It’s all your fault, the demons whispered.
Should have known better. All the whiskey in Kentucky couldn’t shut those pricks up. Not only that, but the goddamn demons weren’t even specific enough to let me know what exactly was my fault. Discourteous bastards, those demons.
Didn’t matter. Whatever they wanted to throw my way, I could find enough evidence of blame to hold myself accountable.
Why the hell couldn’t I let this one go?
I was self-aware enough to recognize the circumstances of my own infatuation. I lived a pretty guarded life, for good reasons. Despite my years of honing sharp edges to keep the world at bay, to keep anybody from getting close, Kelly had cut through my defenses like a light saber through jello.
Old wounds had been re-opened by her boss, Jack Donnelly, when he wanted me and Junior to track down his daughter. Memories of my own lost years, my own lost family, were bled out of me slowly and oh so painfully. Things I thought lost to me forever were floating in front of my face like ghosts.
But that’s the thing about ghosts.
They’re dead.
They just don’t know it sometimes.
And sometimes we forget too.
That was the flaw when building psychological walls to defend yourself from the outside world. You never realized how weak that wall was from the inside. It may look good and sturdy, but when the walls cracked, then came tumbling down, it was because I was still that naked, trembling, and hurt little boy behind those walls.
Maybe he wanted out.
I couldn’t handle him being out.
Keeping him inside those walls was how I’d been able to live my life for the last couple decades. Vulnerability was for suckers.
Then all of a sudden, oopsie-dasie, there I was. Vulnerable as a motherfucker.
And I did not fucking jive that. Not one bit.
It was one of the reasons I’d pushed Kelly away and begun building walls back up again as fast as my mental bricklayer could erect them.
Even worse was, I thought I might have loved her.
You can’t love anything, my demons whispered.
I thought she loved me.
The demons laughed.
Who the hell knew?
We do, the demons said. And so do you.
I did know.
Say it.
No.
Say it. What happens to the women you love, Boo? What happens every time?
They die. That was the other reason I sent Kelly packing.
Paranoid?
Sure.
Superstitious and self-destructive?
Yup and yup.
Didn’t make any of it less true historically.
Say it.
“The women I love die,” I whispered to no one.
“You say somethin’, Mr. Boo?”
I yelled something akin to “Ba-gackin!” and jumped backward. Which sucked, because I was sitting on a bar stool and toppled backward onto the floor. When I opened my eyes, Luke’s kind, grandfatherly face was peering over me.
“Mr. Boo, you all right?” His brown face was creased with age and now worry. “Oh dear. You bleeding?” He gave a finger twirl to the general region of my face.
“Only for about an hour.”
“Another night in paradise, huh?” he said with a gentle chuckle.
“The usual.” I was glad I’d instinctively made a sound like an electrocuted chicken, rather than let loose the string of curse words that expressed everything I was feeling then. You didn’t curse in front of Luke. House law for the eternity and a half that he’d been cleanup man at The Cellar. “Man, you scared me. Didn’t think you’d be able to make it in tonight.”
Luke grinned. “Ain’t missed a day yet. Don’t plan on missing one ever. The blizzard of ’78 didn’t stop me, this dusting ain’t gonna.” He offered me his hand. I grabbed his grip, strong and dry, and he helped me stand.
“Wish I could say the same. I think I’m gonna take some Z’s in the office.” My knees wobbled, but I grabbed the bar before I made with a whiskeyed forward roll. Hoo-daddy, I was drunker than I thought.
Luke unwrapped the thick scarf from his skinny neck before he spoke. “Don’t want to be too presumptuous here, Mr. Boo, but I saw the way you were staring at the miserable, old reflection of yourself.”
“What did you see there, Luke?”
Luke gave a sly smile. “You got a woman-trouble face, Mr. Boo, you don’t mind me sayin’…”
“How could you tell?”
“Youngblood like you? Half a bottle of whiskey empty on the bar? When a man’s your age, drinking like that, staring into a sad ol’ abyss? I’m just playing the odds.”
