The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  Then Joe appeared to relent, mumbling a could-be apology before realising it wasn’t towards him I was heading. As Joe returned to his throne and placed his head in his hands, I fled in tears, my long hair trailing behind me.

  In Nina’s pink and grey sanctuary, the words and conversations of the party washed over me.

  Nina’s cousin Ashley (another stunning could-be model in skin-tight Gucci) perched beside me on Nina’s vermeil chaise longue, striving for small talk about the more-than-likely stolen glittering band on my finger, but the replies stuck to my throat like tar.

  It turned out my silence was the only thing stopping the screams. Pull yourself together, it’s not like he beat you unconscious. Yeah, it wasn’t like I’d become the latest domestic violence statistic or anything. Stage one, slap to the face. Stage five? A broken arm and a tumble down the stairs. I may have led a sheltered life, away from fear and terror and fabricated guilt, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew how these things worked.

  Now I’d been summoned to the kitchen by a suitably concerned Nina, a rum and coke placed between my fingers as I sat on the bar stool, examining my skirt’s neat green pleats.

  She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’

  Nina had plumped for a cream shift dress and matching Mary Jane’s for her Girls’ Night In soirée. It was the first time I’d seen her in nudes. Accompanied by a concerned-slash-empathetic guise, she looked positively nun-ish. Fitting then the pity was palpable, bleeding from her like I so prayed it wouldn’t.

  Pity. Compassion. Sorrow. Would this be my life after every punch? People telling me how sorry they were I married a man I barely knew? A man who, it turned out, liked to drink and shout and hit?

  Nina moved to the other side of the kitchen island, resting her elbows on the top while her deep hazel eyes scanned my face for some hint of the truth. ‘Come on, you have to talk to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because you look like crap, and I’ve never seen you look anything other than red-carpet ready. You look like you’ve been crying or something. Your face looks . . . blotchy.’

  ‘Wow, thanks.’ It was the truth, of course, apart from the crying part.

  ‘Besides, people don’t come to a party to stare at the walls. Has something happened with Joe? He done something? Don’t make me guess.’

  ‘Guess what? That Joe was drunk when I got home?’

  ‘Wait, what?’

  ‘That I hadn’t made his dinner? That I didn’t think he was the kind of guy that’d . . .’ My voice broke as I smiled falsely through the tears. ‘One hard smack to keep me in line, Nina. That’s all it took.’

  Nina stared me out for a moment before twisting to her left and grabbing the phone off the wall, shaking her head as she punched in the numbers. ‘Asshole.’

  ‘Wait, what are you doing?’ I asked in a broken croak, the panic moving up my throat.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m phoning Mickey.’

  ‘What? Please, Nina, don’t. It’ll only make things worse.’ What could be worse than Joe hitting me? Oh yeah, getting a cop who probably pummelled people to death to go deal with him.

  ‘Joe’s a scumbag! He hit you, honey. He hit you. What can be worse than that?’

  ‘Worse than, I don’t know, sinking his knuckles into some guy’s cheek like Mickey does?’

  After Nina dropped the handset, I knew I deserved Nina’s stare, but not the second slap across my face of the night.

  After clutching the other side of my face, I looked up at Nina who gave back a blank, if-I-only-had-a-brain stare.

  ‘Oh, god. I didn’t mean that. Like, I so didn’t mean that. My bad?’

  ‘I’m going,’ I managed through a laugh while sliding off the stool.

  ‘Tell me you’re joking!’

  ‘Watch me, Nina.’

  ‘I said I was sorry! Don’t go back to him, not tonight. You can take the guest room. It’ll give you time to . . . think it over. Girl, come on! I am sorry! Don’t go back to Joe, please?’

  ‘I’m married to him, Nina. What am I supposed to do, never go home?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe? It’s not like you know him.’

  ‘You did mean it.’

  ‘Come on, you’re hardly even married, and Joe is trouble. You know it, I know it . . . and now instead of walking away while you still have a chance, you want to go back to Joe and his sense of entitlement, male privilege bullshit while he’s still smashed? That’s plain crazy. Look, I’m pissed is all. I’m sorry I hit you, I don’t think what I’m doing most of the time, but what about the girls’ night in? We didn’t get to the movie and cocktails yet. The girls have brought over every chick flick they have, even the crappy ones. Mickey even downloaded some. Come on, cut me a break here.’

