THUGLIT Issue Nine

by Jen Conley

  I picked up a stone and tossed it in. Green saw this and he outdid me, with his left hand. I wondered out loud if he could outswim me one-armed too. He said he might be able to. Then I pretended to push him in and we laughed at how easy it would be, but Green had stopped moving.

  Green pulled away from the water, driving himself back into my arms. I moved my palms from his lower back to his waist. I tightened my grip. We stood there on the water's edge for a moment thigh against thigh, belly against back, like lovers contemplating a lost sunset. I breathed warm gin breath over the dark raised hairs on Green's neck and then brought the ashtray down on the back of his head in a way that was meant to sting before the lights went out.

  I made sure he could see my face when I hit him the second time, and he did. For a split second he conceptualized his predicament like a stroke victim with guttering faculties. How will I swim with my broken arm? is what he seemed to want to say. But this was just an involuntary firing of synapses, the fight-or-flight response Green had found so fascinating in Psychology 101. The truth was he would not be swimming at all, he would not even be flapping his arms. His body was no longer his. He would sink and he would realize he was sinking and that he could do nothing about it, that he was young and in love and was still going to die, in seconds, that he had done nothing of importance in his short life and that maybe of all the people whose lives he had passed through, I was the one who knew him best.

  When they found Green's body a day or a month or a year later, Green's wallet would be gone. The police report would say late-night mugging. The last time I would have seen him was at approximately 3:30 on the corner of 57th and Sutton Place. We had embraced, said goodnight. No one had seen me take the ashtray—an absurd theft anyway for a non-smoker, Broyard would have said.

  I listened to the water. It was early spring. It felt good to be standing there by myself. My name is Jimmy Colligan. I am five-foot-eleven. I have sandy brown hair that I've always worn parted on the right. I talk with a gentle Georgia lilt. When you see me in a bar, you will instinctively be drawn towards me. I am just that kind of a guy.

  Visitor at Copenhagen Street

  by Jen Conley

  I came home from work and smelled the hash as soon as I opened the door. It wasn't strong, just a whiff, but it meant Colin had a visitor. As I braced myself at the first step in the stairwell, gazing up at the swirling red and brown carpet of paisley design, I ran through my brain Colin's catalogue of the things I needed to remember:

  I must not pick up the newspaper and ignore our guest.

  I must not talk too much about America.

  I must remember to be fun and lighthearted, like I'm knocking back pints of cider.

  I must offer our visitor something to drink or eat.

  Taking a breath, I checked my hair in the broken mirror near the banister, focused, and began climbing the stairs. They were listening to my Nirvana CD, which had come out a year earlier. Unbelievably, Colin had never listened to Nirvana until I brought it around.

  "Amy!" Colin called, his North England accent singing through the flat. "In here!"

  The flat Colin and I shared was on Copenhagen Street, not far from hectic Caledonian Road, in London's King's Cross section. We lived above a newsagent in a two-level flat, the kitchen and sitting room on the one floor, two bedrooms and an extremely small bathroom on the level above. Colin and I slept in the bigger bedroom, even though I'd asked to switch rooms because it faced the street—loud trucks barreled along the potholed road at all hours, waking me up at night. We used to have a roommate in the other bedroom but he went back north, where it was grim, but there was a child involved, so he had to go.

  "Hiya," Colin said, lying on the floor of the sitting room, on same brown and red paisley carpet that flowed over the stairs. He held a spliff in his fingers.

  "Hi," I said, standing motionless, then nodding to the man who was our guest.

  "Yep," said the guy.

  The visitor was the caravan type: grungy, robust, dirty fingernails. Masculine and muscular, too, even in his soft hippie clothes—torn jeans, tie-dye long-sleeved shirt, a wooden necklace around his throat, worn Doc Martens on his feet. His messy dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, and his eyes were large and brown, as were his eyebrows. His right hand was wrapped in a clean white bandage, but blood had leaked through, leaving a dark-red stain that distracted me for a moment. An overstuffed backpack lay near him.

