“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” he says, and I feel bad for him. He’s so close. And he’s going to get closer. He’ll come in here tomorrow talking about The Godfather Part III and asking me if I heard about a cop disappearing in Mexico, a guy named Fincher who also visited the set of Boots and Puppies. But the thing is, it’s all circumstantial evidence. It’s not enough to keep me here. I was very good at killing people when I needed to be.
Was. The past tense. I’m retired.
And really, when you grow up, and get over yourself, when you fuck narcissism and leave the hashtags at the door, you see what really matters in life. What matters is what you do next. I get it. And this is America. You have to prove that someone did something and they can’t prove that I did anything.
In Fast Five, Dom is in a prison bus, glum. His friends force the bus to crash so they can free him. But my team doesn’t have to do that for me. They won’t be able to convict me or get me on a bus because there is no evidence of my past actions. Well, aside from the baby growing inside of Love.
Prison isn’t that bad and I treasure the solitude. From everything I know about parenting, I expect that in a few months, I’ll be glad I got to spend some time alone before becoming a father. We all need to be with our thoughts. Angelenos like to meditate and stare at expensive statues of Buddha, and I stare at the cement. Same difference. I learn to smile at everyone and I feel the world reciprocate.
The guards are polite. And then when I’m not alone, I’m in the room. I kind of like it in there, the way Detective Carr challenges me every day. My lawyer says I’m damn good under pressure. This is all great research for my screenwriting career and I can see myself writing a movie that takes place during a trial. I use this time to learn how to become the best possible father, to figure out how to provide for my family. One day Love and I will be buried together or cremated, I haven’t decided yet, and Detective Carr will undoubtedly spend eternity in a plot selected by his controlling wife.
“Don’t move,” Detective Carr says. He leaves and this is the most awkward time for me, when I am the most afraid for my safety, when I know they are watching me, studying my face, trying so hard to figure me out, talking shit about me, speculating. I have no phone to play with, no TV to watch. I look into the orb that connects me to them. I wait. In my head, I recite Corinthians; Love is patient, love is kind.
This is how you get away with murder, how you get out of the interrogation room—a woman cop comes for me okay, let’s move you back—and this how you get escorted into the safety of your cell, locked up, left alone to recover from the day’s needling, to dream of what might come tomorrow or the next day. You believe in love. It really is all you need, although yes, a solid defense attorney helps too. But I do believe in love, in Love, and when it’s time, I will hold our baby. The thought soothes me and the mattress feels softer.
Life puts you in cage so that you’ll treasure your freedom, how lucky you were to be running on a beach, the way your girlfriend looked over her shoulder at you, the ring you did not fashion out of a straw. All time is good. No time is hard, not if you think of it as time to celebrate love.
I roll over into the fetal position and I think of my child, in the same position, so much younger, unconscious, gestating, serving time just like Daddy, waiting. It doesn’t fully exist yet, but Love and I created a human, a boy or a girl, we don’t know, can’t know. It’s too early. You could say the same thing about my fate. The future is a frontier we can’t fully explore until we make it there, but then we arrive, and the distant horizon has become something else, something less romantic. It’s just the present—the mattress coils in my back, the bars on my cell, Love waiting for me to come home.
You think about this stuff in jail so you don’t go crazy. You realize your intuition is stronger than science, truer than a molecule. I feel it in my caged gut. I will be free soon. I also know that we’re going to have a baby girl. I don’t have to close my eyes to see her, a little version of Love with my dark irises on her heart-shaped face. I smile. We exist. We are both on a journey and we are both in love and that’s all anyone can hope for in life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IT’S time to thank all the people who worked zealously to bring this book into your hands. Everyone at Emily Bestler Books, Atria, and Simon & Schuster, I thank you. My editors Emily Bestler and Megan Reid ask smart questions. Line for line, you care and invest. I am continuously awestruck. I count my blessings for Josh Bank, Lanie Davis, and Sara Shandler at Alloy Entertainment. Your eyes and ears mean the world to me. You get it. ☺ I’m grateful to Les Morgenstein, Judith Curr, David Brown, and Jo Dickinson. You are champions. Natalie Sousa, thank you for your astounding ability to tell a story with images. Santino Fontana, thank you for your voice.
Big thanks to the WME team. Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Claudia Ballard, Laura Bonner, Maggie Shapiro, and Katie Giarla, you make wonderful things happen.
To my mom: You have always made me feel like everything I write is an event, like it matters. You are brave and honest. Thank you for saying hmmm.
To my dad: Thank you for your voice. You are always with me. Your clarity and your chutzpah, your poetic nature and your love of words, you live on.
I love the world of books. It’s a joy to connect with readers, bloggers, librarians, booksellers, authors, journalists, and podcasters. The bright side of technology is a tweet from someone who was up all night reading your book. I love you guys for reaching out to ask for more Joe.
Finally, I raise my glass of vodka to my beloved friends and family. You crack me up. You make me think. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for your love.