I beg. “Skate! Please! Stop him! STOP HIM! His scholarship! He’ll lose everything!” If he hasn’t already.
Skate charges toward Trevor. Trev’s fists are still flying when Skate gets him off Goon One. “GET THE FUCK OFF ME, SKATE! They tried to kill Deck. They tried to kill Deck for fuck’s sake! These motherfucking pieces of shit tried to kill our fucking best friend—”
“Trev! Stop it! It’s over! It’s over, bro!”
Skate wrestles him to the ground. There’s blood everywhere. Goon One. Goon Two.
I don’t wanna look at the other blood, but now that the immediate threat is gone, the other, more fundamental threat, presses against my mind like a blunt blade: Deck!
I turn to face him. As I do it, I see Dino Moretti. Actually, I see a group of three somber dudes around him, one shaking his head. Dino’s on the floor. “Just hold him still!” one says. “Ambulance is on its way, buddy!”
I don’t care for this prick except for the fact that Trev’s ass is potentially on the line if anything happens to him. Dino can get thrown off a bridge just as he is right now for all I care.
But then my eyes see Deck. Vikki’s kneeling behind him. She’s crying. Her hands are around his bloody head. She’s looking down at him.
He’s not moving. And there’s blood all over his shirt.
I start shaking my head. “No. No. No no no no no no NO! NO GOD NO!”
Maybe I fall to where he is. Maybe the world moves. I don’t know. Soon my hands are trembling over him. Spit drops from my mouth and all I can say is, “No no no no no no oh baby nooooo OH GOD NO. PLEASE NO!”
When Vikki’s hand touches my shoulder, I jump.
“No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!”
She shakes me.
Blood sullies his beautiful white face. His golden hair is black and brown.
Vikki shakes me again—
“WHAT!” I snap.
And when she tells me what, I don’t believe it. It’s just too good to be true. Because the last person I saw like this wasn’t alive!
But she says it again. And then one more time, because even the second time didn’t sink through.
But the third time does: “Blaze, he is alive!”
I stop saying no, but I don’t stop crying. I think I cry even more now. Tears of joy! And I grab his bloody shirt. I put my forehead on his chest—she’s right! I can feel him breathing!
And I keep it there. I’m not fucking moving from this spot until someone rips me off him with the goddamned Jaws of Life.
He’s alive!
The floodgates open as I repeat those words to myself over and over and over again.
-7-
I hear Vikki talking Russian, and then I hear Vlad’s voice. What the fuck? Where were they!?
I don’t bother asking, because none of it matters now anyway. Trev’s probably gonna be up for manslaughter, and Deck is...barely alive. But he’s alive, Blaze. He’s alive!
I hold onto that fact in the middle of everything else. I feel like it’s the very lifeline of my entire existence right now. He’s alive.
Everything else can go for a shit down the river. I don’t care about anything else, but Deck needs to live. That’s all.
I’ll give up music for you if I have to.
My head’s still on his chest, moist with his blood. Vikki’s hand goes to my back, rubs it. “Tolek was on his way here, Blaze. That is where Vlad and Sasha were. I’m so sorry. They have orders to keep him away from me completely. They came as soon as they heard the noise but it all happened so fast, Blaze! Barely over a minute!”
Barely over a minute? I play the events in my head—the chain, one, two, then the kicks—three in two seconds. Trev charging for Dino. Punch punch punch. Men on him. Men flung away. Goons One and Two. Punch punch punch punch. Skate wrestling Trev.
Over.
A minute? It could’ve even been as low as thirty seconds. And yet it all happened with such gruesome clarity in front of my eyes that, subjectively, it felt like an entire lifetime to me.
I reach out for Vikki’s hand and hold it. Who could’ve known? And what was Tolek doing here anyway? Would it have been another bloodbath—only with him instead of Dino Moretti now on the floor?
It doesn’t matter.
I squeeze her hand. And I think, Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s fucking Law.
-8-
The EMTs arrive. Cold air gusts over my bare arms as they wrest me away from Deck’s ragdoll body. “I want to be with him!”
The EMT tells me, “Sorry, ma’am, you can ride up front. But not in the back.”
