by Lee Thompson
“Right,” Friendly said. He smirked and she felt like punching him. But he had a point, there was more to it than she would admit to herself.
She did want fame, and more than that, respect. She wasn’t one of those who quickly took up arms against just any asshole who railed against homosexuals or women, but there was a part of her that wanted to show them, prove to that group of bigoted idiots, that she was just as capable as any straight person, or any man.
She stood and walked into the kitchen and grabbed him another beer and poured herself a glass of Scotch. She didn’t drink often because it got in the way of her work, it diluted her focus, and it tended to bring out the darker side of her, even if that darker side was more honest about how she felt concerning the people around her and the world they all formed together and lived in. And sometimes it was too easy to slip into doing it every day.
In the living room again she sipped her drink while he watched her. Eventually, with the liquor warming her stomach and loosening the tension inside her, she said, “What have you found out about these two guys?”
“Enough to know that they’re dangerous.”
“Does it make you angry,” Caitlin asked, “to have been bested by one of them?”
Friendly leaned forward and set his half empty Corona on the coffee table. When he looked at her, before he spoke, she saw that dark, thick snake moving inside him and it scared her. She wondered how many times he had hurt someone severely who had hurt him or someone he cared about.
It reminded her of stories she’d heard of other people in authority, like prison guards, who used their position to mete out punishment on a type of person they hated regardless of whether they took time to know or understand the individual at all.
She cleared her throat and said, “You hate a lot, don’t you?”
“I hate this guy. Like you pointed out, he bested me, twice. His friend, he’s weird, but Victor, he kind of knocked me down a few notches. But in a way, it’s good; he just made me want to be sharper, like I was when I was younger.”
“And you’re going to nail him to a tree for it.”
Friendly nodded. “He sucker punched me both times. I figure it’s only fair to do the same to him. And when he goes down, he’s not getting back up, except into an ambulance.”
Caitlin nodded. She drank more. Before she knew it her glass was empty, her stomach hot, her skin prickling. She wiped sweat from her face. “Do you really think they’re capable of what we’re talking about?”
He stared at the wall, thinking. His hands moved idly about his legs, fingers straightening a crease, his eyes appearing nervous, yet angry.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I think they’re both criminals.”
The heat inside her blossomed. Why, she wondered, had she ever become attracted to violence? She leaned back into the sofa and looked at the window. The evening was settling in, the sun far in the west painting the clouds purple, and the sky the color of blood.
14
Nina got a call from Anthony Dubokowitz at seven that Friday night. He told her that he had a secret he wanted to tell her and refused to share it over the phone. She didn’t like him very much, mostly because of how infatuated he was with her, but she was glad to have someone to talk to. He asked to meet her at the Waffle House for grilled cheese and dessert, and though Nina knew she shouldn’t go out, she told her mother about the invitation to keep her in the loop, hoping it would appease her and help their relationship. Her mother told her, “Go on, but to be back before nine. You have anybody approach you that you don’t know, get off the street and knock on someone’s door. Promise me.”
Nina did, then thanked her and hugged her. Many of her friends’ mothers were nowhere nearly as understanding as hers. She debated if she should just call her talk with Anthony off and talk to her mother instead, but her mom, as good of a woman as Nina thought she was, happened to be a horrible listener. She kissed her mother on the forehead before she left.
She had only walked two blocks before she heard a car approaching slowly behind her. She glanced over her shoulder just as Officer Friendly pulled up next to her and rolled down the passenger window of his cruiser. He was wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He stretched his long legs out and leaned back against the seat.
“You need a ride, Nina?”
She shook her head and resumed walking. It was natural for her to assume that he was only speaking with her because he thought she knew where Victor and Jacob were hiding, and she wanted to say: They’re gone, damn you. They’re gone and they shouldn’t be because for some reason they need me and I need them…
He let the cruiser crawl along, keeping pace with her. He was smiling, his head tilted forward, his face still bruised a dark purple and greenish-yellow in places, but they were difficult to see in the shadowed car. He seemed stiff behind the steering wheel, not relaxed at all. But he surprised her when he said, “Have you seen my son recently?”
She took three more paces before she stopped and approached the open passenger window. The car’s front tire was tight against the curb, Friendly’s hands tight on the steering wheel, his face pinched, and she couldn’t recall a time he had ever looked so vulnerable, and seeing him that way made her wonder if the policeman and father had some inkling of his son putting a little girl in his car and driving away.
She knelt outside the door, braced her hands on the top edge of the frame and said, “What do you mean?”
He looked down the street, one hand rolling the driver side window down, one hand bunched in his lap now. He kept his eyes averted from her as he said, “It’s not like him to just disappear. Do you have any idea what he’s up to?”
She felt the pang of fear spread slowly through her stomach. Her mouth felt dry. She said, “Do you think he’s a good kid? I don’t mean, like, looking at him from the viewpoint of you being his father, just like if he was a kid you knew.”
