SHE CALLED ME UP this one time. She said Larry was going to be out of town, and Jimmy was coming over again. He’d been staying there quite a bit by this time, and she was starting to worry people might get the wrong impression. So she wanted to know if I’d sleep over too. The idea was, if Larry asked any questions, she could say, “Yeah, Lydia and Jimmy were over working on the video, and it got so late I let them camp out on the couch.” Only of course it was really just going to be me on the couch. Her and him were so much in love by this time.
We got a pizza as usual, and rented some videos. A Motley Crüe concert video, that was one. Also this Tom Cruise movie where he’s a bartender. We both thought he was so cute. And then we got this other movie that had the girl in it from “Twin Peaks.” Only the stuff in this movie they never would’ve shown on TV.
It felt weird sitting there with the two of them, watching this movie. I mean the girl’s basically naked, except for a garter belt, and she does all this stuff. With her mouth if you know what I mean. Watching it made me think about back when Chester was still around. Here I’d eaten all this pizza, and now I thought I was going to throw up. So I told Suzanne and Jimmy I was going to go outside for a minute. I took Walter on his leash and walked him around the cul de sac where her condo was, out to the dumpster where they brought their trash. I threw a couple balls for Walter. You tried to think about nice stuff, you know. Happy stuff. Just don’t think about that other part, I’d tell myself. But you know what happens when you tell yourself, Don’t think about such-and-such. Before you know it, that’s the one thing you can’t stop thinking about. No matter what, you can’t get it out of your head.
Walking around in the fresh air like that, though, I started feeling better. Just seeing the stars and stuff, the tricycles of all the little kids lying around in front of the condos. Looking at the lights in the windows, picturing the families inside, tucking their kids in, the husbands and wives sitting down on the couch side by side, watching TV, and talking about their day. You tried to think about nice stuff, you know. Happy stuff. After a while, when I stopped feeling like I was going to barf, I went back to Suzanne’s condo. Only when I went back the TV was off and the living room was empty. I called out to Suzanne and Jimmy, but no answer, and they weren’t in the kitchen either.
Sitting there with Walter, I heard these sounds coming from upstairs. OK, I said. Just pretend like nothing’s happening. It’ll be over soon. So I picked up one of Suzanne’s magazines and started reading it. I couldn’t concentrate on the words, so I just stared at this one page of fashion dos and don’ts. I turned on the TV and watched the shopping channel for a while. They had a guy on talking about this product called QRB that removed all this caked-up paint and dirt off wood furniture without having to sand it. I was trying so hard not to think about what was going on upstairs I even wrote down the 800 number of this wood stripper, to tell my mother about it. Knowing I wouldn’t ever really keep the number, and my mother wouldn’t care anyways. I just wanted to keep my brain occupied, so I wouldn’t start thinking about the two of them. Suzanne and Jimmy. Doing it.
After a while I needed to go to the bathroom. Which was upstairs, right next to Suzanne’s room. They’ve got to be done pretty soon, I kept telling myself. Any minute now they’re going to come downstairs again and we can make a big bowl of microwave popcorn, maybe watch the Motley Crüe video we still hadn’t got around to. Only they didn’t come out.
Finally it was quiet up there. And I couldn’t hold it in anymore. OK, I think. I guess they’ve just gone to sleep, so what’s to keep me from tiptoeing up the stairs and sneaking in the bathroom? I wasn’t even going to flush.
By the time I got to the top of the stairs I realized they weren’t asleep after all, but by then it was too late to turn around, plus I was desperate. Her door wasn’t even shut. So I couldn’t help seeing.
He was laying on the bed, stretched out on the pillows. I never saw a guy like that before.
Suzanne had the garter belt on that we bought at Victoria’s Secret. And one of those see-through type bras. No underpants. She was standing at the foot of the bed with her hands over her head.
It took me a minute to understand what she was doing. She was doing a cheerleading routine. She was saying, “Give me and E, give me an L,” like that. And Jimmy, he had this look on his face like it wouldn’t have mattered if the whole condo development was on fire. He’d just stay laying there. A person could come up to him and say, “Get off this bed or I’ll blow your brains out,” and he wouldn’t have moved, that’s what he looked like. Like he didn’t care if he was dead or alive, so long as he could see the rest of her cheer.
The two of them were so into each other right then I could’ve walked right through the room and I doubt they would’ve noticed. It was like they were the only two people on earth. Like I didn’t exist. So I just sneaked into the bathroom and took a leak.
When I went downstairs I finished off the rest of the pizza. Then I lay down on the couch and went to sleep. And when we got up in the morning, nobody said a word. Suzanne’s running around in a sweatsuit, getting ready to go to her aerobics class and making an appointment to have her hair done. I hear her on the phone with Larry’s mother, saying something about getting together for dinner that night. “Jeez,” she says to me when she gets off the phone. “Have you ever seen anything as gross as these split ends?”
But Jimmy, it’s like he’s possessed. He just sits there at her dinette table staring at her, practically licking her hand. Suzanne even had a joke about it. She used to say the only difference between him and Walter was Walter wore a collar. And Walter didn’t have fleas.