BABY WITH THE BEAST

by Naomi West

  He tilts his head at me as if I am speaking a language he doesn’t understand. “What do you mean? Look.” He gestures at the table, at the candles. “Look what I’ve done for you. And then you say that? What’s the matter with you? Look, look.” He softens his tone, stepping forward. “I know it’s been hard for you, getting over that biker, but that was a long time ago now. It’s time for you to forget him. It’s Peter’s turn.”

  “It’s Peter’s turn,” I repeat. Did he really just say that?

  “Oh, just come here.” When he leans into me, I smell the beer on his breath, strong, overpowering. He grabs the back of my neck and tries to force his lips against mine. I squirm, wriggling out of his grip. He catches my wrist and pulls me to him.

  “Get away from me!” I snap, bringing my knee up into his groin.

  He gasps, leaping back. “Ow!” he whines. “Ow! Ow! Ow! What’d you do that for, Willa?”

  I massage the back of my neck. “You’re a fucking creep!” I scream, my neck throbbing with pain. “Don’t you ever touch me again!”

  I march into the bedroom and pick up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder, and then kick on my sneakers. Peter hovers in the living room as I make for the door. “I didn’t mean anything by that,” he says. He sounds like he’s crying, but I won’t look at him to check. “I just wanted to be close to you. That’s all. You can’t be angry with me for that! You fucking cock-tease! Walking around like that, you fucking whore!”

  I turn on him just as I’m about to leave. His insult dies on his lips.

  “You need to learn to read social cues,” I say. “Because you’ve got some serious fucking problems.”

  I leave the apartment building, walking out into the rain, not sure where I’m going or what I’m doing. That’s been a theme in my life, I reflect, not being sure of what I’m supposed to be doing.

  I walk for an hour until my thin hoodie is soaked through, my jeans plastered to my legs, and I’m standing outside my old apartment building. It’s still a husk. They haven’t even started rebuilding it yet. Maybe that has something to do with the Chino connection. I’m pretty sure that’s why the insurance people are screwing me around, too. Rain dripping down my nose, from the bridge of my eyebrow, I walk down the street toward the bar where Diesel and I first talked. I want to go to Diesel’s place, but I know that I’m not calm enough for that. I’d end up doing something I regret.

  The Princess is just as much of a dive bar as I remember it. I’m about to order a vodka and coke when I remember my baby, so I order a Diet Coke instead, sitting in the corner near the radiator and waiting to dry off. I don’t have to make any plans just yet, I tell myself. All I need to do is get dry and then I can figure it all out.

  After an hour and two Diet Cokes, I start trying to figure out what my next step is. A roof, obviously. That’s priority number one. I think back to college, wondering if any of my so-called friends would be willing to help out. But I know that’s just wishful thinking. It’d be a stranger showing up on their doorstep. They’d smile politely and then ask me to leave. Brittany is a no. I can’t go back to Peter. Diesel, then … But then I come back to the main problem, which is that he’s a criminal. He hasn’t stopped being a criminal since I left him.

  I go to the bar to get another Diet Coke. Even my small change is nearly spent.

  “Hey there, pretty lady.”

  The man’s a Skull Rider. I can tell because his jacket is slung across his shoulder, the sigil visible even if it’s crumpled. Maybe this is dumb chance, or maybe this is a Skull Rider hangout. Whatever the case, I don’t want anything to do with him. He’s short, very thin, with one of those handlebar mustaches. His black hair hangs down to his shoulders in greasy-looking curtains.

  “I’m just getting a Diet Coke,” I mutter, gesturing to the barman.

  The Skull Rider slides up the bar. “Why’nt you let me do that for you?” He nods at the change in my hand. “It don’t exactly look like you’re swimming in cash now, does it?”

  “I’ll get my own drink, thank you.”

  “Now come on, missy.” He coughs out a laugh. “Don’t treat a man like that—”

  “Get out of my fucking face!” I scream, turning on him. “I said get out of my fucking face!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Diesel

  It’s just like Johnny to go AWOL, but usually finding him is a job for one of the pledges, or one of the lower-ranking members. Not a tried-and-tested man like me. But since I let that warehouse go unburned, Grimace has been treating me like one of the grunts. Even though I’ve burned down every place he’s asked me since, that one is enough in his eyes. I can tell when he looks at me that he doesn’t trust me like he once did. It shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I can’t help it. The only father I’ve ever known, looking at me like that … I’m starting to wonder if Grimace ever really gave a damn about me, or if he just saw me as a weapon. And if a weapon starts malfunctioning, you either fix it or get rid of it.

  I try not to think of Willa as I ride to the bar—one of Johnny’s asshole friends told me where he was—but it’s difficult. Lately, even as I set fire to shit, I see Willa. I see her face form in the flames. I hear her voice in the crumbling of the rafters. Now, I hear her in the rain against my helmet, see her in the sunlight breaking through the clouds. I’ve been alive for twenty-eight years but I never really lived until those weeks with Willa. Now that I’ve tasted it, letting it go is damn hard.

