It all made me very nervous.
We kept dancing.
When it got too hot, we went outside and had a few drinks. Johnny had a Beck’s Blue, non-alcoholic, imported from Germany. (Jess always brought in the good stuff.) I had stopped at the single glass of punch and was now on hot chocolate provided by Jess’s famous in-house vending machine.
We were standing, chilling, some guys smoking, looking at the blanket of snow which had fallen...when Mark walked out and shouldered Johnny so hard that he almost fell.
“Hey, what the hell, Mark!” I cried out.
Four guys suddenly came to Johnny’s defense and stood tall in front of him. “Fuck off, Ryleigh!” one shouted. But almost instantly, Dust and Hotrod and Just Vick were there, chests out! “Got a problem, punks!”
Three more dudes on Johnny’s side came over. One of them pushed Mark and then Mark pushed him back! Two guys started wrestling—
“Knock it off!” Johnny bellowed.
Nobody moved.
“Punk,” someone half-whispered.
“Asshole.”
A small crowd had formed. Everyone was observing Johnny staring at Mark. Mark grinned. “Got something to say to me, dago?”
Johnny stared him down. Feet shuffled on the snow. Mist billowed from my lips.
Johnny turned his back to Mark, brought his non-alcoholic beer to his lips, and said to our group, “What were we saying?”
This was clearly a sign for people to just chill and ignore the prick! The guys who’d been with us slowly moved away from Mark and his gang and moved back into the small circle we’d formed, shooting the shit again.
“Hey, dago, I’m talkin to you!”
Johnny sipped his beer. But I could see he was distracted.
“Do you want me to spread my legs and give you the scent of fish before you pay attention to me?” Johnny’s eyes sparked with hate.
He turned.
“What did you say?”
“Baby,” I whispered, “ignore him.”
“You heard me, dago!” Mark said. “I was wonderin if the smell of fish between my legs would be more interesting to you.”
Johnny’s grip on the bottle tightened.
It wasn’t lost on me that Mark was insulting me, actually.
“Mark, why don’t you just fuck off!” I cried, sick of the childish games.
Mark said something, but I didn’t catch it.
And then the air changed suddenly, and people’s eyes shifted.
Like a shadow, two more guys had appeared in the background, guys I recognized, guys with a dangerous fighting rep in the school.
Eduardo Sanchez was a guy known for his bad temper, as well as his complete inability to stop hitting someone when he got started. He stood about thirty feet behind Mark.
And KC “The Hammer” Brown was a three-hundred-pound black dude who never said much, but who liked cracking his knuckles in the school hallways. It was rumored he could “hook you up with anything you want,” but I had little faith in High School rumors if Nicole was anything to go by.
KC stood about forty feet behind Mark, and about twenty left of Eduardo. KC cracked his knuckles.
I’d never spoken to any of these guys.
Johnny looked at KC in the back. KC’s expression didn’t change. Neither did Johnny’s. Everyone else was also stunned by the arrival of the two newcomers!
And this caused Mark to finally turn and notice them.
When he turned his face back to us, it was slightly pale. “This ain’t over, fisherman,” he said to Johnny.
As Mark was walking away, Johnny called out with a determined voice, “Ryleigh.”
Mark turned, trying to be cool, although I noted his eyes shifting to Eduardo and KC, just to make sure they hadn’t moved.
Johnny lifted a finger, aimed it slowly at Mark. “Say what you will to me. But that was the last insult you make against my girlfriend.”
Johnny left it at that.
Mark looked at KC, Eduardo. Then he spat on the ground.
He turned and left, not a word.
A few seconds later, KC and Eduardo disappeared as well.
I started sipping my drink quickly, burning my tongue by mistake. I just wanted to go home now. I’d had enough “partying” for the night.
After a few minutes, Johnny noticed my silence. He turned to me and asked quietly, “You OK?”
“I just wanna go now.”
