by J. C. Allen
“Damn,” I muttered to myself as I stopped—yes, stopped—at a yellow light. Things really have changed. You’ve changed.
I pulled into the parking lot, put the kickstand down on my bike, and sauntered to the elevator, a lack of sleep, the final stages of my hangover, and the emotional turbulence of the emotional hurricane I’d just gone through all but guaranteeing a different kind of hangover the next day. I waved to Clarence as I headed for the elevator, and he waved back, only for his face to drop.
“You look like your dog died,” Clarence said. “You all good?”
Well, that’s not entirely wrong. Old Lassie went down for the count, and she’s still breathing, but…
“Eh, no,” I said. “No dog, fortunately. Just got some things going on.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “You know, I had someone come by earlier asking for you.”
“Who,” I growled, immediately morphing from a depressed, morbid, contemplative man into a savage, hungry killer, eager to eat some goddamn Falcons.
“No one I ever recognized,” Clarence said. “Some short, muscular guy, looks like he got a Napoleon complex of sorts. Brown hair, freckled skin.”
So not Chuck. Hmm, interesting. Probably a Falcon.
“What did you say to him?” I said.
It wasn’t a huge secret to Clarence what I did, so he knew that shady figures were likely to come from time to time to my spot. He did, however, do a pretty good job of not getting involved in things he didn’t need to be involved in, and he did a good job of keeping an “I know nothing” face when those characters came around. It wasn’t a secret what building I lived in, but the security—starting with the very man before me—made it a suicidal and futile task to try and hunt me in my apartment.
Such a move might work if an army came, but that would be pretty damn noticeable even from my top-floor apartment.
“I told him you weren’t here and I’d be glad to take a message,” Clarence said. “Tried to ask what room you were on, said it was property policy not to give that information out.”
“Good,” I said. “If they continue to come, please keep me updated. Need to know if we need to beef up measures, if you know what I mean.”
“Enough so.”
It was a common phrase of his, Clarence’s way of saying that he knew what he needed to know and not an ounce more. It worked for me—it might as well have been Roost saying he’d die for me.
But Clarence nor Roost nor anyone else could help me with the greatest plight in my life right now—my potential inability to stop my old bad habits.
“Have a good one, Clarence,” I said, nodding and stepping back to the elevator.
Again, this elevator ride just felt so… so empty. I hadn’t been back since the night before, but the ride up felt like it should have had Eve here with me to jump into my arms… to lock her legs around me… to do anything with me that I could get her properly dirty mind to do.
Instead, the doors opened to an apartment with an open, empty bottle of liquor, a few pieces of mail on the floor, and a whole mess of clothes and such strewn out.
This had obviously not all happened last night, but it was a clear representation of where my mind stood at that moment.
“Fuckin’ a,” I said to myself.
I went to the couch, sat down, and put my head in my hands. I’m not even sure why I did it. It’s not like this provided some profound moment of realization, nor did it give me some great comfort that things would be all right. It just… well, I guess it’s what most people seemed to do in such a moment, and unable to think of anything else to do, it seemed like the best thing to do.
Not that the “best thing” was actually any good.
I heard my stomach rumble and realized I hadn’t had a damn bite to eat since the day before—I’d puked up everything else and had been pounding in the head far too much to go back to Subway or whatever. I wasn’t entirely convinced food was better than sleep, but if I didn’t eat now, I’d wake up wanting to eat my own blankets for carbs.
I stood up, groaning as I did so, and opened the fridge.
I didn’t see much other than a carton of milk and some eggs. That might have made for a half-decent breakfast on most days, but I didn’t want to exert any more energy than I had to. I wanted something I could throw in the microwave for two minutes, have it pop out, and be ready to eat.
I pulled open the freezer, saw a bottle of vodka, some sausage biscuits, and some frozen steaks.
“Winner, winner,” I grumbled as I grabbed the sausage biscuits. I grabbed three, put them on a small plate, and set the microwave for three minutes.
At first, I just leaned against the counter, waiting for the time to pass.
But then… my eyes went to the dangerous temptation.
It went to the freezer for what else was in there.
And I didn’t mean the steaks.
I opened the freezer, staring at that bottle of vodka for far longer than I cared to admit. I wasn’t going out… I wasn’t going to get on my bike… I wasn’t going to call Eve or… well, maybe I’d text her, but it wouldn’t be angry.
I’d just have a couple of drinks, the kind that gave that warm glow, that kind that quite literally seemed to loosen the eyes and metaphorically loosen the mind. The warm glow would pass through my body like a massage, and the headache would end or at least retreat far enough away that I wouldn’t deal with it until mid-sleep—and at that point, who gave a shit?
It didn’t seem like a big deal in the slightest. I even considered turning my phone off.
But…
“As long as you look to what you love, you can fight for that. Mmmk?”
“Maggie?”
Of course, Maggie wasn’t actually in my room. She was definitely in my head, but not in my room.
But those words—the ones that had come just after our raid in retaliation for the numerous deaths my family had had—came roaring back as clearly and as loudly as if she actually were in that room.
