Heller

by JD Nixon

  Have I mentioned that I have a temper?

  Daniel pulled on my arm. “Don’t bother with them, Tilly. They’re not worth it. It’s better for us to leave now while everything’s still calm. Think about Niq.” I shook his hand off. My experience at the bikie bar had given me unwarranted confidence in my ability to sort things out, especially as I had a fresh canister of capsicum spray in my handbag.

  “Got something you want to say to my friends and me, boys?” I asked aggressively, hands planted on my hips.

  “Yeah, we do,” drawled the dominant one standing up and approaching me, his unattractive thickset face spotted with erupted pimples, his fair hair shaved down to his flaky scalp. “We hate freaks. And your friend’s a freak, aren’t you, Frankenstein? A fucking freak. Look at you! They didn’t even stitch you up properly. You’d make grown men cry with that fucking ugly face.”

  Geez, I was angry. “Don’t you call him that again.”

  “Or what, bitch? What’s a choice piece of pussy like you hanging around with Frankenstein and Goth shit anyway?”

  “I said don’t call him that again.” My hand closed over the capsicum spray in my bag.

  Flaky-Scalp sneered at me. “Why don’t you let your boyfriend talk for himself?”

  “Why don’t you let your boyfriend talk for himself?” I snapped back, nodding towards the ugly, chunky man standing next to him. There was a brief ripple of sniggering among his crew. He turned around angrily, staring them down.

  “The pussy’s got a pussy for a boyfriend,” he scorned.

  “That pussy’s got pussy for a boyfriend,” I scorned back, pointing at my tormentor. More sniggers. I was starting to enjoy myself. This was too easy. Growing up with two older brothers you learn quickly that the mindless and irritating parroting of another person’s comments is the best way to really annoy someone fast.

  “Fuck you, bitch!”

  “Fuck you, bitch.”

  Flaky-Scalp screwed his face up with hatred and advanced menacingly towards me. I had momentary regrets for my impetuous behaviour, not realising before that he was quite so large or had such a low threshold for teasing – my brothers had always lasted much longer than him before they started chasing me around the house. But I stood unmoving, until he was exhaling his horrible breath down into my face.

  I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do next.

  “That’s not a polite way to talk to my friend,” said Daniel quietly, stepping up beside me.

  “Oh, Frankenstein does have some balls, after all,” Flaky-Scalp said in the snidest tone.

  Daniel turned to me, a puzzled look on his face. “I don’t understand, Tilly. Why does he keep calling me that? Is he such a dumb arse that he doesn’t know that Frankenstein was the doctor not the monster?”

  I nodded gravely in scholarly agreement. “Oh, definitely a dumb arse, Daniel. Definitely.”

  Without any warning, Daniel lashed forward, grabbing the man by his arm, twisting it up over his head and behind his back. He then kicked the back of the man’s knees, buckling them, and forcing him to kneel on the ground. His gang was real angry about that and crowded in on us. I held up the capsicum spray, pointing it in their direction.

  “Want some instant pain, bitches?” I asked nastily. Not being good law-abiding citizens, they recognised what it was straight away and held their ground.

  “I think this man would like to apologise to you for his dirty mouth, Tilly,” Daniel said.

  “Fuck off, freak!” Then a scream of pain as Daniel twisted his arm back further.

  “What do you say?”

  Another twist. Another scream.

  “Sorry!” Flaky-Scalp spluttered, tears springing to his eyes. Daniel twisted harder. “I’m very sorry for my dirty mouth, miss!” the man cried again.

  The other gang members weren’t happy with this humiliation of their leader, one of them becoming particularly agitated. He was tall and thin with curly black hair, wearing a muscle shirt with no muscles to show in it. He was either braver or dumber than his comrades and it was hard to distinguish which, because he rushed me without any warning, knocking me to the ground. My breath flew out of my lungs as the capsicum spray canister flew out of my hands. It rolled inconveniently under a nearby car.

