Love & Ink

by JD Hawkins

  “It’s just one audition,” I say. “It always takes a little time.”

  “No,” Jenny says, pausing to swallow. “They’re right. Look at me. Unless there’s a shortage of ‘hipster schoolteacher’ roles, I’m not getting anything anytime soon. That’s what spending half your life in the writers’ room gets you.”

  “Bullshit,” I say adamantly, lowering my face to catch her eye. “You look like—and are—a creative, witty, charismatic woman. And there aren’t so many casting agents you can see before you find one with half a brain to appreciate what you’ve got.”

  Jenny chomps on another handful of chips and then allows herself the tiniest of smiles.

  “Thanks,” she says. “You mind recording that so I can play it back to myself later?”

  I shove her playfully and go back around to my side of the desk.

  “How are things with you?” Jenny asks, the taco box in her lap now. “I saw you stomping around in the studio earlier looking like you were going to murder someone. Carlos winding you up again?”

  I nod slowly, then sigh.

  “Part Carlos, part finding out my boyfriend is a psycho.”

  Jenny stops mid-bite, frozen with the steak taco halfway in her mouth to glare at me over it. I decide to tell her the details rather than have her mess up that knitted shawl.

  “I took him to a barbecue at my sister’s place. Kind of fancy, and he didn’t want to go. My dad was there, and he wanted to talk to Teo, so they went back into the study—you know, a little ‘boys’ time.’ After a while I went to go get him, but when I get there…God, Jenny. Teo was standing there in my father’s face, grabbing his shirt, fist pulled back like he’s about to punch him. I’ve never seen him like that before.”

  Jenny struggles to drop her jaw and not spill food at the same time. She hurriedly swallows and wipes her mouth before setting the taco down—more interested in asking questions than a second bite now.

  “What the hell?”

  “Yep.”

  “What happened? Why would he do that?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. My dad said he was asking Teo some questions about his business, and Teo flipped the fuck out.”

  Jenny exhales and scrunches her face incredulously.

  “You believe him? I mean, you think he told you the whole story?”

  “My dad?” I say, looking at Jenny with shock for asking. “Of course I believe him. I know what I saw. And yeah, I mean, he can be a little pushy sometimes, and maybe he said something shitty, but even so—who the hell does that? Assault the parent of a girl you’re dating as soon as you meet them? It’s just insane. I can’t even process it. There’s no excuse.”

  Jenny gives me a pained expression, and I know she can barely think of what to say.

  “I’m sorry, Ash.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “Me too.”

  “I guess it’s over then.”

  I nod.

  “Absolutely. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if Teo doesn’t think so.”

  When I finish work, Teo proves me right. He’s waiting for me outside in the parking lot. I step through the exit, see him, and immediately harden my expression, redirect myself toward my car and around him.

  “Ash! Wait, please,” he says, jogging up beside me, but smartly keeping a little distance between us.

  “If I wanted to talk to you I would have answered one of the many phone calls, or responded to one of the many, many texts.” I glance at him across my shoulder, if only to emphasize my point with the firmness of my eyes. “I don’t want to talk.”

  “I understand,” he says, backing up to stay a little in front of me, in my field of vision, “but if you’d just let me explain—”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” I say, stopping suddenly to direct the full force of my frustration at him. “Raising a fist to my father? What was that? Some kind of ‘macho alpha male’ crap? I don’t even want to hear it. Some things are beyond excuses, Teo. I’m done.”

  I start walking again, and he continues trying to stay in my field of view.

  “Your father isn’t everything he seems, Ash. If we could just sit down somewhere, if you could give me five minutes—”

  I stop again to glare at him.

  “Are you seriously trying to blame this on my father?”

  “He threatened my business! And us. He threatened to cut you off if—”

  “My father isn’t perfect,” I interrupt. “Yes, he’s overprotective. Yes he can be a little too controlling at times. And yes he’s a little hard on my boyfriends. But none of those things—I repeat, none—justify being physically assaulted like that in his own home!”

