“You still here, ain’t you?”
No reply, just a grunt.
“Fuck off, Terrance. Act like you know — ”
“What — know you?” His voice wasn’t calm anymore; it spit over the words. “Shit Ricky, how could I? Only been thirteen goddamn years, almost every goddamn day of them — ”
“Maybe that’s the real problem.”
Terrance came out of the chair. “No, that ain’t the problem. The problem is you don’t want these hos — ”
“Not for long.”
“Not at all! Because what you do see, when you sober enough to open your damn eyes, is that they’ll do whatever to whoever so they can talk about it tomorrow. Or more likely, so they can say it next year — or the year after that. Or whenever the fuck anybody might know who they even talking about when they say they had Ricky Rain’s dick in their hole.”
Rick looked away. He was almost completely drunk, but not quite there yet, and his semi-defective mouth override caught. Terrance waited eight bars, like it was a test.
“The truth is, they just groupies,” he said. “Take it or leave it. Or at least do what any self-respecting man oughta be doing and pick it yourself.”
Rick wondered if Terrance was the only man alive who would consider it a negative to have women spreading their legs every time he turned around. He’d been like that since high school, only went for the ones who didn’t want him. That stupid baseball shit he threw at him. He’d laughed when Rick asked him once if he had any hockey metaphors.
He wasn’t laughing now. Rick didn’t think he’d ever seen him more serious.
“The truth is Ricky, there’s three weeks left on this tour and you know goddamn well where you’ll be going when it’s over.”
He started to shake his head, not this time. He wasn’t going back to her. Ever.
Terrance held up a hand. He wouldn’t believe it anyway. He didn’t say anything else; he opened the door. Rick emptied the rest of the bottle into his cup. He looked up when he didn’t hear the door close.
“You’re drinking too much,” Terrance said. “But I wonder if you don’t know that already. And I’m starting to wonder if you ain’t setting yourself up with a convenient excuse.”
Rick downed the shot. “I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t need no goddamn excuse.”
“You gonna.” Terrance’s face turned hard. “When you forget what you are.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, what’s bullshit is me being the only one who remembers. It’s your fucking life, not mine.”
“You’re goddamn right it is!” Rick slammed the plastic cup against the mirror. “And I don’t need you telling me — ”
“The fuck you don’t! You think I’d put up with you another second if that was even close to being true?” Terrance kicked the door shut, blocking out faces Rick only just noticed. “I’m sick of this shit. And I ain’t gonna hang around again just to watch you lose yours.”
Rick stared at him. Half their lives over a bottle of whiskey and a stupid whore. He was still reeling from Mary’s parting shot six weeks before, but the threat that hung in this stifling motel room wasn’t even in the same fucking league.
Rick spread his hands. “Do I look like I got a gun to your head?”
The words hit the air, he felt the ice crack under his feet, and in that second he knew he’d been standing on it all along. He knew the reason his hands ached constantly was because in the last six weeks he hardly stopped pressing the flesh down to the bone between his knuckles. One letter at a time, left to right, and back again.
He wasn’t an alcoholic, he was a goddamn crack head. The only thing that was keeping him from going under was standing in front of the door. If Terrance really did leave, Rick knew with absolute certainty that he would drown. He was just too late knowing it.
He was always too late.
Terrance looked at him for a long time, the music from the next room filling the space between them. Like a memory. Later, Rick wondered if that had anything to do with it. If for just a minute, Terrance was thirteen again, sitting on the floor of his own bedroom with Rick, listening to this bomb that had exploded out of California, the shrapnel flying all the way to the Atlantic. One piece of it coming through a roof in Cleveland, like it had been hanging in the sky in suspended animation, just waiting for Ricky Ranière to show up so it could somehow lodge itself right into his heart.
Terrance grinned at him for the first time ever when Rick could finally speak, only to ask the one thing a kid who’d been raised by a country music fan could even think to ask.
How do they do that?
He wondered later if Terrance was remembering that, too, if the beat through the thin wall kept him from saying what he should have said. Instead of what he did.
“I’m a let you sleep on that.” Neither Terrance’s voice nor his face held any expression. “Because even if you don’t, I do remember.”
He glanced around the room, taking it in the same way Mary had with the other room six weeks before. But the look on Terrance’s face wasn’t contempt. It was disappointment.
“I do remember,” he said again. “This ain’t what you really wanted. And Jesse’s still a kid, and Kale’s got his own to worry about now. Mary never gave a shit, and Aiesha is gone.”
Rick’s gut tightened into a hard knot in the second it took for Terrance to yank the door open. Heat poured in from the oven outside.
“So, Ricky, you sleep on that,” Terrance said, his anger returning strong enough to keep the override on Rick’s mouth mercifully in place. “And I’ll let you tell me tomorrow, asshole. If you was right the first time. Who the fuck you got left?”
The door slammed, and Rick put his fist through the drywall. One-Two. Right on the beat from the next room.
Three and to the four … his rage dissolved into pain when his knuckles slammed into the edge of the goddamn stud. He yanked a towel from the bathroom rack, soaked it in cold water, and wrapped it around his hand. His head throbbed, too, as he lay on the rough bedspread in the dark and listened to the album play over the rattle of the A/C.
