Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

  "Focus!" Tommy ordered.

  "I am!" Spider spat back.

  "No you're not. Your mind is all over the place. You're thinking about how much your arms hurt, and how much your back hurts, and how the sweat is stinging your eyes. You're thinking about how long you've been on your hands, and how much longer I'm going to make you do it. Don't think about anything but standing on your hands."

  Spider thought he was ridiculous. Standing on my hands, that is what I'm thinking about. Hell! That's all I am thinking about. Standing on my hands. My hands are on the floor, my feet are in the air, my head is hanging free. My back is straight. I breathe in and I breathe out—nothing else matters except that I am standing on my hands.

  "Spider you can come down now," Tommy said. "As you come down, tuck into a ball, roll across the floor, and then jump onto your feet."

  She did it with little or no trouble. She looked at him and smiled.

  He smiled back. "You have learned much, Grasshopper. Just don't get too goddamned cocky."

  They walked into the house together, Tommy on his hands.

  "Show off," Spider said as she plopped on the couch next to Carrie. "I'm dead, I don't know how you can do that."

  "I don't know how either of you can do any of it," Carrie said. "Show Laura your muscle, Baby," Carrie said grabbing Spider's arm.

  "No," Spider laughed as her face turned red.

  "Come on, Baby," Carrie taunted. "You showed me."

  "Come on, Carrie." Spider tried half heartily to pull away.

  Tommy laughed as he grabbed two beers out of the fridge. He grabbed one by the neck, threw it up and spun it till he was holding onto the body of the bottle, and then he hurled it bottom first at Spider without announcing that he was doing so. Carrie and Laura both screamed, but Spider caught it with her free hand without so much as a fumble. "I can't believe you're embarrassed about anything," Tommy said.

  "I can't believe you're throwing full beer bottles through our living room at her head. Don't do it again," Laura warned.

  "I am so impressed by the amount of testosterone in this room," Carrie said jokingly. "Come on, Baby, show Laura your muscle."

  Spider laughed. "Only if it will make you leave me alone."

  Spider made a muscle, and Laura clapped her hands in appreciation.

  "Fucking impressive, huh?"

  Tommy promptly started putting on a whole show, flexing everything that he could flex in front of company and singing "I'm too sexy." Then he started swinging his shirt around his head.

  They were all laughing at him, he was the center of attention, and for the first time that he could remember he felt comfortable with it.

  Tommy felt good, he felt ready, although he wasn't sure just what he was ready for.

  It was a nice night for a drive, so Carrie was glad when Spider decided to go home the long way around the lake. The moon was full and glinted off the water. It looked deceptively warm. It wasn't. At the end of January, the temperature was thirty-five degrees, and with the brisk wind it felt like twenty below outside.

  "What's wrong?" Spider asked.

  Carrie laughed. "You know, every once in awhile I'd like to have a thought all to myself."

  "I'm sorry," Spider apologized.

  Carrie patted Spider's leg. "It's all right. I was just thinking how much I like spending time with Tommy and Laura, but . . . "

  "But what?" Spider asked when Carrie didn't finish.

  "Why don't you have any other friends? Why can't we ever visit any of my friends?" Carrie asked. "Most of my friends have only seen you when they come to the house, and then only for a few minutes, till you find some lame excuse to leave."

  "It's not lame. I'm training . . . "

  "You started this shit before you were 'training.' Besides which, just what the hell are you training for? It wouldn't hurt you to miss a day or two. I hardly ever see you anymore . . . "

  "That's not all my fault. You've been working a lot more."

  "There's not a whole lot I can do about that, Baby. Then when I bring people to the house to help me so that I don't have to stay in the office, you leave rather than have to get to know some of the people I work with."

  "I'm not very good with people, Carrie. People don't like me."

  "You don't know that."

  Spider gave her a sideways glance.

  "You don't give them a chance, Spider. You're cold and abrupt with new people, and when you sense they don't like you, you never give them another chance. Do you have even one friend besides Tommy?"

  "I still keep in touch with Helen, Victor, and Terry from my old unit in the service. We E-mail back and forth. There's a couple of guys at work. I talk to them, and they don't hate me. I'm sort of friends with them. Jamie, the girl who runs the dispatch desk, I like her, she likes me. But I don't hang with any of those people."

  "Why not?" Carrie demanded.

  Spider shrugged. "I'm not like you, Carrie. I can't be like you." She was starting to get mad. "It's not easy to be friends with people when you know how they feel about you. Not easy to have friends and to feel their pain. It's easier not to get close."

  "Easier, maybe, but not better," Carrie said. "What do you expect? Of course if you blow people off, they're not going to 'feel' very charitable about you."

  Spider thought about that for a minute. Carrie might have a point, which of course did nothing but piss her off more. "I'd rather be around people I can trust. Tommy likes me, no matter what I do. So does Laura."

  "And that equals safety to you?" Carrie didn't really understand. "Don't you ever want to let anyone else in?"

