.
What you’re talking about what?
The dreams like the one you’re in right now.
What? This is a dream? Are you sure?
You just saw Barry Manilow turn into Marcus Flutie. How much more proof do you need?
Marcus is … Wait! He’s gone! Where did he go?
[Long sigh.] Do I really have to say what you want me to say?
What is it that I want you to say?
That wherever he is, he won’t be gone for long. That he’s never really gone because he always comes back to you. Isn’t that the whole BLATANTLY OBVIOUS AND NOT AT ALL SUBTLE takeaway message from all these—forgive my political incorrectness—retarded dreams?
And what’s that supposed to mean?
It’s like the caps-lock key is stuck. These dreams are SCREAMING WITH MEANING. Way too on-the-surface to be accurately called a product of the subconscious. If I were to turn in an essay with this kind of heavy-handed Psych 101 SYMBOLISM, you would tear it up and tell me to DO BETTER.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
That’s fine, Jessica. Deny, deny, deny. That’s a surefire way to guarantee that you will totally fuck this up.
Fuck what up?
Sweet baby Jesus. You’re even worse off than I thought. I mean, here I am, Sunny Dae, your alter ego, the Korean reincarnation of your younger self, Pineville High’s current model of the cynical girl who has it all and yet has nothing at all telling you straight-out to STOP BULLSHITTING YOURSELF, and yet you STILL persist in doing everything you can to FUCK THIS UP. I beg of you, Jessica, DO NOT FUCK THIS UP WITH MARCUS.
Marcus? This is about Marcus? And watch your language. I am an authority figure, you know.
That’s it. I’m going back under.
No! Wait! Don’t!
You have he nerve to pretend hat this isn’t about Marcus?
I don’t want this all to be about Marcus.
I know you don’t. And you’ve been doing a fantastic job for the past three years not making everything about Marcus. And for the past six hours in particular, you have put forth a spectacular effort in not making everything about Marcus. But it’s time to get real. These dreams—ARE ALL ABOUT FUCKING MARCUS. And I mean, like, fucking literally and not fucking as in a gratuitously obscene figure of speech. And don’t get on my case about how I shouldn’t abuse our close mentor/mentee relationship by crossing the boundaries of propriety by using foul language.
I am not going to have sex with Marcus.
So you’ve doth protested … and not without good reason.
You’re actually agreeing with me?
Well, sorta. I mean, I understand why you wouldn’t want to, you know, in light of what happened when you tried to have meaningless rebound sex with Len Levy after you broke it off with Marcus. You just don’t have it in you to have a torrid one-night stand. It always has to mean something with you or you feel horribly guilty about it afterward.
So you’re saying that I don’t want to have sex with Marcus because it would mean too little?
No. I’m saying you do want to have sex with Marcus but are afraid it will mean too much.
Ack! What do you know?! Why should I listen to you? You’re still in high school!
Right. I’m still in high school. Which means I know everything.
Wait. You said I’m using you as the means for having a sort of somatic Socratic dialogue, right? Like you’re a representation of another part of my own psyche. Right?
Uh … I guess so.
So I’m really having this conversation with myself.
More or less. Yes. According to that theory.
Which means I’m the all-knowing one, not you.
So when you’re having one of these conversations with yourself, you really should listen more closely to what you’re saying.
Me as you or me as me?
I am me as you are me as you are we as we are the walrus, goo goo g’joob …
Har-dee-har-har. Are you sure this is a dream? My dreams aren’t usually so talk-talk-talky.
You’re right. Your dreams are usually more visual.
Like the business on the beach and in the park.
Right. That’s your usual style. So maybe this isn’t your dream. Maybe it’s someone else’s dream.
Someone else’s dream? How would I end up in someone else’s dream?
Come on. You dated that pot-smoking philosophy major in college. You’re telling me you never smoked too much weed and got into one of those “what if we’re all characters in someone else’s dream?” meaning-of-life conversations?
