31. Chapter 23
Hands Down
Dutch
It’s almost unbelievable that someone half my height can run so damn fast, yet Rainy is living proof.
I was barely a hundred feet behind her as she raced from the stadium, yet by the time I got outside, she was already slipping into one of the waiting cabs that usually line up after shows here.
They are meant to help the crowds disperse, mostly for the folks who live up in The Head and are too afraid of us Neckers to take the subway.
They are definitely not meant to help my girl run from me.
With another burst of speed, I barrel my way through the stragglers that remain and have no choice but to toss out apologies as I push people out of the way.
“Hey!”
“What the fuck?!”
They call after me, and all I can shout back is, “I’m sorry!”
I say it twice to the lady whose cab I steal before I slam the door in her face.
Through the window I can see her mouth move as she stomps her feet and probably, though I can’t be sure, hurls obscenities my way.
Though I should feel like shit for pissing off a potential fan, right now, all that matters is catching up to Rain.
To the cabbie ahead of me, I shout, “See that cab up there?”
I point over the front passenger seat at the rapidly vanishing taillights. He nods.
“I’ll pay you an extra 200 bucks cash,” I stress, “if you follow her.”
For anyone from my part of Calder, an extra 200 bucks is a lot of money, so the guy doesn’t hesitate. My head bounces off the seat behind me as he stomps on the gas pedal and we are off.
It’s a Saturday night. Downtown Calder is busy.
There’s a minefield of vehicles that separate my taxi from Rain’s.
Some are other cabs or town cars like the one Lou’s got, stopping to drop people off at the high-end clubs in this part of the city.
There are guys in slick suits, or dressed in all black like that makes them hard men, and women in short, flashy dresses that likely cost way too much for how little material they have.
My hands won’t stop drumming across the tops of my thighs, and with every corner we round, I worry we’ll lose her.
Somehow the driver manages to keep up. All the way through downtown, though there’s a consistent gap between the two cars thanks to the ongoing traffic.
When we enter The Neck, it gets a lot easier.
The roads empty out. Gone are the luxury cars and well-dressed clubgoers.
Here we pass folks half-folded on corner store stoops and mostly empty city buses.
My driver’s head is on a swivel, and I can tell that even if he is from The Neck, he doesn’t usually take fares in the neighbourhood.
Fair play to him, there are kids around here who would steal his tires before he even parks the car. I used to be one of them.
I’m about to offer the guy more cash so he won’t ditch me right here, but before I do, I see Rain’s cab in the distance slow and stop.
Predictably, at least for Calder in early May, there’s a thin veil of mist that makes it difficult to see, especially since we’re caught at a red light on one side of an intersection, and she’s on the other.
The only thing I can clearly make out through the rain is a flashing neon sign that reads: Wreckers.
I toss my driver a wad of cash and jump out of the back seat before the light can turn green. There’s barely enough time for me to mutter a quick thanks and close the car door before that happens and he speeds off. Guess he was as nervous as I suspected.
There’s no sign of Rain anywhere outside.
Her cab, like mine, hasn’t lingered, so there’s no clue there.
Aside from the bar, there are only a few open businesses along the strip at this hour.
A Mac’s Milk, the twenty-four-hour corner store chain you find on every corner throughout The Neck.
Yes, they do sell milk in theory, but the number one thing people buy there is cheap cigarettes.
The other is a strip club called The Velvet Tail, that you couldn’t pay me to step foot inside.
Not because I have anything against the girls dancing, but because I definitely have something against the men crowding the back door, waiting to catch the girls on their smoke breaks, when no bouncers are around to protect them.
The rest of the stores are all bookmakers, pawn shops and fast-food places that won’t re-open until there’s enough punters on the street to make it worth their while.
Ruling out the strip club, I pop my head inside the Mac’s Milk.
There’s a kid behind the counter who looks wayyyyy too young to be working the overnight shift.
Then again, I was about fourteen on my first night shift at the Rothus Warehouse.
I offer the kid a quick wave before scanning the small store.
No trace of Rain. Under the fluorescent lights, her purple hair would be easily noticeable.
That leaves only Wreckers. The bouncer gives me the barest head nod as I push through the doors. The inside is almost as dark as the street outside. The only lights in the place are around the bar and on a small stage in the corner.
There’s a meagre crowd. Mostly older guys, who, judging by the way they sway in their seats, aren’t exactly on their first pint.
There are also a few young guns, kids who definitely aren’t of legal drinking age, but this isn’t the type of place that cares.
Then there are the lone drinkers. The ones that have found a stool at the bar and won’t be leaving it until they are too drunk to remember all the things they came here to forget. And that’s where I find her.
She’s got her back to me and is seated up on one of the stools, with her skirt fanning out around her.
Even in the shadows caused by the overhang of the bar, I can make out the line work of her tattoos, the curls of the snakes that wrap her delicious thighs.
Her elbows are propped up on the bar, and in her hands is a rocks glass.
I watch her for a minute. She sets the glass down, then picks it up.
And repeats. Every time she picks it up, the amber liquid sloshes back and forth, and then she sets it back on the bar.
A couple of times, she even brings it right to her lips.
But she never, not even once, takes a sip.
The girl I knew wouldn’t have hesitated.
Ten years ago, that whiskey would have been long gone.
The fact that it isn’t is yet another clue as to the changes time has wrought on Rain.
On all of us.I proceed towards her, opting to tap the guy on the stool beside her rather than approach her directly.
