I Just Want My Pants Back (15 page)

Back at the table the tension seemed to have subsided. Now they began to play the “What’s our single friend up to?” game. I wanted to get back to the ceremony but I didn’t want to reignite any arguments—maybe this was a thing best done over e-mail first, so they could discuss it privately before we got together. As we finished off the food, I answered their inquiries about “some girl who stole your pants?” and I told them about the French connection.

“So no one who’s girlfriend material,” said Stacey. She sounded dejected.

“I’m pretty single. But there’s this cute girl in my rabbi class who invited me to a party. She’s Orthodox, Stacey.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Stacey.

“I don’t know, I just thought you might find it impressive,” I said, shrugging.

“You know, having a girlfriend wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, Jason,” she said. “It’s fun, that’s why most guys do it.”

“Even Hitler had a girlfriend,” I said, suppressing a burp.

Stacey frowned. “God, always such a wiseass.”

“It’s a song. The Mr. T Experience,” I said with a wave of the hand.

Stacey brightened. “Ooh, I know. There’s this girl in Eric’s rotation. She’s really cute.”

“She’s hot, bro,” said Eric.

“‘Bro’?” I asked, grinning.

“No good?” asked Eric. I shook my head. “Whatever. Her name is Liza and she’s pretty hot—a hot doctor. Just broke up with her long-distance boyfriend.”

“I’m not much for the setups,” I said, shrugging. It was true. I had been on a few. Desperately awkward. Even if the person was cool, you had the feeling like, here we are, two people so pathetically alone that friends have conspired to put us together. Plus, setups never put out; too many people in the know. “Maybe we’ll end up at the same party sometime, and you can introduce me.”

“She’s not going to be single long, Jay,” Stacey said, taking the bill from the waiter.

“I don’t know, she probably won’t jump into another relationship right away,” said Eric, taking out his wallet. “I’m sure she’ll date for a bit.”

“You guys are like real estate agents—she’s gonna be gone soon! No money down! Sheesh, just bring her out one night. And by the way, the Orthodox girl is in med school too—at Columbia.”

“Now I’m impressed,” said Stacey, smiling. “Listen, dinner’s on us, for helping with the ceremony and all.”

I feigned protest and thanked them and we went outside. They weren’t up for meeting Tina, so we said our good-byes and shuffled off in opposite directions. Why did it feel like I had just had dinner with my parents?

 * * * * * 

T
ina was sitting on a stool at a nasty little dive bar called Lucy’s on Avenue A. Lucy was the owner, a Russian or Romanian woman, probably in her seventies; she still tended the bar.

I said hello and Tina said hello and we got two vodka sodas with lemon. She was wearing a gingham dress over cropped jeans, like a picnic blanket laid over a denim field. She reached over and tousled my hair.

“Time for a haircut, Tex,” she said, grinning.

“Really? I was going to grow it long and then cut it asymmetrical, so it would look like I was always standing on a steep hill,” I shot back, patting my hair back down. “Your boy have any product I can bum?”

“Don’t make me kick you in the kidneys. Actually, he’s looking a bit haggard himself. Making a movie is a shitload of work; I never really realized it until I saw all the crap that needs to get done.”

“Duh. Don’t you ever watch DVD behind-the-scenes stuff?”

“No, nerdlinger. Anyway, he’s working like ten hours a day on the script and locations alone, and then he spends half the night trying to find the crew he needs. They’ve got some A-list people even though they have like a, I don’t know, C-list budget. I guess people like the story. But they start shooting in September, and they’re still looking for a stunt coordinator and a second camera crew. And he needs to begin locking in all the post-production people, the editor, the effects guys…”

“Hold up. There’s special effects?” I was surprised, I didn’t realize it was that big a film.

“It’s not
Lord of the Rings
, but he said there’s a couple things, yeah. And he still needs a music supervisor, you know, the person who finds the right songs. They’re going to be a big part of the overall feel of the thing; Brett wants it to be like a
Harold and Maude
or
Rushmore
.”

“
Harold and Maude
was all Cat Stevens, I’m pretty sure. I love that movie.” I sang the main track, “If you want to sing out, sing out…”

Tina cut me off. “Don’t sing out.”

“Anyway, he’s Yusef something now. And the guy from Devo picked all the songs in
Rushmore
, Mark Mothersbaugh.” I took an ice cube into my mouth and rolled it around, considering it. “I have that soundtrack if Brett wants it,” I said, crunching down on the ice.