  "I let you in," Spider countered.

  "Come on, Spider, you know what I mean. I would like for us to have more friends. To have more of a social life than you and Tommy beating each other up while Laura and I talk about work and watch movies. There are a lot of people in the world. We're getting invited to a lot of parties. I'd like to go to some of them."

  "Then go," Spider said. "I never said you couldn't go."

  Carrie sighed. "The point is that I'd like to go with you. You'd have a good time if you'd let yourself."

  "Ah, come on, Baby. These parties you're talking about aren't really my kind of thing—or my kind of people," Spider said.

  "You don't know that. Do you have any gay friends?"

  "Helen's gay, so is Terry."

  "And they live?"

  "Helen lives in Atlanta and Terry lives in San Diego."

  "Run into them all the time do you?" Carrie asked. "It's only ten o'clock. Let's go to a club. Go dancing. I'm going to call a couple of friends to meet us there right now."

  "I'd rather not," Spider said.

  "You know what?" Carrie smiled at her. "I don't care. We've been together for almost a year. Do you realize that we have never been out dancing? You can dance can't you?"

  "Of course I can."

  "Then let's go."

  "OK, all right." Spider gave in. She shouldn't keep Carrie from going out if that's what Carrie wanted to do, and she really didn't want Carrie going without her. Besides, Carrie was letting her fight all the time. So it seemed only fair. "Could we go home so I can change first?"

  Carrie looked at Spider's soaked sweat suit. "Oh, all right."

  She pushed the buttons on her cellular phone. "Hello, Jenny? Why don't you and Francis meet us at the Rainbow Lounge . . . Yes, it is me, and yes I did . . . Maybe if you're really nice she'll show you her muscles . . . Great! We'll see you in about an hour then. Bye-bye."

  She looked over at Spider who looked like she was about to take a really big pill with no water. "Come on, Baby, it will be fun. You'll see."

  "That's what my army recruiter told me," Spider scoffed.

  The club reminded her of her single days when she would occasionally drop in to see if she could pick up a late night snack. She usually chickened out, went home alone, and let her fingers do the walking. So it wasn't necessarily a good memory.

  Spider had to a
dmit this was a lot nicer than any of the dives she'd ever gone to. It would be just her luck that now that she was in a permanent relationship she would finally find out where all the good looking, successful women hung out. Carrie caught her staring at someone and slapped her in the shoulder.

  "I was only looking." Spider laughed. "You said you wanted me to have a good time."

  "With me," Carrie said. "I wanted you to have a good time with me."

  Someone waved at them across the room.

  "There's Jenny and Francis."

  "Good. I was beginning to think I had something stuck between my teeth," Spider said.

  Carrie took her hand and pulled her through the crowd.

  Spider and Carrie sat down. Carrie introduced Spider to her two friends as she greeted them. As Spider slid into the booth next to Carrie stifled a yawn. She'd worked out for three hours that day, and she didn't really feel up to meeting new people in a strange place.

  "Well?" Carrie screamed in her ear.

  Spider looked at her. She could feel that Carrie was anxious about something, but didn't know what she was really asking her.

  "What?" Spider screamed back.

  "What do you think of the club?"

  "Great. Really . . . great." Spider said, happy that while she could read people they couldn't read her. Looking around at the clientele made her feel like she was about a hundred and eighty, and the damn music was so loud it was literally hurting her ears. She wondered how Carrie thought she was supposed to get to know her friends if they couldn't actually hear each other. Besides, it was hard to make friends with someone when you knew they were lusting after your old lady and thinking you weren't nearly good enough for her, which was exactly what Carrie's friend Francis was feeling.

  The band stopped playing, and Spider's ears quit ringing. The waitress came over to take their drink order. They all ordered some fruity shit Spider didn't recognize, so she just ordered a beer. When she did, the waitress screamed, "Spider! Spider Webb! Well, I'll be damned," she said. "Well, you just stand yourself up here and give Maggy a big ole hug."

  Spider stood up and hugged the woman who seemed reluctant to let her go. Maggy Jerrick, of all the luck, she'd slept with maybe three women in the entire state, and Maggy was one of them. Fifteen years older than Spider and fifty pounds overweight, she'd taught Spider a thing or two right after she'd come home from the war. Spider still thought of her fondly.

  "Maggy! Good to see ya. You haven't changed a bit."

  "Unfortunately." She laughed. She released Spider and Spider sat back down. "Saw ya in all the papers with your lady," she winked at Carrie. "Ya got yerself a live one here," she said and walked towards the bar, to fill their drink order.

  Carrie looked at Spider, who was blushing purple. Spider looked back at her and shrugged. "I was young, I'd just gotten out of the army . . . "

  Carrie gave Spider an accusing if amused look. "I thought you didn't know anybody in town."

  "You said that, not me," Spider reminded her.

  Maggy brought them their drinks, and it was she who noticed that Spider wasn't really with them.

