How to Disappear

by Ann Redisch Stampler

  I say, “How about this? I lose it when people come at me with things that look like they could hurt me.” I feel like a dog rolling over and showing his throat in submission.

  “It was a fork.”

  “Do you think I’d embarrass myself like this if it weren’t true?”

  Her eyes are angry slits. “Are you sure it’s not, some girl pushes you over and you have to prove what a big strong jerk you are?”

  “I swear. Push me again, and nothing will happen. Kick me, and I’ll stand there.”

  “Fine.” She drops her pack onto the floor and storms over, stands facing me, a head shorter. There are blond roots growing out on the top of her head. Then she lands a kick on the middle of my shin, swift and well-placed.

  I force my hands flat, my fingers extended, no fists, and I don’t respond.

  “Fine.” She does it again.

  She seems to be winding up for another assault. My eyes are tearing, and however bad holding her down was, I can’t let her go for it.

  I put my hand on her shoulder. At least she doesn’t flinch at my touch. I say, “Twice was enough.”

  “Are you ordering me?”

  “I’m telling you.”

  She’s rubbing her wrists together. I left marks on her wrists. There’s a wave of nausea so powerful, I have to sit, buckled over, forcing down the glop that chokes my mouth.

  “Maybe you should go.”

  She straddles a kitchen chair, facing me over the back. “Don’t have to. I made my point. And I got to watch you control yourself. Which was quite the spectacle. I want my Nutella sandwich.”

  It’s starting to feel as if all my buttons are lined up on the coffee table, screaming Push me, and she’s obliging. I’m close to pitching over the edge for the second time in ten minutes.

  “Now can we get something to drink?” I say.

  There’s no excuse for this. I’ve lost control and I’m on the verge of losing more control, I have no plan, and I decide it would be good to drink a shitload of alcohol? Think, Jack.

  But I don’t want to think.

  I have never in my life wanted to be drunk this much. Drunk, stoned, or punched in the face—any one of those would do it.

  40

  Cat

  On the bright side, if anyone comes at me when I’m next to him, he’ll probably break them in half.

  On the dark side, what happens if you pat his cheek too fast? He shatters your wrist?

  I squirt a bunch of his chocolate sauce into my mouth right out of the squeeze bottle. This makes him seriously annoyed, but he tries not to let on. Ha. I drip it onto my tongue and stare straight at him.

  I say, “If you ever do that again, I’ll cut important parts off you. You get that, right?”

  “Got it. On a not-joke note, I’m sorry. I’m not saying it to look good.”

  “That wasn’t a joke. And it doesn’t make you look good.”

  There. I’ve made him turn white.

  He says, “Jesus.” He might be praying I don’t cut him up.

  “Plus, I’m leaving. Go play with a two-hundred-pound guy who likes to wrestle.”

  “Feel free to take the fudge sauce.”

  “I’ll have more fun sitting at home imagining you trying to sterilize the nozzle without getting soap in the chocolate.”

  He sits down on his sofa, laughing.

  I want to sit down next to him, but having some tiny shred of impulse control, I don’t.

  He says, “Let me get you a beer. Think how much easier it will be for you to cut me after I knock back a few.”

  It’s going to sound like I’m a stupid pushover girl. The kind who lets guys smack her around if they cry and give her candy and say sorry. But I’m not. I’m more like a girl taking pity on a guy who feels like a prize moron for losing it over an incoming dessert fork.

  It’s going to sound like I’ve completely given up on personal safety and all of the rules of survival. Yet again.

  This would be correct.

  41

  Jack

  I’m driving a dirt-encrusted Prius with eighty-five thousand miles on it, and it looks it. I bought it unwashed, and I haven’t remedied the situation. I can’t say what I’ll find under the dirt, apart from knowing that whatever shade of charcoal gray it turns out to be, it’ll be less conspicuous than Don’s red shitmobile.

  Nicolette walks all the way around it. “Are you sure this is your car? If you didn’t just do that, I’d be totally nice. I wouldn’t mention the existence of soap.”

