“Yeah,” I say. No purr. “You got an early morning so you better get in there.”
Conflict suits you, Beck. You see a high school graduate who, in theory, should be trying to jump your bones. You also see a guy who’s read more books than everyone in your workshop. I rock your world and I won’t kiss you and you nod, what choice do you have? You’re pissed and your green pillow’s gonna take a fucking beating tonight and you’re gonna think about me and you’re gonna wait for it, and get sick with want for it, for me, the same way that toddler screamed and waited for his ice cream, the same way America waited for Stephen King and I waited for Curtis, and Benji’s across town waiting on me. You’re gonna wait.
“Sweet dreams, Beck.”
“You want a water for the road?” you say while you’re standing at the door and holding it open, your invitation to come inside, your last attempt.
“I’m all right,” I say, and I don’t look back. You are fucking obsessed with me and honestly, I’m kind of relieved that I gotta deal with Benji and his organic apples and club soda right now or I might follow you inside and wait for you to unlock the door and throw you onto the couch and give you what you want, what I want. But no. You will give me water, but not a fucking plastic bottle as I’m hitting the road. When you quench my thirst, it will be after our first fuck, in your bed and you will bring me a glass of water and we will share the glass and it will be the first of many. I don’t have the strength to turn you down when I want you so bad, but I do have a pansy in the cage.
Fucking Benji: a savior. Who knew, right?
I smile all the way home and at home I tell my typewriters about the night and I rub one out in your honor and shower and slather up in Kiehl’s and download Bowie’s Rare and Well Done so I can listen to it on my way to the shop. I have to go out again. How the fuck am I supposed to sleep when I’m waiting for you to e-mail your little friends about our date? I stop at the deli and pick up Cheerios and milk because Benji deserves a treat too. I’d whistle if I knew how and I enter the shop and trot down the stairs and find Princess Benji pouting and picking at his fingernails. I can tell by one glance at Doctor Sleep that he hasn’t even opened it. I am a professional. I slide the Cheerios to him through the drawer along with a pillow. How nice am I, right?
But the princess sniffs the bowl and backs off. “Is that almond milk?”
“Just read your book and eat,” I say. “The test will be on the first hundred pages. Go.”
I trot upstairs and sit down for a nice long Beck sesh, which consists of listening to Rare and Well Done, looking at pictures of you I stole from Facebook, watching scenes of Pitch Perfect on mute. I get so lost in you that it gets bright in the shop and I should be tired given all the drinks, all the excitement, but I’m high on you and I want to take you to the London that Bowie sings about in the album you love. But what I have to do right now is go back downstairs to see if Benji learned to follow the directions.
What a sight, Beck. He isn’t just reading King. He’s devouring the new book like a chubby kid with a candy bar. I start to applaud and of course he drops it and fakes a yawn. I tell him it’s time for a test and he doesn’t want a test—no duh—and I tell him it’s time for a Club Soda Test.
“But you said to read the King.”
“That’s right. And you did. Congratulations.”
And now comes the sissy rant. He doesn’t want a club soda test because he has a stomachache and a headache and he thinks he’s allergic to something in the books and he needs a Band-Aid (is this camp, asshole?) and a B vitamin and a cream for his eczema, which is aggravated by the “cheap” coffee (of course the milk is from a cow tit, Benji) and he’s tired and he doesn’t want to be tested anymore.
“It’s time to get started, Benji.”
“I need more time. I’m telling you I’m intolerant of dairy. This cereal is like poison,” he tells me.
“Club soda will settle your stomach.”
“Please,” he begs.
“You never read Brief Interviews either, did you?”
He doesn’t say anything and I’m shaking my head and I feel like calling Yale Fucking University and telling them that their product is bullshit.
“I’m not a bad person,” he says.
“Of course you’re not.”
And you know, Beck, he’s not an asshole. He’s just so fucking insecure he has to drop the King he loves. I give him another shot.
“So, how’s that King?”
“Eh,” he says and he still hasn’t learned a thing.
I line up three identical red Solo cups, each full of club fucking soda, on a tray.
“You didn’t read Brief Interviews and every day there’s a test.”
“I have serious money, Joe, family money. I have a car, a mint Alfa Romeo. Do you want a car? Because I can get you a car.”
I pull the drawer open and lift the cups off the tray and into the drawer, gently, Joseph, one by one.
“All right, Benji, it’s time to get started.”
“Joe, wait. Don’t do this.” He falls to his knees. “I mean it. I have money.”
He really is an idiot and can’t read a situation and I almost feel sorry for him and I motion for him to stand and he stands. Good dog.
“Benji, I’m not drugging you.”
“Thank God.”
“This is a test. Each cup contains club soda,” I explain. “And you’re gonna take a sip from each cup and then you’re going to tell me which cup has Home Soda. We’re going to see if you recognize your own product.”
He crosses his arms. “I need something to cleanse my palate.”
I’m a step ahead and I reach into my bag and pull out a stale bagel.
“Were all three bottles opened at the same time? Club soda changes as it’s exposed to air.”
“They were, Benji.”
“I need glass cups because plastic interferes with the chemistry.”
“Drink.”
I hand him the first cup and he takes it and closes his eyes and gargles and swishes and I want to smash his head into the cup. He spits it in the piss pot and stretches and walks around.
“You know my father has access to a jet. I can get you anywhere in the world. I can get you anywhere and then we forget this ever happened. He’d never even know it was gone. He expects me to blow money, I mean that wouldn’t raise a red flag at all.”
“Bite the bagel, Benji.”
“Thailand. France. Ireland. You could go anywhere. Everywhere.”
“Bite the bagel.”
He bites the bagel and I pick up the second cup.
“Joe, please. Think about what you want here.”
“Take the cup.”
“The test still isn’t valid because the yeast from the bagel compromises my taste buds and I should gargle with salt water.”
I never raise my voice so it scares him pretty good when I do. “Take the fucking cup.”
He falls on his knees, the fucker, and he’s probably overidentified with the title character in Doctor Sleep. Ignorant Benji probably doesn’t even realize that Dr. Dan Torrance is a character that originated in The Shining, a character that struggled, and Benji’s never worked a day in his life, not really, probably made it halfway through The Shining and turned on the movie and never even held an ax. Benji is not a real man. You can’t call what he does work.
“Stand up.”
“Salt water. I’m begging you.”
“They don’t give salt water out in those Coke and Pepsi tests.”
“Do you know what distinguishes club soda from seltzer and sparkling water?”
I groan.
“It’s salt, Joe. Sometimes it’s sodium bicarbonate. Other times it’s sodium citrate or disodium phosphate.”
“Just drink it, Benji. You’re not bullshitting your way out of a test.”
“I’m not bullshitting you,” he says. “No bullshit this time. This is what I know.”
“Drink it.”