Take One With You

by Oak Anderson

  “Bottle of water is fine,” she said. Thane thought he heard an apologetic note in her voice as if she expected an argument, but he decided against it.

  Never look a gift twat in the puss.

  “Coming right up,” he said, smiling. Thane lifted his hand, immediately catching the eye of the wary barkeep once again, who strode over promptly once again.

  Must be my lucky night.

  “Two bottled waters,” he said, pushing the full shot towards the bartender. “We’re gonna grab a booth.”

  Thane could tell the bartender was about to say that he’d still have to pay for the shot, but he cut him off at the pass. “This one’s for you. On me.”

  The bartender nodded and then glanced at Anita, who looked pretty fucking hot in a tight red dress and matching heels, with some of that criminal cleavage he’d noticed beneath her eyes.

  Barkeep’s definitely not gay. Or maybe Officer Goodbody is just that good.

  The bartender was back in a flash with the non-alcohol, and the two of them made their way to a booth along the far wall.

  “So, you hungry?” Thane asked, once they’d settled in.

  “Uh, no. Well, I’m meeting a girlfriend for dinner.”

  Fuck.

  “Okay,” Thane said. “So, where’s the old man tonight? Hill Street, right?”

  She smiled. “That’s right. Didn’t know if you’d remember.”

  Thane laughed. “I always remember the husbands.”

  Anita giggled and Thane thought he saw a little color appear in her cheeks, too. He was on a roll tonight. Goddamn, he wanted her.

  They talked on and on, like it was a first date. Thane noticed after a while that she’d stopped looking around for her friend and seemed a lot less nervous as the night wore on. They ended up ordering dinner, after all. He ordered light.

  Not taking any chances.

  Thane’s usual waitress, whose name he could never remember but always laughed when he called her Cookie, gave him a sly wink and nod of approval after appraising Goodbody. For the first time in ages, Thane was just letting loose and having a good time.

  Before their food arrived, he noticed that she seemed to be getting a little nervous again, so he flagged down Cookie and ordered them both a drink without asking whether or not she wanted it. Thane had always been a take-charge guy with women, something a lot of them liked, and a few, such as his ex, didn’t tolerate for very long.

  She doesn’t need to take it very long. Just fifteen minutes or so.

  “What are you grinning about?” Anita asked.

  Thane laughed. “Nothing. Just thinking about dinner.”

  She leaned forward, her neckline now dangerously low. Thane stared into her eyes, which he just realized were an amazing shade of green. If he’d been asked before that moment what color they were, he wouldn’t have had a clue even though he’d been sitting a foot away from her for over an hour, but now he was trying extremely hard, not without success, to keep from staring at her tits.

  “Tell me something,” she said, and Thane leaned in. They were so close he could have shoved his tongue down her throat just by craning his neck, and man did he want to, but he played it as cool as he could for a man with a blue-veiner and no place to put it.

  Yet.

  “What’s that?”

  “What do you think of Myers?”

  Thane blinked. Myers? Who the fuck is Myers?

  “Chief-of-Detectives Myers,” she added, amused that he looked so clueless about his own boss.

  Thane sat back. Why the fuck did she bring up Myers?

  “Right,” he said. “Myers.” He nodded, appraising her anew. What the fuck is her angle, anyway?

  “I’m just wondering because of that night,” she added quickly.

  “What night?”

  “The boy. In the alley. The deaf – ”

  “Right, yeah, I remember,” Thane said. “The kid in the alley. Myers was there.” He leaned in again. “Why, what did Myers do?”

  “Well, he was kind of an asshole,” she answered, and that was all she needed to say. Thane opened up like that long-ago quarter slot machine, filling her in on all the past slights he’d suffered at the hands of the higher-ups like Myers who’d been holding him back for so many years.

  Anita Hellstrom just sat back and listened for the better part of an hour as Thane raged against the department in general and Myers in particular. Their food came and went, barely touched, as Thane told her his secrets and lies, his hopes and dreams, his fears and ambitions.

  And she began to feel empathy for him, which surprised her. Thane actually seemed like a good man and a loving father, although pretty rough around the edges. Her own dad had been like that, gruff and quick to anger, but when the chips were down, he knew who his friends were and he would fight for them with all he had.

  Thane seemed like that to her. A man with his own particular code of honor that didn’t necessarily match up ethically or even morally with that of society’s, but which was a code nonetheless, and there was something to admire in that. Her husband was shallow and ambitious, more like Myers, in her eyes. A man who would easily rise above his level of competence over time simply by being a good politician. A man who knew which asses to kiss and how long to hold his pucker.

  Thane was not a politician, she could see that now.

  “Shit, what time is it?” she asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” he answered, looking around for a clock, then comically searching his pockets for his cell phone.

  “Thane.”

  He looked up. Goddamn she’s got some beautiful tits. “Yeah?”

  She reached across the table for his hand, and he was about to lean over and just fucking kiss her, when she grabbed his wrist and turned it over to check his watch.

  Anita looked up at him with a confused look, and he chuckled.

