by A. J. Downey
I slid back up onto the tall barstool and picked up my beer glass, swilling down a healthy mouthful.
“So?” Golden pressed, raising his eyebrows.
“Man, used to be I could count on you the most to avoid this touchy-feely shit. Lys has made you soft.”
“Nah, man. Lys has made me realize that not talking about your trauma is the weakness.”
“Look at you all profound and shit,” Driller declared and sounded like some kind of a proud papa.
“Motherfucker,” I said. “Not you too.”
He gave me a half-assed shrug and plucked at the front of his tee beneath his cut. It wasn’t his imagination, it was hot as fuck in here. I called out to Skids, “Man, your AC busted or what?”
“Looks like it,” he grunted back.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“Beer’s still cold, though,” he called back.
“At least we got that going for us,” Golden declared, taking a swig of his own.
“Nice!” Driller clapped and turned back to the scorebook and I glanced over where Narcos was pulling darts mostly from the center of the board.
“Man.” I shook my head. I hated not being the best at everything, but sometimes you just weren’t. I’d like to say that’s where my irritation was stemming from, but really it was the fact I didn’t want to talk about what went down but these fools wouldn’t let it go.
I mostly tuned them out, let myself get lost inside my own head, gaze fixed on the booth by the window where I’d last seen Elka staring sightlessly outside. There was a blonde woman sitting in her place right now, faking interest in some two percent tall glass of weak milk. Probably a first date, a failed Tinder match, who the fuck knew.
I wasn’t into all that. Proudly divorced, I had no use for the opposite sex. Not even to keep my dick warm… fuck.
Except I really couldn’t stop thinking about Elka. Couldn’t stop wondering, couldn’t stop worrying…
“You go check on her?” Narcos asked me and I shook my head.
“Why not?” Driller asked from over by the throw line.
“Not sure she’d wanna see me, man. I gave her my number. She’ll call if she needs somethin’.”
“Or, you know, she’s just like you and don’t know how to ask for help,” Golden said bluntly. I scowled at him.
“I don’t need help,” I said flatly.
“Whatever, dude. We’re here when you figure it out otherwise,” Driller called, pulling his projectiles from the battered cork.
My phone started buzzing in the inside pocket of my cut, I pulled it out and scowled. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local and way too late to be a bill collector or a robocall. Usually, I made ‘em leave a voicemail, or text me, but something made me wanna answer this call. Maybe it was just an excuse to get away from the guys and the topic for a minute.
“This is Hector,” I answered.
“Officer Jones?” a man asked.
“Uh, yeah, who’s this?” I slid off the stool and left the boys chatting to step outside where I could hear better.
“This is Albert Köhler, you told me to call you if…” his voice faltered but I could pick up the worry through the line, now that I was out of the restaurant.
“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Köhler, what’s the matter?” I asked.
“It’s my daughter, Elka. She’s not answering her phone, no matter how many times I call. It’s getting dark, and I can’t drive so good at night –”
“Hang on, let me get something to write with, you can gimme the address.”
“Yes, thank you,” he said and the amount of relief in his voice told me I was definitely doing the right thing.
4
Elka…
I sighed, not that I could hear it through the music thundering in my skull. I gripped the back of my neck and tried to pull some of the tension out as I considered the canvas in front of my, loaded with paint. The oils slick and glistening, the high window of my basement apartment’s master bedroom open to the city’s night air. I’d claimed the master bedroom as my studio space. The adjoining bathroom more convenient for cleanup than trying to cart things through the hallway to the kitchen.
It was a weird little apartment, converted out of a street-level basement in an old, old building. Quaint, with its little wrought iron gates and climbing vines out of the little square flowerbed each ground-floor apartment boasted. The layout on the inside left a lot to be desired, though.
I stared at where my sister’s face was taking shape and wrinkled my brow. I’d been painting this portrait of her for her wedding gift… but now it was for myself. A memorial… and that stung in ways I couldn’t describe.