“That easy, huh?”
Luke winked at me, pressing an arthritic knuckle to his grin. “Shhhh. Don’t tell anybody. I don’t wanna ruin my reputation as a Magical Old Negro.”
Despite my roiling inner emotions, a surprised laugh burst out of me. “Really, Luke?”
“Some of you boys seen too many Morgan Freeman movies.” Luke opened the utility closet and pulled out his mop and bucket.
“You may be right there.”
“But while I’m not Bagger Vance, I have been around quite a few blocks. Anything I can help you with?”
“Maybe…” I thought about how exactly to phrase the question I’d been trying to avoid thinking about. “Why do you think some women like…bad men?”
Luke pondered my question, leaning on his mop handle and sucking his teeth. “Mmm. Never really thought on it too hard. Lots of women do like the outlaw types though, don’t they?”
“Why you think that is?”
“Can’t say, Mr. Boo. Sometimes, some women develop a taste for the darkness, if that makes any sense.”
“Yeah. It does.” I cracked a bottle of water and could still taste blood in my mouth.
“And I hope you realize that when I say ‘the darkness,’ that it isn’t magical Negro code for ‘Once you go black…’”
Thank God I was standing next to the slop sink, because that sip of water came shooting out, half of it painfully through my swollen nose. It took an effort, but I swallowed the curse that would have normally followed a choking spit-take. Through a wheeze, I said, “Never crossed my mind.”
“You worried about some girl?”
“Starting to.”
Luke shook his head. “You ain’t a bad man, Mr. Boo. Most girls should be so lucky.”
“Nice of you to say, Luke.”
“And hear me when I say it. I’ve known some bad men in my time.” Something changed in Luke’s eyes for a moment, a piece of his own past caught behind his irises. Something told me not to ask.
“Thanks, Luke. Magical advice or not, thanks.”
As quickly as it appeared, that flicker of memory was extinguished behind Luke’s bright grin.
“Get yourself some sleep. You want me to wake you up before I go?”
“No thanks, Luke. Junior’s going to pick me up in the morning.”
“Night, then, Mr. Boo.”
“Night, Bagger Vance.”
“Wisenheimer.” Luke turned on his tiny transistor, a gospel ballad warbling tinnily from the speaker. Luke hummed along.
As I walked up the stairs to the office, the seeds of an idea began sprouting. Each step made the notion seem like a good one. My better instincts, and not my drunken ones, tried to tell me otherwise.
My fingers drifted over the pocket with my wallet in it.
The demons said, “Do it…”
Jim Beam agreed with them.
Fueled by my anger and my overall sadness, the idea lingered as I stretched out as far as I could on the small loveseat that we’d found on the street. Anything bigger wouldn’t fit in the cramped space we called an office. One desk in a liquor storage room does not an office make, but the loveseat helped. I lay my head on the side that smelled the least like cat pee and closed my eyes.
I considered Luke’s words. It was nice that he d
idn’t think me a bad guy, even if the rest of the world seemed to disagree. Although I wasn’t speaking about myself in particular, Luke had hit a different nail on the head. I may not have been the current darkness, but I might have been the initial taste.
Conveniently for my demons and whiskied brain, my wallet was digging into my ass, so I took it out of my pocket. Before placing it on the desk, I opened it, thumbed through the few bills in it, my Coffee Haus club card, the old, beginning-to-fade business card.
Kelly’s business card.
Boo’s drunk and concussed brain decided something had to be said.
I wasn’t even sure her number was the same after everything that had gone down last summer.
But I picked up the phone anyway.
Chapter Seven
“Wakey-wakey. Eggs and bakey, bitch.” My first thought was that I was being awakened with a faceful of Columbian tear gas, but it was just Junior holding a steaming cup of his lethal coffee under my nose.
My eyes burst open like two kernels of popcorn as the whiskey bum-rushed from my stomach back to my throat.
