Sex & Violence

by Carrie Mesrobian

  Listening to the sound of the water rushing on tile made me feel like I was back at Remington Chase. Which was crazy—YOU ARE SAFE, I yelled at myself in my head. Then I could hear Collette, crying, which made no sense, since that happened much later. How much later? I never asked the true timeline of that night. If Dr. Penny thought I should know the specifics of how everything went, she probably would’ve made me write magical letters to the Charlotte police department.

  I shut the shower off. I was sweating. The steam fogged the mirror, and I yanked open the flimsy-ass door and was about to flop back onto the couch and sulk when I saw Tom loping across the yard with Kelly and got an idea. Watching Tom help Kelly into the boat, I ran outside before he could start the motor.

  I mean, a door needing a lock—how hard could it be? I could do calculus and chemistry when I paid attention. I had taken industrial arts. There had to be instructions online.

  “You got a drill I could borrow?” I asked Tom, all casual.

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s in the shed with all the summer Shakespeare shit.”

  If you ever want to quickly feel like a giant dumbfuck, just go into a hardware store and stare at a display of doors for a while. Still, forty minutes and forty bucks later, I drove home, feeling better. Closer to not smelling like girly booze and sacks of yellow onions.

  The gathering at the Tonneson’s was still going, so I took the long way around to the shed for the drill. Then I slipped back the same way. Sneaking around was necessary, because I’d gotten used to life on the east side, everyone in your business. Mrs. Tonneson borrowing someone’s back massager and talking loudly about it out on her deck. Baker cutting Tom’s hair on her screen porch. Brenda dragging her laptop over to my dad every time the screen froze. I knew way too much about these people. Their hemorrhoids, their carpal tunnel, their grandmothers with dementia.

  Fast forward to complete fuckery. I followed the instructions on the dead-bolt package—really, I did. But I wasn’t five minutes into drilling holes when I completely cocked up the entire thing. None of the holes were aligned and the doorknob rattled around like it might fall out and the drill pretty much cracked the flimsy-ass door in half. I wanted to tear the whole thing off the hinges like the Hulk.

  “What’re you doing?”

  My dad. In the kitchen. With Brenda. They were holding a bunch of dirty dishes.

  “I was putting a lock on the door …”

  “It’s completely destroyed,” my father murmured. I heard Brenda say, “I’ll get Keir.”

  “What were you thinking?” my dad asked, his forehead wrinkling. I stared at the floor. Keir and Brenda returned, and Keir puzzled over the giant crack running down the center of the door.

  “Did you get locked in or something?” Keir asked.

  “He was installing a dead bolt,” my father said.

  “What’s going on?” It was Baker, holding a big drippy chocolate cake on a plate. Apparently, it was dessert at the Carters now and the whole east side was pouring into our house to witness my idiocy firsthand.

  “Evan was trying to fix the bathroom door,” Brenda murmured. That was generous of her.

  “You need an entirely new door, Adrian,” Keir said, wiping his hands on his muscle shirt.

  My father sighed. Stared at me like he wanted to call Dr. Penny. I wiped sawdust off my hands.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “A pocket door might work better,” Keir added, examining the wall. “Take up less space.”

  “Why do you need a lock when only two people live here, Evan?” Baker asked, getting out a stack of plates from the cupboard. “Or do you bust in on him when he takes too long to do his hair, Mr. Carter?” Everyone laughed.

  “Privacy is very important,” Mrs. Tonneson said. “Especially when you’re the age Evan is …”

  Jesus. She made it sound like I was inspecting my first dick hairs.

  “I usually knock,” my dad qualified. “If the door’s closed, anyway.”

  “Maybe it’s Adrian who needs privacy,” Brenda said, laughing.

  “Guys like their solitude in the bathroom,” Mr. Tonneson said. “We go to the can to get away from it all.”

  “Gross,” Baker said.

  I felt like killing myself, Baker imagining me taking a dump while reading the sports page.

  Tom and Kelly came in, then. “What’s going on?” Tom said.

  “Did someone try to break into your bathroom?” Kelly asked.

