by L. B. Dunbar
I tried to reason that I thought Elaine would welcome her back home, but Hollister reminded me that her cousin’s home was the last place she wanted to be. I didn’t want her falling into herself this year. I didn’t want her to lose sight of anything but me. Us. I wasn’t able to make the actual date of Christmas special, but I would make this time of a year meaningful for her. For us.
As I exited the party around midnight, I saw a figure hanging out across the road. Something strange struck me about his stance. The way he leaned against the tree; it looked as if he were holding up the tree, instead of the other way around. I was ready to ignore the man as I turned toward the end of the block, while I waited for my truck that was valet parked by the attendant at Tristan’s building. I slipped my hands into my pockets, as I saw the figure stand straighter. In the darkness, I only saw his outline, but I had the distinct sense he was watching me. I continued to ignore him, but something forced me to look back as the man stepped into the road. An oncoming car drove recklessly down the relatively empty boulevard.
I straightened myself, as I watched the approaching vehicle and the dark shape step methodically into the road. In slow motion at first, I envisioned the impact of the car on this man. Then time sped up and I was darting across the road to push him out of the way. We fell together onto the curb, and I felt the tightness of my stitched skin pull. I feared the newly formed skin would crack open from the jolt of our bodies.
“Are you fucking crazy?” I yelled before I rolled off the man and questioned, “Are you okay?”
The man remained face down for a moment, his arms trapped underneath him.
“Dude, I’m sorry, but you were about to be hit. Didn’t you see the car coming?” I gently rocked his shoulder. Slowly, tugging his arms inward, he slipped one hand into his pocket and used the other to push himself upward. I was too slow to think he might have a gun. Before I knew it, he faced me as we sat on the curb of the dark street.
I blinked.
“Arturo?” I said in a shaky, whispered voice. I felt as if I’d seen a mirage. Dark dangerous eyes stared at me. Glassy and round, I knew that look. He was stoned. Arturo King sat before me on a street curb, stoned. He opened his lips, attempting to lick them then laughed.
“Perky?” he said as he stared at me. His face came closer to mine. If I didn’t know better, I thought he might kiss me. Suddenly, his head pulled back as he swayed and his eyes narrowed.
“Perkins,” he said softly.
“Arturo,” I said, my voice full of surprise, as I registered that Arturo King did indeed sit before me. I reached for him and pulled him into a deep hug.
“Perky,” he said against my shoulder. I expected him to pull back from me, but he didn’t push me away. In fact, both his hands were now in his pockets and they remained there. It was I who released him but held him at arm’s length.
“Where have you been?” I said, a bit of anger in my tone. Arturo’s dark hair fell forward as he bent his head. He slowly shook it side to side.
“Arturo, man, you scared the crap out of us. Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick about you. Searching for you. My God, man, Guinie. Guinie’s been beside herself.” My voice was rising, my anger evident.
“Did you save the girl?” Arturo said, his voice slurred.
“I…I did,” I paused. “You saved us weeks ago, again. Why didn’t you show yourself?”
Arturo looked up at me, his eyes glazed as he tried to focus on me.
“I…I…she doesn’t love me,” he said. I stared at him.
“Who? Hollister?”
Arturo shook his head as his voice cracked on the name, “Guinie.”
“Arturo, Guinie loves you. She loves you like crazy and she’s worried about you. She’s devastated. She’s…”
“She’s in love with someone else…” Arturo’s voice drifted, as he twisted in my grip to release him. His body swayed, and I reached out for him again, but he straightened his back to hold him still. We continued to sit on the cold curb with our feet stretched out into the street.
“She doesn’t love…”
“Don’t tell,” Arturo cut me off. “Don’t tell them you saw me.”
I stared at one of my oldest friends, one of my only friends.
“I won’t lie to them,” I said.
“But you’ll protect me,” Arturo said. “You were always the one who I knew would protect me to the end. Loyal. Faithful. Honorable,” he said the words with a spit, as if they tasted bad in his mouth.