  I park my bike outside the bar, wanting to make this quick. Johnny can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. I push into the bar, memories of Willa attacking me. I remember coming here with her. Back then I was a much simpler man, I reflect. Willa hadn’t yet cracked me open, revealing all this mushy shit inside. I had my doubts, but I could manage them. Now they eat me from inside every goddamn night. I remind myself that after this I have a job to do, Grimace’s orders. Another building to turn to dust just so we can get at Chino.

  As I walk into the bar, I’m sure I hear Willa’s voice, loud over the jukebox, shouting. I must miss her to hear her voice like that.

  Then I realize I’m not hearing phantoms. It really is her.

  When I walk onto the scene, I’m sure I must be hallucinating. Johnny stands a few feet from Willa, arms at his sides, and Willa has her hands raised, as if to protect herself.

  “If you lay one finger on me, I’m going to kill you!” Willa snaps. “I mean it!”

  Johnny laughs. “You’re a fiery one, aren’t you? I’ll teach you some manners.”

  I grind my teeth. My first instinct is to smash Johnny’s nose into the bar. But that could have consequences, maybe deadly ones for me and Willa, considering the esteem the club’s holding me in at the moment. Instead I march across the bar and nod to Willa, keeping my face as cold as possible. “You need to get out of here,” I tell her. “Now.”

  “D-Diesel?” She looks at me like I’ve just emerged from thin air. “What are you doing here?”

  Ignoring her, I turn to Johnny. “Boss wants to see you right away. Somethin’ about a job.”

  “Is that right?” Johnny asks. He stands up to his full height, which is still about half a foot shorter than me. I want to crush his skull in my hand, the little shit. “Or are you just saying that to protect this pretty lady?”

  “Boss wants to see you,” I repeat. “You can keep him waiting or you can get going.”

  It’s lucky he leaves when he does, because I’m on the verge of saying “fuck it” to the club and smashing his teeth against my knee. He swaggers from the bar, hands in his pockets, whistling a tune. I think about how he’d look if I grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him through the bar, wonder if he’d be whistling then. But then he’s gone and my chance is gone with him. It’s for the best, I know.

  “Diesel?” Willa says, wonder in her voice. “Did you follow me?”

  “Follow you?” I make for the door. I can’t look at her, not when I need to go to work. Looking at her will
make it impossible to do what I have to do. “No, I didn’t follow you. I followed him.”

  “Wait a sec!” she snaps, struggling to keep pace with me. “My bag is back there.”

  “I can’t stop and talk,” I tell her, thinking about the apartment building I’m about to burn down, the first one since Willa’s. All to play Grimace’s game. I’ve never thought of myself as a pawn before, but more and more I’m starting to think that was because I didn’t want to, not because I wasn’t one.

  “Just wait one second!”

  I wait near the entrance, staring at the wall, knowing I should dart out to my bike without giving her the chance to be near me. I want her, badly. I’ve ached for her for weeks. But now I have work to do. A man can’t focus on violent work if he has a woman’s legs in his mind.

  “Okay.” She clutches onto the bag she took with her when she left me.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say.” I walk outside. The rain has stopped now, the sidewalk glistening in the evening sunlight. I make for my bike. “I have somewhere to be. It was lucky, us meeting here, I mean. But it doesn’t mean anything. I have somewhere to be.” I know I’m repeating myself. I can’t stop it. Being close to her is driving me crazy. Her jeans are tight, her hoodie is tight, outlining her body. Without much effort at all, I see her naked.

  “Why are you in such a rush? We haven’t seen each other in weeks and now … Oh, Diesel. No, no. Is that why you won’t look at me? Diesel!” I keep walking. “Damon Holmes!” she screams.

  I spin on her when she uses my real name. “What do you want from me?” I bark. “What, Willa? You pushed me away! Now I’m trying to get some semblance of my old fuckin’ life back.”

  “You’re going to set fire to something, aren’t you?”

  We stand near my bike at the edge of the road. The street is dead except for a black cat watching from a window ledge.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mutter.

  “Don’t be a coward!” She drops her bag, pointing at me. “If you’re going to do something like this, at least have the balls to own it!”

  “Why do you even care?” I break out. “You fucking left, Willa. You don’t get a say anymore.”

  She lurches at me, clutching onto my hands and pressing her body into mine. The feeling is so damn good—it feels like home, belonging—that for several seconds we just stay like that. “Don’t do this,” she begs. “You don’t have to do this. I’ve been reading the news. I know you’ve been doing it, Diesel. Why do you think I didn’t come to you? But now that we’re together, I’m begging you. Do not do this! You don’t have to be this person.”

  Her words puncture my chest, hitting deep. “I do,” I say.

  “No, you don’t!” she snaps. She lets go of my hands and grips my face instead, looking into my eyes. Night after night, I’ve seen those brown-flecked blue eyes in my dreams. They weaken me. “I want to have a baby with you, Diesel. I really want to. I know it’s crazy. I know it makes no sense. But it’s what I want. I can’t be with an arsonist, though. I just can’t.”

