Broken, Bruised, and Brave

by L. A. Zoe

  “If you have to ask, Rhinegold can’t afford it,” Georgie said, and laughed with a wheeze. “I can remember when this place had some class. It wasn’t toney, of course, not a diner, but good people hung around. Reporters. Factory workers after bars closed. Off-duty cops lit cigarettes for hookers taking a break from working on their backs.” He shook his head. “Now look at it.”

  Rhinegold leaned back and winked at SeeJai. “Yeah, people like us eat here.”

  “Proves it’s a real dump,” she said.

  They laughed together.

  “You kids,” Georgie said. “Just wait. You’ll get your turn to see the world slide downhill, dragging you with it.” He shook his head. “But you guys are all right, though. You two helped me out, and I’m grateful.”

  SeeJai’s eyes opened wide and her mouth opened wide, but just as Rhinegold registered the surprised expression of her face, a jolt of pain flashed through his body.

  He jumped into the air, and yelped as loud as he could.

  “Gotcha!” a familiar voice shouted with glee.

  Rhinegold turned.

  Ami. Holding up a long black baton. What the?

  The shock stopped his breath. His nerves still rattled and jangled.

  “Just a cattle prod, darling,” Ami told him. “I stole it off a dead security guard. What do you think?”

  Ami stood over six feet tall, close enough to Rhinegold’s height to intimidate him as nobody else could except NFL linemen and Navy Seals. She wore her black hair in a Marine-buzz crew-cut. Her large bones didn’t hold muscles as large as his, but she also studied and practiced martial arts.

  Rhinegold would gladly trade his supply of free testosterone for hers.

  “Nice to see you again, Ami,” Rhinegold said, resisting the impulse to smash her face. He might land the important first blow, but couldn’t feel certain he would land the all-important last shot.

  “Old man, you ought to put yourself in a washing machine,” she told Georgie. “You’re a walking health hazard shouldn’t be allowed even in this old wreck.”

  She wore faded, worn bluejeans and a frayed blue chambray work shirt. Her rough brown boots probably also came from a Goodwill thrift store.

  Ami could be accused of many things, but never of overdressing.

  A wardrobe that cost more than ten bucks was only for femmes and sissies. Just like makeup and manners.

  As Ami sat uninvited in their fourth chair, her eyes turned toward SeeJai. “Turning to chickenhawks on us, Rhinegold?” she said. “This boy’s jailbait or I’m—”

  After she knocked him over with that cattle prod, then her gasp, and her gaping mouth gave Rhinegold a small satisfaction. A little payback.

  “Oh. My. God.” She stared, then reached out, grabbed SeeJai’s coat, and pulled it open. “I have to see. I have to.”

  SeeJai pulled away. “See what?”

  “Does it have breasts?” Ami asked Rhinegold.

  SeeJai shrugged the coat off her shoulders, revealing the small mounds of her chestline under her woolen shirt.

  “I’m not an ’it,’” she said.

  Ami drooled. “Pert and pretty—just the way me and some choice customers—men and women—like them.”

  “You can’t see them. Maybe they’re all covered with tattoos.”

  “Even better.”

  “Are all the customers that sick in the head, or just you?” SeeJai asked.

  “Little girl, you’re a million dollars. Join my team and you’ll see the world.”

  SeeJai just shook her head, looked down.

  “What’re you, a wimp or just a wallflower?”

  “Give her a break, Ami,” Rhinegold said.

  Ami leaned way across the table, getting right into SeeJai’s face, while pointing at Rhinegold. “Look, honey pie, Golden Boy here ain’t bad looking for a dickhead, but that’s all he is. You need a real man.”

  “Who carries around a cattle prod,” Rhinegold muttered.

  “Damn straight. And when are we going to have that arm wrestling contest?”

  “I’ve got work today,” Rhinegold said.

  Ami said to SeeJai, “See? He’s afraid of me. They all are, even that fat lizard fucker Greco. You aren’t crazy enough to work for him, I hope. What do you say?”

