by Peter Giglio
“C’mon, Ja—”
“No,” I shout, the little fighter inside finally coming alive. “I want you to take all this money and leave. I don’t want to see you again. Ever.” The seal is broken. I’m angry now. Furious. Seeing red. Fuck you, Buddha.
Lee eases back into my couch and spreads his hands wide, a look of righteous indignation across his face. “You have to be kidding, amigo. A few hours ago I was paying your rent.”
“Make your point fast then go!”
He leans forward, clutches my shoulder. “You’re broke. That’s my fucking point.”
I wilt under the strength of his grip. Lee’s a good four inches shorter than me, virtually a midget at five-four, but he’s strong—spent the last few years working out, making up for what a pussy he was back in high school. I’ve seen him send guys much bigger than me to the hospital, and I have no doubt—even if he weren’t armed—that he could end me right here.
“Think of Nora,” he says, stretching out her name, making sure I know that he really knows it’s not Norma. “You’re like a daddy to her, aren’t you? You want to take care of—”
“Leave her out of this!” I’m grappling with survival again and ready to wipe this shit-stain off the face of the Earth. I pull away from his grip and stand. “Four months ago, I woke up. If I take this money, I’ll be asleep again forever. I need you to understand two things: one, I’m not going to say shit to anyone—”
“Why would you even say that?” Lee interrupts, lifting his shirt to show me his gun. “Why would you even think that?”
“Fuck you, Lee. Put your fucking shirt down and listen to me. You were thinking it and so was I, so stop trying to act like a character from a Tarantino film and sober up. Number two, I want to go on with my life like this never happened, and I need you to let that happen.”
Lee laughs, his face going red. “Your life,” he says, “is shit.”
I nod.
“Admit that,” he says.
“Yeah, my life is shit.”
“Say it like you mean it!”
“My life is shit,” I shout. “But that’s not what this is about and you know it. Now I need you to tell me we’re cool, then I need you to take your shit, walk out the door, and head straight for Chicago or wherever it is you came from. Consider my half of the money repayment with interest for what you did earlier. Whatever you have to do to—“
“Are you kidding me?” Lee says, standing. “How long have we been friends, Jack?”
“Too long.”
Lee lowers his head for a moment, then looks up, doing his best impersonation of someone stricken by sadness. “Come on, Jack. This isn’t how I want this to go.”
“You killed that girl in cold blood, Lee. You took her life for a little bit of cash.”
Jack’s faux-sad expression fades. “Bitch and her man almost killed us out there. You saw that, didn’t you?”
“Is that how you’re justifying this?”
“No. You didn’t see it. You were running away like a scared little girl, weren’t you?”
“Just go!”
“Jack, every sad life meets with opportunity once. This is your moment. Why can’t you see that?” He gestures to the money. “This is our moment, man. You can open a business. I can finally settle down somewhere, stop hustling, stop running.”
“What are you running from?” I snap.
“Lots of things, man, like you didn’t know that already. Hell, you knew that the moment you stepped in the car with me. You know it every time I walk into your life, so don’t jerk me around. Not now. Not ever again. I see the way you look at me, look down on me. I have the threads, the car, the money, and still you look down on me.”
“That’s in your head, Lee.”
“You calling me crazy?”
Balling my fists, breathing so heavily I’m nearly hyperventilating, I glare at him.
“Settle down, amigo,” he whispers with a smile. “C’mon, deep breaths.”
“Leave,” I growl.
“Look, this is meant to be, to happen just like this, this moment. How can you call something like this random?”
“I’m not. I don’t think there was anything random about you killing that girl.”
“Keep your voice down, okay? Just have a drink, settle down, think this through. Nora doesn’t need to know where Uncle Jack got his money. She’ll be in a nice school, in a better place—a room filled with stuffed animals.”
I shake my head.
“Close your eyes and picture it,” he says.
“No.”
“You can help Lily, too,” he says. “You can clean her up, take her away from here, away from her demons.”
