by Nicole Fox
“I’m taking this gun so you can’t cause any trouble for your neighbors. And I’m leaving, so get out of my way. Oh, and call Mom that horrid word again and maybe I will shoot you!”
“You’ve chosen her, have you?” He coughs out a laugh.
“I chose you!” I exclaim. “I stayed here with you when I could’ve gone anywhere after college! I stayed here and withered and now I feel like an idiot for it! I tried to help you. For years, I tried to help you. For years, I saw the best in you. And for what? For you to call me a whore because I might be pregnant? You don’t offer support. You just offer criticism. You’re a leech. You’re poison.”
I barge past him before he can reply. In the hallway, I hide the gun in my waistband and then walk downstairs, pregnancy test clutched to my chest, heart pounding in my brain.
It’s only when I drive home that the tears start falling.
Chapter Twelve
Fink
I think everything is okay until the scar-faced cop walks in. He has his goons with him, as he always does. When I see him, something inside of me drops, because if he’s here to cause trouble that means the last month of the club playing it straight, of me avoiding Nancy, has been for nothing. It means that I could’ve seen her and the result would’ve been the same and dammit, man, but seeing her would’ve been the sweetest thing there is. All I’ve thought about is her, and now this . . .
“Can I help you?” I ask, standing up from the car and trying to look and sound as non-aggressive as possible. Even though I feel pretty damn aggressive at seeing these bastards here.
“Just passing through,” Michaels says, aiming that you-can’t-touch-me-I’m-the-law shit-eating grin at me. “This is a really nice place, a damn fine establishment, I’ve gotta say. So what I don’t understand is why the owner—Sal Douglas, a law-abiding man with a pretty wife—why he’d put up with scum like you. It can’t be good for business.”
He’s right; two customers watch from the waiting room. Sal watches from his office. I prepare myself to take another beating. I’m getting tired of taking beatings from this asshole, but I’m not about to ruin Sal’s business. I’ve known him too long for that.
“I guess you’re right,” I say.
“So why does he, eh? Sal Douglas! Where are you?”
“You leave him out of this,” I warn.
“Calm down, tough guy. He’s a man, isn’t he? He can talk for himself.”
Sal doesn’t look like a man when he emerges from his office. He looks like an oversized boy, shoulders low, head low, looking hangdog in the extreme. “Yes, sir?”
I hate the sir, but Sal’s always had manners.
Michaels aims his forefinger right in my face. I resist the urge to snap it in half. “I’m just curious about something. I’m wondering why a good man like you would put up with having a criminal on your payroll. Does that make much sense to you? Well, does it?”
“I suppose not, sir.”
My heart sinks with each of Sal’s words. He’s not built for this kind of thing. He’s built for hearty meals with his wife and for a quiet road to retirement. This is unfair. I try and swallow my rage, but it keeps rising, unstoppable.
“You’re not much of a man, are you, Sal, m’boy?”
“Whatever you say, sir—”
“All right, that’s enough.” I step forward. “I won’t stand here and listen to this shit. You don’t talk down to Sal. He’s a good man and he hasn’t done a thing to you. If you think you’ve got a problem with me then we can take this outside. I’ll gladly take this outside. But you and your fuckin’ sidekicks need to get out of here before I lose my patience.”
Michaels grins at me. “Really are the tough guy, aren’t you?” He turns back to Sal. “I’m coming back tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. If this daughter-fucker’s still here, this business is done. You might be thinking you do everything above-board and maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not. But in the end, it don’t matter. There’s always dirt if a cop knows where to look.” He winks at Sal, and then walks away whistling.
I watch him go, thinking how I’d like to pick up a wrench and slam him over the head with it. Daughter-fucker. That’s my crime, then, being with Nancy. But how do they know? The dad? Did Nancy really tell her drunk of a father about us having sex? It makes no sense.
I feel like dirt as I stand here, not doing a thing. I reflect on the past month, the miserable nights spent alone thinking of Nancy, ignoring the club girls because nobody can compare to her, and all for nothing. The road has ended at the same destination. Sal’s business is in danger and it’s all my fault.
“Sal.” I turn to him.
His lips are watery, his eyes watery. He waves a hand at his office, staring stubbornly at the floor, unwilling, or maybe unable, to meet my eyes. “We meet to talk, Fink.”
“That sounds serious,” I say, trying for a smile. But the smile feels phony and forced. I let it drop.
“Let’s talk in here,” he says, stepping into his office.
I sit opposite him and try to meet his gaze, but he looks above my head or down at the table, anywhere but at me. It’s like he’s trying to put his prized dog out of its misery and can’t bear to see the love and pain in his hound’s eyes.
“Sal,” I say. “It’s all right. Do what you’ve gotta do.”
Sal finally looks at me. Tears cling to his eyelashes, his lower lip trembling. People are scared of Sal when they first meet him. The other kids always showed him respect before finding out he was a big softie and they could push him around. I want to clap him on the shoulder like I did the time after the Devlin twins busted his nose with rocks and sticks. I clapped him on the back and smiled and told him, “We’ll get them back, okay? Don’t you worry about that.”