  “I’ve been called a baby butch since I was ten years old,” SeeJai said. “But I’m not a lesbian.”

  Ami looked offended. “Did I say you were a lesbian?” She looked left to right to Rhinegold and Georgie for support. “Did either one of you guys hear me call her a lesbian?”

  A waitress stood by their table. She wore a clean, fresh, and crisp white waitress outfit. Her hair tied by professionally in a hair net underneath a white cap. She held an order pad and a pencil. A pretty face, adorned with just a touch of makeup. Red lipstick shaped her lips into a heart.

  “You can call me a lesbian if you’re ready to order,” she said in a joking, yet professional tone of voice.

  “Two French toast with extra syrup, two fried eggs sunny side up with two slices of bacon, hashed brown potatoes, large orange juice, and coffee,” Ami said.

  “I thought you said you were hungry,” Rhinegold said.

  “I’ll have the fried catfish special of the day,” SeeJai said.

  Everybody, including Rhinegold who couldn’t help it, and the waitress laughed at her.

  “Catfish isn’t available this time of year,” the waitress said in a kindly voice.

  “Can’t fish in the middle of ice flows on the river,” Rhinegold said.

  “They’ve had the same daily special since Ronald Reagan was president,” Georgie said.

  When they finished the waitress pointed to the name tag over her left breast. “My name is Bettina, and I’ll be your waitress today. If you need anything else, just ask for Bettina.”

  Behind her, the fry cook, setting an omelet on the counter, rolled his eyes.

  “Thank you, Bettina,” Rhinegold said.

  “About time this dump got some quality workers,” Ami said.

  After Bettina sped away as quietly and efficiently as she arrived, Ami winked at SeeJai. “I’ll have her turning tricks inside a week. Lots of guys and gals want healthy young African-American babes. And she’s so sweet she must not be smoking crack yet. Rhinegold, what’d you think of those knockers?”

  “She’s attractive,” he said.

  “See?” Ami said to SeeJai. “Even you’re boyfriend likes her.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “I’m not her boyfriend.”

  “You guys can’t lie for shit. Can they, old man?”

  When they finished eating, Ami paid with a hundred dollar bill, and told Bettina to keep the change.

  Bettina’s face flushed, but she smiled with delight. “Thank you, so much.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Ami said. “I don’t dress fancy, but I’ve got spending money. I run a business. Come on, let’s boogie.”

  Outside, she told SeeJai, “See? Now Bettina’s dying to know what kind of business I run, I can pay a hundred bucks for breakfast.”

  “She knows,” Georgie said with a tone of voice not hiding his disapproval.

  “Maybe,” Ami said. “The hook’s in her mouth. She’ll bite down at the end of her shift, when she counts up her tips. The rest won’t amount to ten dollars, and she’ll put that Ben Franklin in her purse, and feel how much her ankles and lower back hurt, and wonder. I’ll start reeling her in tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for the meal,” SeeJai said. “But I’ve got to get going.”

  “I’ll put it down as a business expense,” Ami said. “Catch you later.”

  While waiting for the food Georgie ran into the laundromat to switch his clothes from the washer to the dryer. By then they were dry and fresh warm, smelling fragrant.

  Probably cleaner than they’d been since someone donated them to the Goodwill store where Georgie bought them.

  Georgie left them then, to head down the alle
ys looking for more aluminum cans. “A man’s got to work in this world, but thank you both.”

  “What about your work?” SeeJai asked Rhinegold as they headed farther north to Arkham Cromwell State Mental Health Center.

  “Now you’ve met Greco and Ami, you have to ask?” he said. “Protecting you is my number one job.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mom No Longer Expressing Suicidal Ideation

  Mom looked so normal, sitting in a plastic chair beside her two roommates, two other older women battling depression, watching the news.

  She wore casual street clothes, not a hospital gown. She looked relaxed and calm.

  I couldn’t believe they were watching the news. If I wanted to be cured of depression, that’s the last thing I would watch. If I was their doctor, I’d make them watch nothing but funny movies. All of Kevin Harte. Maybe, for my Mom, Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey.