Friendly rubbed his knuckles, his face reddening and the bruises he bore only growing deeper in color. He sighed and said, “I don’t know what you mean, but to be honest, your question alarms me.”
Good, Nina thought, it should. You should know if you have a monster living under your roof. You do want to know, don’t you? And you think that I know him a lot better than you or anyone else. You think he told me something bad he did…
She said, “Well?”
“Is this because he’s older than you?”
Nina shrugged, looked at her fingernails, which were slightly dirty. “I’m just curious what you really think of Clint, that’s all.”
He drank from a cup of coffee and set it back into the cup holder and looked her square in the face. “I don’t know. I guess I should, but boys don’t really know their fathers, not well. I didn’t know mine. And it works the other way; my father didn’t know me. And I can’t say I know my own son all that well.” He raised his eyebrows. “Where is all of this coming from? Did Clint say something, or show you something that’s bothering you? I thought you two liked each other.”
It hit her suddenly, how uncomfortable she was talking to him, especially about his son. But there was more to it than that, though she was unable to pinpoint what part of their conversation left her feeling so unbalanced.
He said, “You have something important to tell me, don’t you? You’re fighting it.”
She shrugged again, trying to remain calm instead of blurting incoherently what truly frightened her. “I don’t know that it means anything.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” he said, “it’s what I do.”
She nodded, took a few slow breaths, smelling the exhaust from his car, the coffee he drank from again, the well-oiled shotgun on a bracket standing vertically near the radio. “Okay,” she said, “but I’m not making this up because I’m mad at Clint or anything, it just unsettles me since I’ve seen it and it surprised me, and well, disturbed me, what it might mean—”
He placed an arm over the back
of the seat and leaned toward her. “What did he show you, Nina?”
She glanced at the tire pressed tightly against the curb. The rubber bulged as if it was on the verge of exploding from the pressure, and she could relate. When she met his gaze again, there was a warmth and openness in his eyes she normally wouldn’t have associated with him.
“You okay?” he said.
“I’m fine,” she said, though she wasn’t, and she thought it a dumb question for him to ask. “I saw him put a little girl in his Camaro.”
“Clint?”
“Yeah. She didn’t fight him or anything, just let him put her in there and then he drove away.” She swallowed and it hurt her throat. Her eyes burned and whereas she thought sharing it with the policeman would somehow lighten the heaviness she felt pressing down on her chest, the pressure only grew heavier.
She waited for him to speak and knew it could go either way, that he would confess he had his own speculations and fears of what his son might be doing at this very moment, or he would tell her what she was suggesting was a very serious accusation. He might even finish by telling her she was delusional.
He chewed on his lip, and she thought that when he reached a conclusion he would hate her for telling him the truth, and she didn’t want anyone to hate her. More than anything she wanted everybody to love everybody else—and she believed it possible if every single person tried to understand everyone else.
She said, “It may have been harmless. Maybe she was his cousin or something.”
He nodded but his face appeared paler, slack, his eyes haunted.
He said, “Call me if you see him again.”
“You think there’s a chance I might not see him again?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Nina shook her head, then she asked him: “Will you call me when you find out what’s going on with him?”
“You really like my son?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “I just thought he was fun.”
“You don’t anymore?”
“I’m not sure. Lately I’ve been seeing him in a different light.”
He looked back up the street, which was growing darker as dusk settled in. “Where are you walking to?”
For a second she considered lying to him, which would have been foolish, so she told him the truth. He said, “Hop in. I’ll drop you off.”
“I appreciate it,” she said, “but I like walking.”
“Okay.” He waved a shaking hand before pulling away from the curb and heading off into the gathering murk. She stood there a minute, trying to process what had just happened—had she cast a dark light on Clint? Or had she done something good and beautiful that might save a little girl who had no idea how horrible people could be until she’d found herself in the passenger seat of Clint’s Camaro?
She didn’t want to think too deeply into what Caitlain Reno had told her, or try to reason out why Clint’s father was looking for him, or what Officer Friendly thought of the news Nina had confided in him.
Sometimes, she decided, you can think too much…
So, happy to walk, to feel her feet solidly against the ground, her legs and arms moving as if of their own accord, she pushed Clint from her mind and made room for Jacob, who she missed and prayed would be all right, no matter where he ended up. She had hoped she’d see Victor’s Lincoln while she was out, but she didn’t.
In truth, she hadn’t noticed much of anything since she was looking for something else entirely, and thinking about Clint having problems not only with her but also with his father, so she missed the man watching her as she strolled down Ocoee Street to 25th Street.
*****
Anthony sat in a booth and smiled when he saw her come into the Waffle House. He was ruddy, a ginger, thin, and his smile kind of made her sick because there were random gaps between his teeth and he stared at her budding breasts as if he had a right to.
She said, “Do you mind?”
“What?”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, pulling her arms across her chest.