“Get out, Lee. Out of town. Out of my life. I don’t fuck with you; you don’t fuck with me.”
“And you’re okay with that? All of the guilt, none of the reward?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
Lee lowers his head and grins, his intense glare still slicing me to shreds. “You know what I mean, Jack. I know how you are, how things…eat you up inside. I grew up with you, don’t you remember? I probably know you better than you know me; better than you know yourself.”
“I woke up.”
Lee starts putting the money back in the Hello Kitty bag. “Woke up, huh?” Then he slings the pack over his shoulder and sticks out his right hand. Tentatively, I take his hand to shake. He grips tightly, pulls me close. I can feel his gun against my crotch.
“No bullshit,” he growls in my ear. “No changing your mind.”
I shake my head, and he pulls me closer. Tighter. I can hardly breathe.
“I love you,” he says. “That’s the only reason I’m letting you live. I fucking love you, man.”
He lets go, and I gasp for air.
Finally, the door slams, and he’s gone.
* * *
Big cities have their 7-Elevens and Quick Trips, but we have the Millie-Mart. Don’t ask about the name, ’cause I already have and no one understands it. The place stays open ’til midnight, less than fifteen minutes from now, and that’s a small blessing. My head is pounding, and I need a cigarette bad.
“Camel blues,” I say.
Fluorescents five minutes from death flicker. The girl behind the counter—her name is Rita, and I went to high school with her—looks away from her phone and shoots me a funny look. “Didn’t you quit smoking for your niece?” she asks.
Everyone knows everyone’s business ’round here. Except the dark stuff. That shit we stow deep.
“Guess I’m not that strong after all,” I manage.
She laughs, but she can tell I’m struggling with something more than a mere addiction to nicotine. “Quitting’s easy,” she says, “I’ve done it hundreds of times.” If this were a text message, here’s where the “LOL” would go. She’s got it written on her forehead.
Loser Zero Loser.
That thought normally brings a smile to my face. Am I smiling now? Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t even feel my face.
I pay for the cigarettes, grab an American-flag matchbook from the counter, and step outside.
The first drag hits my palate like ass, the way a cigarette really tastes before we immunize our senses to them. Trudging homeward, I take long drags, and still my head throbs.
The night is still; the moon, now high, shrouded in clouds and no longer bleeding. It feels like rain. That’s good. We need rain—a strong, long storm to wash away the grime.
Outside my apartment, beside a tree, the Labrador I fed earlier is curled in a ball.
“Hey,” I say, clapping my hands. “Hey, boy, get up.” The dog could be a girl, of course; not like I’ve checked the sex or cared to notice, but still I clap and repeat, “Hey, boy.”
The mutt doesn’t stir, and that’s when the tears start gushing.
The girl from California is dead.
The black dog is dead.
And I sense that I’m not too far behind them. These things, they alwa
ys come in threes.
Wednesday
Chapter Five
Finding your place in the world boils down to one thing: The struggle for identity. All of us: in search of our talents, our purpose, trying to make sense of our time and place on this big blue ball. In my twenty-seven years, I’ve only been good at one thing.
Being Uncle Jack.
This is where I train my brain as I lie in the haze between sleep and waking. The sun slices through the blinds, smudging focus. All I can see is light. And I know, I know, I know that I have to disengage from last night. What I witnessed…that shit never happened. Only a nightmare.
“A nightmare,” I repeat in a whisper.
There’s a knock at the door.
A nightmare.
Another knock sounds, this time louder, and I’m terrified that terror still reigns. I slide off my futon, pull on a T-shit, and the knocking, it continues. As I trudge for the door, I convince myself of something: If it’s Lee, I’m in. No turning back, I’ll take the money. But if it’s anyone else, anyone at all, the nightmare’s dead.
Dead.
A voice calls through the door: “Come on, Jack, open up. I know you’re in there.” It’s Lily, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Let me put on some pants,” I call out, scratching my ass. “I just woke up.”
