by Genovese, CM
“Root beer?” she asked. “Or the real stuff?”
“Root beer for me,” I said. “You know Pipe though.”
“Whiskey in one glass,” she said. “Coke in the other.”
I looked through the window and out into the freezing night. The homeless man had his back to me, and I couldn’t help thinking how shitty his night was compared to mine.
“Carla, do me a favor, would you?” I asked. “Make one more of them meals.”
“Three double bacon burgers with fries,” she said.
“Yeah, but put that third in a to-go bag.”
“Root beer to go too?”
“Make it a hot coffee.”
I went to my usual booth at the back of the joint, where I could sit with my back to the wall and see the entire room. I no longer trusted having anyone at my back. Only my brothers, when they moved softly, could get behind me. Everyone else better stay in my field of vision.
Nobody will ever fucking sneak up on me again.
Pipe came to the table and sat across from me, leaned back in his chair, and watched the news playing in the background. The picture of a missing young woman flashed on the screen. Her name was Dorothy Sommers. Nineteen. Was last seen at Boom Stick, one of those young people’s nightclubs downtown, right on the water. I hated the fucking place. The music was too loud, and the people were too colorful. It was all neon and highlighted shit. Everyone smoked those fruity fucking vape things. It all gave me a headache.
Get off my lawn!
My internal voice made me chuckle. I sure was becoming a crotchety bastard. Not old. But grouchy.
“You ever find yourself being a bitch about things?” I asked Pipe.
“What’s with you tonight, man?” he asked. “I know what it is. You need some pussy. Some good fucking pussy. I’m talkin’ the kind that grabs your cock and pulls so fucking hard that when you come, all your pissy mood drains along with it.”
“Yeah, I heard that,” Carla said as she slid our plates to us.
“Shit, I’m sorry, babe,” Pipe said. “That wasn’t meant for virgin ears.”
“Virgin!” she said with a hoot. “If you only knew!”
She handed me a brown paper bag with grease stains on it and a Styrofoam cup. Then she added, “He’s right, you know?”
“About?” I asked.
“Good pussy can liven that attitude right up.” She laughed and walked away.
Pipe watched her go and asked, “Would you hit that?”
“Carla?”
I watched her for a second. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and her face was wrinkled in all the good places. The eyes, which meant she’d laughed a lot in life. The corners of her mouth from all the smiling she’d done. She was a pretty woman, maybe even a hottie back in her day. Then again, I tended to find the beauty in most women. It was as much a curse as it was a blessing.
Beer goggles kick in twice as hard when you see the pretty in people even when you’re sober.
“No,” I finally said.
Not because it wouldn’t be good or because I didn’t find her attractive, but just no. She was Carla and we’d known her a long time. There was a certain kind of respect that had been built up. Plus, Paddy was her father, and I could imagine his ghost coming back to spray my brains on the ceiling.
This place is bad luck with violence. Enter peacefully, leave with a happy and full belly. Enter aggressively and leave in a box.
“I might,” Pipe said. “I don’t know. I bet she can ride a dick like nobody’s business.” He looked at my paper sack. “What’s in the bag?”
“Dinner for our friend out there.”
“Why would you waste—”
I held a hand up to stop him. “He’s a human being, brother. He needs fuel like the rest of us.”
“You know what kind of fuel he wants.”
My phone chirped beside me on the table, and I looked down at the screen to see an unfamiliar number. Lifting it to my ear, I said softly, “Rain.”
“Rain? Rain, baby?” a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time asked.
“Trish.”
Pipe rolled his eyes when he heard her name and moved to the next booth to turn up the TV. He sat down to watch the news and to give me some privacy. This was the last woman I’d fallen in love with. She was a dancer at the Great Alaskan Bush Company, the prominent pussy palace in Anchorage, a place that brought women up from the lower forty-eight to have a fresh selection of new women constantly moving through the doors. She’d come up from Nevada. We hit it off quickly and things moved so damn fast. I wanted to marry this chick, but she wanted to go home, and I couldn’t leave my brothers. When her mom got sick back home, she bounced.
She fucking left. Took off. Ripped my motherfucking heart in two. I should have known then that bitches could be so fucking cold.
Since then, she called me from time to time, usually when she was too drunk to finish her sentences, and most of the time it was to tell me how much she missed me. I hadn’t heard from her in a long time, so this was unexpected.
“Rain,” she whispered into her side of the phone.
Something was different about her tonight. She wasn’t right.
“Trish, what is it? You hurt?”
“Not me,” she replied.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone tried to take me,” she said. “I’m so scared, Rain. I’m fucking shaking here.”
“Where are you?”
“Hawthorne,” she said.
“Where the fuck is that?”
“Nevada, Rain. Where else?”
“Don’t get an attitude.”
“What’s wrong with your voice?” she asked.
She hadn’t heard about my near-death experience. How would she? The last time we’d spoken, I’d been the same cocky prick she’d dated. I’d forgotten how different I sounded.
“Why are you whispering?” she added.
“I’m not whispering. It’s a long story. I got cut. I’m fine though.”