  “Whoa, Evan, did you do that with a drill?” Tom asked, lifting up his baseball cap in surprise.

  “Remind me not to ask him to work on the Shakespeare sets,” Mrs. Tonneson murmured.

  “Who wants cake?” Baker asked.

  A few hours later, Keir and my dad dismantled the door, and unable to look anyone in the eye, I went to town to get my paycheck and ended up grilling out in Layne Beauchant’s backyard, drinking a Miller High Life and watching his little boy Harry toddle around naked in his plastic kiddie pool. After my day of shame with the bathroom door, this bottle of beer tasted pretty damn good. Jacinta—Layne’s girlfriend—was grilling hamburgers and sweet corn while telling me about how a coworker of hers got in a fistfight at the vending machine in the break room and the cops came. Jacinta worked in an office, so that was high drama.

  Layne came outside and kissed Jacinta on the neck. He took off his boots and dirty socks and pulled up a chair beside me, putting his feet into Harry’s pool and cringing.

  “Damn, that water’s cold!” he shouted.

  “Don’t swear in front of your son!” Jacinta pointed her spatula at him.

  When we sat down to eat at the picnic table, Harry wasn’t having it. He cried when his dad made him put back on his Spider-Man underpants (“Big boys don’t eat dinner naked,” Jacinta said) and didn’t want to sit on his plastic booster seat (jacked from Layne’s job at Denny’s, no doubt). Harry cried until Jacinta sweet-talked him with some corn on the cob, which he ate while smiling at me with his little kid teeth. Harry was blond like his father, but had his mother’s features, which was a good thing. Layne wasn’t ugly, but he had a really threatening look about him that said in every possible way that he wasn’t anyone to mess with. Jacinta was pretty foxy, though she looked tired. She yawned while she put ketchup on her hamburger bun.

  “Your mom came in again to the store today with Harry,” Layne said to Jacinta. “She was talking about getting that dumb Elmo cake for the party.”

  “Elmo!” Harry said.

  “Hmm,” Jacinta said, cutting up Harry’s hamburger with her fork. “The last I talked to her, we were going to just do cupcakes. They’re easier for kids. And no plates.”

  “Cupcay!” Harry said. “Elmo cupcay!”

  “Why can’t you like Cookie Monster, little man?” Layne asked his son.

  “Elmo!”

  “Christ,” Layne muttered. “Elmo is such a goddamn douche.”

  “Quit swearing, will you? He can like Elmo all he wants, Layne. It’s not your birthday party, is it? You have Cookie Monster on your cake.”

  “Maybe I will,” Layne said, all grumpy but grinning.

  “Lana called me,” Jacinta said to Layne. “Asking me for Evan’s number.”

  Oh, god, I thought.

  “She fucking around again with Randy Garrington?” Layne asked.

  “Don’t say ‘fuck’ in front of your son,” Jacinta said.

  “Well, is she?”

  “How should I know?” Jacinta said. “All she said was could I get Evan’s number.”

  Harry reached for my corn, and I handed it to him. I’ve never been a big fan of sweet corn.

  “Harry, sit down and eat already,” Layne said, his mouth full of hamburger. Then he muttered, “Lana should leave Evan alone.”

  “Why?” Jacinta asked. “Do you have a girlfriend, Evan?”

  Though she was a girl and said she was my friend, Baker was far from the standard definition of a girlfriend. Even if I believed in no
n-monogramy, even if Jim suddenly disappeared from the planet, I could never kick Baker game like I would any other girl. And not just because she had a sort-of boyfriend who could crush me into powder. Baker was too smart, would see through my bullshit. Which explained why I ended up with dumb chicks like Lana. Maybe I wasn’t built to have a girlfriend.

  “No girlfriend,” I said.

  “Well, you must think Lana’s cute,” Jacinta said. “Since you hooked up at the drive-in.”

  “Jesus, is this the smallest town ever?” I asked.

  “Pretty much,” Layne said. “Get used to it.”

  “Lana’s all right,” I said.

  “Then what’s the big problem?” Jacinta asked.