His voice was nasal and reedy as he said hello, and his hands bounced about as if he didn’t know where to set them—one moment they were on the table, the next they were in his lap, then on the salt and pepper shakers, then flexing around his red plastic cup of water. He smiled a lot the way Nina thought a used car salesman smiled. He said, “I like that shirt, that’s all.”
“It’s a T-shirt.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“What do you want, Anthony?”
He shrugged, looking embarrassed, but Nina thought it was an act. She had seen him fool their youth pastor and his wife many times. And she knew there was a point to his wanting to meet her, though for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what it might be and he was slow in revealing it. Anthony sipped from his Coke and then pushed it away suddenly, frowning. He said, “Sometimes I don’t know what your deal is.”
“What?” she said, unable to follow his train of thought, or pinpoint the reason for the venom in his voice. Unless it was nothing more than his jealousy that she was dating Clint and not him, which wouldn’t have surprised her.
She waited.
Let him make a fool of himself. Who cares? He’s one of those jerks who sneak around or guilt trips other people to get what he wants.
“I’d do anything for you,” he said. “But I don’t think you’d ever appreciate it.”
“Probably not,” she said, “since I’ve never asked a favor of you.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Furthermore,” she said, “I don’t like that you think I should like you simply because you do something for me with the intention that it will make me like you. That’s some screwed up motivation.”
He sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“No,” she said, “I really don’t.”
“Do you want to eat?”
“I walked all the way here, so yes.”
“I was surprised,” he said, “that you agreed to meet me.” He smiled. She could see the pinkness of his tongue between the gaps in his teeth. “I think deep down you know that I’m better for you than that asshole you’re dating.”
“I don’t think either one of you is all that special, actually. You’re both little boys.”
“Little boys?” he said, and laughed. His eyes narrowed. He drank more and then leaned back into the booth, trying to look as if he didn’t care. When he spoke again, he spoke quietly. “You think you’re better than everybody and that’s a bad way to think because it can cost you.”
“No matter what we do it costs us something,” she said. “And you don’t scare me. You want to see scary I can introduce you to a guy…”
He nodded. “I know who you’re talking about.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I do.”
“How?”
But she knew even though Anthony wouldn’t admit it. He’d been following her around, or spying on her house, maybe even going as far as looking in the windows at night when no one could see him from the street.
Her skin felt filthy and her stomach full of acid.
She licked her lips because they felt dry.
“Have you been spying on me?”
“Spying?” he said, and smirked. “Why would I spy?”
“Because,” she said, “you’re a little weasel.”
He placed both of his hands on the table and pointed at her. “That’s not a nice thing to say. You shouldn’t say it.”
“I can say whatever I think.”
“No,” he said, leaning forward. “You think you can, no matter who it hurts. You’re going to grow up into a miserable woman. I don’t even know why I like you.”
“It’s my breasts that you like,” she said. “That’s pretty obvious.”
He looked at her chest again, then her face. He nodded. “Maybe so. But it doesn’t give you any right to accuse me of spying on you. All the guys look at all the
girls. It’s normal, dumbass.”
“Are you?”
“A dumbass, too?” he said, his words clipped.
She kind of felt sorry for him.
“No,” she said. “Are you spying on me? You said you know about Victor?”
Anthony nodded. “I can do whatever I want.”
“You’re wrong about that. And I’m done here. Thanks for the invite, creep.”
He tried to get her to stay, even going so far as apologizing and claiming he was only joking about everything he’d said, but Nina knew better. He might have thought she was stupid, probably simply for being a girl and not having a dick, but she wasn’t.
She flipped her middle finger at him before she pushed the door open and walked out into the parking lot. Through the window she could see him fuming, angry at her, and disappointed with himself for not controlling her.
Jesus, she thought. This crap makes me sick sometimes.
Her stomach hurt a little. She was hungry again, so figuring she’d show him she wasn’t going to be treated like an imbecile she walked back inside and sat in a booth by herself.
Once the waitress came Nina ordered a burger and fries and thought about Victor and Jacob being halfway back to New York by now. It made her sad to think she’d never see them again. Especially Jacob. Victor still frightened her, though she believed Jacob when he said Victor had to find something monstrous about a person before he’d kill them in cold blood. She shook her head. They were so weird, and so fragile in so many ways, not just herself and the Starks’ and those men, but everybody she’d ever known. She thought maybe that—everyone’s fragility—was the human condition.
Everything she’d seen people fight for, or run from, was simply to protect the identity they’d created for themselves. But, she wondered, who were they without their causes? Who was she without her family and school and friends to define her?
She didn’t know. And not knowing irritated her, made her already foul mood somewhat fouler. She took a deep breath, trying to think of the good things in her life, the good people, the hope of a bright and promising future, even if that future wasn’t any further away than three years when she’d be able to drive a vehicle and escape the needs of others any time she wanted…