That’s irrelevant. Of course it’s my dream. If it’s not my dream, then whose dream is it? Yours? I’m just a character in your prolonged-coma dream?
You got it! Just like the surprise twist revealed in the final episode of a long-running dramedy!
Oh my God! I’m a figment of your imagination? How long has this been going on? Since I encountered the wedding party on the beach?
Maybe earlier than that.
This whole day with Marcus has been a dream?
Maybe earlier than that.
What? My whole life?! OH MY FUCKING GOD.
Now who gargled with the toilet water, Ms. Potty Mouth? Reeeeeelax. I’m just messing with you. This is totally your dream. Our brains dream for hours at a time, but we remember only a fraction of images upon waking. So you probably won’t remember this whole conversation as being part of the dream. You’ll be left with the memory of Marcus in the Barry Manilow suit and me sitting up in this bed with my bad hair, telling you that you suck.
That’s all I’ll remember?
No. You’ll remember the earlier stuff on the beach and stripping down in Central Park. Those all-caps dream symbols are memorable by design.
Are you sure this is my dream?
I’m sure. Because if it were my dream, I would not waste time talking to the likes of you. My dream would not be suitable for viewers under the age of eighteen, because I would totally be doing the freaky deaky with Marcus Flutie.
Sunny! That’s inappropriate!
What? I said “freaky deaky,” not “fucky sucky.”
What did you say? I can’t hear you over Barry Flutie. Or is he Marcus Manilow?
You know I can’t smile without you …
What?! It’s too loud! I can’t hear you!
Can’t smile without you …
What?
Can’t smile without you …
WHAT?!
Can’t smile without you …
thirteen
The elevator doors ding! open, and Marcus marches out of the vestibule like a man on a mission. His harried pace is at odds with his leisurely attire, but he tries not to give a second thought to all the snickers and giggles as he hurries through the front lobby toward the hotel gift shop. As he approaches the all-glass entrance to the shop, he’s relieved to see that it’s still open but nearly emptied of customers because it’s dinnertime. He grips the ends of his terry-cloth belt and gives them a firm tug, as if to shore himself up for the task at hand.
His hand is on the glass, ready to push open the door, when his phone buzzes inside his pocket. He removes his hand from the door, leaving behind a moist five-fingered print, and removes his cell from his pocket. He’s hoping it’s Jessica calling him from upstairs. He’s disappointed but not surprised to discover that it’s Natty yet again.
“What’s up, Pampers?” Marcus says.
“Dude, where the hell are you?”
Marcus sighs as he watches his handprint evaporate. He puts his hand in the same spot, then pushes open the door to the store. “I’m at SHOP Here,” he explains, making an effort to establish friendly eye contact with the store’s only visible employee, a salescl
erk whom Marcus guesses to be around his own age, but he looks clammy and unwell. Either this guy is suffering from a massive hangover or he hasn’t seen daylight in months. Perhaps both. If the sight of Marcus in his bathrobe is at all alarming, the clerk isn’t going to let his concerns interfere with whatever he’s texting. His lips curl in on themselves in concentration.
“Shop where?” Natty asks, barely pausing for a reply. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. What are you doing right now?”
“Right now?” Marcus asks, making his way over to the stacks of T-shirts lining the far wall of the store. “Right now I’m wearing a bathrobe, talking to you on my cell phone, browsing through a collection of New Jersey–themed T-shirts so I can buy one and put it on so I don’t have to wear this bathrobe anymore.”
“Are you alone?”
“There’s the salesclerk.”
“Dude, you know that’s not what I meant,” Natty says with growing impatience.
Marcus passes over a T-shirt that brays FUGEDDABOUDIT, and another that asks WHAT’S YOUR EXIT? Finally, he picks up one that has the Here logo in modest type across on the chest.