  I spun myself over immediately and scrabbled over to the car on my hands and knees to retrieve it. My attacker grabbed hold of my feet and roughly pulled me backwards to keep me away from the car as a couple of other members of the gang quickly ran past me to dive down towards it, in hopes of capturing the prized weapon. This wasn’t going very well at all, I thought desperately. I dug my fingers into the rough, tarred surface of the carpark to prevent him pulling me any further, completely ruining my manicure in the process. I kicked out wildly and blindly with my right foot, collecting him with a mean crack to the jaw. He let go of me straight away, moaning in pain, his turn to fall backwards on his butt.

  One of the gang members gave a triumphant cry as his hand closed around the canister, scrambling off his knees and to his feet, brandishing the canister at me as I stood up.

  “Want some instant pain, bitch?” he asked spitefully, throwing my own words back in my face. I guess I deserved that.

  I decided to ram him, planning to knock him off balance and bring the canister back into fair play again. I put my head down and bent my arm at the elbow to give me a bit of extra force and ran towards him. Panicked, he held up the canister and sprayed enthusiastically.

  God smiled down on me at that moment because the idiot had the canister pointing in the wrong direction and ended up liberally spraying himself in the face. He dropped the capsicum spray as he dropped to the ground, whimpering in pain. The other guy and I lunged for it simultaneously, cracking heads in the most painful way before I elbowed him in the face to gain the advantage and the precious canister. I jumped up, ignoring my instant headache, held out the spray at arm’s length and sprayed everyone in the vicinity, including the guy who had already sprayed himself, just to be on the safe side.

  “Scram!” I shouted at Daniel and Niq, and we bolted for the tank. Without even waiting for anyone to fasten their seatbelts, I threw it in reverse and screeched out of the carpark, driving dangerously up and over a garden bed in my haste, flattening a beautiful azalea shrub in full bloom. At the entrance to the shopping centre I didn’t slow down to turn right. Tyres squealing, I cut off a ute-driving tradie who let me know with a creative display of angry finger gestures just how little he appreciated my bad driving. Our last vision was of the men writhing on the ground in the carpark, rubbing their eyes.

  I drove fast and recklessly and Niq babbled excitedly all the way home, still on his sugar-high. I was taking deep breaths trying to calm down, adrenaline pumping through my body, but Daniel was strangely quiet. I threw him a sideways glance. I had severely underestimated him.

  “Daniel, that was amazing! I had no idea that you knew moves like that,” I gushed with admiration.

  His voice was flat. “Do you really think I could live with Heller for so long and not be able to look after myself? It was the first thing he taught me. I don’t like violence though. I’d prefer not to use it in any circumstances. I’ve seen enough of it in my life. But I couldn’t let that man get away with being so rude to you.”

  “Forget about me! He was unbelievably obnoxious to you. I’m sorry, Daniel. I badgered you to join us and you were hassled, just as you’d feared.”

  His face was a mask and his body was still, except for his hands twisting compulsively in his lap for the rest of the drive home. He didn’t say another word, despite my agonised glances over at him. We unpacked the car and walked up the stairs from the basement, Niq rabbiting on the entire time. I asked Daniel in a low voice if he still wanted to come over for a dinner chosen from one of my new cookbooks.

  “Maybe another time,” he mumbled, not meeting my eyes.

  Damn, I thought. What have I done to him?

  As we climbed to the ground f
loor, the door to the security section flung open and Heller and Clive emerged. Heller’s eyes immediately narrowed as he took in Daniel’s empty expression, Niq’s uncontained over-excitement and my scuffed appearance. Well, you can’t roll around in a carpark having a tussle with a few men without suffering some sartorial inelegance. Not to mention receiving some new injuries and having all your old injuries begin complaining again.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  I heaved a huge sigh, my shoulders slumping. In my vain stupidity I had honestly believed that I’d take on those guys and win hands down and that everyone would think it was a bit of a lark, and congratulate me on being such a tough chick. I was The Capsicum Kid, after all! I’d been an irresponsible idiot and I knew I had no choice but to confess to my further capsicum spray shenanigans. I waved Daniel and Niq upstairs and followed Heller and Clive into the security section where, being as light-hearted and humorous as I could and in my most charming manner, I told them what had happened. When I finished, I smiled at them sweetly and sheepishly asked for yet another canister of the spray. But far from laughing good-naturedly at my high jinks, they both remained stony-faced and distinctly unamused with my actions. Heller grew increasingly angry with me as he listened.

