Fuccboi
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Book Title Page
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2022 by Sean Thor Conroe
Cover design by Gregg Kulick
Cover art by Derek Gabryszak
Author photograph by Al Jacobs
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ISBN 9780316395014
E3-20211123-NF-DA-ORI
Dedication
For
R
Epigraph
Misanthropy comes of an all too greedy love.
—NIETZSCHE
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I
Winter
1
POSTMATE
December 2017
Got into a thing with the Fresh Grocer lady over coffee filters.
It honestly wasn’t a biggie, but why say they’re on sale if they aren’t, all I’m sayin.
She was like This muhfucker. What aisle.
I told her what aisle and we went and checked. Together.
Well we started to, but then she told me not to follow her when she noticed me following her.
I was like Aite, fasho, putting my hands up. Like I’ll hold it down. Man the reg’.
When she came back and said No du’, they ain’t on sale, I snapped.
That’s why I tried to come with! I said. To show you they are.
So we checked, actually together this time, she hemming and hawing the whole way.
Honestly can’t remember whether they were or weren’t, but I’ll never forget that incident. It connected us. It marked the start of a long, fruitful, and strictly nocturnal friendship.
Too fucking cold out.
Too fucking cold!
I balaclava’d up and put my head down, weaving through a herd of incoming undergrads.
Shitfaced.
Not I; but they, very much so by the looks.
Saturday night!
I’d started shopping at 2 a.m., and the pod I listened to while shopping was almost through, so had to be 3 damn near.
Right before I hit play again, one of the undergrads yelled “Water! I need water!” and another yelled “Lacy! You can’t drink that!”
Caught a glimpse of Lacy squatted like she was pissing, chugging from a 2-gallon guy on display in the vestibule there, laughing and spilling most of it, stance wide so it missed her feet.
Takin a piss.
Takin a piss in the Fresh Grocer!
Pulled my Nike Dri-Fit snapback I found in the street down low, over my balaclava, under my hood. Unlocked my bike and got to walking.
My thing lately was sticking to 41st.
Walking down 41st and only 41st, whenever possible.
Doing so was how I managed to leave my house.
My room.
My bed.
41st was my block.
Forty-one hunned.
Gang.
Fuck you, high-30s UPenn motherfuckers with your dorms and well-insulated jackets and bike cops and senses of purpose.
Eat all the dicks.
And you, mid-40s kombucha-guzzling hippies with your communal housing and fermented foods and jars and senses of purpose.
The fuck y’all know about 41st Street.
That shit ain’t even straight.
It zigged east a half block at Market, zagged west a quarter block at Walnut, and was paved for shit all along.
Ran one way one block and the other way the next.
Wasn’t respected as a thru street.
But walking it.
Kept things interesting.
Turned on Postmates and started unloading groceries, back at the spot.
The lights were out and roomie’s bike was gone, which meant he was at the wifey’s.
Probably cuddled up, spooning.
Netflix auto-playing atop their shared covers.
Just like the rest of the simps: accepting affection from others to mask the pain of themselves.
One pound russet potatoes ($2) on the counter, in the corner. One pound cooking onions ($2), next to that. Seven-grain soft white presliced loaf ($2) and Bustelo tin ($4) in the cabinet, above. And eggs ($1.50), Vermont sharp white cheddar ($1.69), and bag of clearance, overripe avos ($1) in the fridge.
Got a ding right when I least expected it.
Right when I’d forgotten I’d logged on.
When I’d settled into the couch and opened YouTube.
3:37 a.m.
Pizza spot in south.
Way south.
South of Snyder south.
The fuck.
Hit accept before fully considering the logistics.
Fuck it.
This was my life now.
Was it even open still.
Would they even be awake still by the time I got it to them.
Would my prepaid Postmates Fleet credit card even work, like it hadn’t been lately.
Were my thoughts as I huffed it—wheezed—across the Schuylkill.
Mellow but popping still somewhat, somehow, once across.
People still out tryna fuck or get home or not get home just yet.
Folks passed out on cardboard, in nooks, on Market approaching City Hall.