But we didn’t get them back; I got them back, sneaking up on them in their backyard at two am with a baseball bat and a knot of rage.
“I don’t like this sort of thing,” Sal mutters.
“I know you don’t,” I say. “But sometimes it’s gotta be done. What if I was any other asshole and you wanted to fire me, and I needed the money? I had kids, a family, whatever. And you bring me in here and I start spinning you a sob story and you can’t take it, ’cause you’re a nice man, and pretty soon your business is fucked because you never fired those who needed firing.”
Sal licks his lips, clicks his neck from side to side, opens and closes his hands. It seems like he does anything to avoid saying those two fateful words.
He sighs. “You’re bringing trouble round here, Fink. I’m not saying it’s your fault. I’m not saying you deserve it or anything like that. But those cops are mean pricks and they’ll do what they say they’ll do. You know they will. I can’t lose this business. This is a good business. I built it myself. I have a mortgage, a life. I want to see Europe one day.”
“I know.” I stand up. “I understand. I won’t come back here.”
I make for the door.
“Fink?”
“Yeah?” I half turn.
“I remember when we’d sit on my mom’s kitchen floor, playing marbles. You remember you had that little pouch your mom’s necklace came in, and I had that old-style coin purse thing? Do you remember how we’d trade marbles and have names for them?”
“I remember, Sal.”
“I never wanted you to go down this path,” he says, wiping his cheeks. “I thought you’d be happy when you got older. I don’t know why, but I always assumed you would be.”
“Maybe I thought so too.” I grab the door handle, but then my feet carry me back to Sal’s desk. I lean down and look firmly into his eyes, wiping the emotion from my face as though I’m at a club meet and need to be stone-cold. “You have to be strong. You’re a big man, not just in size. You’re a good man. You can’t let these rat pricks walk all over you. I get the cops. The cops walk all over everybody. But customers, employees, anyone, Sal. You don’t have to take it.”
Sal nods,
rubbing his nose. He looks about twelve. “I’ve got it, Fink. I’ll try.”
I leave the office and head for my bike. I ride away from the garage to a nearby park, where I sit on a bench overlooking the pond, the air cool but the squirrels still out, one of them nibbling on a nut and staring up at me with its big wide eyes. Those big wide squirrel-eyes get me thinking of Nancy. Maybe it was an asshole move to leave her like that after fucking her, but . . . I’ve been over this countless times, going around and around. Getting close to people causes harm. Just look at Sal. He’s my friend, and he’s miserable about it.
“What do you think?” I ask the squirrel. “Do you reckon a man like me can love and be loved and all that shit? Or do you reckon it’s beyond him? ’Cause I’ve always thought it was impossible, but now . . . Maybe it still is impossible. I don’t fuckin’ know.”
I stretch my arms out and let my head fall back, staring up at the sky. I feel lost as I never have before. I think about going to the club—the lie-low command has been lifted—but the idea doesn’t appeal to me. The club used to mean belonging, used to mean warmth and brotherhood. But now when I think of it, I can’t help but think that the sense of belonging was a hazy reflection of something better, something real: that the only time I’ve belonged in any true sense was with Nancy, our bodies pressed together at her place, or sharing drinks and our pasts at The Mermaid. Shooting pool with Snake, a man I know virtually nothing about, doesn’t much compare to that.
I kneel down near the squirrel. It scuttles away but stops a few yards off, staring at me. “It was nice to meet you,” I say, wondering if I’m going a little mad.
My cell buzzes. It’s the Old Man. I go to answer it. The Old Man’s the one who calls me when the club needs me. Maybe they need me as muscle for a job, or to work as courier, or any number of things. But I don’t answer. I just stare at the screen until the vibration has stopped. When he calls back, I set the phone to silent and slip it into my pocket, letting it ring endlessly.
It’s the first time in my life I haven’t answered when the club calls.
I return to my bike, wondering what it’s like to be a free man, a normal man, the type of man who goes to his run-of-the-mill job and comes home to his wife and just lives, just lives like any other person, no blood and no funerals and no bullets. I ride until I spot a café and then go inside and order a black coffee and a piece of apple pie with ice cream, sitting in the corner and looking over the people: the couples and the old men and the group of middle-aged women in the corner. I wonder how many of these have ever shot a man in the face because he was trying to steal their shipment, or strapped a man to a chair and smacked him around with a pistol. I wonder how many of these men and women have looked at themselves in the mirror and been surprised that horns aren’t sprouting from their foreheads.
Just as I finish my pie, a little boy comes over to me. I don’t know how old he is. I haven’t talked to a kid since I was one.
“Mister,” the boy says. He’s wearing a Captain American T-shirt and holds a clipboard. “I’m doing a project for school and I want to ask you about what it’s like paying taxes. Do you think paying taxes is a good thing or a bad thing or . . .” He goes bright red, staring up at me. “Do you think, um, do you think your taxes go to the right place?”
