Bonita Avenue

by Peter Buwalda

  In the hallway he is reminded of a comment of Tineke’s two weeks ago that had taken him aback: “I’m so glad everything we need is on the ground floor,” she had said, “because my knees just about explode every time I climb those stairs.” Maybe they should have a talk about taking drastic measures, a stomach bypass or something, but he’s not sure how to package a suggestion like that.

  Well, it is handy, he thinks as he undresses in their bedroom; it was one of the pleasant surprises of the house: the master bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room all connected. Yes, handy. He shivers from the cold. The curtains are still closed, their bed has been slept in on his side—the idea that his wife sleeps there when he’s gone is not so much moving as poignant, only a step away from pity. With a sigh of relief he undoes his trousers, that junk from McDonald’s has bloated his stomach, he looks at his body in the mirror next to the bathroom door and absently rubs his hand over the tattoo on his chest.

  What if he made a detailed account of it? A few sheets, like a narrative? From the evening in his hotel room in Shanghai, when he first thought he recognized her, to his ransacking Aaron’s house … or maybe further back … He fills one of the washbasins with lukewarm water and uncaps the shaving cream. A confession like this has something ludicrous about it. Since yesterday he’s been troubled by a painful reddish spot on his left nostril, the skin is taut and irritated. Back in high school, when his brother had taken to harassing him with the story of their mother’s deadly boil, he didn’t dare even touch the pimples on his face, let alone eliminate them. But he’s over that now. He places the tips of his middle fingers on his nostril, leans toward the mirror, and squeezes. What is the essence of the situation? The skin around his nostril tightens, changes from red to white, the pain is a pinpointable, promising pain. The point is to make Joni realize it’s not about herself—

  In the upper-right corner of the mirror he sees something move. Focusing close-up blurs his vision at first, he sees only a pink splotch. Someone is standing behind him. The arc of muscles that connects his cold toes, via his buttocks, to his hunched shoulders, freezes. He drags his gaze like a granite block to the upper corner of the mirror. Breathless, he stares into a contorted face.

  “Fucking dog. Time to pay up.”

  As these words explode in his ear canals, the air is filled with a swishing sound. His right side and rib cage are struck by something so hard that it feels white-hot. The object Wilbert wields causes him a stinging pain in his lower body, a pain that easily eclipses the twinge in his nostril. His hands slap downward, he grasps the edge of the washbasin, its seam crackles, the soap dish clatters to the tile floor. He has to hold on with all his might to keep from falling over.

  “You’ve already got undressed.”

  He answers, but has no idea what.

  “Who’d you expect, wanker? Your stepwhore?”

  The second time, the nunchuk hits him numbingly hard in his neck: pain shoots its way to his jaw. (Nunchuk: the overestimated, vulgar weapon he is being assaulted with, two sturdy steel handles connected by a short chain, a double flail that owes its dwindling popularity to Bruce Lee films. Once favored by skinheads with testosterone overload who went to public festivals or football matches looking for a brawl.) As he gasps in pain he sees in the mirror that Wilbert wants to say something. The bastard thinks there’s time for that. He couldn’t be more mistaken. If you only knew who you’re dealing with, asshole, then you wouldn’t stand so close.

  Funny how it works, but he makes all the necessary approximations in the first second. Right after the first slug: a chain of assessments. The distance between him and the doorpost. The relative strengths: his opponent is a fighter and is armed, he himself is relatively well trained, but old and tired—a brief jolt of uncertainty: can he put up a good fight against a violent ex-con in the prime of his life? His vulnerable nakedness might seem like a drawback but, humiliating as it is, it’s also an advantage: he is nearly impossible to grab. The moment: this scumbag wants to fight, he has chosen his exact timing, and that’s now. At the same time he suspects that he’s just woken Wilbert up, when he walked through the hall, that this pig had mussed up the covers of the master bed—a thought that recharges him.

