"There are women who
will roll in shit for a fur coat..."
- Barbara Streisand,
Nuts
"The quality of your
life is dictated by the quality of the people you let into it."
- Jeff, a plumber who
occasionally wears a kilt
Sharks and Remoras
Oh God. What have I done?
Numbly you sit staring out from behind the bars of the prison that's your own drugged body while total strangers debate whether or not you're competent enough to stand trial or need to be locked up for good in the Minnesota Security Hospital because you're dangerous to everyone including yourself.
Oh God. What have I done?
Your wrists are shackled to your ankles and you're wearing an orange jumpsuit with a number over your heart because you didn't have the energy to change into the shabby second hand suit that you've been advised to wear. Your hair hangs lank and matted in your eyes.
Oh God. What have I done?
Next to you sits the harassed looking woman who's your court appointed attorney. You're her fifth case of the morning and she's on her sixth cup of coffee. You can't remember her name. Fair enough, she keeps calling you "Bobby". Great, you've already sampled the hospitality of the St. Peter's Regional Treatment Center off and on for the last three and a half years. With this woman M.S.H. seems a dead cert. Not that prison'd be any better.
Oh God. What have I done?
Across the aisle your wife, Ava and her fiancé, Nellie Scuggs, no Gaia, sit next to their lawyer, a sleek woman in a tailored suit.
Oh God. What have I done?
Up on the bench, the judge, a man with a face like a letter box sorts through the papers in front of him. You don't know his name either. When everybody rose and the bailiff called out his name before telling everyone to sit down, you still didn't catch it. The high pitched ringing in your ears from your meds drowned out the bailiff's voice.
Oh God. What have I done?
Nellie, no Gaia, glares over at you, pimply face triumphant. Her mouth still looks like a rotten plum someone stepped on, and your left hand aches from where you punched her not long ago. They haven't removed the stitches from your knuckles from where her teeth sliced into them even as they were knocked from their cradles of meat and bone...
Oh God. What have I done?
Your wife leans against Gaia. Gaia has one pudgy arm around her shoulders while her free hand clutches greedily at Ava's pregnant belly. Ava doesn't even bother to look at you; she's too busy looking at Gaia.
Oh God. What have I done?
The bailiff calls up Eva's lawyer. She walks confidently towards the stand. Through your meds you catch her saying, "...my client and her fiancé have been extremely traumatized by this man..."
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
If only you had taken a different route back to the men's group home you used to live at on your long walk back from work that morning. If you'd come by five minutes later, you never would have seen Ava go into the abortion clinic, passing the ever-present picketers as she went. Some doctor with a blade or a saline wash would have ended it; you never would have known.
And we could have gotten on with what was left of our life.
But no, you saw her, you called her name, "A-ava, w-w-wait up!" and limped over to her, wanting to know what was going on. You hadn't seen her for four months, not since you had that humiliating breakdown where the orderlies had to drag you naked and screaming off of her because your doctor reduced your meds without telling you a few days before so that thepills that keep you from flying apart in all directions weren't there to hold you together in one semi-piece. By the time they'd stabilized you and fired your doctor for negligence, Ava'd disappeared from the AA meetings and she wasn't answering your phone calls.
There she was, on the steps of the abortion clinic, just barely showing, but we knew mate, ohhhhh we knew.
You talked Ava as best you could into sitting down with you in a nearby diner. She wouldn't look at you, but you didn't care because she was so beautiful and you thought you loved her and remembering that one brief, sweet illicit time with her was one of the few things that kept you from going completely insane even as you were beating your head on the padded walls.
It was ours.
How did she know?
You were the only one she'd been with without protection for months.
We should have known!
You asked her, no, you begged her not to terminate.
Ava said she'd made up her mind. She didn't want to be a mother. She had ambitions; a child would only get in the way.
I, we, should have listened and walked away but we never learn, do we?
Though you didn't know the first thing about babies you told her that you'd take care of the kid so she could get on with her life, please, please, just don't abort.
Remember when a child's life meant nothing to us?
She said she'd think about it.
You sat back, relieved, frightened, and...
...happy. Mate, we did something that we'd never done before! For all our boneheaded stupidity, we've never managed to knock anybody up, and here we'd finally done it, with a beautiful girl with a million dollar smile who reminds us so much of that bitch cheerleader who despised us but always kicked us in the teeth the day after.
Bride
She called you at the halfway house the next morning. She'd decided not to abort.
You met at the coffee shop fifteen minutes later. You'd come as close to running as your bad leg would let you.
She smiled at you and you thought your heart would break so you asked her carefully.
No. We handed her a note that simply asked, "Will you?" because we knew that if we said it out loud our blaring stuttering voice would break the spell and she'd walk out on us as she had every right to.
You'd spent half the night composing this note over and over again in your head, finally writing it down and stuffing it in your back pocket at dawn before walking home from work..
She returned it to you and said, "Yes."
She didn't have to. Women these days don't have to - they get a baby and walk off from the father like they'd just got a tank full of gas at the local Quickie Mart without looking backwards - nobody cares. It wasn't like that when we were little and the G.I. what was our dad married our English mum when she and her mother showed up at the front gate of the Army Post he was stationed at in England, claiming he was "the barstard what got me lit'l girl pregger"s. That's what my birth certificate, my therapist and the pills that she prescribes tell me.
That afternoon you went down to the courthouse with Ava. After coughing up a fee and signing a few papers, that was it.
You had a wife.
You had a child on the way.
And you had no money.