  I continue walking, even faster this time. I click my car lock paces away.

  “I know it was stupid of me, and I’m sorry, Ash,” Teo pleads. “I lost my shit, let my temper get the best of me, and I shouldn’t have. But he was trying to come between us, he always was—”

  “Bullshit,” I say, as I yank my door open. “Actions speak louder than words, Teo. And the truth is that every time I think I actually know you, every time I think we have something steady together, you go ahead and do the one thing I thought you never could. Disappearing overnight without a word, refusing to show up for me the way I show up for you, and then threatening my family—”

  “I love you, Ash,” he interrupts.

  For a moment I just stare at him, and then I shake my head. “I know you do. But this isn’t gonna work, Teo. Nothing you can do, or say, will fix this.”

  I slide into the driver’s seat and close the door just as he calls my name one more time, a desperate plea drowned out by the slam.

  I don’t look back as I drive away. I don’t need to. I’ve got enough practice seeing him for what I think is the last time.

  18

  Teo

  The ride home might be the loneliest I’ve felt in a life of almost complete loneliness. Ash haunts me all the way, my mind blank, my body feeling twisted and sick. I feel her hands on my chest, her face against my back, as if my body is yearning for it now that I know I’ll never feel it again.

  I take a long route home, so I can ride fast enough to feel like I’m leaving it all behind, so I don’t have to go back to the condo that’ll just remind me of her. A place I’ll forever think of as missing her. An empty, barely-furnished home that needed someone like her, that someone like Ash could’ve turned into a place that meant something. A place that’ll never be a home now.

  Along the freeways and the winding canyon roads I see her still, suspended before me. That confused, upset face. Those beautiful features I saw a future in, the face that gave meaning to everything, set a purpose in my chest and a fire in my blood. My last memory of it will be warped, tainted, by how disappointed and angrily it looked at me. I see my future now. A million nights dreaming of her like that, a thousand evenings of wondering how I could have done better, regretting what she saw in that one awful moment.

  It hurt to leave things between us like that, to talk to her like that. Her mind so made up I couldn’t explain anything. I’ve spent a lifetime running from explanations, and now that I finally realize that only the truth could fix something—my chance is gone.

  Maybe it’s for the best. A small part of me still thinks her father was right. Sure, I have a business and a house now—but what if something happened? What if he actually took it all away from me, or if bad luck or fate destroyed everything I’ve built? Then what? Would I go back to doing day labor? Would I turn into dead weight that Ash had to struggle even harder at her job to support? Maybe my ‘bad genes’ would pull me back to the other side of the law, for the quick and easy money. That same instinct that raised a fist when I should have stayed calm and steady. Maybe I’d have to start skipping state lines again, sniffing out work, some cash, the next oasis of brief security, like some stray dog—only this time, Ash would be dragged down right alongside me. Maybe that big, complicated past would start emerging from the swamp to pull me b
ack under. Maybe the world is right, and a guy like me is destined for just one thing: Trouble.

  I love Ash. And I’m sure she loves me. But one of us had to make a sacrifice. Either she gave up her family, her safety net, the certainty of knowing life will never get too hard, or I give her up and go back to the way my life used to be. There’s no contest. Ash is the better of the two of us, and she deserves so much more than I can give her.

  I tell myself all of these things, knowing that I’ll tell them to myself over and over for the rest of my life, staring into empty whiskey glasses. By the time I get home I’m ready to order the biggest pizza I can, draw the curtains, put on the saddest records I can find and start drinking everything in the house.

  I bring the bike to a stop outside my garage door and kill the engine, then pause for a second. Something’s wrong. Something beyond the aching hole inside of me.

