Stay with Me

by Paul Griffin

  Larry hangs his sheets, laughing at me. I can’t hear him. Just the radio static now. He mouths Punk as he heads downstairs. I make my hands into fists to keep myself from reaching into my back pocket and pulling my lock-blade. I’m liable to break my fingers, I’m balling them so tight.

  Takes a while for the heat to float off me, and then I drop hard back into my body, and I’m so heavy with the fear of what I almost did, I have to sit down. My mind is so crunched up there’s room for only one thought: I have to give Céce the pin. What’s the worst that could happen? I scare her off?

  That would suck.

  The minutes click by a little faster, and time becomes real time, and I’m back in the everydayness of things. I double-check the padlock on the elevator housing door. Only the old man and me have the key for it. Good solid door. Heavy metal to keep out the thieves, or at least Larry.

  (Saturday, June 20, afternoon)

  CÉCE:

  We take the bus for the air-conditioning that isn’t working anyway, and it T-bones a soda truck. A couple of people are faking whiplash for lawsuits, but everybody’s okay.

  “I had a vision I was in a bus accident,” I say. “Couple of years ago. Swear to God. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Let’s,” Anthony says as we hike toward the Too. “Look,” he says, “you’re perfect for each other.”

  “My brother wants to set me up with a dropout drug addict convict. I rock.”

  “Why do you have to think the worst?” he says.

  “Because that’s how it usually turns out.”

  “I know things about him. Things I can’t tell you. Trust me. I’m not saying you have to go out with him, but let him be a friend to you. He’ll help you.”

  “With what? And what things can’t you tell me?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Trying to make him mysterious to get me to go out with him isn’t working.”

  “Yeah it is. Cheech, I’m out of here in a week. You need a friend. I trust him.”

  “We got all we can handle with Vic watching out for us.”

  “You need Mack.”

  “I don’t need anybody. And by the way, I’m not going to the airport with you to say good-bye.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m pissed, Anthony.” I walk on ahead. Like he has to tell me to hang out with the dude. I find myself very attracted to sad people. I seriously hope this guy isn’t going home and firing up a mothball after work.

  Vic’s at the bar with Ma. “Ameliorate,” he says.

  “Relieve,” I say. “As in, ‘Ma sank into our cheap, cruddy, scratchy brown couch and drank a six-pack of Bud Light last night to try to ameliorate the stress of my moron brother’s looming departure.’”

  “Potent sentence,” Vic says. “Image-laden. Well done.”

  “Cheers,” Ma says, sipping what I hope is a Virgin Mary.

  Mack’s behind the dishwashing machine. I play cool, or try to. “Lemme guess, Freddy’s being an idiot again?”

  “What?” he says.

  I do the lamest Freddy impersonation, the way he calls in, “‘Uh, yeah, Céce, wondering if you could talk to Vic for me. Uh, see, thing is, I find myself under the weather today. Cough-cough! Can’t seem to get rid of this cough-cough! Tell him it’s potent, this cough, Céce, you can’t envisage a more dire respiratory condition.’”

  Mack looks away, no smile for me, no eyes either, gets to work. Dude thinks I’m a total geek. Note to self: Don’t ask him to play Wii tennis.

  I check the wall clock. It’s getting to be that time: his daily drug deal. I grab Marcy from the bathroom. “Can you stop looking at yourself for five minutes?”

  “Depends on what you’re offering for an alternative. And don’t say wiping down the silverware.”

  “I need your opinion.”

  “Is it about the felon? You ever notice how he pinches the inside of his wrist when he’s nervous? It’s a shame, really. He’s got the nicest ass.”

  “You ever see him with that dude out back? Do you think he’s—”

  “Yes.”

  An hour later we’re slammed. Me and Ma are running food to our tables and Marcy’s because my girl doesn’t do too well when we get busy. Vic’s whomping garlic and tossing it into Anthony’s pans, ten going at once. Half hour later the customers are pouring in, and we’re in the weeds. Me and Ma are starting to confuse the orders. Marcy is catatonic. Even Vic is a little edgy, mumbling his crossword vocabulary list, “overwhelmed, overcome, inundated.” Mack washes and reracks and double-times it out to the floor to help us bus our tables without being asked, but even he’s falling behind.