You didn't care because you now had a wife and a child, which was more than you'd started the day with.
You mean we were too busy being happy to notice Nellie, no, Gaia hovering around the edges, spotty face like a thunderstorm, giving us the evil eye?
Nellie
Ava tolerated Gaia hanging 'round though you had no idea why. She was big, fat, ugly, and smelled bad. She was also a terrible dresser, refusing to wear a bra so that her heavy breasts sagged somewhere down around her non-existent waistline because "bras were a malevolent patriarchal restraint on her femininity". She refused to bathe, stating flatly when you asked while standing upwind, that "Bathing was another patriarchal restraint calculated to make women sick because it killed the beneficial bacteria on their skins." Ava, always stylishly dressed, contrasted against Gaia, making Gaia look ten times worse, but Gaia hung around anyway like some large, smelly unwanted dog.
Honeymoon
That night Gaia hogged the white leather couch in the living room of the apartment that you and Ava now shared, snarling at you like you were some sort of intruder when she wasn't bitching at Ava for having a LEATHER couch when she could have a clear conscience and have one made of animal friendly, non-exploitative organically grown hemp.
We told Gaia to leave. It was after all, our wedding night and two's company, three's a crowd unless it's an adult movie. Friend of Ava's or not, we didn't fancy her 'round for it.
Gaia jeered at you, mocking your stutter, calling you a filthy MAN. Anyway, it was Ava's apartment, you had no right to throw her out, you oppressive representative of the Caucasian patriarchy!
Ava came out of the bedroom and gave Gaia a sweetly melting smile before ordering her to get her stinky ass the hell out.
Gaia gave Ava a stricken look as she left in a hurry.
We should have known right then what was going on...
Loser
You later saw Gaia standing outside in the mean glare of the parking lot security lights, looking up at Ava's bedroom window, tears running down her puggish face. It was three a.m.
Gaia-bitch shouldn't have worried. Ava locked us out of the bedroom we thought we'd be sharing with her and told us to go sleep in the spare bedroom because she was too tired to deal with us right now. We were stupid enough not to question it because, well, she was pregnant.
Garden Path
The next day Ava told you that if you were going to be her husband, you had to look the part. You told her that you didn't have any money, but if she waited 'til Friday when you got paid, after the different liens had been taken out for the property damage and medical bills that you'd accumulated from your accident, you and Goodwill Industries might be able to come to an agreement. She gave you an impatient look and told you that she was going to cover that, just come on, let's go.
She bought us clothes, better clothes than what we could ever afford on our own. Nothing too faggy, nothing too queer, but enough to tell anybody who bothered to look that we were just one more accessory of hers, a man shaped accessory instead of a pair of high heels, a matching handbag, a rhinestone hair clip... it was humiliating. We should have been buying her nice things, for her and our kid, but she said don't bother. That should have told us something but we weren't listening, eh Billy?
Then she ordered you to go get a real haircut, standing beside the stylist the whole time, telling him exactly how she wanted it done.
Ava dressed us up like a soddin' Ken doll to her Barbie. We let ourselves fall for it because we thought it meant she loved us. She hated our night-shift pale skin and paid for us to spend time baking like a potato in a bloody tanning bed until we were dark enough to suit her. When that didn't work, she had us stained. She didn't like our hair even after she paid $100 dollars to have it cut. So she had it chemically straightened and bleached until it was more to her taste. We let her because we thought it meant she loved us. She told us to lose the glasses and paid to have us fitted with contacts that gave us headaches because our eyesight was so poor that the lenses couldn't fully correct our vision. We obeyed her because we thought it meant she loved us. She told us to keep our mouth shut in public and let her do all the talking. We kept our mouth shut because we thought it meant she was sparing us the embarrassment of sounding like a CD with a bad skip in it.
And we looked good. Bloody good. Dangerous good - as long as we kept our mouth shut.
At the parties Ava threw every week, you were catnip to a bunch of people whose biggest adventure in life so far had been getting stuck on the ski lift at Aspen for a whole hour before the attendant could get them down safe to hot chocolate and Thai Stick while soaking off the fright in the Jacuzzi that came with the condo. Frat boys wearing Abercrombie & Fitch came up to you while you stood there in sleeveless shirts that displayed your jailhouse tats and heroin scars; trying to get you to spar with them while bragging about their schoolboy exploits on the football field as their girlfriends looked you over, wondering if the marriage, as sudden as it was, was open enough for you to give them a tumble because you smelled enticingly of the streets.
Casually leaning against something to spare your leg, you'd give them a slow smile, showing just enough teeth to give them a slight thrill, as you made non-committal noises that they interpreted as something hinting of undesirable desires fulfilled.
What a load of old shit!
Pantomime
Ava put on quite a show when you were in public. On campus, at parties; your wife couldn't keep her hands off you while Gaia stabbed you with her eyes. Funny, that, whenever Gaia-sow was stinking up the place, you could pretty much count on getting the physical contact and attention from you wife that you craved almost as much as heroin or booze.
Bloody hell! In private we were something to be tossed into the back of Ava's closet with last year's shoes, belts, and purses. When we objected, when we tried to be her husband, when we tried to have some things our way, all Ava had to do was mention the clinic...oh God, why did we let her do this to us?
(Behind you Rachel leans forward, putting a reassuring hand on your shoulder. You reach one shaking frostbitten, bandaged hand up and try to take it, ears still ringing.)
