Save Me from Dangerous Men--A Novel

by S. A. Lelchuk

  Fortunately, I’d always been a good student.

  I spent a month studying comic books every day. By the time I was through, I didn’t know everything. Not an expert degree of knowledge by any means.

  But enough to begin.

  The first time I walked into the comic book shop I didn’t say a word to anyone. Just browsed for two hours. I was the only girl. I got plenty of looks. Some curious, some checking me out, most a combination of the two.

  I ignored it all. Just read. And watched.

  I went into the comic book shop a week later. The second time. This time I went in a half hour before Jordan Stone was due to get off work. Gambling that he’d show up. Based on his habits, it was even money that he would.

  Sure enough, he came in about an hour after I did.

  There was a stereotype of the convicted felon. Covered in crude ink, bulky with jailhouse muscles. Jordan Stone was living disproof of that. He wore wire glasses and his wheat-colored hair was shoulder length. His build was lean to the point of skinny. He had the kind of boyish handsomeness that would fade by the time he hit middle age, but for the time being it was there.

  After he walked in I continued to read my comics for a while, ignoring the looks as usual. Then I walked over to the counter and asked if they had a Marvel Feature #1, from 1971, with a first appearance by the Defenders. The guy behind the counter was impressed. He wore glasses and smelled of pot and Old Spice. “You know your shit,” he said. “But sorry, we don’t. That’s a rare one.”

  “I know. That’s why I wanted it.” Again, I was the only girl in the store. I’d dyed my hair black, with purple highlights. I had black glasses and wore dark plum lipstick and heavy eye shadow. A tight-fitting black Batman T-shirt and black jeans and black Vans sneakers gave me a look that was not quite Goth but somewhere in the vicinity. I could feel Jordan Stone glance over at me. Furtive. My skin prickled.

  I felt his eyes like an iron pressed into my cheek.

  A few days later I was back. They knew me a little, now. Just enough. Old Spice nodded hello. Someone else said hi, too. An older man. I gave him an uncomfortable look and crossed my arms protectively over my chest as I walked past him. I took a few comics from different shelves. Went over to a corner and sat cross-legged on the floor. I could feel glances now and again but I said nothing. Never looked up. Just turned pages with a frown of concentration.

  Finally, I got up to leave. Happening to walk across the store at the same time Jordan Stone was standing there. I paused. Nodded toward the comic he held. New X-Men.

  “That’s by Grant Morrison, right?”

  He looked at me. Nodded. “Yeah.”

  The first words we’d ever spoken to each other. I felt so dizzy I wanted to sit. Blood pounding against my temples. All I said was, “He’s good.”

  Jordan Stone nodded. “Yeah. Really good.”

  That was enough. I left.

  All those hours in the store taught me plenty about comic books. They taught me something else, too. Something more fundamental. I began to understand that people wanted fantasies. That they wanted things so badly, often they didn’t stop to think too much about the whys. Jordan Stone, the clerk, the men browsing—they wanted an introverted, not-trying-to-be-sexy girl in a tight Batman T-shirt to be sitting in the store with them. A girl who knew and loved comic books. A fantasy.

  The same way other people thought about and wanted other things. The way lonely men drinking alone at bars fantasized about the woman who would walk in alone, sit next to them, talk to them. Choose them. Understand them. Maybe go home with them. The way some of the military guys wanted the tanned chick in cutoff jean shorts who could tell you the difference between rimfire and center-fire and liked to hit the range before splitting a six-pack. Or the recovering alcoholics or health nuts, searching for the woman who did triathlons and Ironman competitions and spent her Friday nights at CrossFit. Others looking for someone who had a strong preference between Swift or C++ or Python. The men who dreamed about falling in love with a woman who could tell a Rembrandt from a Rubens.

  Eventually I’d meet them all. All types. Looking for themselves in others. Everyone wanting something. Fantasies. Usually pretty easy to see. To identify. To embody. I’d been all of them at some point. Back then, I didn’t realize fully that deception wasn’t really about lying. More about just showing people what they already wanted to see. Telling them what they already wanted to hear. And letting them form their own assumptions.

  * * *

  The next week when I walked into the store, Jordan Stone said hi to me at once. Asked me what I was reading. I showed him. Spawn #1. Then I went and sat cross-legged in my usual spot in the corner. Read quietly. When he came over to me an hour later, he was clearly nervous. “Hey,” he said.

  I looked up at him. “Hey.”

  “I’m Jordan.”

  “I’m Ashlee,” I said after a second.

  He shuffled a foot nervously and scratched his jaw. “Look—I was wondering. If … like, if you wanted to maybe get a burger or something. If you have time, I mean.”

  “Like, together?”

  He shifted his weight. “Yeah. If you want.”

  I thought for a few seconds. “When?”

  The question seemed to catch him off guard. He stammered a reply. “Um, I mean, like, tonight, if you’re around. Or some other time.”

  I bit my lip and fiddled with a strand of unfamiliar black hair. “Uh, yeah. I could do that, I guess. But I gotta be home early. I have class tomorrow.”

  Jordan Stone smiled. A genuinely happy smile. He nodded. “Yeah. Same.”

