by Mike Wehner
“Shit,” he stepped over to me with the ball and spun it backwards off the ground a few times. “Ice queens aren’t my thing, Emily is more my deal.”
“H,” I said. “Interesting, does she know?”
“Everybody knows.”
“But you aren’t together?” I missed a shot from the top of the key.
“No, those girls are complicated man. Different, but complicated.” Mike missed from the same spot. “Damn, we suck.”
“What do you want for lunch?” I said. Mike bounced the ball from the free throw line and it missed the hoop and hit the fence behind the goal.
“There’s an unlimited sushi place across the street.” Mike was on his butt in front of his gym bag swapping out sneakers for flip flops.
“Expensive?”
“Nah, it’s cheap but the service is fucked. The menu is on these cheap, off-brand tablets that don’t work right. The orders don’t always get in and the food takes forever to come out.” Mike held his hand out for me to help him up. “The waitress gets super angry when you tell her the tablet isn’t working too.” I pulled at the collar of my shirt and the breeze chilled my sweaty chest.
“Sounds amazing, maybe we will get lucky and get someone nice.”
“No shot, I’ve been there like nine times and it’s always the same mean-ass girl. She might be really pretty, I can’t tell.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s terrifying.”
“Is that why you keep going back?”
“No, I go back because it’s twenty bucks. I ate eleven rolls last time I was there. You want to have a contest? That bitch will love that.”
◆◆◆
Erin was waiting for me in front of the restaurant when I walked up. She was in jeans and had a giant leather satchel swooped over her shoulder.
“Hey,” I said.
“Why the hell are you all sweaty?” She flipped her foot out.
“You didn’t tell me where we were going, you said be here and I’m here.”
“You look horrible.”
“I just lost a sushi eating contest, my tummy hurts.”
She ran inside and fetched an unopened package of white T-shirts, unisex, size small. I waited until we got in the car to change so I could hit her in the face while fighting my damp shirt over my head.
“Fuck, watch it!”
“Sorry.” The nail of my pointer finger scratched the soft skin next to her eye.
Erin drove with loose hands on the wheel, rapping her first and second fingers to the radio.
“Can you tell me where we’re going please?” I ripped the package of shirts with my teeth. This time I hit her in the ear.
“Jesus!”
“Sorry.” She pulled to the side of the road and set her head on her open hands.
“You’re being really odd,” I said. She grumbled at me.
“I like to be in control.”
I waited and then said, “You’re freaking me out.”
“We’re going somewhere really important to me, I need you to be cool and not tell anyone. Can you do that?”
“Yes, but can you tell me where we are going?” I squiggled in my seat trying to get the shirt to sit right. It was pinching at me in every direction.
“No.”
There was a long bout of silence.
“That shirt is way too small, you look ridiculous,” she calmed herself and pressed on.
“Is that going to matter?”
Erin turned to inspect me every few minutes and made ghastly faces each time I readjusted. After a while we turned into the parking lot of a beautiful limestone library. The facade was old and spotted with moss and dark gray discolorations like on the faces of old men. I thought we might be doing a workshop on how to pick produce or a cooking demo.
“Maybe it’s for the best, you looking like an idiot,” she said. The shirt creaked and tore when I got out of the car. I picked and pulled at it all the way to the front door.
Grief Journal
DAY 610
I ducked into a corporate coffee shop to get a root beer. I don’t drink coffee but those places usually have a reach-in cooler at the front filled with designer carbonated beverages, foul fermented health drinks and blended spinach smoothies. I was exhausted after an afternoon spent birthday shopping for my mom. She’s the kind of person who doesn’t want anything she doesn’t need and doesn’t think she needs anything. I’ve never given her a gift she didn’t take issue with—it didn’t discourage me, if she wanted to be miserable that was her business.
I stood in line annoyed by the obnoxious organic label on the soda in my hand. My index finger traced the embossed letters of the stout glass bottle and the girl next to me shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. She was beautiful and any chance I get to talk to a beautiful girl I take it. Not because she’s beautiful but because she’s beautiful and might also be charming. If she’s both the universe demands I fall in love with her, if only for the time we spend talking. Love measured in seconds is every bit as good as love measured in years for the time you spend in it.
She was tall and her dark straight hair lightened and curled up at the ends as if it were uncomfortable being too far from her face—like the top branches of trees in a dense forest that bend themselves back towards the sun. She looked athletic enough to throw a punch but too delicate to take one. I scanned her up and down, not for an object of fantasy but one of conversation.
“What are you reading?” I said, motioning to the book cupped in her hand. Her gaze lingered on the handsome barista who pumped slick brown goo into a cup of ice for her chai latte, non-fat with whip. Once she realized I was talking to her she wrinkled her nose while scanning me to determine if I was a threat. I was dressed like usual, a solid color T-shirt and jeans. In black and white I’d look like a member of the beat generation whose clothes were a bit too tight.
I smiled to comfort her, to say I was a regular person and not the type of guy who wore his sunglasses backwards on his head or owned a bunch of tank tops.
“It’s a memoir,” she said with hesitation, not willing to share much.