Through the motel wall the music stopped, leaving him totally alone, wondering how long it had been since that was the case. And the awful truth was not a single day since he was thirteen years old.
He’d swallowed the second round of aspirin on the bus the next morning before he found the balls to tell Terrance that he could be right. About the drinking. Terrance just nodded, never letting on that he saw that as a green light to become a damn bartender worried about losing his liquor license over a DUI. But if it was all the same to Terrance, Rick added, he could keep his advice off his dick.
Terrance ran his strikeout metaphor as Rick leaned against the window to sleep off his hangover. Don’t make no more sense when you repeat it.
“Well?”
The redhead startled him back to where he really was, trapped against the bar, six days — if it wasn’t midnight, and he hoped to God it wasn’t — six days left. He didn’t have time for any more of this shit.
“You won’t be sorry,” she said.
A walk, and a confident one at that.
Carolyn had a different take on it. Pitchers weren’t just defense, they played offense too, but if they didn’t think they had the arm to cut steak anymore, well, maybe Rick could mix his sorry ass up a metaphor hash.
The redhead hadn’t moved, and neither had he. He wouldn’t have even noticed her. Just once he wanted to hear the truth.
“Why?”
She smiled slowly. “Why not?”
He jerked his chin up. “Move out my way. Before I move you myself.”
She shifted her heel to her own stool and shrugged. Might have left his room with no drama at all, a real novelty and too late for him to give a damn.
Her lips curved up again. “You are arrogant, aren’t you?”
Ain’t you heard my CDs? Damn, that was corny. “It’s in the job description.”
By the time he crossed the threshold of Harry’s Bar on his way upstairs, he couldn’t remember what had been bothering him when he’d walked in. But walking in runs …
He didn’t know what Terrance was talking about, and Carolyn made a lot more sense. She was rooting for the home team.
21: Back to the Beginning
Carolyn closed the door behind her and slid the bolt home. But the bolt would not — could not — save her from herself. Rick Ranière had done that. If he hadn’t walked away from her tonight, he would be on this side of the door. This second. And she was not sorry he had walked away. She was not bitterly disappointed that he had walked away. She was not …
Using any contractions.
I would have gone to bed with him. She backed against the door and inhaled slowly, exhaled more slowly. It helped, so she did it again. She was getting dizzy. A normal reaction when a sane woman came within inches of being Tuesday’s lay. She tried one more breath, and the dizziness went away. Sanity restored and her can’t-get-away experiment was officially over. When the patients in the clinical trials start dying off, you’d damn well better quit dripping the drug into their veins.
I’m testing out a new theory. Just goin’ hang around ’til you forget you don’t want me.
The ring made her yelp. Jesus. She stared at the phone and felt completely played. Can I call you tomorrow? No different than backing off in the subway, knowing exactly when to leave her wanting more.
She snatched up the receiver. “Is it tomorrow already?”
“What? Carolyn, what’s wrong?”
Shit. Peter. “I’m sorry, I was … ”
“Expecting someone else?”
Her hand went to her cell phone. Not if she’d been thinking straight. “I’m sorry, Peter. I really am.”
“Who were you expecting?”
Had she said she was expecting someone? She set her cell phone on the desk. No, she hadn’t. “It wasn’t that,” she said. “I was … asleep. Dropping off, actually.”
“I see.”
“And … well, I must have been dreaming or something.” Good Lord, no wonder Rick could tell she was lying. Peter couldn’t possibly believe her.
But he dropped it. “How was the game?”
“We broke the four game losing streak. So it was good.”
“And the extra ticket? Did Natalie go?”
There it was. Either lie again — brilliant way to start a relationship — or tell the truth.
“No,” she said. “Actually, I ran into … Did you watch the Late Show?”
“Yes, this morning.”
She frowned. She’d seen him this afternoon, and he hadn’t said a word. Why should that bother her? Was she that insecure? Or was it just that Rick had made a point of letting her know he’d listened to her on the radio?
She was comparing them again.
Carolyn took a breath. “I ran into Rick Ranière this afternoon. Bizarre, really. But I’d met him in the green room, and, well.” She laughed, it came out shaky. “I suppose that made four people I knew in New York, and he didn’t have anything to do, so … ”
“Rick who?”
Carolyn froze. Her babbling had just confirmed the subject of her damn joke. That only Eve — and Rick — knew. “Um, Ranière. He was on after me. Ricky Rain, I mean, he’s a — ”
“Rapper. I didn’t watch.”
“He’s really quite good,” she said, then bit her lip. By all means, defend Rick to Peter.
“If you say so.” His voice was flat, unreadable.
“I can pay you back for the ticket.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Her cell phone rang. She sucked in air when she saw the 216 area code.
Cleveland. “Can you hang on a minute?”
He might have murmured something, but she was already dropping the phone. Rick started talking the second she answered.
“Lemme ask you something. What you said about — ”
“I can’t right now.” She pressed the hotel receiver into her thigh.
“Why?” Rick was readable. On the edge of being pissed.
“I’m on the phone.” She lowered her voice. “With Peter.”