  Layne launched into his opinion that Randy Garrington was a crazy psycho and that Lana didn’t have any sense when it came to guys and that I was a good kid and Lana should just finish her vet tech training and get a damn job so that when someone knocked her up she’d at least have a way to make a living.

  “God, Layne. That’s your sister you’re talking about!”

  “Half sister,” Layne corrected, tipping back his beer.

  “Knocking girls up isn’t really my thing,” I said.

  “Give me your phone, Evan,” Jacinta said. “I’ll put her number in for you.”

  “What? No, you can’t do that,” Layne said, smacking my hand back.

  Harry started to cry, and while Layne reassured him that I was okay and no one was fighting, Jacinta looked at me like, as soon as Layne leaves I’ll give you the number.

  After dinner, Layne and Jacinta flipped a coin over putting Harry to bed or cleaning up and Jacinta won and left Layne and me to deal with the dishes and dump out the pool. Their house was tiny and the lawn needed mowing and pinned up on the laundry line were a bunch of girl clothes and little boy T-shirts and there was a sandbox full of rusty Tonka trucks, but I didn’t care because no one had ever invited me over to eat with their family like that, much less my supervisor at my job. It felt awesome, actually. A really adult thing to do.

  Layne scrubbed the grill with a metal brush while I sat at the picnic table peeling the label off my beer bottle. After a while, he said, “Fine, I’ll give you Lana’s number. But on two conditions.”

  “Okay.”

  “First, you can never be with her in public. As long as Randy Garrington’s around town, anyway. You have to be like, here, in my basement with the door locked. Under the cover of darkness. With no other people around.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Randy Garrington’s crazy,” Layne said. “Stupid fucker even tried to mess with my older brother Tim once. And Tim’s been in prison. Trust me, Evan. You don’t want to deal with Randy. The guy’s a fucking psycho.”

  This gave me a chill. And it was July-hot out.

  “Okay,” I gulped. “What’s the other thing?”

  “You tell me what went on with you before you moved here. Why you don’t have a spleen, for instance. Who broke your nose? And that cut on your lip that never heals up.”

  I never expected Layne, of all people, to ask me outright about any of that. I figured he’d consider my busted-up features as just another day in the life of your average badass like himself.

  “How do you know about my spleen?”

  “You wrote it on your medical form for work,” he said. “I actually read that shit, you know. I am in charge of you. And while it don’t seem like you’re insane like Randy, Lana is my sister.”

  Half sister, I thought, automatically.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  It took a while to explain it all, but he didn’t interrupt. Layne listened across the table, smoking a cigarette, quiet and serious with his Don’t-Fuck-With-Me expression, which made me relax. Made me think that he’d heard stories like mine before. Though, more likely, he’d been the one delivering the ass-kicking.

  When I finished, Layne raked his hair out of his eyes and sighed.

  “Christ,” he said. “So what’s gonna happen to them?”

  “I don’t know. The court date’s next June, if you can believe that.”

  “What happened to the girl?”

  “She moved back to Boston,” I said, my voice cracking a little, because the part about Collette was always the worst. “She was in the emergency room the same night as me. The cops told my dad that she probably won’t be able to have kids. Two guys at once—there was a lot of internal damage.”

  “Christ,” Layne said again.

  We sat for a bit listening to crickets and the sound of his next door neighbor’s music thumping.

  “Give me your phone,” Layne said. “But I’m adding one more condition.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You come over to my brother’s tow shop this weekend,” he said. “Tim’s got a heavy bag down there. Me and him can at least teach you how to punch.”

  Dear Collette,

  I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

  I’m such a cock

  I completely suck

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A week later, Layne and I went to Tim’s tow shop. Tim was on the phone when he came to the door, so he motioned us inside. We passed a tool bench and a Jeep with a smashed-in bumper in the repair well until we were in the back, where there was a foldout couch, a desk with an ancient computer, and a little refrigerator, where Layne got us each a can of beer.

  The whole place smelled like oil and gas and dirt. A box fan in the window made a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar flutter against the wall. Layne pulled out some hand wraps from a metal utility locker and started talking about them while he wrapped up my wrists and palms. I tried to listen, but I was distracted by Tim on the phone over in the repair well. He was talking in that specific way that told me it was a girl on the line. I couldn’t quite accept the fact that Layne’s tattooed, ex-con brother might have a softer side, so I was eavesdropping like crazy.

