Chapter 1 #2
“Get off me, you piece of shit!” he shouts.
“You want me to attach you to the back of my car and drag you along? I’ll bet that’d be fun to watch. We could video it and post it on social media. You got a big following, Jodi, for your prostitutes and your drugs?”
That’s what Jodi does now? Forget CSI, this is Miami Vice.
A mountain of a man appears in the doorway behind Jodi, a pistol in his hand, but somehow it whips into the air, flying toward Rig and landing several feet away. He picks it up and shoots out another tire on the car.
“Any more of you assholes want to come out here?” he shouts. “Bring me another gun, why don’tcha?”
“Arrgggghhhh!” The man lets out a long roar and charges across the dirt toward where Rig’s standing. But Rig’s hand comes up and flicks the whip, whirling it out, and it takes out the guy’s legs and he goes face down in the grass.
“I think you’ve forgotten, Jodi, you leave my shit alone. When I come back tomorrow, if it ain’t all fixed, I’m gonna be seriously unhappy.”
He jerks his head, turns his back on them, and walks back to the truck. When he climbs in, his face is like stone. He throws his rifle and the whip in the back and hands me the gun.
“If either of them moves, shoot ’em.”
I stare at him with wide eyes and then at Jodi and Mountain Man, but they just glower at the truck as he starts the engine, reverses back, and swings out back down the creek that led us up to the house in the first place.
“Fucking assholes.”
“I went to school with Jodi.” It seems prudent at this point to say this. I don’t know why. Maybe he’ll realize how old and bent out of shape I am and decide that this night has not been worth his while. But he just glances in the mirror and chews his cheek. Maybe there’s nothing more to say.
“Where did you learn to use a whip like that?”
“Worked in a circus for a bit.”
Finally, some answers. “Seriously?”
He glances over at me. “I’m a big guy. I could fight.
Learned how to wrestle. I wrestled with their tiger.
It was trained, but animals can be unpredictable.
A guy who worked there, Mel, was a genius with a whip.
He could take a cigarette from between your teeth.
He taught me. Sometimes it’s handy when I want to scare people.
Doesn’t usually work against guns, though; not that those idiots would realize that. ”
He gives me a once-over, unsmiling, before his eyes go back to the road. “Comes in useful when you need to impress a lady, too.”
I gaze at him. He wants to impress me? He’s joking, you numbskull. I stare at the shadows on the track. This has been the weirdest night of my life. And I’ve had a lot of weird nights, so that’s saying something.
We bump back down to the main road and he turns left, toward town.
“Where’s your place?” he says on a chin lift.
“Above Ketley’s Fried Chicken. Entrance is around the back of the building.”
His face is impassive, and my gut churns.
Is he dropping me off or is he coming in?
I think about the stuff everywhere, the empty bottles and dirty dishes, the pills and the bills in piles.
Maybe he could drop me back at the bar and I can down a bit more booze, get my courage up to do something sensible, like never again take leave of my senses and decide I’m going to talk to a guy who works on the rigs and can take guys down with a whip.
We pull into the lot behind the building.
There’s a dumpster from the renovation they’re doing to the hair salon at the end of the row that the builders tell me is going to become a tattoo parlor.
A row of trash cans and a group of beat-up old cars sit on the asphalt along with decades of garbage and leaves that fill up all the corners.
Some enterprising graffiti artist has tagged every wall as high as he can reach.
The cars belong to the few sorry residents whose only option is to live in a damp apartment above a row of stores in the worst part of town.
The rusting iron staircase sways as we head up to what counts as my front door.
I unlock it with shaking hands, flick the light switch, and wince as I take in the cabinet doors that won’t shut, the grime in all the crevices, and the countertop piled high with food that I can no longer fit in the cabinets because they’re not fixed securely to the walls. I turn around to face him.
“Can I get you a drink or …?”
He eyes me steadily and steps forward.
“I’ll sleep on the couch.” He says softly as he looks down at me. “I think all that shooting has completely killed the vibe tonight.”
I laugh, nervous and cracked.
“You don’t have to, I can …” I gesture toward my bedroom, visualizing the piles of clothes in corners, the remnants of meals eaten in bed, and the sheets that haven’t been changed for …
“Babe. It’s all good. I’m wiped. Find me a pillow and some blankets. I’ll put some coffee on.”
I take a deep breath. Yes, right. I bet this is the least exciting evening he’s spent with a woman in a long time. Apart from the shooting and the whip and the fighting, of course.
Rummaging through the back of the closet in my bedroom, I dig out an old comforter that’s clean enough, along with the only extra pillow I have.
He’s whistling in the kitchen, and I can’t quite place the tune.
After some digging around, I find sheets and a pillowcase, too, thank Christ. I give them a quick sniff. A bit musty, but they’ll do.
Carl girl, you are not getting caught like this again. I gaze up at the ceiling. If I make it through this night with a guy with a whip and a gun in my apartment, I promise, O Lord, I’ll tidy up. I don’t believe in God, not really, not after what He did, but I have to talk to someone besides Marni.
When I come out, Rig is standing in the living room with his hands on his hips, surveying the debris. He bends down and picks up a mug sitting among the dirty plates on the coffee table and passes it to me, along with a couple of Tylenol he drops in my hand.
Oh God, did he register how much I had to drink this evening? Was I slurring worse than Marni tells me I normally do? “I’m sorry about the mess, I wasn’t expecting …”
He cuts me off. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
He’s lying. No one likes living in someone else’s squalor. I may not be great at life generally, but I understand this. My dad would be rolling in his grave. Despite his asshole comments, he was so proud of everything I did, my art, my nursing … My eyes tighten without warning.
“Go to bed, babe.”
My eyes shoot back to him to find him watching me, and I swallow. “I’m sorry, this must be …”
His hand darts out and takes hold of mine. He turns it over to examine my palm. Something crackles through me from my fingers to my toes. He draws a warm finger down the center of it.
“Go to bed, babe,” he says softly, and I nod.
All I wanted was to forget how much I’ve given up on life, but now he’s seeing the evidence of it firsthand.
You’ve just got to get through how mortifying this is and not cry on his huge shoulders.
He’ll be gone tomorrow before I’m up. No smart guy hangs around here in the morning.