Junior recognized the expression. “Bathroom, bathroom!” he yelled, taking a huge step away from me in the event I didn’t make it.
I made it. Barely.
After a few good seconds assuring myself that all of my organs remained on the inside, I caught a look in the mirror at my busted-up self. Bloodshot eyes? Check. Blood crusted nose? Check. Breath of a walrus with cirrhosis? Oh yeah.
Then the memory hit me along with another wave of sick that I couldn’t blame on the whiskey.
What.
The.
Fuck.
Did.
I.
DO?
I muttered, “Nonononono,” as snippets of my drunk-dial to Kelly came back to me.
Me: What the hell are you doing?
Kelly: Boo? What happened? Why—
Me: You’re banging a drug dealer now?
Oh sweet Jeebus.
I actually said it.
Then the memory mercifully shut itself off. Junior’s mitten roped through the doorway, coffee in hand. “Drink this. Wake the hell up.”
I took a sip of Junior’s home brew and felt my tongue cramp. Good stuff. “Uggg. What time is it?”
“Ten thirty.”
“Jesus, how do people live like this?” I stumbled from the staff lavatory and back to the office, flopping onto the loveseat and burying my face in my hand.
“Savages, all.” Junior placed the Styrofoam cup on the desk blotter I’d slept on, next to the wide drool stain. “Drink it. I got a Thermos in the car.” Junior picked the disconnected phone off the desk and put it back onto the cradle. “I tried to call and wake you up, but you left the damn phone off the…” Junior looked at me like I’d sharted my Sunday pants right in the middle of Communion.
“What?”
“Please, brudda…” Junior held Kelly’s card between his index and middle finger.
“Don’t.”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
“I might have.”
Another flash of conversation.
Kelly: You can’t be serious.
Junior threw the card into the trash can. Something I should have done months ago. “You’re gonna get all wrapped up again…”
“No. I’m not. I feel bad enough as is.”
“No. I don’t think you do. We got enough shit to deal with without you getting all goddamn moony over a broad you dumped months ago.”
Another flash. Kelly had made a similar point.
Kelly: You cut me loose without so much as a goodbye, and this is how you’re going to try to reintroduce yourself into my life? Drunk at four o’clock in the morning? And you have the gall to tell me off about the people I’m associating with? Where do you find the nerve?
In the bottom of a bottle, apparently.
Every remembered word poked a small hole in my gut, because every word she’d said to me was right on the money.
Ugh. I wasn’t a drunk-dial guy. I really wasn’t. I felt like thirty-two flavors of shit, and only half of that was the hangover.
“Think I should call and apologize?”
“What? No!” Junior choked on his mouthful of coffee. He wiped the front of his shirt with the back of his mitten. “Let it go! You—forget it. Your stupid ass ain’t to be trusted.” Junior reached into the garbage can and took the business card back out. He tore it into four pieces and shoved them into his mouth, making a scene of chewing them up and swallowing.
Then the taste hit.
“Blugh…”
I took the coffee and swigged another inhuman mouthful, emptying the Styrofoam. “While I admire the lengths to which you are going to prevent me from making a further ass of myself, keep in mind that paper has been in my wallet, soaking up all my back-pocket sweat for months. Bon appétit, dumbass.”
Junior gagged, a line of drool sputtering from between his lips. He went to chase it with his coffee, which was one of the few flavors on earth that might have overpowered my butt gravy, but his cup was empty.
He grabbed mine, also empty.
Beads of sweat popped out on his thick brow, and he turned a sickly pale of green.
“Bathroom, bathroom!” I yelled.
He made it.
Barely.
***
We had to drive out to Lynn for the derby. Junior turned Miss Kitty onto the McClellan Highway going north. We ate cold sausage and egg sandwiches as we drove slowly on the icy roads.
“What do you think I should do?” I asked.
“’Bout what?” Junior slurped loudly from his Thermos and put it back into the cup holder. The steam from the coffee fogged up the windshield. I wiped him a clear spot with a napkin. “Thanks, honey.”