And what if he dies in the back?
“Please. Please! I need to be with him!” Vikki embraces me from the side. The EMT won’t budge.
“Let’s go together in my car,” she says.
I hold her hand. “Thank you.”
Another lifeline.
-9-
The fuzz arrive. Trev and Skate are nowhere to be found.
-10-
Vikki offers me a Parliament outside the hospital. I take it. I only smoke when I’m stressed, Deck said earlier.
Yeah, me too, baby.
I start to shiver. Vikki gives me a huge faux-fur coat. Halfway into the smoke, Trev calls me—but from a number I don’t recognize. “Blaze, how’s he doing?”
“Critical.” I can’t bare anymore words.
“And...uhm...the others?” I can hear the fear in his voice.
“No idea. Where are you guys?”
“Do you mind if I don’t answer?”
“No...(ahem)...sure. Look, Trev, whatever happens...I’m grateful. I mean...if Deck doesn’t—”
“Blaze! He’s gonna make it, OK?”
“Yeah, but, if he doesn’t, I’m grateful for how you”—I fight the tears back—“how you had his back.”
“I took it too far, Blaze. I saw red. I saw—”
“No one can blame you.”
“It was all heat of the moment, Blaze. I just—”
“Trev, it was self defense!”
“Uhm, yeah, uhm—”
“That’s what I saw. And that’s what I’ll say when I’m asked. How’s Skate?”
“Th—thanks, Blaze. Skate’s cool. He’s with me.”
“Thank you, Big Brother.”
He gives a deep laugh at that. “Damn it. I really fucked this up.”
“Trevor! Stop it now! Dino Moretti fucked it up!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Silence. “But me too. I also fucked it up. I know it.”
“Self defense. That’s what I saw.” But he did take it far. Very far.
And I’m fucking grateful for it. Because in a just world, those goons would’ve been executed at dawn!
“Call me when he wakes up.”
When. Not If. “Sure. I’ll do that. Tell Skate Vikki says hi.”
“Yo, bro, Vikki says hi.”
I hear Skate saying, “Put her on.”
I give the phone to Vikki. She puts on her Femme Fatale accent. She says, “Skate, you are OK? ... Good. Good. We saw everyssing. Was self defense. Is sure! ... OK. No problem. Yes, I am wiss her. ... Yes, we call when he wake up. Look, Skate, we must meet sometime. After dis crazy thing is over. Alone. ... Yes. ... I am sure. OK. Goodbye.”
I finish my smoke and stub it on the nearest wall. “You ready to hook up with Skate?”
She grins. “He is...very strong!”
It does get a laugh out of me, and with that, a mountain of relief hits me.
“And,” she continues, “after such a crazy thing, a person begins to wonder about what is important. And begins to count the minutes. I think I like Skate. He seems to have a good heart. And”—she grins—“a lot of stamina!”
More laughter on my part, and more relief.
“I just don’t want to waste any more time,” she says. “This was scary tonight.”
I rub her back, but I don’t comment. Because it was damn scary.
Still is.
We walk into the hospita
l.
And we see Dino’s parents there...
-11-
The mother (bottle red-head with homemade curls) goes apeshit on my ass. She tells me how Declan ruined the life of their daughter and now wants to take away her son as well!
So, I go equally apeshit—because she’s downright insulted my intelligence with her idiocy! I tell her Dino Mo-fuckin-Retti just came into the bar “wielding a fucking chain, you idiot! And then hit Declan on the head with it!”
Vikki actually has to hold me back, much like Skate held me back earlier.
“Only because that Cox boy has been stirring things up with Gina—” Mrs. Moretti’s accent is one hundred percent Jersey Shore. There aren’t any Gs in her present participles and things comes out as tings. With is wit.
“HE FUCKING NEARLY BURNED DOWN MY APARTMENT—”
“Are you frickin stoopid! And what the hell is up wit yo hair?” Now her husband is holding her back by the elbows!
Chick-fight comin up, biatch!
“You and this Declan boy—two of a kind. Look at all this unholy defacement of your bodies!” She waves a reprimanding hand at my tats. “And this...hair! It’s people like you who ruin the good people of the world!” Da good people ohdah woirrld.
