Know Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book One)

by Rachel Dunning

  “I think I finally do understand it, bro. I think I finally do.”

  We touch glasses. And Skate says, “Wait. What two mil place?”

  -3-

  Blaze snuggles over to my side and I put my arm around her shoulder, bring her to my chest. This is what “Boyfriends and Girlfriends” do, I think.

  “So, why this place?” Trev asks her, referring to Slambam.

  “There’s a band playing here that I’ve wanted to hear for some time. Red Lipstikk.”

  “They any good?”

  “Well, I heard some of their stuff online, but never seen them live.”

  I explain. “Blaze hooks up with local talent and mixes their stuff into her sounds. This way she keeps her music unique.”

  Trev raises his eyebrows. “Impressive.”

  Two dudes who look like secret service arrive. They get on the stage, kick a few things around. Nod at each other. The biggest of the two then gestures for someone to come in. I turn my head and see a frazzled blonde in torn stockings and thick black eyeshadow (or mascara—I never know the difference.) Her hair looks like she’s stuck her fingers in a plug (or just had one helluva good lay in the bathroom.) She’s in a slinky red dress—top to bottom—skin so pale she could be on Vampire Diaries. Red heels.

  The lipstick on her Liv Tyler lips is also red—redder than anything else she’s wearing.

  I look to Blaze. “Lead singer of Red Lipstikk?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “And what’s up with secret service there?”

  Blaze doesn’t know either.

  Red Lipstikk start their gig and I notice the lead singer’s accent is slightly Eastern. “Russian?” I ask Blaze.

  “Yes. Viktoriya Golovkina, that’s her name. Great voice.”

  Not gonna try and remember that last name, I decide. But Viktoriya should be easy enough. Although it’s probably spelled in some really weird Russian way.

  Viktoriya’s silver voice rattles the walls, and soon there are catcalls billowing up. Someone lights a smoke. Then another. There are no rules in Bushwick when the groove gets going.

  That will all end one day with gentrification.

  Soon the house is clapping and cheering and lighting up ciggies. Plumes of their smoke whisk around the speakers, creating a haze ahead of the band. Them and us. Only, it’s not.

  This band is like Blaze, I think. Playing to the crowd. Singing to the crowd.

  Blaze starts drumming her fingers and rocking her head. She bites her lip, closes her eyes, and I can see she’s disappeared into the music. Probably meeting with Viktoriya already in her mind.

  But it’s not only her. The sound is all-engulfing.

  Blaze’s body twists and squirms...

  I fan my shirt. Sit up. Tighten my legs. My girl.

  We—the boys—get into the sounds as well. Drumming. Clapping. Singing along. The band does a cover, and the crowd sings with them. It goes on for two, three hours?

  Encore after encore after encore, we’re beat, boozed up, and sweating like mad.

  Blaze’s head falls onto my chest; she holds my leg while Red Lipstikk mellows us out with easier tunes. Skate’s jacked up a smoke himself. Trev’s eyes are closing.

  A peaceful scene, right? Just like in an old movie? But every storm has its calm:

  A large dude with black hair appears suddenly. Looming over our table, hands pressed down on it, looking at Blaze.

  My skin bristles inexplicably. My fists clench.

  Blaze shoots up straight, stiff as a board. The dude says, “Błażej!”

  The way he’s looking at her—scowling, questioningly, as if she were some thing—I think: Don’t. Fuckin. Move. Bro. Or as god is my witness, I will slam your fucking head into this goddamned table.

  -4-

  “T—Tolek.”

  He’s scowling at her. And I don’t like it. Trev’s eyes have shot open, as if he can feel the sudden electricity in my mind. Skate’s a little mellower but I can see he’s with it as well, he can see the threat.

  Black-Haired Dude’s eyes flick to mine. It’s the kind of look that says, Oh, she’s with you now?

  It probably doesn’t help that this dude’s bulky and slightly pudgy frame, and his flat black hair, remind me so much of Dino Moretti. Gina Moretti’s brother. My Gina Moretti.

  And the skeleton in my closet.

  Even their damned eye color is the same—a thick and dark blue that looks almost black in this low-lit room.

