I Loved J.J. Dufresne's Best Friend

I met J.J. Dufresne through his best friend.

I was in love with his best friend. Serious love. Love that had me up all night. Love that had me writing poetry about J.J.'s best friend's socks and ankle bones. I wrote things like, I want the sweetness of possibility, the curl of night against skin, the dark scrape of teeth on bone.

If J.J. ever read those poems and knew they were about his best friend he would pretended to gag. "I don't get it," he would say. "He's kind of a douche."

Even so, that douche introduced me to J.J. Dufresne. Back then J.J. had spiky hair. He wore t-shirts with holes in them, t-shirts that had the words PORK CHOP SANDWICH or BEN'S CHILI spelled out in big letters on their fronts. When he got drunk he let me do things to him. He allowed me to pull his hair into a tight ponytail at the top of his skull, and he also let me drape my purple boa around his shoulders.

I did all those things because I wanted to appear fun. I wanted J.J.'s best friend to notice me and say, "Hey now. That Brandi girl, she's not so bad."

That didn't happen. J.J.'s best friend noticed another girl, a girl with nicer breasts and hair, and he brought me to a bar one night to let me down gently. We ordered some drinks. He told me about his new love and their exciting new love life. He told me he hoped I'd be able to cope with my grief because he knew how much I liked him. Then he suggested that as a first step in getting over him, I should go on a date with someone.

"You know," he said, "J.J.'s single."

I wanted to put a knife through his eye, but I somehow restrained. Instead, I went back to my apartment, stopping first at the Kwik-Trip for a gallon of orange juice. When I got home I dumped half the juice down the drain and filled the rest of the bottle with vodka. Then I sat on my couch and drank it and cried and talked on the phone with people who listened to me cry.

I spent at least a month thinking the rest of my life was going to be hell because I couldn't have J.J. Dufresne's best friend for my very own. Then one day I was sitting in a class, sitting right next to J.J., and he was drawing his trademark big-chinned, warty cartoon man that went on everything from birthday cards to workshopped short stories. I watched as he looped the big loop for the chin. I watched as he drew in a hairy mole and a heart-shaped tattoo. Then, without missing a beat, J.J. Dufresne extended his drawing hand to my notebook and he scratched the word FART in bold letters across the notes I'd just taken on contemporary schools of poetry. After he finished flourishing the T, J.J. resumed the shading of his big-chinned man. And that's when I realized that the real prize in my coming to Minnesota was not meeting J.J. Dufresne's best friend—a boy J.J. would go on to refer to as not only a douche but also an asshole, jackass, cock-knock, jizz-mouth, and fuckhead—but meeting J.J. Dufresne himself. That was worth everything in the world.

A conversation with my husband about J.J. Dufresne

Betty Sue: We have to get JJ something for Christmas.

Al: JJ! We're not getting anything for JJ! What are we getting JJ?

BS: A crockpot.

Al: A crockpot?! We're not getting JJ a crockpot.

BS: Then what do you want to get him?

Al: Nothing! I say we give him a great big dose of nothing.

BS: We're getting him a crockpot. He doesn't have a crockpot.

Al: (grumble grumble grumble)

BS: One of the big ones. Not cheap, either.

Al: (grumble grumble grumble)

J.J. and Piñata

I like his teeth.

An Amendment About His Tastes in Women

Forget what I said about slutty girls.

J.J. Dufresne's mother might not like slutty girls and she might be very sad if J.J. ever took up with one, but J.J. Dufresne really, really likes slutty girls. He'd prefer, of course, to have a Real Woman—one who could cook a killer meatloaf, one who would laugh at all his fart jokes, one who would smile and put her hands in his floppy hair, one who might, someday, sing their children to sleep—but those women are in short supply. J.J. Dufresne cannot find a Real Woman to save his life.

So he will take a slutty girl in the place of something more substantial.

J.J. Dufresne likes a girl he can meet in a bar, charm with a few stories about his life as a clerk in Washington D.C., and then take home. Once he gets them home, that's when J.J. will put down his best lines. He will show off his smoothest moves. He will offer the girl a beer or a cigarette, and then they will get naked.

Once, J.J. Dufresne told me a story about one of these slutty girls. He took her home. He got her in bed. She was going about her slutty business and doing her God's honest best on J.J.'s man parts, but J.J. wasn't having it. He didn't like her technique. He was feeling antsy. He'd brought this girl home with one goal in mind: complete and total satisfaction. What she was doing, however, didn't feel like it would ever come near complete and total satisfaction. But then the girl stopped her slutty business. She put her cheek on J.J.'s thigh. She rested.

Although J.J. wasn't a fan of her technique, he wasn't going to have the whole night be for nothing. J.J. Dufresne does not like a woman who quits. So, J.J. Dufresne reached down, took his man part up in his hand, and whapped the slutty girl on the cheek with it.

"I just wanted to wake her up a little bit," J.J. Dufresne explains when I look at him, horrified. "Come on, she needed a little something."

Slutty Girls Scare Him

Especially when those slutty girls drink too many Mich Goldens with olives and fall asleep on his shoulder.

J.J. Dufresne's mother would not approve of this type of girl.

J.J. Dufresne Attempts a Booty Call

This summer J.J. Dufresne tried to take me to bed.

It was after 1:00 AM when he called. I was coming back to town after driving a friend home from the bar.

"Hello, J.J.,"I said when I answered my phone.

J.J. didn't waste any time. "I'm watching movies," he said. "I think you want to come over."

I thought of J.J. Dufresne's apartment and the pan of sticky rice that had been rotting there for at least two weeks. "J.J., are you trying to make a booty call?" I asked.

"I want your boobs," he said. "I really do."

He's Employed!

"Now I can pay my rent," he said.

"Now women will be interested in you," I said.

"They better be!"

Recent Communication with J.J. Dufresne...

During Which I Learned:

1. He has a head cold.

2. He does not have a crock pot.

3. He has never participated in a circle jerk.

4. He doesn't know if he got the job. He might know more tomorrow.

The Man

More about Who He Is

He likes Wonka bars and milk with his supper. He likes his cat Marvin and teaching small children how to make fart noises by blowing raspberries into the palm of their hands. He likes any girl who will let him touch her. He likes America. He is a Republican. He believes in God and baseball and pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. That he believes in it doesn't mean he does it. He is thirty-one years old.

Who is J.J. Dufresne?

He likes breakfast when someone else cooks it. He likes a sandwich that someone else has assembled. He likes milk that's not sour, but he'll drink it if it is. He likes a boob, no matter what size, and he isn't fussy about perkiness. He likes short stories by Raymond Carver. He likes things made out of butter. He likes the state of Minnesota, which is lucky because that's where his mom lives, and he loves his mom.