Now it seems that I have something to prove. I vow to not get visibly fired up at all tonight. I’m going to lay myself down for him. To show him that I can handle whatever is about to be dished out. I promised him exactly that, but up until now, I thought it was a moot point. I didn’t think anyone would be able to fire me up. But clearly this poker game isn’t what I thought it would be. I’ve got one sentence to say to David, and I need to say it before I see anything like that again.
“Don’t make me kick your fucking ass,” I say, looking him dead in the eye. He is wearing a look of utter surprise.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a smile in his voice. He grips my wrist for a second and skims his thumb across it. I am sure he can feel my skin burning. When he lets go, I grab a beer from the counter and turn on my heels. I want to watch.
Despite feeling incredibly out-of-place, I decide to wear my confidence like a goddamned badge. I’m not going to cling to David tonight. I’m going to treat this poker game like it’s precisely where I belong. I don’t know how to play poker, and I’m not sure they’d let me play anyway, but I do know how to drink. And flirt. And pretend.
David spends a good amount of time behind the bar, unloading the beer and pouring drinks. Then he moves around the room, chatting with the gamblers, checking in with the dealers, swapping wads of cash for chips. He talks easily with the waitresses who all seem to know him very well. They are flirtatious and engaging, and I know that he is watching me carefully from across the room to see my reaction to their touches and smiles. But I see now that it is part of the game going on here tonight. It is more than a poker game. It’s an atmosphere of energy, sex, money, alcohol and business. Watching David is mesmerizing. He is exuding light, and whenever he glances at me, I feel my breath stick. Suddenly I am feeling very fucking lucky to be this fine-ass man’s girlfriend. I want to stand next to him, to touch him. I want everyone here to see that he is mine and I am his. But I don’t, because I don’t want to be that kind of girlfriend. The word “covetous” pops into my head because it is precisely how I am feeling.
I’ve been leaning against the wall drinking beer and watching for the past hour and a half. I decide I’m done with the wallflower shit and step out into the room.
Two hours later I am drunk as hell, sitting at a table right next to Carl. My ass alarm is sounding loud and clear, but it doesn’t stop me from chatting Carl up because I know that David is here, standing right next to me. Carl might be a fat prick of a landlord, but he is funny as shit. Telling stories, playing cards, slurping down shots, smoking cigars. He is riotous. Unfettered. Gregarious. I haven’t laughed this much ever.
I think David is enjoying seeing me let loose, though I’m not sure how he is feeling about me sitting so close to Carl. He puts himself between us the moment Carl leans a little too close, and his hand spends a minute or two on my shoulder every time another male sits down at the table. David hasn’t said a word to me all night since his “yes, ma’am” hours ago. But he is watching me like a hawk.
Groups of men have been coming and going through most of the night. Brad seems to be a doorman of sorts, deciding who is allowed inside and whose drunk ass to kick to the curb. It is a role he must take seriously because he hasn’t cracked a smile since we got here. There are another three or four men here that seem to be part of the operation. I recognize them from David’s bedroom. David is clearly good friends with them, but he doesn’t introduce me to any of them. I know they recognize me from that night, though, because they all smile knowingly when our eyes meet. I think David is right—they would like to have a crack at me. And they would gladly take him down for the opportunity.
As Carl is telling us a hysterical story about a female-only dirt bike race he once staged, Brad opens the door to let in another small gaggle of men. My eyes fly open when I spot Matt in the group. Matt! He is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, smoking a cigarette and smiling at the friend he’s walking in with. I see a long, dark tattoo on his right forearm. What the fuck? How did I not notice that before? Long sleeves. He always wears long sleeves. I glance up at David, who is also watching the men walk in the door. He looks down at me and raises his eyebrows. Ahh. I can see on his face that he has known the douche bag all along. I shake my head at David, and he gives me a shrug. Then he walks over to Matt and they talk. Matt looks over at me and raises his chin. I give him a sheepish wave and narrow my eyes at David. What the hell is going on here?
Matt and his friends swap money for chips and sit down at a table to play. I try to climb gracefully out of my chair, but I end up stumbling away. I can hear Carl and his table mates chuckling softly at my drunken gawkiness. I am clearly more intoxicated than I thought. My head is light, and despite my confusion about Matt, I feel euphoric. I feel perfect.
But I also have to pee. As I am walking toward the hallway at the front of the room that I suspect leads to the restrooms, I feel a hand grab my arm and turn me around. My dizzy head moves faster than my eyes, and it takes me a few seconds to realize that it is David who has stopped me. His hand is still holding my arm, and I see fire racing across his face. What’s this? He must be angry with me for getting so drunk, for sitting so close to Carl, for flirting and doing shots and waving to Matt. Oh, he’s mad. He’s really mad. I haven’t seen this from him, and frankly, I’m surprised at the intensity of it.
Both his hands are holding me now, gripping my upper arms. Steadying me. His face looks cross, and his brow is tight.
“You promised,” he says sharply. “You can’t leave.” What?
“I’m not leaving, you ass. I’m taking a piss.” Relief brushes across his face, and his eyes briefly close.