  "Spider, you all right, girl?" Maggie asked.

  Spider looked up at the mention of her name. "I . . . ah . . . excuse me." She stood up and started to make her way across the bar. Slowly at first, and then at a dead run.

  "Spider, what the hell!" Carrie screamed.

  She saw Spider turning on her comlink and immediately looked around. Then she saw it, the gun in the man's hand as he swung away from the bar. As Carrie hit the floor she saw Spider grab an unopened beer bottle from a table.

  "Get down!" Carrie screamed.

  Carrie wondered why police even bothered trying to save the bystanders. The majority of the people in the room just freaked out. Carrie couldn't see, but she could hear the gun going off. She was on her comlink at once.

  "This is DA Long. We have a gunman and people down." She didn't know if there were or not, but she knew they came faster if there were injuries. She didn't have to give a location. She and Spider's comlinks would give them that.

  Spider had moved quickly but quietly, and the Uzi-wielding lunatic hadn't seen her. As she ran the last few feet to close the gap between herself and the gunman she grabbed a beer bottle off a table by its neck. No time to go for her gun, not where it was hidden on a leg strap in her boot.

  "Hey fuck head! Over here!"

  The lunatic turned and started firing.

  Spider threw the bottle up, grabbed it by its body and hurled it butt end at the gunman. The bottle smacked into the side of his head and broke, sending beer and glass flying. The gun slipped from his limp hands, and a second later the gunman crashed to the floor as the weapon rattled across it.

  Spider looked around and found Carrie hiding under a table, seemingly unharmed. Spider grabbed the gun first, and then she checked the gunman for signs of life. There weren't any. Weren't any at all. She scanned the room quickly in search of another assailant and saw and felt nothing. The side of the perp's head had a very smooshy-looking spot on it. Shit, I didn't mean to kill the bastard. I don't care, but I didn't do it on purpose. The press is going to love this. "Gay DA and lover caught in gunfire at gay night club. This can't be just a coincidence. It has to be the SWTF, has to be some sort of test, but for what I wonder."

  "We just got the bastards off our backs," Spider mumbled. Then she continued loudly, "Is anybody hurt?"

  Before anyone had a chance to answer, the cops broke in followed by a crew of EMTs with stretchers. Three people had minor wounds. Another had a belly wound.

  Since everything seemed to be under control, Spider went to help Carrie out from under the table.

  "Well, this has been a lot of fun. We'll have to do it again real soon," Spider said sarcastically as the reporters ran in.

  Carrie tried to go to sleep, she really did. But every time she almost got to sleep she'd see people falling and hear the gunfire. Knowing some of what Spider had been through, Carrie wondered how she slept at all.

  "It would have been my fault," Carrie said. "You didn't want to go; I made you go."

  Spider sighed. Carrie couldn't blame her, every time Spider almost went to sleep, Carrie started talking again.

  "It wasn't anyone's fault, Honey. Think of it this way. If you hadn't wanted to go to the club, that cu-coo might have killed a lot of people tonight."

  "If you couldn't feel him, or whatever you do, we might have been some of the people dead, and it would have been my fault," Carrie said. "I dove under the table like a coward, and let you go off to get shot and . . . "

  "I didn't get shot. If I couldn't count on you to use your head and go for cover, then I might have gotten shot trying to cover your ass. Please, Baby, I'm tired. Couldn't we just go to sleep?"

  Carrie moved to curl herself around Spider. She kissed Spider's neck, then whispered in her ear. "Make love with me."

  "Ah, come on, Baby." Spider groaned. "I'm tired, it's the middle of the fucking night . . . "

  Carrie moved her hand down Spider's body, and Spider shivered.

  "Come on, Baby," Carrie breathed.

  Spider wasn't terribly hard to convince.

  Someone was banging on her head, a ringing in her ears, a . . .

  Fucking doorbell.

  Spider forced herself out of bed. She looked at the clock. Damn! It was 8:00. She was late, and on Sunday morning, too. She pulled on her pajama bottoms and headed for the door. She knew who it was before she heard him yell.

  "Damn it, Spider!" Tommy screamed so loud he might have been on the same side of the door that she was.

  Spider opened the door quickly. "Tommy, I'm so sorry. Give me a minute to get dressed. You would not believe the night I've had."

  "Forget it!" Tommy screamed. "I waited in the park for you for two hours! You promised me when we started this that you would do what I told you. That you would follow my rules. If you want to do this, it can't be haphazard or sloppy. There are certain r
outines, rhythms." He realized then that Spider was just staring at him as if he'd gone mad. That, and that she wasn't wearing any shirt. There were scratch marks on her stomach and her shoulders, and he was temporarily distracted. "What the hell happened to you?"

  Spider smiled stupidly. "Carrie."

  "You were fucking! I was waiting for you for hours and you were getting a piece of ass. That's it! I'm not doing this. This isn't a game. This is . . . "