SIX
Barry is out of breath and covered in sweat when he walks in the door.
“What happened to you?” I ask dryly. I’m only mildly interested. “Get in a fight with someone?”
“No, baby,” he grimaces with exaggerated patience. “Not today, not yet. Think you could help me with the boxes in the hallway, though? They’re fuckin’ heavy.”
I don’t move off the couch. “What are you bringing into my house this time?”
“You’re welcome,” he says with disgust, and disappears out the front door.
When he returns, he’s carrying a long, thin box, which he sets down next to me on the couch. It says Sam Ash on it.
“That doesn’t look so heavy,” I comment. “So, what now? Did you steal it?”
He wipes his brow. “Fuck you,” he answers. “The receipt’s in the other box. The heavy one.”
I follow him out the door to find a much larger box, maybe about three by three and a half feet, sitting in front of the apartment. “What is it?”
“Just hold the door,” he scoffs. He crouches with the box in front of him, and starts to push it into the hallway.
Once both boxes are taking up most of my small living room, Barry goes in search of a straight razor to cut them open.
The long box turns out to be an electric guitar. It’s a white Fender Stratocaster. The big square entity contains a mid-sized Fender Twin Reverb combo amplifier. The receipt is for nine hundred and twenty-six dollars.
I don’t say anything at first.
“The Ovation guitars were much too expensive,” he says, fingering the neck of the Strat.
“What’d you do this for?” I want to know. “You don’t have a musical bone in your body.”
“I just love how I can always count on you to be a bundle of sweetness, Miss Thing. You’re also wrong. But as it happens, these toys aren’t for me. They’re for you.” He beams, and I think he expects me to smile as well.
“Barry, I don’t play the electric guitar,” I remind him. “I’ve got a perfectly good acoustic.”
“Which I haven’t seen you pick up in months,” he replies.
“Not really your affair, is it?” I’m being snotty for a reason. If Barry actually made a legitimate purchase from Sam Ash, then I think I know exactly where the nine hundred bucks came from.
“I got sick of seeing you moping around on your days off,” he explains. “Now you can have an outlet for your complicated and tragic existence.”
“I’ll be right back,” I say. I go into the bedroom and open the drawer where I keep my roll of bills. Sure enough, most of the wad is missing. I feel the fury start to bubble in my chest. I take a few deep breaths, trying to avert it. It’s not working.
I hear Barry strumming the Strat, then plugging it into the amp. He fiddles with the settings as I stand behind him and seethe.
“This is one of the best combo amps you can buy,” he says, turning the knobs and letting the strings ring out a tuneless set of notes, too many to be a proper chord. “When you start learning how to use it, you’ll never want to play an acoustic guitar again.”
“Barry, I didn’t ask you to do this! What’s wrong with you? It’s not a gift if you steal the money from me to buy it!”
“You wouldn’t have bought it for yourself. It’s something you ought to have. It’s for your own good. Therefore, it’s a gift.”
“Take it back. I want my money.”
“I can’t. Do you know what it took to get the damned thing here on the subway? If you don’t want to keep it, then you can carry it back to midtown yourself.”
“And what are we supposed to eat this week?” I ask, rhetorically.
“Quit pretending you’re poor,” he says. “You’re working tomorrow night.”
“You’re missing the point! Do you know how ridiculous what you just did actually is?”
“Got your attention, didn’t it?”
“You are such an asshole,” I mutter.
“What’s the matter, baby?” Barry taunts. “Can’t let anyone call your bluff?”
“What bluff? What are you even talking about?”
He looks at me with suppressed rage. “You think if you don’t try, you can’t fail? What is it, huh? What are you so afraid of, Little Miss Thing?”
“Your clichés,” I shoot back.
He sits staring at me, finally shrugging and relegating the new guitar and amp to a corner, where they will most likely sit and gather dust along with all our other junk. Then he picks up one of his dog-eared paperbacks, and I go to lie down in the other room.
I don’t know why either one of us is so angry. Habit, I suppose. This was probably supposed to be some sort of peace offering from Barry.
But all he’s succeeded in doing is humiliating me. Again.
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October 8th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Love your book, can’t wait until I get the next chapter.