by Adam Knight
My head nodded. I no longer trusted my voice or the words that wanted to babble out of my mouth. I’m not a babbler. I take churlish pride in my stoicism. But the consideration Tamara showed me and the gentle touch she gave nearly opened a floodgate of words that I might never have closed again.
So I sipped more water, reveled in the sensation it provided while washing away my agony.
And said nothing.
Tamara was astonishingly patient with me all things considered. I had only woken her from a dead sleep in the middle of a stormy night and invited myself into her tiny apartment after the worst shit-kicking of my life.
Somehow she’d convinced me to take my shirt off and allow her to wash at my cuts and abrasions with a cool cloth. It took a lot of trips to the sink and back to get most of them clean. The peroxide stung deeply on the cuts in my lower lip and under my eye, but the ones elsewhere weren’t too bad.
I kept sipping water. My headache finally starting to recede. Distantly I could feel the faintest hint of a rumbling in my belly. It was almost a relief to know that my recently ravenous ways hadn’t disappeared completely.
Gentle fingers pressed firmly on both sides of my head and tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet her eyes. Tamara had somehow found a moment to get changed, adding a pair of yoga pants to her attire and robbing me the chance to ogle her well sculpted legs. Not that I had much of that on my mind but still. Her glasses were in their usual place and she’d found time to get her hair in some semblance of order.
Before this moment I’d never thought about how young she looked. Maybe because it would’ve reminded me about how old I was.
“What?” she asked quietly, tilting her head.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
Tamara’s lips smiled slightly though it didn’t reach her eyes. Though her thumbs rubbed at my cheekbones gently in response. Soothingly and painfully; I’m pretty sure I had some deep tissue bruising that hadn’t risen to the surface yet. Obviously it was the pain that made the tears well up in my eyes.
Couldn’t have been anything else.
“What happened, Joe?”
So I told her.
I told her everything.
Picking Cathy up at the station. The gang house in the North End. Keimac Cleghorn’s crew. Disposing of firearms. Confronting Aaron. Confronting Parise.
“Next thing I know,” my voice had begun to get hoarse again so I paused to finish my mug of water. Tamara had removed her hands from my face and had taken a seat directly in front of me at the only other chair in her tiny kitchen. Her expression was calm but rapt with attention. “Next thing I know I’m laying face down on a bench in Central Park during a rainstorm. I’m soaked, I’m in agony and I didn’t know where else to go.”
Tamara said nothing for a long moment. Her expression remained calm, reserved.
But apparently I wasn’t done talking.
“I couldn’t go to the hospital.” My chin fell to my chest again and I shuddered, remembering Parise’s cold and precise voice. “I was warned. Police scanners get reports all the time of assault victims staggering in. Even when they don’t press charges, the cops get a flag … A notice ... Something. I don’t know.”
Tamara said nothing.
“Anyway. They told me. They told me I couldn’t go. ‘Cause if I did ….”
Accidents happen all the time, mon ami. A shame it would be if some pyromaniac was loose in your neighborhood, eh? How many people could be hurt by such a person, setting houses aflame?
I was crying again. Second time in a week. Second time in a decade. Second time in front of Tamara.
She was wordless. But she stood up, wrapped her arms around my head and pulled it into her shoulder.
I bawled like a baby. My arms clutching at her back desperately. My whole torso shaking with sobs. With fear.
With shame.
Tamara took it like a champ. What a ridiculous sight it must’ve been. My three hundred pound frame holding onto this tiny woman, weeping uncontrollably and using her whole body for support.
Eventually it stopped and I was able to regain some measure of my composure, though none of my dignity. At Tamara’s suggestion I stumbled down the hallway past her postage stamp sized living room and into the impossibly tiny bathroom. The old claw foot porcelain tub might be making a comeback in home decorations but no one was going to pay money for this turn of the century, stained and cracked model. But it had a shower head attachment that nearly reached my sternum.
Close enough.
