Somehow, I always knew that Dino Moretti would come after me again one day. Especially after Clarissa’s lecture to me at Tom’s restaurant about how Gina was “getting worse.” I never knew what my reaction would be when he did. Now I know: Do what you will to me. But lay one hand on Blaze, and I’ll feed your own nuts to you while you’re still alive.
This is what I’m thinking when the firefighter grabs my wrist. And it’s what I’m thinking as we watch—about thirty or forty of us, outside now, on the other side of the road—as water is poured up into the third floor of Blaze’s building.
She rests her head on my chest. My arm wraps around her shoulders. “They wanted you, Deck. I heard it.”
Of course they did. Only, it isn’t “they.” It’s “he.”
-4-
Blast from the past...
“The paper’s laced,” I said.
“But there’s a picture of Bart Simpson on it,” Gina replied. At this stage, she was just a chick I knew from school.
I shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I don’t make the shit.”
“You think it’s safe?”
I shrugged again, because I didn’t really know. “Well, it’s a drug. What do you want?”
She looked at me then, the trip on her index finger—dangling ominously off it like a man with one leg off a cliff and a heavy wind behind him. A. Big L. Instant Zen.
LSD.
Not my thing. Never had been. But Gina had been egging to do it for three weeks now. Asking me about it, reading up on it. Talking about a test they did in the sixties where scientists “reported improved mental abilities for weeks after taking it” (she didn’t comment on the article I found that “reported confirmed cases of permanent psychological damage in some of the test’s participants.”)
We were outside The L—a club that’s since closed down, and which made no effort to hide the pun in its name with a huge yellow smiley face next to the L of the club’s sign. The yellow face had only three strands of hair, one of which hung down in a curve, making a not-too-obvious (and not too hidden) S on the face’s left side, and a D (the “hole” of the D being the smiley face’s eye) on its right.
Hard House slammed through the club’s doors and onto the street. Everything from Mohawks to glowing tank tops and golden metallic blouses bopped and smiled around me. I’d dropped two Mollys forty-five minutes earlier and I was already feeling the rush. I had three speeds in my left pocket and another two Adams for later in the night. In my back bluejeans pocket I had a banky of the highest-grade Mary-Jane for firing up the hay with later.
My mom was on the verge of dying. I tell you that only for context, not for sympathy, because it doesn’t change what I did—or what I didn’t do—and what I let happen.
As more context, I’d started dropping about a year before she passed. When things had gotten really bad. When the money had run out. When she was suffering so hard that the only merciful thought would have been one of letting her die peacefully and on her own terms.
But that’s illegal in this country. Because we believe in suffering right to the blood-coughing, throat-scratching, defecating-in-the-pants end of a person’s life. Amen brother. Because it’s a sin to let people die with dignity. Can I get a halleluiah?
Well, this stuff was going through my mind at the time. No—maelstroming through it.
So I was looking around at all these people, all sorts and ages—many of them couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen (I mentioned the club’s since closed, right?) On Molly, Hard House can sound like the works of god himself. Amen halleluiah. I was bobbing my head, tapping my foot, feeling it. The goosebumps began, followed by the warmth and smile. I ran my hand through my hair, damn near giving myself a skin-gasm. Clouds of wispy smoke (in my mind) surrounded me. I looked at my hand and it was starting to glow purple.
All was good with the world. So damn good. And I loved mom. And pops was really a good guy. And this babe—Gina, was it?—she was cool, you know? And there she was, right in front of me. Short and a little round (in a sexy way) with eyes like waterfalls and hair the color of Batman’s cape.
And I feel like Batman on this shit, come to think of it. Hell yeah yippee ki-yay.
I kissed her, hands on her cheeks and...wow...it just felt so damned nice and good and...YUMMY!
The touch-nerves on my fingertips were suddenly raging flames of energetic fury. I could’ve kissed her all night and felt wonderful and kind and friendly and happy.
But, you see, Gina wasn’t rolling. She wasn’t high at all. Or, as I tend to look at it now, maybe she wasn’t low yet: Because all that euphoria you feel on the Love Drug is all bullshit, isn’t it? Like the insane glee you feel when you’re facing the barrel of a gun. Yay. Happy. I’m gonna die!
But that’s all just theory.
Point is, in her un-high state, she got hot. Really hot. Horny hot. And she started reaching for parts that, regardless of inebriated state, a man never loses touch with.
So we fucked, in the backseat of her Hyundai.
And it was all...nice and friendly and yummy dummy wonderful beautiful. Yay.
She never took the A that night. But, if I have any logic about how things went that night (which I confess I struggle with a little because of my state of chemical euphoria at the time), she probably saw it like this:
He sourced me the A. And then, while we were discussing how to take it, he kissed me. And then we fucked. So, he must like me.
Can you blame her?
On her part, never having done anything other than Mow The Grass with low-grade ditchweed, it’s pretty easy to grasp that she likely would’ve had no clue about the “love” I was feeling for the world and all its parts (including for the finger-sized roaches the club was rumored to have) in the moment that I put my hands to her cheeks and touched her tongue with mine.