Vikki’s nails dig into me as I try and headbutt this chick!
Her husband (a small round and balding man with a large gray mustache) says, “Miranda, now let’s calm down here. We know Declan has been helping Gina out at Dymphna’s.”
“Helping! Helping!? HE PUT HER THERE!”
Now I’m pissed. “He didn’t fuckin put her there! She put herself there! Declan didn’t thrust the damn drugs down her throat. He’s never even done A!”
“A! Oh you foolish kids and yo slang! It’s LSD!”
OK, much of a muchness. Aaaaaanyway! “You know what?” I chill, and Vikki, sensing it, lets me go. “I don’t have time for this shit. The boy I love is in there—a hole in his head!—because your son—”
“Blaze.” It’s Vikki’s voice, gentle as sunshine. “We are all very stressed.” She looks up at the biatch (who would do everybody a favor by following her namesake and shutting the fuck up!) “Let’s just hope both these boys come out OK.”
“Yes,” agrees the father. “Miranda? Should we go see how Dino’s doin?”
Miranda The Biatch Moretti tugs her arms away, scoffs in my direction, and struts off. The father puts a hand on my shoulder. It’s completely disarming. At first, I twitch away. Then, when I realize he ain’t about to slap me, I just stay there, rigid as hell. “Blaze, is it?”
I nod, lips set. Teeth clenched.
“I apologize for my wife’s behavior. I won’t make excuses for it. There’s always been some degree of blame toward Declan.” The man—Mr. Moretti—does not speak like a rerun of Jersey Shore, oddly enough—well, not entirely. “It hasn’t been easy on us. But you’re right that Gina made her choices. And, ultimately, the blame, if any, always falls on the parents. One day you kids will understand that sentiment. And it’s a tough burden to bear.” He takes his hand off my shoulder and pulls off his spectacles, cleans them with a cloth from his pocket. “And, sometimes, laying into someone is a method of releasing that burden—foolish though it may be.
“I wish you all the best with Declan. I know what it’s like to have someone you love in the hospital, wondering if they come out of it. Is he awake now?”
I don’t at first realize he’s asked me a question. Vikki pokes me sharply in my ribs and I spout out, “Uhm, no, sir. He’s in a coma.”
He shakes his head somberly. “My goodness. Boys! Always hot-headed. When he comes out of it...” When Mr. Moretti says When, it’s not said with any real conviction; it’s even said with a little tremor of the lip. I know he means If. “...tell him I appreciate what he’s been doing with Gina. I’m the one who pushed for him to be allowed to see her. I think she’s working through some dark clouds, and if it takes seeing an old friend”—I know he means lover, and I appreciate him avoiding the use of the word—“to get her back, then that’s what needs to be done.”
“I’ll tell him, sir.”
“Donovan. The name’s Donovan.”
“OK.”
We stand silently for a few seconds. “Well then. OK.” He nods at us politely, then he leaves. His wife’s long gone, but I hear her bitching at him from around the corner about what the hell was he doing “talking to her!?”
And, finally, in muffled hush-tones: “Miranda, that’s enough!”
This is followed by what sounds tremendously like the noise a puppy makes when someone stands on its paw and grinds.
Vikki and I can’t help but snicker.
-12-
I fall asleep on Vikki’s lap on a bench inside the hospital. It’s a light sleep, because the bench is ass-uncomfortable. But when I do fade, I dream. The dreams are all different, and yet, somehow, all the same.
The first is of Declan, teeth bloody, face bloody. Capillaries popping out of his skin. He smiles, and I feel cold.
I wake with a start.
The second is of Xavier—slow motion: The white room and white fedora. And the white of his teeth as he smiles, followed by the slow movement of the black gun to his temple. Smiling smiling smiling. Then the slow motion of the splatter of his head exploding and tarnishing the white walls and white carpet.
But Xavier is still smiling at me. His teeth now red, and his fedora splattered with brown and black blood.
I wake with a gasp! And a cough! I almost fall off the seat.
Vikki steadies me. “It was just a dream, Blaze! Just a dream!”
I catch my breath. And I eventually sleep again.