“Who the fuck is Peter?”
“The one who paid for your seat tonight.”
“Oh,” Rick said, drawn out, slow. Amused now. “The Psycho.”
“He’s not — ”
“Whatever. Get rid of him.”
Carolyn gritted her teeth. “I’m sorry. Was that an order?”
She heard a light whistling through the phone.
“Nooo,” he said, finally. “That was a polite request. Just didn’t come out right.” Not the least bit of apology in his voice. “You want me to say please?”
She tried and failed to fight back a smile.
“Please, Carolyn, hang up with Psycho Pete. It’s important.”
She felt the pull; his last two words were no joke. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“Important? Thought you were a writer, Carolyn.”
“No, what you did. Earlier. On the street.” She pressed the hotel phone deeper into the denim of her skirt. “I saw you do it Monday night with Guillotine. You bumped your fist on your chin, just like you did to me. What does it mean?”
After a pause he said, “We always called him Baby-G.’”
“Tell me.”
Rick gave a short laugh. “That an order?”
“Of course not,” she said. “Just came out wrong.”
Another laugh. “Hang up the other phone. And I’ll tell you.”
Damn it. Why did she care? Why was she caught in this? She couldn’t blame it on the pheromones right now; he was across an eight-lane intersection and down the street. “You first.”
He hesitated. “Just forget it.”
Damn you, Rick. The disease wasn’t going to kill her; the side effects were. “Hang on.” She lifted the hotel receiver. “Peter, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
“Is anything wrong?”
His question was smooth, concerned. No accusation. No ‘who the fuck … ’
I know what you was thinking / that it’s some kind of jealousy.
Carolyn shook her head. “Of course not. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow?”
“Dinner too, I hope.”
“I suppose I owe you one.” Or more.
Peter let her go without another word, no recriminations, no orders. Just a calm respect for her wishes, for her needs. As if he were a man who had some concept of a boundary. Jesus.
She yanked the phone to her ear. “All right, what’s so important?”
“What are you pissed off at me for?”
“Because — oh, never mind.”
“No, goddamn it. What did I do?”
“Fine, if you really want to — ”
“Shit — hold on.”
Carolyn’s mouth fell open. Hold on?
Rick made no effort to muffle his voice. “Yo, Tanya, I’m real sorry about … ”
Tanya? She heard a woman’s voice. An irritated woman.
“Oh shit. Jackie, right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to — ”
Carolyn felt her stomach turn over. She heard a door slam.
“Now this is really fucked up. I swear to God, Carolyn, if you saw them — ”
“Them?”
“ — it’s really spooky. They gotta be twins.”
Twins? Her mouth was filling again and she swallowed.
“Terrance, what’s up with that? Am I seeing things?”
“Fuck you, Ricky!”
Carolyn had the briefest irrelevant thought — amazing cell reception — when she heard another door slam.
“Oh, shit,” Rick said again.
“Rick, if you have company … ”
“Nah, she’s gone now.”
“Who is she?” She meant for it to sound curious. Instead she sounded exactly like Rick had about Peter. Some kinda jealousy.
“Apparently, that’s Jacki
e. Because Tanya is in Cleveland, and Jackie’s my manager’s new secretary, who’s in New York, so I better try keeping that straight.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Carolyn said, forcing her voice steady.
“You telling me. Also since Terrance don’t seem to know how to operate a door lock!”
“Asshole — you know how to knock?”
“Are you gonna call Mykah for me, or what?”
“Fuck off!”
Rick laughed, but it dropped off sharply. “Oh! Locked doors sound real good now. He is pissed, and I don’t know if he got his gun.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding, it’s too much trouble to get a gun on a plane. He was playing me earlier, though, reaching up under the bed like he had it.”
Carolyn tried a deep breath. It didn’t work. “Are you all right?”
“Would have been, if he’d kept the door locked between the rooms. I kind of walked in on him. They weren’t really doing nothing, but Tanya — ”
“Jackie.”
“Right.” He laughed again. “Don’t matter, really.”
“No, of course not,” Carolyn said. “It’s just a woman.”
“Exactly,” Rick said. “And this other one — ”
“Tanya?”
“No, Tanya’s in Cleveland. Are you listening?”
Carolyn pressed her free hand to her temple. She was listening, to the proof that even talking to this man marked her as a complete idiot.
“I don’t know her name,” he said, “just some ho at the bar downstairs.”
She swallowed the bile creeping into her throat. “Listen, Rick, I can’t — ”
“You know what you was saying? About the pitcher and the walks?”
“What does that have to do with — ”
“Because it was a walk, you know? I mean, Terrance be running this metaphor on me forever, saying shit like he’d rather strike out than draw an intentional walk — you got any idea what that means?”
Her head was spinning. She should lie down. She couldn’t really be having this conversation, could she?
Apparently, she could. “He probably means what I said. There’s no challenge. Shouldn’t it be more of a challenge?”
“Exactly.” Again, he missed her sarcasm. “But here’s what I think — I think you got it right. It’s the pitcher who ends up losing out. Like you said about the guy tonight, he’s throwing wild, he lost his confidence, because somebody said he couldn’t handle the guy at the plate.”
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