  We’re at the point where we’ll lose it, and the customers will walk out.

  Then there’s Anthony. He turns up the radio, classic rock station, perfectly clear reception because Vic has the satellite subscription working. Ant makes the pepper grinder his microphone and sings with Bruce Springsteen, “Tramps like us, baby we were born to run.” He’s got this incredible voice. Ma flashes back to her slutty youth and joins in totally offkey. She’s working the broom, air guitar, totally cheesy but at the same time endearingly cute in only the absolutely saddest Carmella-Vaccuccia-trying-to-be-cool sort of way. Vic whomps garlic to the drumbeat. Me and Marcy are singing backup with our atrocious voices. We go back out to the floor to serve, and we’re beaming, and the customers love it. Who doesn’t like a happy waitress?

  I’ll always remember this. My big brother making everybody feel good, his arms caked with sweaty flour, his apron filthy with deep-fry grease and tomato sauce. Doesn’t sound like much of a moment, but I have a feeling this might be the last time we’re all together like this.

  Mack has the smallest smile working behind those dish racks. Wait, a second ago, was he looking at me?

  We close out the register with lots of money in our pockets. Ma and Vic are playing slap cards at the bar. Anthony says he’s got to say good-bye to some friends. “Mack buddy, you walk my sis home?”

  “That all right with you?” Mack says.

  “Sure, whatever.” My heart makes a clicking sound. I wonder if he can hear it. I try to cover by nonchalantly swigging a soda, and I spill Pepsi on my boobs. Loo. Ser.

  We’re slow-walking the main drag. Kids on Harleys rip up and down the street. Mack clears his throat, says to his worn-out sneakers, “I been to jail. I expect you already know, but I thought I should tell you, just in case. I, some folks are scared to be with folks who been locked up.”

  “No. I mean, no, I’m not scared. This is nice, you walking me home. I appreciate it.” I’m scared to ask, but I have to know. “What happened?”

  He tells me what he did.

  I nod for a long time, and now I clear my throat. “So you never killed anybody.”

  “No. No.”

  “I’m glad. I mean, for you I’m glad. I didn’t mean—”

  “No no, I know.” He nods, still won’t look at me. “I, you, like the other night. The dog. The one that jogged up on us. You was—you were scared.”

  “I was bitten once.”

  His eyes flick to my scars, then away. “Did you try to kiss the dog?”

  “Well I, how did you know?”

  He shrugs.

  We’re in front of CVS now. “Mack?”

  He’s startled, hearing me say his name. “Yep?”

  “I gotta grab a couple of things, okay? Wait here. I’ll be back in five.” I head in. Ma told me to pick up a roll of toilet paper on the way home, because when we wrecked Vic’s car, the four hundred rolls in the trunk got skunked with beer and ketchup. But I don’t want Mack to see me buying a loser item like toilet paper. Figure I’ll pick up the smallest roll Charmin offers, just to get us through Sunday, and hide it under a cool item, perhaps a giant bag of Skittles, for instance.

  CVS is having a huge toilet paper sale. All they have left are sixteen-packs.

  Problem: We’re down to using travel-pack tissues at home. Now I ha
ve to walk around with sixteen rolls of Charmin.

  When I come out of the store, two bikers are stopped at a red light. One has his radio blasting some faraway station, more static than music.

  Mack looks weird all of a sudden. Mad. He’s staring at the biker.

  The biker’s friend doesn’t like that. “You got a problem, bitch?”

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  But Mack is someplace else, his eyes locked on the biker.

  The light changes, and the biker’s friend waves off Mack with “Pf, you ain’t nothin’.” The two Harleys jerk away, busting up the night with their sawed-off mufflers. Car alarms go blant-blant-blant.

  He’s back now, sort of. He’s wobbly. He puts his hand on the mailbox to keep his feet. “You know like when you’re crouching, and you stand up too fast?” he says.

  “Except you weren’t.”

