Nico

by J. B. Hartnett

  Standing in front of my shop, I looked in the windows, wondering what drew these women to seek me out. Even that first time with Anika, I had no idea why she’d chosen my tattoo studio and me over anyone else. She didn’t even live in Laguna; she lived in San Clemente. But her coming in had led all these other—what I now decided to call broken birds—to me for help.

  Instead of heading up the steps, I walked another mile downtown and went straight into the diviest bar our town had, Jack’s.

  It was almost two, but this was the kind of place that bent the rules. I ordered four shots of cheap whiskey and slammed them, one after the other. Then I ordered two more.

  “Nico, what are you doin’ here?”

  Diana was, for all intents and purposes, a prostitute. She was probably in her fifties, not bad looking, but not somewhere I wanted to stick my dick. I took the next two shots and looked over at her. Taking my wallet from my jeans, I paid for the drinks and also checked to see how much cash I had. This was a chick whose job it was to make me come, not to have a conversation, not to tell me about her fucking day or the shoes she bought to go with the dress she was wearing, I couldn’t give a fuckin’ shit about any of that.

  “Diana.” I said her name, and her hand found my balls outside my jeans. “You mind showing me where the bathroom is in this place?”

  “Have to say, I’m surprised, Nico. Must have been a pretty bad day.” She winked.

  I didn’t answer her. We went to the back of the bar as I gave a nod of appreciation to Flap and dropped another twenty as we walked by. I knew we would not be disturbed.

  She locked the door and asked, “Anything special you want?”

  “Just my dick in your mouth,” I answered.

  “Sure thing, baby.” She was on her knees with my dick down her throat only seconds later. Fuck, this was worth every last fuckin’ dollar. She asked for twenty; I gave her forty.

  “Yessss,” I let out, my head falling back as she slowly took me into her throat again.

  She pulled back, her tongue swirling around the head, and told me, “You pay double, I swallow. Triple, I—”

  “Just suck my dick, Diana.” I grabbed her head. Not to guide her; she didn’t need any fuckin’ guidance. I just wanted to feel her hair in my hands. I wanted to smell her perfume on me later so I had something good to think about, even if it was just a blowjob in the bathroom of a seedy bar. “Fuckkk…” I groaned out, holding her mouth at the base of my dick as she swallowed every last drop.

  I slumped to the disgusting floor, not giving a fuck when my hands met the sticky surface.

  “See ya, baby,” Diana said, opening the door. “You ever wanna fuck, first one’s on me, baby. You have a nice cock.”

  I nodded and tried to stand. I was totally fucked up, but I didn’t want to go home. The only thing I would do there was drink more, maybe pull my dick, and pass out. I stumbled by the trendy stores and their even trendier displays. Surf shops with long boards and swimwear and photos of stick-thin women in bikinis. Then the more touristy shops with magnets, framed pictures of Main Beach, and lighthouses made out of sand. I stumbled around the corner and saw a new shop; the shelves were filled with bottles of wine, fancy glasses, and jars of fat, green olives. The other window had a display of stationary with Montblanc pens and big, leather diaries. Fuck, I lived in an expensive city. I put my hands flat on the windows, but noticed they stuck to the glass with whatever bathroom residue was on them.

  Then I heard it… the ocean.

  I used to sit on my roof an average of six days a week, unless the weather was really shitty. I would lift myself up from the front railing and just listen to the cars, to the waves breaking against rocks, to women giggling after a long night of drinking… then I stopped. I lost the ability to listen. I lost the ability to appreciate the beauty that surrounded me every single day.

  The weather wasn’t exactly warm, but I didn’t give a fuck. I walked up a small hill, away from Main Beach, since, being a place with dickhead-laws, you weren’t supposed to swim after ten or some shit. I stripped down to my boxers and walked into the waves. The swells were small, low tide, so I swam out into the water easily, the brisk temperature welcoming.