Could feel the Under Armour rubbing against the rash below my right pec, extending into my right pit.
Shoulda vaselined that bih.
Forgot to vaseline that bih.
Gotta remember to!
Next time.
For now, less upper-body, side-to-side movement.
All legs.
Yelled “Yo fuck your lights!” as I ran my third red and skrt-ed right down 16th.
Loudly I think but hard to say over the Kodak blaring in my balaclava-compressed earbuds, wedged deep into my earholes.
Gassed by the time I arrived at the pizza joint.
Right at their 4 a.m. closing time.
Drunk folks huddled out front, inhaling slices off paper plates.
Mopping going on, inside.
Retrieved the package from the bada-bing bada-bang mobster types working counter.
Guzzled down the cig roach I’d stashed in my pant-leg roll, while waiting for the drop-off location to load, side-to-side shimmying to keep warm.
They didn’t tell you the drop-off till after.
How they got you.
Sneaky fucks!
Whattayagonnado.
One of the girls in the outdoor pizza-eating crew eyed me from beneath the fur of her parka, through the glitter/tears of her eyes/lashes. Chomping with her mouth open.
Or maybe not tears.
Maybe it was just cold.
I don’t know.
I looked away, but understood her gaze.
This guy.
Who tf is this guy.
Why is he here now.
Babe, I’m right there with ya!
No clue.
My whole vibe, of a sudden, seemingly: so serial killer-y.
Terrorist-y.
When did that happen.
Feel like it had to have been fairly recent.
Feel like it can’t have always been like that.
Definitely wasn’t before—
Ohp!
Drop-off.
Finally.
Just devouring data, this app.
Ayyy, West!
OK, 48th, little further than ideal.
But I’ll take it!
Took her a sec to come to the door; but she did, eventually.
In jammies.
Like she’d stayed in, couldn’t sleep, and got hungry.
Coulda sworn it woulda been a shitfaced bro.
Can’t guess em all, innit.
She was light-skinned but in a way that made me think college transplant versus intergenerational local.
Plus this block, Cedar, despite extending this far out west, was one of the whiter ones.
I worried she’d think I was considering overpowering her with my maleness, forcefully entering, and having my way with her—which I wasn’t considering, not even a bit, beyond the possibility of her thinking it—so I pulled down my balaclava, below my chin, to show my face, and removed my hat—before putting my hat back on since a bare-balaclava’d head looked weirder, I decided.
But she didn’t seem scared.
Not even a bit.
Hit me with a thanks.
A smile.
Then closed and locked the door.
I shuffled down the porch steps a step at a time, back to my bike, looking at my phone waiting for my payout to load.
Three drops of snot dripped off the tip of my nose, one after the other.
…
…
…
$6.43.
$6.43!
Plus tip!
2
SUSBOY
New Year’s Eve 2017
I pulled up early to the house I used to live in.
For the New Year’s party my ex roomies were throwing.
I showed up on time, but no one besides my ex roomies were there, since on time was early at parties.
I hadn’t been drinking or going to parties for months now, so I’d forgotten.
But here I was.
At a party.
So I started drinking.
Last year’s New Year’s got ugly.
Happened here, at this house, only back then I still lived in it.
Had just moved into it.
Into the third-floor ‘closet-room.’
I had, since, graduated into a new ‘closet-room,’ across town.
Well…‘closet-sized.’
This new room itself had a closet.
Which I think disqualified it from being a closet.
But same feel.
Same claustrophobia.
Same shitty ventilation.
But last year.
The beginning of the end.
Or end of the beginning.
Or maybe just beginning.
Of everything.
Of the sadness.
Of Reality.
When ex bae and I decided to open things up.
Polyamorize.
Or maybe when ex bae got a firsthand look into how I polyamorized when she wasn’t around.
Before we’d agreed that polyamory was what we were doing.
Side bae coming on strong, all of us coming up, and me shrugging like Hey, ex bae, whattaya want me to do?
Side bae tryna get it.
That’s her right.
All about equal rights here.
Just like it’s my right to be a spineless fuck with no loyalty or resolve.