  I stalled at the door, scanning Nina in all her vestal finery. ‘I’ll see you later,’ I muttered and rushed out the door.

  I spent ten minutes walking by the closed boutiques and open wine bars of Nina’s neighbourhood, the night warm and breezy. I walked, thought, and walked some more. Almost a month post-wedding and the honeymoon (yeah, never had one of those either) was becoming less rose-tinted by the day. Even before tonight I’d had to pre-empt Joe, to think before I spoke to sidestep the ridicule. I found myself yearning for those early, sunny, vivacious days of the park. The glittery, sparkling promises of the future I’d craved. Had they ever existed, or had it all been my imagination?

  I wanted my old Joe back. I wanted to pretend things were good. I wanted to know, not believe, I’d made the right decision to walk up that aisle.

  Now hints of my mother’s prophecy had surfaced over the past week, of the vagabond I’d chosen to marry, the water had muddied to a thick, dark paste. It was like he was slipping me a dram of poison with each new dig. I’d found myself walking on eggshells to keep the peace and restrain the temper. I was pandering to him, for a snippet of a compliment or hint of a smile. That’s all I wanted. Validation, proof; some prophetic sign to tell me this was right.

  Excitement, danger and living on impulse were all well and good, but we were heading in a new direction now. God bless alcohol. God bless Joe.

  I thought about a hotel, of a solitary night and stale room service breakfast where I could do the walk of shame in the AM, but it’d only postpone the inevitable. I had to go home some time, and if I did maybe I’d see it again: my husband’s face before I’d bolted through the door. That look of complete humility.

  Yes. I’d go home. He’d apologise and everything would go back to normal. After all, I’d gone to Nina’s for refuge and found myself with another smarting cheek. And yet somehow it was better coming from Nina than Joe? A woman rather than a man? It was still a slap. It’d still hurt. They’d both been sorry. But who mattered more?

  I climbed out of the taxi on South Evergreen and glanced up at our dilapidated building, clutching my cheek – the lounge light casting a sallow glow into the night. Maybe he hadn’t sobered up yet, and perhaps was angry I ran. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, or maybe I wasn’t being fair. He could’ve had the day from hell, the week even, drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a bottle.

  I’d made a commitment to Joe, and for the rest of my life. We were married. I couldn’t give up after a few tough days. That’s what I used to do. That was the old me. This could be the turning point, to stop the rot and save us. I couldn’t run. I had to go back.

  Entering the apartment, I half expected broken glass and overturned furniture, though everything was as I’d left it a few hours before. Passing through the kitchen and inching open the lounge door, I found Joe on the floor, curled in a ball and snoring loudly.

  I crept from the room, careful not to wake him. Even though I knew the conversation could wait until morning, I was anything but eager for the sunrise.

  ‘You want one egg or two?’ Joe asked eight hours later as I entered the kitchen with sleep crusting my eyes. Accompanied by a jau
nty hum, Joe stood by the cooker, cracking the eggs on the side of the small pan and sliding them artfully through the grease.

  The swagger had gone from his step. The demeanour was humble, his manner quiet and slight and he’d even made breakfast. Last night felt overwhelmingly trivial in the cold light of the bare bulb. It was like I’d seen it in a movie or play, the pain hazy and the arguments of the past few days almost unreal. Maybe Joe was back.

  ‘You look amazing by the way. I mean, your boobs. Get yourself a new sweater?’ he offered, half turning to me.

  I drew the teal wrap tighter around my waist. ‘I wore it that night on Navy Pier, remember? You said I was prettier than the sunset.’

  ‘I said that? Oh yeah. It’s coming back to me now.’

  He gestured to me with his aide-memoire, the spatula. Of course he didn’t remember – whether that was due to the drink or because he was a lousy husband, I couldn’t tell.