Marcus nudges the cell phone between his shoulder and his ear, then holds the men’s-size-large T-shirt up against his body. It fits his torso just fine, but there’s enough excess material widthwise to fit another person. He switches it for a medium, which skims his skinny frame but would ride high above his navel like a hoochie crop top. As he tries to decide between forms of unflattery, Natty’s voice jumps out at him by surprise, causing the phone to slip and clunk to the floor.
“Sorry, Nathanielsan,” Marcus says upon retrieving his cell. “I forgot I was talking to you. What did you say?”
Somewhere in Princeton, NJ, a pint-size Rhodes Scholar slams his cell phone against the closest tiger-striped foosball table.
“Oh, right. Am I still with Jessica Darling?” Marcus asks in mock innocence. “Not at the moment. She’s upstairs in our hotel room.”
Marcus chooses the men’s size L and then selects the same shirt in women’s size small.
“You got a hotel room together?!”
“Yes,” Marcus sighs, instantly regretting his candor. He doesn’t want to talk about Jessica with Natty, who just wouldn’t understand.
“Did you hit that shit already?”
“No,” Marcus says wearily, loosening the tie to his bathrobe. “I didn’t.” He looks over at the salesclerk, who is giving him his full attention. “Do you mind if I put this on now?” Marcus asks.
The salesclerk looks him up and down skeptically.
“Put what on?” Natty asks. “Who are you talking to?”
“I just feel sort of, er, awkward here, half dressed.”
“Who’s with you?” Natty asks. “And why are you half dressed?”
“No one,” Marcus says.
“No one my balls,” Natty says, getting amped. “You’ve got another girl with you. No wonder you couldn’t keep your mind on the conversation. Dude, you squander more ass than anyone I know. This is why you gotta man up and—”
Marcus shuts off his phone before his best friend can say another word. Until Natty allows himself to fall in love, he will never understand Marcus’s unwavering devotion to Jessica Darling. Ten years after he first fell for her, Marcus still doesn’t understand it himself. It is an alchemical attraction that transcends all reason, rationality, and—in the three years since she spurned him—reality.
“So the Hef look isn’t working for you, eh?” the salesclerk asks, letting his thumbs rest for the time being. His voice is stuck in the back of his throat like a loogie that needs dislodging. He strains to smile for the first time since Marcus entered the store, revealing a too-wide mouth full of teeth that are all exactly the same shape and size. He reminds Marcus of a sinister porpoise up to no good.
Marcus shakes his head.
“I’d ask what happened to your clothes,” the salesclerk continues tonelessly “But the truth is, I don’t really care.” He barely glances around before thrusting his elbow toward the back of the store. “Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
When the clerk nods in consent, Marcus scuttles behind a pyramid of Here travel coffee mugs. He quickly shrugs the bathrobe to the floor, then slips the T-shirt over his head. It’s stiff and scratchy and has that “Made in China, Shipped to the U.S.A.” plasticky smell that is especially disconcerting when the object isn’t made of plastic. The shirt reaches long enough to cover his torso but has so much excess material around the neck, chest, and gut that it would be a perfect choice for Marcus and his conjoined twin. He wishes he had stuck with the bathrobe. But now that it’s off, he has no choice but to bend over and pick it up, along with the women’s-size-S shirt that fell on the floor.
He steps out from behind the mugs to model the shirt for the sales-clerk, but he’s already returned his attention to his texting. Marcus neatly refolds the women’s-size-S T-shirt over one arm and slings the bathrobe over the other. For the next few minutes, Marcus circuits the store, picking up a few items that hopefully won’t push his already straining credit card past its limit:
one (1) pair of women’s-size-S boxer shorts with JERSEY GIRL embroidered on the ass
one (1) pair of men’s-size-L boxer shorts with JERSEY GUY embroidered on the crotch
one (1) I ♥ NJ shot glass
one twin-pack (two cupcakes) chocolate Hostess cupcakes
one (1) dental hygiene travel kit, including a folding toothbrush, mini toothpaste, and floss
one deck of playing cards
“Do you have any candles?” Marcus asks as he approaches the register.