“Why, because of that punk?”
“Yeah. I’m worried.”
“There’s nothing to be worried about, Cat.”
“Well, I am!”
Johnny stiffened, looked around. Nicole was out back making audible squeaking noises while she laughed. When she saw Johnny looking, she licked her lips.
“OK,” Johnny said. “We can go if it makes you feel better.”
“It does.”
“Fine.” But the way he said it showed me it wasn’t fine.
He said goodbye to the guys. They all complained that it was so early and they were just getting started and...
“Sorry, guys, I told my folks I’d be home early,” he lied.
“Damn, Ronaldo!”
Johnny laughed.
More girls made eyes at him as we made our way through the crowd. More guys shook his hand and said goodbye. More people made out in the corners. (And quite a few really needed to get a room!)
Jess made groaning sounds from behind the same couch, her one leg dangling up visibly (and nakedly) over the back of it. God, maybe it’s time we leave anyway!
I was never much into the wild side of parties.
“I didn’t know you knew KC and Eduardo,” I said as we made it to the foyer.
“I know a lot of people.”
“How?”
But Johnny never managed to answer that question.
Because when he opened the front door...
...Mark was there.
Grinning.
And then Mark tried to suckerpunch him.
Only... he missed. Johnny had slipped right.
And Mark’s fist hit me instead.
-4-
It was World War III.
My eyes were a crimson filter. My nose and eyes ached and tears blurred my vision. I’ve been hit. Oh, my God, I’ve been hit.
I looked at my hands and they were scarlet. The taste of copper filled my lips. Someone came to me. “Cathy, you OK? Jesus Christ, Cathy, what happened?”
That’s what I’d like to know.
I was still delirious when I heard Mark pleading outside.
“Please, no more, please, please!” Mark was crying from the ground. “Please—”
Thwack! Thwack! Crunch!
I was still reeling, Mark’s punch had just glanced across my nose because Johnny had pulled me aside. I didn’t get a chance to know what was happening until now: Mark on the ground, and Johnny...killing him!
Oh, God.
A trail of splattered blood marked a path from the door, down the steps, and onto the white lawn. Johnny straddled the body on the ground and just let rip.
He said nothing. Only rage poured from him.
His fists were a whirlwind of fury!
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
I staggered out over the steps, my hand to my own bleeding nose, almost slipping.
Mark looked like a pulp of dead mass.
Johnny’s left hand held Mark down by the neck while red rage flew from his right fist. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
“Johnny, stop it! STOP IT! YOU’LL KILL HIM!” I yelled.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
I jumped on Johnny and yanked him from Mark, his final fist hitting thin air.
I almost retched when I looked back and saw the body. “Oh, God. Oh, my God! Oh, GOD!”
Mark looked dead.
-5-
“You fucking animal! You fucking crazy animal!” Nicole’s shriek was like the sound of bombs being fired through the sky.
Eduardo Sanchez, KC �
��The Hammer” Brown, and several of the guys Johnny had whispered to earlier had formed a cordon and were holding Mark’s cronies back. “Dust” and HotRod were on the ground, groaning and writhing, holding their faces. “Just Vick” stood back, palms up defensively so as to say, It’s cool, I’m not gonna start nuthin! Just watchin the show!
And there were others, some in football jackets, each unwilling to go through Eduardo or KC or any of the other guys that were clearly on Johnny’s side. Their role had evidently been to let Johnny settle this one-on-one if it came to it.
“CALL AN AMBULANCE! CALL NINE-ONE-ONE! SOMEONE CALL A FUCKIN AMBULANCE!” Nicole fell to Mark’s side. He looked like roadkill. Her legs landed on the spray of blood. She turned to Johnny. “You fucking murderer! You fucking stupid idiot!”
Murderer.
My hand started to shake.
And then I heard Mark moaning. Oh, God. Thank God he’s alive.
The moan was agonizing to hear.