“I…you are one of my best friends. I love you, man,” I said. My voice was full of honesty and the pain I felt. The man before me was not the man I knew as the leader of our group, the front man of our band. The take charge, win women, kill the show, and party hard man. The man before me was slumped, drunken, and heartbroken.
“She doesn’t love me,” he whispered, as he shook his head and swayed backward.
“We need to get you some coffee, dude. And a shower. You need to come home,” I pleaded, but Arturo was shaking his head vigorously.
“She was my home. I have nothing.”
“It’s Boxing Day. Let’s go inside. Everyone will be so happy to see you…”
“No,” he barked. “No. No party. No…” His voice drifted as his eyes closed.
“Arturo,” I said, as his body fell over and into me. He jolted awake and then struggled to stand. He used his left hand to push himself upward. I helped support him with a hand on his elbow. He jerked it forward and out of my grasp.
“I…I’m okay,” he sighed. He looked up at the building. I followed his gaze and noticed the bright lights from way up high. It had to be the floor where the party raged on. Boxing Day was a tradition for the band. A night we celebrated being a band. The official holiday over and our families behind us, we knew we could always count on the band. The band was there for us. We were our own new family. “A band of brothers soldiering through the world to share our music,” Arturo had toasted one year. I liked the sound of that. I liked the feeling of that, the sensation of being part of something. I loved these guys, but we were falling apart.
“Arturo, let me take you home,” I tried again.
“Home? I have no home without her,” he said. He wiped his face and tried to stand tall. He wasn’t fooling me, but he wasn’t moving either. A black town car pulled up slowly before us and stopped suddenly. I waited for a driver to exit the car and open a door for Arturo, when he reached for the handle, as if he knew whom the car belonged to and slipped into the back seat. I quickly grabbed the door in hopes of seeing who was inside, but the driver never turned around. I could tell from the back it was a woman. Her hair was long and dark. Arturo reached across his body and tugged the door out of my grasp.
“Happy New Year, Perky. Enjoy the girl,” he said, his smile false and broken as the door closed, shutting Arturo off from my view.
A treasure found…
[Hollister]
I lay on a dank smelling mattress. Lumpy and soft, it was the smell that made me feel sick to my stomach, that and a slight burn to my nose. My nostrils felt stiff with crust. I sniffed again. Blood. My nose was filled with dried blood. My head was also pounding, and my eye felt like it might fall out of the socket. I recognized this feeling. Jordan had hit me. He packed a powerful punch. He hit me square enough to force me to black out. My hands were tied behind my back, which made it awkward as I lay on my side, but attempted to roll over. I sensed that someone was behind me and it made me panic; I struggled to sit up on the mattress.
I took in the surroundings. It was a dark room, definitely part of an apartment but sparsely furnished. The mattress on the floor and a dining table, with two folding chairs, were the extent of the decoration to the space. I looked across the room to see Jordan sitting upright against the opposite wall. His head leaned back, his eyes closed. He looked peaceful, but I knew the evil that lurked inside him. I feared what he might do to me, thinking I was pregnant with Perkins’ baby.
&nb
sp; I turned my head as someone shifted next to me on the mattress. Someone I then knew was not Jordan Waters. The thin shape of a woman lay next to me. Her dark hair lay long and lank with a hint of wave to it. The room was dark, except for the reflection of a streetlight below that shown dimly through the only window. I had a strange feeling I knew the woman next to me. When she rolled completely to face me in her sleep, I hissed her name.
“Martha?”
She stirred but didn’t wake. With my hands tied behind me, I couldn’t reach for her to shake her.
“Martha?” I whispered harshly then looked across the room in fear that I would wake Jordan. My stomach rumbled and I needed to use the bathroom.
“Martha,” I said one final time, staring in the direction of Jordan, but attempting to throw my voice toward my sleeping partner.