Rachel
Rachel, plump, kind, Rachel. She was Cathe's girlfriend of thirty five years. Cathe and Rachel lived across the hall from you and Ava, watching as the two of you ate each other alive, with Gaia flavoring the stew you were in with her own special venom. They found you a month ago after the cops showed up and pinned you screaming to the pavement for harassing some poor woman who reminded you of your half-sister, Drusilla.
You'd been eating out of garbage cans and sleeping in doorways in the freezing Minnesota autumn, blood sugar yo-yoing as your left hand throbbed and swelled from where Gaia's teeth had shredded your knuckles. After coaxing you into the back of the ambulance, Rachel sat with you on the ride and then in the emergency room, holding your hand as you wept and raved because the restraints reminded you of far too many times when strangers did things to you against your will. After you were cleaned up and stabilized, Cathe took the time to explain the charges: assault, battery, and general breaking of probation that your wife, Gaia and that woman had brought against you.
Cathe
Cathe was a tall, rangy ex-cop with a hawkish profile that you mistook for a man the first time you saw her as she sat down next to you on the hood of Ava's little red Miata while inside Ava's apartment the usual TGIF party raged.
You looked over at him, no her, puzzled. Without preamble she said, "You're on probation and wanna stay that way." as she lit a cheroot. She puffed at it contemplatively before handing it to you.
You nodded, nervously taking a drag , "I can tell," she continued, "It's in your eyes. Now you're mixed up with those cannibals. If you don't run now, you'll wind up in the clink while they walk away scot-free as usual because they've got money and you don't." She spat onto the sidewalk before taking the cheroot back from you. "I've been watching that little Anne Heche wannabe – she's ambitious."
Remembering Ava's threats, you shrugged, making a noncommittal noise. Cathe looked at you and then up at the windows from which poured assorted party noises, and then back at you. Her iron grey crewcut glinted in the parking lot lights. "Ava gets a street-flavored boyfriend. What's in it for you?"
You looked at her, one eyebrow silently quirked before holding up your left hand, displaying the plain gold band on your third finger which was sandwiched in between the two heavy silver rings that Ava'd handed to you before the party started this evening. You'd snarled at her; having a bunch of drunken frat boys and their girlfriends invade your home seemingly every other day was getting old fast, but you put them on anyway.
"Husband? Now that's interesting." You let your hand fall, shrugging, giving a half smile. As bad as things were between you and Ava at the moment, you still thought that you loved her.
"She picking up the tab?"
You gave a curt nod.
Cathe blew out a lazy stream of smoke, eyeballing you. "Let me guess, Ava's only keeping you around to make someone jealous."
You frowned, who? So far you hadn't noticed... no, not her, not Gaia. She was too dirty, too smelly... and the way Ava acted around her male guests...
Something must have registered on your face. Cathe passed back the cheroot, "Nellie's been following Ava around for the last six months like a bitch in heat. I've been a cop for over thirty five years - I'm not stupid, your wife's playing dirty games."
Cop? Your feet started to sweat as you stood there staring at Cathe, but it wasn't fear. At Ava's Wednesday night "Hump" party, you'd angrily slammed two six packs followed by a whole bottle of Jack on an empty stomach because you no longer cared about breaking probation or how that shit might mix with your meds after the fight you and Ava'd had that morning over something dumb like why didn't she want to share her bed with you? After all, you were married; it's what married people did.
So you'd spent the last two days feeling headachy and weird while throwing up at even the slightest thought of eating, not that there was all that much to eat in Ava's place anyway. Beyond a well-stocked liquor cabinet and six kegs in the pantry, your wife's idea of a home cooked meal was to order takeout. Right now she was so mad at you for sicking it up all over the side of the white leather couch where Gaia usually squatted yesterday morning that she was eating on campus before she came home so you had to fend for yourself. Today you hadn't eaten anything beyond a half-bowl of stale peanuts and the remains of a two-liter bottle of Pepsi for breakfast, which left you even queasier and more foul tempered so that you'd pointedly walked out on tonight's weekly TGIF party because you were in no mood to deal with her rich asshole friends.
The open air helped. Sort of.
"Ava's knocked up. You the father?" Cathe asked in a voice that told you that she already knew the answer.
You looked away, remembering how this morning's spat had ended almost as soon as it'd started when Ava threatened to abort if you didn't do exactly as she said. Furious, you'd called in and quit your job out at the Airport for W&H Janitorial - all because one of her friends had casually mentioned seeing you out there pushing a mop on her way back from a weekend in the Bahamas. You'd spent the rest of the day angrily trying to figure out a legal way to come up with enough money to pick up the part of the cost of your meds and insulin that Medicaid didn't cover as well as meet the minimum payment on the debts incurred from your accident three years ago so you didn't have to go to jail now that you were unemployed.
Cathe frowned and looked back up at the windows of Ava's condo. "Sure it's yours?"
Hesitantly you nodded. The helpless rage that you felt this morning was back.
Cathe gave a short, hard laugh, "Not many'd care, but you do. Why is that, Billy?"
You leaned back on your elbows, feeling the ever-present slight tremor in your hands beginning to speed up. It wasn't just anger; you could feel your blood sugar beginning to drop. Your diabetes shit was in your room but you didn't want to face the crowd invading Ava's condo and this ex-cop who knew your name was bugging you. You wanted to blow her off and walk away because if you didn't eat something pretty soon without throwing up, you'd do something stupid. All it would take to set you off completely was one more wanker bragging about how when he was a little kid he used to steal grapes from the supermarket by eating them, or one more scornful jab from Gaia who was sitting on the brand new white leather couch that had been delivered this morning, mimicking your stutter every time you told her to "S-s-s-sod off!"
