“But—”
“I know. Exactly. If you bring the shirt and it’s all brand-new and clean and never-worn, then he’ll think—what? He’ll think you went out of your way all these years to keep it mint condition, and that: screw that. You’ll look like a stalker or something. An obsessive. It’ll seem like you think he’s better than you, and he isn’t, and you don’t. At least I hope you don’t, cause, like I said: he isn’t. Anyway, I was gonna just give you the one I wear as an undershirt to bring over there, but it’s too blown out. It’s torn near the collar, pitted something fierce. And that would be, I think, outright insulting, to give someone a shirt that wrecked as a gift, sentimental or no. Could make you look petty. Like you wanted to say, ‘Fuck you, there, Jonboat,’ but didn’t have the guts. Plus it’ll make him think you must’ve worn it all the time for it to be that wrecked, which gets you back into worshipful stalker territory, and if you add the gutless-fuck-you factor to that, it…it’s just a real bad look for you to wear to brunch. A weak look, really. A snively-type psychopathic look. Dahmer-ish, you know? Or, I guess, more Cunanan-y. Either way: not a look you want. So when I came home last night and saw how wrecked the one I use for an undershirt was, I thought, ‘I’ll get the framed one from the basement, and mess it up some, but not too bad, just a little,’ right? So this morning, I put it on and geared up—I know I look like a fruitcake, by the way, with the goggles and handkerchief, but they’re what I had at hand to keep my face from getting burned by the bacon fat—and I started frying all this bacon so the fat would spatter the shirt in a natural-type pattern, and now I’m gonna let it set a few minutes, and then I’m gonna wash it, which’ll dilute the stains, but not really get rid of them. Bacon fat’s a bitch on cotton, I don’t know if you know that. Anyway, it’ll look like you wore it once or twice, cooked some bacon while you wore it, couldn’t get all the stains out, and stuck it in the drawer, idea being to communicate the shirt was too sentimentally valuable for you to outright throw it in the garbage after it got stained—which is nice, and pretty normal, I think—but not so sentimentally valuable that you wore it after it got stained or bothered to buy some kind of fancy laundry soap to hand-wash the stains out, which might have been a little snively if you did that. It’s a good idea, I think. I’m sold, at least. So was Mal. What do you think?”
“Okay,” I said.
“You don’t sound so sure, Bill, and you still got a pretty haunted cast to your mug, you want to know the truth. I’ll tell you what. If you’re looking for something to get all disturbed and mother-hen-y about, try this: I don’t feel hardly hungover at all, but I think I might’ve blacked out last night, cause when I went down the basement this morning for the shirt, all the glass in the frame was gone. Not shattered all over the floor, mind you: gone. So what I think might’ve happened was I think I might’ve gone down there last night to go get the shirt, and then—I don’t know—dropped the frame on the floor when I took it off the wall, and that shattered the glass, and then I must’ve swept it up and then gone to bed, though none of this do I remember. It’s a little bit scary to me, tell you the truth. I mean it’s not like I haven’t blacked out drunk before, but I always knew it when it happened. Always sensed the gap. Like, the next morning, part of the night was just missing, and I knew it. And the hangovers—shit. The after-blackout hangovers—they’re the worst. But today, I feel pretty good, like I said. So that’s a little spooky. Did you see me last night when I came home? Did I look that drunk to you?”
“I didn’t see you,” I said.
“Yeah, well, look, quit with the fucking face already, alright? I don’t really want you to be mother-hen-y about this. I was just saying. Jesus. I mean there’s a whole nother possibility, anyway. The other possibility is I broke it some other night. The frame, I mean. That’s another explanation. That I blacked out on one of these other nights that the next morning I did remember blacking out on, and during that blackout I broke it. Maybe on purpose, who knows? I could see how I probably might’ve did it on purpose. I never really liked that he made the shirts. I thought it was shady. I mean, Shut your piehole, cakeface—that’s ours, it’s not his, and he took the credit, plus who pays to make a shirt with their name on it, you know? Seems cocky. Shitty. Same time, though, I guess he seemed like someone you were gonna be friends with, and I knew you needed friends, especially around the time he made the shirts, you just did, I knew that, you really had no one except for me, so I guess I did opposites, you know.”
“Did opposites?” I said.
“Yeah, you know, there’s a word—what’s the word? Overcompensated, right? I overcompensated, made a whole big deal outta the shirt, acted all proud of it and framed it cause I was scared if I didn’t do something loud like that then you’d think I didn’t approve of your only friend, and I guess I didn’t really. Approve of him, I mean. I didn’t really approve of him, and I guess I figured you could tell, and you probably could, so I went outta my way to cover it up, doing opposites, which, maybe, you being you, you always saw through the cover-up anyway, always knew I didn’t like him, didn’t approve, but it’s not the kind of thing we—I mean we don’t talk about that kinda thing, you and me, so what do I know?—but what I’m saying is that even though I figured you probably saw through it, I guess I thought it was probably better, being your dad, to stay consistent, cause I think that’s important, so I stayed consistent. Would you listen to me going on? What the fuck? Maybe I did black out last night, and instead of getting hungover, I turned into some kind of yammering, daytime talk show guest. I don’t know, Billy. But his family’s a bunch of shits, you ask me. Jonboat’s I mean. And his friendship wasn’t really so valuable for you after all, looking back on it now, I don’t think, but still, at the time back then…I bottled up, and did opposites until like, I guess—I hope—maybe one night that was not last night, maybe last month or this other time a few months before that that I do remember knowing in the morning I’d blacked out, maybe during the blackout on one of those nights I got caught up thinking about all this stuff for some reason and I got fed up, pissed off, whatever, and the cork just popped and I went downstairs and smashed the frame, like on purpose, and then probably felt stupid and so cleaned up the glass, and next morning had no idea that’s what I’d done, even though I knew I’d blacked out and must’ve done something, and since I don’t hardly ever go down in the basement, it was only this morning I discovered what I’d done last month or a few months before that or whatever. Anyway, that’s the story I think I’m gonna go with since it’s just not as scary as the one where I blacked out last night but this morning got no sense of it, and why be more scared than I have to be, right? I mean, that’s probably what happened, anyway, right? That’s probably all it is.”
“Maybe,” I said.