by Nancy Adams
“I’m not. It was a douchebag move, I’m not denying that. But you should both talk.”
“No, not now. I don't want to hear this now.”
“Okay, okay,” Dad said, putting his hands up in a show of mercy.
We left it at that and both entered the office, where we took the engineer’s statement and then decided that he should be present when the city came to examine the building. This took until six in the evening, and, afterward, I decided to stay on with Karl and some of the others in trawling through more evidence to see what else we could force the City’s inspectors to have a look at. As we were going to miss dinner, we all ordered pizza and gorged on this while we went through the paperwork under the electric lights of the office.
“You see here,” Karl pointed out as he went through the City Ordinance Law book. “I just read that if more than fifty percent of the residents agree, then it is perfectly okay for the inspectors to be recorded during their examination of their premises. That means we can video them the whole time.”
“It’s a foregone conclusion that the residents will agree,” Sue Reynolds stated as she looked up from the Miller Building ordinance log. “What about having our own independent experts alongside them? I was thinking that Langley’s defense could make a complaint about it, state that it interferes with the inspectors.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” Karl put back. “It states here under statute thirty-seven of the City Code, that if more than half of all residents state that they wish to have the inspection supervised this is to be allowed.”
“We’ve so got them,” I said joyfully, my work once again holding me above the poisonous sea of other thoughts.
Later that night, everyone left after a hard day’s work, and it was up to Karl and me to lock up the offices. As we did, he asked if we could talk, and I agreed. He’d been so sensitive that day and it had been like old times. My father had obviously informed him that something had happened between me and Josh, though I was sure that he’d been prudent enough to leave out the details.
We sat opposite each other at one of the desks.
“Firstly, I want to say,” he began in an earnest voice, “that I’m real sorry for your hurt. I can see how much you love him.”
“Please, Karl,” I entreated weakly.
“No, it’s okay. I’m not gonna weigh you down with ‘I told you so’s. I’m just concerned as a friend. I hope you don’t think I’d be such an asshole as to rub your face it in. Not that I know anything anyway,” he felt the need to add. “I only want to know if there’s anything you need; a shoulder to cry on, a friend to talk to. Because after everything—and I know I haven’t been the best lately. But after everything, I would hope that you’d still consider me your friend.”
“Oh, Karl,” I let out gently, wiping a tear from my eye.
“Because you do love him, don't you? A lot.”
“Yes,” I wept.
“I see it in you. Every day I watch you open your lunch, pull out one of his messages and your face light up with smiles. And I’ll admit it makes me jealous. But if I were half the man I’ve always tried to be, then I would at least respect that love. You know, I hope that there’s nothing he’s done that can't be resolved.”
“I think it is,” I had to admit tearily.
“Do you mind if I ask what it was he did?”
“He cheated on me.”
Karl sighed and his face looked genuinely hurt for me in that moment.
“I kinda guessed that,” he said softly. “Just the once or repeatedly?”
“Just the once, after a fight we had.”
“And he only slept with this person once?”
“Yes. But is that the point? He should never have even kissed another.”
“No, you're completely right on that. He shouldn't have. He should have known what he had and not soiled it, cherished it like any man worth their salt would. I’m sorry.”
We were silent a little while after that, Karl handing me a tissue to mop up my tears.
“Did he confess it?” he inquired.
“He was going to, apparently. But the girl got to me first. Sent me a…Sent me a…”
But I couldn't say it, the images of the video still clinging to my brain like toxic smoke.
“She sounds vindictive,” Karl remarked.
“Oh, she was. Very.”
“Look, I’ll admit I’m not Josh Kelly’s biggest fan, but your father told me that he’s very repentant. Is there any way you can learn to trust him again?”
“I really don’t know that, Karl. How can I after what he did? Plus, it’s in his nature. He’s always been promiscuous. I wanted our love to be more pure, wanted him to prove himself to me. And all he did was prove that he’s still a beast. Men like him don't change.”