“You won’t wake her,” Jordan spoke without even opening his eyes. “She sleeps like the dead.”
I wanted to vomit with the idea that Jordan knew Martha. The man that Martha could not stay away from was Jordan? The connection seemed so unreal to me. How did Martha even know Jordan? Where were we? As I scanned the room again, I realized I might know the answer. The first time I had found Martha, on that empty street, she was only blocks from Perkins’ warehouse home. I was so close to him, and yet I couldn’t get to him. Jordan wasn’t going to let me leave, and at this point, I couldn’t see how I would escape.
I didn’t respond to him, and he continued to glare at me from across the room.
“You won’t get away with this,” he hissed at me.
Me? The audacity of the man. He was the one in the wrong, and he thought I was trying to get away with something. Jordan was a seriously deranged man, as he saw no fault in what he did.
“How could you give what was mine to him?” Jordan said, his voice even while his head rested back against the wall. His knees where pulled up and one arm dangled over this left knee.
“You gave my baby to him,” Jordan’s voice changed, turning cold and hard as he lifted his head to narrow his obsidian eyes on me.
“I didn’t give your baby to him,” I replied. “He gave his baby to me.” I tried to make my voice strong, but I wasn’t feeling as bold as my tone sounded. I needed Jordan convinced that he couldn’t get me pregnant because I already was. The child, he believed belonged to him, was his promise after he possessed me, could not be. I feared Jordan might do something to harm an unborn child that wasn’t his. He was that extreme in his belief that I was his, and a child from him should pass through me.
“I can’t undo what’s done, Jordan,” I spoke calmly regardless of the hammering of my heart.
“I can still make the child mine,” Jordan said. His eyes opened wide. I somehow knew his thought process. Quite possibly it was from those months in the woods with him and his nonsensical talk. I could practically hear the story spinning behind his widened eyes.
“Joseph was only the stepfather to the Virgin. I took your virginity, but I could not prevent what happened after you were soiled. I will forgive you and take the child as my own as He has willed before.”
My heart beat so rapidly, a pulsing sensation travelled down to the tips of my fingers.
“Unless, we consummate again, and then there would be no way to prove who was the true father,” Jordan suggested. He was suddenly on his knees, crawling like a predator toward me, his prey. He was clearly unstable, but on top of that, uneducated. There was no way his seed could cross into an already growing fetus. He knew nothing of the nature of women and the development of a child. While I knew Jordan was unstable, I could never measure the depth of that lack of balance. I could not predict how far he’d go to get what he wanted. He reached the edge of the flat mattress, and it shifted from the weight of him as he continued to prowl toward me.
Martha stirred finally and slowly stretched as she woke. She was an alley cat, thin and unhealthy looking, but rested for the moment. Jordan finally reached me. My knees had pulled up as a way to shield me, as I could not use my hands to fend him off. I shivered at his closeness.
“What’s going on?” Martha asked, slowing rising. Her voice tinted with concern. “Ms. SanGrael?”
“Martha,” I stated simply in reply, as I didn’t dare take my swelling eye from Jordan. It watered with pain, and I had trouble breathing through the crust of my nose. I concentrated on breathing through my mouth, and holding my breath in attempts to keep my stomach from retching in fear.
“Jordan?” she questioned.
“Be silent,” he addressed her in response. I recognized that tone. If I weren’t present, the next thing to follow that tone would have been a sharp smack. But Jordan wasn’t interested in Martha, at the moment. His sole focus was on me.
He crawled all the way between my legs, pushing my thighs aside. His arms blocked me in and his hands rested on either side of my shoulders. His face was drawing close to mine. I felt his breath brush my lips when Martha spoke again.
“Jordan,” her voice shrieked, a mixture of concern and scolding. His eyes did not break their hypnotic hold on mine. I could not look away as fear held me captive. Jordan’s hand reached out to weakly push Martha away. He never broke his concentration on me as he leaned closer, sliding his bent knees under my thighs and drawing his center close to mine. The rhythm of my body was a rapid tapping of fear. I imagined that Perkins would drum a whole set from the beat in my body. My frightened stance wrote its own song.
