by C. L. Donley
“What was it about him? That you liked?” Adam delved.
“Alright, alright, I get it. I’m a moron.”
“You’re not. I was just curious.”
“I just thought he was… whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s insane how someone can almost be like a hologram of who they say they are. It’s not that they’re lying it’s just… the things I saw in him, they’re still there. He just uses it to get whatever he wants. Not to, you know, make the world better. Which he swears one day he’ll start doing.”
“He’s a cunt,” he dismissed her explanation.
“He wants me to move with him to D.C. eventually. Be his wife. Be a family.”
“Please tell me you told him where to go.”
“I told him I would consider it. ”
Adam fought off possessive rage.
“…Jo, you cannot marry a cunt. I won’t let you.”
“He’s Judah’s dad. D.C.’s a big city. I can do everything I’m doing now.”
“I can’t listen to anymore of this shit.”
“I have a few years to decide,” she continued, as if trying to taunt him. “Judah will be a little older…honestly, I’ll probably never get a better offer.”
Adam couldn’t speak another word after that. He knew she was trying to sound level-headed and reasonable when she really just insulted the whole room by saying that, including herself. Not that he thought of himself as the better offer. By a mile. What could he give her besides a lotta fuckin’ stress and a sore vagina? But he wasn’t about to sit and watch her go through life un-loved.
Meanwhile Jo was equally speechless. She didn’t always know what would make Adam abruptly end a conversation. It wasn’t like him to keep his opinions to himself. She had to deduce that he didn’t think of himself as the better offer. Either that, or he simply wasn’t willing to make one at all.
She knew that already, and yet somehow the realization made her bitter, here in front of the fire. He knew himself better than she did. If he didn’t think himself capable of making— or willing to make— a lifetime of moments as perfect as this one, then she had to trust him. A queer sorrow came over her, one that made her drowsy lying against him, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open if she tried.
The next morning Adam was the first to wake. Or perhaps he technically never slept. He only occasionally dozed off as he waited for signs of the sun, signalling their weekend had come to an end. The sun seemed to take forever to rise. But he knew if he woke up Jo for one last tender moment entwined together, it would be up in an instant. So he let her sleep.
He sat up and onto the edge of the bed. Exhausted. Drained. Ready to stop pretending that they were the only two people in the world. Ready to stop flying and stop dreading the smack into the cold hard ground.
They packed up and left the tiny shack, wordlessly riding along in Adam’s big truck with the garish confederate flag on the hood. This time Jo reclined against him as they drove, his long arm resting behind her head. Jo inhaled his hard woodsy bosom that easily engulfed her and made her feel like sleeping. These would be their last moments before reality would once again rush in like water on the other side of a dam.
They pulled up to her house around 7:30 am. Chris would be by in an hour with Judah. Adam was on his way to the work site. He left the truck running and Jo took her time raising up from her place on his chest. They gave each other a knowing look full of emotions. Gratitude, understanding, resignation. Disbelief. A grin bloomed on Jo’s lips as they searched each other’s eyes. She tugged onto his shirt as she lifted her head for a kiss. He grabbed her face with one big hand, his thumb skimming her jawline and he deepened the kiss as though it were their last.
Finally, he pulled away, the roaring engine almost deafening in the early silence of the morning. Wordlessly, Jo scooted to the edge of the passenger side and popped open the door, the fragile bubble of oneness so easily burst. Adam watched as Jo closed the door on him, grabbed the empty cooler from the back and walked away, up the driveway and to her porch, never once turning back. Adam drove off just as Jo was opening her front door, and could no longer deny what his impaled heart was telling him.
The weekend had been a terrible fucking idea.
15
Chapter 15
Something happened when Jo parted ways with Adam, because suddenly her DJ’ing gigs picked up momentum.
Jo returned home to three referral gigs. Three. One was in Raleigh, a 90’s themed night for an afterparty.