  He was shy. We went on three dates before he tried to kiss me. I’d been bracing myself for it. We had hung out at the arcade, played Skee-Ball and video games, won long chains of red paper tickets that we’d used to buy little trinkets that China probably pumped out by the trillions. We walked to the parking lot together. Paused by the old Ford truck that I happened to know was registered to his father. I saw the tense mix of desire and fear in his face and he said, “Well, anyway, see you around.” I nodded, and as I did he leaned over and put his hand gently on my hip and his lips found mine.

  It took everything I had. The blood pounding in my head with a sick dizzy feeling. But I let him do it. Let him kiss me. Even reciprocated, slightly. He stepped closer. I could feel his thin frame against me. His pulse against mine. He was hard. I felt it against me. Thinking about that possibility, I thought it would make me sick. Instead I just felt a strange dispassion. Noticing it without feeling it. Feeling it without feeling it.

  After an infinite moment I pulled away. “I should go.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “’Night.”

  “’Night, Ashlee.”

  * * *

  I had to be careful. There was a balance. He had to like me. Had to want me. Had to trust me. But not to the point that he’d start telling people about this new, black-haired comic book girl in his life. Not to the point where he’d ask me to come over for Sunday supper so he could introduce me to his parents. Not to the point where he’d ask me to hang out with his friends. Not to the point where we ended up in a bedroom together.

  So I chose the third week. Starting from when he’d kissed me in the parking lot. The third week of going to the arcade or the movies, once driving into San Francisco and getting pizza in North Beach, making out in his truck and letting him feel me up with increasing excitement. He liked me a lot, by then. I could tell. It was obvious.

  Why wouldn’t he?

  I was perfect for him.

  “We should go somewhere,” I suggested one night. Sitting next to him in his truck. We had parked by a quiet overpass up in the hills. It was a clear, cold fall night. Below us I could just hear the traffic on the freeway. The windows had fogged up and for a while we had been making out without saying much.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “My family has a house a few hours from here. Between Tahoe and Reno. A ski place.
They come up in the winter but it’s empty now. We could go hang out there,” I said meaningfully.

  I could see his eyes. Thinking. Wanting. Desiring. “When?”

  “Why not tomorrow? I have off from work and I don’t have class.” As far as he knew, I waitressed part time and was enrolled at Cal State East Bay down in Hayward.

  The thought seemed to scare him. “I gotta work.”

  “So ditch. Call in sick.”

  He shifted his weight, looked away, uncomfortable. “Look, Ashlee—I’m not really supposed to go out of the state.”

  It was the first time he’d mentioned that. I asked the logical question. “What are you talking about? Why not?”

  He shook his head. Still looking away from me. Out the window. “I got in some trouble a long time ago. I’m supposed to stay local.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Never mind, then. Just an idea. Anyway, I should get home.”

  He started the engine. We pulled back onto the road. But the hook was there.

  The next day, when I saw him, he was in a good mood. He smiled. Kissed me. “You know what? Let’s do it.”

  “You’re sure? You won’t get in trouble?”

  “Let’s go. It’ll be fun. If we leave now, I’ll just miss work tomorrow. Not a big deal.”

  I held his hand in mine. “I guess if you’re missing work I can skip class. I’ll drive.”

  * * *

  We drove east on the 80 for a few hours, through Sacramento, the traffic growing sparse. If we’d stayed on it for another three thousand miles we would have ended up somewhere in New Jersey. We neared the Sierra Nevada range and the road snaked into the mountains as we approached the infamous Donner Pass. It peaked, then dropped sharply through the forested mountains that led to Lake Tahoe. We stayed on the 80 as the ground flattened again and then hit the Nevada desert, just scrub and brush in the darkness.

  “You’re quiet,” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “You nervous?”

  I gave him a look. “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s not me, is it?”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Comic books. Why do you like them so much? What made you like them?”

  He considered. “I guess when I was a kid they were so exciting. More exciting than real life. Real life seemed boring.” He thought more. “Now it’s different. Now they’re about possibility. Anything can happen. Like, anything is possible. Characters can always get to the next page, the next issue. No matter how bad things get.”

  I nodded.

  “How about you, Ash?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what I like about them.”

  * * *

  When I finally turned off the highway it was almost nine o’clock. The unpolluted desert sky crammed full of bright stars. A scimitar of moon. The barren landscape enveloped us.

  “They live pretty far out,” he said. His voice casual but clearly nervous. “You’re not lost, are you?”

  “I’m not lost.”

  “Are we almost there?”

  I nodded. “We’re almost there.”

  I turned onto another road. This one just a narrow unpaved strip, narrow enough that I would have had to slow and pull over for an oncoming vehicle. The car bounced up and down against the rough road, pebbles kicking up into the undercarriage with sharp pings. “This is a ski house?” he asked uncertainly. “Where are the mountains?”

  “They couldn’t afford Tahoe. So they picked something a little farther out.”

  “Oh.”

  We kept driving. I flicked through radio stations, looking for any music. Some country song came on, a baritone voice furred with static.

