I
'God picked the right fucking day to make it rain in Los Angeles.'
As AJ stood in the light drizzle, holding his black porkpie hat against his chest, he thought about holes. He was staring down at two gaping holes, which would soon contain two of his best friends, whose caskets had been closed during the services because their bodies were so full of holes. He thought about the holes in his abdomen and the dull aching they emitted even now… His life had been one dull-aching hole for the past two weeks. Though he had been brought back into the land of the living by an AED machine, after being clinically dead for over a minute, his meals tasted bland. It was like somebody flipped a visor over the California sun. Television, music, alcohol, masturbation- it was all so… empty. Joyless. What was the point? Shit happens, then, you die.
He stared into the holes that would contain the broken shells of Jake and Jesse Attica forevermore… And when the thought of it began to make him sick to his stomach, his eyes traveled across the hungry rectangles and into a second pair of empty holes. They were contained in the face of Jillian Attica.
"Baby Girl," her brothers called her as if it were her name, and sometimes, "BG." AJ couldn't help but notice how she was so unlike a baby. Jillian was the youngest Attica sibling at twenty years old, following Jesse by a couple of years. As he studied her, she didn't even look twenty. To the untrained eye, maybe she looked her tender age, but to someone with an eye as discerning as AJ's, it was obvious that her youth was dead. At least, it was now.
Tears dripped from her eyes like water from a leaking faucet, but her face was empty, as though her body was crying but her mind wasn't even in the graveyard. Her mother wept and wailed beside her like a child who fell from her bicycle. Jillian remained stony and silent. She was the winner of AJ's deepest sympathy.
There was a hand on his shoulder, and a deep, accented voice.
"All right, mate?"
He turned to Gordon with a quick smile and lied.
"Yeah. I'm good."
'Awkward.'
That word- that feeling popped up in AJ's head several times during his short stay at the repast. Mrs. Jolene Attica was not particularly jazzed about the fact that he, Gordon and John showed up, but she was far too proper and far too Christian to show her disdain. For this, AJ was grateful, but a part of him wished that someone would throw him out so he could have an excuse to escape the awkwardness.
"We are all very close to your sons… Losing them is, well, losing part of our family…"
Gordon continued and AJ nodded, taking a mental note of the accusation behind Mrs. Attica's polite front. She blamed these three men for the deaths of her son. She had a point. AJ continued to nod and smile solemnly, agreeing with Gordon's words, which were lost somewhere between his own thoughts and the dull murmur in the room. The murmur suddenly halted.
"How dare you?"
The words were bellowed. The voice was female. AJ thought for a moment that Mrs. Attica had let her thoughts slip accidentally into words, but his theory shattered when her head turned toward the kitchen, wearing a look of utter horror.
Jillian Attica was damn-near cornering a squat elderly woman. Her fists were clenched and trembling. AJ couldn't see her face, as her back was turned, but the look on the old woman's face was enough to make his heart jump. It seemed a possibility that Jillian might pull out a gun.
"I only meant-"
The old woman's humble defense was cut short.
"'Live by the sword, die by the sword'? What did you mean? WHAT EXACTLY DID YOU MEAN? My brothers' graves aren't even covered. You're in OUR house that THEY built, eating OUR food, and you have the NERVE to insinuate that they didn't deserve to be alive? Oh, I know what you meant, you old bitch."
There was violence in the girl's footsteps as she began to close the gap between her body and the dumbstruck old woman's.
Mrs. Attica cried out in horror, "Jillian! Baby-"
"Now get the FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!"
Gordon, John and a man AJ didn't recognize had already begun to restrain the flailing girl by the time he realized he hadn't created the situation in his head. Jillian was short, but had heft to her body, which made holding her back difficult for the three who dared try.
AJ felt his feet move, his body shift between the two women and his hands grip Jillian's soft, round shoulders. It wasn't until he was staring into the emptiness in her eyes that he realized he had made the conscious decision to move, and that it wasn't some force willing him. He was slightly alarmed that a face so round and cherubic could wear an expression other than one of joviality.
"Jillian! Jilli- Jillian-"
For a short while, Jillian attempted to look past AJ's shoulder at her target but his height thwarted her and his gentle shaking distracted her and she at last met his eyes.
"It's okay, all right? It's okay."
AJ's long arms wrapped around the girl's shoulders in a way that felt alien to him, but the right thing to do. John, Gordon, and their helper gently released Jillian into AJ's care. She was weeping again and everyone was staring at them.
"Go on. Get her out of 'ere, mate," Gordan nodded, giving AJ the verbal nudge necessary for him to lead Jillian out the door, but not before forgetting to pick up her coat off the couch.
She walked ahead of him in the downpour, not missing her coat, barely even aware that he was following her down the street. Her mane of curls wilted quickly in the rain.
"Uhm- Don't you want your coat?"
She halted but didn't turn around.
AJ approached her tentatively, fanning out her coat like a matador's cape. The rain had beat its way around his porkpie hat, and splattered him in the face, blurring his vision. He was disoriented and his bullet wounds ached, his suit jacket did little against the rain and he was cursing himself for jumping in and accepting the role of consoler. He was bad at it and it made him uncomfortable.