“Me too. I think everyone our age has it, they basically handed it out freshman year. I doubt he’s got Devo money, but I’ll mention it.” She held up her glass. “Anyway, enough about that. Good to see you, sir. What’s new, what’s exciting, what don’t I know?”

“Cheers,” I said, clinking her tumbler with mine. “Um, well, you’re up to date on most stuff. You know about Isabelle, the French girl.”

“Did you Chunnel her?” She giggled.

“Probably not. What’s that?”

“You know, the Chunnel? It’s when you go in England and come out in France.” She let out a full cackle.

I detailed my vomitous night with Patty, leaving out the cancer part.

“Now your next-door neighbor knows how soft you are.” She stabbed the lemon in her drink with the tiny red straw. “Anything less disgusting to report?”

“Well, as you well know,” I sighed, “I’m now profoundly single, once again. My only possibility is this religious Jewish girl.” I told her all about my Orthodox classmate.

“I don’t think those kosher girls are too good about trimming it up, FYI,” Tina said, slurping her drink. “I remember from gym in high school. Tikva Rubenstein—huge bush.”

I relayed how Melinda had sold her play. “So now it’s just me as the only somewhat normal person in the office. You’ll probably be seeing a lot more of Doodyball on IM.”

“That’s so cool for her. So, are you going to get promoted to her position?”

I chuckled. “No. I don’t think either of us exactly has a title, Tina. It’s grunt work. I’ll probably take some of her responsibilities, but I don’t even know if they’ll hire anyone else. I could probably do it all, it’s just horseshit really.”

“You should bust out of there too, then.” Tina swiveled her stool to face me better. “I don’t want to sound like your guidance counselor, but if you’re not into that job—which, c’mon, you’re not—then you should go find something you like. It’s not like you’re supporting a couple of kids.”

This from a girl I had once seen pick a dime bag filled with white powder up off of dirty Houston Street and snort it without knowing what the fuck it was—and then call me a pussy for not joining her.

“Easier said than done, Oprah,” I said, sticking out my tongue at her, then acquiescing. “I know, I know, I need a game plan. I’m working on it. Actually, Stacey hooked me up with Scott Langford.”

“I heard about that. He works at
Fader
, right?”

“Yeah. I need to send over some album reviews for him to be able to do anything, though.” I held the cold glass up to my forehead for a second, I had the slightest of headaches. It was really too soon for drinking again.

“Written any?”

“Not yet.” I shrugged and smiled despite myself, and then pointed to Tina’s empty glass. “Another one?”

“Nah, I want to get going to this party.” Brett was meeting her there. “Did you want to come? I kind of want your opinion already. I really like him, I think. Is that weird?”

“Sooo weird. Shut up, that’s great. I’d definitely like to get to know him better, but I don’t think tonight is going to be the night. I’m still a wee bit shaky. And I don’t want to cramp your style.”

“You won’t cramp my style. Not any more than usual, anyway. You sure?”

I was. I didn’t have the knees for a big one. But I wanted to know more about this Brett. I mean, the guy was making a feature film. Was he a genius? Was he hilarious? Did he have any cute female friends who liked to wiggle it, just a little bit?

“He’s funny. He’s not funny like we’re funny, of course. But he makes me laugh. He’s a real go-getter, but not in an annoying way. I don’t know, it’s fun, it’s comfortable, it hasn’t been boring yet. He, like, makes me feel good about myself.” She blushed. “Ugh, I sound like a Lifetime movie!”

“Nah, you sound like a girl with a crush is all,” I said. I gritted my teeth and put away my quiver of sarcastic arrows. The truth was she looked happy. So I said it.

“I am, I guess,” she said, tossing an ice cube at me. “How’s this—you latch on to your little Golda Meir, and then we can double-date. Sound like a plan?”

“Sure, we’ll get blintzes,” I said.

“C’mon, seriously. It would be fun. We could have chicken fights, we could all move to Brooklyn together, split a brownstone. It’d be America’s favorite new sitcom.”

I scratched my neck. “Brooklyn, huh? First let me see if we get past date number one, then we’ll talk real estate, ’kay?”

“Of course, of course, first things first, naturally.”