Molly, y’all.
That dang molly!
Ex bae, though.
She’d be back.
I was sure of it.
Just needed time.
To ‘explore.’
To hammer home that she wasn’t fucking around.
She was waiting it out, making me suffer, forcing me to reckon fully with my Destiny, without the buffer of her affection, so I’d be left with no choice but to ‘make it.’
Hit it big.
Show em all.
And then. Only then would she return.
But this year.
This year wasn’t last year.
This was a New Year.
Side bae showed up around eleven with the beans, like she’d promised.
I’d insisted No, not this time around, I was done with that.
Right up until the moment she procured my double-dose capsule.
Till she handed me the beer to wash it down with, watching to make sure I swallowed.
Right up until then, I resisted.
But how assertively she asserted.
Yes ma’am, I said, swallowing.
Too much activity going on, all around.
I returned to the middle-room couch.
Next to the roomie, who showed up with his wifey not long before side bae did.
We fit in due to our education level, but also remained slightly outside, due to our hapa-ness.
Our introversion.
Our shared misanthropy.
He was on something too, wasn’t sure what. But we started talking faster and faster and more emotionally and less judgmentally.
I’d cut my hair, dolled myself up, and washed for tonight.
Felt prettier and prettier the more people showed.
Still didn’t interact with anyone besides the roomie and those who approached me—in the corner, on the couch—but began conducting myself in a more and more performative way.
Not performing for anyone.
Just aware of being watched.
Laughing more.
Once the bean kicked in I started wilding.
Flirting up a storm.
Up and off the couch.
Roaming.
No one was off-limits.
Anyone could get it.
Whispered into peripheral bae’s ear “We both know we both want it. Have wanted it. Tonight’s the night. Tonight you can get it.”
Then winked and backed away, into a crowd.
Told ex-roomie bae’s out-of-town, pretty-boy bestie “No you’re right, I guess I don’t know until I’ve tried it. So what are you gonna do to try me?”
Went up to unfamiliar bae, in the middle of a convo, and corralled her into my dancing vortex when “Starboy” came on for the umpteenth time.
Went “Ayyy, college!” when ex-roomie bro said “Her?! She’s still in college, bro!” after I asked him if he knew unfamiliar bae and, if so, what her deal was.
Side bae was less than impressed.
Cornered me in the packed kitchen, by the drink station.
Said You need to focus.
Gestured circularly in her face area.
On this.
On me.
Then put her hand on her hip and cocked her head like And? What do you have to say to that?
Oh side bae.
Side bae, she was a grown-ass woman.
Had two years on me.
Sexy when she told me what to do.
She knew what she wanted, and how to make known her terms and conditions.
Thing was, that was only the half.
I knew what I wanted. I’d made known my terms and conditions.
But getting them…
“Hahaaa, ayyy, woah,” I said.
“Whattaya want from me, bae?” I said.
“Skiddly doot pop?” I said, handling her hips, touching groins, and smelling her all over—neck, pits, tummy.
Side bae said: “Dance floor.”
Grabbed my wrist and led me two rooms over, through a crowd, to the front room.
To the dance floor.
Danced with a coy pout on her face, directed towards me until I gave her my full attention; then away from me once I did, but dancing for me, wanting me to watch; and then towards me again when she noticed I wasn’t watching.
Confusing.
Sexy!
But confusing.
I couldn’t stay focused.
So many baes.
Too many feelings.
Multidirectional feelings.
And never enough to fill the hole inside.
Got ensnared in unfamiliar bae’s dance vortex.
Got sent spiraling her way.
Wasn’t two two-steps in when I felt myself yanked another way.
Side bae pulled me into a corner. Hard.
Harder than she meant to, maybe, because immediately after she went small again.
She’d initiated it; but somehow, I felt like the dominant one.
Like she wanted me to be the dominant one.
Like she was testing me.
So I did the only thing I could think to. What I coulda sworn she wanted.
Grasped her by the neck—firmly enough for her to feel it, gently enough to not leave a mark or obstruct her breathing, just like she’d taught me—and pinned her to the wall, leaning in to nuzzle her ear.