"How much have you had tonight?"
Controlling your temper, you shook your head "no" while looking at the ground between the toes of your Doc Martins to steady yourself. All you'd had tonight were the tabs you'd scored randomly on the way out the door for company, but her cop's voice made you hedge a little out of habit.
"You're high." You shook your head again before you pulled out the medical alert tag that you wore around your neck on a silver chain and vaguely waved it at this strange, annoying woman who asked too many questions. "Jesus Christ, you're diabetic!" Cathe steadied you as your knees buckled, causing you to lean heavily against her when the world began to lurch and heave underfoot.
Angry and confused, you tried to break away. "Get back here cowboy, you're coming with me!" Cathe rapped out while gripping you by the shoulders as she hustled you into the building as fast as your bad leg would allow. Once out of the elevator, she unlocked the door of the apartment across the hall from Ava's before kicking it open with her foot. "Rachel, we got a situation here!" she yelled, "Get my spare kit and that unopened bottle of glucose tablets out of my bedside table!"
Rachel, Again
Next thing you knew you were sitting with your head down between your knees in a brightly lit kitchen that couldn't be Ava's because it smelled of pot roast. Ava's never smelled of pot roast. A roly-poly little woman with brilliant blue eyes handed you a glass of water and a glucose tablet as you sat up; only your hands were shaking so badly that you couldn't grip the cool slick surface of the glass or the pill so she steadied your head against her bosom after you dropped the glass to the floor in a crash of broken glass and water. She slid the tab between your lips before tipping your head back, literally pouring water into you with one experienced motion as the back of your forearm stung; Cathe was taking a reading, "Holy crap!" she exclaimed as she read the meter, "Rachel, where'd you hide the crackers this time? We might need them."
"Cabinet over the refrigerator dear, just like always!" Rachel replied calmly, "Come on, drink up dear, you'll feel better if you do." She smelled like roast and Chanel #5, which made you feel even queasier.
"Here, you might need to eat these. Jesus Christ, kid, don't you listen to your doctor at all? You can DIE this way!"
"S-s-s-s-s-suits m-m-m-me!" You said as you fell forward out of the chair onto your hands and knees and began puking all over Rachel's clean floor. Your eyes rolled up in their sockets just before it all went blessedly black.
Blind Leading the Nearsighted
You woke up in the hospital with an air tube up you nose and an IV in the back of your hand. Rachel was sitting beside you, running her fingers delicately over the pages of a book. You watched her, the room spinning slightly. You must have made some sort of noise because she looked up, head swinging back and forth, eyes blank. That was when you realized that her beautiful blue eyes were useless, "Billy dear, are you awake?"
"Y-y-y-yeah." She stood up, reaching for the bed railing. Your left hand moved slowly out to her, needle tugging at the vein it was imbedded in. "W-w-w..." she slid her cool hands down your bare arm, fingers pausing at the heroin scars that decorated its inner surface like so many fading railroad tracks.
"What happened?" Rachel's round face smiled reassuringly down at you as she finished your sentence, "Billy, you had a seizure. You stopped breathing twice in the ambulance and once in the emergency room - if Cathe hadn't met you out in the parking lot two nights ago, you would have died." She reached out, one hand brushing against your cheek while the other maintained its light grip on yours, "Do you mind if I touch your face? I can't stand not knowing what whomever I'm speaking with looks like."
"N-n-n-..."
"You've led an interesting life, haven't you?" Her fingers paused lightly on the scar on your temple where you went through the windshield three years ago, before tracing the cross shaped one disfiguring your left eyebrow; the one you don't remember how you got, sliding down your face like a whisper, pausing briefly at the dressings that covered the base of your throat where must have done a traech on you. "My, but you're a handsome devil - I'll bet you've broken a lot of hearts!"
That's not all we did with them.
"Mmmmm." You flinched as she stroked your stubbly cheek, finding a bruise you got from landing face down on her linoleum, "C-c-c-c-athe?" You relaxed back into the pillow behind you, closing your eyes. Rachel began running her fingers soothingly through your hair.
"Out looking for your...wife." Distaste filled Rachel's voice and her fingers tightened in your hair, pulling at it; you protested. "Sorry dear, we called and called but we couldn't reach her."
Rumblings
On the third day, you heard voices out in the hallway outside your room.
Ava was back. She'd gone to Cancun over the weekend on a whim with a bunch of her rich bitch sorority girlfriends.
She thought you wouldn't want to go so she didn't ask you if you wanted to come along for the ride.
Cathe had caught her on her way into the building that all of you lived in, and had personally driven her to the hospital.
Ava was not happy about this.
You being in the hospital was a bummer, and she wasn't paying your bills. If you were stupid enough to get yourself in this big a mess, you were on your own.
And her life was hers, and she could do what she pleased because daddy always took care of things, so Cath had better mind her own business.
Cathe said bullshit. If Ava didn't straighten up pronto, she'd personally see to it that child endangerment charges were brought up against her; and to hell with daddy.
"I'd like to see you try," Ava cattily sneered back, "Some nobody of a burned out juvenile officer dyke and her fatso femme girlfriend are nothing to someone like my daddy..."
We should have listened.
Instead we forgot everything...
…letting go of Rachel's hand…
...when we felt the baby kick when Ava gave us a half-hearted hug while Cathe scowled at her.
So we told Cathe and Rachel to "G-g-g-go t-to h-hell!"