We hung out for another ten minutes and then went our separate ways, her down and east, me, straight and west. As I got into a cab, I felt a twinge of remorse that maybe I should’ve made the effort to go meet Brett. But it was too late now, and besides, my pillow awaited. A good night’s sleep had become pretty much the only productive thing I was doing with my time. I went home and fell into my bed like it was a warm pool. A Nestea plunge into slumber.

13

I woke up the following Wednesday thinking it had been exactly a week now since I had last seen Patty. I even knocked on her door Sunday and Monday, but she wasn’t there. I told myself not to be a nervous Nellie. But it was eating at me.

It was early and I was still lying in bed. I began contemplating the bizarre dream I had just had. I was on the dais marrying Eric not to Stacey but to that crackhead, Walter. I kept looking at Eric for a clue, wondering what was going on. He slipped me a bit of paper that said, “If you don’t marry us, his friend will kill Stacey.” I glanced at Walter, who actually looked quite majestic in the wedding gown. Then all of a sudden an Apache helicopter landed and out came Bill Cosby and Jerry Berger, this fat kid I knew from sleep-away camp when I was thirteen. Jerry was still thirteen, and still had his two broken arms. We used to tease him because it was physically impossible for him to wipe his own ass. They approached the dais, and Cosby put his arm around Jerry. “I think you owe this young man an apology, Jason.” Then Walter pulled out a knife and gutted Cosby, shrieking, “You are ruining my special day!”

My jaw ached. I must’ve been grinding my teeth. I got up and brushed them, still feeling a bit anxious. Then I dug into a pile of clothing on the floor of my closet, hoping to mine some buried piece of wardrobe gold. Stymied, I pulled out the same pair of jeans I had been wearing all week and threw them on my bed. The thighs were becoming somewhat charcoal-colored, but the only other pair I had, my “old jeans,” were even filthier. Meanwhile, somewhere out in Brooklyn my perfectly good Dickies were probably on standby should Jane run out of paper towels.

I finished getting dressed, found my fully charged iPod, hit the street, and set off toward the office. The fresh air felt healthy so I snorted a noseful. I clicked
PLAY
; “Range Life” by Pavement came on and I began to match my stride to the loping rhythm. It was sort of a wistful, jangly number, I didn’t really know what Malkmus was trying to say but I liked the way he said it, you felt it in your chest. The sun dappled the sidewalk through the trees; you could tell it was going to be hot later, but right now it was just right. I turned off Perry and started up Seventh. The music was well timed, the light changed and I crossed Eleventh Street without slowing a step. A dog walker with three dogs passed me, the back of his shirt read
POOP INSPECTOR, STAY
200
FEET BACK
. I neared the subway and Malkmus sang, “Don’t worry, we’re in no hurry.” I took his advice and kept going past the entrance. It was definitely a walk-to-work day.

Malkmus gave way to Motörhead. It was way too nice out for Lemmy’s heaviness, unless I was to happen upon a mid-morning knife fight. I rejected him with a click, and then switched off the shuffle mode, feeling very much like Luke Sky-walker when he turned off his onboard computer and listened to Obi-Wan’s entreaty to use The Force. I stood in a small crowd on the corner of Sixteenth Street, waiting for the light. To my right was a teenage girl wearing black-and-white-striped tights and carrying a purse that very well might’ve been a hollowed-out Tickle Me Elmo. She blew her nose in a tissue, her eyes were swollen. I searched for the right song, finally landing on “I’ve Just Destroyed the World.” The longing, done-her-wrong Willie Nelson track played into my ears as I watched the girl sniffle. The light changed and she stomped away into the commuter swarm.

I kept moving north. I tried an instrumental, Django’s “Japanese Sandman,” but it was too up, too festive, it made me think of Christmas and escaping from the cold into a diner for a hot chocolate. No. I scrolled past some stuff I had been hearing a lot of lately, LCD Soundsystem and the Whites Stripes and Modest Mouse, until I found an old favorite by Will Oldham. His voice lilted and broke over a two-fisted piano refrain and my eyes moved with it, panning and synching with the song. I followed a couple of unhappy men in red jumpsuits as they pushed a wheeled trash can in the gutter. I looked left and saw a gaggle of middle-aged women in skirts and white sneakers scratch lottery tickets and sneak smokes outside an office building while passersby crisscrossed, off on their own missions. Meanwhile Will warbled, searchingly.