Hot water stung all over my body as it sluiced at my skin. Rusty dried blood ran off of me in rivulets and pooled at my feet before swirling down the drain. My clenched fists and forearms braced my whole weight against the cold tiles as I ducked my head as far as it would go, letting the hot stream crash into my agonized neck and roll down my back.
I was so damned tired.
How did you see this playing out, Joe? Parise’s voice echoed mockingly in my head.
How did I see it playing out?
I had no idea.
Shame. I couldn’t see past my own shame.
Shame at being a part – however unwittingly, however small - in the goings on at Cowboy Shotz.
Shame at not seeing the clues for what they were, putting them together in advance. Maybe being able to have helped some folks.
Shame at having dragged Cathy, Tamara and my Mom into this mess.
Shame at myself, for being a weakling and a coward. For letting this happen to me and putting myself into this position.
Shame for knowing what I was going to do next.
Chapter 39
When in doubt, start with a joke.
“On the bright side,” I began with as much forced cheer as I could muster. It wasn’t a lot. “Those guys are gonna have the sorest knuckles when they wake up in the morning.”
No one laughed.
Never said it was a good joke.
Tamara was leaning against the tiny counter in her kitchen, the only space available between her ancient stove and the stainless steel sink. An oversized mug with a cartoon kitty-cat steamed in her hands from where she looked at me over the brim. Her expression was sad. Concerned.
I limped down the hallway in my filthy jeans. Nothing like taking a cleansing shower only to cram my sorry ass back into the same gross clothes I’d just managed to peel off me. Still it wasn’t like Tamara had anything I could borrow. And if she did I would seriously need to re-evaluate my opinion of her and her social life.
Once in the kitchen proper I grabbed my coat from where it had been hanging off the back of a chair and managed not to wince from the effort. I glanced around the tiny room.
Tamara motioned with her head to the table where a second oversized mug – this one pink and covered with flowery script spouting some vague platitude about cheerful Monday mornings – steamed away.
“Cream and sweetener are on the table.”
“Thanks,” I said as my stomach rumbled gratefully. Odd that. A few hours earlier I nearly yakked all over the barroom floor but now I was ready for a pot of coffee and a trip to the nearest greasy spoon for all the hash browns I could eat. My eyes continued to scan the room, a flush adding to the welts and bruising on my face. “Have you seen my shirt?”
“I threw it out.” Seeing my surprised glance, Tamara shrugged slightly. “It was torn to shreds. Barely anything left.”
My flush deepened.
Self-conscious of my body, I shrugged into my ratty leather coat and managed to settle it over my shoulders with a minimum of groaning. “I liked that shirt,” I muttered wearily.
We stood in silence for a few minutes. The LED display on Tamara’s microwave blinked and changed over to four o’clock.
What do you say to someone who just picked you up when you’ve reached the lowest point you can hit?
“Tamara … I …” My hands opened and closed unconsciously, searching for words that my brain couldn’t find.
Shit.
Tamara’s warm fingers closed over my fumbling hands and held them still. Her wide eyes seemed so far away, but that’s no shocker considering the foot and a bit of height difference between us.
She stared up at me, just holding my hands. Keeping me still. Keeping me from running away.
My heart started to pound again.
Christ, this couldn’t be happening. I looked like hell. My lip was split. Both of my eyes were black, the left one almost completely swollen shut. Two of my teeth were chipped. I had wicked bruising all along my ribs and belly. Flesh was scraped raw in places. This was not the time to change relationship status!
“Tamara … I …” My voice was hoarse again, but for a different reason now.
“Where’s Mark?” she asked quietly.
Wherever he was he had the magical ability to cock block a man from great distances.
Hoping I’d been able to keep the conflicting emotions off my face I forced myself to think about her question for a moment.
“I don’t know.”
“He was working though. You said he was working when you got there.”
“He was there. Right when I came in.”
“Did he …Did he get involved?”
I scoured what was left of the scrambled mess inside my skull again, trying to make sense of things.
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
Her fingers tightened on mine. Angry?