Wild Honey Revelations
A week after you were discharged, Rachel knocked at your door while you were sprawled out by yourself on the white leather couch which for once was mercifully Gaia-free, bare feet propped up on the glass coffee table, watching Passions in the black silk bathrobe that Ava gave you. Somehow relieved, you led her to the couch.
After telling both of your neighbors to go to hell, they'd left you alone. Though you hardly knew them, you missed them but were too embarrassed to go over and apologize.
With the telly flickering soundlessly behind you, you sat on the coffee table and faced Rachel. The two of you began about anything but your seizure in her kitchen last week... and Ava... and the baby. Finally she reached across the gulf between the two of you and gently placed a finger across your lips. You shut up.
"Now you're doubtlessly going to consider me to be an interfering old busybody after last week, but I feel that I must say something to you."
"Mmmm?"
"Billy, you remind me so much of my husband Charlie."
"W-w-w-what? I-I th-thought..."
"You can't help who you love, it just happens." Your neighbor sat with hands folded primly in her lap, back poker straight. "I was married to my Charlie for five wonderful years before he died. I was very...sheltered until I met Charlie. Because I was blind, my parents did everything to protect me, even sending me away to private schools - so I didn't meet him until I was 21 and he was 18. He was half Dakota Sioux and came from the wrong side of the tracks, does anybody use that phrase any more? 'The wrong side of the tracks'?" Rachel laughed her face radiant. "Anyway, my family had money, his didn't. But they were good people who worked very hard for what little they had."
You looked at her, trying to figure out what she was getting at.
Rachel continued unselfconsciously. "Daddy hired Charlie to do some work around the house, mowing, cleaning the gutters. I suppose he felt sorry for him, Charlie, I mean, because his family was so poor and he had so many little brothers and sisters. Every morning at dawn, Charlie would arrive on his motorcycle, a beat up old shovelhead Harley Davidson, park it behind the house and start working. I would bring him coffee and bacon first thing, and then sandwiches for lunch. He wouldn't come into the house so we'd eat on the back steps and share the black coffee, fry bread, and wild honey that his grandmother packed in his lunchbox every day. I'd never had anything like frybread before that... and wild honey... it was rough and sweet... like my Charlie was..." She drifted off into memory for a heartbeat or two before she shook her head, continuing:
"Sorry! After a while we started talking. I was very lonely - because I was born blind, my family protected me so much that I didn't have any friends in town; not even at church, and my brothers were all away in the Navy. One afternoon Charlie introduced me to his bike." Rachel described what the bike felt like as she ran her hands over it, inch by inch by inch, "It was warm and felt like a living thing!"
You leaned forward, elbows on knees, intrigued.
"One Sunday, Charlie showed up after church - we were Lutherans, his family was Catholic. He parked his bike in front of our house and just sat there, revving the engine. My father was embarrassed. It was a good neighborhood and he didn't like such trashy goings on. He went out to tell Charlie to take his racket elsewhere. While they were talking, I came out to, well, see what was going on and because I liked Charlie. My mother had a fit, "Charlie's a hoodlum! Let your father deal with his ingratitude!"
"Charlie helped me onto the bike in my best Sunday dress and heels even as Daddy ordered me to get away from Charlie, who told me to hang on tight before he rode away with me on the back." Rachel paused, smiling, "It was the closest to flying I'd ever come to. That day we rode up and down every road and highway Blue Earth County had to offer before he took me to meet his family and his twin sister. We sat outside in the bed of his German father's pickup truck eating still warm fry-bread with wild honey while his little brothers and sisters took turns sitting in my lap and playing with my hair. Around us the grownups drank coffee, played cards and told jokes. It was nothing like I had at home and I didn't want to leave. But I had to because I didn't belong to them, not yet, anyway."
She leaned forward, taking your hands in hers, exploring them unconsciously as she continued.
"Oh the fights this caused at home! But still I snuck out one way or another because I couldn't get enough of Charlie and his beautiful long hair, which he let me comb. I loved the way holding on to him felt as we went around a curve or passed a semi. Sometimes his sister would come on her own bike. By then, I had my own leathers; his mother and grandmother covered them with beads, fringe and feathers because they both knew that I liked the way they felt!" Rachel leaned toward you, pressing her forehead against yours, laughing after she kissed you between the eyes. Suddenly you could see her, forty years ago and fifty pounds lighter, "I've been told that my hair was bright red back then. Anyway, I let it grow out of the tight little perm that all "nice" girls kept their hair in way back in the 1960s. It felt like a flag in the wind when we shot down the road like a cannonball!" She hugged you. Surprised, you hugged her back as she continued arms around your shoulders, forehead still pressed to yours.
"What a wonderful summer! One morning before dawn, Charlie and his twin sister met me out behind the house with their engines turned off. I helped Charlie push his bike down the alleyway until we reached the street and then? Well, we rode all the way to Mankato the county seat, sitting on the county courthouse steps until it opened. I was so nervous! I thought Daddy would show up any minute with a shotgun, though he was a timid man - we filled out the paperwork and took a blood test. We had to wait three days before they would give us the license so Charlie and I hid out at his Uncle Fritz's fishing shack down on the Blue Earth River while Daddy looked for us. He was so humiliated that his only daughter had eloped with a wild boy who was also half... well, needless to say that he never called the sheriff. So three days later, at nine o'clock sharp, with Charlie's twin sister and Uncle Fritz as our witnesses, we were married! We all had breakfast at the diner across the street. Pasties and coffee. Black. Then he took me to his parent's house and we had frybread that his grandmother made that morning just for us. And of course there was more wild honey with coffee, black."