She grabbed my wrist. Hard.
Said No.
Not here.
Not in front of people.
Not unless I say to.
•
Around 2 a.m.
Big Indian dude I didn’t recognize, hovering in the front room. By the piano.
Swaying slightly.
Looking lost.
“My guy,” I said. “Doin arite?”
He looked at me surprised, like Me?
Yeah you, pal.
Oh yeah, me, doing great.
“Fuck yeah!”
“…”
“Drink?”
I poured him and myself a shot of the sake I’d brought, that I’d been lugging around, then lost, then found, then was lugging around again.
He looked around skittish, eyes bulgy and unfocused.
We cheers’d.
“Yo so you Indian, huh?”
“Yuh.”
“Lit. Born there?”
He told me he was born in Baltimore. Where his parents immigrated to.
“Ah,” I said. “B-more.”
Made a Wire reference.
Side bae entered the front room, looking tired.
Gave me a cryptic, mostly frustrated-seeming look.
Went upstairs with her bestie.
To re-up, probably.
“Well here’s to our respective Asian brethren. Holding down our respective motherlands,” I said, pouring and shooting another shot.
Started rolling a cig.
“Y’know,” I said. “I was actually born in Tokyo. Lived there till I was five. Been back a few times since.
“Recently, as I learned more about my family history—white dad’s dad a U.S. Air Force pilot, mom’s dad’s entire fam besides him bombed out and merked by U.S. planes—I started to wonder why my mom moved us. Why she let me lose my Japanese. Why she let me get so detached from Japanese culture.
“Can’t even speak to my baba hardly!
“But what I realized—,” I began.
Before side bae started tugging on me again.
“This way.”
I looked at Indian homie like in slo-mo.
Like ‘Nooooooo!’
Like ‘Brrrrrbbbbbbbb!’
He receded past the wall and out of sight as I fell back, through the middle room, into the kitchen, and out the back door. Down the back steps, to the backyard. Where side bae fed me more drugs.
Commotion in the front room, when I returned.
Front door wide open, wind billowing up the curtains.
Weird contrast between the fluorescent streetlight outside, emanating off the snow in the yard, and the blacklight of the front-room dance floor.
“Starboy” blasting again.
Forged ahead, to close the door.
Partiers adjacent to it, talking like discussing versus talking like flirting.
Not closing the door.
Why weren’t they.
Right when I was about to, Indian dude came barging in.
“Ayyy, woah,” I said, arms wide in welcome before, a split second later, realizing this wasn’t one of those barge-ins.
This was a different kind.
“Bud, bud, hey,” I said, blocking his path and spreading my arms, but now to stabilize him.
“Where ya goin.”
“Fuck you motherfucker,” he yelled. “All o’ yous.”
“Bud, what happened.”
He flailed to his right, to a group of white girls.
“Ohhhkay,” I said, grabbing him by his shirt collar and pushing him back.
“And you!” he yelled over my shoulder. “Fuck you too, white motherfucker!”
Jeez.
Dude was heavy.
Pushing him, I felt like a lineman pushing those dummy linemen linemen push in football practice drills.
Ex-roomie bro—whom he was pointing at—was like Wha?—before Indian dude grabbed the coat rack over my head and tried to blitz past me—before ex-roomie bro hit him with a linebacker tackle and pushed him back to where I’d gotten him.
Back into the doorway.
I threw all the coats off me like “Ohhhkay, done playing nice.” Pushed him through the boot room and down the front steps. Like Fuck outta here, bitch.
Was pissed now.
But also hyper-lit, euphoric almost, given the adrenaline plus molly.
Indian dude hit the pavement like thwack.
Slid some feet on the ice.
Then popped back up, eyes bulgy and crazed, like he was on bath salts or some shit.
“The fuck, dude,” I said. “Thought we were cool.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Fuck you and fuck you,” he said, pointing at ex-roomie bro and other ex-roomie bae’s boo, T, who lived around the corner. “Fuck all you white motherfuckers. Colonizers, all o’ yous.”