  "He's just staying the night, pet," Colin said. He often called me pet—a term of endearment used by the older folks of North England—but he used it in a wise-ass way. Ironically, like my American friends and I had used British terms and phrases when we were alone together: Where's my Jumper? What's on the tele? Give us a fag, will ya?

  "So no worries," Colin added. He was still holding onto the spliff which, I reminded myself, was completely acceptable in England. Back in the summer, I'd told Colin that if he ever went to the States, he'd better not hold onto a joint after taking a hit. "People will rip your head off. You need to pass it to your neighbor immediately."

  "Is that right?" he'd asked brightly, clearly captivated. A few months ago Colin had found me interesting.

  "Yes," I had said confidently, recalling my days in the woods, six or seven years earlier, in the mid 80s. It was always the same—big fire, music blasting from a dented boombox, my boyfriend at the time getting stoned, me bored out of my mind. How I longed for somewhere different, where the days dazzled, guys were handsome and exciting, life was a music video, the music something other than Van Halen or Motley Crüe.

  Colin rolled over and handed the spliff to the guest, then stood up.

  My boyfriend was a sight to behold. Colin was twenty-nine to my twenty-three when I'd first seen him at the pub. I was behind the bar on a warm bright day with the sun streaming through the dusty windows when Colin walked in and immediately took my breath away. Lean body, broad shoulders, sideburns, slightly crooked nose, smirking because he knew I'd been knocked over. Rugged, electric, donned in snug jeans, sturdy boots. I was done. He was something from the fifties—Elvis in his good days, James Dean, Marlon Brando.

  "Stella," he ordered, sitting at the bar, sizing me up. I got him the beer, tried to play it cool, refusing his invitation to meet up that night, sliding over my phone number instead. "Treat me nice," I warned. And when he called, I met him for drinks but refused the invite to his flat. When he called again, I made plans to meet on a Tuesday night and then forced myself to cancel, saying I was hanging out with the girls. He was dumbfounded, pissed off that I'd stood him up, as if no girl had ever dared such a thing, yet intrigued. I knew from moment one he had to be played in order to be gotten. "Maybe I'll meet you Friday night, at eight," I'd said coyly. "No, make it nine."

  "Maybe?"

  That was six months earlier and inevitably my true colors had bled through: I was not the confident American siren he had thought he'd snagged. I was insecure and girl-like, a woman who didn't own any sexy lingerie, working illegally in the U.K., and disgustingly faithful to him.

  But because I was mad about Colin, with his dark green eyes, his swagger, his knowledge of London and how to navigate through it—don't worry about going to the clinic for your birth control pills because you just have to give them a fake NI number, nobody checks it here—and because he drove me to the edge with his moody unstable temperament—will he be happy to see me or annoyed that I actually breathed air? I made it my mission to carry on with him as long as he would have me.

  "This is me mate from school," Colin said, introducing the guest. "Ni."

  Short for Nigel, I reminded myself, because here in England everything seemed to have two or three names. At the pub, Ginger Ale was referred to as an American or simply Ginger. Castlemaine could be called Castlemaine, Four X, or lager. Colin had a friend called Shug but also answered to the name Hugh.

  "I'm Amy," I said to Ni.

  Colin asked me to go down to the Off License and get more beers. I stared a
t him, waiting for him to hand me money, but he didn't, which caused fury to shoot through my blood. Colin was cheap. Never took me out to dinner, always insisting that cooking at home was better. This made no sense to me because I wasn't a good cook, my short list basic American: chicken and broccoli with rice, tacos, spaghetti and meatballs. Colin didn't like the meatballs, preferring spaghetti Bolognese, and he didn't like rice with his chicken, favoring mashed potatoes instead.

  "I'm low on cash," I told him. I worked at a pub in Whitechapel, grabbing every shift I could, and I still couldn't pay my share of the expenses because—as I've said before—I was illegally working. Therefore I was off the books, which meant my income was substandard to the average Brit. Colin had a job he hated—he was a courier—but at least he made real money. And besides, he had extra cash because he was using a fake NI number to get a portion of the flat paid for by the government. But I was the American and most Europeans seemed to think we all came from oversized ranches with horses in the stable and a big fat daddy who bankrolled our trips abroad.