I felt a deep, bone weariness that had nothing to really do with being physically tired. I wasn’t hungry. I had no appetite. I didn’t want to deal with people – at all – but that wasn’t especially new. I’d always been the introverted one. Mia had always been the better of the two of us, and that wasn’t necessarily me being self-deprecating. It was simply the God-given truth of it.
Prettier, more outgoing by far – everyone had just gravitated toward my little sister and her vivacious personality and I was far from jealous. Oh, no… I was blessed because my little sister had always loved me best. Out of everyone in the world. Even her fiancé.
If I called her, Mia had been there and after what’d happened to me in college, I’d needed her, relied on her in ways that no older sister should rely on their younger one. It wasn’t fair, but Mia had never, not once, complained.
I felt so incredibly and devastatingly alone and the only thing that even remotely soothed my hurt was my art, the love for it sustaining me, allowing me a place to disappear in swirls of color and the glide of the oils from the brush to the canvas.
Mia had always loved to watch me paint, and I only hoped that wherever she was, she was entertained watching me now.
“Shit,” I swore softly and threw my brush into the little cup of solvent I had nearby to receive them.
I closed my eyes and tried to escape into the sound of the crashing drums and thrum of guitar in my ears, my favorite singer’s melancholy voice soothing even as she seemingly understood my pain without ever having known me. Although, to be fair, she lamented the loss of some fictional lover – not a brother or sister.
A hand fell on my shoulder and I screamed, nearly hitting the roof, ripping the wires at my front, the noise canceling earbuds popping from my ears. Cool air rushed with harsh reality where warmth had been a moment before as I practically flew from my stool and spun.
“Mr. Jones?” I cried in confusion, chest heaving, hand pressed over my racing heart trying to get it to calm down.
“I told you to call me, Oz,” he said like he wasn’t standing in my apartment with his hands upraised in surrender. I glimpsed two uniformed officers out in the hall beyond him, one speaking into the microphone of his radio at his shoulder.
Cymbals crashed faintly from my headphones dangling useless near the floor and I reached down to reel the earbuds back up, wadding the thin, rubber coated wire into my hands as I demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t you ever answer your phone?” he asked. “Your dad called me, he’s worried sick about you. Says he’s been trying to call you for hours.”
I pulled my iPod from my back pocket and turned off the music, setting the little player on a spare corner of my easel, the headphones spiraling back to the floor, the wad of wire springing free. I rolled my lips together and felt myself color with guilt and embarrassment.
“How did you get in?” I demanded.
“Landlord doesn’t believe in answering his phone, either,” he said gently, and I blanched when he finished with, “We kicked the door in.”
“You did what?”
“Your dad was worried, thought you might have hurt yourself. The lights were on but you weren’t answering the door, exigent circumstances,” he said, following me out and down the hall. I gaped at the wreckage and rui
n of my doorframe, the door warped and twisted, the metal dented in the center, smudged black boot prints on the pale blue paint. It’d taken more than one hit.
“Oh, my God,” I muttered aghast. “How am I going to afford to fix this?”
Officer Jones shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. Just call your father right now, please?”
I nodded and he stayed put in the living room, turning to the two uniformed officers who had moved out of my space and were now lingering just outside.
I went to my bedroom and picked up my phone off the charger by my bed… twenty-nine missed calls… holy shit.
I called my father, thrusting everything else to the side for the time being.
One problem, one step, one breath at a time…
5
Oz…
I cleaned up the remnants of her door while she talked to her pops on the phone in the other room. I couldn’t make out her words through the short distance or the walls, but I could make out her tone. At points in the conversation, kind, at other points, exasperated, which I could feel her. I didn’t have no helicopter parents, but I saw plenty of ‘em picking up their little darlings from the jail.
This didn’t exactly have that vibe, though. More like just your average concerned father and one hell of a mix-up.