  “Where are we, Ashlee?” he asked again. There were no houses in sight. No vehicles. Nothing. Outside the windshield the world was pitch black except for the headlights and stars and yellow light that melted off the moon like tallow.

  I slowed as we came up on a narrow turnoff, took it.

  We left the road entirely, bumping across dirt tracks.

  He didn’t bother to hide his nervousness anymore. “Ashlee? Where are we? There aren’t even any houses here.”

  “We’re almost there,” I said again.

  We bumped along another fifty yards.

  I stopped.

  In front of us the headlights cast twin pools over scrubland.

  “Ashlee. Is this a prank? Let’s just go back home. C’mon. This was a bad idea.”

  I looked at Jordan Stone. “It’s too late, now. It’s too late to go back. Come on. I’ll show you where we are.”

  He started to say something, but I was already getting out of the car. I left the lights on. After hesitating, he got out and joined me. We stood in front of the headlights, looking out at the blank landscape. Shrubs and low cacti threw strange shadows over the earth.

  “Ashlee. What is this?”

  I looked at Jordan Stone directly. “The trouble you mentioned. Why you couldn’t leave the state. You never told me what happened.”

  His face paled in the glare of the headlights. “What are you talking about?”

  “What did you do? That you aren’t supposed to cross state lines?”

  He flinched like I’d hit him. “Nothing. Just something stupid. A long time ago,” he muttered.

  “You don’t want to tell me?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go home, Ashlee. I’m cold. I’m hungry. I don’t know where we are. I need to get home.”

  “Maybe my name isn’t Ashlee.”

  He stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

  Now that it was finally happening I didn’t know exactly how I felt. Something was missing, though. The feeling of triumph that I’d always imagined. That wasn’t there. Everything just felt flat. Empty. Like the scrubbed and shadowed ground around us. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” I said. “You have no idea.”

  His face was paler. He took a step back. “Recognize you? What are you talking about?”

  “But why would you, I guess? Although people always told me I had my mother’s eyes.”

  He was utterly confused. “Your mother? What does she have to do with this?”

  “Everything,” I said. “See, Jordan, she has everything to do with this.”

  And then, slowly, Jordan Stone understood.

  His face seemed to gain in years and he started backing away from me. Slowly. As if his feet dragged weights. Inching his way backward toward the car.

  He stopped when he saw the gun.

  “Ashlee,” he said. “Please. Whatever you think I did.”

  “I don’t think. I know.” Still none of the thrill or satisfaction I had imagined. Instead just a dull anger and a chilly, spreading tiredness. I didn’t want to be there either. Part of me wanted to just get back in the car, drop Jordan Stone off in Hercules, take a hot shower, and never see or think of him again.

  But that was impossible. I was too far in. Besides, I knew better. I’d spent the last ten years trying not to think of Jordan Stone. It didn’t work. He was always there. He always would be.

  “What are you going to do to me?” He inched farther away.

  “Stop,” I said. “We’re not through. Not yet.”

  His feet stilled. His face drawn in thought. “So this whole time. The last month. The dates and the arcade and the making out and the comic books. Just a bunch of lies.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Of course you did! You lied about everything—even your name.” He gestured around with a furious, futile energy. “The ski house in the goddamn desert. Everything. You never stopped lying. Just to bring me here.”

  “Yes,” I acknowledged. “To bring you here.”

  “Why?” he asked helplessly.

  “Why did you do it?” The question that had burned me up for the last decade.

  “Carson,” he said. “He planned it. I was a kid. I was
stupid. I just went along with it.”

  “Save that for the courts,” I said, suddenly furious. “All his fault, sure. Corrupting you. Bullshit. The papers lapped it up. The jury lapped it up. The parole board, too. But not me. Not me. You helped to slash my mother’s throat with a butcher knife. You didn’t have to. But you did.”

  Jordan Stone looked queasy. He huddled into himself, shrinking down. His shadow looked monstrous, stretching away over the dark earth. “He said he’d kill me if I didn’t help. He meant it. He would have. He said if I didn’t do it, too, then he couldn’t trust me.”

  “You could have said no. You could have stopped him. You could have let them run. You could have called the cops. You could have done anything. But you didn’t.”

  He bit his lip and he was suddenly crying. “I pray to God every day to forgive me.”

  “I don’t forgive you. That’s what matters here.”

  “I suffered. You have no idea. In the juvenile home, in prison. You know what the gangs did to me? A skinny little white kid?”

  “I don’t care.”

  For the first time in my life I pointed a gun at someone. It was a little black Ruger .22 semiautomatic. I’d bought it on my twenty-first birthday. A present to myself.

  Already knowing what I planned to do with it.

  I drew the slide back, racking a cartridge into the chamber.

  His face lost still more color. His voice shook. “You have no idea. You think you do, but you don’t. You might think it ends when you pull that trigger. Trust me. It only begins. Killing haunts you forever. You think I’ve slept through a single night in the last ten years? You think a single night’s gone by when I didn’t wake up screaming?”

  My hand was shaking, too. I didn’t want to talk to Jordan Stone anymore. Didn’t want to know any more about him. “I’ll take that chance.”

  “They’ll catch you,” he said. “I told people I was with you. Told them about tonight.”