“Gross.” When a girl acts put off, I respond in kind. It either ends up endearing me to her or it buries the conversation and we both can move on without any more awkwardness.
“Oh no, it isn’t what you think. It’s not some trashy Hollywood thing. It’s the story of a girl who killed her boyfriend in self-defense, it’s heartbreaking,” she said. Her fingers were wrapped around the top of the book and she held it up to her chest like a shield. She crunched the receipt stuffed along the top as a book mark while I struggled to put together a response.
A girl once killed a boy I knew, but it wasn’t self-defense.
“I hope you aren’t reading it as an instruction manual,” I deflected.
“No,” she laughed, “I haven’t had to kill any of my boyfriends, yet.”
And just like that, I fell in love. She grabbed her tea from the counter and sat at a small table beneath the front window to read. I paid for my soda with a credit card because a few dollar bills and change weren’t enough to enjoy a non-GMO, organic, creamy bottle of real sugar water. She stopped me on my way out the front door, I thought our queued romance was finished.
“Do you want to sit?” Her honest invitation turned my torso into an over-inflated tire. Acceptance bumbled from my lips. Sun beamed through the window onto her hair and I admired the darkest part, the half not exposed by the dense rays. The harsh light on her right cheek revealed no flaws and upped my internal pressure.
“I’m Alex,” I said trying to get comfortable in the stiff metal chair, “and no girl has tried to kill me, yet.”
I scoot, scooted under the dinner plate with legs between us. Behind me sat a pair of worn leather club chairs that I’d rather have sat in, the fart sounds leather made would’ve eased the tension of boy meets girl.
She dipped her lips into the whipped top of her drink and when she pulled
back it left no trace. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Jessica. So Alex, why come to a coffee shop and buy soda?”
“You’re not drinking coffee either,” I said and spun the book around on the table so I’d have something to comment on if there was a lull in the conversation. The book was face down, the dust jacket a glossy white. The reflection from the sun made it impossible to read.
“What are you out doing? Other than bothering people about their books of course.”
“Shopping for my mom’s birthday, which is impossible.” Seated with my back to the front door, a bell rang above me each time someone came or went.
“Oh I know, I never know what to get my mom.” Her hands interlocked around the cup and she leaned towards me.
“Last year I tried a gift certificate to a nice Italian restaurant but my step-dad ended up enjoying the food more than Mom so the whole year she’s been insinuating I love him more,” I said.
“My mom’s a nutter too.”
“I asked you about your book because I was hoping to give her something tangible this year, something less subjective than food.”
“You think taste in art is less subjective than food?” Jessica said and let out a loud laugh. “Book are dangerous gifts.”
“I already feel like an idiot, but go on.”
“What’s wonderful and impossibly thoughtful for one person is an albatross to another. The book doesn’t have to be off by much to make someone think you don’t know them at all, or worse, that you’re using it to inject them with your own beliefs.” Jessica hunched forward to keep the glare of the falling sun out of her eyes.
I could have sat there forever and watched her toggle in and out of the light. I flipped her book over and ran my middle finger down the spine. The white cover had the shadow of a couple holding hands that lurched up from the bottom like a pair of twisted monstrosities walking through the park.
“So this book wouldn’t make a good gift?” I said and slapped the top with a high-five.
“Not unless you think your mom should shoot your dad. I’m not sure why I picked it up at the book store, but the moment I opened it I couldn’t stop reading. I love true crime but I’d never heard about this in the news or anything. The shooting happened about a year ago in Virginia, a couple in their mid-twenties.”
As Jessica continued her description I tried to rewind the words from her delicate lips and delete them as fast as she could fling them towards me. Virginia. Chef. Boyfriend. Handgun. Self-defense. Trial. Murder. Five shots. Not Guilty.
Her book report was an oral history of my nightmares but with far less blood. Frantically, I opened the back cover to find a photo of the author. I spun through the pages like a cartoon flip book, resting it back on the table when no photo was found. The sunlight gleamed off of the cover like a headsman’s ax at high noon. With and Without You, it read. A story of disastrous love by Erin Rhodes.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jessica said to try and break the silence as I stared down at the cover, chest heaving.
I didn’t move. My hands were on my cheeks. My eyes unfocused as the book beneath me split and faded away. I knew Erin Rhodes. I didn’t know she wrote a book, but I knew exactly what she’d done. I’d seen her on TV with a long-necked goose microphone bent in front of her prison striped pants-suit. In text messages from friends with links to local news coverage of her trial. Before that I’d seen her in pictures, she was the girl in the photos who was hugging my best friend John. At night I don’t see her, I only see John’s bulleted body. Sometimes the holes in his chest look like the five side of a dice, other times I don’t remember.
When my sight came back so did a violet purpose, vivid and purple as electrified neon gas against a dark, clear sky. Our eight minute romance was finished. Everything my life had been to that point was finished. I stood up fast and shrieked the bottom of the chair across the tile. My point had been tipped. I had a new and lonely reason to be: I was going to kill Erin Rhodes.