  He’s looking at my hand on his arm. He doesn’t pull away this time. He catches his breath. “I can show you how to greet a dog, if you want.”

  “Greet a dog? I’m worried about you. Are you hypoglycemic?” That or he totally dropped a Seconal while I was in CVS. “Here, have some Skittles.” Of course when I pop the bag I spray three trillion Skittles all over the street.

  “My dog,” he says, bending to clean up the Skittles. “I want you to meet her.”

  “Yeah, no, I don’t think so.”

  “She’s the sweetest little pit.” This guy. His eyes. That dark sparkle.

  “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Matt Dillon from The Outsiders?”

  “That good or bad?”

  “Hello, it’s only one of the best movies ever in the YA genre.”

  “I don’t know a whole lot about movies or . . . whatever that French-soundin’ word you said was. Come drop a hi on my dog.”

  An hour ago, I thought my night would be inventing lies for that stupid Gifted and Talented essay, and now this boy with the dangerous eyes is asking me over to his place to meet his pit bull. I push my bottom lip over my top to shave my sweat ’stache. I swallow hard. I nod. “Okay. Do you need any toilet paper?”

  We go straight up to the roof of his building: scary. He unlocks the door to the elevator engine housing: scarier. He calls it “the hutch.” I see a sleeping bag. I see myself in tomorrow’s news, Girl Who Should Have Known Better, 15, Murdered While Resisting Advances of Ex-Convict Meth Addict.

  “You live here?” I say.

  “Sometimes.”

  “And what about the other times?”

  “Cellar.” He holds the door for me. “Go on now,” he says.

  The entire Saw franchise flashes before my eyes as I step into the dark of the elevator housing. He follows me in. One thing keeps me here: Anthony’s word. If Ant says Mack is good, then Mack is good.

  The hutch roof has one of those old glass box window vents, with the wire woven through the glass and the moonlight weaving through that. I wait by the door while he unlatches the hellhound’s pen.

  The dog: fawn with a vanilla bib, huge brown eyes, huge head, jaw that could crumble cinderblock. She yawns shark teeth and shakes herself awake, wagging her tail faster when Mack turns on the light. “Easy,” Mack says to the dog, his voice deep, firm. He stands next to me. “Don’t look at her.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, my eyes clamped.

  “Don’t talk to her. Don’t touch her. Not yet. For now, just ignore her. Let her smell you when I call her over.”

  “Can’t we just go mess around on your computer?”

  “I don’t have a computer.”

  “What? How do you Hulu?”

  “Boo, come.”

  I tremble as his wolf demon sniffs me. She nudges my hand with her snout.

  “Don’t pet her,” Mack says. “Just keep looking at me.”

  Except that he’s not looking at me. “I have DVR back at my house. Please. The season finale of The Biggest Loser—oh, my, god. What is she doing?”

  “That’s how they say hi.”

  “She’s sniffing my butt.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I have two gift certificates to Cheesecake Factory, but they expire in nine minutes. If we leave right now—”

  “Okay, now look at her. Open your eyes.”

  The dog is sitting at my feet, wagging her tail, her eyes on me.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” he says. “Look at me again, like she’s not even there. Now, real easy—don’t bend over her. Keep standing tall. Good. Let the back of your hand rest soft at the side of her snout.”

  “No way.”

  “Don’t come from up top. They have bad eyes and don’t like stuff coming at them from above. Come from the side, where she can see your hand, nice and slow, and then you let her sniff it, and then you brush down the side of her neck with the back of your fingers, real easy. Go ahead.”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Yep.”

  “Nep.”

  “I promise, she may drench you with licking, but she won’t bite.”

  “And what about you?”

  “Trust me,” he says.

  “Ha!”

  “Trust me.” He takes my hand and brings it to the side of the dog’s face. His hand is rough with calluses. Together we stroke her neck and under her snout. The dog leans into my leg and licks my hand. But I’m not looking at her. I’m looking at Mack. He feels my eyes on him, and he stops moving my hand through the dog’s fur.

  “You did real good,” he says, taking away his hand.

