I thought my dancing jag was over, but Allison wouldn’t let it go. She said, “Rolson, you’re not going to bring me to a dance floor and then stand around like you’ve got something better to do.”
She danced well, much better than I did, and at first my only goal was to avoid pure embarrassment. I moved my feet and my hands, though not necessarily at the same time.
Allison, to her credit, took the lead. Her eyes would widen, as she swooped in on me. She was a fine dancer, and since a rising tide lifts all ships, I looked less bad by comparison.
Whenever the band broke into a slower tune, she pressed against me and rested her head on my shoulder, and we’d dance like teenagers relishing the final number at prom.
It was then I became enamored with her. Truly enamored.
The smell of her hair. The infinitesimal scent of smoke and sweat. The particular way the hair on her neck sprang in all directions, threatening to brush against my face.
But then there was the gentleness of her hands. She was normally a manic individual, always on the verge of an emotional breakdown of some kind or another. Her mood ring color would be a bright, intense red, the clarion call of the omni-anxious.
She was the inverse of me. We experienced similar levels of anxiety, but hers was all exterior. While I brooded over my personal problems, she talked ad nauseum on the subject of hers, providing her with a zen-like center. She knew who she was and what she wanted. I, on the other hand, was drawn along entirely by my problems, and my personality was constructed out of my past failures. I didn’t know where I was head or what would happen once I got there.
Indeed, what in the hell was I even doing in Jacksonville?
I was running.
I was running from what happened in Savannah.
I was running from what happened in Lumber Junction.
I was running from who I had become.
I was running from who I was going to become.
Allison sensed this, and she pulled away. “You all right in there?” she asked.
It pulled me out of my thoughts, but that never lasted.
“You’ve got to stay where you are, Rolson,” she said. “You always look like you’re somewhere else, like your body is here but your mind is dozens and dozens of miles off. In the past. In the future. Off in another direction.”
“Happens,” I said.
“You’re not having one of your supernatural fits right now, are you?”
I thought I felt something pinging off in the distance, but I shook my head nonetheless.
“Will you let me know if you do?” she asked. “I’d like to see it.”
“It’s not a walk through Elysium Fields,” I said.
“But it’s not, like, with you all the time?”
I waffled my hand in front of me. She leaned against me and was speaking into the crook of my neck, so she didn’t see the gesture. “Comes and goes,” I said. “It’s pretty weak right now. I had it bad in Savannah.”
“Maybe Jacksonville’s just less haunted.”
“Maybe so.”
“What changed?”
No way I would reveal the story of a demon spirit unleashed on us by insane swamp misfits.
But I told her what I could.
“There was a time, I thought it was the drinking,” I said. “Sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. Whenever I drink, it kind of…intensifies my second sight. Do you believe that?”
She nodded. Didn’t matter if she actually believed. She was at least listening.
“Hasn’t always been the case. Or maybe it has. When I was a kid, I was subject to these dreams, bad ones filled with monsters, but I always woke up thinking, ‘Jesus Christ, thank God that wasn’t real. Turns out, it might’ve been reality posing as a dream.”
“And in Savannah, you started having your visions when you were sober?”
I nodded. “As a judge” — though of course that doesn’t mean much in Lumber Junction — “And I’ll tell you another thing: it wasn’t as simple, either. I had them while sleeping, while awake. I had them when I was on my morning jogs. It was like I was losing control of the, I don’t know, reality around me.”
“Maybe you were getting stronger.”
“That wouldn’t explain the present.”
“Hmm. Sounds like there’s something you’re not telling me.”
I said, “Something you’re keeping from me?”
“Don’t turn it around. You think I’m hiding anything?”
“You don’t happen to have an arrest warrant up your sleeve?”
“Rolson McKane,” she said, sighing. Head against my chest. Arms encircling me.
“How come it’s always my full name?”
“Just rolls off the tongue, I guess. Like ‘alcoholic drifter’ or ‘unreliable partner.’”
She took that moment to kiss the base of my neck, where her head rested.
“So cold,” she said, and I rubbed her arms, trying to erase her goosebumps. She cooed, saying, “Wish I’d dressed warmer.”
I picked at the hand-me-down jacket of Deuce’s. “I’m wearing enough for the both of us,” I said. “Want to try and jump in here with me?”
She laughed and said, “I don’t think the parents with young kids would approve.”
“Anyway, having a kid out this late, they should be arrested.”
“Maybe,” she replied, “but we’d be the ones going door-to-door and introducing ourselves to the neighborhood.”
“It would give us exercise,” I said. “I haven’t gone running since I left Savannah.”
“I thought all you’ve been doing is running.”
“Quick one,” I said.
“Didn’t get to where I am by being anything less.”
“And where are you right now?”
She paused. “I don’t know. Two rocks and two hard places.”