But what she really thought, I will never really know. No one will. Because no one can talk to her now. And I never bothered to ask her about it in the three months that we “dated” after that.
Before she lost her mind.
-5-
Back in the present...
“You’re Declan?”
I look up from my reverie. “Uhm, yeah, officer.” The dude staring at me is huge, shaved hair, probably about seven foot. Think: Denzel Washington on steroids playing Robocop.
“Some people are saying they heard your name being called out before the brick and the cocktail were thrown in.”
“Cocktail?”
“Molotov. Seems whoever did this threw a brick in first—to smash the window—then fired a Molotov in. Good aim. You play football?”
“I do.”
“Know any quarterbacks who could’ve done this?”
“Not a quarterback. Not even a football player. But I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”
Blaze’s arm tightens around my waist.
The weight of it all, lands snugly on my head. Not too hard to crush me, just enough for me to know that I’ll be walking around a little heavier over the next few days. Or weeks.
Or until Dino Moretti is caught.
I can’t help thinking about my dad’s comments about Karma—just before the hollow point nine millimeter bullet mushroomed apart in his head.
-6-
To Blaze, the officer says, “Ma’am, we’ve been trying to get a hold of your landlord. He doesn’t seem to be answering his phone. Any idea how we could reach him?”
“You won’t get him today.” The cop stares at her blankly. “It’s the Sabbath? I think he turns all his phones off today.”
“I see.”
Blaze tells me she’s gonna text this Mr. Bernstein so that he’s not worried about her or any of the other tenants when he turns his phone back on.
Away from Blaze, I tell the cop the deal with Gina Moretti and her brother. And that I recognized the accent and voice after the window smash. But, when he pushes me, I can’t say I’m a hundred percent certain of it.
“We ran,
” I say. “My thoughts were on getting us out of there. For all I know, it might’ve been someone else. It just seems unlikely.”
“Understood. Look, the building’s gonna be closed at least for the day while the fire department inspects it as to safety. The fire luckily didn’t spread beyond apartment Three C. And we can count our stars that it didn’t seem to do any serious damage. But no one’s gonna be allowed to sleep in there tonight. You let me know where you stay and I’ll make sure there’s a patrol car around your block tonight. Meanwhile, we’ll have someone bring this Moretti guy in for questioning. You understand that, without an actual eye-witness account—or other ways of having him placed at the scene—we might have our hands tied here.”
“I do, sir.”
He looks up at the red-brick building, then at the folks on the street. “This used to be a pretty busy building. Most have moved out since the big realty boys moved in. It’s practically abandoned now. I think we were lucky today. Really lucky. Three C is empty, so is most of the third floor. But I’d feel luckier if we caught the sonofabitch who did this. Gimme your address, son. I’ll have that patrol unit go by a few times tonight. I assume that’s where...your girlfriend will be tonight?”
“Uhm, yessir. I think so.”
“Good, ’cause there ain’t too many squad cars to go around in this precinct.”
I give him my address.
Then I go to Blaze. And I decide to tell her about my past...
-7-
We go to the Swallow Café because it’s nearby. And I can’t help thinking about that punk Xavier as we sit here. This is where he dragged her onto the ground and almost hit her.
And I also think of her ex, Tolek—the punk and his posse at Slambam on Wednesday.
Dino Moretti is Tolek’s doppelganger in shape and hair color, but not in features: This Tolek dude had a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once. Dino has a sharp Italian nose. Which is in desperate need of being broken, I think.
Dino was a popular guy at school, so I take it that means he’s probably good looking to the girls.
I think of other bozos: Blaze’s werewolf “associates” who still haven’t called her to let her know whether or not the gig is off, but who make my chest buzz with rage whenever I think of them talking to her about “friendship.”
Mad-Ass-Hat, the ex-DJ who somehow considers her the end of his world.
Catalina, my dad’s murderess, rotting in a jail cell. And? What if she somehow gets out of that? Pleads insanity or something? And comes after me again...
All these thoughts crowd around me, smothering me, making me choke as I try imagine the possibility of a life of ultimate joy and happiness with Blaze. Life’s telling me I can’t have it. It’s like that game we played against Midwood in high school. When everything had been lost, I started swinging. And Trev and Skate swung with me. Declan started it! Skate had said. He was right. I did. Because when the chips are down, I start punching...at anything which gets in my way.
I’ll tell Blaze about Gina. Because she’s been pulled into it. But after that, I’m gonna start swinging.
And swinging hard.
-8-
The story...
Gina Moretti also went to the same high school as me. We were in the same year but she was a little younger than me. So, that night at The L, I was seventeen. She was on the cusp of her seventeenth birthday. Physically, she was as developed as a voluptuous nineteen year old.
Emotionally, well, who can really tell.
I’d gotten a name in the school for being the dude into the hard stuff. While most of the kids who did drugs were simply whacking weed, I was one of the first to Molly it up.
I Mollied it up for the first time after it became clear Ma wasn’t gonna make it. Again, context.
I also played football. With Trev. And Skate. And we were unstoppable.
Gina liked me, I guess.