“That son of a bitch.”
I blinked in surprise. “Hang on …”
“I thought he was your friend.”
“He is my friend.”
“Then why he wouldn’t help?”
“There could be a bunch of reasons, Tamara.”
“Name one.”
He was afraid to get involved.
“He didn’t know it was happening,” sounded better out loud and in my head. I refused to believe that Mark could’ve just stood by while I was getting the punching bag treatment. “Parise mentioned they were shutting down for the night. He could’ve been upstairs. Hustled out the back. Coulda been anything.”
Tamara didn’t look convinced.
Can’t blame her. I wasn’t convinced myself.
Her thumbs traced along the ridge of my knuckles then. It felt nice. Distracting me from my thoughts.
“Joe?” Her voice was very quiet.
“Yeah?”
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I mean … what happened? With you.”
It was my turn to shrug. It hurt.
“I dunno. Got in over my head. Happens sometimes. I try to make a difference, get involved in something and ….”
“No. I mean what happened to the guy I saw deadlift six hundred pounds over eighty times ten hours ago?”
Oh. That what happened.
“Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened?”
I shook my head negatively.
“Doesn’t that seem odd? Did you push yourself too far at the gym? From what you said at the gang house …”
“The gang house was a mistake,” I cut in bitterly, the taste of copper in the back of my mouth again. The taste of blood. “I shouldn’t have gone there. Cathy should never have been there.”
Tamara pressed on. “But you were able to handle those guys. Your grip. Your …”
“I nearly got Cathy killed. Nearly got myself killed and left my mom alone and sure to die without me around to help.” God, I was angry. So fucking angry at myself. “What was I thinking? Those camera guys and their talk about Seagal movies must’ve been playing with my head. Thinking I was living some kinda movie just waltzing into a gang hideout, ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum.”
“What? Joe, you’re …. You were chewing bubblegum?”
“I ain’t a fucking hero,” my raw voice powered through her ignorance of the glory that is They Live. My hands were trembling again, causing Tamara to tighten her grip on my fingers. “I ain’t a good man. I’m a lousy college dropout. Some shithead bouncer who can’t catch a fucking break who shoulda remembered who the fuck he is.”
“Joe, it’s okay…”
“Nothing’s okay!” My voice made her flinch back, barking out louder than I’d intended. But my blood was up and the pity party was in full swing. “Nothing! Everything sucks. And now …”
I trailed off. Shame piling up on me so heavy, forcing me to avert my eyes, hanging my head.
Tamara’s fingers squeezed mine again.
“What, Joe? ‘And now’ what?”
My stomach rumbled even though part of me felt like it should want to throw up.
“And now …” My voice was low, barely a whisper. My fingers clenched into fists of impotent rage. “Now I know something bad is going on. Girls are being used and hurt by people I know. In a place that I worked hard to protect.”
I could feel Tamara’s eyes staring up at my face with great intensity. I didn’t dare meet her gaze.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
I closed my eyes.
Memories flashed. Clear as the day it happened.
Donald’s baseball team was in a weekend tournament at a local community center. Norwood? Sinclair Park? Not sure. Anyways. Sometime during the afternoon a kid from another team was upset, his mother was consoling him. Kid’s father was angry, being very mean to his wife. Talking about how poorly their team had played that day.
Dad had just finished coaching Donald’s team to victory over this kid’s team interrupted, shook the kid’s hand and made sure to congratulate him on his efforts in the game. Making sure to mention an infield fly he’d snagged. The kid’s father was not impressed, his face gone red with rage. But Dad ignored him completely, shook the kid’s hand again and came back to us.
When Donald asked why he’d done that, his reply was simple:
“Boys, there are times in life when people around you will need help. And it’ll be up to you to know when it’s help you can give, and when you can’t. Today was a time when I could help.”
“Joe?”
My mouth was dry again.
“Nothing.”
“What?”
Forgive me, Dad. But this is one of those times!
“I’m gonna do nothing. They win.”