LITMIR.BIZ

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enough attention cooped up in the men’s room, she grabbed Danny by the arm and dragged him outside the bar onto the sidewalk. There was a line of people waiting to get into the bar. Even though she liked an audience, at this point she knew she needed to find out what was up. He had been acting weird all weekend and now this and he didn’t even have any answers for her; fuck answers, he had no response at all. So she pulled him to the side, away from the crowd, and once again demanded he tell her what was going on. Sometimes you should be careful what you ask for.

      He burst into tears. His big puppy-dog eyes filled with tears and he started to bawl. Taken aback, she looked at him like he had nine heads; she’d never seen him cry before. Then he started talking. At first she couldn’t understand him and she just tried to console him while he cried onto the shoulder of her expensive silk shirt. In the back of her mind she was thinking, if this guy tells me he’s gay after what I went through with Todd, I’m gonna go Bobbit on his ass and cut that dick of his right off.

      “Besides,” she said, when she recounted the story, “he was blubbering all over me and silk stains.”

      He got hold of himself, held back the tears, and began again. “Zoe, everything I’ve ever told you has been a lie.” Now when someone starts with a line like that you know you don’t want to hear the rest. But like watching a plane crash in slow motion you are powerless to stop it.

      “It’s like you don’t even know me,” he said. “No one does. Shit, my life is such a mess.” He started crying again but he quickly got himself back under control, sniffled, and continued. “My whole life is a lie. Our whole life together’s been a lie. I’m so fucked up; everything sucks, my life is falling apart, I should just die. But, I love you.”

      He was smart enough to stick that “I love you” in at the end. Based on the history of those who have crossed Zoe before and lived to tell, her reaction to Danny was not nearly as bad as it could have been; we all think that’s because he stuck in the cry of love. His life didn’t suck badly enough for him to miss that trick. Either that or she was getting soft in her old age: her late early twenties.

      Still though, Zoe was wondering what the hell was wrong and praying—for his sake and hers—that he wasn’t about to tell her that he was gay. He sniffled some more and cleared his tears again and then he said it: he told her that he was a drug addict. “Cocaine actually,” Danny said.

      Then the details just started to spill out of him like vomit. He told her that he was a total addict, that he’d been using almost every day, that he was in enormous debt, and that he’d stolen a ton of money. Danny told Zoe how he stole money from his parents and from her and how he was on the phone in the bathroom trying to find some money and when he couldn’t he was begging his dealer for more credit. Then he told her the worst.

      Usually at this point in Lizzie’s retelling of the story people halt her. They don’t believe her and they say it’s just not possible for someone to be dating someone for two years and not know they were a major coke-head. To which Lizzie always replies: you must not know Zoe. Open the dictionary and look up self-absorbed and you’ll see her picture. Then she tells them to hold on to their hats: the story gets better.

      “Zoe,” Danny said, “There’s more. I blew all my tuition money on drugs. I’m not really enrolled in college, haven’t been all year. I’m not graduating tomorrow.”

      Danny’s entire family, siblings flown in from the west coast and all, were still sitting obliviously at a table inside the trendy bar. Outside, Zoe and Danny were a mess on the street. At least he’s not gay, she was thinking. But all of her perfect, catered wedding at the Waldorf dreams seemed to run from her like OJ fleeing the cops. Then Zoe said she wondered if this was what it’d be like in hell. She had always hoped hell would be better than that, she used to say, that at least there’d be a wealthy section or something. I told you she’s messed up. According to her this is what she was thinking about just after he told her this.

      Danny slumped down onto the curb, his foot in the gutter. He looked up at Zoe, who was towering over him in all of her synthetic might, and again he played the scene beautifully, like a pro. Danny told Zoe how much he loved her, how she was the only person in his life he cared about, not even himself; he told her how he needed help and rehab and how he could only make it with her love and support. Since she loved being needed almost as much as she thrived on causing scenes, she bought every ounce of his drivel. She’d always wanted to take care of someone; she sat down next to him and began to rub his back.

      After Zoe reassured him that she was always going to be there for him, and that she loved him too, she told him that she was going to go inside and tell his parents that they were okay. He begged her not to; he told her there was no way he could face them. Initially she wasn’t sure what to do, but then she thought of how her father would react if she told him she blew all her college money on drugs, and she understood his hesitation. The whole debate was moot though, because his sister walked outside looking for them at that moment. When Danny saw her he started to cry all over again and he buried his head between his knees.

      Zoe told Danny’s sister what was going on and the sister went back inside to tell his parents. Not even a minute later, before she had a chance to assess the damage to her blouse, while Danny was still sobbing in self-pity, his parents walked outside. Zoe just stared at them bug-eyed to see what they would do. They did nothing. Danny’s father said, “Why don’t we all go to bed and get some sleep. We can discuss this all in the morning.”

      Zoe was totally perplexed to say the least. Danny just seemed out of it and not too shocked at his parents’ lack of a reaction. They went home together to his apartment and his parents and siblings went back to the hotel. The next morning, as if nothing at all had happened, Danny got up and showered like he was going to graduation. Zoe went into the bathroom and she was like, “Do you remember what happened last night?” And Danny flipped out and slammed her hard against the wall and cuffed her with the heel of his hand. She freaked out. Another scene ensued as she ran away from him, out of the apartment, onto the street. She ran down Commonwealth Avenue, away from his apartment, and all she was wearing was a green bra, pants, and jewelry. Of course Danny ran after her screaming how sorry he was and of course she forgave him.

      Once back inside he began to shake and he told her that the night before, when he was on the phone in the bathroom, he had been begging his dealer for a few grams on credit. No luck. Danny had been without any drugs since the afternoon before when he had snorted the last of his stash in the back of the third floor of Virgin Records on Newbury while Zoe and his parents were shopping a level below. He started crying and fell into a lump on the floor. Zoe was afraid he was totally going to fall apart and didn’t really know what she was supposed to do. Then his parents got there.

      Like a fairy God-family they whirled in, scooped up Danny, said good-bye to Zoe, and waltzed him into recovery. Zoe was left behind in his apartment, bewildered and pissed off. She started to search. And she didn’t like what she found. In addition to all sorts of drug paraphernalia she found a huge stash of biracial porn: magazines and books and DVDs all about dirty, hard core black girls who like it wild and hard. She thought she was going to throw up.

      Lizzie says that Zoe is like an author on a book tour and that even though she pretends to detest the attention, she is coming to reunion all ready to tell her story to anyone who will listen, as many times as she can. I’ll get into the rest later, when she tells it in a bar to a group of horrified-like-they’re-laughing-at-you-not-with-you people.

      12

      John Doyle

      John Doyle was the poster boy for homoerotic, straight to the next dick, nothing a six pack wouldn’t cure, and all the other sayings. That’s how straight he was: kind of not totally. But I didn’t know that at the time. It was the end of my freshman year and we were on the tennis team together. He was tall and slim with dirty blond tight curls, green eyes, and skin that always looked just slightly tanned. He was toned and trim with a very nice body and a fat cock, fatter than you’d expect on such a narrow frame. I’d had ample time to see it as he leisurely showered after practices and matches. And he had no problem strutting around the locker room

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