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t get an answer, naturally.
Which meant, as usual, I had to find it out myself.
What did I love?
Or, more appropriately, as I suspect what Maggie would say if she were here—who did I love?
Eve.
Face it, for all your talk about maybe having to move on, you still love her. There’s no debate about that.
OK, I loved Eve. I knew that. It’s why I was even contemplating fighting this desire for a shot of vodka. It’s why—
DING!
I jumped, startled by the goddamn microwave of all things. I hadn’t realized how engrossed I’d gotten into my own thoughts that I’d forgotten I’d made myself my hungover breakfast for dinner.
But I didn’t pry myself from the bottle of vodka, not yet.
If I loved Eve… I had to fight for her. And what did that entail?
It entailed, most obviously, not making stupid decisions. Not making impulsive ones. Not…
Not drinking. Not like this. Maybe when she was here, I could. But alone? What was drinking alone going to really do?
I knew the real answer to that. Unless in social company, I never had “just a couple of drinks.” When I drank alone, I made sure to get my money’s worth in the course of a single night. There was not going to be any fooling myself.
It was a stupid decision.
And yet, how much better it would have made things? It would have helped… yeah, it would have helped the most.
It would have felt like taking action, as dumb as it sounded.
I needed to take some action, because right now, there was nothing I could do but just wait for Eve to figure things out. The harder I tried to “persuade her,” the more she’d move away. Flowers, insisting on dates, trying to court her would only push her away. Only time would allow me to have her back.
But time sucked being sober.
I just wanted one drink…
Just one. I�
�d even throw out the bottle of vodka after that one shot. I wouldn’t be getting my money’s worth, but…
And then, maybe, just maybe, after that one shot, I could get away—
Stop.
No.
No more.
And then I got an idea for what I could do for action, an appropriate thing that would far surpass what I had actually considered to this point.
I turned around, pulled the now lukewarm sausage biscuits of the microwave, and ate them both within about a minute total. It was kind of disgusting, but then again, Eve had never dumped me for my eating habits. I took a look at the freezer, said, “Not tonight, bud,” and headed back to the elevator.
I stood tall and strong as the elevator descended. It was a striking contrast to the stumbling, bumbling fool I’d been almost exactly twenty-four hours earlier. The doors opened, and I made a quick but deliberate walk to my bike, ignoring Clarence and a couple of other people I knew making their way to the elevator.
I hopped on my bike, keyed the ignition without thought, and backed out. I took off for the road, driving faster than normal, but not in a hurry. I wanted to take my time with where I was going, because what was the rush? I wanted time to go by. Speeding up would just mean I had more time in silence and doing nothing to torment me. The more time I spent doing, the less time I spent being—which at this point, was a trade I needed as therapy.
And then I arrived, the darkness of the sky starting to make the place difficult to see without a flashlight.
But I knew where I was going even without light. I would have known where I was going even if the sun and all the stars in the sky went out.
I parked my bike, moved up the hill, and stopped just before my destination.
“Hello, Maggie.”
I gave a short, sad laugh as I stood before her tombstone. Someone had had the courtesy—probably not without a lot of swearing and rightful judgment—to clean up the vomit chunks I’d produced in the morning. I felt bad that I had not been the one to do it, and not just because it meant someone else had done my job, but I supposed that other visitors wouldn’t have wanted the visual of puke just a couple dozen feet from their deceased loved ones.
I sure didn’t. Which only made it worse.
I knelt before her grave, placing one hand on the tombstone. It felt so smooth… just like she did. Just like her belly did. Just like our child would have, had she been born.
“I would imagine you’re pretty pissed at me, and I’d say justifiably so,” I said, but I was out of laughter. It was time to be serious and confront my emotions sober, no matter how much this was going to suck—and boy was it going to suck big time. “If you were here… well, I wouldn’t be here, I guess. But if you were here, you’d be slapping the hell out of me. And I would deserve it.”
I sighed.
“Call me a fool, Maggie, because that’s what I was. I’m sorry. I’m…”
Like this morning, tears started to well in my eyes. But these tears… I wasn’t ashamed of them. Those tears had come as much at myself, selfish tears of sorts. These tears were for my wife and what I had done for her.
“I’m sorry for what I did to your resting place,” I said. “I’m sorry for being a drunk idiot. I’m…”
Then the tears really came out.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t home that day. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you well enough. I’m sorry that I brought you into this life. If I had known this would be your fate, I would have moved far away from you. I would have protected you. I… I love you, Maggie. And I let you die.”
I collapsed to both knees and my hands, letting the tears just roll out of my eyes like waterfalls. I could feel the droplets on my hands, and they just didn’t stop.
This, I knew now, was a conversation I should have had long ago. And because I had not done so over the previous several months, it was so much worse.
“Maggie, please forgive me,” I said. “Not only did I fail to protect you, I’ve failed to be the man that you would have wanted me to be. I haven’t been strong since that day. I haven’t represented the Knights well. I haven’t made you proud. I’ve…”
I sighed.
