sticky rice #2
What I wouldn’t give to feel something again. To burn. A ghost pepper to the soul. A hot coal against my heart. A lighter under my tongue. Another night with Lilith. Anything.
“Bunch of us are beginning to wonder if you’re gonna saddle up again,” Deak says.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Killing me . . .”
“That makes two of us.” The fact that I was technically dead for two minutes isn’t lost on me, and it shouldn’t be lost on
him. The ensuing coma is just icing on the cake.
Who am I now? Just broken bones, barely mended. Set and reset.
How the hell am I ever supposed to heal?
Every time I touch my bike I’m launched right back to the accident. The darkness on the other side. It’s waiting for me whenever
I grip the handlebars. I feel it resonating through the bent frame. My bike’s become a tuning fork for hell, vibrating in
the void.
I can’t go back. Not to The Drop. An express elevator straight down to hell. And now, insult to fucking injury, I’m seeing
things. Hallucinating faces doing shit faces shouldn’t do.
“You’re keeping it clean with your meds, right? No overstepping?”
I can’t help but laugh at this. I wasn’t expecting Deak of all people to be on my case about abusing my prescription meds.
Didn’t have that on my bingo card tonight.
“Laugh all you want,” he says. “I’m serious.” The Saddle Sores all chipped in what they could, kickstarting a courier crew
fundraiser just for me. It barely covered the toilet paper I used while I was in the hospital, but that’s beside the point.
When one of us gets hurt, we do what we can. We help out. But there’s no way I’m ever getting my head above water with all
the medical bills I’m drowning in. The best I can hope for is . . . what, exactly?
What’s left of me? What the fuck am I even alive for?
“I’m clean,” I say when I realize he’s not going to let go until I say so. “Scout’s honor.”
“Look, man . . .” Deak gets all serious. I can see it brewing from miles away. He’s not making eye contact, more focused on
his own hands. His beer. The grain of the table. Anything but me. “We care about you. We do. We just want what’s best for
you.”
“Let me know when you figure that out, ’cause I’m coming up empty.”
“What about a girlfriend?”
That’s rich. “A relationship’s the answer to all my problems?”
“I’m serious,” he says between sips. “You got to get back out there.”
“That’s your friendly advice? Get back in the saddle? Start dating?”
“You’re spending way too much time alone, Jordan. You need . . . I don’t know. To open up to somebody. You’re bottling all this shit up and it just seems to be weighing you down.”
“I’ll take it under advisement, doc.”
Bateman takes a break from bingo and starts DJing. He’s brought a crate of records with him. Dusty vinyl. Classic ’90s R&B.
A blissful mixture of Misfits and Herb Alpert. He’ll blast his Tijuana Brass LPs for about a half hour, a little Bell Biv
Devoe—That girl is poooison—before the next round of bingo. Richmond’s good for crate-digging. Hit up the flea markets and find those rare LPs. The holy
grail of vinyl is waiting out there, somewhere.
Deak leans over so he can ask, “Ever think about getting back together with Jenn?”
I can’t be sure if I heard him right. Too much brass hissing in my ear. “Come again?”
“You and Jenn. You guys were good for each other.”
“That ship sailed.”
“Says you.”
“Says me. I fucked that one up pretty royally.”
I first met Jenn nearly clipping her at the corner of Cary and Auburn. She was set to cross the street when I zipped through the intersection. Hey, she shouted. There was barely an inch between us. Her auburn hair whipped up around her face and I just had to pump the
brakes. Turn around. Apologize. The rage that seethed out from her clenched jaw seared its way into my mind. Blue eyes that
could rearrange traffic patterns. The kind of woman you want to wreck into.
Look where you’re going next time, yeah?
Where you heading? I asked. Just tell me where you’ll be, and I’ll look out for you.
She looked at me like I was crazy, clearly not impressed. Maybe a little impressed, but not by much. It worked. For a little while, at least, until I fucked it all up and had to die.
“She was asking about you.” Deak drags me back to our convo.
“. . . Jenn? Asking who?”
“Me,” Deak says.
“Where?”
“Where do you think? Betsy’s.”
“What’re you doing there?”
“The crew still meets up for coffee in the mornings. She’s a bleeding heart. You know how it goes. She’s always asking one
of us how you are. If you’re ever coming back.”
“Doubtful.”
“That’s the way you’re going to play it?” Deak asks. “You’re just gonna sit on the sidelines for the rest of your life?”
“Living it day by day, you know?” I shrug, take a sip from my beer, even flatter than before. Does anything possess flavor
anymore? Are all my senses completely fricasseed?
The conversation diminishes, hitting a lull, leading me back to Lilith. She’s a song. A tune I can’t stop hearing in my head,
like it’s trying to escape. Be sung. I can’t stop thinking about her, even now. “There is this one girl . . .”
“Who?” Deak asks between sips of his beer. “Your one-night stand with a unicorn?”
“I’m telling you. She’s real.”
“Sure she is.”
“I’m serious.”
“Does this unicorn have a phone number? Did she leave a note? Something, anything, that proves her existence? Because at this
point, I think you fucked Bigfoot.”
“I’m not making her up.”
“Then where is she?”
Good question. Where is she?
“Hell if I know—” The words die right in my throat.
Something’s seized my attention.
Someone.
There. Right fucking there.
There she is.
Lilith. It has to be her. She’s wearing the same jean jacket. The pins running up the length of her lapels are the same. It’s her.
There’s no one else she could be.
“No way,” I say. “No fucking way.”
“What?” Deak asks, glancing over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“It’s her.”
“Who?”
“Her.”
She’s sitting at a booth in the far back of the restaurant with a few other friends, lost in conversation. I spot her bob,
and I’m convinced it’s her.
Please tell me this isn’t another hallucination. Please tell me this is real.
There are too many bodies between us. I see her for a split second, only for Lilith to get eclipsed by the crowd. People block
my line of sight. She’s there and gone.
Maybe she’s not there at all. Maybe I just imagined her—
No. She’s real. She has to be. I’m not losing her again.
I get up from the table without saying anything.
“Where you going?” Deak asks, but I’m not paying attention.
Not anymore. I have to reach her before she disappears on me.
It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that she’ll vanish into thin air—poof, up in smoke, just like that—if I don’t touch her. Make sure she’s real. Flesh and blood.
She’s not some ghost. Not some hallucination. She’s real. Has to be real.
Let’s go and see.
I plow through the crowd. I’m forcing my way through the tangle of limbs. I can feel my pulse pick up the closer I get, my
heart kick-drumming against the inside of my chest.
I’m doing a piss-poor job at steadying my breath. It takes every ounce of my strength just to keep my equilibrium, keep from
collapsing, as if I’m growing weaker the nearer I get.
What am I going to do when I reach her? What am I going to say?
Remember me?
When I finally make it to her booth, she doesn’t notice me standing before her table. Her friends actually clock my presence
before she does. Wary eyes all around.
I even clear my throat.
When Lilith finally glances up at me, it’s the strangest sensation. There’s no familiarity there. No acknowledgment of recognition.
Those aren’t her eyes, I think.
They look completely . . . different. They’re the same color, from what I can remember, but it’s as if the texture within them has changed—or been rearranged.
They don’t hold the same stare as before. They don’t pierce me the way they did the last time I dove in.
It’s not her, the faintest voice at the back of my mind says.
How’s that even possible? It’s got to be her. Look. Just look. Who else can she be?