  I floated on my back, looking up at the night sky. I thought about all the different designs I’d put on peoples’ bodies and how they would live with them for the rest of their lives—my contribution to something they felt so strongly about at the time. It was there permanently. Some tattoos were so fucking stupid though, but who was I to judge. I wasn’t exactly making stellar life choices myself. Either way, they would likely look at it and be reminded of a time when their stupidity or their passion led them to get that tattoo in the first place.

  I was passionate about nothing. That was what occurred to me, floating there. The black night sky, the water holding me, I let my body collapse below the surface, just to feel that escape for a moment.

  Then something brushed past my leg. I convinced myself it was probably just seaweed, until it happened again. Through my whiskey-fog, I made a conscious decision not to panic; instead, I began to swim back to shore. I hadn’t realized how far out I was. If I were to yell to the houses on the cliff, it was unlikely anyone would hear me. I kicked out with my right leg when something nipped my ankle. The skin had for sure been punctured, and my previous decision not to panic vanished. I increased my speed and fought against a current I didn’t even know was there until I had to work against it. But now, my boxers were in the grip of a creature I could not see, and it was probably better that I didn’t.

  We’d had a few shark sightings off the coast, but very few attacks. Whatever had been toying with me before now meant fuckin’ business. My lungs burned, my arms burned, pain from the puncture of teeth was setting in when whatever it was let me go… but only for a second. Tthis time, I felt the razor sharp teeth sink into my right thigh. It fucking killed.

  I screamed out, pulled back with my right elbow to try to fight it off, which, luckily, must have stunned it. I was able to get to the shallow water and crawl to the damp sand. Safe, but trailing blood behind me, I didn’t look at the wound. I knew I would need to get to a hospital, and quick. If I looked at it, I might not be able to keep going. I climbed the longest fucking set of stairs in Laguna Beach to get back to Pacific Coast Highway. I can’t imagine what I looked like, a man with shaggy blond hair, his dick swinging in the wind, and blood pouring from his thigh and ankle. Within minutes, a cop pulled up, shined that motherfucking spotlight on me, but then realized I was injured.

  A few hours later, my pop had me in his truck, and I had four small shark teeth as souvenirs, which I planned to have made into a necklace. Except for one. One, I was saving.

  On our way home from the hospital, Pop let me know exactly how he felt.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, taking a dip in Mother Nature’s buffet in the middle of the goddamn night? You got a screw loose?”

  I had the great pleasure of morphine on board, which was a bit like truth serum, I discovered, and answered him honestly. “I wanted to feel alive.”

  “Well, I hope it worked. Why don’t you find a woman to do that instead, you jackass.” He slapped his hand against the dash of the truck to really get his point across.

  “I’ve been trying that for a while, Pop. Doesn’t have the same appeal it used to.”

  He said nothing until we were parked in front of my garage in the alley behind my house. Ever since I was a kid, this was usually the prelude to getting a stern talking to. “Nicolas. When I met your mom, you know what that fucking woman did to me?”

  This was sure to be a story I would not forget; two in one day. “Please don’t say anything that is going to scar me emotinally. I’m all hopped up at the moment, and I’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “Shut up and listen. She took the breath right outta me. I looked at her, didn’t know a thing about her, but my lungs burned from trying to catch my breath again. Then she smiled and that was it. I wa
s fuckin’ gone. Didn’t matter what movies she liked or music she listened to. Didn’t matter what she thought about politics or books. I couldn’t give a shit. All I knew was, when she smiled at me, nothing else mattered, and that was the point. She wasn’t a piece of ass to get my dick wet. She was the woman that would carry my heart, and my balls, mind you, with her until my last day on this earth. That was when I knew I was alive, when I met your mom. Now get the fuck outta my truck and stop scaring the hell out of us.”

  Moira’s blood was dried in two large circles, plus a smaller one, on my wooden porch, bringing me right back to reality. I carefully limped through the front door of my house and checked my phone. Zack had left a message to let me know that Moira was going to be okay. She had a couple broken ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, and some bruising on her spine. The only good thing to come out of the entire night? Teensy had offered Moira a job as her assistant with full benefits. She even threw in the apartment behind the studio downtown.

  I sat on the edge of my tub with the shower facing away from me so I could keep my wound dry.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked no one.