I hold out a twenty to the guy, and with one head tilt, ask him to vacate his seat.
He hiccups, grumbles something I can’t make out, but he, like my taxi driver earlier, seems to have no problem taking my money.
Once he’s gone, I slip into the seat and, without looking Rainy’s way, signal the bartender over.
“A pint of Guinness, please, pal.”
The guy gets busy pouring. At the first sounds of my voice, Rain gives me a split-second glance, though she takes a page out of Dax’s book and uses her hair like a shield. As if she thinks I won’t notice. Too bad; that’s a game neither of them are very good at.
While I wait for my pint, we sit in silence. Me purposely not looking at her, her pretending she’s not looking at me. Only when the bartender returns with the thick, dark brown liquid and sets it in front of me does she finally break.
“Ugh, I don’t know how you can drink that stuff. It’s so bitter.”
I chuckle and take a long, slow sip. Her eyes catch on my throat as my Adam’s apple bobs with each swallow.
“And whiskey isn’t?” I ask, spinning slightly to finally face my girl.
She grimaces and looks down at the still full glass in her hand. “I’m not drinking it though, am I?”
“You’re thinking about it.”
“Thinking about something and actually doing it are two very different things, Dutch,” she states matter-of-factly before once again setting the glass back on the bar.
“You’re telling me,” I confirm, and take another sip.
I get the sense we’re tip-toeing our way to the edge of something.
To the truth, maybe. To confessions on both our parts that are long overdue.
Only we’re interrupted by a loud, yet familiar whining sound followed by an even more familiar cracking and popping sound.
Both Rain and I whip our heads in the direction of the noise. There, on stage, both a mic and a stool have appeared as if from nowhere.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” comes the frustrated voice from Rainy. “I swear to God, I’m being haunted by bad karaoke.”
Though I have no clue what she is talking about, a couple of minutes later, it becomes very, very clear that she was right.
The guy starts singing a Giggle Pigs song and his rendition is so awful, like truly terrible, that I’m convinced their lead singer, Dwayne Harker, would kill him on sight for the attempt.
In the brief seconds I watch the chump on stage, something shifts in Rain’s posture.
Her spine sags and curves towards the bar.
It’s as if she’s shrinking in on herself.
Her eyes no longer lift in my direction.
She stops looking anywhere except into the bottom of her glass.
Her hand shakes as she picks it up again, raising it towards her mouth.My Rainy is lost in thought, so lost she seems to have forgotten that I’m right here beside her.
Before the whiskey quite reaches her lips, she mumbles out loud, “What’s the point in running from it when rock bottom finds me anyway? ”
She’s giving up on what, or who, or why; I have no fucking idea because this frustrating, beautiful creature refuses to let me in. Something inside me shifts too. Straight to anger. I’m angry at Rain for this bullshit in front of me. I’m ready to shake her for giving up when I’m right fucking here!
But I can’t be angry at her alone when I’ve not even had the balls to say the damn words.
I’ve spent years hoping that my actions would be enough to prove to her what kind of man I am, what kind of man I would be for her.
Somehow, I always thought she would just magically figure it out.
It dawns on me all at once that I’ve expected Rain to be a mind-reader and then blamed her when she wasn’t.
My body moves before my mind fully catches up. My hand wraps around her wrist, freezing her before she takes a sip.
“Don’t,” is all I manage at first. “Just don’t. Not yet,” I say desperately, “Let me say something first.”
She stalls. Those violet eyes of hers appear almost black in this shitty lighting. Somehow, that makes it easier to see the vulnerable soul that she tries her best to hide from the world. That vulnerable soul that I love so much. That I know is worthy of being loved, even if she doesn’t think so.
Sure, I could tell her that. It’s a nice sentence, and maybe she’d listen, but one simple spoken sentence isn’t enough for her to really hear me.
There’s only one sure-fire way to make her understand.
I take the glass from her and place it back on the bar as the last notes of the Giggle Pigs’ biggest hit, ‘Do You Have the Time’, finish.
“Just wait. Just listen,” I plead as I stand.
Satisfied when her chin dips just a tiny amount, I take my pint with me and head for the stage.
There’s an ancient and busted-looking guitar set in the corner near one of the speakers.
I pick it up by the neck and give the sound guy a questioning look, who probably doesn’t know his input from his aux.
He mouths, Whatever, man, and though I lack my brother’s ear, I shrug the thing over my shoulders and strum the strings to assess how in tune, or in this case, not at all in tune, it is.
I’ve spent enough time around guitars of all kinds to be able to give it a basic tuning.
Enough that I won’t offend the entire bar with a single chord.
Once the thing sounds about as good as it’s ever going to, I approach the mic, collect my beer from the stool where I’d set it down and raise it in the air.
“A toast. To long overdue confessions.”
The crowd returns my toast. Not my girl though.
As I’d asked, she leaves her glass on the bar.
In fact, it seems all but forgotten. It’s my turn for shaking hands, as I set the beer aside.
My throat goes dry, my palms are sweatier than the first time The Pistols ever performed live.
I swallow and let my whole world narrow to the girl that’s at it’s very heart and offer up the truth.
“So, uhhh, a long time ago I wrote this thing for a girl, and um, I think it’s finally time she heard it. ”
For years, I’ve made up excuse after excuse to keep quiet, to not say the damn thing, but music has a way of succeeding where words often fail.