“The bathrooms are in the back,” he says with a sigh. And then his arms are around me, and his tongue is sweeping into my mouth. Right here in front of this room full of people, he is kissing me like a fucking porn star.
When he pulls away, he tells me that he thought I was bailing because he didn’t tell me about knowing Matt. He tells me what I already know—that this gambling ring is private. And illegal. No one is supposed to talk about it outside of Tuesday nights. Outside of this room. They could all go to jail for a very long time if they let the wrong person in the door. I lean into him and joke that I’ll be sure to keep all their shenanigans under my hat.
“Shhhh,” I say, with so much drunken silliness that I want to punch myself, “it’s all good, baby. I got your back. Because you, David Calgaro, are one fine-ass man.” I pat him irreverently on the chest, and he shakes his head at my sloppy drunkenness. My neck feels floppy, and I roll it backwards and start to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he says with a grin.
“Me. I’m funny,” I say, poking myself in the chest with my own index finger. “When that half-dressed girl kissed you earlier, I wanted to wring both of your fucking necks.” Oh, this is bad. I am going to say more than I should. I am about to engage in the whole so-drunk-it’s-embarrassing thing. “I wanted to knock you both to your knees. David, I don’t give a flying fuck about your knowing Matt. It’s business. Whatever. But what I do give a flying fuck about is you. You, David Calgaro. I give a flying fuck about you.” Oh, sweet Jesus. What am I doing?
David is grinning at me. No, he’s laughing at me, and my face starts to feel the heat of my own embarrassment. I am blushing, and he likes it.
“Go, take your piss,” he says, after a beat. “Then, come find me. I’ll see your flying fuck and raise you an indescribable benefit.”
When I come out of the bathroom, David is sitting at the card table with Carl and a few other men. He has a stack of chips in front of him, and I get the feeling he is about to kick Carl’s ass. He looks at me as I walk over to the table. Carl hands me another drink.
David motions for me to bend down so he can tell me something. In a whisper he says, “I’m going to score one of those benefits for you right now, Emma. Whatever you want.”
I shift my head so that my mouth brushes against his ear.
“All I want is for you to give a flying fuck about me, too,” I murmur. I look straight ahead. I don’t want to see David’s face for fear he might be snarking at my drunken declaration.
But instead of laugher I hear, “Already done.” And I feel myself tighten inside.
“I’m glad to see you two found each other,” Carl says loudly. “You’re quite the pair.” His eyes move up and down my body before falling on David’s face with a scandalous grin.
“Fuck you, Carl,” David spits. “Keep your mouth shut and play.”
“Rent’s due the first of every month, sweetie,” Carl says to me. “Don’t forget. I wouldn’t want to have to kick you out.” It feels like a threat.
“Screw you, Carl,” I tease, not believing this is the same man I was flirting and laughing with a few minutes before.
David looks up at me, and even with my glazed eyes, I can see that he is pleased.
For the next hour, they play. And I drink. The rest of the room slowly clears out, and before I know it, our table is the only one left. Even Matt and his friends have disappeared. Despite the fact that I don’t know a thing about poker, I know that David is winning and Carl is frustrated as hell. He is no longer laughing and teasing and telling stories. Instead he is swearing and scowling and making cracks about what a shitty maintenance man David is. David is just soaking it all in. It must be par for the course on Tuesday nights. But it is all getting too serious for me. I want to push Carl’s face into the table, to smack him upside the head. To tell him to go fuck himself. I am sinking in anger. Anger fueled by alcohol. And by lust. I want David to put down his cards, punch Carl in the face, then scoop me up and take me home.
But what I get instead is a rush of vertigo. And a second later my hands slide down David’s bird-covered arms, and I am on the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jenny
I am sitting on this bridge contemplating everything that is right in the world. There is so much that is right. So much that is good. I love this world, I love this man, and I love this city. In the wake of hurricane Katrina so many of my friends left, but I stayed. I’m thankful that I did, because if I had gone, I would never have met David. And I would never have had the opportunity to fall in love with such a strange and exceptional man. David is thoughtful and comforting, and the energy he gives my life is precisely why I can say that I love him more than I have loved anybody. Ever. I need to be with somebody whose control keeps my chaos in check.
David moved to New Orleans a little over a year ago from some small town in Illinois. He grew up there, and when the opportunities ran out, so did he. He had worked for his father’s construction company, and when it went under, David saw it as a sign that it was time to leave. His dad was a drinker, and he got mixed up with their secretary. David said this woman had his dad “by the balls,” and one day she cleared out the company’s bank account and left town. They never found her, or the money, and David’s dad drank himself into a constant stupor. Apparently, his father tried to convince the cops that David was somehow involved, saying that David was sleeping with the secretary, too. But nobody believed him. The secretary was twice David’s age, and when they questioned David about the whole thing, he said he and the deputy nearly laughed their asses off. He didn’t even know the secretary’s last name, he told them. He sure as hell hadn’t slept with her. He told the police that blaming him was his father’s way of trying not to look so goddamned stupid. The whole town knew that David’s dad was a drunk, and his dad had had numerous run-ins with the police over the years. They knew David had nothing to do with stealing that money. Questioning him was nothing more than a formality.