  Colin signaled with a nod that we were to discuss the beer money matter in the kitchen.

  "You don't have five quid to buy a few beers?" he asked as we stood in front of the stove.

  I did have five quid. I had twenty actually, but I wasn't admitting to it. "Nope."

  Colin cocked his head, lit a cigarette, and squinted as he blew out the smoke.

  "Where is he going?" I asked, referring to Ni and his backpack.

  There was no answer.

  "Hello?" I snapped. "Question needs a response."

  Colin scowled, clearly not amused.

  "Fine. I'll ask him myself."

  My boyfriend sucked on his teeth, making a spitting noise. I immediately understood that if I continued with this behavior, Colin would absolutely not have it. He would ignore me, take off with Ni for a few hours and when he returned there would be a scene, as there sometimes was—because I had a tendency to scream and throw things when I was really upset, and then collapse into a torrent of tears and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't kick me out!

  "I'll get the beer," I relented.

  It was dark and raw outside, the traffic heavy. I was aggravated with myself for tolerating this relationship. Angry for compromising myself and the feminist ideals I knew I should have had, ideals my mother had tried to instill; I was brought up in the fifties and we didn't have the opportunities that you have now. I shouldn't be putting up with Colin's shit. I should be telling him to fuck off and making my own way in the city, as I had done when I'd first come to London.

  Yet I was obsessed over one thing: was Colin two-timing me? After all that cooking, all those nights of swearing everlasting love, those promises of marriage, was there someone on the side? Did men like Colin just say all those things and then lie to you? Why? Was it for sport? Was he cheating? It felt like he was but I had no proof. He was always disappearing and then coming up with excuses, making my world a miserable nightmare of instability and suspicion. A bad man will ruin your life if you let him, my mother always warned.

  But I didn't know how to get out of our romance. For some idiotic reason, I kept believing Colin would wake one morning and grow a soul.

  "Dickhead," I mumbled as I walked, slowly making my way down Caledonian Road. I veered off to stand in a doorway and light a cigarette, watching as the red buses groaned by and as a pack of teenagers in tracksuits bounced along the sidewalk, shouting obscenities. It had started to get windy and I was shivering, my hair blowing into my mouth, but I forced myself to smoke slowly and not rush back to the flat.

  In the Off License I purchased several cans of lager, a couple of cans of cider for myself, and a chocolate bar. I returned to the doorway, ate the chocolate, smoked two more cigarettes, all while concocting a plan of escape—I would search the papers for a room in a house (a bedsit they called it here) something in the £50 a week range, and move. There would be others in the house and I would make friends, we would go out for drinks, and I would meet more people, maybe a guy in a band, and he would think I was extraordinary, write songs about me, never make me cook, or chastise me for not wearing sexy underwear, and, after a few short months—because Immigration was cracking down—propose.

  The fantasy lasted only minutes: there were no decent bedsits in London for £50 a week. So I returned to the flat, fixing my hair in the mirror before climbing the steps.

  "What? Was the shop in Egypt?" Colin asked.

  "Libya."

  "Piss off."

  I sat down on the carpet, watching as Ni examined the bandage on his hand, but Colin said he needed me in the kitchen.

  So I got up and followed him, standing by the stove as he shut the door. "This is me mate and I don't need this from you." He leaned into my face, holding his hand near his mouth and miming chatter.

  "Sorry," I said, dropping my head, feeling powerless. I hated that I caved when I was reprimanded as much as I hated that I actually made Colin mashed potatoes instead of rice. And I hated that Lorna, who had recently returned from France, had called last week and he had spent an hour on the phone with her.

  Colin stood back, crossing his arms, screwing up his forehead.

  "I said I was sorry."

  He frowned and then smiled. "Forget it, love." He kissed me and ran his hand through my hair. "Why are you so mad?"

  Where could I begin without making him angry? Besides, with Ni in the flat, we could not have such a heavy discussion. So I just shrugged and Colin pulled me closer and kissed me again. I weakened under his touch, as I always did, my head swirling into a dust devil of happiness and relief, feeling as if everything had suddenly mended itself.

  "Let's go upstairs," Colin whispered and I grinned, then reminded him of the visitor in the sitting room.

