Skate was sloshed, plastered, plonked, three sheets to the wind and “toddy stricken” in a soup sandwich. In other words: the dude was drunk. He was singing like a man in love and flinging his arms around him, splashing beer on the ground and partying it up like mad. He wouldn’t stop talking about Vikki, Vikki, Vikki, Vikki. Talking about how much he loves her and can’t believe he’s been together with her for over four years and has remained faithful all that time. On and on and on...
Trev and I were, of course, laughing at all this, mostly because we suddenly realized how crazy we must have looked all those years ago when we’d all partied and drunk it up together.
Then some Jets fans came in. You’d think the fuckers would be glad we got New York to the playoffs, but they weren’t. True Blues, these guys (or Greens as the case may be.) Jets to the core and spouting Giants jokes like they were geniuses. Just FYI, pro sports players really don’t give a shit if you rip their team or not. All that matters is on the field and if you lose a game, you lost, and if you won, you won. But fans get a little, well, fanatical about it all. They think the jersey’s like a Patriotic Symbol of Brotherhood or religious fervor or...whatever!
Jets won’t make it into the playoffs this season, they’re just too far behind, and these boys were probably hoping for some huge showdown between the two New York teams and now have nothing to look forward to except their Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning jokes.
The three dudes trundled in, beer in the hands of one, peanuts in the hands of another. All of them were in Jets fan gear, even though there’s no game on today. They recognized me immediately, and they started ragging me immediately. They clearly knew I had a rep for barfights, and everyone and his mother has seen that Apollo Creed Wins Rematch YouTube video of Trev ripping Firebug Dino Moretti a new one, so I’m sure they knew his rep as well.
Trev’s been real cool since he’s gotten into the NFL. Me, I’ve been a bit of a loose cannon. And it’s been all over the news. Freedom of the press and all that shit. Yeah, welcome to America...
I let their jokes slide. They were clearly drunk, clearly suffering a mid-life crisis with their overhanging bellies and balding heads. (One of them had neither of these things however; he looked pretty young and fit. We’ll call him Number Two.) The jokes continued, incessantly. The bartender told them that if they wanted to cause trouble they could take their business elsewhere. I played the Good Guy role (never my forte) and said, “Pete, it’s cool, they’re just havin a good time is all.”
Pete (the bartender) looked over at me and said, “OK, Deck, but if they start botherin you an all, you jus say da word and I’ll ’ave em tossed outta here.”
Me, Mr. Cool, Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. I’m-Gonna-Start-Brown-Nosing-The-Press Guy, I said, “Nah, it’s cool,” and I flicked my hand gracefully like I was the fuckin Queen of England or something, a gesture which said, Whatever, it’s no biggie.
Which is when one of them tossed a peanut at me.
My hand clutched the table leg so forcefully that Trev knew I was in auto-mode and I was actually lifting the table to throw it! He snatched my arm, put all his massive weight on the table with the other hand, and slowly, painfully slowly, he shook his head from side to side, white eyes gleaming with concern for my career, and said, “No!”
The word itself was like a fist, a gut-punch with just enough force to make me go “gulp!” and say in return, “Fine.”
My grip on the leg eased. I sat back, flicked an evil eye over at Mr. Peanut Thrower (one of the balding head and overhanging tummy dudes), and then turned and smiled at our inebriated jester, Sebastian “Skate” Kade Darby II. His always-shaven-to-the-skin head gleamed in the swinging barlight above him (he’d hit it once already while flipping his drunken arms around.) His voice rolled and echoed as he sang a version of “Foxy Lady” which sounded nothing like Jimi Hendrix. His motley-colored snake tat writhed forebodingly on his neck.
And Mr. Peanut said something nasty to him, to Skate. I can’t even remember what it was, because my attention was suddenly grasped by Skate’s damning eyes, gray and locked despite his inebriation, on our Three Stooges to the left.
Skate staggered back once. “Say...what?” (It sounded more like Zawah?)
“You fuckin heard me, Dick Cheese. Now why dontcha take ya fuckin boyfriends here and scram!”
M-hmmm, Queens boys.