  And Mom looked so much the same. Small for her age, though big in the hips and legs. Long frizzy black hair. Crinkled facial skin, mottled and gray. Too much booze, too many cigarettes, and not enough exercise.

  “Hello,” she said to me without turning her head. Just like nothing.

  It seemed like a year since I saw her last, day before yesterday.

  Before leaving Areetha’s place. Before walking the frozen-over Red Line. Before meeting and walking away from Rhinegold. Before the long walk that morning. All that work retrieving Georgie’s things over the ice. Meeting Greco. Meeting Ami.

  Accepting Rhinegold’s protection even though I again wanted to run away from him.

  Maybe Mom would notice my swollen knee and ask me what happened to me.

  Naw.

  So I watched the news with them. And became depressed myself.

  After a while, Mom’s social worker Mrs. Heffley came in, and told me Mom was a lot better. Not that she ever smiled or laughed, but she didn’t express any more suicidal ideation.

  Englewood Garden Apartments were holding a studio apartment open for her, for a week. Section 8. Used to be all old people, but a court order was forcing them to admit disabled people, too. And not only the physically disabled, but the mentally too.

  The social worker figured they’d like a middle-aged woman who would blend in with the really old people, not selling drugs or turning tricks or playing music all night at two hundred decibels. Yet because of her depression she counted as a mentally disabled person for their affirmative action points. So my Mom was valuable to somebody just because she led a dull life.

  I figured Mrs. Heffley for thirty-something, halfway between me and Mom in age. She always spoke politely to me, but I felt she blamed me for Mom’s depression. Mom probably told her how I never made her happy, which was true.

  Then her eyes narrowed. “You understand,” she said to me, “this is a single studio apartment. Single person residency only.”

  I shrugged to prove my unconcern. “Fine.”

  “You can visit of course. Often, I hope. And even spend the night sometimes. But if your mother lets you live there, that’s breaking her lease and she’ll lose it. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  So that was it. I lived with Mom before this hospitalization, and didn’t make her happy, so I was a mooch. Just like all the college kids still living with their parents because they couldn’t find good jobs. If I went to a doctor and told them just how I felt, they’d label me disabled too, and everybody would just nod and add my name to their lists. She’d find us a subsidized apartment for two. “I’m checking on places now.”

  She looked relieved. “Great. Check back in two days. If all goes well, Dr. Edwards will release her then.”

  I sat beside Mom another hour. They watched a stupid old TV show about a talking horse. At least it was funny. Tried to be funny.

  Near the end, during a commercial, Mom looked at her cell phone lying on the table, and suddenly said, “Areetha called.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Just wanted you to go there. Didn’t say why.”

  I pulled my cell phone from deep within an inside pocket of my parka.

  Three missed calls. And a text. All from Areetha.

  Gt ln on job 4 u - com ovr fst. Reet

  Areetha lived in the North Town projects, several miles or so west of Arkham Cromwell State Mental Health Center.

  Rhinegold insisted on going with me. Thinking of some of the neighborhoods in between, I couldn’t say no.

  Partway there, I called Areetha and told I was coming, along with a new friend, a dude.

  By then, maybe Rhinegold was my friend. At least, I was used to having him walk with me.

  North Town Apartments were the kind of Section 8 subsidized housing usually called projects, except the buildings were spread out over a lot of blocks, and they were only three stories high. Anybody low income could live in them, not just elderly and disabled.

  Areetha moved in with her Mom five years ago, and nobody wanted her out, even though she was now not only an adult, but even worked a job.

  So lots of dudes hung around. Homeys and drug dealers and some just not working. They shot baskets and played tonk, spades, and poker.

  Sometimes they mouthed off to me, but I kept my head down and mouth closed, and so didn’t challenge their manhoods. Some remembered me coming to see Areetha since I was a kid.

  Rhinegold, just being big, white, and male, would red flags in their faces.

  So Areetha met us at the edge of her neighborhood, and escorted us to her apartment, even though not many people hung around outside, because of the weather. With the ice covering the snow, kids couldn’t even make snowmen or throw snowballs at each other.