  “Tolek” here (god, what a fucking name) lifts his chin in acknowledgment of my presence. When I don’t respond, he smirks. Now, to Blaze: “Heard you did good set on the weekend.”

  Thick accent. And the fact he called her by her Polish name means he’s probably from her old neighborhood.

  Blaze says nothing, only straightens her back even more. The dude’s so close to the bench that he’s blocking her from getting up. Keep her down where she belongs.

  I clear my throat, “Uhm, Blaze, I think I need the bathroom.”

  Her expression is confused. Like: You need the fucking bathroom when it’s clear this dude’s making me uncomfortable!?

  “Blaze. Bathroom. Please.”

  She shifts forward. Black-Haired Weird Name Dude doesn’t budge. Which is when I see my chance: “Bro. Move it.”

  And then he gets smart. Or not so smart, because there’s three of us and only one of him. But you catch what I mean. He says, “I not your bro.”

  Original.

  He glares me down. Real Clint Eastwood shit, you know? If my blood weren’t in a high rise, I might actually laugh. But I don’t laugh. I’m about to say something—

  “Tolek, please get out the way,” Blaze pleads.

  Tolek. But I’m just gonna call him bro from now on. Or maybe asshole.

  Tolek here shifts back, a fraction.

  Prick.

  I feel the nails digging into my palm.

  I’m still in my seat, in the corner. I don’t like this feeling. Trapped, unable to move.

  Skate muscles in and, speaking slowly (and a little inebriated, I confess), he says, “You know, bro, I don’t know if you can count, but there are three of us. And one of you.” Skate’s eyes don’t move from the half-empty (half-full?) beer glass his hands are currently wrapped around on the table.

  And I’m still in the corner! If this mother-eff doesn’t take another step back I swear I’m gonna jump on this table and slam into him!

  Skate’s statement, however, seems to bring reason to him. Because he does take a step back. And Blaze can now get up. But as she does, he inches forward just a little so that his chest momentarily touches her—

  Oh no you did NOT just do that!

  I fly in between the two of them! Big and Black Haired Bozo stands tallish, but I’m still taller than him by two foreheads. He squares his shoulders (which are wider than mine, I admit, but maybe a little on the flabby side) and says, “I just want to congratulate Błażej for her set.”

  There’s that thick accent again. “Somehow I don’t believe that’s all you wanted to do. And, seeing as she’s my girlfriend now, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave. Because I can’t say I like your attitude so far.”

  From behind me, “Deck, please—” She puts her hands on my arms, moves to my right. No one in the bar has picked up on the tension here, I notice.

  With a smirk, Tolek (god, what a fucking idiotic name!) says, “She no allowed to have male friend? You are crazy man who not let her be with other man?” He moves closer to me, so much so that I smell the mixture of tobacco and spearmints in his breath.

  And the tobacco’s winning.

  “You are...jealous?”

  What the fuck did you just say!?

  My arm moves—

  -5-

  If Blaze hadn’t clutched my wrist the instant she felt it move, it would currently be against this scumfuck’s cheek. And his cheek would be on the ground. Mouth bleeding.

  But she grabbed it.


  Hard.

  “Tolek! Enough!” She gets around me, positions herself between me and him.

  I don’t like this. Get behind me, Blaze.

  Playing the polite card, she sticks out her hand and says, “Tolek, th—thank you...for the compliment. Yes, I did have a good set.”

  Her hand hangs there for a decade.

  By the time he’s grabbed it, three things have already happened:

  One. He’s smirked, again. And the glint in his eyes made my heart turn to coal.

  Two. Trev and Skate have stood up, standing on either side of me.

  Three. His own posse has made itself visible outside the door. Three more guys. None very big, but their hands in their pockets make me think they won’t be fighting with their fists alone.

  And if that shit’s gonna hit, we’re all gonna be splattered.

  -6-

  “Trev, Skate, it’s cool. Sit. We’re cool.” I put my hands up in the air. I notice at the bar-counter next to me that a buxom redhead has picked up on the static charge here amongst us. I look at the three dudes by the door, blocking the exit. “Trev? It’s cool. Really.”