"A-a-a-and?" You still failed to understand what this had to do with you. Rachel giggled.
"Daddy was furious, but I wouldn't back down so he cut me off completely - we lived over Uncle Fritzie's tavern on the Manketo town square for five years with mobs of Charlie's loud bike riding friends and relations coming in and out at all hours - I didn't care. It was the most freedom I'd ever had. Charlie tried so hard to support me, but he just wasn't cut out for the steady life. I typed up doctor's and lawyer's notes from Dictaphone tapes on my little Braille typewriter, assembly work, anything to help. I didn't mind, I was in love. Finally, Charlie sold his bike, trading it in for a car. He said that he was getting too old for that sort of thing. A man with a family on the way had obligations so the bike had to go." Rachel's face fell and her voice began to quaver slightly as she pressed your mangled hands to her heart. "The next day he was killed on his way to work. The driver of a logging truck lost control and ran right over him at a stoplight on his way to a construction job. That was in 1970 when 'Nam was starting to really heat up."
Rachel released you, leaning against the back of the white leather couch, suddenly very small and frail looking. "Cathe took care of me all through that awful winter. She was even there when I gave birth to her nephew. She helped me raise Michael - my family never forgave me for striking out on my own so she helped support us, even going to the Minneapolis Police Academy."
"C-c-cathe?" you asked, surprised.
"Yes, Cathe - I loved her because Charlie loved her, and then I fell in love with her. Not like with Charlie, but close enough. Cathe was always the odd one out even in her own family - she was too masculine for most people. If you've ever lived in a small town, you know what that means." She sighed, pausing to rub at her eyes before continuing. "We moved to the Twin Cities area. Cathe took a job with the Minneapolis Police Department, first as a meter maid and then as a juvenile officer, which made me a cop's wife by default. It never occurred to us that anybody'd care, so we never made an issue of it, not like they do nowadays...we just felt that it was nobody's business but our own."
"S-s-s-s-so?"
The two of you sat facing each other for a long time before Rachel sighed and cupped your face in her hands. Unconsciously you leaned into her touch, savoring its gentle warmth. Her mouth worked slightly as if she was making up her mind. Finally she said, "Billy, I know your life's none of my concern, but I want you to be happy. I want you to find your own "Charlie". I don't care what gender, I just want you to have what I had, what I have. Life's too short to go without love, Billy," She paused, frowning just a little, tracing the scar on your temple, "Billy...no, that's a child's name and a child you aren't. Bill, I might as well say it and, well, g-darn the consequences! Cathe believes that your wife, Ava, is using you to get something much bigger while holding your child's life hostage. Once Ava gets what she's after, she'll toss you and the baby aside like last season's handbag. And I agree!"
Angry, you pulled away. Ava loved you, she said so. She was finally letting you sleep with her at night, though she claimed your snoring made her crazy and she wouldn't let you feel the baby kick as you lay beside her. And she wouldn't wear the little ring you'd bought for her at a pawn shop, instead preferring the more expensive one she'd bought for herself over at the nearby mall. Awkwardly you tried to stand up, to get away, and nearly fell over your own feet when your hip spasmned. Rachel reached out. Without thinking, you allowed her to steady you.
"I'm not finished, sit down." Obediently, you sat down, smarting as she continued, "Bill, I want you to do something for me. Did you graduate?"
"N-no." you'd dropped out at sixteen because it all seemed pointless.
"You can't sweep floors forever. I don't care what you may have been told all your life but you're better than that. One of these days you might have to support your child, that is if Ava doesn't make good on her threats, and I know she's made them. You can't raise a child on slave wages. Get your G.E.D., if not for yourself, for your child's sake."
G.E.D.
You put it off for a week until you sat down to breakfast over in Rachel and Cathe's apartment - Ava didn't keep food in the place and now that you were unemployed you didn't have any money to buy much in the way of breakfast or even lunch. Anyway, you no longer qualified for food stamps. There were G.E.D. workbooks and an application were your plate was supposed to be.
You flipped open the first booklet, appalled at what you saw. It was everything you'd dropped out of high school to escape.
"We thought you could use some help in getting started." Cathe said dryly before she put a strip of bacon in her mouth. Rachel was bustling around the table pouring coffee, "Seeing as you were so eager to get going we decided that we needed to step in so that you didn't overdo it and pull a hamstring or something." You glared at Cathe. Cathe glared back, her jaws steadily working. "Right, Bill?" she added after swallowing
Rachel handed you a plate of bacon and eggs, no toast, kissing you on the top of the head at the same time before she sat down at the table. After learning that you'd never been given any diabetes counseling aside from: "take regular readings, use this booklet to plan your menus, stay away from alcohol, and take your insulin," she'd decided that it was time for you to learn how to eat. No more entire boxes of Count Chocula at one sitting for you, mate.
Damn, one more pleasure down the crapper.
"L-later."
"You'll do it once you finish breakfast." Cathe stared you down. You looked away and started eating. Then she slid your glasses across the well-scrubbed table towards you.
Paperwork, etc.
You and Rachel spent the rest of the morning filling out the application. After lunch, Cathe drove you to the G.E.D. center and watched you turn it in. She leant you the fee as well. Then she drove you to the first AA meeting you'd attended in months. She surprised you by sitting down next to you. Everybody knew her name.