  “Matilda, you cannot go around spraying people whenever you feel like it. Capsicum spray is a weapon and has to be treated seriously. It’s also very expensive. It’s not to be wasted on pranks,” Heller reprimanded in a loud and livid voice, his accent prominent in his fury. Every man in the section was holding his breath, listening intently though pretending not to be. I squirmed under his accusatory blue glare and the very public bollocking. He could at least have taken me into Clive’s office to tear strips off me, not do it in front of everyone.

  “I didn’t spray them for fun, you know,” I protested. “They were insulting us and threatening us.”

  His jaw tightened as he spoke. “You should have done what Daniel suggested and driven away without engaging with them. You escalated matters when you should have left the scene.”

  “But they were . . .”

  “Don’t you talk back to me!” he yelled, shooting ice daggers at me with his eyes and looming over me intimidatingly with his body. “I don’t care what they were doing!” I flinched backwards, quavering in my shoes, tears pricking my eyes, afraid he was going to slap me around like he’d done to Lily. I’d never been shouted at like that before in my entire life. “This is about you and your judgement and how you handle situations such as this. And it’s also a matter of your safety, which is important to me. What in God’s name were you thinking?”

  He paced up and down the room angrily, kicking a chair that was in his way, sending it flying across the room. Several men had to jump aside to avoid a painful collision with it. When he returned to me, he stopped and glared down at me again. “Did you think that you could take on the whole bunch of them yourself? You’re not a superhero, you know. And did you stop to think that you had Niq with you? He’s only a child. In my trust! I’m going to seriously reconsider letting you take him anywhere if you’re going to drag him into such unnecessarily dangerous situations.”

  “I’m so sorry, Heller. I won’t do it again, I promise,” I said, my voice trembling with genuine contrition, beseeching him with my eyes not to follow through with that warning. He had threatened me with the one thing I didn’t want to happen – that I couldn’t take Niq out anymore. I would hate it if my over-inflated confidence meant that Niq was shut off from the real world.

  He stared down at me fiercely and almost unwillingly, his face softened and his anger dissipated.

  “Okay then. As long as it doesn’t happen again,” he said, much more mildly.

  I knew the men present thought I’d been let off the hook lightly, barely a smack on the wrist. Their faces gave them away. Heller even went to the cabinet to give me a replacement canister himself, handing it to me with a wry comment about saving it for emergencies next time.

  “Heller’s little pet,” I heard one of the men say scornfully to another in a carelessly loud voice.

  “His little fuck-buddy is what I’ve heard, half his luck,” replied the other in a disparaging tone. They shared a dirty little snicker as they walked out.

  Well, that was a harsh slap on the face for me. I hadn’t realised that was what the men thought about me and I could see I had an uphill struggle to gain any respect around this place.

  Chapter 20

  Later that night I couldn’t stop thinking about the stricken expression on Daniel’s face and how quiet he had been on the ride back to the Warehouse. I decided that I had to apologise to him and left my flat to knock on his door. Niq opened.

  “Hey sweetie,” I said. “Is Daniel around?”

  “Nah, I think he’s gone up to the roof-top. He said he needed some fresh air. I wanted to go with him ‘cause I thought he looked a bit sad or something. But he got angry and told me to stay here.”

  “Oh,” I replied, noticing the hurt in his eyes. “I think I’ll go and find him. Maybe I’ll have more luck. You okay by yourself, Niq?”

  “Course I am!” he said scornfully and closed the door on me.