“Cut? What the fuck, Rain? Why didn’t you tell me?”
How the fuck was I supposed to tell you? I was in a fucking hospital and you were a fucking ghost!
“Trish… tell me why you called.”
“Someone took my friend. We were dancing at the club and these, I don’t know, these Russians I think or Armenians, fuck if I know what they were. They paid us a lot to do a private party.”
“Jesus, Trish.”
“I know. I’m with someone now, Rain. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t going to fuck anyone. Just dance. But… they took her. And tried to take me. Knocked my face against the wall and when they thought I was knocked out, I crawled out of there, and I ran. I ran. I ran and kept running.”
“Russians,” I said.
“I think so.”
Fucking Russians. Everything lately seemed to boil down to those fuckers.
“You need to tell your man,” I said.
“I’m afraid to, baby. He’s going to flip out.”
“He needs to. Tell him. I can’t help you from up here.”
“I know… I guess I just thought, you know, you’d know what to say to calm me down. You were always good at that.”
“My words don’t come easy anymore, Trish. I whisper every… fucking… one. Remember?”
It hurt being mean to her. I could be nasty to every other motherfucker on earth, but to her, it felt wrong. But I needed to end the call and being nice would keep us on the phone forever. She had a man now, and he needed to help her. Not me.
“You need to tell your man,” I repeated. “Now, before it’s too late. Maybe they can catch these bastards.”
“Okay.”
“Take care of yourself, Trish.”
“You too… you too, Rain.”
I hung up and pinched my nose. Fuck, she still had a way of getting to me. What the fuck was I supposed to say to her? Come home and I’ll keep you under my wing?
She left you,
remember.
My phone buzzed again, and I angrily snatched it up and put it to my ear, “What now?”
“Who you talkin’ to like that?” BP barked from the other line.
“Sorry, Pres,” I said. “You’re not who I was expectin’.”
“I fuckin’ hope not. Listen, I got a call from Petros down in Nebraska. His woman’s best friend is livin’ here now. Came up to do some social work or some shit. Anyway, it’s too late right now but tomorrow I need you to go check on her.”
“Pres?”
Not a fucking babysitting gig.
“She hasn’t checked in for a while I guess,” BP said. “Petros’s girl, Kinsey, she’s worried about her. Said it’s not like her to go radio silent for so long. Just swing by that ugly ass brown apartment building on the side of the VFW, knock on her door, make sure she’s okay, then go grab a beer and a blowjob at Cubby’s.”
He was referring to the blonde, Maggie, and our short-lived fling.
“Maggie and I aren’t—” I tried to explain, but he hung up on me. He didn’t give a shit about my relationship status or who I was or wasn’t fucking. He had other things on his mind. As I lay my phone on the table, I felt stupid for even trying to explain to him.
I hadn’t even taken a bite of my burger, but I stood and grabbed the paper bag. I fished into my pocket and threw a twenty-dollar bill in with the food.
“Be right back,” I told Pipe.
He held up one thumb to tell me he heard me and kept watching the news. The reporter was interviewing the father of the girl who’d disappeared. Seeing this dad’s exhausted, tormented, and desperate face on screen stopped me in my tracks, and I needed to hear what he had to say.
“She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She’s a lovely soul. We moved up here because I got a job at the pipeline. She grew up here. She’s a good girl. Like any other nineteen-year-old, she wanted to go dancing and stuff like that but…”
I turned away when the man broke down crying. Seeing a grown man with tears in his eyes wasn’t easy. Not unless I was the one causing the tears. No man should have to outlive his kids and if that girl was taken by someone, she was as good as gone. It happened more often than most would think. People tended to assume their young adult children ran away from home, eloped, or joined a traveling circus. Usually, they ran into the arms of a drug dealer, started turning tricks, or were sold into sex slavery. It was a sick world.
The cold air blasted me the second I stepped out of Paddy’s. Snow crunched under my boots and gave my approach away. The homeless man turned to see me. He smiled a toothless grin.
“Got you something to eat, man,” I said as I handed him the bag and his cup of coffee.
He accepted both and smiled as he opened the bag and pulled out a fry. When he saw the money inside, it was obvious from the way his eyes shot open and his grin widened that he was touched. He pulled out the twenty-dollar bill and shoved it into his pocket.
“Thank you,” he said. “God bless you.”
“Yeah, right back atcha.”
By the time I returned to the diner, Pipe was already paying the bill. We took turns doing it. My money was practically his. His was basically mine. It was all club money after all. I quickly scarfed down my burger, ate a few fries, and downed it with root beer before we headed back to our ride.
When he pulled out of the parking lot, the homeless man waddled over to us and approached my window on the passenger side. I rolled it down.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could buy me a pint.”
“What did I fuckin’ tell ya?” Pipe asked. “I warned you.”
“What?” the man replied. “I have the money. But they won’t sell to me because—”
“Yeah, no shit you’ve got the money,” Pipe said. “My boy just gave it to you.”