  “If I weren’t such a spectacle of self-control, I’d tell you to zip it. If you want to go somewhere that’s not teeming with frat boys, you’d better get in.”

  “How do you know I don’t love and adore frat boys?”

  I open her door, realizing that the passenger side handle is sticky.

  “I was flattering you. I was assuming that if you wanted to be with a frat guy, you’d be with a frat guy.”

  She climbs into the front seat, stows her pack in the backseat, and wriggles. “Do uncomfortable seats save energy, or do tree huggers just like to suffer?”

  “We like to make our passengers suffer. And where I come from, they have more cacti than trees.” This is a slip but not a grievous one. I say, “Arizona,” and hope she hasn’t been there.

  “I’d say something mean about hugging and cactus and what you deserve, but it’s almost cheating to slug that slow a pitch.”

  “You’re not a very forgiving girl, are you?”

  “Excuse me!” she says. I’m getting used to her punches on the arm. “I’m totally forgiving. But people have to pay. Then I’m forgiving.”

  She shuts her own door and lets me lock the car from the driver’s seat, not even checking to see if she can get herself out. I’m still thinking, Don’t. Don’t get into cars with strangers. Don’t take Nutella sandwiches from strange men. Don’t go to bars with Manxes. Which is some heavy-duty sexist shit but applicable under the circumstances.

  She puts the bottoms of her sandals up against the glove compartment.

  She says, “Just so I don’t feel like Miss Bad Judgment out drinking with a guy who loses it over tiny forks, you want to tell me why?” There’s a long pause, when she touches my arm very lightly, just where the sleeve of my T-shirt ends, her favorite spot to sock. “Just tell me. If that had been a three-pronged serving fork, would I be dead?”

  Yes. No. Maybe. I’m not in a good frame of mind. I can hear Don coaching: End her.

  She says, “Tell me what’s wrong.” These are maybe my least favorite words from a girl’s mouth, any girl, under ordinary circumstances. This is worse.

  “I wish I hadn’t explained.” I more mutter this than say it. “Clearly the wrong path in the yellow wood.”

  “Not poetry! First you impersonate King Kong, and then you give me poetry?”

  “Sorry.”

  She closes her eyes. I want to tell her to keep them wide open. “You don’t get to hold girls down and quote poems. Worst of both worlds. Brute butthead who tries to intimidate girls or deeply sensitive butthead who likes poems. You have to pick one or the other.”

  “Thanks. I’ll remember that next time.”

  “You’re welcome.” She looks up through her bangs. “And don’t even think next time. No next time.”

  “Sorry.” She certainly provides ample opportunities to apologize. I’m rubbing my shin under the dashboard. I’m driving along waiting to be forgiven by the girl who cut Connie Marino.

  42

  Cat

  When you drive inland from El Molino off the interstate, you hit Crothers. Beyond that, Los Arroyos. Meaning creeks. Except there aren’t any. We drive over a gully on a wooden bridge, but there’s no water in there.

  We pass a 7-Eleven, a gas station, and a feed store.

  I say, “Not to complain about the field trip, but aren’t we getting kind of far from civilization?”

  J drives exactly at speed limit. When it says to go twen
ty-five around curves, we go twenty-five. When a sign shows a family of cows in the road, he slows down in case there’s a parade of heifers just around the bend.

  He says, “There’s a bar down the road where they’re not picky about ID.”

  This bar would be a shack if it was made of wood, but it’s concrete. The only light is a flashing red-and-blue neon sign. Fifty motorcycles parked in front. Guys with club jackets hanging outside the door. Women far more trampy than Cat will ever be glued to them.

  I mean, get a room.

  I’m sitting in the front seat, facing karmic justice. The Circle of Life. What goes around comes around. I knew I shouldn’t tell Luna my biker boyfriend beat me up. Also, it occurs to me that while I’m a killer beer-pong player, I’ve never been in a bar. Not a real bar.

  Not the scary kind of bar with bikers swarming it.

  J opens my door, very old school. He says, “You don’t like it? We could go somewhere else.”