  I won’t let him go. I squeeze his hand. Why won’t he look at me? I can see it in his neck, his pulse, as fast as mine. I want to bite the beautiful vampire’s neck.

  He slips his hand from mine. “We better get her down to the street,” he says. “She’s been holding it in all night.”

  They walk me home, Mack and Boo. When he hands me the leash, the dog pulls ahead of me. “Pull back hard on the lead,” Mack says.

  “She’ll bite me.”

  He takes the leash and swings the dog behind me. She stays there all the way to my house.

  “You want her?” he says.

  “Uh, no.”

  “She likes you a ton. She’ll cuddle you all night.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Your moms?”

  “My mother loves dogs.”

  “I figured.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s the type.”

  “And what type am I?”

  He looks away. “I’ll be holding her for you. Give her to you trained perfect too.”

  I scan Palazzo Vaccuccia. The windows are dark. I step so I’m facing him and a half step closer. “We could crank the air conditioner, and you, me, and Miss Boo can watch Polar Express with the director’s commentary. My mother made peppermint cornbread. It tastes gross, but on the upside it’s filling and not completely stale, baked fresh four days ago.”

  “In all that heat?”

  “I know.”

  He scratches the back of his head as he checks the sky.

  “Satellites?” I say.

  “None up there tonight. None I can see.”

  “Come on in with me. Just for a little bit. For like a Pepsi or something.”

  “I’m a Sprite man.” He strands me there, not even a walk the girl to her door.

  It’s definite now: I am the fattest, ugliest girl in the city.

  He gets a few steps away when he stops. “I wanted to give you something.” He digs his hand into his pocket, and for a second I’m seeing him pull that knife, the one he used to cut the kid who rolled him down the stairs. He takes his hand out of his pocket, and it’s empty. “Wanted to, to give you a little bit of advice.”

  “Ad vice. Okay?”

  “When you walk a dog, if you choke up on the leash a little, you have more control over her.”

  “I see.”

  “You did real great though, Céce. With Boo, I mean. You don’t know it, but you’re a dog person.” He goes with his dog. She watches and
studies and worships him.

  Four o’clock in the morning. I’m doing a droolly face plant in my notebook when a crash downstairs wakes me up. My stupid practice essay is sticking to my face, some crap I wrote about wanting to be in politics, because I thought it would make me seem community-minded.

  Anthony is down there before I am. Ma slumps against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. The leave-your-crap-here table is on its side. Grumpy’s dusty glass figurines are all over the floor.

  “Ma, did you fall coming up or going down?” Ant says.

  “Uhhh. Pp.” Plastered. Her nose is bleeding, a splinter of glass in the bridge.

  Ant pulls it out. “Cheech, you gotta watch her while I’m gone.”

  I want to rip off my skin and crawl through salt. I’m screaming, “Why, Ant? Why’re you going over there?” Then I start in on my mother when Ant calms me down with a gentle hand to my shoulder.

  “Hey, kid?” he says, his voice soft, easy. “Breathe. It’s gonna be okay. Cheech, look here. I swear. Let’s get her upstairs.”

  We get her into bed. The overhead fluorescent is on its way out. “Are the lights flickering, or am I losing it?” she says.

  “Both,” I say.

  “Where’s Anthony?”

  “Getting towels and ice.”

  “Towels and ice?”

  “For your nose, Ma. You’re bleeding all over yourself.”

  “I can’t even feel it.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Céce Vaccuccia?”

  “What?”

  “I love you like a crazy person.”

  “You are a crazy person, Carmella.”

  Anthony comes back with the ice. Ma won’t let go of his hand. “Anthony, don’t go, honey. Please, babe. Stay.”

  THE TENTH DAY . . .

  (Sunday, June 21, morning)

  MACK:

  Sun comes up hazy between the condo towers they’re building past the reservoir there. I guess I slept some last night. I’m studying the G-turned-C stickpin. Boo whines to pee. I take her down to the street, and we walk the reservoir and then pick up the rest of the dogs. The whole morning I can’t think of anything except that I’m the biggest idiot in the city for not holding on to that girl’s hand.