I turned east on Thirty-second toward my office. It was an awful garment-center block, always overcrowded, trucks double-parked everywhere, unloading. You had to fight your way down the narrow sidewalks. I scrolled past some mellow Belle and Sebastian, looking for the right piece of aggressiveness until I got to Q, clicked the Queers, and selected “Stupid Fucking Vegan.” The track bounced and ripped and I basically redrovered my way through a couple insistent on holding hands and slowing everyone down. I turned sideways and expertly squeezed between a wheeled clothing rack and a dude eating a hot pretzel with mustard for breakfast, managing not to touch either one. I was weaving through people like a damn Heisman winner. The song three-chorded toward the finish and so did I, I wanted to get to the office building before it was over. I raced along, stepping out into the street, avoiding pedestrian grid-lock. The last sloppy bass notes dribbled out and the song came to an end just as I revolved through the revolving door and stepped into the empty elevator. I turned off the player and removed the headphones, grinning. Nailed it.

The doors shut and it was suddenly quiet. The elevator idled, awaiting my command. I was a bit winded. I took a breath and then punched 12, the floor of my discontent.

A combination of e-mailing and a king-sized Raisinets got me through the day. I was finishing up now and getting ready for my rabbi class, which hopefully would be followed by a night of flirting and maybe even stroking a Jewish girl on her bathing suit places. Hope sprung eternal.

JB’s hadn’t really changed much in the few days since Melinda left. I led a casting session on Monday that she might have covered, for a “businessman.” Every gung-ho actor who came in had greeted me with unflinching eye contact and a painful kung fu grip of a handshake. But other than that, I had been doing mostly the same old shit, answering the phone and making sure FedEx went out. A big yawn. I sent Melinda an e-mail to see how she was doing; in it I described in exhaustive detail what my lunches had been. It took me like an hour to compose. But like the lame Genesis song, there had been no reply at all. No reply at all.

The subway platform was as hot and humid as I imagined the Amazon to be during rainy season. The air was thick and still and it sucked the patience out of even the most reasonable human. I put on my headphones and flipped through a discarded
Post
I grabbed off a bench while I waited for the train uptown. The ink blackened my moist hands and I wished I had a wet nap or something. This was the perfect place to contract a nasty little disease; with these warm temperatures the whole of the subway system was like a giant Petri dish.

I was wearing a green button-up work shirt with the name “Danny Boy” stitched on the front. It was polyester and the miracle fabric wasn’t breathing or absorbing sweat, so droplets ran down my sides. The firemen of my body had uncapped the hydrants of my glands and soon my belly button was a swimming pool, around which microscopic flagellates and
escherichia coli
lounged like they were starlets in Monte Carlo. Finally the train arrived in all its air-conditioned glory and I was even able to get a seat. Breathing in the man-made cool, I headed north, temple-bound. I reached into my messenger bag and pulled out my spiral notebook with the P
APAYA
K
ING
sticker on the cover. I turned to the first page, which had the wedding outline on it. I looked it over. About the best thing on the page was the “AC/DC” logo I had scrawled in the margin. Fuck, why did I have nothing? It wasn’t like my days were jam-packed. My life was pretty simple, I had a bad job and two pairs of jeans. I found a pen and tried to think.

I got to class a few minutes late. The rabbi was already in mid-spiel, fanning himself with his fedora. I grabbed a seat at the small table and smiled at everyone, lingering on Jennifer, who smiled back. That felt nice. And she’d even brought her two perky friends with her, I was happy to note. ’Allo, chaps!

“Jason, welcome,” said the rabbi, placing a hand on my shoulder. He was wearing another sweater-vest; this one was burgundy. “We were just discussing how today will work. Well, to be honest, it was not a discussion. I was saying that I’d like to meet with each of you privately for fifteen minutes, and then I’d like to spend the remainder of our time having each of you practice your ceremony in front of the class, who shall play the role of the congregation.”

“Will that be enough time?” asked Nora, scratching her head with the back of her pen. “I mean, that only gives us like fifteen minutes each to practice what we’ll say.”

