Chapter 4 – Janelle
Chapter Four
Janelle
Present Day
“Okay,” Rana says when we step into the dingy dive-bar that smells like beer with an undernote of purple Fabuloso. “The reviews didn’t say anything about this place being a biker bar.”
The music is good, so my body moves without me.
I don’t mind the vibe. It looks like she totally nailed the dive bar expectations.
This place looks like it hasn’t been updated since the eighties, which doesn’t bother me.
There are all these vintage stolen road signs everywhere, some of them from Boston, some of them from Las Vegas and California.
It’s an attempt at a Route 66 highway theme with dollar bills pinned to the ceiling behind the bar and the smell of beer everywhere. My feet stick to the ground.
The drinks looked good here on Rana’s app and bikers are all basically cops, right? I never watched Sons of Anarchy, so I don’t know what they do except for hanging around trying to look tough. I won’t have any problems with them as long as they don’t have problems with me.
“It’s not… as far as I know. I’ve seen this place on Instagram,” I keep bobbing my head as we move through the seats towards the bar. There are bikers at almost every table, but I see some grad school aged kids that look very MIT.
“Bikers can’t be any worse than the mob,” Rana says. Weird comment, but I guess she’s right.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” Rana responds nonchalantly. “What do you want to drink?”
“Espresso martini. No choice.”
I want to do something to blot out everything that happened earlier today. I haven’t even gone over the entire story with Rana yet, which makes me nervous because I don’t want to relive it. At least I won the fight enough to get away, get a lick in, and avoid jail time.
“Okay. I’ll get it for you. Come on.”
We lean up against the bar. Rana’s long black hair blows over her shoulder as she waves over the bartender who looks like he’s barely twenty-one years old.
I feel a sharp pang in my stomach. I’m thirty-six.
I’m starting over at thirty-six and I probably know as much about love as this twenty-one year old kid.
I don’t even notice Rana opening a tab, or anything in my surroundings until the drink appears in front of me.
“Let’s toast to starting over.”
“At thirty-six.”
“Woo!”
Rana is a few years younger than me and as far as I know, she goes out on regular dates. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been on a date. I wouldn’t even know where to meet a guy. Not a biker bar, that’s for sure.
Our glasses clink together and I take an obligatory first sip which turns into an unclassy chug once the liquor hits my lips. This is too damn good. Rana’s eyebrows raise with delight as she takes her first sip.
“Holy shit, this is so fucking good.”
“I know.”
“Okay. Next good song, we are going to shake and release the trauma.”
There’s a small dance floor that’s pretty active, so we won’t be the only ones dancing. After one espresso martini, I would dance on the altar at church. I’m a lightweight and liquor takes over my body like an evil spirit. Tonight, I’m letting that spirit loose.
The next song is a weird one for a bar before ten p.m., but we are in Boston, so we have to endure at least one round of “Sweet Caroline” before going home for the night.
Rana prompts me to tell her everything that happened earlier since my blubbering voice notes left some confusing gaps in the story.
I fill her in on everything that happened, including the scuffle.
“If she presses charges, we will sue her ass so hard.”
“Thanks.”
“He’s an asshole.”
I thought he was the love of my life.
“You’re right. He is an asshole.”
“Sweet Caroline” finally fades out and the vibe switch nearly gives me whiplash. However, “Temperature” by Sean Paul will make any thirty-six year old woman shake her ass. It’s crazy how a song can go from overplayed to nostalgic in what feels like a blink.
Rana and I set down our empty glasses and hit the dance floor.
It’s implied that the next time the song changes to something we don’t like, we’ll get another drink.
I already feel loose from the first espresso martini and my body moves naturally to a song I practically have a choreographed routine for.
This guy comes up to Rana and asks her to dance.
She turns to me and points, so the guy puts his hand on my shoulder and asks if it’s okay.
I nod, because why not? Just because my boyfriend cheated on me doesn’t mean Rana has to become a nun.
The guy takes her hand and moves her away from me a little.
I shake it a little more and then point at the bar when Rana catches my eye for a moment.
She’s enjoying herself and I can get a break to put another espresso martini in me.
It’s a win-win situation from my perspective.
I order another espresso martini from the extra young adult serving me up. He serves it up with a flirtatious wink that just makes me feel patronizing. He knows that I’m basically a spinster about to die without ever knowing love… I can tell.
While I’m at the bar, I hear a biker’s voice a few seats down saying clearly. “I just got into a fight last week. I can’t afford to beat the fuck out of somebody again.”
“You know you like that shit, Zeb.”
They both laugh and a chill runs down my spine.
If there’s a bar fight here, I’ll have to grab Rana and run.
I glance over my shoulder so I can keep an eye on her and after scanning the crowd on the dancefloor twice, I find her pressed up against the wall making out with the guy she was dancing with.
They just met. But his hands are in her hair and they’re kissing and smiling between kisses.
I don’t mean to be a jealous hater, but it feels like a gut punch.
Why the hell is it so easy for other people to find someone who wants them – and only them?
I just feel so tired of starting over and trusting people.
I feel like I want somebody to love me, but even if they did, I wouldn’t believe it because every time I’ve given my heart to other people, they stomped on it and crushed my hope that love was really out there.
Fuck. This alcohol is going to make me the worst type of drunk.
I don’t want to get sloppy and cry everywhere.
I turn around to escape the bar and head towards the bathroom so I can wipe my tears and avoid embarrassing myself in public, but when I swivel in the barstool, I come face to face with a man who must have been standing behind me for at least a few seconds.
I try not to yelp in terror.
“You’re hot.”
He’s not one of the bikers, ironically. I would expect that type of brutish and crude introduction from a man covered in motorcycle grease and leather. This guy seems like a regular Bostonian, all the way down to the drunken entitlement.