  “Been patient long enough, wanker, it’s payback ti—”

  He pushes himself with a groan from the washbasin, his left leg takes a giant step toward the doorpost, he drags the other one with it, and with his left shoulder lunges like a battering ram against the thickset chest, a firm mass that only grudgingly gives in, but the push is unrelenting. They commence their fall and, programmed as he is, he claws at his adversary’s pant legs, his hands clutch at the loose-fitting cotton around the calves and the knee hollows, grab it low, and straightaway he yanks the bastard’s legs out from under him, lifts him up, it has to be explosive, this is a tried-and-true, brutal technique. As one body they tumble into the dressing room, Wilbert has no time to grab hold of the doorframe, an indivisible moment later the back of his head smacks against the low shoe rack opposite the door, a loud, dry wallop, and again his shoulder drills into the fleshy chest, something cracks, squeaking vocal cords, the smell of alcohol fills his nose.

  They lie there, dazed, both on their backs, he on top of his assailant.

  Then something hard and cold slams against his chin: the chain of the nunchuk, the links chafe his skin. He reflexively tucks his chin to his chest, the metal glides over his stubble, the pain is direct and sharp. The chain slips to his neck, the fingers of his left hand immediately grab the iron chain, his fingertips lodged between the links and his Adam’s apple. Wilbert pants loudly in his left ear, spit dribbles with it; growling, he tugs on the handles, Sigerius’s Adam’s apple is being crushed. He swings his arms backward, hits Wilbert’s shoulder with his elbow, delivers a series of hard pops to the shoulder and upper arm, by now his air is getting cut off, he hawks, blood collects in his buzzing head. He was afraid of this, has been for a long time, from the moment he realized that the kid was out of control, knows no limits—that he is no match for him.

  In a surge of exertion he contracts his stomach muscles, he has the stomach muscles of a gorilla. His knees shoot upward, he throws them back with all his might, the right one lands with a soggy thump in Wilbert’s face, take that, you bastard—the bang is intense, the kid groans, his left hand lets the nunchuk fly, it slaps against Sigerius’s chest with a leaden thud. Sputtering, spitting mucus, he grabs Wilbert’s left arm, clamps both hands on his wrist, and as if in a dream—it’s like he’s dreaming about judo, just as he so often dreams about judo—executes the technique he excelled in long ago, a classic armlock, a juji gatame, words that well up in him like the first and last names of an old friend. In a flash he turns his own body perpendicular to Wilbert’s, throws his left leg over the meaty chest, the right one over his throat and shoulders, contact, control, it is a fluid motion, at right angles to the body, his crotch under the left shoulder blade, a crowbar of muscle. Euphoria: the nominal resistance reminds him that there’s only one judoka here. Wilbert thrashes with the nunchuk, the steel handle whips his thigh, but he hardly notices. The sweaty wrist is locked in the vise-grip of his hands, he forces Wilbert’s arm—a strong, well-trained arm, he feels that all right—across his own stomach and chest, it goes so quickly, a perfectly outstretched, no, overstretched arm; if he wanted to he could bite off the thumb. Not necessary: all he has to do is tighten his back, hollow it just a tad, so that his hard stomach rounds itself under the elbow, and anyone will sing. Wilbert raises his bloodied face, tries to bite his lower leg, kicks wildly against the shoe rack. He removes one hand from the wrist and jerks the head back by the flaxen hair. He tightens his back. Right away Wilbert screams, a fierce cry from the bleeding mouth—yeah, it hurts, he knows it, nobody can stand it, not Geesink, not Ruska, not you. The screaming becomes shrieking, but he feels no sympathy, only deep satisfaction; he hears the joint crack. Or is it pleasure? It is pure gratification. Infinite, sadistic pleasure. “
Sto-o-o-o-o-o-p, sto-o-o-o-oo-p, dirty fucker”—he keeps going, until he passes the point where in the past he stopped hundreds of times, the shrieking becomes inhuman, go on, scream, no one hears you, as if in a dream he crosses the boundary, presses his belly mercilessly far forward, his heels dug deep in the carpet. What he hears is a dull, gruesome crack, wreathed in hoarse screams, bone breaking like a table leg, the elbow breaks completely through, makes an unnatural angle of nearly ninety degrees, the arm loses all its strength, a floppy rag, the sweater sleeve becomes drenched in blood, he feels the warm moisture on his belly, and something sharp, a bone has probably been thrust through the skin.