“Aah,” said Rabbi Stan, clasping his hands. “Fifteen minutes is plenty! You are not speaking in front of the UN, you are speaking to an audience of friends and family who are wondering whether there will be hot hors d’oeuvres or not. They will be hungry and thirsty, they will want to get photographs of the bride and groom kissing—and that is it! On with the show, to the hora, to the toasts, that’s what they look forward to. The whole ceremony will last more than fifteen minutes, but that includes vows and prayers. Remember, this is not your show—it’s their show.” He paused and ran his hand through his beard, sniffing his fingers as they passed his nose on the second stroke. It gave me the willies. “You open, you lead the congregation in a few prayers, you talk about love and what it means in terms of this couple, you marry them, you ask people to let the families leave before they step into the aisle, you go get a drink and a bite of something. That’s a wedding.” He held his hands out to the sides. “Now who wants to go first?”

I saw that everyone, except me of course, had several pages in front of them. Typewritten pages. “I’ll, uh, go last,” I said, smiling sheepishly.

“I’ll go first, if no one minds,” said Jennifer, looking around the table. She already had a red pen out, which contrasted nicely with her dark curls. She was prepared. I wondered what kind of underwear she had selected for this evening, and if she had spent a lot of time in the selection process. She was a nice contrast to the typical girls I slept with. Hmm, Orthodox Jennifer as my girlfriend, I guess it wasn’t the craziest idea Tina ever had. Pretty close, though. The rabbi pulled up a chair beside her. I hoped she remembered we were to go out later.

Okay, I needed to concentrate. Less sex, more marriage. I looked at the outline once again. There wasn’t much. And what I had added on the train sounded corny. Christ, I was a lazy bastard. I started to scrawl out some more thoughts, but I was having trouble coming up with any sort of thread that could lead to a grand finale. Endings, they were always such bitches. Beginnings weren’t a picnic either.

Rabbi Stan made his way around the table. After Jennifer, he went to Mark, and then Nora. Nora was getting a little upset, I could tell, as the rabbi urged her to cut huge swaths of text. Every time I looked up I saw her, eyebrows knit, running Jennifer’s red pen through another sentence or paragraph.

“Stop fucking off and focus,” I told myself, instead of focusing. I was more than a little behind everyone else and I wanted to catch up. I pushed my pen around the page, hoping for a miracle. By the time the rabbi got to me, I had, well, something.

“Okay, let me see what you are thinking, Jason,” he said, pulling up a chair and leaning over my notebook. He squinted at it. “I can’t really read your handwriting, how about you talk me through it?” It was true, I had the penmanship of a chicken with Parkinson’s.

I began to read what I had aloud. It was a story of how on their first date, Eric had taken Stacey to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. I thought it was a funny story, and that it showed how Eric always knew Stacey wanted “everything she could get out of life,” and planned on helping her to get it. The rabbi quickly stopped me. “Jason, this is very cute. Too cute, I believe. It feels maybe like a wedding on a sitcom, you know what I am saying? Who doesn’t want everything out of life? If you want to use this anecdote, okay, but not just for the anecdote’s sake. There must be some more revealing truth about your friends.” He looked at his watch, then gestured to the page. “Take the next ten minutes and see what you can do.”

I did what I could and then we all began to share our plans. Mark went first and kept his remarks really short, because, as he said, “This is a second marriage. I know they don’t want me to make a huge deal out of it, just make it fun.”

Nora went next. She started reciting a poem by Shelley:

The fountains mingle with the river,

And the rivers with the ocean;

The winds of heaven mix forever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In another’s being mingle—

Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains…?

“Jennifer, does this touch you or bore you?” interrupted Rabbi Stan. “Be honest.”

She squirmed in her seat. “Well, I don’t know much about poetry.”

“You are very polite,” said the rabbi. “Allow me to translate.” He put his head down and made a snoring noise.

“I think it’s nice,” said Nora defensively. “You have to imagine me outside reading this, on a sunny day.”

The rabbi sighed. “Nora, you don’t have to listen to me, I will not be offended. But consider a couplet instead of the whole poem. You will thank me, I promise.”

Jennifer went next. She had her remarks on index cards. She was definitely the kind of person whose notes I used to photocopy in college. Her friends were getting married on September twenty-third, the first day of fall, on a farm. And her remarks were related, all about how farmers planted in the fall, and how this was really the perfect time for the bride and groom to begin a life together. To lay down roots. It wasn’t bad. As she spoke, she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. They were at her sides, and then she’d suddenly become aware they were at her sides and she’d gesticulate broadly. Then back they went again to her sides. Something about her presentation was deadly cute; she was confident and bashful all at the same time. A little dorky, sure. But it was disarming.