“Damn,” I muttered, shaking my head at the shards of doorjamb and the flimsy rumpled door. There was no getting it back in its frame. Not even for looks. Not tonight, anyhow.
“So, what now?” she asked, leaning against the wall of her hallway, arms crossed over her chest. She was in a pair of cutoff, paint-stained denim shorts that showed off her long smooth legs and I tried not to think too hard about that. That, or the skin-tight rainbow striped tank top that she wore up top, huddled in her plain white kimono-type wrap thing she must have grabbed out of her bedroom to cover up with.
“Uh, well, now I guess I’m staying on your couch until my guys can get here in the morning and fix your shit.”
“Thanks for that, fixing my door, I mean… management is barely above ‘slum lord’ on the ‘can you come and fix this’ scale. Most of us do it ourselves.”
“That’s some bullshit,” I said, and she smirked faintly.
“That’s life in a cheap apartment in Indigo City,” she said. “Although, when I moved in right after college, the neighborhood here wasn’t nearly as bad.”
I nodded. “Yeah, they been fixing up one of the poorer neighborhoods nearby, redevelopment, gentrifying the hell out of it – the poorer folks had to go somewhere.”
“And here was it, yeah.” She nodded and clutched her phone a little tighter near the opposite upper arm as she hugged herself.
“You got work in the morning?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, my first day of a new job actually. We were…” her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “Mia and I were coming back from her taking me to have my nails done to celebrate the new job. She was so happy for me…” she trailed off and bit her lips together staring hard at the ceiling as her eyes glassed over.
“They put off my start date so I could go to her funeral and help my dad. Get everything all arranged, you know?”
I nodded. “That was nice of them.”
“It was, so,” she dashed under her eyes and took a fortifying breath, “I really can’t afford to be late my first day.”
“It’s cool, I’ll uh – just go to bed. I’ll crash here on the couch, a bunch of the guys, all of us are law-enforcement types, we’ll get your door fixed and I’ll lock up and bring you your new keys around lunch time. Sound good?”
“I guess that will do,” she said but sounded wary all the same. I mean, I got it, who wanted a bunch of strangers up in your place when you were gone?
“Sorry I kicked it in, in the first place.” She smirked at that again and eventually that smirk turned into a little laugh and a smile.
“A bit over the top,” she agreed and I grinned back and shook my head a little.
“Naw, not really. Your pops seemed real freaked out.”
The brief smile that’d lit up her face flickered out of existence, like a candle flame doused by a sudden and swift breeze.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t always been the most stable of his two daughters,” she said with an edge of caution in her voice.
“How’s that?” I asked, Spidey-sense a tingling.
“It’s nothing,” she said finally, and she wouldn’t look at me, just shook her head and found a spot on the floor to fixate on.
“Okay, well, you should probably get some sleep.”
She nodded and said, “The bathroom is in the room with my paintings, I’ll shut my bedroom door so you can use the light. Please use the light. I think I would die if any of my projects were damaged.”
“I got you,” I said and nodded. I didn’t take any offense. I was a big dude, wide through the shoulders, I was forever smacking them into things – doorways, gym equipment – you name it. I’d be careful.
“I really don’t know how to feel about any of this,” she said frankly and looked torn.
“Then don’t,” I told her. “It’s cool.” Her brow furrowed and she took a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh. I didn’t let her say anything else. I just kind of ordered her gently, “Go to bed. I got this.”
She worried her bottom lip between her teeth and reluctantly nodded, turning and drifting back down the hall and into her bedroom. I heard a few quiet thumps and bumps and gave a nod, figuring she’d locked her door. That was a good idea even though she ain’t got no worries from me.
I figured I’d be staring at her ceiling for a few hours, but surprisingly, I was out like a traffic light inside two minutes. Dead to the world and a shitty guard dog, because when I woke up next, it was to Backdraft smacking my boot with his hand, both hands going up as I drew down on him.