I smile down at the kid. “No,” I say. “If the world was fair, all the taxes’d go to me.”
I leave the kid and head back outside, suddenly intent on something I shouldn’t be intent on. I’ve stayed away for a reason, but this short outing as a normal man has convinced me even if I know it shouldn’t have. I want to see her—no, I need to see her. I check my phone before I climb onto my bike. Three missed calls, but he hasn’t called again in the past half hour, which means it can’t be that important. Maybe a gunfight or a fire, nothing serious.
I ride toward Nancy’s apartment, wondering if she’ll slam the door in my face.
Chapter Thirteen
Nancy
I return to my apartment, unable to stop clenching my jaw, my entire mouth aching from the tension. My fist is clenched so tightly around the pregnancy test I’ve crushed the cardboard. I grind my teeth together, feeling enamel flake away. Dad’s gun presses into my waist. I take it out, unload it, and place it in a kitchen drawer. And then I take the pregnancy test and go into the bathroom, heart beating at the back of my throat, cutting off my airwaves, making it difficult to breathe.
I unbutton my shirt, sucking in big lungfuls of air. When I sit on the bowl with the stick between my legs, my body betrays me. I force the pee out but nothing happens. It’s like my body doesn’t want me to know the results. It’s like my body would prefer if I just went on being angry and ignorant. I lean over to the sink and take a drink of water, knowing I must look pretty stupid hunched over with my dress around my knees like this. I drink until my belly aches and then lean back, waiting for the magic to happen.
Finally, my body complies. I pee on the stick and stand up, placing the stick on the sink and pacing into the living room and back into the bathroom. For some reason, my mind is thrown back to one night a long time ago. I couldn’t have been older than ten.
Mom came into my bedroom with a knife clutched in her hand, her eyes wide and full of fear. “I’ve had enough,” she said, kneeling beside me in bed with the knife aimed at the ceiling. “I can’t take it anymore, Nancy. I shouldn’t be unloading on you like this . . . He doesn’t hit me, or hurt me in other ways, but . . . I’m not a babysitter, am I? I’m not a minder! And he scares me. He scares me so much because, one day, he might cross the line. He’s broken enough glasses. It would be simple for him, wouldn’t it, to use one of those broken glasses and slit me—oh, God, what am I saying?”
She dropped the knife and cradled my cheeks. That was when I smelled the wine, heavy on her breath, lingering in the air around her like an acrid perfume. “This is just a dream, baby,” she said. “That’s all. Just a bad dream. Go to sleep.”
But it wasn’t just a dream. When I woke up, the knife was on the floor. I slid it into the knife block in the kitchen and pretended it never happened.
I might be a mother, I reflect, waiting for the test to either smile or frown: smile for positive and frown for negative, though that seems quite presumptuous to me. I might be a mother. Me, with all my problems, with no stable model for what a family should be. I walk into the living room; I return to the bathroom. Only this time, the test is done.
The little face smiles up at me. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant with Fink’s baby! I don’t know how to react. I place the test on the metal rack in the bathroom and then stumble into the living room, drop onto the couch, and stare at the muted TV. Someone is playing with me. The smiling shopping-channel woman is selling a buggy. I laugh, quiet at first, but then the laugh gets louder and louder, until I’m cackling like a mad woman. I cover my mouth, but the laughter persists.
The apartment buzzer interrupts my laughter. I press down on the receiver button. “Yes?” I’m dreading that it might be Dad, dreading his drunken voice slurring over the intercom, demanding his apology and demanding his gun.
But it’s not Dad. “Can I come up?” Fink asks.
“Okay . . .”
I buzz him up, truly freaked out now. I find out I’m pregnant and then two minutes later, Fink turns up at my door. I’ve never been a believe-in-fate kind of person, but this might just change my mind. I massage my temples, steeling myself for what I have to do. He needs to know about the child growing inside of me. I have to tell him before he disappears again, perhaps forever this time.
He knocks on the front door. I open it, trying to get control of myself: trying to stand confidently and appear confident in general, when in reality all I want is to shrink from this problem.
“Hello,” he says, watching me. Maybe he thinks I’m going to send him away. He reads my mind: “I wouldn’t blame you if you asked me to leave. I get that, Nancy. Really, I do. I left and … well, I left. And I can’t exact
ly stand here and beg for your forgiveness because, honestly, I’m not sure if I wouldn’t leave again.”
“Why are you here, then?” I ask.
He smiles, and then the smile falters. “As strange as it seems, you’re the only person in the whole city—damn, the whole world, even—who I feel comfortable with. Everywhere else I feel like I’m walking a tightrope or I’m playing an act. I’m tired of that. For now, I’m tired of it anyway.”
“Come in.”
I lead him to the couch, telling myself to just blurt out the news, get it over with. It’s like tearing a Band-Aid, I guess, just grab hold and rip it quickly, get the pain out of the way so that regular life can continue. But looking down at him looking up at me, his light green eyes studying me attentively, I can’t find the words.
“Do you want a drink?” I ask instead.