  I was bad. I was depressed, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it. The thing was, I actually had a great life. I was just… lost. I thought about getting another tattoo. Maybe I could do what the women I helped did, but it just didn’t seem right. My chest was a blank canvas, just waiting. I’d know it when I saw it, whatever “it” was. My back, though, was done by a guy named Steve up in Seattle. He was a photo-realism genius, and what I wanted, I wanted done by the best; my sleeved arms, both done like totem poles, were more artistic than meaningful, but I loved them. It was a bit of my heritage I wore with pride, even if I had no idea where my ancestors were from. It didn’t matter.

  I’d left blank rings, four on each side. My arms were a carbon copy of each other. One ring would be for my pop, one would be for my mom, and one—if I ever got married—would be for my wife. The fourth would be if I ever had a kid. I wanted one kid… maybe. I didn’t fuckin’ know. But on my back was a place my pop had taken me as a kid, and it was exactly the place I wanted to take my own son if I had one. When I was nine, he had taken me on a father/son fishing trip up in the mountains.

  “Can you hear that?” he’d asked me once.

  “What? I don’t hear anything.” I answered, confused.

  “You’re not listening. Shut your face and shut your mind and just… listen.”

  A few minutes of heavy concentration, I relaxed and heard it. Nature had so much to say. The ground was alive, the trees were alive, and I had never taken the time to sit back and listen. That’s what I wanted to give my child. The top of my shoulders and back were a star-filled sky, with the silhouettes of pine tree tops and a crescent moon, jutting peaks of a mountain ridge, detailed branches of Jeffrey, Lodge pole pines, and white firs.

  From the bottom were shiny branches of Manzanita that grew from the ground separately, but entwined to form the shape of a man and a woman embracing. The foreground was a campfire, and a hawk in front of that, its wings, outstretched, covered the width of my torso, and in the center of each wing was a bear paw to symbolize the last things that had brought me peace in my life; a bear named Georgie and little girl with dishwater-blonde hair.

  The water grew cold while I contemplated my sorry ass, so I hopped carefully into the bedroom and got dressed. I’d never fucked a chick in my bed, not once. Floor, couch, shower, kitchen counter, dining table, bedroom floor, but not my bed. And not my chair. My chair was for me and me only. I drank there, I lived in my head there, and escaped there with music, and my hand.

  I missed smoking.

  Then next morning, I put on sweats, no boxers, and a sweatshirt, grabbed my wallet and keys, which the cops were nice enough to grab from the beach for me, and slowly climbed the stairs to my garage. I hadn’t rented a movie in ages. I’d avoided going to the shop because Gina would probably be there and I didn’t want to face her. Then something clicked in me; I remembered what it was like to close my eyes and get lost in her, how, for the first time, I felt something more than pure carnal pleasure. Being with her had touched something deep inside me. Maybe, and I was toying with the idea, maybe I could have feelings for Gina if I allowed myself.

  By the time I got to the shop, I had made up my mind to ask her out. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to help my women, the broken birds, without breaking their confidence, but that was the least of my worries right now. I would figure it out, but I knew I needed someone to talk to, and maybe Gina could be that person.

  Sure enough, she was standing behind the counter. Her hair was just at her shoulders now, which made her look more feminine, and she was even prettier than I remembered. I tried to think about what movie I might ask her for as an opening for conversation as I limped up to her.

  “Nico!” she exclaimed.

  “Hey, Gina. How are you?”

  “I think a better question is, how are you?” she asked, eyeing my leg. The bandage made one look much thicker than the other through my sweats.

  “I had a little swimming… mishap.” I chuckled.

  “No way!” She moved around the counter next to me. “Are you the Naked Shark Attack Guy?” Her eyes were huge waiting for my answer.

  “I didn’t start out naked. Fucker took my boxers.” I smirked.

  “That is one lucky fish.” She sighed.

  For a split second, I was thinking a shark was a mammal then remembered that was dolphins. “Uh, I know this is going to maybe catch you off guard, but I wondered if you might like to have dinner with me?”