  “I don’t wear watches that work.”

  She just stared at him for a moment. “Okay, you’re gonna have to explain that.”

  “Nah, it’s okay,” he said, and turned to look through the pockets of his coat for his cell.

  “Tell me,” she said playfully, “you told me everything else.”

  Thane looked up a little too quickly, and she could see another side of her father, the side she didn’t like as much. She could see a flash of something more than anger, something closer to rage. At that moment she refocused and batted her eyes and smiled, and the madness drained from his eyes as quickly as it had appeared. When he started to speak, she could breathe again.

  “I had this watch once. A gift from my ex, back when we were still married. I kept wearing it after the divorce, I don’t know why.”

  He looked at her almost sheepishly, and seeing in her eyes what he believed was real compassion, continued.

  “So one day it stopped working. I don’t know when, but it made me late for a very important meeting, and…things got all fucked up. So now, I don’t rely on any goddamn watch to tell me what time it is.”

  He smiled and shrugged. “Stupid, huh?”

  “What was the meeting?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “So why do you still wear the watch?”

  “This? This isn’t the same watch,” he said. “Hell, no. Different watch.”

  “So why do you wear any watch?” she asked. “If you don’t use them to tell time?”

  “Fuck if I know,” he said. “Just feels like a man should wear a watch, I guess.”

  She laughed. Now he sounded exactly like her father.

  “What’s so fucking funny?” he asked, laughing with her.

  She shook her head. “I’ll tell you when I know you better.”

  He liked the sound of that. Thane reached in his coat, finally finding his phone, and said, “Eleven-forty.”

  Her eyes widened, and she reached into her purse, frantically digging through it as if she didn’t trust his cell phone like he didn’t trust his watch.

  “I have to go.
”

  “Oh, okay. Sure,” he said, the disappointment evident in his voice. “I’ll walk you out.” He threw some bills on the table. So much for my fuckin’ quarter moment.

  “That’s okay, you don’t have to rush out because of me.”

  “Like I’m gonna stay in this dump,” he said, and they walked towards the door.

  A dark figure in a non-descript sedan a half block up the street sat up and took notice as they exited, taking a last drag of his cigarette before tossing it, where it landed amongst several other butts on the damp pavement.

  There was a light mist coming down, so Thane quickly took off his jacket and held it over their heads as they walked towards her car. She quickly fished out her keys and unlocked her doors with the fob.

  When she turned, he was on her, kissing her passionately, and for a brief moment she responded.

  Thane’s hands were on her neck, surprising her with a gentleness that belied his hungry lips, and moved up to caress her face.

  She managed to get her hands between them and pushed him off as politely as she could. “I shouldn’t,” she said.

  Thane pulled back, but only slightly. He looked deeply into her eyes, staring until it made her uncomfortable. “You’re lying,” he said.

  She just looked at him, frozen.

  “You want to,” he said. She said nothing. “You know you do.”

  “I have to go,” she said. “Really.”

  “Aw, fuck it,” he said, and turned away. But he didn’t leave. When he turned around he was holding the watch in his hand.

  “It’s the same watch,” he said. “Same goddamn watch. The meeting was to take my kid to the movies. For his birthday.”

  She reached out and touched his arm, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Bitch waited five minutes and left.” He looked up at her, and she saw the rage in his eyes again. It was like she wasn’t even there. He might as well have been talking to a complete stranger. “Five fucking minutes late, and I missed his birthday.”

  Suddenly he turned and threw the watch, where it clattered in the street and came to a rest very near the pile of cigarette butts near the sedan. She followed it with her eyes and then looked at the dark man inside, whose eyes she couldn’t see but which she knew were boring into her.

  She grabbed Thane and spun him around, pulling his face to hers and kissing him with a desperation that shocked him in its ferocity.

  He started to reach for her body, but she pushed him away, and without another word, got into her car, slammed the door, and drove away.

  Thane just stood there for a moment, watching as she turned a corner and disappeared out of sight. He felt his wrist and looked up the street toward where his watch must have landed. He briefly considered retrieving it, but then decided against it.

  “Fuck it.”

  Thane walked back to the parking lot, got in his car, and left.

  After he was gone, the dark figure in the sedan started his engine and slowly rounded the corner, lights off.

  3 YEARS AFTER TOWY WEBSITE

  VARIETY (magazine) Details: Errol Morris to Helm TOWY Doc (documentary) For The Weinstein Company After Personal Pitch from Harvey

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlie walked home after his argument with Sarah stunned and confused. He had just experienced his first kiss and his first real fight, all in the space of about thirty seconds, and he didn’t know what to think.

  It was times like that he really missed his mom.

  Losing his father young had made him, for lack of a better term, a mama’s boy, something he’d been called at school as an insult, but which he fully embraced in practical terms. All it meant to him was that he was especially close to his mother, and he never saw anything wrong with that.

  Charlie always felt like his dad’s passing was a gift, in a way. A dark gift he would have preferred never to receive, but a gift, nonetheless. In death, his father left him a legacy of maturity he might otherwise have taken years to attain.

