I grab the laptop and get the fuck out of this fucking cage and I lock it—a little late, asshole—and I trudge up the stairs and I lock the basement door—what a fucking asshole I am, I should lock myself in the basement—and that’s when I see another mess. Amy ransacked my least favorite section of the shop: drama. She stole acting manuals:

An Actor Prepares

10 Ways to Make It in Hollywood

How to Make Them Call You Back

Monologues for Women Volume IV

Are you fucking kidding me, you lying thieving hairy-legged beast? My head spins. Amy was not an untrained sociologist, wearing college paraphernalia to experiment on human behavior. She was not lying to Noah & Pearl & Harry & Liam. She was acting. Why else would she steal those manuals?

I sit down at the counter and wake up the laptop. She claims to be so off the grid and above this computer shit, but she managed to erase the recent search history. My cheeks sting at the idea of her on that floor, trying to block me, trying to clear the search she conducted on my computer. Well, she should have learned a little bit more about how these machines work, what they can do for me. Chrome isn’t that simple. She only cleared the last hour of her time on my computer, not the whole fucking history. I know my recent searches—rare books and motels in Little Compton—and it’s not exactly difficult to shine the light on her key fucking words:

UCB, cheapest headshots, free headshots, UCB classes cheap, Ben Affleck, top dollar used books, selling rare books, Philip Roth price, auditions, casting calls, blond girl next door audition, sublet Hollywood

She also didn’t clear her fucking downloads and I bring up her application to an Improv 101: Improv Basics class at Upright Citizens Brigade and a script for some short fucking film with a cover page that references a Craigslist ad. So the bitch has run away to try to make it in Hollywood. Making It in Hollywood is the most disgusting phrase in the English language. It’s more disturbing than prolific serial killer and rare terminal illness. I can’t wait to catch her and tell her what a deluded loser she is.

I print her search history and there is nothing more terrifying than realizing that the one who knows you best loves you least, pities you even. She knew I was fucked up and alone. She knew I wanted a blowjob and a girlfriend and she knew I wanted these things so badly that I would let her watch Cocktail fifty times a fucking week in my bed, that I would give her a fucking a key. I did that and I can’t undo it. But I can find her. I can eliminate her.

And I will. She doesn’t get to walk around thinking she got away with this. Fuck no. She doesn’t get to think that I’m a sucker who you can fuck over and dump with Charlotte & Charles. I lapped her nipples with my tongue and I ate her hairy bush and she used me. She is evil. She is dangerous. She is incapable of love. She is a sociopath. Worse than a borderline. That’s why she uses fucking burner phones. She’s a criminal.

She thinks she’s so smart but if you erase an hour, it doesn’t mean shit, not unless you erase the weeks leading up to that hour. She thinks life is better off the grid. Yeah. She’ll die thinking that. Cunt. I call JetBlue. I buy a ticket. Sorry, Amy. You lose.

6

IF there’s one thing I learned from that horny charlatan Dr. Nicky Angevine and his patient/mistress Beck, it’s that you can’t control what other people do. You can only control your thoughts. If there’s a mouse in your house you have to make it your business to remove that pest, set the traps, check the traps. Amy is my mouse, but this is my house and I’m deep into the extermination process already. I called the UCB and claimed to be a guy named Adam checking on my registration. This is how I was able to confirm that there is a girl named Adam, Amy reserved for an improv class.

I gave notice on my lease. Fuck that shithole and it’s time I got the hell out of here, out of my apartment where I bring the wrong women into my bed, cold city girls—their hearts are hard and pale—and I can’t become one of those New Yorkers who lets the city win. I won’t sit behind the counter of that fucking shop the next time some chick walks in and bats her eyelashes at me. I’m fucking done.

It’s June and the city is ripe with meaningless fecal heat. It will be a different kind of hot in LA, the kind that made the Beach Boys all tan and giddy, a heat that doesn’t harass you in the shade.

I get on the train and begin my last humid, smelly ride to Mr. Mooney’s. I thought about writing him a letter or calling him, but it’s been too many years. I owe him a good-bye. My trip ends, finally, and I leave the train where a mariachi band sets up and hoochies take selfies. Good-bye, subway people.

A guy in a suit emerges from a deli across the street with fresh roses, running, trying, believing. Idiot. I walk into the butcher and pick up Mr. Mooney’s favorite sausages. I hope he doesn’t cry. I hope he doesn’t try to lock me in his basement. I turn the corner and knock on his door.

He doesn’t smile. “Don’t tell me we got robbed again?

“No such luck, Mr. Mooney.” I laugh. He was almost happy when I called and told him about the robbery. He said that insurance money is the most beautiful kind of money there is in this world.

“Well, what’s wrong then?” he jabs.

“Nothing,” I insist. I hold up the sausages. “You hungry?”

He pushes open the screen door and waves me in. His house smells like kitty litter and old ladies and he doesn’t have a cat or a wife. He has two eggs on the stove and the radio on.

He puts my sausages in the old fridge. “You want some coffee milk?” he asks.

Nope. “Sure!”

He shakes the powdered concoction and sets a small chipped glass down on the table in front of me. He talks about a pillow he bought off an infomercial, how the dame on the phone said he couldn’t return it because thirty days had passed. He talks about the eggs at his local market. They used to be cheaper but now they’re ridiculously priced because they’re from some farm nearby. “In which case, they should be cheaper,” he rails. He waves his saggy arm. I don’t want to be like this someday, alone, frying eggs, eating local food in a stingy rage. But at the same time, I can’t imagine ever loving anyone ever again.

Mr. Mooney finishes frying the eggs and sits down with me at the table. The eggs are overcooked, glistening. I think he used a pound of butter and I don’t think he’s cleaned the skillet since 1978. “So to what do I owe this honor?” he asks.

I drink my coffee milk. By some miracle, I keep it down. “Well,” I say. “I’ve decided I need a change. I’m moving to Los Angeles.”

He burps. It’s wet. Flappy shards of eggs fly out of his mouth. “What’s her name?”

“Whose name?”

“The girl,” he says. “Nobody moves anywhere unless it’s about a girl.”

I hesitate, then tell him about Amy, her desire to be an actress, the way she kept it from me. I don’t tell him that she was the thief.

“I knew there was a girl.” He dips his finger into the ketchup on his plate and licks it off. “You might be wiser to let her go.”

I shake my head. “This is something I have to do.”

Mr. Mooney sighs. “Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.”

“Frank Lloyd Wright said that.”

“He was right.” Mr. Mooney rises from his seat and tosses his rank sponge in the sink. “Los Angeles is the seat of evil, Joseph. It’s the womb of idiocy. It’s where everything bad comes from, the peak of the volcano of this nation’s stupidity. It’s no place for an intelligent man. That’s why there’s nothing to watch on the damn television set. You’re better off here.” He’ll never say it but he’s going to miss me. “I’ll give you my e-mail address so we can keep in touch.” He takes my plate and stacks it on his. I know if I offer to do the dishes he’ll be pissed. “E-mail is baseless,” he dismisses me. “Just promise me you won’t waste your life on a damn computer.”