The homeless man looked down at his feet. He moved from foot to foot, looking like he was stuck dancing a never-ending jig. It was cold out there. Anchorage had laws and one of them was liquor stores weren’t allowed to sell to known alcoholics and could turn away anyone they wanted. Most of the homeless with drinking problems couldn’t buy their own liquor.
“Yeah, man,” I said. “I got you. Keep the twenty for tomorrow. We’ll be right back.”
He beamed and put his hands up in front of his face like he was praying.
I rolled up my window and Pipe drove away saying, “You’re kiddin’, right? You’re fuckin’ with him?”
“No,” I said. “Go over there to the liquor store. There’s one on—”
“I know where the fuckin’ liquor store is, bro. But seriously? You gave that dude a burger, fries, a coffee, and how much cash?”
“That ain’t important.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
The music was too loud for me to shout over, so I twisted the nob to shut it down.
“Pipe, you said you were happy earlier.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s not. That burger will fill him up. The coffee might wake him up or warm him. That twenty bucks ain’t gonna do shit for him.” Pipe was quiet, so I continued. “Happiness depends on the person and the situation. You like a good book. Oosik likes fresh pussy. Carousel likes havin’ Kathy suck his dick. Nobody judges none of y’all for that.”
Pipe nodded and stared out the windshield as he headed toward the liquor store. “Happiness for that homeless dude is having a drink that’ll help him stay warm and forget his problems for tonight,” he said.
He got it. I knew he would. So, I went inside and bought the guy a bottle of vodka. It was cheap shit, and it didn’t slow my life down none. When we returned to the guy with his bottle, he nodded vigorously as he accepted it and offered me the twenty dollars back. When I shook my head no, a tear fell from each of his eyes.
“Keep it,” I told him. “Maybe that’ll get you a bottle tomorrow and something to eat to go with it.”
“Yes,” he said, looking down again. It was clear he was ashamed of himself.
“What’s your name?” I asked him. He smiled and his chubby cheeks bunched up like a child’s. His squinted eyes and facial structure told me he had Eskimo in him. This was his land, and we were just living on it.
“Polo,” he said.
“Keep your head up, Polo,” I told him.
He nodded and we drove away.
“Still want to go to the club?” Pipe asked. “Or you wanna go clean graffiti off buildings or maybe help build houses for the other homeless people or we can—”
“Fuck you,” I said.
He laughed and cranked up the radio.
7
Cassie
Feral refused to go with me the next time I wanted to visit Nia and Arnie. He said it wasn’t something we needed to do daily and that I’d tried my best to get them to come to the shelter.
But had I? Did I really do everything I could?
This time, I was better prepared and took food with me and drinks. I brought a care package filled with blankets, a radio, batteries, a couple of flashlights, matches, and some books. Surely, they had to get bored out there in their tent. The hopeless romantic in me was naïve enough to think these two might actually lie next to each other in the tent and read together by flashlight. I figured that wouldn’t be the case, but it was a nice thought.
Arnie wasn’t there at all when I arrived at the camp. By the time I found it, it was nearly sundown, and I knew I couldn’t spend much time there. Nia was alone at her tent, crocheting. I didn’t ask where she got the materials, but I imagined they were stolen.
“Hey,” I said as I approached and squatted down next to her.
Her eyes shifted left and right, peering at the other people sitting in their tents. This time, at this point in the evening, the place was quite full. Yet, nobody messed with us. They seemed to be rather pleasant people only trying to survive.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m alone.”
“You didn’t bring the cop?”
“Nah, I ditched him,” I said with a smile.
“That was stupid,” she replied. “It’s not safe for you here.”
“But it’s safe for you?” She didn’t reply, so I ignored the subject and moved on. “What are you working on?”
She had brown yarn and her fingers worked quickly, methodically.
“A cap for Arnie. The one he has isn’t thick enough. His ears are always cold, so I thought maybe if he doubled them up…”
“Who taught you to crochet?”
“My grandmother.”
She smiled for only a second and then forced it away. It was like she wasn’t allowed to show an ounce of happiness. Like she’d been cast in some depressing TV show as the character who hated life, when deep down inside she struggled with it, knowing she wanted to smile, laugh, and dance.
“You love Arnie, don’t you?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Do you think he loves you?”
“He says he does. I guess a girl can only hope.”
A couple of guys walked into the camp and Nia sat up straight. She dropped her tools and slid closer to the tent opening. Her fear was obvious. The men’s voices finally floated over to us and Nia relaxed.
“It’s just Bogwell and the others,” she said.
“You were really scared.”
She didn’t reply but went back to crocheting. I’d forgotten about the bag I’d brought with me, so I tossed it toward her and said, “Here, I brought you a few things. If I can’t convince you to go to the shelter, I was hoping you’d at least let me help some. Maybe you can learn to trust me a little.”
“Trust has to be earned,” Nia said.
“Sounds like something one of your parents would have told you.”
She shook her head. “It’s something Arnie told me.”
“Yeah, I get the feeling he doesn’t trust easily.”
Silence. She continued crocheting. It was so damn hard to break through to this girl. I figured she had to want friendship. She had to feel alone.
“They came back,” she suddenly whispered.
I scooted closer to her. “Who came back?”
