by B. B. Easton
“We can’t jusss leave her here.” Juliet’s voice was almost as slurred as Tony’s.
I waved them off again, eyes still closed. “You guys have fun. I’ll be fine.”
I didn’t feel dizzy anymore, just super sleepy. An unfortunate side effect of getting up at five thirty a.m. every morning, going to school, and working part-time at night.
Now Tony was the one whining. “C’mon, B. My girl wants to dance. Sit your ass up. I got something to help you stay awake.”
I opened one eye and looked at Juliet, who was now bouncing up and down with her hand out squealing, “I want some! I want some!”
I sat up and asked, “What is it?”
Juliet turned to me and said, “Um…It’s just like those caffeine pills you like! You’ll be able to dance all night!” I loved caffeine pills. Diet pills. Anything that killed my appetite and gave me energy. And I was so fucking tired. I didn’t trust Tony as far as I could throw him, but I trusted Juliet.
“C’mon, BB! It’ll be sooo fun!”
Oh, fuck it.
I held out my hand, into which a little white pill magically appeared. It looked like a Tylenol with a lightning bolt stamped on it.
No skull and crossbones, I thought. That’s a good sign.
I popped it into my mouth and washed it down with the last gulp of my latest stolen beverage. Seconds later my empty hand was filled again with Juliet’s as she dragged me to the dance floor in the back room. I was so tired I kept my eyes shut as I sleep-danced to the booming techno beat. At some point, though, my dreamlike state began to change.
I could feel the bass in my chest, the notes on my skin, and the heat of the strobe lights warming my closed eyelids twenty-eight times per second. Juliet’s hand was still holding mine, but it felt different too. We were like one of those trees that appears to be lots of trees above the surface, but down in the dirt they’re all connected. Juliet and I had merged. We were just one big tree, swaying, pulling, pulsing. Black. White. Black. White. Black. White. The flashing lights across our skin reminded me of a blinking Christmas tree. That’s what we were. One big Christmas tree.
I love Christmas. It’s too hot to be Christmas. So fucking hot. Am I sweating? I feel dizzy.
My stomach churned. I didn’t dare open my eyes. It was better with them closed. Less black-white-black-white. I felt so good and so bad all at the same time. If I just kept dancing my Christmas tree girl would keep me grounded. She was me and I was her and we were one.
Until we weren’t.
Juliet whispered something in my ear, but I couldn’t make out what she said. It was too loud in there. Too black-white. I opened my eyes to ask her to say it again, but she was gone. I looked down at my hand. It was empty. I turned and turned again. Everyone was blinking on and off too fast. I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see anything but strangers frozen twenty-eight times per second in different sexual positions. Mouths sneering. Teeth bared. Eyes black. Eyes white.
Unseen hands molded to my hips from behind. They guided my movements, side to side. I didn’t like them there. They felt mean. They held me tighter as a hard bulge pushed against my body.
No! I screamed in my mind, but the word was trapped in my throat. Choking me. I clawed at the hands on my hips, pulling fingers in directions they didn’t want to go until all ten of them were gone and I was running. Keeping low. Burrowing through tall bodies like a child. Which I was.
I could feel sweat dripping down my back and bile rising up my throat, past my trapped words, as I tunneled.
Where is Juliet?
I made it to a wall and followed it until I found a black-white-black-white door. I opened it and tumbled from the rabbit hole onto a fire escape, but the hot, damp air gave me no relief. It was thick in my mouth and tasted like garbage. Reaching for the thin metal railing in front of me, I pulled my head over the side of the fire escape and puked. My body trying to rid itself of the lightning bolt poison inside of me.
“Punk?!”
I turned my head and saw the silhouette of a bald, hulking creature jump off the neighboring building’s fire escape in one graceful swoop. He was coming toward me so fast. Too close. Almost there. I tried so hard to focus on him, to process this new threat, but my gaze drifted to the ground without my permission as my eyelids gave up the fight.
From some faraway place my mind realized that my body was being carried. The ride was bumpy.