Later Rachel told you that Cathe had been forced to call in a lot of favors while you lay recovering in the hospital. There was enough illegal garbage in your bloodstream that night plus the doobies you'd stuffed in your shirt pocket for later to get your suspended sentence for possession activated once you were well enough to be transported. Your little accident three years ago involved heroin, but you'd unintentionally left your kit in the break room at the convenience store you'd been working at that night so you'd been cut some slack. Cathe was damned if you made her look like a jackass and had decided to ride herd on you.
Besides, she was bored and Rachel needed something to do now that Michael had been shipped off to Germany by the Air Force along with the wife and grandkids.
It also kept you out of Gaia's way.
Gaia
Gaia hated you.
Now we know why.
After you got back from the hospital, Ava made a show of fussing over you while Gaia spared no chance to make your life hell.
At first it was verbal.
She made fun of your stutter, sneeringly parroting it back at you every chance she got.
She called you "gimp" and "crip" plus a bunch of Latin words that you had to look up in Ava's legal dictionary before you knew what she was talking about, which pissed you off even more because it meant that she thought you were a retard too.
Hey, mate, wanna know something scary? We already knew what those words meant even before we looked them up. Why is that?
Gaia caught you studying for your G.E.D. out in the park across the street the day Cathe took Rachel to the doctor for a high blood pressure checkup. She lumbered over and grabbed the practice essay that you'd been working on out of your hands. She read your work out loud in a high pitched tittering stutter before tossing it back in your face, "Why bother? You're only going to fail like the phallocentric Caucasian scum you are!"
You controlled your temper while in your mind you felt Gaia's throat collapsing between your hands as she gurgled and struggled, eyes bulging, spotty face turning a dusky purple. "It's not worth it," you kept saying to yourself, "It's not worth going to prison for the likes of her."
Why not rip her throat out? Who'd miss her? We could toss the body in the dumpster with the rest of the trash - nobody'd be the wiser.
Sod off Spike, you're just as bad.
Well, sod you too, I was only trying to help!
Some help!
Instead you called her a "D-d-d-dirty cuh-cow!"
Gaia got into your face, screaming, "How dare you denigrate me with your outdated agriculturally based insults, you homophobic pig!"
Leaving your books behind, you stomp-staggered across the street back to the condo, causing some soccer mom driving a pristine white Humvee packed to the roof with kids to slam on her brakes and blow her horn at you. You flipped her a double fingered salute with Gaia, smelling like a men's locker room after a big game, breathing down your neck.
"Do you know what you are Billy!" Gaia snarled, "You're nothing but a filthy walking penis who's stolen my eternal forever soulmate, crushing the life out of her with your war-mongering spirit-killing masculinity." Furious, you reached the curb, only to tip over sideways when Gaia slammed one of her Birkenstocked canoes down on your right heel as you were stepping up, sending you skidding down on your hands and knees so hard that you felt a contact fly out.
There was something in your expression when you stood up, new black Diesels torn, hands and knees bleeding from where they slid across the rough concrete that made Gaia scurry off in a squeal of dirty feet, stale patchouli and unwashed environmentally safe non-third world exploitive organically grown and agriculturally sustainable hemp underpants, extra large.
Yeah, her death.
Shaking, you sat down on the curb, putting your face in your hands, trying to relax as the traffic rushed past within inches of the toes your beloved beat-up Doc Martins. Oh god! If you'd given in, beating Gaia senseless like you'd wanted to...
Half blind, you limped six blocks to the nearest NarcAnon meeting until Cathe came and picked you up.
Refuge
That night you slept in Rachel and Cathe's living room. Across the hall, Gaia was hogging Ava's white leather couch, loudly critiquing old black and white reruns of The Donna Reed Show, grinding on and on and on and on about how such shows only served to support the phallocratic status quo and therefore should be banned as pornography because of their blatant sexist misogyny. You were afraid of what you'd do the moment Donna left the screen for the evening so you'd knocked on your neighbor's door. Wordlessly, Rachel had made up the sofa bed and leant you a toothbrush.
Ava bitched at you the next morning when she met you in the hall. She'd wanted you to decorate her arm at last night's Sorority mixer and couldn't find you. When she found out where you'd been all night, your wife pointedly put a hand on her now very pregnant belly, looked at you and said, "I don't want you hanging with them."
"W-w-why?"
"They're old, that's why!"
Jailbreak
Three days later loneliness and frustration drove you right back into Rachel's kitchen where she was making a salad for her church's weekly Wednesday night potluck.
Moodily eating raw vegetables when you'd rather be shooting up, you sat watching Rachel's knife finish off another carrot, "For all the money her father has, Nellie's a very sad little girl." She said casually. You looked up, frowning through the thick lenses of your glasses. "Her family owns Scuggs, Scuggs and Rothenstein." she groped around, so you passed her a cumber which she placed on the cutting board, and after carefully positioning her knife, began to slice it paper thin. "I hear that she was sent here because her father and his brother attended pre-law at MSU-Minneapolis before founding the third largest chain of ambulance chasers in the country. For all her, ahem, fragrance, Miss Scuggs stands to inherit one third of a billion dollar enterprise when her father dies."
You dropped your forehead to the scrubbed surface of Rachel's old kitchen table as cold fear dripped down your spine and settled in your guts.
Bloody hell, these people could squash us like a bug!
Diversionary Tactics
After Gaia's rampage, Cathe and Rachel kept you so busy that when you weren't escorting Ava to various sorority events and keggers or studying for your G.E.D. with Rachel sitting across the kitchen table from you following along line by line in the Braille edition of the study guides, that you didn't have time to mess with much else. Ava didn't object, which was odd. Later you found out that the squad of Mexican illegals who cleaned the place from top to bottom every other day didn't like being in the same room with you because they claimed that you had devil's eyes and threatened to quit if something wasn't done about you.