I snatch a pair of jeans from the floor by the couch, slide them on, then open the door. Standing there are my sister and niece. Nora’s smiling, always smiling, and that makes me smile. Lily, however, doesn’t look so hot. She’s gaunt from all the meth, shaking, holding onto Nora’s hand like it’s salvation. My sister, she loves her daughter. I know this. Problem is, she doesn’t love herself. Never has. Hate to get all Oprah about the whole thing, but that bitch, she works in oceans of truth. She and Buddha would make quite a couple.
“Jesus, Jack,” Lily says, “I’ve been trying to call you all morning. It’s three in the afternoon.”
“Rough night,” I say, still smiling at Nora. I wink, then turn to Lily and ask, “What’s up?”
“I have some things I need to do,” she replies. “When do you work next?”
“Saturday. You know that, Lil. Always the same schedule—Tuesday and Saturday.”
“Can I leave Nora with you?”
“Sure,” I say, now smiling at my niece again. “For how long?”
“No more than a day,” Lily says. Nora breaks away from her mother, gallops into the apartment, wraps me in a hug. I lift her, hold her close.
“I missed you, Uncle Jack,” she says.
“Missed you, too,” I reply.
Then she pulls her head back and glares at me. “You stink like smokes.”
I put her down, shrug, and say, “Had some friends over last night.”
Lily’s stare becomes accusatory. “Yeah,” she says, “I’ve seen Lee driving around town. Rough night, huh?”
“Rough night,” I agree.
“That car of his,” Lily says, “it’s just his way of making up for a small dick.”
I shoot her a leave-it-alone look, but she’s already turning to leave. She stops, looks back, and manages a weak, crooked smile. “Thanks, Jack,” she says.
I nod as I close the door.
The nightmare’s over.
* * *
Here I am with Nora. She’s jumping up and down on the couch as I take our food from the DQ bag and set it on the old card table by the kitchenette.
“I heard some new jokes,” she says. “You wanna hear ’em?”
I eat a French fry, take a drink of badly mixed Sprite, then say, “Yeah, ’course I do.”
She jumps off the couch, runs to the table, and plops into the plastic deck chair I’ve set out for her. I have three deck chairs but no deck.
“Man oh man,” she says, “I’m starved,” then takes a big bite of burger.
“Well,” I say. “What about those jokes?”
She giggles, takes another bite, then, mouth full, says, “I like your jokes better, Uncle Jack. You tell me one. A funny one…please.”
“When have my jokes ever not been funny?”
She giggles again. “Dunno,” she says. “Just make it good this time.”
The spotlight’s always on me when I’m with her, but I don’t mind. I sit down at the rickety table and scratch my chin. “Let me think,” I say. “Hmmm…funny jokes, eh?”
“Come on, Uncle Jack.”
I’m searching my mind for age-appropriate humor, coming up empty. She enjoys this part of the show, the part where I struggle. She once brought over a Casio keyboard and watched me as I made up stupid songs for hours, hitting random keys. Never had a lesson and it showed, but she loved every minute nonetheless. Her favorite was a little ditty set to the keyboard’s slowest Salsa beat. I called it “Slow Jam.”
Slow Jam,
Toe Jam,
No Ma’am (repeat).
I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I’m a fucking poet.
Finally, a dumb joke pops into my head, and I say, “Why do bees hum?”
“How would I know?” Her reaction, of course, is a hell of a lot funnier than the punch line could ever hope to be. Here I am, repeating some shit I likely read on a candy package as a kid, but Nora’s entranced. An important thing I’ve learned about kids: The act of telling, the effort, is always more important than the actual words; long as the words are always kind.
“Bees don’t know the words to the song,” I say, spreading my hands wide and waiting for the laugh. “Huh? Pretty funny, right?”
Nora squints and says, “I thought you were gonna tell a funny one.”