I was genuinely happy, and yet I couldn’t help but fret over how hard it was to hang onto this moment. Man once told me people don’t have the wherewithal to enjoy things as they happen. Only happened once all you had was regret for not enjoying them more. Catch-22 of all catch-22s.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said.
I let that sentence float away and then said, “Shoot.”
“I-I relapsed after you left,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, but it was hard hearing all those details, and the way you sounded on the phone when you called. Do you even remember that?”
“Vaguely.”
“I was certain you were dead, or close to it. I was already on the brink, and I — I just broke down.”
I considered it. It was not ideal, but I also hadn’t revealed my own weird discrepancies out in the swamp, so I swallowed hard and let it pass.
“I’m still not back on the wagon yet,” I said. “We all slip, in whatever way. Only the saints and the insane ever make it out alive.”
“That’s good of you to say.”
“I’m in a glass house. How else could I respond?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know me well enough. Listen, it’s all right. You slipped. I’m practically at the bottom of the well myself. I feel like — well, I feel like I have to wait until this whole thing blows over, and then I can put the pieces back together. Until then…I don’t know.”
“But won’t there always be a reason?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Won’t there always be a reason to keep drinking? Won’t there always be a crisis that prevents you from being able to give up for good?”
“Jesus, I hope not.”
“I’m clean again.” She palmed the tears from the corner of one eye. “It’s so new, hell, I don’t know to call it clean.”
“One day at a time, remember? Change what you can.”
“Aren’t you angry, McKane?”
I thought of Flannery and her sister. “Want me to be?”
The tears were really coming now. “When I found out about you and Jess
, I knew it was going to happen. It felt like it was destined to, somehow, and so I rationalized. Modern way of looking at love, huh?”
“Love?”
“Whatever. Shit. I’m used to men throwing things, including punches. You get used to it, get a charge out of it. I know that’s not how it’s supposed to go, but that’s just the red line, I guess.”
“And you want me to, what, start gnashing my teeth?”
“Maybe a little,” she smiled, leaning into me. “Jess isn’t half the fucking woman I am.”
A cadre of bikers and their lady friends sauntered by, carrying a cloud of cigarette smoke with them. One of them tossed a condescending look toward me and then passed right on along.
“You know,” she said, “you’re not half so barbaric as I thought.”
“I was beginning to wonder.”
“I’m serious.”
I let the sentiment linger, then said, “What I went through a while back, it changed me. Fundamentally. I fucked everything up as bad as one man can. It was my crucible. You know what a crucible is?”
“Sure I do. Something you heat up, boils and melts down everything inside.”
“Pressure cooker,” I said. “That was my pressure cooker. I had a lot of hatred for myself, lot of self-pity. Blamed it on the woman who left. Blamed it on the job that kept me up late and out early. Blamed it on the bottle I couldn’t unstick from my hand.”
“We all try to convince ourselves we’re good people,” she said.
“I never took blame for my half of why she, why Van left.”
“She had plenty going on when she was in Savannah,” she said. “She was no saint.”
“When you’re caught in the moment, you think it’s the other person’s fault. Digging in your heels, never considering how you contributed to the cesspool. I was neck-deep and gulping for air, and yet I was blaming somebody else.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. That bitch off and left you. Left you for another man, didn’t she?”
“That she did.”
“Well. Fuck. Her.”
“It’s like a game of chicken. You always blame the one who swerves first, so I guess I get the benefit of the doubt.”
“Damn right. I’d have no relationships, if not for bad ones. Way I heard it told — and yes I did talk to Jess — you caught the lopsided end of it. That’s it. Cut your losses and get the fuck on with your life, Rolson.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re moving around a lot, but have you moved on?”
“Don’t know.”
She ran one hand over the stumps of my fingers, and when I tried to pull away, she clasped them and brought the injured nubs up to her lips. She said, “Well, guess I’m going to have to hang on a little while longer to see if that is, indeed, the case.”
“Sometimes I’m embarrassed by my good luck.”
“You shouldn’t be,” she replied. “Never seems to last.”
Truer words had never been spoken.
I felt her body tense and then relax again as she stared down into her hands. She picked at the polish on one fingernail and covered the offending hand with the other.
“There’s something else,” she said. “There was…somebody else.”
“Was?” I asked.
“When I binged,” she said. “I spent my two off days high, and there was this guy. He. Well. I mean, it’s not like I wanted to. Did you want to with Jess?”
“I don't know that I want to go into that,” I said.
She nodded. I countered my own response with, “It doesn’t matter. She was…there.”
“What a compliment.”
“No, I mean, she was a surrogate for you. It was you I wanted, and she was this force that — I don’t know. It just happened. It wasn’t intentional. I hadn’t been with anyone since Vanessa, and there was just this physical reaction.”
“I get that,” she said. “It’s not like we’ve ever even discussed what we are. What is this, Rolson? Is this something, or am I nursing a snake back to health?”