  I paused before sitting at the kitchen table, the tension crackling like live wires. Avoiding Joe’s searching gaze, probably trying to suss out how angry I was on a scale of one to ten, I reached for the morning edition of the Sun-Times. In Back of the Yards, a mother had lost four children in a house fire, another public sector strike loomed, and Tuco, the Border Collie found wandering in the middle of Michigan Avenue last Thursday was still in need of a home.

  Stepping over and moving my paper to one side, Joe placed the oversized portion of sausage, egg, toast and over-cooked maple-roasted bacon in front of me with a flurry of hand last used by George Bemo. ‘I made your favourite.’

  Feeling only a tad nauseous, I prodded a shrivelled sausage with my fork, like I was checking for signs of life. It was definitely not my preferred choice of breakfast. ‘There’s no way I’ll eat all this. I’ll get fat.’ I hoped he might take the hint and switch it for a bowl of my usual muesli instead.

  ‘You’re a size zero and I never see you eat anything anyway,’ Joe muttered through a mouthful of toast. ‘You need to eat something that isn’t low fat crap. Get some meat on your bones.’ Wiping a greasy hand down his vest, he retrieved a cigarette from behind his ear like some two-bit magician, grinning as I nibbled a piece of bacon.

  It felt like my tooth was about to snap.

  ‘Not bad, huh?’

  A feeble attempt at breakfast, niceties and flattery; it was nothing but Joe’s guilty conscience. I was beginning to wish everything could rewind a week.

  ‘Look, about what happened,’ he began, drawing up a chair beside me and meeting my eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I feel like a dick. I am a dick. I went way over my limit, went too far. I’m glad you’re home . . . you know, I’m glad you came home. Real glad.’

  When he placed his hand over mine, his hitting hand, my fingers turned numb, like I’d plunged my hand in snow.

  ‘Joe . . .’

  ‘No, hear me out. Know how goddamn sorry I am and how this’ll never happen again, never, or you have my permission to shoot me.’

  Joe’s grin grew like a rash as he released my hand and leant back in his chair before rising to answer the ringing house phone. Meanwhile, I continued muddling through the grease-laden breakfast, washing down the dregs with gulps of juice.

  He didn’t pick up the receiver, and instead pressed the speak button. ‘Petrozzi residence, master of the house speaking,’ he announced in a mock-posh accent before shooting me a wink.

  Breakfast made? Check. Assumed he was forgiven and had permission to joke again? Check.

  ‘Hello, this is Officer Spencer of the Chicago Metropolitan Police, may I speak with Mrs . . .’

  His jaunty mood didn’t last. He didn’t let the officer finish and instead grabbed the receiver and slapped a hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘You called the cops on me? You called the goddamn cops! Are you insane? It was nothing, a slap in the face. I already got priors, what’ll they do to me now?’

  Standing from the table, I snatched the receiver from him. ‘I did not call the cops. Sit down, Joe.’ Barely listening to the officer, I glared furiously at Joe, pacing the kitchen like a Nazi general. After more staring and loudly agreeing with the officer’s sentiments, I replaced the receiver. ‘They want me down at the station about the investigation at Faith.’ Joe looked relieved. I hoped I looked as mad as I felt. ‘Nothing, was it? Only a slap in the face?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant, baby. I thought—’

  ‘Save it, I have to be somewhere.’

  There was no time for his reply before I was out the door.

  Joe had a criminal record. My husband was a felon. He’d been arrested, charged and thrown in jail. Turned out Nina was possibly right about his gangster status. So much for the new honest and open Joe Petrozzi.

  On the journey to the station it played on my mind. Joe could be a murderer, a rapist, a serial bigamist; I didn’t know the first thing about him. Come to think of it, I never had.

  TEN

  Down at District 31’s front desk, I impatiently waited for the detective assigned to my case. There was new information on Faith’s break in and as the main witness-slash-suspect I’d been summoned, though I didn’t think to pack an overnight bag. They had the wrong Petrozzi if that was on the cards.

  I was beside the coffee machine in the lofty waiting area, entertaining myself with the largely out-of-date notice board. Right then I’d take any distraction I could find.

  The more I tried to forget him, the more Joe’s face appeared on every passing officer or waiting room occupant. My casualness over the slap was a mistake, especially now his criminal past had crawled out of the woodwork.