'Fuck you, G,' he thought as he draped the coat over Jillian's shoulders, 'You've got a sister. You should be doing this sh-'
"Whoa," he said softly, his own voice breaking his train of thought.
Jillian's arms were wrapped around his middle and she'd buried her face in his armpit. She wailed the way her mother had at the funeral. His arms settled cautiously around her body. She was soft, almost plush. He squeezed her and felt suddenly at ease.
"It's okay… It's gonna be okay."
He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He hated to lie to her. He knew people who lose half their family in a blaze of bullets tend not to be okay ever again.
AJ was well aware that since John Attica received his fifteen-year sentence for armed robbery his eldest son, Jake had become the man of the Attica household. He acted as Jillian's father for as long as she could remember. And Jesse, well, he was her best friend.
Several autumns ago, after Jesse's first job, AJ walked in on him nursing an open jewelry box. Diamond earrings. Real diamonds. Big diamonds. AJ smirked at him, teasing.
"Whoa, look at those boulders! What, you got yourself a girlfriend or something? That must be some primo pussy."
"Nah, man," Jesse grinned, "They're for Baby Girl. For her birthday."
AJ shook his head, chuckling.
"Keep spoiling that kid, man, you're gonna train her to be a gold-digger. Some poor fucker's gonna break his bank trying to keep up with big brother."
Jesse looked up at AJ with a grin.
"Wait'll you see what Jake got her."
AJ's hand gently brushed against one of the diamond studs. He didn't even realize he was doing it.
Jillian's low, shaky voice broke his reverie.
"Can we get out of here?"
"Yeah. Sure we can."
Arm around her waist, like he was escorting her on a date, he led her to where he had parked across the street.
The ride was silent. AJ smoked, occasionally glancing at Jillian from the corner of his eye. Her head rested against the window, leaving a little wet mark on the few occasions she'd moved it. Her makeup was smudged. The ends of her hair had begun to frizz as they dried. She looked almost like an escaped mental patient who got robbed a Dress Barn. AJ smirked a little at this thought. Her eyes fixed on him in a way that made him feel guilty for smiling, and he sobered.
"So… How's school?"
"It's fine…" she said barely audibly, removing her eyes from his face.
She was silent a while before she turned back to him.
"Do you have any weed?"
The night breeze rolling in the car windows was cool and delicious and dewy. It chilled their bones a bit through their damp clothes, but they barely noticed. The smoke from their kush made dragons and puppies and choo-choo trains that distracted them from cold and from the silence between them.
"I didn't know you smoked weed, a good girl like you," AJ grinned when they were halfway through their wine-flavored dutch.
The thought was suddenly hilarious to him.
Jillian took it, puffing, allowing it to mellow in her lungs before exhaling her words along with the smoke: "Why would you? You don't know anything about me."
The comment wasn't snide, but matter-of-fact.
AJ replied, "To the contrary. I know a lot about you. Your brothers talked about you non-stop."
Jillian peaked an eyebrow.
"Oh? What exactly do you know about me?"
He thought about it. Most of the information had passed through his ears the way the smoke drifted from the car. Some of it stuck, though.
"You're a sophomore. You go to school in Philly. You study, what, movie-writing or something?"
"Screenwriting and Playwriting," she corrected, looking drearily out the window.
"Your favorite colors are pink and blue," he grinned, impressed with himself.
"Actually… They're black and purple."
AJ frowned.
"Jake said they were pink and blue. I remember specifically because I was helping him pick out a laptop for you last year."
"They were pink and blue when I was younger. Mid-way through high school, they changed… Jake never caught up, but Jesse knew."
She already seemed bored with this game, so AJ digressed. But she continued.
"I bet the Baby Girl my brothers knew wouldn't have threatened an old lady, either…"
AJ sighed, trying not to let on that the situation had freaked him out, failing.
"You're going through a lot of shit. She should have kept her mouth shut about your brothers. It was disrespectful."
She mused softly, smiling a sad little smile, "Jake would've given me an earful…"
AJ silently agreed before turning to her with a grin.
"But Jesse would have thought it was fucking hilarious."
They shared a laugh, genuine, but still hollow. A bit of silence followed.
"Everyone thinks I'm a crazy person," she smirked suddenly, as though the thought amused her.
"No, they don't."
She turned to him, knowing he knew that wasn't true.
"Don't they?"
"Well…" he squirmed a little, "not me."
She searched his face for insincerity but could find none. AJ searched her face as well. Her features were relaxed, but she still appeared empty.
He briefly thought about kissing her.
"I should get you home."
Doused in air freshener, they took their long, wispy strides toward the Attica house. AJ hadn't noticed that the two cars between which he parallel parked belonged to Gordon and John. Their presence on Mrs. Attica's front porch surprised him more than it would have, had he been sober.
"Hey," he grinned.
John and Gordon exchanged knowing looks before Gordon addressed Jillian, asking for the both of them, "You all right, love?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. Thank you."
He nodded.
"You ever need anything, your mum's got all three of our numbers in there. Put 'em in your phone. Don't hesitate to call, you hear?"
She nodded.
"Thanks."
AJ watched her drift inside. She was like a ghost.
'Ghost,' he thought, 'you fucker. You did this to this poor girl.'