  "He won't mind." Colin placed his hands on my waist and winked. "Let's go."

  I laughed and he hugged me tight and kissed me again, but eventually we returned to the sitting room with the paisley red and brown carpet.

  We sat for an hour, listening to my Nirvana CD and then an old Clash LP. Ni was quiet, drinking his beer steadily, listening to Colin and me talk. We discussed a variety of things: the London bus system (I still hadn't gotten it down), cheeseburgers versus pizza, the movie Boys in the Hood, and the marriage problems of Charles and Diana. Through it all, I made sure I offered to make dinner (nobody was hungry) and I retrieved the beers from the fridge for both our guest and my boyfriend. Colin got drunk, slurred his words, made a joke with Ni, who didn't respond, just stared. He was strange, and although I stole several glimpses at Ni's bandaged hand and the bloody stain, I got the feeling from his silent, almost brooding disposition that I shouldn't dare ask about it, that it was none of my business.

  At nine, the alcohol was almost gone and Colin and I began to argue about the night before, when we had gone down to the Slug and Lettuce and lo and behold, Lorna was there. I protested that he'd left me out of the conversation and he said I didn't attempt to join the conversation. I rolled my eyes and he stood up, announcing that he was going for more beer.

  Before he went, he called me into the kitchen, but I refused to go.

  "Amy, get in here."

  "No."

  "Suit yourself," he said, walking into the sitting room and pulling on his suede jacket. "One last chance, pet," he said, signaling towards the kitchen.

  "Are you going to see Lorna?"

  Colin clucked his tongue, signaling he was done, that I had crossed the line, and left.

  I sat solemnly on the floor, staring at the swirling paisley carpet, picking at my nails, huffing, grumbling, then getting up and ripping the Nirvana CD out of the player, putting the disk in the case, muttering, "This is my fucking CD." Colin was so old he hadn't even known about Nirvana when I first met him. Who hadn't heard of Nirvana? How did I get involved with a guy whose music knowledge halted at 1986? It was unthinkable.

  After a while I attempted to talk to Ni, but again, he wasn't much of a talker
and I started looking at that hand of his, on the verge of asking him what had happened. He caught me staring, and when our eyes met, he glared at me and very slowly picked up his beer and drank it, the entire moment ominous, his eyes not moving away from mine.

  Colin didn't return in ten minutes, or in thirty, or in two hours. At this point, I was sick with anxiety, kicking myself for being so bitchy, for even mentioning Lorna's name. My paranoia was ruining our relationship. Why couldn't exes be friends? People did it all the time. I wanted to go after him, apologize, beg for forgiveness, but I knew that would make things worse because Colin didn't like to be followed. He was probably down at the pub, I reminded myself, the one near King's Cross station, and he would be back before midnight.

  I did my best to keep occupied. I read the Evening Standard, making simple comments to Ni, who barely responded. I wanted another cider but I'd finished them, and by this time, the Off License was closed. Eventually I offered to show Ni where he would be sleeping and I led him upstairs.

  I went to my room and read for a while, flopped over in bed, got up and peered through the window, watching cars roll by, looking for Colin to come bouncing down the road. I thought about going downstairs and phoning my mother—it was only dinnertime in New Jersey—but decided against it because who knew what I would say to her. As it was, she wasn't fond of my living in sin. This wasn't because she was a traditionalist, but because she believed females usually got the shaft in these situations. And I guessed, by the fact that she didn't call me much these days, she was too disgusted with my blabbering about Colin, knowing with mother's intuition that I was making a fool of myself. I knew she was right. Not about the living in sin, but about my situation, that it wasn't working and I knew I should move out. London was such a dazzling city—or it had been months ago, when I was with my friends, hitting the clubs and seeing bands, wandering around Camden Market, or sitting at the pub, reading Ian McEwen or Nell Dunn. Yet, with so little money, no future, my friends gone, the city had faded for me, dissolving into a place of no opportunity, everything out of reach. I needed to go home. I knew that. I had been in London for over a year and the time was up. Still, I was holding onto the city as if something would change, something would alter, Colin would marry me and make my life sparkle again.