  “That’s what you get, God damn it,” he screams. First he gives the underarm a furious twist, as though it’s got to come all the way off, then he kicks the screaming marionette away from him. But it springs into action, like a spasming chicken. Wilbert struggles to his haunches, his hideous face is frozen in shock, his mouth is a squashed tomato. He is wailing so loudly the pain must be excruciating, it sounds like tearless crying, putting up any more of a fight seems out of the question. He stares, awestruck, at his ruined elbow, squeezes the splintered joint with his good hand, blood trickles over his fingers.

  “I’m gonna kill you,” he blubbers, but instead of doing so he starts crawling out of the dressing room like a crab. He trips over the leg of a galvanized steel rack holding Tineke’s dresses; accompanied by a loud clatter he rolls around in the glistening fabric, clambers upright, sputtering and panting, and disappears into the bedroom.

  Should he go after him? Sigerius stays lying on his back. A second later, the moaning and groaning echoes through the hall, a thumping, hollow gait. A door slams shut with an angry bang, the living room door—the enemy is there, he is here, flat out on the dressing room carpet.

  For a good few minutes he lies there for dead. The rising and falling of his chest. His teeth chatter, from the exertion, from the stress, from the cold: there’s a sharp nip in the air. The chill bites into his wet body. Then, with a shock, he comes to his senses: the bastard might come back. With a knife. Or a gun. How could he be so stupid as to let him go? He should have held on to him, here, in a headlock. Jesus, he let a psychopath escape from a headlock. “Damn,” he whispers.

  He gets up—everything hurts, his tendons seem shortened by half, he’s covered with welts and blood, his chin is bleeding, the skin’s been chafed off—and walks through the bathroom into the bedroom. What was he supposed to do? Hold on to the bastard until after the holidays? Listening keenly, keeping an eye on the open door leading to the front hall, he dresses as quickly as possible, pulls on his underwear and his pants, grabs a boating sweater from a chair in the corner of the room, his eyes glued on the doorway. He pulls on his socks, wriggles his feet into his shoes. He hears noise in the distance, banging in the living room, like heavy falling objects—what’s that lunatic up to? What should he do? Call the police?

  Regardless of whether he wants to, or whether it’s wise, all the phones are in the living room. His keys too. He could leave via the front door, get himself to safety. He could walk to the campus. Or to the neighbors. But then what? Tell all? He ties his laces without losing sight of the doorway. No. He decides to do nothing for the time being. He crawls onto the bed and gropes around the floor on Tineke’s side. Good, that hockey stick is there after all. Joni’s old stick that Tineke has kept there since he moved to The Hague. But he changes his mind and goes back into the dressing room. The nunchuk is lying on the floor among the shoes scattered around the rack.

  With the weapon in his hand he goes to the bedroom doorway and peers around the black curl of the stairs into the dark abyss of the front hall. There is light at the other end, a yellow glow through the frosted glass. He waits for several minutes. At times he imagines he hears something above his own panting, a soft shuffling, footsteps. He’s taken a pretty fair beating, he’s a purplish blue where the iron handles hit him, his ribs are bruised, maybe broken. He is so cold that he crouches down, as close as possible to the warm floor tiles. He keeps replaying the scuffle, that unreal sensation of the moment he let rip. The convulsing, suffering body of his son underneath him, his smell, the defenselessness of that arm, the snap.

  He can’t stay crouched here forever. Gripping the nunchuk loosely in his hand he tiptoes toward the living room. There is an irregular trail of blood specks on the slate floor. He passes the front door, realizes he’s locked it from the outside: he can’t even get out of the house—well yes, like a thief through a window. He stops at the living room door. With eagle eyes he peers through the thick glass, but sees nothing. Wait a bit longer. Give him time to bugger off, maybe he’s gone already, given in, beaten, cured of his vengeance once and for all—maybe everything will just resolve itself. Maybe he should quit thinking that.

  There is blood on the door handle, he pushes it downward, the sweat that wells up out of his fingers cools off on the cold brass. He gives the door a shove and takes a step back. From the hall he gazes into their living room, once a haven of comfort and security. It is quiet, it exudes warmth. No one is seated in any of the chairs, the sofas are empty. Here and there, flecks glisten: blood. The only place danger could lurk is directly to the right, next to the doorpost. He takes a step forward and lashes out with the nunchuk, the handle smacks against the brickwork, mortar rustles to the floor. Three strides and he’s standing in the middle of the room, he looks around.