90’s hip hop was her specialty. Her dad loved hip-hop and R&B while her mother loved gospel almost exclusively. She liked to do this mashup of an old Winans song over an Outkast verse that she only used seldom. She was very protective of it, and she was busting it out for this Raleight gig one hour away.
She’d never had a broken heart, so she didn’t know what it was or what to expect. All was quiet in the house that Monday morning until Chris returned with Judah in tow. Seeing Chris an hour after Adam drove away for the last time gave her such a violent reaction of bitterness. And when evening came, she sullenly confronted the reality that there would be no surprise knocks at the door. No more stupid jokes about bringing over fried chicken either, so there was one silver lining. Her empty bed felt the slightest bit more empty and yet she was grateful to miss someone, lucky to have a memory to relive. She lay awake long past midnight, her fingers skimming wherever he’d touched.
“We used to be numbah ten!”
She let the sorrows of that bizarre roller coaster wash away as she turned up her levels and did a swan dive into the Fu-Gee-La. The crowd was with her from the first, and it damn near reminded her of the sex she had at that shack, the way the crowd sent shocks back and forth from her to each other. This was her fucking tribe.
Here’s a crazy thought: maybe try one of your own this time?
She shook off thoughts of shame thinking about her dignity forever marked with pox, baptizing herself in the sounds of gangsta rap. Did he really apologize for letting himself get close to Judah? She flipped through her vinyl and spotted that ignorant ass food stamp card for a cover and it was the exact thing she needed.
“Aw, fuck you can’t even sang…”
The crowd’s hands went up. She was starting to feel like herself again. Like waking up from a dream. She wasn’t going to ask herself what she’d been thinking before tonight because it didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that she was here now. And Shimmy Shimmy Ya was a moment of clarity.
Fuck Adam. And fuck Chris for that matter. At least the weekend at the shack gave her the clarity of what she absolutely could not live with. Marrying Chris and moving to D.C. couldn’t be further from her trajectory, even if she could DJ. She wasn’t spinning for old rich white politicians at $300 plate benefits paid for with pork barrel money. No way in fuckin’ hell.
‘One of my own.’ I got a better idea, how about neither?
“While I gotta chance here LET me CLEAR my THOAT!”
That one was gonna be playing at her funeral. Jo couldn’t help but feel grateful. She wanted to be a DJ and she was. She was her own person. And if she had to drywall every house from here to the coast, she would keep doing what she loved, and be there every night to kiss her boy. They were the only two that mattered. Before there was dick, there was headphones.
Jo scratched over Lucini and let the horns wind back about a hundred times, until with them she’d sufficiently blown that weekend away.
* * *
When I was probably about nine or ten, I had this nervous breakdown, I guess.
We were dissectin’ a frog or somethin’ in class. There was one two a table, about four or five kids around each frog. They gave us these little scalpels to cut with. No fuckin’ lie, there was probably about a dozen white kids at this school, and that was counting me and my brother. Gus was already in high school. I was in a group with this ghetto ass girl. Ayesha. She had five older brothers and they were fuckin’ savages. Couldn’t wait to have a reas
on to go to jail and get their fuckin’ goon badge. So nobody messed with this bitch, and she knew it, even in elementary school.
So she gets the scalpel, and she started fuckin’ around with it. I’m tellin’ her to stop, and she fuckin’ cuts me with it. Deep. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m just a kid, or it’s on top of a lotta fuckin’ shit that was goin’ on at the time. My mom was in the hospital ‘cause she damn near got beat to death, by her boyfriend, and we were at home alone, me and Corey. In the fuckin’ Cellar. Gus was out fuckin’ some older chick for a place to stay that wasn’t the projects. The neighbor was keepin’ an eye on us, it was just fuckin’… anyway, I started to cry. And I mean… I can’t stop fuckin’ crying. And I can feel everybody lookin’ at me, and it sorta feels like they’re scared.