Skate took a second, stumbled. I could see the besotted cogwheels of his inner mind swimming in beer and whiskey, trying to fire up again as he waded through the meaning of what Mr. Peanut had just told him.
Pete said, “Fellas, I think yoos better leave now.” He was talking to our newly acquainted friends.
I said (ever the gentleman), “Pete, it’s cool, we gotta get Skate home anyways. We’ll go.” I stood.
Skate’s cogwheels still whirled, fighting the liquid which surrounded them.
“Yeah, joos better leave. We don’t want no fuckin Giants in here. Dis here’s a Jets Only bar!”
Pete: “Actually, Mister, it’s neither. It’s open to—”
“Pete,” I said, hand up like a dignified dignitary, “it’s cool, we gotta go.”
“OK, Deck-Man, whatever you say, but these fellas gotta go as well. I don’t really mind if you go or not, but these fellas gotta go. I don’t want no trouble in my bar.”
Skate cocked an eyebrow. The comment of two minutes earlier had finally sunk in. Oh, shit.
“What the fuck did you say to me, punk?”
That was Skate talking, looking miraculously rather straight-minded for a dude who’s leveled at least a case of beer on his own tonight, plus the whiskeys.
But he wouldn’t be able to pack a straight punch tonight, no matter how macho he felt.
Which is when the one-two-three happened. Not our fault. Not our fault!
Mr. Peanut lunged for Skate, howling like a rabid dog, personally affronted at having been referred to as a member of that crazy music subculture no doubt (dude looked more like a banjo-in-a-barn type, not a punk.) Peanuts scattered in the air during his lunge forward while his two henchmen looked bovinely in our direction, equally as stunned as to what was happening as we were.
Trev put his mountain of an arm out and stopped Mr. Peanut from hitting Skate.
“Hey, are you assaultin me!? Are you assaultin me, Perkins!”
By now, in the distance of the bar, phones had already made their way out, looking at us like alien eyes staring down from the dark. People stood, holding their cameras in Record-Mode. Flashes struck, feet stirred, Peanut Man frothed at the mouth. Slowly, deadly, Trev said, “Back. The Fuck. Away.”
Trev looked up at the cameras in the back. Flash!
Trev has never played much to the cameras, so he didn’t say the next thing loudly, although he probably should have. Quietly, as if helping Peanut Man to maintain what little self respect he still had for himself, Trev said, “We don’t want no trouble here.”
Which is when Peanut Man spat a gob of crunched up Peanuts in Trev’s face, and cocked his arm back to take a swing at the gargantuan NFL player in front of him.
Flash! Flash! Flash!
Trev dropped him.
I mean literally dropped him (after he’d picked him up by the shirt.) It went like this: The dude’s feet lifted slightly off the floor, his shiny bald-spot threatening to take someone’s eye out, as Trev’s fist clenched in on the dude’s shirt, and he lifted, one-armed, and then put his shoulder into it, and rammed the man down into the ground. Trev then followed through with his shoulder, bending his knees and making sure Peanut here would really crack the floorboards when he landed.
Peanut’s head hit the wooden floor, and the floor did crack. And Peanut’s eyes rolled back, a little peanut vomit escaped him and Trev turned his head to the side so the fucker wouldn’t choke on himself. Always the gentleman.
Flash! Flash! Flash!
You’d think that was the end of it, wouldn’t you?
Skate’s cogs were wheeling. Mr. Pea
nut’s two bovine friends had their jaws open and looked blankly over at us. They put their hands up and said fearfully, “We don’t want no trouble, fellas. Steve”—they pointed at Mr. Peanut—“he was the one, not us, not us!”
Flash! Flash! Flash!
I grinned politely, Mr. Nice Guy all the way. “OK, guys, simple misunderstanding, no problem. Trev? Get up, buddy. Get up.” I patted him on the shoulders. Peanut Steve wasn’t going anywhere. Trev would get away with that first hit (Stevie Peanut had been mid-swing) but not with a second one. A second one would be assault, plain and simple. I was suddenly grateful for the cameras. A picture never lies...
And then I thought of Tatiana’s photos... And all the lies those pictures told.
I kept smiling. “It’s cool, boys, no problem here. Trev? C’mon, my man.” Trev started rising, fingers uncurling unwillingly from Peanut Steve’s shirt.