“Your father did,” Karl remarked suddenly, catching me off guard.
“How do you know about that?”
“I’ve been a close friend to your father for seven years. Although he may have kept his past largely a secret from you girls in order to protect you, he’s still needed a friendly ear to tell it to in that time.”
“He told you everything?”
“Not the details; I sense your father is still too horrified by his actions to go into that. But he did tell me that he was a serial cheat and that he took terrible risks that ultimately hurt his family. You know he blames himself completely for your mother’s alcoholism and eventual death?”
“Yes. I believe so.”
“Anyway, my point is that your father changed. Look around you; he didn't have to build this when he lost everything, did he? He could have just given up completely, shrugged his shoulders and slipped into alcoholism or worse. But he didn’t. He wanted to build something for his daughters, build something they could be proud of, build something for the people he’d dismissed his whole life. Your father is the epitome of the possibility of redemption in the human soul. Most don’t take it, but if you believe that Josh is capable of redemption, like your father, then shouldn’t you give him another chance?”
I sat stunned by his outward support for Josh. And stunned by the tenderness of his words. I leaned my hand across the desk and he took it warmly, his words still taking effect in my head.
JOSH
That night I went to work under a violent thundercloud. In the past two days since she’d been gone, I hadn’t really slept, and had spent most of the time pacing the lounge, my mind tearing itself apart. It felt like drinking poison and eating glass, nothing sating my self-hatred for what I’d brought upon myself. I’d gone so far as to buy several bottles of vodka from the local store, and, when I wasn’t otherwise pacing, I was spending my time drinking in the dark, staring into the great abyss that had suddenly become my life. A terrible wilderness of space had flooded me, and the vodka helped fill it. Well, partially anyway.
Now, however, it was Monday night and I was going to have to enter that den that was the warehouse, with its shitty work and its shitty Stan. I walked into the changing room and said not one word of acknowledgement to my fellow workers as I got dressed into my overalls.
“Hey, man, what’s wrong?” Leroy had asked.
“Woman troubles,” I’d answered in a gruff tone.
“Oh! It’s like that. Then fella I’m gonna leave your ass alone for the night. Because every motherfucker knows a man’s shit is a man’s shit, especially when it concerns bitches.”
True to his word, he’d left off with his rants for the night, choosing to chew the ears off of other people instead. I, for my part, continued with my laconic state, unloading one truck and sitting morosely as the next one came reversing into the bay. It was as I sat on some pallets after our fourth or fifth trailer that I heard the familiar snarl of Stan in the background. Behind me, he was ridiculing Sergei for stacking an earlier pallet too high so that it had apparently toppled over in the chiller. It was no biggy, happened all the time, and merely meant five minutes restocking the pallet. But Sta
n was letting fly at the poor little guy, even though he knew Sergei understood very little English.
“You fucking red son-of-bitch,” his tirade went. “You fucking no good Slav. Your babushka should have drowned you at birth. You got any brains in that dumb fucking head of yours, or is it filled with shit? How many times I tell you to stack the fucking thing no more than eight feet? You should’ve stayed in the Soviet fucking Union, you Rusky piece of shit.”
All Sergei had to say to this was a meek sorry.
Stan’s snarling tongue bit into my ears and I couldn't help but glance over my shoulder at the scene. He was towering over the top of the poor guy, Sergei’s back pushed up into a stack of pallets. I couldn't help it. I really couldn’t. I got up and marched over to them. In the corner of his eye, Stan noticed my approach and swiveled his grisly neck, so that he was looking straight at me.
“Why don’t you leave off him?” I asked in a bold voice.
“You fucking what?” Stan growled.
Seeing this, several of the other workers on the bay stopped what they were doing and looked over.
“I said why don't you leave off him,” I repeated. “The pallet was stacked no more than six feet. Maybe if you didn’t drive that forklift so fast it wouldn't have toppled over. Or maybe if you left off the drink you’d be able to see what you were fucking doing and not knock over pallets.”
