I fell on.
My knees banged against my elbows as I pedaled away from the safety of the house’s gravitational pull. The rusted chain moaned like a dolphin tortured to within an inch of its life. The whole machine—myself included—was so shaky, the rear wheel threatened to overtake the front.
I stopped at the junction where Opal Cove Road, my sister’s residential street, intersected Plymouth Street, the town’s main thoroughfare. During the summer, traffic on Plymouth Street slowed to a crawl. But in the off-season, laid-off house painters, handymen, and half-in-the-bag drywall hangers could do fifty-plus and almost never kill anyone. I turned up my collar and started left toward town.
There was a Great Atlantic Job Lot supply store a couple miles down the road. They sold everything from heavy-duty steel HVAC couplings coated with neoprene to boxes of counterfeit Cocoa Puffs cereal.
I was as aerodynamic as a pug-nosed city bus. I must have looked like a lunatic, my body absorbing the tiny bicycle as we moved forward with just enough momentum to remain upright. A cop driving in the opposite direction toasted my effort with a Dunkin’ Donuts medium coffee.
“Fucking great.”
I crested a mild incline. As I coasted down the long far side, I opened my mouth and let the nippy headwind inflate my lungs and do some of my breathing for me. My hands and face were freezing, but my torso was damp with sweat. It was like having to take a spectacular piss while dying of thirst.
To my right, the beach was peaceful and empty, except for the odd bundled-up elderly couple and driftwood-gnawing dog. The late-October sun was still bright enough to soften the color of the water that had already begun to sour toward a winter gray. On my left, marine equipment suppliers, bait-and-tackle shops, scuba outfitters, and rickety, lucrative clam shacks were shut down until Memorial Day. I battled the wind and followed the shoreline for the rest of the trip, past sand-blown beach parking lots with gates locked and signs that read Closed for Season. In the distance on the left, I could see Great Atlantic Job Lot’s giant yellow sign. I bargained with my clamoring respiratory system: You get this bike to that sign, then we smoke.
WHEN I MET Jocelyn I knew within minutes I was going to either marry her or completely destroy my life trying. It never occurred to me that both things could happen.
On the morning that kicked off the era known as Mein Jocelyn Kampf, I woke to the smell of perfectly good coffee ruined with hazelnut. As I passed the bathroom, I could hear Richie in the shower, singing Mudhoney’s “Touch Me I’m Sick.” I had a good idea what constituted a successful night in his mind, and he must have had one because he was singing and retching, instead of just the latter.
“Hey, cunt-lip, make sure you rinse the tub,” I said, a wishful thought at best even if he could have heard me. “I don’t want your bum chum’s crabby pubes sticking to my feet.” Like most guy friends who live together, Richie and I could sling it pretty raw at home. We meant only about a quarter of it. If what we said in the privacy of our own home was overheard on the outside, we’d be tried as hate criminals.
I stopped short in the kitchen doorway. An attractive woman I’d never seen before was sitting at our rusty chrome-and-Formica table.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t know anyone else was here.”
“So gay bashing’s okay only if the right people hear it?”
Here we go, I thought. If I had known her, I would have said, Yes, it’s okay. If she had known me, she would have known I was just fucking around.
“We always talk that way to each other. It was just a joke.”
“I’m kidding,” she said. “I’m kidding.” She slapped her knee. “Touchy, aren’t we?”
I liked her instantly.
“Thanks. Just what I need bright and early.”
She seemed proud of herself for messing with my head so successfully. She tried to untangle a fuck-knot in her hair. I made sure my T-shirt was covering the fly of my boxers as I passed her on my way to the sink. The dish-water in the grubby Rubbermaid tub was greasy and orange from a Bolognese sauce Lello had plagiarized from a larger talent. I fished out a spoon and a pink mug encircled by a bracelet of cartoon bunnies going down on each other. I tested the shower-weakened stream for warmth