Which is when Skate’s cogs hit their second recognition of the night. “Heyyyyyyyyy.” He was looking down at Peanut. “HEEYYYYYYY!”
“Skate, it’s cool,” I said.
Skate might not be able to throw a straight punch in his current state, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to throw a mighty one.
He would.
And he did.
And it landed on the non-balding, non-overhanging-belly dude—Mr. Number Two. (Had Skate been aiming for him? I don’t know.)
And then all hell broke loose, because this dude was suddenly in the mood for a fight. Maybe his confidence came up at throwing his fists at a drunken sailor rather than at two NFL players.
I couldn’t stand by and let my boy have his skull cracked open. Mr. Number Two was relatively big, bigger than anyone else in the bar. Not bigger than Skate, but Skate was zoned out by the booze.
So I tried to separate them at first, got tangled in between them—
Flash! Flash! Flash!
—and got hit in the jaw once by the dude.
And then, reflex action, caught in a fight with fists flying my way, I socked him. I gave him one long, curving, wide-arcing, bicep-fully-cocked, fist-loaded-and-ready, cracker of a thumping blow to his jaw. I actually heard the crunch of that wood-breaking sound as his mandible separated from its proper place.
Flash!
The dude fell like a sack of potatoes, out for the count. Trev caught him.
Flash!
And the dude looked dead when he landed, bouncing limply once just like a flat basketball thrown hard against the ground. His eyes rolled. Blood seeped from his lip on the side.
Flash!
I was shocked, realized my hand was still fisted up.
Flash! Flash! Flash!
I eased my hand open, looked up at the cameras trained on me, was blinded by the gunfire of their flashes. I covered my eyes, realizing I had blood on my hand.
And I smiled. Mr. Nice Guy.
-2-
In my delirium, I completely missed that, almost immediately after, some teeny-bopper (one of the camera flashers from earlier) had grabbed my arm and said, “Oh, Declan honey, take a picture with me! Take a picture with me!” Flash! Flash! Flash! “Oh, and one of me kissing your cheek!” Kiss. Flash! I looked at my hand. Shit, please tell me I didn’t kill the guy...
I looked down at him.
The teeny bopper: “Oh, Declan, God you’re so fucking hot! Take one of me and my friend with you please please please!” Flash! Flash! Flash flash flash FLASH! “Oh I just wanna kiss you, baby! Kiss me! Kiss me!”
What the—
Arms were looped around me.
There’s blood on my hand.
The dude on the floor is...dead?
“...we need an ambulance at...two guys...on the ground...don’t know...”
Giggle giggle giggle giggle. Flash! “...so sexy! ... so hot! You really are a Bad Boy! ...”
Who’s talking? Do these women not realize there’s a man...possibly dead...on the ground?
I bent over, looked at Trev. “It’s cool,” he said, “he’s just unconscious. Broken jaw. I never thought I’d say I was glad for all the cameras, because he took the first swing.”
“Coach won’t care. He’ll fine us anyway.”
Trev shrugged. In a distant world I heard more giggles, more young girls. Young? Who knows. But they sound like it...
Trev said, “But it could be worse.”
The next thing happened so fast, so freaking fast, that I only realized what happened after:
The giggly girl: “Oh, Deck-Man, go to first base with me!”
Someone grabbed my cheeks, pulled my head around like it was a doll’s head. I saw a hazy face of some extremely young looking girl and started wondering wh—
She kissed me. She pressed her lips against me and shoved her tongue between my lips like a crowbar—
Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!
—and I pushed her immediately away!
And then it was over. Giggle giggle! “Oh, thank you, Declan!” she said. “Everyone’s gonna be so jealous! Thank you thank you thank you!”
I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, not believing what America has come to for people to be so interested in getting fake photos of them kissing some star—minor or major—so they can flaunt it around and tell their friends about it! And how old was that girl—sixteen? Is she even allowed in this place?
I turned my head to the dude on the ground. Trev repeated what he’d said, “He’s cool, Deck. Don’t worry. It’ll be cool.”
My phone buzzed.
It was Blaze. Her message said: I need you, Declan Cox. When can I have you?