Stan blinked his eyes several times, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I’m sure if he could have blinked his ears too, he would have.
“And another thing,” I continued. “The Soviet Union ended over twenty-five years ago, but I wouldn’t expect a fucking mook like you to know shit about anything other than driving a fucking forklift, being a miserable drunk and beating your old lady.”
“Oh, shit!” I heard ring out among my fellow workers.
Stan bolted his eyes at them and snarled, “Get back to fucking work, you bastards.” He turned his evil eyes back on me, the vein in his neck throbbing, and booming, “You fucking rich boy piece of shit.” Then, as if he’d forgotten already that he’d told them to go back to work, he announced to everyone in a loud voice that carried all the way along the bay, “You see this little pencil dick here? Do you all know who he is?”
There was a general shrug.
“This here is Andrew Kelly’s boy. That’s right, Andrew Kelly the multi-billionaire. Heck, he owns half this fucking dock, and here’s his boy taking you all for mugs by working here.” It wasn’t just Stan’s eyes that held me now, everyone turned to me. “This boy grew up in castles while all youse grew up in a fucking sty,” Stan went on. “Men like his daddy fuck men like your daddies every day. And I want all youse to know that you can go to town on this piece of shit free of charge.”
The great and powerful red mist cast itself over me and I saw the blood fill my eyes as I ran toward him. The big guy, at least two inches taller than me, opened up his arms in expectation, but he never supposed the power with which my body, colossal in itself, would hit him. He let out a groan as I struck him with my shoulder, wrapping my arms around him, sending him back into the pallets with a thud, Sergei diving out of the way as we came crashing by. I winded him for a second, but before I could maneuver myself up, he rained his two hammer fists down on my back and I felt them ricochet through my body, my own wind being knocked from me. Any man would have given up with such a strike, another one coming quickly after the first, my back jarring with each blow, but I was mad angry. Everything from the past month came together at once: my father throwing me penniless onto the street, Holman sending me across the floor, my college fees being taken away, my friends drugging me, my betrayal of Sarah, and Amy’s subsequent cruelty. All of it came flooding out and I beat my way up through his blows until I had the room to swing a punch into his ribs. He took it with another groan, opening his body up so that I could swing some more in, left and right, giving his ribs everything I had. His big hands grabbed me by the back of the overalls and he managed to throw me off. But I soon got my balance back after stumbling a few steps, people now gathering around us, some of them shouting for us to stop, others watching with open glee to see which one out of the rich boy or the asshole boss would take a licking.
He came at me with all his fury, throwing one punch after another. All I could do was block and dodge, weaving in and out of his powerful but slow fists, letting him tire himself out, he the bull, me the matador. Eventually, I weaved around him and he fell slightly forward on himself, dragged on by the force of an attempted blow. I used this opportunity to kick his legs out from underneath him and he sailed face first into the deck. Once he was on his belly, I pounced at him, no one doing anything to stop me, grabbing ahold of the back of his overalls and flipping him over. He tried to get back to his feet, but I let out with a furious kick that caught him under the jaw and sent him onto his back. The moment he was, I jumped on him and pinned him down, taking ahold of the scruff of his shirt and smashing him in the teeth with the other fist. His hands came up and he tried to push me off, but there was a weakness in him now, a weakness that told me he was beat, and despite his hands snatching at me, I continued to smash him in the face repeatedly, more blood spurting from it.
That was when I was grabbed from behind by several people. I turned to fight them, easily ripping myself out of their grip once I was upright. But when I saw who was among them, I saw the friendly face of Leroy.
“Hey, man,” he said, raising his hands a little to the air. “Be cool.”
I was breathing like a wolf after the kill, when it’s still full of the fight and on edge.
“I just don't wanna see no one going to jail for a long time over this shit,” he went on. “If I were you, J, I’d probably get the fuck outta here now. Before he come to his senses and call the cops.”
“Yeah,” I panted. “I should probably leave. I guess it’s safe to say I’m fired.”