  “I’ll come pick you up,” Tim was saying. “Yeah? I like the sound of that. What? You tell that cocksucker he can talk to me about it … Oh, you think? Well, put on the coffee, girl, ’cause I can go all night …”

  God. Even Tim’s cheesy girl conversations sounded badass.

  I noticed then what I was wearing: flip-flops and a T-shirt that said Hey Cupcake! in swirly pink lettering, from the cupcake shop in Tacoma.

  Tim came in, grinning, saying he’d been wanting to meet me, which again, seemed corny to me in its kindness, despite Dr. Penny always telling me that’s how friendships work and to get over it already.

  Tim was taller and bigger than Layne, with more arm tattoos. He did the same kind of wallet-on-a-chain with jeans thing, but his T-shirt was tighter across the chest because of all his muscles and he was more handsome than Layne, though he still looked tougher than hell.

  Tim hung up the heavy bag from a chain—he flipped it around like it wasn’t filled with a hundred pounds of sand or the crushed skulls of the Beauchant brothers’ enemies or whatever fills heavy bags.

  “All right, make a fist,” Layne said. “Keep your thumb out, never inside.”

  “I like it bent up a little,” Tim said. “Feels better that way.”

  Like he was a connoisseur of violence. Which I guessed he must be.

  “You want to connect with the index and middle fingers,” Layne continued. “The other two fingers aren’t as strong and break easier.”

  “Your fingers break? From hitting someone?”

  “If you’re hitting hard enough, sure,” Layne said. “Usually your hands get all cut to shit too. But a few cracked knuckles or a broken finger is better than a busted nose, right?”

  “You’ve got to hit them right, though,” Tim said. “Because then it’s over faster.”

  “So don’t draw out the ass-kicking, then,” I said, kind of joking.

  “The sooner it’s over, the b
etter,” Tim said. “That’s the point. You don’t go around attacking people, fighting dirty like that asshole Randy Garrington. Remember that time he went for my nuts after he brought Lana home drunk?” he asked Layne.

  Layne looked pissy and said, “Evan, go ahead and fight dirty with that fucker. Stomp on his nuts—you won’t hear me complaining.”

  Tim shook his head, like he thought Layne was a barbarian.

  “Okay, so remember,” Tim said. “A street fight isn’t a movie, where the guys stand there forever taking a million hits. And it isn’t like boxing—boxers train so they’ll last longer in the ring. Normal people go straight down on the first hit. You break someone’s nose? There’s blood everywhere, their whole face swells up so they can’t see shit, and it’s over. So bank on getting one lucky punch done right and then running like hell. Can you run fast, Evan?”

  I nodded.

  “Good,” Tim said. “Hit him and get the fuck out of there.”

  “The nose is a good target, right in the center, hurts like a bitch,” Layne said, and the ridged bump on my own nose tingled at the thought. “A lot softer than the jaw too. Though most people can’t take a hit in the jaw, either. But start with the nose. You remember how much that shit hurt, and you think about wanting to deliver that to someone else.”

  Of all of it, I could remember the moment my nose broke most. But very little else after that. Which was probably a good thing, overall, because thinking about being destroyed while naked in a shower did zero for my confidence, especially since I was applying for my man card while wearing flip-flops and a cupcake T-shirt.

  We started out with me hitting Tim’s open palms, Layne coaching behind me, which made me feel like a little kid learning to piss in the potty. Especially when they would say stuff like, good, good, that’s nice, that right hand’s good, huh?

  Then we did the heavy bag, which was horrible and hard. Layne said I needed gloves, but Tim said I wasn’t training for a welterweight matchup and needed to get a sense of my hands. I felt ridiculous while they argued, and then Layne’s phone rang, so he ducked out to talk while Tim lectured me on the importance of stance. He reminded me of Dr. Penny, except with totally different catchphrases: “The power comes from your body, not your fist” and “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.”