It gets real quiet. Then the teacher comes over. Mr. Simpson. Isn’t that a perfect name for a fuckin’ burnout science teacher? Mr. Simpson comes over, and he doesn’t say shit to me. He goes right over to Ayesha and he says, ‘Don’t you know what happens to us if we touch one of these little white kids?’
And I just thought, uh…. judgin’ by my life I’d say, ‘not a damn thing’? Like, what in the fuck?
I wasn’t thinkin’ all that. Or I guess, it just made me realize that there wasn’t a single safe place for me in the world. I was completely alone. I got, no one to protect me. No one. And I was too little to protect myself. And I knew that. And I just cried all the more after that.
I don’t remember when I stopped. It felt like I never would stop. I hadn’t thought about that memory in a long time. Until now. Until I watched Josie grab that empty cooler from the back of my pickup and walk away like she never met me. I’d never known loneliness like that existed. Until now.
I’d cleaned my house from top to bottom since Jo and me came back from that weekend. I’m talkin’ cobwebs behind the appliances, fuckin’ wood rot, you name it. Like it was mine and I was ready to sell it. I found every excuse to stay behind at the job site. Did a buncha the grunt work. The flip Charlie had us workin’ on had damn near an inch of old linoleum layers on the kitchen and dining room floor, and it was me, a blowtorch and a putty knife for three days straight. Gus and Pete thought I about lost my mind.
“Adam, you alright?”
“Fine,” was all I said, while the entire damn crew watched me pull up linoleum.
“I take it the weekend went sideways,” Gus said.
Faggy, I know, but we still tell each other everything.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because you’re on your hands and knees like a damn housewife.”
“I’m gettin’ too soft is all, Gus. A hard day’s work is likely to kill me one day if I stay sittin’ around on my ass for the next however many years.”
“So goin’ from being distracted for weeks to havin’ a silent vendetta against this here linoleum has nothin’ to do with last weekend.”
“Last weekend was great actually.”
“Is’at so,” Gus sounded unconvinced.
“Better than great. We got it out of our system, and now it’s all good. She goes her way, I go mine.”
“How’d she take it?” he asked.
“Fine. We’re on the same page.”
“Okay, well. Good to have you back, then. I guess.”
“Good to be back,” I said, ignoring the lump in my throat.
I still can’t believe I fucked up Jo’s weekend like that. Hell, my weekend. Coulda had her smiles for two days. My stupid fuckin’ mouth. Just because I’m right doesn’t mean I gotta say every goddamn thing. It wasn’t worth what it got me. My hand down my fuckin’ pants every night?
But I was kiddin’ myself if I thought there was some solution. Every day I kept replaying what I said to her, about not being able to change. And how it made her cry. I was sorry it made her cry, and sorry that it was true. I’ve played the video in my mind over and over again, and it always ends the same way— with her giving me an ultimatum, me frozen with fear, refusing to give in and her walkin’ out.
I know myself pretty damn well, and I just know I could never survive another woman walkin’ out on me, ‘specially Jojo. Never. Then every night I lay down feeling like my lungs were made outta lead and tellin’ myself that I was doing the right thing.
About three weeks after we came back it was my 31st birthday. All I wanted to do was sit at home and drink but Gus and Pete dragged me out to the Salty Dog.
Jo sent me a friend request. She found me on Webster, this old profile one of my girlfriends forced me to make. I don’t know how she knew it was my birthday, but she did. Or maybe she didn’t. She didn’t leave a comment, just a link to a music playlist she made for me.
I tried not to look at it. And that lasted all of five minutes.
There was a note with it.
“Whenever I go someplace new or have a new experience that I’m really excited about, I buy a new album and listen to it during that time. And that album always reminds me of that experience and brings back vivid memories. I’m sorry I made this one too late, but in case we never cross paths again, hope this helps you keep me around.”
I don’t know how she knew what I needed, but she did. I was beamin’ from the first song, which I’d never heard before. Some actually did bring back memories. The Beastie Boys song that was playing when we first met. The songs from the night at the Salty Dog. The song she played for me right before the weekend. When Judah had gone to bed, and we were giddy with anticipation. Play me something Jo, I’d said. Somethin’ you think I would like.