David left Illinois six weeks later because his dad grew more and more belligerent, and then completely lost it when he had to declare bankruptcy. David said he would have offered to help his dad out had he not tried to blame the whole damn fiasco on him. But, as it stood, he saw no reason to bail out his alcoholic father. So instead, he left.
I met David a few weeks after he moved here. He came into the shop looking for someone to do some work on his arms. I was inking Frank Lagasse when he walked in. David told me later that the moment he saw the full-rigged, three-masted ship I was putting on Lagasse’s side, he knew I was the right artist for him. That ship was beautiful. It took me four full sessions to finish it, but Lagasse loved it when it was all said and done. So did I. David’s birds took even longer. The colors were custom blends, and I worked my butt off to come up with his drawings. I ended up designing the birds one by one, layering each new body against the one I had made the session before. He came in every two or three days for weeks until they were finished. We started with just the wretched little falcon he had gotten from some lousy artist when he was still in high school. I built the rest of the birds around that falcon, taking great pride in making each feather a work of art. David’s arms are some of the best work I have ever done.
Those birds clearly signify something to him, but what that is, I don’t know. I suspect I never will. When he first came into the shop and told me what he wanted, I actually tried to talk him out of it. I tried to convince him to do just a few large birds rather than hordes of smaller ones. But he said no. He wanted a hundred different birds in a thousand different colors. They are beautiful, I’ll give him that, and they cost him a whole lot of money. But that’s no matter now, because I have David. And that is worth more than a million birds.
Because David spent so much time in the chair, we did a lot of talking. I got to know him without ever really looking at his face. I can say, though, that by the time I was finished with the birds, I knew each and every wrinkle on the skin of his arm. And I knew a lot about his past and even some of his hopes for the future. David is so bright and warm and calm, and when he is around me, everything feels good. Everything is love. His mental sway is hard to believe.
We have been together for about seven months now. The day I finished the last bird—the gouldian finch on his inner left wrist—was the day we had our first date. After I wrapped the tattoo, he asked me if he could take me to dinner to celebrate. We went to Cooter Brown’s, and by the time dinner was over, I remember feeling like David had wound me up like a spring-loaded toy. The energy he had built up in me was unbelievable. I was ready to hit the ceiling. To this day, whenever I am with him, it feels as if I am going to pop. As if he makes my whole body into a tight coil. And when the spring lets loose, the happiness I feel is almost absurd.
David and I have sat on these bridge trusses together many times. Our legs hanging off the beams. Our feet twined together, dangling, while the cars rush across the bridge above. And we are here again, hip to hip, doing the same. We have talked about everything here. About the whole world. About all the problems and all the solutions. David is scarred, deep and hard. And despite the positive energy he carries around like a crown of gold, I can see that he also carries hurt. He doesn’t let it bury him, but it does, in large part, define him. To hear him tell it, David’s childhood was an insane mess. Because of his father’s alcoholism, as a boy, he had no choices, no power; and now that he’s an adult, David always keeps his shit in check. I think it must be a lot of pressure to expect that kind of perfection from yourself. Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to bring himself to smile. Not a true smile, at any rate. Yes, he grins, he laughs, he smirks, but he doesn’t ever seem happy. You know, the kind of happy that cracks apart your face. The kind of happy that makes everyone around you want to be happy, too. The kind of happy that makes your heart sing. There is so much control in David that it keeps that kind of happy away. But that’s okay with me, because that is who he is. He is ripe with discipline, and I love him for it.
Today we are here to talk about us. At least that’s what I think. I have been telling David for a few weeks now that I love him, and every time I do, he says the same thing.
“I love you,” I say.
“You shouldn’t,” he says.
It is that way every time. Except for
last night. Last night when I said I love you, he said “I know. And we need to talk about that.” So, here we sit, on the bridge, presumably to “talk about that.”
We pass a joint between us. With each inhale, more and more mellow light shines on the pair of us, and I see more good in this world. I see David growing bigger and brighter and happier. I want to scream out that I love him, but I don’t. Instead I ask him why he always says that I shouldn’t love him.
“Because I am incapable of loving you back,” he says, “and you deserve more than that. You deserve better than me. You deserve to be happy.”
“But, David, I am happy. I’m happy whether or not you love me back. I mean, yes, it would be amazing if you loved me, but just because you don’t doesn’t mean I shouldn’t love you. And it doesn’t mean you are incapable of loving me. You are capable of love. Everyone is. Everyone deserves to love. Maybe you just need more time. Hell, maybe I’m not the one you are meant to love. Maybe there is someone else out there you are meant to love.”
He is staring at me now, holding the joint between his thumb and forefinger. He moves it up to his lips and sucks, scrunching his eyes up as if he’s thinking hard about what I just said. He holds his breath for a long time before exhaling.
“My mother always said that loving someone means that you would die for them,” he says quietly and thoughtfully. His eyes move away from mine and look out over the water. “I am too selfish for that. I don’t ever see myself feeling so much for someone that I would give my life up for them. Love is selfless, Jenny. And that is not me.” David is quiet for a long time. He passes the joint to me and puts his hands down in his lap. I inhale and then place my hand on his.
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