  It was dark and cool on the roof-top, lit only by moonlight. It took a while for my eyes to adjust. I could make out the shape of Daniel sitting on one of the sun lounges. As I approached I noticed the quarter-empty bottle of whiskey and shot glass on the small table next to him. He was staring ahead at nothing, all his thoughts turned in on himself. His face was bleak and desolate in the half-light, his shoulders hunched protectively, hugging himself.

  I took the seat next to him and poured myself a shot into the glass. He turned his head to look at me.

  “Be careful,” he said bitterly. “You might get some freak germs drinking out of my glass.”

  I slowly and deliberately raised the glass to my lips and swallowed the burning liquid, grimacing in the darkness. I hate the brown spirits.

  “You might get some from me,” I said offhandedly and poured a double, placing it carefully between us. We shared the drink and sat in silence for a while, punctuated only by the occasional sniff from him, hinting at his current emotional turmoil. I waited patiently until he was ready to speak.

  “They were right,” he finally said, his tone brimming with self-hatred. “I am a freak! An ugly, repulsive freak. I should hide away forever.” His head slumped down, his arms dangling between his legs.

  I stood up, stepped over and kneeled in front of him, taking hold of his hands, trying to look into his eyes. They were full of tears, the moonlight glistening off his wet cheeks.

  “Daniel, listen carefully to me. You are not a freak. You are a beautiful person in every way. I think you’re beautiful. I think every part of you is beautiful,” I said urgently, trying to get him to look at me.

  He angrily wrenched his hands from mine and turned them over, savagely pushing up his sleeves. He thrust his wrists in my face.

  “Are these beautiful to you? Is this something someone beautiful would do?” he spat out angrily, revealing the jagged scar tissue that ran across each wrist.

  I took his wrists in my hands and tenderly rubbed my thumbs across the scars.

  “Oh, Daniel. Yes, these are beautiful to me,” I replied softly. “They tell a story about a sensitive and wonderful person who was nearly destroyed by whatever terrible things happened to him, but who was strong enough to pick himself up afterwards and keep going.”

  I gently pressed my lips to each scar in turn. We stayed like that for a moment, his breathing ragged and uneven. He took his hands away, stood up suddenly and pulled off his shirt. I stood up as well.

  “How about these? Are these beautiful to you?”

  “Oh my God,” I gasped involuntarily, clamping my hand to my mouth to silence myself as he exposed his torso. It was covered in hundreds and hundreds of thin scars, spread over his pale skin, so many that they criss-crossed each other. I lightly ran my hands across his chest, feeling th
e raised humps of his ruined skin.

  “Yes,” I breathed, “these are so beautiful to me, because they’re part of you.” I leaned in to kiss each collarbone.

  He shuddered and gave a small groan. I gently turned him around and ran my hands over the equally disfigured skin on his back.

  He didn’t do this to himself, I thought. What in God’s name had he been through? I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I softly kissed each shoulder blade.

  He slowly turned around again, leaning forward towards me so that his forehead touched mine.

  “And,” he whispered, “what about this?” His fingers grazed his facial scar.

  “Yes, that is beautiful to me too,” I whispered in response and with a trail of small kisses, travelled down the scar from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth. When I reached his mouth, he turned his head and our lips met hesitantly. I could taste the alcohol on his breath. We slid our arms around each other and drew together as closely as possible, kissing each other tenderly.

  That infinitely sad and sweet kiss ended and we hugged each other.

  He started to cry, huge heaving sobs racking his body. I held him tightly, murmuring what I hoped were soothing remarks, stroking him, until I felt his body relaxing and his breathing becoming even. My heart was aching with tenderness for him. At that moment, I experienced a depth of feeling for him that surprised and frightened me. I realised that I loved this vulnerable and fragile man in a way I had never loved anybody before. I wanted to protect him from his demons. I would deal with anyone who hurt him and then understood how that feeling had been responsible for my stupid actions earlier that day. And for the first time in my life, I knew what unconditional love meant. I loved Daniel.