I underestimated how much could change in a few sick and lovely minutes. Sit down one man, stand up another. That is the power of beauty and charm.
I grabbed magnificent Jessica’s book with both hands and said my best goodbye to the girl whose smile and curls harmonized with me for a handful of imperfect minutes. The book hunkered up in my armpit, I fumbled with my wallet while she watched me mull the inadequacy of the two dollar bills stuffed in the folds.
Jessica saw the terror behind my eyes. Her fingertips wrapped my forearm for a squeeze, then she turned up her palm like I was a moth she’d caught on lamp shade and was releasing me back into the unpredictable wind.
I took that book with me everywhere and told myself I was going to read it, but never could. I stopped for gas the night of the great mistake and saw it on the floor through the window. When the tick-tick-tick of the pump jiggled and thumped to a stop I snatched it up off the floor. The binding gave way and the pages jumped towards the ground. The dust jacket puffed like a parachute and the meat of the pages dangled and clung to the glued edges. I flopped it back into its resting shape, riffled the pages a few times with my thumb and then tossed it into what I thought was a garbage can.
The book hung halfway out of the window wash station, blue fluid dripping from the edges. My interview is tomorrow and I am about to begin a dangerous game. If Erin saw me with that book, well, I might end up with a pattern on my chest just like John.
I tried to drive off to start this journal and sharpen my knives one last time but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the book. I wrung the blue from the pages by beating it against the side of the pump, then tossed it into the trunk. Hopefully it’s still legible—I’d hate to have to pay for a copy.
Eighteen
The library conference room was empty and dark. Erin vanished inside to hit the lights. A pile of folding chairs were stacked in the corner and a table was accented with empty Styrofoam cups.
“You promised, not a word to anyone,” Erin said. I nodded while I helped clean up. “I hope you don’t think less of me after this, sit over there and don’t say anything.”
I found the best of the mismatched rolling chairs and rocketed myself around the space a few times. “Why are we here?” I said using the wall for leverage to power myself to the other side of the room.
“This is my group,” she said. One of the overhead lights was giving out and though the room was lit, the bulb on the far side of the room fluttered and gave off a buzz each time it strained.
“You brought me to a book group?”
“No, now shut up and go over there,” she pointed. ”Hey Jennifer!” A middle aged woman who looked like a mustard stain stood in the doorway. Her eyes went in every direction but forward like an abused cocker spaniel. Dread washed upon my shore.
A cascade of sullied people soon followed, most of them women save for one immense man in a floor length skirt and XXXL hockey jersey. Each took a seat around the long rectangular table with pensive faces, the whole collection looked worn and down trodden. Erin sat at the head of the table and pulled a binder from her bag. On the cover was a sticker that looked like it belonged on a punk rock poster, it said, “ENOUGH.”
“Welcome to this week’s meeting, to anyone new this a support group for people extricating themselves or healing from toxic and abusive relationships. I see a few faces I don’t recognize, is everyone in the right place?”
A ginger woman shot up with both arms wrapped around her purse and left the room spitting apologies. I felt the same way but instead I swung myself right and left in the swivel chair. It squeaked with each change of direction.
“I still see some new faces, if you are new we only ask that you share your name. Anything beyond that is completely up to you. My name is Erin and this is a peer run group, so don’t think of me as the leader. I’m more of a guide. Miss would you please tell us your name?”
The hockey man had a white jacketed book underneath his legal pad. So did Jennifer. It looked like she was shilling
her book instead of helping people. My hatred bottomed out. I squeezed on my earlobes as my face twitched with rage.
The introductions started on the far side of the room and slithered towards me. I was the one who had enough. I was going to take her out after this charade. We’d go to the train station with the promise of soup and wait on the platform behind the yellow line. As the train neared I’d slip and try and catch myself on Erin’s shoulder with both my hands. She’d tumble onto the electrified track and if that didn’t destroy her, if she managed to survive me, then the oncoming train would surely be her end.
Soon the whole room was looking at me as I glared off in a daydream. When I realized they wanted me to speak I shot a look of derision towards Erin. She’d made me voyeur to those who were suffering—real victims and not someone like me who was second-hand hurt.
“I’m Alex,” I said. The group was sympathetic to the twitching corners of my face and the bit of my hairy belly the tiny white shirt couldn’t cover. I lowered my head at Erin like a ram who was defending his part of the mountain.
Two others introduced themselves after me, giving only their names and looked back to the head of the table to move us along. Erin read a long introduction from the three ring binder in a persona I wasn’t used to. She spoke thick, articulate words that the damaged herd crowded around. Gone was the savageness of her everyday speech, here she was sincere and emotional. I thought it was a dupe, but every few sentences she’d look up from the paper into my eyes to make sure I was paying attention and entreat me to believe the narrative she spun.
“Some of you know my story, writing it down was part of the healing process for me. More importantly is this, being with those of you who have also been wronged. That’s why I’m here, I’m here so all of you know that you are not alone. So that all you have at least one ally in an uphill climb to happiness. We’ll get there together, I promise. It’s time for the circle of hope where anyone who would like to share is free to do so and today I’d like to go first.”