  I concentrate for a while, listening out for the sound again, then move slowly toward the door of my place. The door’s misaligned, ever so slightly ajar. I step carefully, until I can see the wood splintered around the lock, the lock itself jutting inward. This close, I can hear the blare of the TV inside—immediately realizing that whoever’s in there (or was in there) was drowning out the noise of their breaking and entering.

  Within seconds I’ve gone back to my bike, quietly pulled out the large wrench I keep in the pack, and then returned to the door, back against the wall as I peer between the crack, looking for movement.

  I take my time, listening for anything that isn’t the TV, then slowly push the door open, wrench held up in my other hand, muscles tensed and ready to fight. Soon I’ve got the door open enough to see inside to the living room, the TV screen, and the head of someone sitting on my couch. As slow as I can, my boots not making a sound, I step inside, and then…the tenseness drains out of me when I realize.

  It’s my dad.

  “Hey, Son!” he says, as I step inside his field of view. “About Goddamned time!”

  My dad’s a big guy. Some people used to call him ‘Monster.’ Two hundred and fifty pounds of gnarled muscle wrapped in scar-hardened skin. A grey beard rough enough to sweep floors and lank, grey hair frame his permanently scowling eyes, as blue as mine but twice as cold. Over his dirty white tee he’s wearing a black biker jacket with the arms ripped off that looks like it’s seen as much hell as he has. Scuffed and grimy jeans over his combat boots, perched up on my coffee table. Several empty beers sit on the floor beside the couch, and a bulging green sports bag kept close under his legs.

  “The hell are you doing here?” I blurt out, stunned.

  “Where else am I gonna go? I must have been to that tattoo place three Goddamned times looking for you, but you weren’t there. You ever work these days?”

  “So you come here? You break my fucking door? How did you even find my place?”

  “Don’t be like that, Teo. I’ve been sleeping rough the past few days.” His mood changes on a dime, eyes going angry like he’s ready to strangle me. “Where the fuck were you, anyway? What kind of son doesn’t pick up his old man after a four-year stretch?”

  The whole thing is so surreal I feel almost woozy, half drunk from the sheer insanity of how shitty this day is turning out. Belatedly, I toss the wrench onto the couch beside him and drop my tired body down onto the chair. I grab the remote and turn down the TV, then settle back and breathe a little.

  “I never said I’d pick you up,” I say. “I was busy, anyway.”

  “Sure, sure…” my dad says, his voice knowing.

  “You can’t stay here,” I say, as he empties his fifth beer.

  “Why not? You got roommates?”

  “No. This isn’t a rental. I own it.”

  He’s surprised now, putting the beer down and leaning forward to look around at the apartment anew.

  “Well Goddamn…if I’d known that, I’d have been real gentle on the door. Pretty nice.” He turns to look at me with a kind of vindictive blame. “You’ve done alright for yourself all around, it looks like.”

  “What do you know about it?” I say, dismissively.

  “That tattoo place—real nice. Looks legit.” He moves his head toward me, eyes conspiratorial. “What you using it for? Drugs, right? Got to be, kind of money you need for a place like this.”

  “It’s not a front,” I say, rubbing my eyes, already tired of his bullshit, but anticipating a whole load more before I get rid of him. “It’s a legit business.”

  He laughs and shakes his head.

  “Sure, sure…”

  After a minute, I pull my wallet out and start counting bills.

  “I’ll give you some money,” I say. “Go stay at a hotel. If you’re sober in a week, maybe we can talk.”

  He doesn’t even look at the money.

  “You want me outta here, huh?” he says, smiling darkly, then tilting his head. “Your girlfriend coming over tonight?” He sees the tension in my eyes and seizes on it. “Running around with that Carter girl again. What was her name again, Ashley?”

  “How the fuck do you know that?”

  He sits back as if relaxed now.

  “I saw you, picking her up outside your ‘legit business.’ She grew up real nice. Don’t blame you for looking her up again.”

  I toss the bills on the coffee table beside his feet.

  “Take the money and get out.”

  He ignores the money though, his eyes continuing to scrutinize me.