She put a jazz song on there that just about tore me open. Body and Soul was the name. I didn’t recognize the lady that sang it, but the way she sang it made me want Jo somethin’ terrible. And the singer was liable to catch some dick too, whoever she was. She’s probably dead, it sounded real old-like. But she sang like she was gorgeous. Like she had some big soft titties.
I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be listening to music while I was on the job, but that’s what I was doing. Anything I could do to make it through a day. First day on the job on Umbridge, Gus gave me a hard smack out of nowhere and I knew I was way too zoned out.
“What, motherfucker?”
“I said, Jo came by while you were gone.”
My heart ‘bout had its own heart attack.
“What?”
“I told her to call you,” he said. I didn’t even notice how fuckin’ wierd the whole thing sounded, because I was still getting over the fact that she’d come by and I’d missed her.
“What’d she say?”
“Nothing really. Said Kenny had her doin’ some work for the next two weeks, but she’d be done after that.”
So she came by because she needs work? She was delusional if she thought I was going to let her anywhere near one of my sites anymore. That was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Leo’s doin’ the rock,” was all I said.
“Pete can do it.”
“No, he can’t.”
“He’s not a retard,” Gus defended him. I didn’t know why, but he was probably hatchin’ some weird-ass plan to steal from Uncle Charlie that I would have to thwart later. And he needed Pete for it.
“I know he’s not a retard, but Leo’s already lined up. You think I just summon these motherfuckers up with foreman magic?”
“Alright, Adam.”
“You just worry about your own job and we’ll be fine.”
“Just because Jo dusted you, don’t take this shit out on us,” he spat.
“…Back to work. Gus.”
Why the hell would Jo come by here? Why wouldn’t Kenny just call? I could’ve just called and asked her, but I wasn’t gonna be the one to show my hand first. If she was the one makin’ up fake reasons to visit, she could call me herself. No way was I gonna embarrass myself again, callin’ her up and pissin’ her off within minutes.
It took me a week to cave.
“So, Gus told me I missed you the other d
ay,” I launched right into it.
“…He did?” Jo said, sounding surprised.
“Yes,” I said, like it was obvious. “You think he would keep a thing like that from me?”
Jo was quiet a moment.
“Well, I was just letting someone know that I was busy. In case you tried to poach me on short notice,” she explained.
“Why would I do that?”
“…I don’t know.”
“We agreed to keep it completely contact-free.”
“We did, but… it’s a small town. There’s no reason why I can’t still do a job or two on a new build. I’ll stay out of your hair,” she promised. Seemed a little weird. Seemed like she was looking for a reason to come around, but… she was doin’ it in a funny way.
“If you’re hard up for money Jo…”
“I’m not. You know me, busy busy busy,” she said. Which was also pretty weird. “Actually the DJ stuff is picking up for some reason.”
“Oh, I see. Well good for you, you deserve it.”
“Thanks.”
“Good to hear your voice.”
“Yours too.”
IBefore I lost my nerve, I launched into the second thing I was calling about.
“So, um, got any plans for the fourth?”
“Not really.”
“Charlie hosts a get together every year.”
“That’s nice,” she left me hanging.
“Well. If you think you can keep your hands off me, you’re welcome to come,” I blurted. “If Judah wants to hang with some other kids. Hell, you could drop him off, if you want.”
“Who’s got kids?”
“Gus’s old lady has a few his age.”
“Are they gonna call him the n-word to his face?”
“The boy needs to learn,” I said.
“I’m hanging up.”
“I’m just teasing you, Jo. The oldest one’s mixed too. It’ll be a regular Obama poster.”
“Promise me, Adam.”
“Jesus, they’re just kids. And my brothers like you. Charlie’s not like that, and neither is Aunt Mavis. Nobody will disrespect you, I promise.”