The salesclerk snorts. “Nope. And no matches or lighters, either. They’re considered dangerous.” He grins in an unfriendly way. Marcus can’t imagine that anyone would have his teeth sanded down to achieve this strange aquatic aesthetic, yet he can’t imagine what confluence of genetic material would lead to such a malocclusious reversal in human evolution.
The salesclerk rings up the items, including the T-shirt already on Marcus’s back. Marcus hands over his credit card, which the plane ticket has surely put within a decimal point of obsolescence. The card does clear, and Marcus sighs in relief as he signs the receipt. The clerk places the items in a SHOP Here bag, and as their transaction is about to come to its logical conclusion, Marcus is compelled to ask a question: “Why did you trust me?”
The salesclerk snorts. “I didn’t.”
“You didn’t?”
“Oh, no. No way. I still don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I know a tweaker when I see one.”
“Tweaker? As in meth?! What?!”
“Oh, don’t try to deny it. You’re skin and bones and so strung out that you can’t even get dressed.”
Marcus barks out a retaliatory laugh. “I may look a little, er, unhinged, but I’m not a tweaker!”
“The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
Marcus knows he could just grab his bag and go. But he needs to know one more thing. “If you thought I was a shoplifting drug addict, why did you let me put on the shirt before I paid for it?”
The salesclerk flexes and releases his fingers. “I was hoping you’d try to steal it.”
“You were—what?” Marcus asks, slowly backing away from the register. “Why?”
The clerk’s crazy eyes gleam as he reaches below the counter and pulls out a silver device that looks like a cross between an electric razor and a vibrator. “I wanted an excuse to Tase you.”
Marcus reels backward. “W-w-why would you want to do that?”
He aims the Taser at Marcus, smiling wider than ever. “You look like the guy who screwed my ex-girlfriend.”
For the first time, Marcus makes note of the name tag: NICK. Did he screw Nick’s girlfriend? Maybe he did. But Marcus is certain he’s never seen this Nick before. He would’ve remembered those teeth. Those teeth. Then again, maybe the teeth weren’t always like that. Ma
ybe Nick had a perfectly varied set of incisors, canines, and molars until he jawed them down to uniformity, as a teeth-grinding tweaker might do. And with this leery admission comes the follow-up realization: Maybe Marcus did screw this Taser-toting salesclerk’s girlfriend. Maybe he met the girlfriend at a Pine Barrens bonfire, or at a beach party, or in a beer-skunked basement in the late nineties, wooed her with made-up poetry inspired by boy bands and misquoted Rimbaud, screwed her, and never called her again—the powers of the poet/addict manwhore used to their full effect. When he considers other coincidences of the strange-but-true variety, it’s not at all far-fetched. He could find out for sure right now (What was the name of the guy who screwed your girlfriend?), and yet such validation or repudiation seems irrelevant. Maybe Marcus deserves to be Tased regardless of whether he was the guy who screwed Nick’s ex. Even if Nick’s ex wasn’t one of the forty (and right now Marcus is going with the higher number because his guilty conscience demands it), she very easily (too easily) could have been. And if not him, then she was screwed by someone just like him. Maybe a good Tasing will be emotionally beneficial for both of them. For Nick: payback. For Marcus: punishment. In the moment, Marcus remembers a passage from one of the notebooks Jessica gave him the afternoon of their breakup: I might never be able to forgive you for all the girls who came before me, nor myself for all the men who would come after you.
He makes a decision. “Do it,” he says, dropping his upheld palms. “I deserve it.”
Marcus stands tall, ready to withstand twenty-five thousand volts of agony. Nick extends his trigger hand, winks in concentration … then falls onto the counter in laughter.
“Duuuuuude! I’m just playin’.”
Marcus blinks once, twice, but otherwise doesn’t move.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Nick says, his laughter slowing down.
“You sure?”
“You sound disappointed.”