It was then that I noticed the dark smudge around his crotch. Even Mark deserved some dignity. I was about to tell people to back off and get back to the party when I realized I probably looked like Stephen King’s Carrie. But it didn’t matter anymore anyway. The phones were already out, photos had already been taken, videos had no doubt been made. And the thing was probably already going viral.
I turned to Johnny. His eyes were wide with shock when he saw me, and I had to hold him back when he flinched in Mark’s direction again! “You fucking bastard! Filho da puta!”
“Babe, I’m OK! I don’t even think it’s broken!”
“Let me see.” He grabbed the tip of my nose and moved it to the side.
“OW, GODDAMNIT!”
“Sorry, just...try to be quiet.” He did it again.
When I described the pain to him, he said, “No, it’s not broken, it seems—just bleeding a lot. But your eyes will probably go blue.”
“Great, just before Christmas.”
Johnny took his sweater off, then his shirt underneath. “Here, use this to wipe your hands.” He started to shiver.
“Johnny, this is a Polo!“
“Just use it!”
I wiped my hands and put the shirt up to my nose to stop the bleeding.
“He just grazed me. You managed to pull me away just in time.”
Nicole shuddered with grief, holding Mark up. Mark’s body was mostly limp.
I saw that Johnny’s hand was swelling. “Your hand.” I reached out for it and he grimaced when I touched it. “It’ll be fine. Just needs some ice.” He put his sweater back on gingerly. Then he kneeled and stuck his fist in the snow. Although he hid it, the twitch of his eyes showed me that the pain was excruciating.
“Johnny, you need to promise me you’ll never do something like that again. Ever!”
Johnny said nothing.
“Johnny?”
“I can’t promise that, Cat. If he’d hit me, I would have turned a blind eye, or maybe just swung at him once. But he didn’t, he hit you.” He looked me over. “He hit you bad. He could have broken your nose.”
I suddenly remembered Johnny’s threat to me about my father. But if he ever lays a fucking hand on you again—I’ll fucking kill him.
I looked over at Mark.
He was making gurgling sounds while he breathed.
CHAPTER NINE
~ Clouds ~
-1-
It was Christmas Eve, only a few days after the fiasco at Jess van der Haven’s house. Dad came over to have dinner with us and the Abreus. Ever since I was six, the year we met them, we’d always had Christmas Eve dinner together at their place. In truth, Christmas Eve was Christmas in their books, and we’d always wait until midnight to open up gifts.
We might have skimped on dinners at their place since my parents started having “issues,” but we’d managed to never miss a Christmas.
When dad arrived at our place...he’d been drinking.
“Hey, honey! What’s up!” Dad gave mom a hug.
“Jack, is that...wine on your breath?”
“Yeah, yeah, just a little. No biggie.”
She shook her head. “Jack, you promised!”
“Come on, Alice, I’m not drunk. I’m fine! Don’t worry about it!”
“Goddamnit, Jack, if you embarrass us tonight, as God is my witness...”
“I won’t embarrass you, OK?” He had the slightest of slurs.
“Come here, baby. Give your dad a hug.” I walked over to my dad, hugged him. He did smell like booze, and that didn’t make me happy.
“So, let’s go on over to our Latin friends and show them just how goddamn happy we all are!” He put his hand low on my back, and one on my mom’s butt.
“Goddamnit,” she said.
-2-
Pat was happy to see his old friend. They hugged and that set the tone for the night.
Johnny greeted my dad politely but stiffly. When dad offered his right hand, Johnny gave him the left. He hadn’t broken any bones, but his hand was swollen and blue.
Dad shook it, but when Johnny wanted to let it go, dad held him tight and yanked Johnny to him forcefully.
There was a moment of bated breath amongst all of us. Dad was suddenly serious, staring Johnny in the eyes.
He looked at me, and I looked away. I looked like trailer trash today, complete with dark blue rims under each eye and a swollen nose.
