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He bellows it anyway, fists in the air: “ROCKO ROCKS!”
If that’s the last thing I hear before I die, I’ll know I’m going to hell.
He slaps me on the back, and it’s the slap that breaks the seal, like a rubber band snapped against my skin. My teeth grit and the old rage rises. Until I swallow it down.
It’s a woman who sidles up to me next, flustered and horny.
“Oh my god, itisyou!” She leans over so her breasts brush against my arm. “I’m sorry, I never do this, but I had to come talk to you…Ilovedyour show, it was my absolute favorite…”
From the number of people who have told me this, you’d thinkRocko Rocks!had a hundred million viewers.
She giggles. “I even had your poster on my wall…”
I bet I know which poster it was: Reese, hair flopping down over his eyes, pouting moodily in a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off.
“I had such a crush on you…,” she breathes, batting her heavily mascaraed lashes.
This woman is actually pretty attractive. She’s probably ten years older than me, but that’s surprisingly common for the Rocko-loving demographic. She’s got that hot-divorcee thing going on, which could mean a night of wonderfully spiteful sex.
But I’ve never yet sunk to pretending to be my brother to get women. That’s a bridge I won’t cross.
I remove the divorcee’s hand from my arm, gently.
“I hate to tell you this…but I’m not Reese Rivas.”
Her expression changes from adoration to annoyance in an instant.
“Liar!” she spits before turning on her heel and wobbling away.
When I get home,the house is completely dark, and the pool house, too, but that doesn’t fool me. There’s no way my dad’s asleep yet.
I knock on the pool house door then walk right in when I don’t get an answer.
He’s lying on the couch in the dark, TV silent. The vodka bottle on the coffee table is only a third empty, but who knows if that’s the first one of the day.
“Hey, Dad.” I sink into the overstuffed chair next to the couch.
“Hey, Sully.”
We sit quietly for a time, him thinking his thoughts, me thinking mine.
“I talked to Reese,” I say after a while.
“Yeah, he called me, too.”
“Says he should be back in a few weeks.”
“Yup.”
When Reese is in town, he stays in the main house with me. It’s big enough that all three of us could live in separate wings without bumping into each other, but our dad won’t sleep under that roof. It’s too painful for him. But he won’t sell the house, either.
“You want to watch a movie?” I say when the silence stretches on.
“Sure,” says my dad, though I know he could care less what I put on the screen.
Twenty minutes intoGhostbusters,I glance over. He’s staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t even crack a smile during that first scene with Bill Murray.
“You okay, Dad?”