“I think it is,” Leroy agreed with a gentle smile. “It’s been good knowing you.”
“You too.”
We bumped fists, and, while the battered Stan gradually picked himself up, I was given a standing ovation as I left the loading bay. I guess they’d waited a long time to see the day when their boss got his comeuppance. I wasn’t proud of myself for losing it, but a little voice inside told me that somewhere down the line that prick deserved the beating I gave him that day.
Feeling more torn than ever, I got out of there, and before long I was walking along the harbor streets away from the warehouse, down a corridor of barbed-wire fencing and electric street lamps, hoping that I wouldn't encounter any squad cars coming my way. The harbor police would probably be my first bet, and I was sure that the second Stan was sentient enough, he’d be up in his office making the call. I had at least a half hour’s walk till I was outside the main harbor gate and could disappear into the safety of the surrounding streets. Here, enclosed by ten-foot fences with razor wire looped along their tops and warehouse gates with security, I had nowhere to run.
It was about ten minutes into my walk when the lights of a parked car I’d just passed lit up behind me and the car pulled out onto the road. Nothing dubious about that, I thought, so I carried on walking, not bothering to turn around. However, it soon became apparent that the car was following me slowly and I felt inclined to turn. That was when I saw the sneering mug of Terry hanging out the driver’s window.
“Hey, Josh,” he cried out.
“Fuck!” I muttered as I stopped on the sidewalk.
“I knew it was you.”
“How come you’re at the harbor?” I asked him. “I don't think they got titty-bars and card games here.”
“Ha! There’s that old Josh Kelly wit. It’s so good to hear it again after so long.”
“What do you want?”
He accelerated so that he came right past and parked up alongside the sidewalk a little further ahead. Both doors swung open and I saw Kane emerging from the passenger side.
“We
feel real bad about the shit between us,” Kane said when I reached them.
“We only wanna talk it out,” Terry added, giving me a friendly-ish look.
“So you been waiting for me then?”
“All night,” Kane put. “We would’ve called or messaged you, but we have neither your phone number and you blocked us on Facebook. So this is the only way we can express to you our deepest and sincerest apologies for the whole spiking thing.”
“Really!?”
“Yeah.”
“But we can’t do it here,” Terry stated. “We should have some drinks. So how about you get in the car. We promise not to bite.”
“Or spike!” Kane added.
I chewed my lip a little. Were they sincere? I wasn't sure. Recently, I had felt a little ashamed of my actions toward them, the whole pinning Terry down and threatening Kane thing. Plus, I really did fancy a drink after my shit with Stan, and perhaps at the bar I could apologize properly to the both of them, get them to see sense if they still wanted to beat me up, or whatever it was that they wished to do. Then I saw the flashing lights of a distant cop car coming toward us and my mind was decided for sure.
“Fuck it!” I muttered and stepped toward the car, Terry flipping the seat forward so that I could slip into the back.
When I came under the streetlamp shining down onto of the car, Terry exclaimed, “Shit, son! You been fighting?”
“I just had a fight with my boss. Why do I look bad?”
“You got blood on your face.”
I bent down to take a quick look at myself in the wing mirror, the cops still some distance away. Sure enough, spurts of Stan’s blood covered my face, and when I checked myself, I found no source.
“It’s cool,” I said, getting into the car. “It’s his, not mine.”
The two of them got back in the motor and we drove away, the cops passing in the other direction and ignoring us. They put the stereo on, filling the car with loud hip-hop, and I gazed out of the window as we drove along dark roads, emerging out of the razor-wire harbor and into the jagged lines of city streets, half the street lamps out, rows of boarded-up buildings, hustlers and prostitutes lining the curbs, scantily clad women crowded round the intersections, working under the cherry stop lights and striding up to the window as we waited in traffic. I looked on it all with complete disinterest and didn't even worry myself as to what Terry and Kane had in store for me. I just let them drive, whatever may come.