Now, let me just explain that, because it needs explaining: I wasn’t your typical jock. I drank. I played. I got stoned. Girls? Had ’em when they came around. Which, I suppose, was often by some people’s standards (Skate’s). And not so often by others’ (Trev’s). Point is, whereas Gina might’ve been a few years underdeveloped in the emotional side, my emotional side was as developed as a cardboard box. I think the first time I felt anything about anyone was when Ma passed.
And then I felt. Oh, boy, did I feel.
That night when Gina and I fucked, I was aware that I knew her from school, and that she wasn’t your local bimbo to be fucked-and-dumped. I knew she expected more.
And I, cardboard box that I was, thought that I was being the Big Shining Man by saying to her (after the fuck), “Babe, we gotta go out, you know? I mean, really! Because I feel this...I don’t know...SOMETHING for you!”
This was in the backseat of her car, Gina’s generous leg dangling and hanging behind my waist while I rode her gently. “Oh, Deck, be careful what you say. I know that Ecstasy makes people think things they don’t really—Oh, god!” I pushed into her.
She was right, of course.
I came. She came. We did it again. We didn’t even go into the club that night. I think we screwed four times in the back of that used Hyundai Accent. You’d be amazed how good sex feels when you’re flying.
In the end, with me still rushing, she sat back, fixed up her tight top, and asked, “Deck, are you just gonna fuck me an’ leave me?”
Now, I might’ve been high as a kite, but I wasn’t completely unaware of what I was doing. And, admittedly, I wouldn’t have slept with her if I hadn’t thought about it already beforehand. Because Gina was a good girl. She was attractive, well developed. A little sultry, I guess. She dressed alluringly (she had on torn tights this night and a tube top that had kept distracting me earlier as I looked down at her considerable knockers while she’d asked me about the A.)
So, I said, “Gina, I’m not an asshole. I wouldn’t have made love to you if I hadn’t had the intention of getting into a relationship with you.”
Yes, I used the words “made love” and “relationship.” I was high. And that’s not for context. That’s a fact.
I also said a lot of other things. A lot of things. Loquacious declarations of love for all of life and existence.
I’m pretty sure, at that stage, she realized I was high, and that it was the drug talking.
Much later, when things had already gone wrong for her, I even wondered if she hadn’t indeed known the effects of E. And I wondered if—while I had stood there looking down at her bountiful cleavage during her Q&A about the Acid on her fingertip—if she hadn’t been playing me...
Clarissa’s Wise Words of the Waitress play through my head: You know everybody in school looked up to you.
Maybe they did.
Did I notice it?
No. My mind was on two things and two things only in those last few months:
One: When is Ma gonna die?
Two: When can I get high again so I can stop wondering when Ma’s gonna die?
Not for context.
-9-
Still in the past...
When I crashed the next day, I didn’t regret anything about the night before. I was fully aware that Gina and I had slept together. I was fully aware that I had done so knowingly. She’d dropped me off at home the night before. And, the next day, I called her.
Thinking back to it, she was not too unconfident when she answered the phone. Know what I mean? If my theory of her “not being emotionally developed” or “getting onto drugs because of me” is correct, then I would expect her to be something like, “Oh, Deck...(giggle giggle)...you called!”
But she wasn’t. She said, “Hello, baby,” in a voice so husky I damn near came in my pants right away.
“G—Gina, how—how are you?”
“I’m good.” Think Marilyn Monroe saying that, or, better, Lauren Bacall in her sexy “Oh, fuck me, Humphrey” voice.
“G—good.”
“You com
ing by?”
A few things were going through my mind at that time, but the most prominent one shows the chauvinist that I was (am?). It was: She needs me. And if I don’t come over, she’ll have a broken heart.
I hope you realize I’m not trying to score any points with you here. I’m telling it like it is. Because burning-bottles-catapulted-through-windows doesn’t happen because you were Santa’s helper and forgot to give him his milk and cookies on Christmas Eve.
But let’s not blame my chauvinism only. I mentioned already that Gina Moretti was well ahead of her years physically. And I mentioned that she was (I thought at the time) perhaps a little unready emotionally.
Did I mention where she was at intellectually? She was a straight A honors student, two years running.
I barely made Ds in most of my classes.
-10-
“The way I see it, she took the A because she wanted to take it,” Blaze says now.
“Ultimately, yes. I guess.”
Blaze looks away, thoughts clearly raging away in her mind. “Fine, I won’t pretend to understand until you finish. Carry on.”
“We ‘dated’ for about three months. And by that, I mean, well...had, uhm, sex...mostly.”
“I’m not naïve. I figured that already. You don’t need to be all worried about it when you tell me.” Blaze grits her teeth.
I can’t even begin to imagine what she must be going through listening to me tell her this story.
-11-
In all honesty, we fucked like rabbits. It was then that I noted I might’ve made a slight mis-adjudication as to Gina’s plans with me that night we first slept together at The L. Because she knew damn well what she was doing when we fucked.
Now, get this, I even asked her if she’d been a virgin before. And you know what she said? “Oh, Deck, of course. You were the first!”
Now, I’d never taken a girl’s virginity. I’d slept with experienced girls and inexperienced girls, but never a girl for the first time.
Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) Page 6