  “The protector needs protection,” I told Rhinegold just to tease him, but he ignored me.

  Areetha and I played four-square together when we were in the fourth and fifth grades and were best friends. We went to different schools in the sixth grade. We wound up in some of the same classes in the seventh grade, and haven’t lost contact ever since.

  I’m not sure why. Maybe, now because we’re grown up and neither one of us makes friends easy, we’re more comfortable with each other just because we both remember when it came naturally.

  I felt like an outsider because of Mom and all, and because of the nasty names people called me just because of how I looked. Before I even understood what a dyke in diapers meant.

  Areetha wouldn’t smoke crack, hang around gangstas, or take off her shirt and bra when somebody played Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.” She completed her homework assignments every night and studied hard for tests, while listening to Bach, Beethoven, and Duke Ellington.

  A sophomore at UC, she planned to major in computer science.

  A part of me hated her too, out of jealousy.

  By high school, I had other friends, white and Asian ones, but lost most of them when the shit went down.

  It didn’t just hit the fan, it hit a buzz saw. For me, anyway.

  Areetha stuck by me.

  Just like she was now.

  She worked as a waitress for a vegetarian health food restaurant, The Sunshine Garden, just off the university campus. One of the other women got caught smoking pot on her break, and so they needed to hire someone quickly. Areetha told the manager I was a hard worker, and he was giving me a chance, but I had to report tomorrow morning, so I could be interviewed and trained by the lunch hour rush, or he’d hire someone else.

  “You can stay with me tonight,” Areetha said. “I’ll take you on the way to my first class at nine.”

  We escorted Rhinegold back to the edge of the projects. He insisted on us trading cell phone numbers. To avoid embarrassment, I went along with him.

  Back in Areetha’s bedroom, the door shut to keep out the TV blaring in her mother’s living room, my best friend said, “SeeJai, babe, he’s a hunk, but you need a boyfriend, not a stalker.”

  Chapter Eight

  Georgie and Helena Visit

  The delicate notes of Beethoven�
��s Violin Romance No 2 brightened the dreary atmosphere of the old condemned house, transforming the dusty air with restrained pleasure and serious joy.

  Rhinegold closed his eyes, and absorbed the notes, the late afternoon sweetness, into his soul.

  Georgie, who came over without realizing Rhinegold had another guest, sat on the floor nearby, but shifted his weight a lot. Probably not his favorite kind of music and, like all alcoholics, he didn’t have much patience.

  With boards nailed across the windows, and ice frosting the jagged pieces of glass still remaining within the frames, only a pale milky glow of sunlight penetrated the house’s gloom.

  Helena stood in front of the fireplace, performing for Rhinegold and Georgie.

  Not for the first time, Rhinegold noticed how closely Helena resembled the princess.

  She wore Blue Cult jeans on legs slim and provocative. Smart thinking. A condemned house didn’t treat clothes gently, so wear strong denim, with an upscale brand name to alert those in the know Helena could now afford the best.

  A heavy, lime wool sweater that complemented her upper figure. Long blonde hair tied back so it draped her right shoulder, bouncing as she swayed and twisted to the music.

  Light, tasteful daytime makeup, making her cheeks look rosy not chapped from the cold wind outside or pinched by the heat of the fire.

  Her perfume a strong odor of crispy citrus fruits. Perhaps she intended it to cover the stink of the condemned house.

  She stood perhaps a few inches taller than Keara, probably weighed a few pounds more. They dressed in similar, wealthy, high-class fashionable clothes, favoring similar color schemes. Perhaps because their hair, skin, and eye colors matched.

  If they went out together, strangers would mistake them for sisters—maybe even twins if they dressed alike.

  Despite his intense enjoyment of the music, her visit disturbed Rhinegold. He wanted to speak to Georgie alone, tell the old man the latest news from SeeJai, but Rhinegold learned early in his teens not to talk about one girl—not even just a friend—in front of another girl, even though she too was just a friend.