  Tolek the Twat here gives a winning smile. He knows I’ve seen his gangbangers. Staring straight at me, he says, “I want to talk to Błażej alone.”

  She answers, because I’m too flabbergasted at his fucking insolence to even get my lips moving! “Tolek, what do you want?”

  “To talk, Błażej.” Suddenly he looks like a puppy with a broken heart. The most dangerous kind. “Just talk. Please. Outside. You no accept my Facebook Friend request. I just want be friend again.”

  You’re kidding me...

  It’s taking all the strength I have to not strangle him, slowly, and painfully. But I manage not to.

  “We have nothing to say to each other. All we ever had to say was said the day you left my apartment.”

  He chews on this a second. Very literally. (Either that, or he’s got some bovine in him somewhere...)

  He looks up at me. And, in a final defense, points a finger at me. “Dis not over.” Then, finger back down, he glares at Blaze. “And you and me will talk! I promise you!”

  It feels like I’m resisting a semi-truck going at a hundred, not hitting this motherfucker this very second! And I would take him down. Oh yes I would. And when his mates came in, I’d go down fighting. And I wouldn’t care. Because one solid thwack to this dude’s chops would be worth all the pain in the world.

  One solid crack.

  He turns and leaves. One of the posse doormen waits longer then all the rest, then slams a fist into an open palm. Real original. Finally, he disappears as well.

  I put my hand on Blaze’s petite shoulders. She’s trembling.

  I think the redhead chewing gum next to us sums it up best: “What a fuckin asshole.”

  -7-

  Blaze might’ve tried to play it cool, but I can tell the dude got to her. Because she just about forgets to hook up with that Red Lipstikk singer, Viktoriya—the whole reason we came to Slambam tonight in the first place.

  The band has given way to a lesser known act, and Viktoriya sits at a booth with her band members, as well as one of the secret-service types who is most definitely not a band member—black suit, huge round face, chest nearly as large as Dwayne Johnson’s. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Viktoriya here was the First Daughter or something.

  We hang back while Blaze goes to her table to exchange details. Viktoriya stands when Blaze gets there, smiling widely. Then gives Blaze a hug like they’ve known each other for years. She gestures for Blaze to sit. Blaze shakes her head, points over at us. Blaze takes her phone out, and types in what I presume is Viktoriya’s number. The frazzled-haired blonde is really elated. She puts a hand on Blaze’s shoulder, then looks over at me. Blaze laughs. The blonde gives me a smirking I’d-Do-You-Twice look.

  I look away.

  Afterwards, Trev drives us home because the rest of us have too little blood left in the alcohol flowing through our veins after all those beers. He takes us to Blaze’s place first because it’s the closest to the bar. Outside her building, when I ask her if she’d like me to spend the night, she says, hesitantly, “Uhm—no—no.” She runs a hand through her hair. “Not tonight.”

  “Was it this Tolek guy? I’d rather not leave you alone—”

  “I’ve been alone for a year. Longer than that, actually. I’ll survive.”

  Cold wind whooshes around my ears. I hear Trev turn off the engine. In the corner of the building, maybe I see a shadow. But I’m seeing lots of shadows tonight.

  And lots of threats.

  “I’m worried about you. Let me spend the night. Please.”

  “Deck”—she rests a flat hand against my chest—“I need to be alone. Please. It has nothing to do with you. If you and I are more than just the heat of the moment, one day, maybe, my ‘alone time’ will include you. But right now, we’re not. Tolek is someone from my past. And one incident from the past has a habit of bringing up all the others.

  “I don’t want to unload on you all the time—”

  “I want you to unload on me! Blaze, please. I know this is all new and—”

  “That’s right. It’s new! It’s...a fairy tale. Maybe. Look, Deck, please, you see? I didn’t mean that. I don’t think it’s a fairy tale only, but I said it. Because I just need some alone time. I can’t think now. I just. It’s all coming back—”

  She looks up, looks behind me. At that apartment. Looks back down again.

  My hands fire to her shoulders. “Blaze, what’s in that apartment!? Tell me! You’re always looking at it—”

  She turns, opens the door. And the building swallows her up.