Dad looked at Johnny again, then nodded proudly.
“Thank you,” he said. “You did good. You did real good.”
We were all speechless.
-3-
The night started off well. Iliana had prepared small shrimps in salt water and we were snacking on them as appetizers. Dad and Pat watched sports on TV. Daniela played XBox loudly in a nearby room.
We had cod fish mixed with cabbage and cream for dinner (it tastes better than it sounds!), and then pork made on a spit. For dessert we ate toast soaked in sweet syrup (rabanadas) and a puff pastry called sonhos (“dreams”) which also came dunked in thick syrup. Sweet Rice (arroz doce), Bolo dos Reis (“King’s Cake”) which was a big doughnut shaped cake with caramelized fruit on it.
By the end of it, I felt like I’d gained five pounds in only a few hours.
Dad stuck to red wine, and if he weren’t an alcoholic, one could say that he didn’t drink a lot. In fact, he seemed more sober by the end of the night than when he’d arrived.
He wasn’t angry. He was mellow. He looked happy.
We sat in the family room with the fire crackling, sipping on Portuguese Dão dry red wine. Even I had half a glass, but I didn’t like it too much, so then I stuck with soda. But Johnny had two or three. I snuggled up under his arm.
Midnight came and we opened our gifts. Daniela was the most excited of us all. She got an iPod Touch.
At the end of the night, I didn’t kiss Johnny goodbye in front of my dad, that would have been too far, but I wanted to. I wanted to do more than that with him tonight. I wanted him to sneak into my room later and I wanted him to hold me.
I wanted him to touch me.
On our way home, dad stumbled a bit to his car. He had his arm around mom and they looked like a regular ole married couple.
It stung a little for me to see that.
“Jack, don’t drive home. You’ve had too much to drink.”
“Oh, Alice, I’ll be fine. What did I have, half a bottle? That’s nothing compared to what I used to do!”
“Jack, no, please, spend the night. You can...use the guest room.”
Dad turned, wrapped his arms around mom and considered it for a second. He was a little tipsy, I could see. But the rage and madness that had been in him before, was not there.
Could it be? Could he go back to having a drink or two and not falling into the violent personality changes it had brought about in him in the past?
After a while, he hiccupped, and then said, “OK, I’ll stay.”
“Should we all watch a movie together?” mom asked, looki
ng at me.
It was the happiest moment I’d had with my family in over a year.
-4-
We watched a movie, Disney, very cute. My dad held my mother around the shoulder and I rested on his chest. When the movie was done, I came up to bed, my mind racing, wondering if things would change, if everything could be like it were again.
And then I heard them. Not fighting, but having sex. Having sex loudly.
It didn’t feel like family. It felt like two horny adults who were getting it on after a night of drunken revelry.
I mean, I get it. They were adults, and I was old enough to be pretty cool about it. But something about it felt...wrong.
And what about mom’s boyfriend that she was hiding from me?
Mom was giggling, and dad was... Well, I blocked my ears.
When they were done (it went on for an hour!) I texted Johnny. He was at my place in five minutes.
I’d wanted him to touch me earlier.
But now I didn’t want that at all.
-5-
“If you have something to say to me, Jack, be man enough and say it.”
Christmas Day. Dad was in Pat’s study. I had gone to the bathroom and heard them talking on my way back to the family room.
“I have nothing to say, Pat. I’ve just been busy.”
“And drinking.”
My dad said nothing.
“It’s good that you had it under control yesterday, Jack. But I see you starting early on it today. It’s barely noon.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“It is my business. You and I are friends. I care about you. I care about your family. I care about your daughter.”
“We’re acquaintances, Pat. We’ve watched football together, shared a few beers, but I think you’re looking into this friendship a little too deeply.”
Silence for a second. “Perhaps you and I have different definitions of friendship. If you needed something, I would be here for you. Perhaps I was wrong to think the same of you.”
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