Notes from the Upper West Side. A novel by Dan Wrench. Chapter 39. 10 is early enough.
The next day. I guess overall it was great, but started out on an ominous note that I didn't know was ominous at the time. When I came out of the bedroom to grab a muffin or something for breakfast, I caught the wife sitting at the table in the kitchen area all quiet and sipping some coffee with her tits hidden in the folds on a big gray sweatshirt. I was looking for my favorite cup, the one with the extra wide bottom, one out of the blue, Junior asks me if Jessica can recommend a therapist to work or because she can't stand life anymore and needs help coping.
She said it just like that. I can't stand life anymore and they need help coping. In hindsight, I know I should have paid a little more attention to that statement. I guess you could say it was a warning sign.
I'm pretty sure that this juncture or crossroads or whatever in Junior's life is what set her spiraling into the abyss of life as parps fuck toy. Well, beyeb! I said in a sing-songy way that was me trying to sound really understanding over feelings. I had candies ass on the brain like Newton had calculus and there wasn't much space for any other input, but hey, at least I was trying.
Can I do anything to help? Can you recommend? Can Jessica recommend somebody? When she asked that the second time my brain kicked in and suddenly I was able to put Cammy's ass on hold with no problem, like pressing pause on a video player.
See, I always thought it would be great to have Junior in therapy with Jessica because even though Jessica is a therapist and ethically couldn't tell me anything Junior said, I also knew she was my friend and that as my friend I could probably get her to tell me everything Junior said. Maybe I could even get her to give me a transcript. It would be the next best thing to read into wife's mind. Well, why don't you just see Jessica?
Is that allowed? I mean, because she's already seeing me. Silence. The wife had recently taken to rubbing her temples when she thought a question was too stupid to answer and she was rubbing them now.
I'm pretty sure it happens all the time, I said. In fact, it may help her analysis to be treating us both. Oh, Jesus, I really didn't need to hear you say treating us both. Like we're both going to be in the same room, getting the same medicine.
Oh, so do you want to do it or what? Silence, babe? Yes, yes, I want to do it. I just, I'm sure whatever treatment I need, it can't be the same as yours, please God.
I knew she was trying to needle me into starting the argument she was dying to have, so I played the mature card instead. Well, dear, have you thought about how we're going to pay for your therapy? I mean, I can't afford mine only because it's in the union health plan. That plan covers wives, doesn't it?
Or is it just something else you forgot about along with the rest of your obligations to this family? Yeah, she really wanted to fight. And that last line was delivered a little too unbumply like she'd been rehearsing it. But she was right about the wives, two part of the insurance plan, so it looked like the stars had a line for the wife's Jessica therapy.
Right then was when the boys woke up. They got out the plastic lightsapers, the wife started to cry. I tried to hug her. She pushed me away like my skin was made of turd, but by then I was back to banging cammies ass in my brain and didn't care.
So mommy changed her clothes and went to work, and daddy made breakfast and escorted the boys to school and showed up at fighters at about 10 to put in some producer time in front of cammie. While I was on the subway down to the club, I began to question how much I could actually trust parm. I mean, what if Cynthia was there even after he'd promised me she wouldn't be? Bad.
What if she was telling people I ran like a weasel from the prospect of tasting her clit? Uberbad. What if cammie heard about it and wrote me off? What if she got interested in somebody else on the side and I had to watch today while she framed her cunt at him?
Then I thought, what if everyone hates me? What if everyone else on the shoot hates me for not getting in until 10 while they've been there since 6? That last part? The part about them maybe hating me because I wasn't there since the crack of dawn?
As soon as I thought it, I thought, fuck them. You know? I've got kids and a wife who works. In fact, I close my eyes for a second and imagine myself giving them the finger.
Fuck you. I told them in my brain. I'm a producer. I'm kicking in the box.
Damn it is early enough. When I got into fighters they were in the middle of some set up that never made it into the final cut, some bit where the guy who lost his yarmulke and the girl who found it were dancing on a lightbulb table. Anyway, the whole crew was in a circle around this table with plenty of pain and what's her name the actors were standing on top of. When I came in, someone saw me and signalled someone else and then it was like a siren went off on my head.
Everyone just dropped what they had in their hands and turned around and looked at me in the pot and I mean, not one of them hesitated. They were all in on the gag, including candy. What? I said, I was getting steam.
Oh, this is all because I'm late. Man, I would have loved to have given them the finger like I imagined but Tammy was there and she was laughing at me with them. Cunt. I wasn't ready for that.
Forget something this morning, Paul. Vider asked when the hoots died down. Fuck no, I said. I...
then it hit me. I was supposed to pick up parpe with a prop fan at like six or something. Now you don't know me but swear to any god you want. If I remembered parpe in the parking lot on 83rd I would have definitely been there.
I mean, I would have broken my ass to get there. It's just that I didn't think of it. It just never went across my brain. It's from the Upper West Side is a work of fiction.
The people depicted in this work do not exist. Notes from the Upper West Side copyright 2013 to 2016 by Dan Wrench.