Notes, from the Upper West Side, a novel by Dan Wrench. Chapter 81, A Lathered State. The boys and me were walking Harry to his North Scouts' assembly in the gym of his school, on a Saturday. And as we walked, I contemplated the ingenuity that it'd gone into my planning of Fluctate II.
This time around, I would just tell the wife I was at work, and instead, I would go meet Cammy at the roundabout in with Parp's Gold Card, which she was going to hand me that afternoon when we met up at Starbucks. Simple, clean, fewer moving parts. The only complication would be if Junior called the bar and asked Arvo if she could talk to me. But that was never going to happen in this day and age of cell phones.
In fact, I don't think Junior ever once called the landline at the Irish Tavern in the ten years I'd been working there. I don't know when it started, but somewhere on that walk to North Scouts, I started thinking about the remark part made in the park two days before, when he just volunteered that Cammy wouldn't want to fuck him. Maybe it popped into my head because I started thinking about who else was fucking Cammy. She had a boyfriend, after all.
And it really pissed me off when I thought about her that she wasn't enough to swear off other cock. Fuck it. What do I have to impress the twat? I know how it sounds.
It's the main reason I'm in therapy after all these years. For some reason I think I'm supposed to get all the cunt. I don't know how my parents made me this way, but I'm pretty sure it's their fault. And then I let it get the better of me.
Before long I was in what my mom calls a state. A lathered state. I'll show Cammy whose cock is worth sucking. She didn't know I'd booked that modeling job from a gelco.
I'd let her know that and... Park that fucker. How do I know she isn't fucking to him every day? I thought.
I met her on his shoot for Christ's sake. Fuck it. It was like I was onto something. The sun slid into view from behind this cloud that looked like angry cotton and made me squint.
Some sweet ass bounced by and running shoes in tight ear. Fuck I could hammer that, I thought. Then I got miffed at myself for losing focus. I had harp in my crosshairs, harp in my innocent little sweetheart.
They were up to no good. I mean think about it. You don't get hired on a little indie shoot by some HR person. And parp didn't raise enough money to hire casting agents and pay union crews.
He must have called her up to hire her personally. Or maybe he had Rosie Assistant Director call her up on his behalf. And exactly what did Cammy do on hat? She was just hanging around and now and then lugging something luggable.
She's an actress and an artistic director and she was parps grunt for the weekend. His part time crew tarred. And all the time with both of them it was, I never really met parp. And I hardly know the girl.
My chump sense was tingling hard. Could have been syphilis. I had been played so obviously that tourists would hunt me down on the street so they could laugh and point and take selfies. I was such a dumbass.
Let me rephrase that. I was such a dumb. Bass. Part might not be slamming her now but chances are he was bending her over and pounding her ass back in the Louisa Miller days.
Why wouldn't he? And if he wasn't then why were they pretending they didn't know each other? Jesus kept falling into place. Parp and Big But Belinda were so fucking close.
I know she was blowing him on hat. He had these big fucking muscles. Why wouldn't she pull his rip court? And she and Cammy were so fucking close.
How could Parp have Belinda on his cock and barely know Cammy? Cammy probably got on her cell and told him all about the inaugural ball and night it happened the little twat. I coughed a couple more times so the boys would be reminded their daddy only looked grim because he had a cold. Then we dropped Harry at the gym with all the other backpack hefting North Scouters.
We all said goodbye like he was being deployed to a war zone. Take some pictures. I said with this big grin I gave him a hug. Pictures in the cloud.
Sammy cried. Then one of the Scoutmasters blew a track whistle and all the little North Scouters assembled. And just like that Harry was gone for the weekend. Then me and Sammy walked home.
When we got there he forgot all about my vitamin C and alpha seltzer and ran to his room and I flopped on the couch. Wait a minute. I'm not in therapy for nothing. There's a point you get to after a few decades of being grown up with a professional head shrinker where you realize the only skill of any lasting value you've ever gotten from therapy is the one that makes you stop and think are people really knifing or am I just fucking nuts because dude there's a good chance you're just fucking nuts.
Jessica taught me this technique to use in cases like this. I close my eyes and imagine a picture of the assholes currently plaguing me. A picture clipped from an old print magazine. The assholes are seated together in a diner and laughing about my skinny arms and idiosyncratic laugh and then I light the picture on fire and just watch it burn from the edges so I can live my life again.
Sometimes that doesn't work so I added a twist. Now it's a whole movie of the assholes in a diner. They're laughing about how they're going to spend the day fucking each other behind my back. Then they are served.
They take a bite. Immediately they begin choking and vomiting and screaming me. That usually does the trick. Notes from the Upper West Side is a work of fiction.
The people depicted in this work do not exist. From the Upper West Side. Copyright 2021 by Dan Rench.