I gave myself time to construct a feasible, sensible answer. My head ached. My hands quivered. I needed a drink. I fought that urge but found myself sliding toward anxiety and the need to swill from the well of my addiction.
“It’s not nothing,” I said. “I’m not a man with the depth to be able to say what it is, exactly, that I want out of life, since I’ve been mostly dragged from event to event in my forty years. But I can say I want to see what happens between us. I want to see where things take us once I’ve put this whole business to rest.”
“You could quit.”
“I owe Deuce. I owe him my life, twice over. I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to back down or scurry away. He needs me, and he asked me to do this, so I’m going to.”
“Goddamn, I wish I’d met you in a different universe,” she said. “One where you didn’t have the Hellhound chasing after you.”
“If that was the case,” I responded, “you might not have wanted to meet me at all.”
“Uh-unh,” she said. “The bond between us is, uh, transdimensional. I knew the moment you approached me at the meeting, you were different.”
“A wanted man.”
“That, too. You’ve got a darkness, but you do try to help people.”
“Most people seem to think I just take and take.”
“You have not had a lot go right for you. Know how the hero at the end of the story always manages to stick it out for his side and come out on top?”
“Mostly,” I replied.
“You just haven’t figured out the last part. Plus, you’re a fuck-up.”
“Why, thank you.”
“You know what I mean. People don’t hold a high opinion of you because you don’t hold a high opinion of yourself.”
“Yeah, well.”
“You’re a capable man, Rolson McKane.”
“There goes my whole name again.”
“I’m serious. You’ve managed to put a whole lot of space between you and your problems, and I don’t think it’s just because you’re running from them.”
“Oh yeah?”
“The stuff that happened back in your hometown — listen. What you went through, it was traumatic. You needed some time and space from your life, and when you’re ready to deal with it, you’ll deal with it. You’ll go to Lumber Junction, and you’ll have it out with your past, but for the time being, you’ve just got to survive.”
“Literally and figuratively.”
“Amen.”
I peered across the crowd and saw someone I thought I recognized. He wasn’t one of the minions serving the drug- and gang-related interests, but he was someone.
Part of my concern was the bruises. He’d recently been in a tussle and received the worse end of it. He was a tall white guy, but whatever his role in my life, I couldn’t quite discern it.
Then I realized: he was the cop. The cop. The one I unloaded on while fleeing Renia’s house. He was worse for the wear, battered and miserable-looking, but here he was. He was in the company of a less dour-looking female companion.
And then we made eye contact. I looked away, but it was too late. He would no doubt be making his way through the crowd of people toward me at this point.
I grabbed Allison’s hand.
“Come on,” I said, and she seemed to understand. She nodded and followed. We immersed ourselves in the crowd, as the band jumped into a groggy, pot-fueled version of “Black Magic Woman.”
I pushed through couples and edged around bigger clumps of people. One guy in a rebel flag T-shirt saw me coming and raised an elbow as I passed. It got me right beneath the nose and clapped my teeth together, sending pain streaking through my face.
“That asshole,” Allison said, turning to yell, “Asshole!” as we slipped through the crowd.
I never let go. I never stopped moving. It was no exaggeration to say I felt footsteps right behind me. I feared that were I to let go, to slow down
, I’d be in a jail cell before the night was over, no chance of freedom in sight.
My head was swimming. Dude had caught me pretty good on the mouth. Not only that, but I was questioning my decision to be right here, right now. How could this have happened? Such a direct reminder of the mess that was my life.
We made it up an escalator and past the vendor stands to the outer perimeter of this orange, U-shaped compound. We headed directly north on Laura Street until the crowds were no more.
I stopped us and put my hands on my knees. I spat blood into a trash can. My teeth had an electric charge running through them. I might have lost one along the way.
Raindrops dotted our clothes as we made our way down the street among a throng of bridesmaids and bachelorette girls whose outerwear was ameliorated with dick shapes of all types and sizes. The reveller at the center was a tall, wondrous blonde with four inch heels and razor sharp eyes. They didn’t seem to miss much, and I feared to know what sort of man would endure them for the next few decades.
“Y’all buy me a shot, I’ll let you walk with me,” the bride-to-be said, smirking at what passed for equanimity.
“We’re trying to get down the road a ways,” I said, “but I’ll be happy to pass along a few bucks, if you’re interested.”
“I don’t want your damned money,” she said. “I want the company. I’m getting married next weekend!”
A pack of wolves in seasonally-inappropriate dresses and dick necklaces began howling the praises of their best friend.
“You all a couple?” one of the bridesmaids slurred, and I smiled in return.
“Guess so,” Allison said, gripping my arm and leading me alongside her. Something in my chest warmed.
“Well, the two of you’s cute as can be,” she said. “I’m Virginia. You got any advice for the bride?”
“Don’t do it,” I said, and Allison elbowed me.
“Oh,” the bridesmaid responded, “the caterer’s paid, and the booze is non-refundable. I don’t think that’d go over too damned well.”
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