  There. I fuckin’ did it. How hard was that? I could do this. For sure. I needed to make some changes, but this was a start. I’d had plenty of random pussy, and obviously, that wasn’t working for me any more…

  “Oh… wow, Nico. Wow,” she said awkwardly. In a louder voice she added, “Come over to action and I’ll show you those movies I suggested. Michelle? Can you watch the front? Thanks.”

  I followed her, bouncing and full of smiles for the other two customers near us to “action” and leaned against a shelf of DVD’s. “I took your advice, Nico. I… I met someone. I mean, I have you to thank for being a huge asshole, but you actually did me a favor.” She was being sweet. She didn’t seem to have any animosity, which was good. Still, she was giving me “the speech,” which was totally catching me off guard.

  “Oh,” I said like an idiot. “Good for you, Gina.” I took a random DVD from the “S” shelf and limped back to the counter, dragging my giant, wounded ego behind me.

  “Thanks, Michelle,” Gina said. “I think those kids are trying to steal the candy again. Go get ‘em.” She shooed her lowly high school age employee away. “So, Spacejam, huh?” She teased, looking at the DVD.

  I gave her a genuine smile and lied, “I’ve heard great things.”

  “Nico—” she began as I took the movie and left a five dollar bill on the counter.

  I spoke quietly so no one would hear our exchange. “Gina, you did me a favor, too. It’s all good. I’m happy you found someone.” I turned and slowly made my way toward to the door.

  I was just lifting my leg into the truck when the passenger side door opened and Gina jumped in. “Hey, what are you—”

  She thrust her tongue in my mouth, and I, in turn, took her face in my hands, pulling her closer for that kiss I hadn’t forgotten.

  “Fuck,” I said on a breath.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, both of us panting. Then she gave me a light peck on the lips, sweet and chaste, and moved to open the door.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked. I wasn’t pissed or anything, far from it.

  “Because of your heart, Nico. It’s beautiful. You’re a good man who lost his way. I’ve thought about it, about you, a lot. I wish we could be what each of us is looking for, but I knew we weren’t that night, and I had to be sure. That’s why I kissed you again. I had to be sure.”
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  I put my hands on the steering wheel and looked out the windshield. “I’m fucked.”

  “I was, too. For three years, I was just going through the motions. The mindless sex isn’t working like it used to?” she asked.

  “How’d you know?” I turned to look at her.

  “I drank. I’m sure it doesn’t look like it, but it was easier to hide behind a few drinks every night, and then day and night, than it was to feel the pain of that hole left behind by Andy. I was sure you only get one.”

  “One?”

  She stared out the window, the peachy colored stucco building in front of us the only thing in her line of vision.

  “Soul mate, true love, whatever you want to call it. So I waited for a sign, and that night, with you, at Roscoe’s… it just snapped me out of it. I’m still here. I’m alive. And when I met this man,” she said as she turned a ring around her finger, “I was waiting for another sign because I thought, ‘No way could this happen twice in my lifetime.’ So when you walked in today, I thought you were my sign, and your kiss, as fairy tale as it sounds, your beautiful kiss woke me up the first time. I wanted to be sure, and I am.” She opened the door and hopped down. “You’ll find it, Nico, whatever it is you’re looking for, and when you do, you’ll be happy.”

  She rounded the truck, and just like that night at my place, she never looked back.

  Chapter 6

  Independence Day

  The heat brought more than the usual holiday crowd to the beach. The air conditioner was working overtime in our little shop, and I was adding the last mane of the last horse that covered my mother’s chest. Her vision of a dream catcher had turned out to be even better than the sketches Zack and I had done.

  The hoop in the middle had the traditional eight points, representing the eight legs of a spider. It was meant to signify wisdom and female creative energy, perfect for where it was on her body. She wanted a few clouds scattered above with a lone hawk. I assumed this was because of the hawk on my back, but I didn’t ask. Spotted Owl feathers hung in the foreground, and, starting from her lower back, a herd of Mustangs ran to the front with the leader in mid-stride in the center of her chest. She said, for her, that one horse would protect her body from going through hell again.