“Anytime, pookie. About Kelly.”
Junior snorted. “I think you should leave well enough alone. Wasn’t one dance with Kwai Chang Caine enough for you?”
I didn’t say anything. Junior knew it wasn’t and wouldn’t be.
“You cut her loose, brother. That was your choice. You ain’t got any say in what she does from that point on.”
“But what if she doesn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“What Summerfield does with his little backdoor import-export business. Maybe she thinks he’s just some cat with a fancy accent and a club.”
Junior bobbed his head. “If she doesn’t, what makes it your fuckin’ duty to be the snitch?” Junior turned onto Mass 1-A at the Beach Street exit. “And what if she does know? You ever think that maybe she doesn’t give a damn?”
Huh. Hadn’t thought of that.
Then Junior rolled his neck. “Christ. You told her, didn’t ya?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why?” Junior gulped another mouthful of coffee, sloshing another dribble onto his black pea coat. “Dammit.”
“What do you mean, why? I don’t like my ex…” I trailed off, but it was too late.
“Wait, wait, wait a minute. Did you almost call the girl you banged for maybe two weeks your ex-girlfriend?”
My ears burned red. Junior wasn’t wrong, but I had a hard time with the whole “experiencing nice emotions” and whatnot. Despite the short time Kelly and I had been an item, I had allowed those sentiments to seep in. They’d made me lose an edge that had nearly got us all fitted for coffinwear. I’d cut her loose to save her.
Frankly, I was embarrassed to have to explain to Junior that those feelings hadn’t entirely gone away despite my efforts. I carefully thought out how to word my response.
“Shut the fuck up,” I said.
Junior snorted. “You shut the fuck up.”
“YOU shut the fuck up.”
“Shut the fuck up! Snitches get stitches.”
And so on…
Eventually, we made it to Lynn.
***
Junior and I took our seats for The Boston Bruisettes
versus the Brighton Beatdowns. Ginny rolled for the Beatdowns under the name of Rhoda Ruder. Junior and I took our seats right in the center of the aluminum bleachers as the girls on the Bruisettes were being introduced.
A tiny dude in what I could only describe as a Liberace-in-his-prime outfit and a curly moustache that looked like it took up way too much of his day strolled to the center of the rink. With a grandiose gesture, he said into a wireless mike, “Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Boston Roller Derby League!”
The audience whooped and hollered.
“Our first team tonight of wild, wicked, whip-yo-ass women…The Boston Bruisettes! Give it up for Annabelle Lecter!” Annabelle, a heavily tattooed punk chick took her lap around the rink, then raised her skirt to show the word “kicker” ironed on her backside. Ass kicker. Cute.
“I’m in love,” said Junior.
“With Liberace over there?”
“You know I hate sequins.”
“Hell, he may be the most feminine one in the ring.” I kept my eyes on the audience. I only had a vague recollection of what Byron looked like, but watched for anyone who looked like he wasn’t here for the bout. Ginny had said once she was introduced she’d scan the crowd and point at him when she passed us.
“Rita Haymaker!” Rita, a curvy beauty in a schoolgirl outfit, zipped around the rink, alternating wiggling her ass and shimmying her ample boobs. It was a miracle the girl could suspend her top-heaviness on eight tiny wheels.
“I’m in love,” said Junior.
“Are you going to do this all afternoon?”
“Don’t deny me my love.”
“It would help if you looked for Byron. You did get more of a look at him than I did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you got a better look at him than I did.” Junior was still way oversensitive about being on the low end of his fistfight with Byron.
“Well, soooo-rry.”
I got the feeling he wasn’t, though. Maybe it was the five syllables he used in the word “sorry.” I had to admit being more than a little distracted myself. Especially by Barbi Bender. Barbi didn’t showboat. She just casually took her lap. Some things don’t need an exclamation point. “I wonder which one’s Dana.”
“Doesn’t matter to me. I’d guard the body of any of these chicks anytime.”
Rough Trade Page 6