  “Like the feed store?”

  He wants old school, fine. I take his arm.

  If this happened in a movie, you’d be chomping on your popcorn and moaning, Oh, HELL no.

  43

  Jack

  I know this place from when I wanted a beer, and the checker at Ralph’s in El Molino looked from Gerhard’s license to my face and said no. I wanted the beer. The candidate most likely to ignore drinking age was a biker bar. This worked a couple of times in Nevada. Twenty miles out of El Molino, you can take your pick.

  But last time it was morning and easy to drive up to the emptiest one.

  In the almost darkness of the gravel parking lot, the idea of approaching the cinder block building with Nicolette on my arm seems like less of a plan.

  When I lean down to open her door, there’s a chill along my spine, fighting the hot night air. I’m not sure if this is the kind of cue reasonable people know not to ignore or me turning into a wuss who buys shots for his prey.

  She swings her pack over her shoulder.

  There are guys standing outside the door, lighting up, girls sticking to them, the acrid smell of weed in the air. There’s a blast of music and shouting every time the door to the bar opens and people fall in or out.

  I say, “This might not be the right place.”

  She leans against the car, arching her back. “Without a Harley, you mean? Or without biker mama arm candy?” She unbuttons her massive shirt, and I’m staring down a tank top. She says, “It’s hot out. Do you mind?”

  I force my eyes up to her face, her chin tilted back, her hair curling around the edges of her forehead.

  She puts her hand on my arm, grasping it. I’m acutely aware of where we are, where I’ve brought her, and how stupid this is.

  I say, “Let’s get out of here.”

  She wriggles all the way out of the shirt until she’s all bra straps and tank top and skin.

  “Just trying to fit in,” she says.

  I can’t tell if she’s making the best of a shit date or teasing.

  “You come here a lot?” she asks, not waiting for an answer. “Not that a lot of bikers in zero-cylinder electric cars don’t come here.”

  “Get back in the car! And it’s a hybrid, not electric.”

  She resists, and after what happened in my apartment, I’m not about to exert any physical pressure, not even to hold her hand tightly.

  She nods toward the side of the bar, where it’s pitch-black shadow, the back of the place verging on dark bleak empty farmland and the creek bed that winds through the town. “Or we could go over there and get high on fumes.”

  “No, we’re leaving.”

  She yanks on my arm. “That was a joke! Don’t be so master-of-the-universe!”

  “You stop undressing at a biker bar! Get in the car!”

  A sloppy drunk guy heading to a pickup says, “This little shit bothering you, miss?”

  We say no simultaneously.

  He seems to be turning back toward his truck, but he’s just swiveling wide toward us, straight on.

  I hold out my arm like a crossing guard.

  She says, “I’m fine. We were just going.”

  “This boy pressuring you? You said no and he don’t get it?”

  I say, “She’s fine! Back off.”

  He keeps coming. You could light his breath on fire.

  She says, “Oooookay, look, I’m getting in the car. Everything’s fine. Don’t turn this into a B-movie, all right?” I’m not sure if she’s saying this to him or to me.

  He says, “You’re fine. You’re a little movie star.” Still coming.

  One chop to the neck right now, and he won’t be bothering girls again for a while. But he just seems like a drunk asshole, not a threat.

  She says, “Oh crap,” and pulls on the door handle. Things turn instantly. All of a sudden we’ve got the Prius behind us and this guy advancing on us.

  He reaches out for her, and without any thought, I land a punch on the side of his face, swivel his head. It should be enough to knock over a drunk guy, but it’s not.

  I assessed my target, but I assessed wrong.

  He’s grabbing for her, tearing at my shirt to reach her, pushing me down to get to her. I land an uppercut to his chin, then I go for his eyes. But he’s fast, and I’m paying too much attention to where she is. He’s got hold of my belt; he kicks the outside of my knee. I’m in the gravel, and he’s pounding my face. I’m in that state of combat where nothing hurts too much for you to keep going, or even distracts you.