  The sheetmetal drawers of the buffet against the far wall have been pulled out and shaken empty—good work for someone with just one arm. The floor is littered with paper, binders of household statements, pens, a hole punch that has spewed out its confetti. He smells the sharp odor of alcohol. The liquor cabinet, on the opposite wall, is open, two splintered bottles lie on the stone floor in their bodily fluids.

  Wilbert could be in the sunroom, or the kitchen. Or in the wine cellar. His cell phones are lying on the coffee table, just where he left them. The house telephone isn’t in its cradle, he doesn’t see it anywhere. If the kid has a weapon, then this is the wrong place to stand: nowhere to take cover, a perfectly illuminated target. But if he does have a gun, why didn’t he use it in the first place?

  “Wilbert?” he calls. His voice sounds murky, unsteady, he clears his throat and waits. The snow beats gently against the windowpanes.

  “Wilbert? I know you can hear me.” Without any forethought he has just started talking. How deep is his conviction that words are preferable to physical force? How naïve is that conviction? “If you’re still here,” his voice echoes, “then I know you’re listening. You don’t have to say anything. Just listen to me. I don’t have that money. It’s back in the bank. But listen. If it’s about money”—he is out of breath, the tension is getting the better of him. He swallows, pauses.

  “If it’s really about money,” he says, “then we should talk. Man to man. We’ve already fought. I’m done fighting, believe me.”

  The silence is consummate. His brain produces primal screams and gunshots, but the silence persists.

  “We shouldn’t fight, Wilbert. We should talk. About you, about the future. Wilbert?”

  To show he really means it, he crouches down and slides the nunchuk away from him across the floor, a meter, it’s a halfhearted gesture, entirely improvised. He raises his empty hands to chest level, palms facing the dark hole of the sunroom.

  “Wilbert. I’ve been thinking about you. Maybe you don’t believe me, but it’s true. Not just now, no, but for the past few years. What am I saying—I’ve thought about you from the very beginning. Do you hear me?”

  He stops talking. This is pathetic. It’s too late.

  And still he continues: “I know you hold a grudge against me, I know that. But it goes both ways. I also blame you. But listen, we’re still young, both of us. But you, you’re really young. I’ve realized that. When I was your age, Wilbert, you hadn’t even been born yet.”

  This is not entirely true, and he wonders if what
he wants to say is in fact true. It feels like he’s onstage, he’s observing himself from a box seat, and what he sees is a mediocre actor, a man standing there trying to save his own skin with untruthful, poorly rehearsed lines. And yet he means every word of it.

  “It’s not a lost cause, in fact nothing’s been lost. You’re a free man, and I am your father. Wilbert. All I want is for you to go out there and lead a normal life. And I want to help. Do you hear me? Let’s just consider this … altercation as us having hit bottom. We’ve hit rock bottom. Let’s—”

  At that moment the telephone rings. The electronic chirp of the landline gives him such a jolt that his heart nearly stops. The ring begins in the empty cradle and reverberates as an echo from the kitchen—the cordless handset. Is he in there too? The electronic melody goes on forever. Is he standing there holding the thing? The answering machine clicks into action, the speaker is turned on as always, they’ve never been able to figure out why. He hears his own low, strange, self-satisfied voice recite their names and ask the caller to leave a message. The beep, and then his wife:

  “Hi honey, how are you? I thought I’d just phone to wish you a good trip tomorrow … but I guess you’re already in bed. You’re bushed, I’ll bet. I hope you get a good night’s sleep and feel rested tomorrow in the car. Now, um … everything’s fine here, there’s a good layer of snow. Hans and Ria got here yesterday, we’re having a ball. We miss you! Well … See you tomorrow. Make yourself a hot-water bottle. It’s colder up there than here, Hans says. Bye, sweetheart. Drive safely.” When she hangs up it sounds like a slap to his ear; a nervous busy signal echoes through the living room.

  Unease creeps over him, his wife’s voice has sobered him up, the intimacy of her message, but most of all her voice: the familiarity, the soothing tone, and at the same time her ignorance of his woes: everything underscores the insanity of the evening, his inane drivel in the darkness, the crack of Wilbert’s elbow. Tineke’s voice versus that crack.