“I come in peace!” he declared and I pointed my gun at the ceiling letting out a long slow breath.
“Put that away, neighborhood’s bad but ain’t none of it that bad,” Skids declared.
“Man, don’t ever sneak up on a homie like that.” I scowled at Backdraft.
He rolled his eyes.
“I called your name like six times. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up the whole fuckin’ neighborhood.”
“What’d I miss?” Golden demanded turning sideways to squeeze past Skids in the open doorway.
“Oz being Oz,” Skids declared.
“Still working for that Asshole Merit Badge, huh?”
“Fuck you, I invented that badge and I already got it on.” I pulled my cut up and pointed at the round badge on the front.
“My bad, where’s mine?”
“Pull any dick moves lately?” Backdraft asked, moving over near Skids and eyeing the ruined door frame.
“Is it a day that ends in ‘Y’?” I asked, sitting up with a grimace. My body straight up hated her couch.
“Exactly my point.” Golden threw up his hands. “So, where’s my goddamned patch?”
“You ain’t earned it yet,” I declared.
“Pfft! If you weren’t older, I would have been first,” Golden shot back.
“Age before beauty.” Backdraft grinned and stretched.
“You shut up!” I pointed a finger at the hose boy and scowled at him, even if he was right.
“What kind of dick move you pull lately?” Skids inquired and I laughed.
“Okay, okay, so get this. We got a loudmouth in the jail, decides he’s gonna barricade himself into his cell, right? So they call us up, the good ol’ Tactical Response Team and we go through all the hassle of gearing up to go extract him. So we get there, and he’s all barking like this fuckin’ little Chihuahua. He’s all ‘motherfucker’ this and ‘pig fucker’ that and finally, I bust out my can of OC and hold it up and yell at him, ‘Bitch, shut up!’ and he just keeps on going so look…” I started cracking up before I could finish the story. I couldn’t help it. “I unloaded that can of OC straight i
n his mouth like it was Binaca.”
The guys fell out laughing. I think the visual spoke for itself. Nothing like a can of riot control mace right in the mouth kickin’ you right in the back of the throat to shut your ass down. It had, too. He’d hit the floor choking and sputtering and we’d shown mercy and busted out the gallons of milk to put out the fire.
“I don’t get it.” her voice disrupted the laughter and we all turned. “What’s OC?”
“Oil of capsaicin, it’s the shit in jalapeños that makes them hot,” Golden supplied.
“Oh, so pepper spray?”
“Yeah,” Backdraft wheezed it out wiping a tear from his eye.
“Industrial strength,” added Golden.
She pondered a moment and then asked, “So what’s Binaca? I’ve never heard of that, either.”
“Girl, how old are you?” Skids asked with a grin.
“Old enough,” she said with a frown.
“No offense meant.” He held up his hands.
“It’s a breath spray, press the button on the top of the canister type,” I explained.
“Oh! Like a brand name type?”
“Yeah.”
She gave a nod, uncrossed her arms and drifted over toward the kitchen, but still, the troubled look didn’t leave her face. “Coffee?” she asked politely enough, despite her sour expression.
“You’d be a savior and a saint,” Skids declared.
She eyed her ruined door and said, “If you can get that fixed today, I could say the same thing about you.”
“We’ll get it fixed,” Backdraft said affably, going back over to the door to inspect the shattered jamb.
“Thanks,” she muttered and disappeared into her kitchen.
“So, what the hell happened here, anyway?” Golden asked.
“Later,” I said curtly, and he held up his hands in surrender, jerking his head in the direction of the kitchen and raising an eyebrow in question. He was wondering – what was her deal? I would like to know too. So, by way of answer, I shrugged, dropping it for the moment, and watched as Backdraft knelt down next to his thick canvas tool bag and opened it up, extracting a handheld short foot-and-a-half-long crowbar to start prying the doorjamb away from the wall.