  It made sense, of course. Being thrust into the role of “man of the house”, whatever that meant, at an early age had a tendency to either set a boy on one of two paths: responsibility or recklessness. While he had always considered himself on the former, it sometimes seemed like a fool’s errand. Charlie had a hard time making friends, and had never, before Sarah, had anything close to a girlfriend in his life. He knew it was partly his fault, but he also believed that his failure to relate to others was because he’d grown up just a little faster than his peers.

  By the time he realized that everyone had a persona they showed the world, and many families had unhappiness and tragedy they chose not to reveal, he had pretty much set his course as a loner.

  He went to a high school party once and stood in the corner all night, pretending to be a tortured soul when all he really wanted was one of the girls he’d watched from across the room to approach and engage him in conversation. To be curious about him, curious enough to come over.

  None did.

  Soon enough he came to understand you had to be careful about what you pretended to be, because that was often what you would become, like it or not.

  It was his mother who always moderated the extremes in his personality. If his father’s death had allowed him to grow up fast, it was his mother’s life that had allowed him to just be a kid.

  Her loss was more devastating than his father’s.

  And now he had lost Sarah.

  Of course, he hadn’t really lost her; they’d only just had an argument. And he wasn’t at all sure he’d ever had her, in spite of the kiss. All those years by himself in his room had rendered him clueless about the behavior of others, sometimes.

  Being so inexperienced with girls, Charlie wasn’t at all sure about what he was supposed to do. All he knew was that hearing her scream at him like that was the worst feeling in the world, and he never wanted to feel that way again.

  He called and texted her several times during the short walk back to his house, but she never responded. He considered walking right back over to her apartment building, but decided against it.

  Maybe she just needs a day or so to cool off.

  Except he couldn’t do it. He knew he shouldn’t text her, but he did it anyway, several times a day. It felt so desperate and pitiful, but he just couldn’t help himself. Charlie was incapable of artifice. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and so could not leave things be.

  Still, she never responded.

  Nights were the worst for him. There was something about the wee hours that intensified his emotions. That made things seem entirely more hopeless and overwhelming than they would be in the light of day. And even though he understood that intellectually, Charlie simply could not own it emotionally.

  He was, in a word, miserable.

  Or as some would say, in love.

  One night about a month later, things got particularly bad for Charlie. Terrible thoughts raced through his mind, feelings of guilt and loss related to both his parents, and shame that he had allowed Sarah to render them both somehow lesser in importance in the pantheon of his guilty conscience.

  He hated the fact that he thought of her more than his folks, now, but he had to admit that he did.

  After his father died, Charlie often dreamed he was still alive. In his dream, Charlie was always older than his years. He would be spending time with his father, and the penultimate moment was always a handshake, and they were always the same height, which seemed of paramount importance. After the handshake, his father would turn and walk away, and then Charlie would wake up. This dream was strangely comforting.

  Charlie was relating to his father man-to-man, which would never have actually happened outside his dreams.

  Then when his mother died, Charlie began to dream of the night she killed herself, except in his dream, he arrived home in time to save her.

  Since his fight with Sarah, all he dreamed about was Sarah. She was always standing over him in a flowing go
wn, much taller and older than himself, as if he was a child and she a mature woman. She never spoke, only looked at him with an exquisitely intense sadness, and then she would float away and disappear as he strained to reach out and touch her. Sometimes he would feel the delicate hem of her gown slip through his grasp, and other times the garment was like smoke through his fingers, impossible to hold.

  The result, however, was always the same. Sarah was gone, and he was alone.

  He began to resent her in his waking hours, as if she’d been a force that had somehow destroyed the peace he didn’t actually possess. He had avoided Brad and Brad had done likewise ever since his outburst, and as a result Charlie was more alone than he’d ever been, without even Brad to remind him to hate.

  In an odd way, he missed that hatred, and wanted it back almost as much as he wanted Sarah. He felt like he had committed the ultimate betrayal of his mother. Not only had she been pushed aside by his feelings for Sarah, but Charlie was now living almost harmoniously under the same roof with the person most responsible for her death.

  Something had to change.

  Then one night he woke up from his dream with the perfect solution to his misery. It had been there all the time, of course, but somehow it had always seemed slightly abstract, like an equation he had to memorize and would remember all his life but never use. There was no planning required, no preparation as he’d always believed. All he needed was the will, which had arrived suddenly and without warning.

  Charlie practically leaped out of bed.

  Was this how it was for others? He had no idea. But he knew that he had to, as the saying goes, strike while the iron’s hot.

  Charlie laughed. Another perfect idea.

  He grabbed his phone for illumination and walked out into the hall, past Brad’s bedroom, and went downstairs to the living room. He saw what he needed. It felt good in his hands. It felt right.

  Charlie felt incredibly light on his feet. He made no effort at all to remain quiet, but very nearly skipped up the stairs by the eerie light of his cell phone. It was an incredible relief to have finally made the decision. He had no idea what he would do afterwards, well, he knew what he would do, he just didn’t know how he would do it.