  I tell her to run, but she’s frozen against the Prius, rifling through her pack, which, unless she’s got a bazooka in there, isn’t going to do us much good.

  “Will you run?”

  I dig an elbow into the gravel and push the drunk guy with my other shoulder, unbalance him, roll on top, go for a knockout punch. Blood pours out of his nose, and then there’s a knife: his knife. The blade is curved and moving fast.

  I remember mine, lying useless in the trunk. This is a bloodbath of poor calculation. I go for the hand with the knife, throw my weight into getting it down and keeping it down. Because this guy can’t get up. He’s not getting to her. If he stabs me and I die, he takes her—not on my watch. His arm is bent, the blade’s six inches from my face. My left hand versus his right arm, and every molecule of energy in every cell of every muscle in my body is pushing him down, pushing a lead oar through a river of molten lead. I’m not dying in a parking lot, not adding myself to the Manx legacy’s body count.

  My endorphins open up, or maybe it’s rage, but I’ve got his hand down, still clutching his knife. I’m going for the game-changing punch when whatever she’s got in her fist sails past me, a slight fast glint, and through his arm.

  He howls as she withdraws the spike, and his hand opens. I chop his face where I can break the most things—cartilage, nose, bones, skin—all to the rhythm of a blast of music from the bar.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Ice pick. Come on.”

  44

  Cat

  I stabbed a drunk guy in a parking lot.

  The ice pick slid through his forearm like a skewer spearing shish kebab.

  Most of the blood came from his nose.

  J was pounding him into the gravel. Smashing his face with pinpoint accuracy. J’s mouth is torn up. Two black eyes forming.

  Would you, could you, can you, did you?

  Yes to all of the above.

  Try leading the life of a fugitive sometime. Those Sunday School questions just keep coming. Would you stab a drunk guy through the heart to save your boyfriend in a bar fight? And he’s not even my boyfriend. And we weren’t even in the bar.

  But yes. Obviously. I would. If it had been just me, alone in the dark with a guy with a hunting knife, one of us would be dead.

  Probably not me.

  That guy’s lucky he jerked to the right when my arm was coming down. Because I wasn’t aiming for his arm. He’s lucky J grabbed my wrist when the ice pick was comi
ng down the second time.

  So no regrets beyond the fact that I need to barricade myself in Mrs. P’s house and marathon-watch the Home Shopping Network with her until I figure this out. Until there’s zero possibility that what we did will blow up in our faces.

  J says, “How’re you doing?”

  I’m crying, and there’s an ice pick in my lap.

  I say, “How are you doing?”

  J isn’t crying, he’s bleeding. I blot his face with my shirt, but he keeps looking at the road. Like a robot packed with lifelike spurting blood.

  He pulls out of the lot as if nothing happened. Windows open, but I don’t hear anyone sounding alarms. Then there’s shouting.

  At least there’s no dead guy. Probably.

  I think he’s still breathing when we peel out. The J version of peeling out. Perfect driving until he thinks someone is after us. Then it’s NASCAR.

  Before that, he was pounding that guy like he’s used to pounding guys. Only he’s not acting that way now.

  He pulls off at an exit just east of El Molino, idles behind a gas station that’s closed for the night. Kills the lights.

  I say, “Sorry.”

  “She apologizes. Jesus weeps.”

  “Don’t get sarcastic about Jesus! I’m just saying, I should have gotten back in the car. Duh. All right? And that was self-defense.”

  “Do you want to tell that to the police, or should I?”

  “You get really sarcastic when you’re upset. Did anybody ever tell you that?”

  He takes several deep breaths. “You have to get rid of that ice pick.”

  “I’ll clean it off and stick it in the kitchen drawer.”

  “Blood doesn’t clean off.”

  “I watch CSI, all right? First I’ll dip it in bleach, then I’ll use it to pry open a couple of cans and stick it in the kitchen drawer.” This feels completely unreal. Except it is real. “He wasn’t dead, right?”

  J shakes his head.

  I say, “Stop looking at me like that! This isn’t my fault or your fault. It’s that guy’s fault. I hope he’s dead.”