Where is my body going? I wondered, from the safety of my mind. I hope someplace with air conditioning. And a bed. A bed sounds nice. And a toilet, because…
“I think I’m gonna puke!”
“Not yet, goddamn it.”
I know that voice. That sounds like Knight’s voice. He’s such a grumpy bastard, I thought, just before my stomach muscles tensed and filled my throat with acid.
My eyelids were suddenly assaulted with brightness and my body was set down on some kind of hard floor. Callused fingers touched my face, causing my eyes to jolt open and take in what looked like a scene from the inner circle of hell.
The walls were covered in flames and bats and naked women with pitch fork tails smiling at me with their giant tits hanging out. Oh, and there was a fucking SKINHEAD TOUCHING MY FACE!
My stomach lurched again, so I threw myself in the direction of the toilet. Nothing came up except more stinging bile, but I crossed my arms over the bowl and hung my head there anyway, too afraid to face the sinister world around me.
“Jesus, Punk. You’re fucking wasted.”
Is that what I am? Wasted? That means drunk, right? Am I drunk?
I’d never been drunk before, but I imagined it would feel about as shitty. So I nodded into my arms and continued to hide. In the toilet. From the devil.
“Who the fuck brought you here?”
He sounds angry.
“You did.”
Really, B?? Now you decide to be a smart ass?
Satan let out a quick exhalation that sounded almost like a laugh. I risked a peek out of my right eye to assess the situation and found him squatting on the floor not even two feet away from me, smirking. The overhead light cast deep shadows under his eyes and nose, and even though he was sort of smiling, that motherfucker looked wicked to the core.
I snapped my eye shut again and fought back another wave of bile.
“Goddamn. We’ve gotta get some bread into you. When was the last time you ate?”
I tried to think, but my brain wasn’t cooperating.
Did I eat dinner? Umm… Lunch? No. Breakfast?
“I think, maybe… yesterday?”
“Get up.”
“What?”
“Get the fuck up!”
The anger in his voice had my body moving before I could even register his words. I stood, eyes opened wide. I was in a small bathroom with one toilet, one small sink, and one giant skinhead. The walls were covered—floor-to-ceiling—in a collage of tattoo-style pin-up girl she-devils. Those curvaceous red ladies were so cruel—pointing and laughing at my complete lack of tits. And hips. And experience. Mocking me.
“Look at the cute little girl,” they sneered with teeth and breasts bared.
“Aren’t you up past your bedtime, little girl?” asked the one by the door with the pitchfork tail.
“Maybe she’s here to sell us some cookies!” the one behind the toilet teased, her nipples bursting from her corset.
“I think it might be a little boy,” the blonde one above the mirror mused. “It’s so hard to tell with that body.”
“And that haircut,” the vixen closest to me giggled.
Did the lightning bolt poison kill me? Is this actual Hell? Are these sexy demons going to make fun of me for the rest of eternity? Is Skeletor the Skinhead the devil for real? Because if so, I called that shit.
“Am I dead?”
Shit. Did I say that out loud?
“You will be if you don’t fucking eat something.” Knight grabbed me by the arm and led me out into a dimly lit open roo
m lined with black dentist-style chairs. Dragging me over to the chair in the back corner of the room, Knight sat me down rather roughly, then disappeared into the hallway we had just come from. He reappeared seconds later holding a small white to-go box.
Knight thrust the box into my lap then sat on the armrest of the seat next to mine, arms folded over his chest, glaring at me. His almost colorless eyes glowed in the darkness.
“You’re going to eat every fucking bit of that,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to make my swimming eyes focus on the Styrofoam container in my lap.
“It’s Bobby’s chicken parm.”
“Who’s Bobby?” I asked without looking up.
“The owner of the shop.”
“What shop?” I wondered out loud.
“This fucking shop.”
I looked around and tried to figure that one out on my own so that I wouldn’t have to keep asking why questions like a four-year-old. The room was dark, and kind of spinning, but there was enough light from the hallway and exit signs that I could make out the basics.