“Hey,” I say, unwrapping my chicken sandwich, “if I’d known you were coming over I’d have written some new material.”
That’s clearly funny, ’cause now she laughs. Then she says, “I’ve got one.”
“Hit me.”
“Okay, let me see if I can get this right. I don’t know if I know what this means or not, so you got to tell me if it’s funny, okay?”
“Don’t go blue on me, Bear.” That’s my name for her. Bear. Don’t know where I got it or what it means, but she likes it and that’s all that matters.
“Huh?”
“Just tell your joke.”
“Okay. Let’s see. There was a mommy and a daddy, and the daddy loved the mommy very, very much. So…um…he decided that he wanted to show the mommy how much he loved her, and so he traveled all over the place. He climbed the highest mountains and he swimmed the deepest oceans. He went to the most enchanting places in the whole wide world, and everywhere he went, he bought the mommy a special present, so she would know that he loved her more than anything in the whole wide world.” Eyes wide, she takes a deep breath. I love it when she gets into telling a story. I keep telling her she should be a writer someday. “One day,” she continues, “he finally came home, excited to show her everything he’d got for her, to tell her about all of his adventures. Do you know what the mommy said?”
“Thank you,” I say, throwing a wadded wrapper at the trashcan and missing. “So much for that NBA contract.”
Nora shakes her head. “Are you listening?”
“Of course, go on.”
“Okay,” she says. “Now, you have to tell me if this is funny, okay?”
“I will.”
“Promise, ’cause I really don’t get it. I mean, I get it, but I don’t get why it’s a joke.”
“Yeah, Bear, I promise.”
“The mommy doesn’t say anything.”
Now it’s my turn to squint. “Why doesn’t she say anything?”
“She doesn’t say anything ’cause she took their kids and left him ’cause he was never ever home.”
There are no words for that incredibly sad punch line, and I just sit there.
“So,” she says, “is it funny?”
“Where did you hear that?” I ask.
“Samantha Bradley told it to me at school. It just kinda stuck in my earballs.”
Earballs—I taught her that one, a funny-sounding make-believe word that’s out of synch with the throat-slitting riddle she’s just dealt. I shake my head slowly. “No,” I say, “it’s not funny. Not funny at all.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“Are Samantha’s parents divorced?”
Nora looks confused by this question. “Dunno. What’s that got to do with a joke?”
There’s a moment of silence while she finishes her dinner. When done, she looks up at me, a little blotch of ketchup on her cheek, and says, “What are we doing next?”
I’m still thinking about that morose joke—hardly a joke—trying to figure out why it would stick in a kid’s head. I reach a napkin to her face and wipe the ketchup away. Profanity I could understand, even accept, particularly given her mother’s ways, but I just wasn’t ready for the Ordinary People edition of children’s humor.
“Uncle Jack,” she says, “you okay?”
I snap out of it. “Yeah, yeah. Hey, do you know what I forgot at Dairy Queen?”
“No, what?”
“Ice cream. You wanna go for a walk and get some?”
She jumps up and shouts, “Yay!”
Chapter Six
We take a lot of walks, Nora and I. Normally she skips around me and asks questions. Always with the questions. As we walk now, however, through the unseasonably cool evening (the flatlands occasionally get a break from extremes), she’s silent, holding my hand tightly. I like this, makes me feel she needs me.
Halfway to our destination, I ask, “What’s wrong, Bear?”
She looks up and says, “Nothing’s wrong with me, Uncle Jack.”
And I realize the tables have turned. The need is mine. I never would have believed a child could operate on such an advanced frequency, but—trust me—Nora gets more about the human condition than most twice her age, even if she’s emotionally stunted in some ways, for which I credit her mother.
“What?” I say. “You think there’s something wrong with me?”
She grips my hand a little tighter and starts swinging it. Nothing is said between us for a while. Then, right as we’re stepping up to the window of the DQ, and a hell of a lot louder than I’d like, she asks, “Why are you single, Uncle Jack?”