I started laughing.
“Bro—what are you even talking about? Weren’t we literally just talking about—”
Before one of the girls from the whitegirl trio he’d flailed at, who’d followed me out, cut in like “Dude. Chill. You need to go. You’re making it worse.”
“I need to chill?” I said, feeling gaslit. “I—”
“Yeah you. Back inside. We got this.”
Speaking to me like a grade school teacher.
Ex-roomie bro and T were hovering in front of Indian dude, crouched and hands raised, like animal trainers coercing a tiger back into its cage.
What I was going to continue saying to Indian dude before side bae yanked me away was,
“But what I realized was, for however much I want to rep the motherland, be bitter towards America for merking 1/20 of Japan’s population, I actually know next to nothing about Japan.
“About Japanese culture.
“Japanese homogeneity.
“Japanese gender roles.
“Like, my mom had to have had her reasons for not only not wanting to raise me and my sisters over there, but for leaving herself.
“Like, every other nation has an ethnic identity. America is the only one that doesn’t.
“That takes on, as its national identity, the task of working through ethnic differences.
“Of uniting them.
“To assume it was all my dad’s idea to leave Japan is like weirdly patronizing to my mom…
“Y’know?”
Partiers inside explained that Indian dude was ‘coming on to girls too strong,’ so ex-roomie bro had stepped in.
Told him he was ‘making girls uncomfortable.’
That he ‘had to cool off.’
At which point…
Heard yelling out front.
Plus needed to smoke.
So went out front.
Sat on the top step.
T had Indian dude in a headlock.
Was going “Chill! Chill!”
Ex-roomie bro was on the ground also, hugging Indian dude’s legs together like a koala on a tree.
“What. In. The,” I said.
Lit my cig.
Unable to not laugh.
“I know! I’m sorry about my ancestors! I hate myself for my ancestors!” T yelled. “Now stop resisting!”
“You white motherfuckers,” Indian dude kept yelling. “Murdered my people!”
“Dudes,” I said. “What are y’all doing? Bro is clearly blackout and needs to get home, all there is to it—”
“Not now, dude!” said white girl from earlier.
I put my hands up and zipped it.
But she seemed to hear me.
“You guys, I’m calling him an Uber,” she said. “Let him stand!”
“You gonna chill?” T said.
Indian dude wriggled, then stayed still.
“OK,” T said. “I’m letting you go now.”
T and ex-roomie bro backed off slowly.
Indian dude stood, swaying a sec.
White girl approached.
“Just gimme your address, K?” she said in a baby voice.
Indian dude looked around like he’d just been teleported here and was gathering his bearings.
Before looking around horrified suddenly.
Like this was the wrong teleportation stop.
“Look,” white girl said. “I just need—”
Indian dude swiped the phone out of her hand. Sent it bouncing down the walkway, out the yard, to the sidewalk.
Then flung her back, over the row of potted plants, against the chain link fence.
Like a rag doll.
“Bro!” ex-roomie bro and T yelled, tackling him.
“Gonna be some medical bill,” ex-roomie bro said.
“What other choice did we have?” T said.
He gave a thumbs-up to the ambulance driver as he pulled away, lights flashing but siren off.
“I had a bad feeling about tripping tonight,” ex-roomie bro said.
“Yeah, me too,” T said, rubbing his forehead.
3
SHAWN
January 2018
Went out to my stoop to smoke.
To stimulate the stimulants I’d just railed.
Parka’d up.
Clear night.
Cold as shit, still.
But clear.
Moon full.
Second of the month.
The first was on the first.
This happened infrequently, I’d read.
Something in the air.
Had a round of edits on my Walk Book manuscript from editor bae to get to, but first had to figure out what my name was.
I had too many names.
‘Sean Conroe’ my American legal.
‘Sean Thor Conroe,’ full American legal.
Either worked, with the middle adding a tad of writerly pretension.
But so Anglo.
All Anglo.
Ignored the yellow half.
Its passport—the Japanese, birth country’s—read ‘Sho Kamura.’
Could take the first or last.
People did that, I was pretty sure.
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