My mind was suddenly drawn to that kiss—Was there a kiss?—and that flash.
I’d just knocked a guy out, so had Trev. We were sitting there waiting for an ambulance, but I was thinking about what could be worse than that.
I was thinking about losing Blaze.
And my head felt heavy suddenly.
Someone noticed my mood, some bar patron, patted me on the back, said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Cox, we all saw it. They got nuthin on ya. Nothin ta worry about.” Pat pat pat on the back.
Only problem is, bro, that ain’t what I’m worried about.
I stood, looked outside the door. The three girls I saw earlier were standing there, laughing and giggling in a huddle, staring at their phones, holding them up as if trying to get reception. They looked younger still. Fifteen? Oh God no, please don’t let them be fifteen!
The raging rain of earlier had ceased, leaving only a smoky haze rising up from the street.
“There! It’s sent!” the youngest-looking girl said. The one who ambushed me with a kiss and even tried to stick her tongue in me! (Did she?) She smiled brightly, waved at me enthusiastically. “Thank you, Declan. You’re so sexy!” The three of them screeched off with handbags dangling from their arms, giggles filling the otherwise quiet Williamsburg street. The rainstorm had stopped a while ago, but it felt like my own storm had just started.
Trev tapped me on the leg. I looked down and saw the dude I smacked, moving. “He’s waking up,” Trev said. “So is the other one. Nothing to worry about.”
Right. Nothing to worry about.
-3-
Luckily (I suppose, because luck is relative, isn’t it?) the last of the trio (let’s call him Number Three) speaks on our behalf. Maybe we scared the bejesus out of him with our One-Punch-And-He’s-Out moves and he decided to better be safe than sorry. Whatever the reason, he tells the fuzz that we were only defending ourselves. When the first cop comes over to take my statement he smiles, then he catches himself. If he wasn’t on duty, he would probably comment on the game or something.
Or maybe his wife reads People or Star magazine.
When he’s done interviewing us, duty done, he walks away, then turns and says, “Great game by the way.”
See? Toldya.
I call Blaze immediately after the ambulance arrives and Peanut Steve and his Main Henchman are being carted away. I turn away from Trev and she picks up.
Her voice, soft and husky tonight, gets my male hormones playing the tambourines. For a moment I’m stunned, thinking about her under my arms, thinking about how much I loved holding her under the covers, our skins sticking to each other...
“Deck? What is it?”
“Right. Uhm, yeah, Blaze, I got something I gotta tell you. And...I’m tellin you now so you don’t get a shock tomorrow when you see the papers—”
“Oh, shit.”
“—and think I’m out doin shit I shouldn’t be doing.”
I tell Blaze everything, right down to the detail of the young (extremely young!) girl catching me blindsided and sticking her little snake-tongue in my lips.
My throat’s in my stomach, my stomach’s at my ankles. I’m waiting for Blaze’s response, feeling like I screwed things up even before they’ve had a chance to begin again!
But I didn’t screw them up. And yet...they are screwed up!
The Universe showing us what we can’t have, I remember.
Damn it!
“And did you kiss her back?”
“No, Blaze, of course I didn’t! I swear—”
“Deck, relax, I’m just asking. And I believe you.”
It’s like icy water after a game, drunk too fast. “Sorry, what?”
“I believe you, Deck. If you say you didn’t, I believe you. I never believed you before, and I think that screwed things up for us. I didn’t let myself believe that something so good could happen to me, so I subconsciously screwed it up. But I believe you. No questions asked.”
I’m stunned, silent. I need to sit. Where’s a chair?
“Deck?”
I clear my throat. “Th—thanks, Blaze. I...I never told you stuff before. I should’ve told you about Gina and how I was spending more time with her—”
“Yes, you should have.”
“—and I should have... Hell, I should have told you about what happened with Tatiana! I mean, not after, before. When she’d trapped me in that room.”
“I know. And yes, you should have. But I was insecure then, Deck. I probably wouldn’t have accepted it. I probably would have doubted you anyway, even if you’d told me. I didn’t believe that good things could happen to me after all the shit I’d been through. So, we learn. We live, and we learn.”
Need Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy Book Three) Page 23