“But I want to be better, Maggie,” I said. “Last night, coming here… I feel like you protected me on that ride over. I know I’m in for a justified tongue-lashing when I see you again for that dumb decision, but it’s like you were saying it wasn’t time. It’s like you said I could still be a man and I could do better.”
I gulped.
“And I’m trying to be, Maggie, I am, but… I’m doing it for someone else.”
I sighed, feeling stupid. But I wasn’t about to stop now. I had too much I had to say, too much I’d held in.
“Sometimes, I feel like I’m leaving you by going to her, no matter what my dreams say,” I said. “I feel like that’s just my mind believing you would be OK with this. And… I think you are. If I’m honest. But I just… this is hard, Maggie, it’s hard. I failed to protect you. What if the same happens to Eve? What if she dies because I’m an idiot?”
“As long as you look to what you love, you can fight for that. Mmmk?”
Once more, Maggie’s words filled the air without me thinking about them. I had not thought of them—they’d just come to mind.
I was not a supernatural person, nor was I a particularly religious one. The few times I’d tried to get into religion, I’d felt too stupid to understand it and too arrogant to rely on faith. But in this moment?
Damn if it didn’t feel like something from above.
“I do love Eve, Maggie. Just as I love you. I will always love you. Always. The day I die, I’ll be thinking about you, even if I will have been with Eve for sixty years up to that point. I promise that to you. I promise.”
I sighed, rising to my feet. I felt less encumbered than before. I still had a ways to come back with Eve, but Maggie’s words had done quite a bit.
“I will always love you.”
With that, I placed my hand on her tombstone one more time. I leaned over, kissed it, felt a shiver go through my body, and then smiled as I stepped back.
“And to my little one,” I said, looking down at the ground, knowing she was in there with my wife. “I hope Mom is taking good care of you. I love you too. You’ll be by my side for the rest of my life, no matter what happens. I’m gonna tell your brothers and sisters about the angel that you are.”
I sniffed, gave a fighting laugh against more tears, and wiped it with my forearms.
“I love you guys, so much,” I said. “My promise to you is to protect those I love in your memory. I’m not going to make the mistakes I have before. I’m… I’m going to be real about this. OK? I love Eve. She’s… she’s in my world now. And so whatever it takes. And I’ll protect your guys’ legacy as well. Whatever it takes. OK?”
A gentle breeze blew by at my last question, sending a gentle shiver through my brain.
“Love you both,” I said. “Goodbye, my guardian angels.”
I turned, walked back to my bike, and headed home in complete silence. Not a thought disturbed my mind, not a vision upset my concentration, and nothing but the natural sounds of the roads, my bike, and people talking filled my ears until I got to my apartment.
And as soon as I got inside, I headed for the freezer, grabbed the bottle of vodka, emptied it into the sink, and threw the bottle into my recycling bin.
6
Eve
A full day had passed since Derek had come by, and I was no closer to figuring things out than I was the day before.
It was silly, of course. I had no idea why I would have expected to make a decision of this magnitude in just the span of forty-eight hours. Hell, twenty-four, considering the apology had only come last night.
I guess my time with Tara and being on the streets had just limited me to such short windows that I was used to needing resolution immediately. Life in those days didn’t extend past the current shift. There was no telling if death was imminen
t, or if the haul for that particular day would satisfy Rock.
And if I had to make a decision right now?
Well, frankly, I was leaning toward taking Derek back. Maybe that was stupid, but…
One night was bad, yes, and it was extraordinarily bad. But how did one night suddenly erase the previous couple of weeks of not just true gentlemanly behavior, but literal life-saving and life-altering events? It was not an exaggeration to say that without Derek, I might be dead.
Plus, it just felt right.
Maybe “it just felt right” was so cliche that it would have made any outsider want to puke at the hokey sentiments. Maybe if I had heard a friend say that about their boyfriend, I would have told them to not believe in such generic, bland Hallmark card truisms. But here, with me?
Easier said than done.
Way easier said than done.
But was what felt right a good enough reason for me to move forward? Was I just a slave to my emotions if I went through with this, or was this a real sign for me to take him back?
“Tara,” I said, my voice soft at the kitchen table as she prepared some easy-bake pizza.
“Yo girl,” she said. “What’s on your mind?”
“What do you think is on my mind?” I said with a laugh.
“That boy?” Tara said. “Boy, that idiot—”
“Tara, please,” I said with a sigh. “I appreciate that you’re on my side and very defensive of me. You’re the guardian angel I need to prevent me from putting myself in bad spots. But I need as objective an answer as you can give me about Derek.”
Tara looked at me with an eyebrow askance.
“You think I’m bullshittin’, girl?”
I should’ve known. Tara’s smart in some ways, but she’s never going to move past her emotions on this one.
“A man who calls you a cunt ain’t no better than a man that pays you to put his junk into that same cunt. In fact, he might be worse, cuz at least the John is gonna give you some cash. The man who calls you that? He’s just gonna give you heartache and pain. Mmm, mmm. If you’re askin’ me? I’d say don’t do it.”