“My Promised One,” he whispered, as his lips drew to mine. I pulled mine inward, warding off his mouth. I held my face tight, refusing to respond to his evil breath or snake-like lips. His tongue slithered out to try and break my barricade, and I trembled in my repulsion.
“Jordan?” I heard Martha next to me. Her voice was heartbreak and confusion.
“Martha,” he warned. “Prepare to watch a miracle. This is my destiny.”
He reached for my jeans zipper and my foot kicked out in response. I hit him hard in the core of him. I couldn’t even call it his manhood, as he clearly lacked any manly qualities. He bent forward in pain then responded with a punch directly to my lower ab. I kicked out in response again, despite the pain that radiated through me. I was in fight or flight mode, and fight was taking over. I would not go down without one.
“Martha,” I screamed in my hopes that she’d help me. Frozen next to me, inches away, she did nothing to discourage Jordan’s attempts at attack or his violent actions toward me.
A hand reached out and he squeezed Martha’s throat.
“Say one word against me, and I have the power to send you to hell,” he hissed, his dark eyes shifted to Martha. The fear in her equally dark eyes responded to the threat. She swallowed hard and nodded at Jordan. She would not disobey him.
My body continued to pulse in fear. Jordan would kill Martha; I had no doubt about it. If he believed it was his destiny to kill her, he would justify his actions.
“You’ve served your purpose, Martha, and you will be rewarded for fulfilling His Will. But cross me, and I’m sure the plan will include your demise for getting in my way.”
Martha nodded again. Jordan’s tone was so smooth. This was how he got out of his prison term, I was certain. He spoke in a way that convinced you that wrong was right.
Martha sat back and stared at me as I was turned toward them both during this interchange.
“Why Martha?” I pleaded.
“You mustn’t speak to her. She is of no consequence to us, Holli. Only you and I are the concern. And how to take care of this issue you have brought between us.”
“What issue?” Martha addressed me.
“I’m pregnant.” The hurt on Martha’s face was immediate. She clearly misunderstood. “It’s Perkins’.” Martha’s eyes opened wide.
“Ms. SanGrael, that’s so exciting.”
Martha was plainly not taking into account our surroundings, the eminent danger of Jordan, or the awkward closeness of the three of us. The joys of announcing a pregnancy
were not acceptable at this point. It drew Jordan’s attention back to the matter at hand. How was he going to take what wasn’t his?
A night of torture…
[Perkins]
After Arturo drove off, I was shaken by our interchange. My first thought was to return to the guys upstairs and explain all that I had witnessed. But Tristan and Lansing were well on their way to oblivion. Lansing and Guinevere had some kind of altercation after I saved the girl who came with Lansing to the party. Lila had been her name. I only knew of her, as she disappeared immediately after someone harassing her was removed. I was too wrapped up in kicking out a member of our rival band to pay attention to what was transpiring between Guinevere and Lansing at the bar. What was I missing?
My second thought was to go to Hollister. Even though she had to work overnight, I felt like a disobedient child who snuck out of his home and stole to his girlfriend’s house. I just wanted to see her. I needed to hold her to calm my mind, which raced from the strange interaction with Arturo. I hadn’t heard back from Hollister after I last sent her a text, but I decided I would risk the late hour and go to the shelter.
As I drove from the Upper East Side to the Lower West Side, where the shelter was built, images of Arturo in our younger years flashed through my mind. Arturo and I practicing at Mure’s shack. Arturo teaching me how to dance. Arturo telling me the ways of a woman. He knew I was waiting for that special one. He knew I held out for her, and he never laughed at me for that romantic notion. He supported it, even if he didn’t understand it. He congratulated my will power, even if he didn’t agree with it. He let me believe I would find her again someday, and I did.
