How To Save A Life

by P. Dangelico

  Yeah, awkward. Every time I run into this guy I look like a sweaty rented mule. Considering how long I haven’t cared what I look like, the feeling coming over me now is strange and unpleasant. Veronica will be thrilled to hear it.

  “How did you find me?” I ask as I whip off the bandana and stuff it into my back pocket. It feels wrong having a serious conversation with this man wearing a napkin on my head.

  He takes my business card out of his pocket and holds it up. “Riley James Jr. Owner, H&D Home Improvements. Licensed and bonded contractor,” he reads out loud. “I was going to call Uber, but then I found this in the Bentley…tracked down the address of the LLC. I thought maybe you worked for him.”

  He says it so casually I almost miss the fact that he just admitted to a crime. “Pretty sure that’s illegal.”

  “There are ways…” He looks around. As disinterested as always. “Your neighbor told me where to find you.”

  Great. Twice as awesome. She’s giving my whereabouts to a total stranger. I make a mental note to raise Mrs. Argento’s rent.

  “So…umm, are you interested in doing some home improvements?” Fingers crossed he doesn’t want his money back because that would be super uncomfortable.

  “No.” He looks down at the business card caught between two of his fingers. I have a thing about hands, and he has nice ones. “Your name’s not Imelda Marcus.”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Yo, Rie,” Tommy shouts from somewhere behind me. “Time’s wasting.”

  As if Tommy has ever cared about wasting time. Or anything else for that matter. “Go finish the roof over the porch!” I shout in return. “I’ll be right there.”

  When he doesn’t respond, I glance over my shoulder and find him staring at West. The dick swinging is nothing new, but this is business and he needs to step off. This earns him a raised eyebrow. Thankfully, he finally gets the message and walks away.

  Back to the guy standing before me, however. “I’m Riley James Jr.”

  “Who is that guy?” He motions to where Tommy was standing moments ago.

  “No one. An employee.” I’m not about to answer inappropriate questions from a nosy stranger. Enough of this dance. “Jordan, right? Look, if you came to get your cash back––”

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  That’s a relief because Facebook does not offer refunds. “Why are you here then?”

  West nods, his gaze pointed over my shoulder. “How do you feel about kids?”

  Kids? Huh? Is he drunk again? What do kids have to do with anything? The question is so preposterous I forget to be intimidated and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “We just met. Slow down.”

  Yeah, he doesn’t think it’s funny. His face stays stone cold sober, and the little bit of fun I was having is immediately snuffed out. Whatever. I clear my throat. Back to business.

  “I like kids. What’s not to like?” I did not peg this guy as a dad. He definitely does not give off dad vibes and neither did his place. Come to think of it, there was no sign of a kid at his apartment. “Sooo, I kinda need to get back to work…”

  “I came to offer you a job.”

  More shocking revelations. “Did you say a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “I…uh, I don’t need a job.”

  “As a personal assistant.”

  I already have two jobs that keep me very busy. I certainly don’t have time for another. “I’m not looking for a job.”

  He crosses his arms and his gaze narrows. I almost look around to see if I missed something. He seems very intent on…this job thing. What the heck is going on here?

  “You haven’t heard my offer.”

  “I’ve already got––”

  “Name your price.”

  I’m starting to feel like someone is playing a prank on me. I mean, who is this guy––Pat Sajak? “I don’t have a price.”

  He gets this funny little V in between his brows, like he’s genuinely perplexed that I haven’t fallen to my knees and kissed his––I glance down––Asics.

  “Everyone has a price. Go ahead, shoot.”

  “Look, Jordan––”

  “Three thousand a week plus overtime.”

  Okay…Okay, it takes some effort to not let my jaw hit the ground. Three grand a week. Twelve thousand a month. For a job as a personal assistant? What exactly am I supposed to be assisting––bank robbery? A hostile takeover of a small South American country?

  “I’ll even throw in a top shelf insurance plan,” he adds, continuing his pitch as if he hasn’t heard me turn him down. He is persistent––I’ll grant him that. Which naturally leads me to wonder…

  “Why me?”

  He looks off again, his expression borderline annoyed. This guy must be a real peach to work for. I’m starting to understand why he pays so well.

  “I tend to be a hard on people.” His eyes meet mine, scrutinizing me, sizing me up. “I get the feeling you can handle it.”

  Huh. Strangely, I take it as a compliment. And for reasons unknown, I think he meant it as such. Regardless, my head starts shaking before I can even get the words out.

  H&D is all I’ve ever wanted. The income is still very inconsistent––which is why I wait tables four days a week. And I reinvest a lot of the profits back into my fledgling business. But I’m finally getting the word-of-mouth recommendations I need, and if I hit pause now, I’ll lose all that momentum.

  “Between my business and the restaurant––it’s all I can handle.”

  His mouth gets tight and he gives a little shake of his head. “Fine. Four thousand.”

  “No, no. That’s not…I’m not shaking you down. It’s a generous offer, really. I just…can’t.”

  “You’re turning down four thousand a week?” His voice conveys all the disbelief I’m feeling. I mean…it’s four thousand dollars.

  Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I force the words out one by one. And it’s painful. Lordy it’s painful. Letting money go is always painful for me. “Yeah…yeah, I am. But hey, with digits like that, you’ll find someone in no time.”

  In. No. Time.

  He nods. Hesitating, he gives me a strange look. I have no clue what it means; this guy is full of long thousand-yard stares that make no sense to me. I’m a pretty straightforward person. Sad equals frown. Happy equals smile. And angry means you’re going to get an earful. Why hide your emotions when life is already complicated enough.

  For a moment, I get the impression he’s about to speak again, but then he turns to leave, heading straight to the dark gray Audi Q8 with tinted windows parked at the curb. When he reaches the door, he takes a last look at me.

  Depressed Bruce Wayne is one dramatic guy.

  “Have a nice life Riley James Jr,” carries across the front lawn.

  “Yeah…you too,” I offer in return. It’s a little late for goodbyes, however. By the time I get around to it, the Audi is pulling away from the curb and tearing down the street.

  Chapter Four

  Riley

  “What are you doing here?”

  In the alleyway outside the service entrance of the restaurant Tommy is waiting for me in his faded red 1990 Jeep Wrangler with the chipped tail light and the original tape deck player.

  We haven’t spoken since we got in an argument three days ago, the day Jordan West showed up at my job site and offered me a…job. Yeah, that still sounds strange––even in my head. Anyway, Tommy insisted on knowing who the unexpected visitor was and I insisted that it was none of his business. And then he did the unforgivable––he left the job site without helping me and Fat Jesus clean up.

  He’s lucky I didn’t have a nail gun handy or I would’ve driven one straight through his pretty head.

  “’Sup, babe.” Smiling widely, he throws one well-muscled arm around the headrest of the passenger seat. The smile is forced though. I know him too well not to notice.

  �
��Don’t call me that. You know I hate it.” He knows because I’ve told him no less than a million times. The same way I know he calls me that whenever he wants something.

  “Again, why are you here?” I walk to the passenger side door and await an explanation that my female intuition tells me I won’t like.

  There are only two reasons Tommy would ever drive into the city: a Tinder date or money. And God knows I’m no Tinder date.

  There was a weird point in time, when I was sixteen, that Tommy fancied himself in love with me. Thankfully, it lasted only slightly longer than one of his naps. Throwing cold water on that was the best decisions I’ve ever made.

  For years, I watched him burn through scores of girls. The potholes in Staten Island are literally filled with the broken hearts of the ones Tommy used and dumped, and I wasn’t about to be one of them. Besides, I didn’t want to lose him as a friend and inevitably I would have.

  “Hop in. I’ll drive you home.”

  With a growing knot in my stomach, I throw my messenger bag into the back seat and climb in. Tommy presses play on the tape deck and Bruce Springsteen’s voice filters into the warm night sky. The only thing Tommy cares about is music. He even has a halfway decent voice. Unfortunately, he lacks a more important part of the anatomy––the guts to see it through.

  “…So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore. Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night. You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re al right…”

  “Remember when we used to hang at the dock with Mike and Kelly and Jorge and we would blast this song and the people in the apartments across the street would scream at us,” he says, reminding me of when were teenagers.

  It reminds me that while Jorge was lucky enough to join the military and get out of here, Mike died of an overdose and Kelly is still dealing.

  We don’t speak for two blocks as the music takes me away to a place in my head where I’m not dreading what he’s going to say next. Then we hit a red light and he turns down the volume. Next to the Jeep, ribbons of steam rise out of the manhole covers. It reminds me of my Dad.

  When I was seven, I overheard him talking to one of his friends about Puff the Magic Dragon. When I asked him what it was, he convinced me that it was the name of the dragon living under the streets of New York City with his dragon family. I fully believed it until my mother disabused me of that notion when I was nine.

  “No, your father is not going to get better, Riley,” she lashed out one night when he was really sick. “He needs to stop filling your head with fantasies like the story about the dragons.”

  “I messed up, Rie,” Tommy says, bringing me back to the present.

  The knot in my stomach tightens. I turn to take in just how seriously Tommy messed up this time and find him staring out ahead, his face tight, his gaze vacant.

  “How bad?” I’m compelled to ask because judging by his expression I would guess really bad.

  “Bad.” He chews on the inside of his cheek. “I owe money.”

  “…I’m no hero, that’s understood. All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood with a chance to make it good somehow. Hey, what else can we do now except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair…”

  Bruce’s words spill over my thoughts and fall through the cracks, float away on the wind. Not even Bruce can lessen the tension building in the Jeep. A metric ton of weight sits on my chest. I can hardly breathe as I force the words out of my mouth. “How much?” The silence continues for another minute and with it my anxiety grows. “How much, T?”

  “It was a poker game… a fucking setup…”

  The Jeep drives onto the Verrazano Bridge and the whirring sound of the deep tread tires on the metal grate coupled with the wind has me practically shouting. “How much?”

  He exhales tiredly. “Thirty.”

  Thirty. Thirty thousand dollars. The gravity of it presses down on my chest and bile shoots up the back of my throat.

  “Pull over,” I croak as soon as we reach the other side. When he takes too long, the panic spirals out of control. “I said pull over!”