  “You want to have a kid with me?” I whisper.

  The impossible life, the dreamed-of life, the second chance … She’s offering it to me right now, everything I’ve ever wanted. A child, and a woman worthy of raising the child. A life that doesn’t rely on causing pain, on tearing stuff down. I could build something up. I could make something instead. And that’d mean we’d get to try to have a kid together. I look at her tight body again. In the back of my head, Grimace watches, waiting for me to push her away and get on with my work.

  “A child,” I say, unable to believe she means it.

  She kisses me on the cheek. I don’t know when she started to cry. “I told myself I wouldn’t come to you, Diesel. I can’t take it. If you go now I’ll have to move out of the California just so I never see you again. I can’t be with a man who chooses fire over love.”

  “Fire over love,” I repeat, wondering at the phrase. I’ve never thought about it like that before.

  She smiles through her tears, rolling her eyes playfully. “I was going to write a novel once. I think I mentioned it.” The smile vanishes. She kisses me on the chin. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. You have a choice.”

  I swallow. My throat is dry. “Let me take you home,” I say. I nod at the bag. “I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to stay.”

  She shakes her head. “No,” she admits.

  “Okay, come on, then.”

  I fix her bag to the bike and give her my jacket and my helmet, and then climb on. Her hands pressed against my belly feel perfect. The engine growls and she lays her helmeted head between my shoulder blades. For a few minutes as I ride through the city, I forget about Grimace and the club. I forget about my responsibilities. All I know is Willa. All I want to know is Willa.

  I hold her hand as we walk up the stairs to my apartment. Inside, she goes to the kitchen and looks at the cupboards, still just as I left them the day she walked out on me. “Where do you eat, Diesel?” she asks, sounding like an annoyed mother. If any other girl talked to me in that prissy tone of voice, I’d get away from her as fast as possible. But with Willa, I welcome it.

  “At the club, at bars, or I’ll just grab a sandwich from the supermarket.”

  “This won’t do,” she says quietly.

  “Does that mean you’re staying?” I ask.

  She turns on me, smiling, and then letting the smile drop. “I don’t know,” she says. “I want to stay. I guess it all depends on you.”

  “On the fires,” I mutter.

  “On the fires,” she confirms.

  “Tonight. You’re staying tonight, though?”

  She nods. “I have nowhere else to go. So as long as you don’t sneak out on me, I’m exhausted and I wouldn’t mind lying down.”

  “Come on.”

  I take her by the shoulder and lead her into the bedroom. She drops her bag on the floor and looks at the bed, a strange expression on her face. “I’ve missed this,” she says, dropping onto the mattress. The bed is unmade, so she has to reach across to pull the blanket over her. “Although I’m pretty sure these are the same sheets I was sleeping in, Diesel.”

  I grin. “I never claimed to be housetrained.”

  She shoots daggers at me, but there’s a playful glint in her eye. “We’ll have to see about that. Will you sit with me?”

  “You want to make sure I don’t go out.”

  A clock tic-tic-tics in the back of my head. Soon Grimace will get word that the apartments aren’t burned down. Soon he’ll be raging in his office, kicking and punching the walls, roaring my name. I feel some of my childhood fear at the thought, but then I push it down. I can’t be that kid anymore. I have to stand by what I want, and what I want is this, to sit beside Willa and not have to worry about turning buildings to black powder.

  I sit on the floor, resting my head against the wall. She lies on her side so that we’re watching each other.

  “I’ve missed you,” she says. “I don’t believe in fate or whatever, but I’m glad we ran into each other at the bar. I don’t think—” She hesitates, and then goes on. “I wouldn’t have come to you on my own. I wouldn’t have let myself.”

  “Because I’m a dirty fuckin’ criminal.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it.

  “Pretty much.” She tries a smile. It comes off as forced.

  “So what now?” I ask.

  “I sleep,” she says, “and you don’t leave this apartment no matter what. I think that’s a good plan for this evening.” Already, her eyes are falling closed. “It’s odd. I haven’t been sleeping very well. And now I’m lying in an unmade bed in old sheets and I can’t seem to stay awake.”

  “You can go to sleep if you want,” I say quietly.

  “I have something I need to tell you, though,” she murmurs, her voice heavy with sleep.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I’m …” She begins to sno
re.

  I watch her sleep for a long time, her eyelids fluttering, her nostrils flaring and then closing, her lips slightly parted, her tongue sticking between them. Her hair falls across her forehead, partially covering her eyes. She looks like the sort of woman that’d make a man forget the devil he used to be. I watch her, and I promise myself: I won’t burn. I won’t, never again. I’ll be better than that. I’m sure I can be better than that. Staring at Willa’s perfect face, it’s easy to make these promises. She’s worth it. She’s more than worth it. But a man like me …

  As if sensing my doubt, my cell buzzes. It’s Grimace.

  I take it into the living room and stare down at it, wondering if I should just let it ring. Something makes me pick it up.