Let’s see… We’ve got dentist-style chairs, but a dentist office wouldn’t decorate their bathroom like Hell’s brothel. Could be a barbershop. No, their chairs don’t lay back like this.
Finally, my eyes adjusted to the dark just enough to make out some of the framed art peppering the walls.
“This is a tattoo parlor.”
“No shit. Eat.”
Yes, sir. Damn.
I took a bite of the cold, hours-old breaded chicken sandwich and my mouth instantly exploded with happiness. I couldn’t chew fast enough. Before one bite was sufficiently pulverized and swallowed I’d already taken another. Or three.
Knight didn’t move. I could feel him watching me with those fucking zombie eyes, but I didn’t care. I was having an out of body experience with that fucking sandwich.
I didn’t realize how hungry I was. Hunger was just something I lived with. Honestly, I liked the way it felt. That empty rumble in my belly made me feel pretty. Powerful. Proud of myself. If I could overcome my hunger, I could overcome anything. I could slay a fucking dragon.
Fuck you, hunger! You don’t tell me what to do! I call the shots around here, and I’m choosing to look like Kate Moss!
But sometimes, when I went too long without eating, shit like this would happen. I’d lose all control and eat everything I could get my hands on like a ravenous beast in a fit of carbohydrate-fueled mania. Sometimes I’d stick my finger down my throat afterward and throw up all my mistakes. Sometimes I’d just run up and down the stairs in my house four hundred times. But on that particular night, I didn’t give a single, solitary, fuck. Whatever drug I was on made that sandwich taste like rainbows and fireworks and I just wanted to crawl inside of it and live there forever.
When I finally forced myself to slow down long enough to chew, something occurred to me. “What are you doing by yourself in a tattoo parlor in the middle of the night?” I asked before I could think better of it.
“I think the question should be what were you doing by yourself in a fucking alleyway in Little Five in the middle of the night?”
“I asked you first.”
Oh my God, BB. Just shut your mouth.
“I work here.”
“Really? How old are you?”
Stop it, BB. Seriously.
“How about you tell me what the fuck you were doing at Sin.”
“Sin? Is that the name of the place next door?”
“You didn’t even know the name of the place you were at?” Knight’s nostrils flared as he stood up abruptly and ran his thick fingers over his buzzed head.
Emboldened by the shot of glucose coursing through my veins, I said in an almost convincingly assertive tone, “No, I didn’t. My friend’s boyfriend brought us there.”
“And they let you in? That’s a twenty-one and up fetish club, and you don’t look a day over sixteen.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“Exactly.”
Exasperated, Knight walked to the front of my chair and sat down, legs spread wide, on a tall black stool on wheels. He gave the chest of drawers it was next to a shove with his boot and rolled over a few feet so that he was next to me.
Now that he was sitting again he seemed less scary. Or at least, less angry.
“What about you? Don’t you have to be eighteen to work in a tattoo parlor?” I asked.
“Only if you’re getting paid.” Knight was becoming less resistant to my incessant questioning, which was good because I didn’t seem to be slowing down.
“You’re not?”
“Bobby pays me in ink, for now. And lets me crash here on the weekends.”
“Pays you in ink? You mean, like tattoos?”
Knight swiveled around on his stool so that his back was to me and pulled up his T-shirt, exposing the black outline of a coat of arms that covered his entire back. At the bottom of the shield the word McKnight had been written inside a tattered banner in Old English.
“Yeah. Like tattoos.”
“Oh my God!” I leaned forward and studied the lines. The shading. “It’s… It’s really beautiful.”
Knight chuckled, which sounded more like a cough, and dropped his shirt. “Beautiful, huh?”
I had been sitting sideways on the tattoo chair, practically leaning out of it to get a closer look at his back, when he turned around. Suddenly his face was a mere foot from mine, and…and damn. That tattoo wasn’t the only beautiful thing about Knight. He was smiling, kind of, and his pointy nose and sharp cheekbones were covered in freckles that made him look, well…cute. I’d never noticed how fucking cute he was before. Whatever Tony had given me must have been some strong shit.