  This was my first trip to a police station. Knowing Joe could’ve spent years in and out of jail cells left me uncomfortably numb. This had been his life? One spent looking over his shoulder? Not that I knew why. Maybe he was a super-secret spy, a champion fraudster, or one of those con artists with MIT degrees who counted cards in Vegas.

  I only hoped the reality wasn’t assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder. Or both.

  I thought about the church, the wedding, our electric glances during the vows and I’d felt it, I’d known. After being consumed with each other from day one, marriage was the next logical step. It’d been the stuff of dreams. We were fated. He was a man so different, and yet I was meant to share the rest of my life with him. I was in the secret club of happy people who’d shied away from the one-night stands and gone straight for forever. What did anybody else know? They didn’t understand. They didn’t get it.

  I had to think of something else before my scream found a voice. Breakfast. Joe’s shrivelled egg and sausage combo? That didn’t bear thinking about. The police station then, District 31. It was all very postmodern, but in a good way. Here brutality was replaced by concern and a caring, responsible manifesto: fighting crime and protecting people. With all the glass-mounted photos of beaming citizens and children at the windows of squad cars, the Chicago Metropolitan Police were obviously keen to distance themselves from the embers of their corrupt past.

  As police officers milled behind the counter, each saddled with a gun, handcuffs and all manner of interesting accessories, I waited for someone to shout cut. It was like a movie, though a frustratingly tedious one. Nothing was happening.

  Where was the serial killer, Chicago’s Hillside Strangler, bound by cuffs as he was wrestled through the doors? What about the random prostitutes, gang members and television news crews staking out the waiting room, poised for a sound bite with Mr Twenty-Years-to-Life? Come to think of it, this wasn’t like the movies at all.

  I caught a glimpse of male officers in blue starchy uniforms escorting suspects behind the desk in the main hall, though when a handful gazed in my direction, I didn’t know whether to be flattered or concerned.

  Channelling Nina, I should’ve opted for a dash of Sister Act. My skinny jeans, heels and cleavage-enhancing teal wrap didn’t scream reliable witness. And when they found out who my husband was? I’d be locked up by associati
on for sure.

  After two trips to the desk sergeant and forty minutes ticking by, there he came, Detective Thomasz and his dirty blond hair, striding towards me with all the swagger he could muster. He was without his Clark Kent glasses and resembled his appearance at our first meeting, the assured besuited detective.

  ‘We have to stop meeting this way; you know, randomly,’ Evan said to my breasts after landing by the coffee machine, ferociously chewing a piece of gum.

  Last time we’d spoken, he’d asked me out to dinner, knowing I was married. It also didn’t help he’d never been anywhere near the ugly tree. No, this wouldn’t be awkward at all.

  With a disguised eye roll I stood to greet him, if only to stop him peering down my top. ‘Are you in charge of the investigation? The desk sergeant said—’

  ‘Yeah, I’m who you’ve been waiting for. Apologies if you sat here a while. You know how it is; I’d have to split myself in two to get everything done around here.’ He was all hands, gesturing profusely like I was hard of hearing.

  After he pointed the way, I trailed him up a flight of stairs and across the Detective Division on South State Street. Talk about a fast walker. When we did arrive at his desk, it looked like there’d been a mini explosion. Open files and soiled coffee cups lay scattered across it. With a banana peel discarded over his computer keyboard, it bordered on pigsty. Joe had nothing on this guy, and to think Evan’s shirt and suit trousers looked professionally pressed. Maybe he had a maid, or, more likely, a girlfriend. A desk that dirty didn’t scream ironing aficionado to me.

  ‘Welcome to Property Crimes slash Violent Crimes. Budget cuts for the South Area. Here, take a seat and, again, sorry to drag you here on a Sunday. You want a coffee? I make a mean cappuccino, straight from the machine.’

  He pulled up an uncomfortable-looking plastic orange chair before flashing a penetrating smile. He grew nervous again, as if his life depended on winning my affections. Busy collecting the mess on his desk, he discretely chucked a mountain of paperwork behind him before grasping the file for Faith Advertising like a winning lottery ticket.