  He makes a hard stop in a dark deserted alley between two brick buildings. I jump out and walk in circles, trying not to breathe too deeply the smell of motor oil and garbage hanging in the air. Anything to stave off the imminent projectile vomiting.

  “You okay?”

  “No! No, I’m not okay.”

  Lacing his hands behind his head, he stares up at the night sky with a defeated look on his face, and I’m torn between wanting to smother him in his sleep and feeling bad for him. This is our relationship in a nutshell.

  “Thirty thousand…” I still can’t wrap my head around it. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Other than looking sheepish, he doesn’t even try to defend himself. “Who do you owe?”

  “Ivan DeloRusso.”

  Ivan is the local mobster. Although he pretty much sticks to gambling, this is not the person whose wrong side you want to be on.

  “Fuck.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I have five thousand set aside for my business insurance. If you’re not bonded, there’s slim to no chance of finding work in home repair. It’s career suicide, but there’s no choice. It’s Tommy. And we always have each other’s back. Even now, when I look at him, all I see is the boy with the perpetual black eye.

  After my dad died, my mother spent weeks in bed crying, mourning, doing everything other than taking care of her twelve-year-old daughter. Which meant I spent my summer sitting on the front stoop, watching life go on without me, wondering when it would get better, when my mother was going to be normal again. Spoiler alert: never.

  It wasn’t all bad. People looked in on us. They were kind and helpful. The fraternity is a strong one. They brought food, sat with her. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what was going on with Bonnie James, but resources were stretched thin. We weren’t the only ones suffering. Other first-responder families were facing similar ordeals.

  There was a man renting the house across the street. Single, around mid-fifties. His name was Marvin Stills and he was always nice to us. We’d known him for years. He’d wave when he got home after work, ask us if we needed anything, took in the empty garbage cans and placed them by our garage when my mother forgot which was often.

  One afternoon, as I watched him mow the front lawn, he stopped and asked if I wanted to see his bunnies. He kept a hutch in his backyard, near the detached garage. So I followed him, eager to do anything other than watch everyone else go on with life and not eager to go back inside and listen to my mother cry.

  I often think about that moment. What if I’d said no? What if I’d gone back inside and watched TV? Would my life be different now?

  Marvin wasted no time acting on his impulse. In hindsight he’d probably been planning it for a while, biding his time like any seasoned predator. As soon as he ushered me into the backyard, out of sight of the street and behind the garage, he pushed me to the ground and covered my mouth with his dirty palm. It reeked of body odor, and motor oil, grass clippings. To this day I hate the smell of recently cut grass. I didn’t realize what was happening until I was on my back and he was ripping my pink terry cloth shorts off.

  At first I was in complete shock, paralyzed, not so much out of fear but my brain couldn’t process what was happening fast enough. It feels like you’re having an out-of-body experience, disconnected from this horrible event you have no control over. Then my underwear came off, and something kicked into gear, some stored-up reserve of energy.

  I started screaming, trying to push him off. But I was twelve and he was an old man. He was fumbling around with his pants when all of a sudden his body disappeared. One minute an oppressive, crushing weight was on top of me, nearly suffocating me to death, and the next it was gone.

  I scrambled to my feet and snatched my shorts off the ground, turned my back to whatever was going on around me, and th
ere was definitely something going on. If you’ve ever heard the sound of flesh meeting flesh, bone being crushed under unrelenting force, you know it’s a sound you will never forget.

  Shaking, I stepped back into my shorts and turned around to find fifteen-year-old Tommy Marsden straddling Stills’s prone body, pummeling his bloodied face into something unrecognizable, something inhuman. Tommy was in another world, beating Stills like he was making up for lost time, getting payback for every injustice ever done in the world. I can still see the old man’s body jerking every time Tommy’s fist connected with his face in crystal clarity.

  All I knew about Tommy back then was that he lived two doors down from us and his father liked to use him as a punching bag when he drank. I rarely saw him around the neighborhood without a black eye.

  Tommy must have sensed me watching because he stopped beating Stills and looked up at me, his anger barely leashed. He looked like a wild animal.

  “Go home. Don’t tell no one what happened,” he said. It was the first he’d every spoken to me. When I didn’t move, he added, “You’re okay, right?”

  It was less a question and more a statement. Now I realize it’s how he survived the hell that was his childhood––convincing himself he was okay. That everything was copacetic. But back then I took it as an order and it was probably for the best. I wasn’t ready to understand and process what had happened.

  I nodded, an understanding passed between us, and I left, wiping away the tears and dirt––the evidence––off my face. I never saw Stills again. The next day his car was gone, and so were the bunnies. Tommy and I never discussed what happened that day. But that day changed everything.

  “When is he expecting it?”

  There’s a pause. “Soon…now, I guess.”

  “Let me think about it. I’ll come up with something.” When he doesn’t acknowledge my command, it sets off another round of alarm bells. “Tommy do not do anything stupid. Nothing. You hear me? I’ll figure something out.”

  He nods, and we climb back into the Jeep. The rest of the car ride home is conducted in silence. Not even Bruce can make this better.