This dream is of Savva. And when I wake up from that one (“OH GOD MOTHERFUCK! SAVVA!”) I feel nauseas. So I decide not to sleep anymore.
I sit up, and the nausea won’t leave me for half an hour. Vikki puts her arm around me and rocks me gently.
Then she starts singing, slowly, quietly, dulcetly.
I don’t sleep, but hearing her voice makes me feel like I’m sleeping. The first real sleep I’ve had all night.
I shed a tear after the third verse. My voice breaks into a few light gasps by the fourth. She puts her hand on my cheek, sings louder, beautifully, peacefully; her voice crystal clear.
She sings a song of love and friendship and losing both but finding yourself.
Eventually (probably the seventh verse, maybe), I’m waterfalling all over her breast. And she’s holding me.
I hold her in return. My new lifeline. And I want to tell her how much she means to me. I want to ask her to please not leave me alone. Because I’m scared. So scared.
It’s all too familiar. Please don’t go.
But I don’t need to tell her any of this. She stays. She stays all night. And she sings all night. She stays through the morning. She gets Vlad to pick us up some breakfast and stays with me through until the afternoon. We go to the bathroom and wash under our arms and make jokes about how much we stink. We spray water on our faces and complain about having no moisturizer.
By one P.M., Dino’s awake. So are his two goon friends. Alive. Alive and fucking well.
Biatch walks past me on the bench with a contemptuous smirk on her face. See? See what God has done? He’s punishing YOUR MURDERING BOYFRIEND! Her face tells me this is what she’s thinking.
Mr. Moretti (“Donovan”) takes a second to place another hand on my shoulder. And this time, I put mine back on his, because my strength is faltering. My body feels weakened by my mind. He squeezes my shoulder tight. “He’ll make it through, Blaze. Be strong.” He gives me his card. “Here. Call me anytime. Even if it’s just to...talk.”
The undertones are coming through loud and clear: Because if he dies, you’re gonna need someone to talk to.
“Thank—thank you, sir. I mean, Donovan.”
He squeezes again, then leaves.
At one thirty P.M. Trev calls. I fill him in. the cops have caught up with him a
nd Skate, and let them go. “Waiting to see if Dino and his cronies will press charges,” he says. “Seems I also broke some dude’s tooth at the bar. He actually came and saw me and shook my hand. Said he’s never been in a fight his whole life and has decided to keep the damn tooth out as a ‘war scar.’ Can you believe that shit? Any news on Deck?”
“No.” I can’t tell him more. I just can’t. It’s too hard to talk. It feels like I’m constantly hearing someone grate their nails over a wet chalk board.
“OK. Fine. Look, we’re gonna come over.”
“That would be nice.”
Trev hangs up.
By two P.M. I decide to cancel the teeny-bopper party I have on for tonight. If ensuring “The show must go on” is a part of being in the music biz, then I’m out of it. The mom who hired me is totally pissed. I tell her what’s happening and she doesn’t give a shit. Neither do I. She says she’s gonna gimme a shitty review on Yelp or something (I’m not even on Yelp) and I tell her I can send her some automated mixes she could play for the kids. She flips out even more. “What about dedications! This is so unprofessional!”
Christ!
I call Randy, tell him what’s happening (“OH MY GOD! NO! NOT DECLAN OF ALL PEOPLE!”)
I also ask him if he could help find someone to take my teeny-bopper gig.
He says he’ll do it personally.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not, Blaze. I’ll do it.”
“You understand these are Beliebers you’ll be playing for.”
“Blaze, I have a confession to make.” My heart sinks. “Well, Deck and I go back a little bit. Not much, but he was always there for me when I needed to...(cough)...talk...about...stuff.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh.’ I’m sure Deck never mentioned nuthin, because he’s that type of guy, you know. He listens, he cares, he keeps worries away from people. He takes it all on himself, like he’s trying to smother the bad stuff in the world with a huge blanket or something. And he does that by listening to people.” I remember telling him about Savva on my rooftop, just before Dino (we assume) threw the Molotov into my building’s window. This thought makes me sad on such a deep level that it takes all the strength I have to keep holding the phone.
Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) Page 19