  “What are you doing with a girl like that, Son? She’ll chew you up and spit you out the second she’s done having fun. Find herself one of those New York bankers and before you know it she’ll have you out on your ass.”

  “Ten minutes out of jail and you’re already taking the high ground, huh?”

  He laughs and searches around the couch for another unopened beer, raising it to me in a mock toast before cracking it open.

  “Listen to me, Teo. People like that don’t give a fuck about people like us. The sooner you get that through your thick skull, the better off you’ll be.”

  “What do you mean, ‘people like us’?”

  He looks at me with narrowed eyes, as if trying to figure out whether it’s a serious question.

  “Shit…” he says, shaking his head. “You’re really full of it now, ain’t you, Son? You got you a little place and a little money putting gang tags on people and now you think you’re a member of ‘high society.’ System don’t work like that, take it from your old man.”

  “You ain’t ever given advice worth taking.”

  “Sure, sure…” he says, laughing again. “That’s why you’re out here thinking you’re something you’re not. Trying to build something, thinking about how high you can go—but that’s for other folk, folk like the Carters. People like us only got to ask one question: How low can you survive?”

  “I’m surviving just fine.”

  “Sure, sure…but time’s gonna come when you lose it all. And that girl’s gonna be the one to cause it, mark my words.”

  I don’t answer, knowing that he can go all night like this. Around in circles as long as he has some alcohol in his hand and his body. It’s an old pattern, one I know too well. He keeps going until I get fed up and go silent, then he’ll say something to get me riled up, get my attention.

  He gives it a couple of minutes, then says, “Prissy little rich girl like that, I’ll bet she don’t even suck dick properly.”

  I stand up suddenly.

  “That’s it, get your shit and get the fuck out of here!”

  “Whoa, loverboy!” he says, standing up as well. “I only just got here. Ain’t even given you your present yet.”

  I roll a hand roughly across my forehead, half crazy and half drained from his bullshit, knowing that anything I say or do, he’ll have something to come back at me with, something that’ll make everything worse, that’ll get me even more wound up. Interactions with my father end only two ways: With him drunk enough to pass out, or in blows.
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  He lifts the green sports bag and dumps it on the coffee table, grinning at me through his beard.

  “You’re gonna love this,” he says, unzipping it quickly.

  It’s cash. Thick wads of bills stuffed randomly in the bag, filling it to the top.

  “What the fuck’s all this?” I say, looking at him accusingly.

  “That’s my cut,” he says, pausing to nonchalantly pick at his teeth. “Didn’t think I’d stick four years without something good waiting for me at the end of it, did you?”

  “I don’t want this shit in my house. I told you, take it and get the hell out of here. We’ll talk in a week.”

  “Easy, easy…” he says, holding his palms up like I’m acting irrationally. “Some of that’s yours.”

  He pats me on the shoulder and I shove his arm away.

  “You heard me. Get out.”

  He laughs easily.

  “The only problem,” he continues, as if not hearing me, “is that it’s dirty. Need to run it through something. A legitimate business.”

  “I’m not laundering your cash—I don’t even want it in my house.”

  “Ten per cent. That’s more than fair.”

  I fight back a wave of disgust. “I wouldn’t care if you gave me all of it. I don’t need the money. I’m not risking my business and everything I have to break the law as a fucking favor to my deadbeat dad. Now get out or I’ll call the cops.”

  His eyes change again, and I can tell he’s about to raise his voice, I can tell we’re about to get into it, that this isn’t ending with him getting drunk and passing out.

  “That bitch really did a number on you, son.”

  I grab the sports bag and lift it, glaring at him.

  “You’re done,” I say, then march to the broken door.

  “Whoa! Careful with that!” he calls out behind me, leaping off the couch now to chase.

  I open the limp door and toss the bag outside, a few wads spilling out onto the street.

  “You fucking crazy?” he says, torn between saving the bag and being angry with me.