He crawls to the cage and drops his plastic key card from his drug kit. “Take it.”

“Why?”

“Storage locker,” he says. “I’m a klepto, Joe.”

“I’ve got things to do.”

“That key opens the locker,” he says, desperate. “The address is on the back. And nobody knows about it. I’m Stephen Crane.”

“You’re not Stephen Crane.”

“I am to the guy who rented me the locker.” He smiles, fucking heroin. “The Red Badge of Courage. That’s the one book on that list that I read.”

Of course that’s the only book he read. Guys like Benji do all their homework in middle school so they never have to try again.

“Take all of it, Joe. Sell it. Pawn it. Do it.” He’s whimpering and I can imagine him at Disneyland, throwing a fit about the heat. “Please, Joe. There’s a ton, Joe. I started stealing when I could walk. Just ask my parents. Hi, Mummy.”

He nods off and he better not die. I care about him because you care about him and I want him to die honorably, when the time is right. I don’t want him to die high, pissing his pants, giving his shit away. There are two more bags that flew out of the blazer and I have to go in and get them so he doesn’t overdose while we’re at IKEA. He starts to sing again, and the colored girls go do do do. I hit the cage with my machete. “Stop.”

“Joe Joe mad.” He drools and his words are melted butter, like his brain.

You text:

You ready soon?

I don’t know what to say to you and he is eyeing me, amused. “She’s not worth it.”

I text you:

I need an hour, work is tough.

He pulls an electronic cigarette from that fucking blazer and whistles and somehow I’m the one caged. “She’s crazy, Joe.”

I tell him he’s high, but my voice is weak. He pulls hard on that fake cigarette, an addict to the bone. He is the storyteller and I am the listener and I could smash my machete into my foot and that wouldn’t change things.

“Wanna know about Beck?” he says and he doesn’t make me say yes. “I’ll tell you about Beck. All she wants is money. A rich dude, anyone. My senior year, she showed up at my place and pretended she was a maid. I knew she wasn’t the maid, obviously, but I let her in. And I didn’t ask her to suck my dick, Joe. Same way I didn’t ask her to scrub the toilet. But she did.”

“You’re high,” I say but I sound even less convinced, pathetic.

He cackles. “Well, shit, Joe. Of course I’m high.”

I try to erase the image of you sucking his dick and I can’t. “If she cares about money so much then why is she all over me to go out today?”

“Today?” He laughs again. Fuck. “That’s cold, Joe. She won’t even give you a night.”

He’s a bird soaring in the cage and Mr. Mooney was wrong. The bird that thinks it’s flying really is happy. He hates you and you love him and everything is wrong. I’m standing and I don’t mean to be and he’s still flat on his back, the fucker.

“The date is today because we’re going to IKEA to get her a new bed,” I say and fuck him once and for all.

He stares at me. Nothing. But then he writhes like a dog in the sun and laughs. “She did the same thing to me, rode my dick all night. Then she went off about the stupid fucking red ladle and tried to get me to go to IKEA.”

I don’t know about a stupid ladle and you’re texting:

See you in forty-five

You didn’t ride my dick all night and Benji is imitating you: “Take me to IKEEEEEAAA, Benji. Pretty please with red ladles on top.” He laughs and groans and he’s not imitating you anymore. “If she wants to get spanked with a ladle, she should find some creep on the Internet, you know?”

No matter what I do or how hard I try I will always wind up like this, trapped by a guy who has more, knows more. I will not let him win. I unlock the cage and he tries to escape. I kick him into the corner like the dog that he is, pick up his leftover drugs off the floor, and flush them down the toilet. I thank him for the crap in his locker and he cries and I feel better already. I was wrong. I am the one in charge. He may have the red ladle, but I have the key.

14

YOU haven’t been able to wipe the shit-eating grin off your face since you put your hand on mine to insist on paying for the IKEA ferry tickets. You look prissy in white jeans I’ve never seen before, jeans that tell me you’re not breaking a sweat today. You’re in flip-flops and your toenails sparkle and your hair is in a bun and you don’t have any hickeys, so there’s that. You are “thrilled” that I am “up for a jaunt” and you promise to make it fun and you better try your damnedest because the whole time you’re talking to me, I’m just seeing your mouth as an orifice for Benji’s cock and I’m thinking of the way you joked with your friends in your e-mail:

You: Joe is a go. Slave for a day. Score one for Beck!

Chana: LOL you know you have to blow him or give him a handy.

You: No no he’s not assembling, just going with.

Lynn: Do you think if you asked him he would install my AC unit?

Chana: Lynn, are you offering to blow Joe?

Lynn: You’re disgusting.

You: Nobody is blowing anybody. Trust me.

WE meet at the docks and kiss hello like platonic European friends or some shit. At least once we get on the boat and sit down we are close. You wrap your arm through mine. I can’t tell if you’re cold or hot and you smile.

“I can’t believe you’ve never been to IKEA,” you say.

“And I can’t believe you have.”

“Oh, I love it there,” you say and you’re leaning into me more. “Wait until you see it, all these little staged rooms. You just walk from one living room to another living room and you can’t leave without going through the entire store. There’s something magical about it. Do I sound crazy?”

“No,” I say and you don’t. “I’m the same way about the bookshop. You know, I walk around and I feel like the whole world is in there, the most important stories of all time. And then downstairs, in the cage.”

“Excuse me. Did you say, the cage?”

“Rare books, Beck. Gotta keep ’em safe.”

“I guess I hear cage and I think animal.”

Benji’s probably awake by now and the air feels good out here. “Nah, it’s like a casino. They keep the money in a cage.”

“What is it about stores?”

“Huh.”

“You like selling stuff and I am full on addicted to buying stuff in the most stereotypically girly way. I love to shop. I mean I can be in the worst mood and I go to IKEA and come out of there with . . .” You pause and is this it? Red ladle red ladle red ladle. “I come out of there with a couple of place mats, and I feel renewed.”

Fuck. “That’s good, that’s a good way to feel.”

Maybe if I share an object with you, maybe then you’ll share the ladle with me. I take the AC remote out of my pocket and I remember fantasizing about this moment before I had you. You look at it and you don’t touch it and I tell you that you can touch it and you take it out of my hand. You smile. “This is high-tech.”

“It’s the most important thing I have. It controls the humidifiers and the AC units in the cage,” I say. “If I were to jack up the heat and let those books get moist, they’d be gone, forever. Gertrude Stein is dead and she’s not coming back to life to sign books.”

“I just got the chills,” you say and you smile. Ladle? “You would be a good writer, Joe.”

“How do you know that I’m not?” I say and you like it and I try again: “Your folks must be proud of you, getting your MFA.”

You’re entertained and you look out at the water and I follow your eyes and you’re still touching me and I wish I could kiss you to get Benji’s cock out of your mouth and you play with your hair instead of holding my hand.