“Thank you. I’m trying to leave.”
“No way,” he says. “I could finger you at the bar if you want.”
What the fuck?! Some men are out of their goddamn minds.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. What the fuck are you here for, huh? I promise it’ll be good.”
Is that what he really thinks my biggest concern is?
“No thank you. I’m going to check on my friend.”
“No way, sweetheart,” he says, putting his hand on my thigh. I freeze. I want to smack him in the face or punch him, but as soon as my hand moves, I consider the fact that this guy is twice my size and could easily throw me across the bar if he wanted.
“Stop touching me,” I say as loudly as I can with a heart racing in total panic.
“Or what?”
A voice standing behind the guy says loudly. “Get your fucking hands off her.”
My assailant turns around with his fists raised. My thighs melt into the seat as relief that he isn’t touching me anymore spreads through my body. I still need a way out.
“Or what?” My assailant says to the guy standing behind him, who I can finally see clearly now that my body isn’t frozen in place by a stranger’s firm palm.
“It’s too late,” the tall, blond biker says. “I already decided I want to beat the fuck out of you for fun.”
My throat clenches. He can’t be serious.
The biker takes a bottle of whiskey off the bar and within seconds, he smashes it and wields the broken bottle neck like a weapon.
A blonde woman leaning over the bar to nurse her white claw is the first to turn and see what just happened and to realize that it’s not just a drunken accident.
She screams. Loudly. The blond biker slashes the guy’s arms, sending blood spurting out of him.
He didn’t cut with efficiency. He cut to make a point.
To make the man bleed like a pig. It’s my turn to scream – when really, I know I should run.
I just can’t. My body won’t move as I watch unbridled and demented rage surge through his body.
“It’s not your right to touch any woman you please.”
The guy who touched me tries to fight back, but I can tell he’s the type of entitled drunk guy who maybe expected a couple fists, but didn’t expect this to turn into an all out brawl.
The biker grabs him by the collar and throws him against the bar hard, ditching the knife for his fists. All hell breaks loose.
My assailant didn’t show up at the bar alone.
His friend picks the smallest biker of the group that he can find and throws a punch that only escalates the situation further.
I have to find Rana before this gets even more out of hand.
Zeb keeps throwing punches and now several men are engaged in a fight that looks like it’s only going to get worse.
I step between a few tables, unable to find Rana in the crowd as most of the people at the bar try to escape before the cops get here – or something worse happens like gunshots break out.
The crowd is too crazy for me to find Rana. A tall woman’s elbow smacks me in the face and not only can I not find Rana, I’m not sure that she’s even still here. Hopefully the guy she was with didn’t abandon her in this crowd.
I’m at risk of getting trampled, so I push through as many people as I can to find the wall.
I press my back against the wall and slink along it to one of the bar bathrooms, which is empty.
Thank God. I lock the door as soon as I enter the bathroom, grateful that I found an empty one while the mess going on outside the door gets louder.
I pull out my phone and see a text from Rana.
Rana: I’m outside. Where are you?
Me: Hiding in the bathroom.
Rana: Crap!!! Can you get out before the cops get there?
Me: I’ll be fine. Save yourself.
Rana: Are you kidding?! I should get back in there.
Me: NO!! It’s a zoo.
Rana: Shit!! Can you find a window to climb out?
Me: Nope.
I feel a hand rattling on the bathroom door.
“I’m busy!”
The hand rattles even more.
“I said, I’m busy!”
Then I can’t explain how it happens, but the lock turns the other way slowly and from the outside, the bathroom door opens. The biker responsible for it grins and wipes the blood away from his face. It’s him.
“How did I know where to find you,” he says in a drawl that sounds maybe Southern.
He pushes a step inside and it’s not like I can stop him from coming in.
He enters the bathroom and then shuts the door behind him.
I shudder and take a step back, leaning against the furthest wall.
It doesn’t put enough distance between us.
He shrugs the leather cut off his shoulders.
It says Rebel Barbarians Motorcycle Club on the back along with the name Zeb.
I shudder again just thinking about what a man would have to do to get a nickname like that.
He turns the sink on and sticks his bloody hands under the water.
I wince, imagining the pain of gushing water directly against the cuts. “Zeb” laughs.
“Fuck,” he says. “That guy was a fucking dick.”
He wipes the blood off his face with his bare hand before sticking it back under the water.
I glance at the soap in a panic and eventually once he gets the first layer of blood off, he turns to me and gives me a strange look.
It’s oddly empty, like he’s not sure what to think of me.
Then he looks away and goes back to washing his hands.
“My name is Zeb.”
“Zed?”
“No. Zeb. Short for Zebulon. It’s from the Bible.”
I’ve been to church enough for a woman my age, and I don’t remember anybody named Zebulon in the Bible. I stay quiet and listen because this man is obviously out of his mind and I need to get out of here.
He chuckles. “What’s your name, angel?”
Angel? That’s a crazy thing to say.
“Janelle.”
“Janelle,” he repeats. “Not from the Bible.”
No, it’s not. Zeb holds up his hands and examines them in the dark blue bathroom light.
His eyes look neon in the lighting and the rest of him is so pale that he looks like some mixture of grey and translucent – like a six-foot-five vampire.
I notice one of the eyes doesn’t move. It’s subtle, in the dark, but after staring for nearly a minute, I can tell that one is fake, which means he lost it somehow.
So now, he looks like a scary, one-eyed, extremely tall vampire.With muscles.
“Went a little far defending your honor,” he says, giving me a quick glance over his shoulder. “Won’t lie, it felt good beating the shit out of him.”
Done with his hands, Zeb moves on to cleaning his face. He must have taken a hit somewhere on his face, based on the amount of blood. It’s the one furthest from me because I only notice the damage when he shifts that side of his body closer to the mirror for examination.