Swallowing hard and sitting upright, I said, “Your tattoo says McKnight. Is that your last name? Is that why you go by Knight?”
“Yes.” Knight sat more upright in response and resumed his death stare.
“What’s your first name?” I asked.
“Don’t have one.”
“Bullshit. Are you really not going to tell me?”
“No.”
Ugh! This fucking guy!
“I’ll tell you my name,” I taunted.
“I know your name.”
“Oh yeah, what is it?”
Knight cocked his head to one side, irritated, and said, “Brooke. Bradley.”
Wha?
“How did you know that?”
“Everybody who went to Peach State Elementary knows who you are. Your mom was my fucking art teacher.”
I burst out laughing, imagining a tiny little skinhead stabbing pencils through the eyes of his classmates’ drawings.
“Holy shit!” I cackled.
“Yeah.” His tone softened. “Your mom is actually the one who got me to start drawing. I used to come into her room all pissed off about…” He looked at me, obviously censoring what he was about to say. “…about whatever, and instead of making me sit with the rest of the class she gave me my own little desk in the back corner where she had a basket full of…”
“Oh my God!” I shouted, clamping my hands over my mouth as memories from helping my mom after school flooded my mind. “It was you!”
Knight locked eyes with me in surprise.
“I’m the one who filled that basket for you! My mom said there was a ‘special little boy’ in one of her classes who was really artistic but didn’t get along with the other kids, so she got an extra desk from one of the other classrooms and had me fill a basket with art supplies to keep next to it. That was me!”
The corner of Knight’s mouth pulled up slightly. “Well that explains all the glitter glue and heart stickers.”
We both laughed. Well, I laughed and Knight did his smoker’s cough thing. It was like he hadn’t laughed in so long he had to knock the dust off first.
“And now you’re going to be a tattoo artist. That’s fucking awesome. I can’t wait to tell my mom. She’s gonna be so prou
d of you. And she’ll totally tell me your first name too,” I teased.
Knight cough-laughed, harder this time, and said, “Fuck you, Brooke.” I kicked his shin in response, making him laugh for real. The sound caused a wave of warmth to slosh over me.
It felt strangely intimate, talking to Knight about my mom. She had liked him. I remembered her talking about how talented he was. She even saved some of his drawings. Disturbing shit, full of blood and weapons and really elaborate dragons, but she hung them up on the bulletin board behind her desk anyway. Right next to mine.
Maybe he’s not so bad, my stupid drug-soaked brain thought. He’s just a tortured artist. A tortured artist who can give me a tattoo!
“I want one!” I blurted out.
“One what?” Knight was still smiling as he took a step backwards and sat on the armrest of the vinyl tattoo chair next to mine. God, he really was cute. And his arms looked huge when he folded them against his chest like that. And I liked his suspender things. Nobody else wore those.
“Oh, sorry.” Focus, BB! “A tattoo. Can you give me one?” I gestured around the room, indicating that yes, we were in a tattoo shop. “Right now?”
And, poof, there went his smile.
“Fuck no. I’m not tattooing a drunk as fuck fifteen-year-old.”
No? Did he just tell me no?
“What about a piercing? If I don’t like it in the morning I can just take it out.” I could hear the whine in my voice that I used on my parents whenever they told me no, but I didn’t care.
“No.”
“When are you going to be eighteen? I’ll just come in here then and pay for it like a regular customer and you’ll have to do it.”
“Next month, but I still won’t do it because you’re. Only. Fifteen.”
“Oh yeah,” I giggled. Then I had an idea. “What if I have a note from my mom? I heard that you can get married at fifteen in Georgia as long as you have a note from one of your parents.”
Knight huffed out an exasperated breath and rolled his evil ghost eyes. “Goddamn it.”
“Ha!” I yelled and slammed my hands down on the vinyl seat. “I knew it! I fucking love Georgia!”
“But that shit only works for piercings.”