  “Blaze!”

  I step into the road and call up to her place. “Blaze! BLAZE!”

  A light from another apartment comes on. A dude with a beard and a beanie comes out. Says, “Girl trouble, man?”

  I ignore him.

  Blaze’s light comes on.

  “BLAZE!”

  Then the light goes off again.

  And I hear music.

  Loud, thumping, blaring music. Filling the whole street.

  Something tells me nobody on this street is gonna sleep much tonight.

  -8-

  Inside me, a volcano erupts. I see red. And the red calls me.

  “Wanna go get him?” Skate asks from the backseat.

  Jaw clenched, eyes focused on the misty road. I say: “Damn right I do.”

  -9-

  We drive the streets for an hour, enough to settle my rage. And I know that’s a good thing. Because, now that I think about it, this would have probably been an insanely bad idea.

  “Let’s go home, dudes,” I say.

  As if relieved of lifting the Titanic itself, Trev says, “Thank fucking god!” He exhales. And, with it, come the unspoken words: Deck, I’ll always be there for you, homes. But you put me in some motherfucking bad situations sometimes!

  “Sorry, Trev. But you know you can always back out of this shit.”

  He throws an incredulous glance in my direction. “And let you fuckers kill yourselves?” He faces the road again. Then, angry, he shakes his head. “Fuckin asshole. Like I’d ever let you face this shit alone. I only wish you two fucks would grow up!”

  -10-

  When Trev’s older brother was arrested for pushing, I was the only one who saw his tears.

  When my mother passed, he saw mine.

  When Jacinta was given a blue eye by a punk she was seeing, me and him paid that punk a visit together.

  And Trev’s the one who pulled me off of pops before I damn near killed the bastard.

  In the nick of time.

  Trev got me out of there before dad’s squeeze could blow my head off with her contraband nine-mil, a weapon she caresses as if it were a stray puppy. Or a fat hard-on.

  There’s one thing Trev loves more than his scholarship. One thing only.

  And it ain’t footbal
l.

  I love him as well.

  -11-

  Trev and Skate crash at my place. As tired as I am, I can’t sleep. I open up the Google Play app on my phone and put on Blaze’s mix that I uploaded onto there. Then I text her:

  Deck: Sleep well. Sorry I overreacted. I respect your need for alone time. And I understand it. Wanna grab some coffee tomorrow morning? My only move is at 12.

  She doesn’t answer.

  -12-

  Tonight, I have my recurring nightmare. The only one that wakes me up in sweats and forces me to put the lights on. Some of it based on fact, much of it not...

  -13-

  I walk into pops’s apartment. Only, in here, it’s not “his” apartment. It’s “ours.”

  Mom’s and mine and pops’s.

  Something’s wrong. The floorboards creak. And the apartment looks like...a house? I’m in the entranceway. White moonlight shines in from windows in the back. Stairs soar up to rooms upstairs that, in this world, I get the feeling I should visit.

  As if something’s there for me...

  When I take a step, I hear the sound of cans. I look down, and it’s PBRs. Hundred of them. Everywhere. So many that I can’t see the floor anymore. Not even my feet.

  One of them leaks beer onto the ground with a gulp-gulp-gulp sound.

  I realize I’m in pajamas. Light blue flannel. With flying elephants on them. The elephants each have a feather in their trunks. And they’re smiling.

  “Declan, that you?” Pops’s voice feels like a scalpel down my chest. I also hear something else:

  Faint and mumbled, but clearly there: “Mmmmm. Oh. Yeah. Mmmmm. Umpf! Oh, god.”

  “Declan, that you?”

  The cans clatter. Gulp-gulp-gulp.

  “Deck, what da fuck you makin’ all dat noise for?”

  And the woman’s voice: “Mmmmm. Oh. Yeah. God yeah. God yeah!”

  I turn my head into the tea room (finding it odd that we actually have one of those.) I see her. Golden skinned with thick hair, tumbling and curly. Voluptuous. Bent over a couch. Ass so wide I could be staring at a porno flick. Black lace stockings.