They were cheap and discreet, so Ava turned her back on your visits.
Today you were moving the furniture around the apartment for Rachel while the local Golden Oldies station blasted away in the background on their old stereo. It was August and she was spring cleaning which wasn't as bad as it sounded; whenever one of Rachel's many favorite songs came on, everything came to a complete halt and the two of you danced to it. What was weird, though your driver's license and your therapist both tell you that you were born in 1980, you knew all the dances that Charlie had taught her whenever she'd snuck out of the house to go dancing with him at one of the rural taverns. Rachel boogied while you shuffled all over the remains of the living room, her feet sure, yours awkward. Her father despised Motown because the performers were black. Until she'd married Charlie she didn't even know that there were any singers outside of Pat Boone, Debbie Reynolds, and Bing Crosby.
Hell, for that matter, where'd we learn the Lindy or the jitterbug? The Charleston? Or for that matter, why do we know that we can waltz with the best of them when all we've ever done is flail around in the odd mosh pit or six?
"Let's just say that Phil Spectre and his "Wall of Sound" was an education, shall we? And Elvis? The white man who sounded black? Unspeakable!" She'd giggled up at you, blushing. "I don't know what he looked like, but my, that little ol' country boy could sing! How do I know? Charlie knew one of the King's roadies and got us backstage passes - ELVIS KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK!"
Drusilla adored Elvis. We followed one of his tours... That's a load of old shit, we weren't even born yet!
Anyway, you complained that it wasn't spring, and hey, Rachel was blind. She couldn't see the dirt so why did the two of you need to be doing any kind of cleaning at all? You asked this loaded question while rolling up the faded rag rug in the center of the room so you could take it down to the parking lot later for shampooing. Rachel serenely told you as she finished polishing their old coffee table that she was doing next year's spring cleaning early to avoid the rush. Then Rachel added, she was a Lutheran; even blind Lutheran women know when things aren't clean.
Hmmmm.
Besides, for the first time since her boy Michael had been shipped to Germany she could vacuum beneath the couch.
"W-w-what a-a-bout C-cath?" You bitched as you heaved up one end of their elderly steel framed plaid sofa with its neatly patched arms.
"Cath flees at the mere sight of a dust mop."
"A-a-and my b-b-bad l-leg s-s-slows me d-down ssso I-I c-can't g-get a-a-a-away?"
"Exactly, dear."
A prescription medicine bottle full of pills rattle-rolled out from between the cushions onto the parquet flooring when you heaved up the other end of the sofa so Rachel could finish assaulting the dust bunnies. Rachel, who was getting ready to turn on the vacuum cleaner paused, head cocked to one side. "Did you hear something?"
"Y-yeah." You lowered the heavy piece of furniture back to the floor and bent over to pick up the bottle. The Shirelles were shrilling away at the top of their vinyl lungs about a heatwave, how could she have heard that? You read the label as you straightened back up.
Oh God.
Morphine
Sweat began to drip down your face. You knew all about morphine, first cousin to...heroin. Heroin meant relief, heroin meant oblivion... Mouth dry, your thumb moved without you telling it to pop the lid...you paused... There was a Braille label on it as well as one for the sighted, "Catherine Dudenhoffer."
Eh?
"Bill. That was a bottle of pills I just heard land on the floor, wasn't it?" Rachel set aside the vacuum cleaner and put her hand on your arm, "We've been missing one since last night. Thank heavens the pharmacy we use makes 24 hour deliveries."
The little amber colored container was nearly full. That much plus one of the bottles of Jack that Ava kept in her liquor cabinet would solve a lot of things.
Rachel's hand slid down your arm, taking the bottle away from you, "Your child needs you dear." she said gently before she took you in her arms and held you tight. You rested your head on her plump shoulder, closing your eyes.
How did she know?
The two of you stood there like that for a long time before Rachel released you with a peck on the cheek as she said, "Well, that's a relief - Cathe nearly tore up the apartment looking for this. She gets that way whenever there's costs involved, never mind the big check we now get every month from the casino that the tribe now runs. It's what allows us to live in such a nice place this close to the hospital and still be able to eat... and afford painkillers." Blank-faced Rachel stepped back as she dropped the bottle into her apron pocket.
"P-p-pain k-k-k?"
"Cath is dying, dear."
Cathe who ran ten miles a day? Cathe who hollered threats and encouragements at you down in the complex's weight room because, "If you're going to be stupid and not wear your leg brace, you're going to have to strengthen that goddamed leg. Now stop whining and start lifting!"? Cathe who smoked more than you did? Who spent hours trying to help you with your stutter even though it was a lost cause? Who sternly dragged you kicking and screaming to your first root canal, only to afterwards feed you a steady stream of aspirin and shaved ice until the swelling went down?
"Cathe refused treatment halfway through the chemo." Rachel's voice was flat and fear cramped your stomach, "She said it was a waste of money. So she just walked away from the hospital, telling them to give her painkillers until it happened. That was two years ago."
Cathe who, when she wasn't ripping you a new asshole whenever she caught you sneaking sweets or not studying hard enough to suit her? Cathe who drove you to your therapist, your social worker, or your probation officer on the back of a beat up vintage Harley Davidson that she let you help maintain? Cathe who caught you last Sunday sneaking slices of raw pot roast in the kitchen, not because you liked raw meat but because you craved the blood that oozed out of it, who instead of showing disgust, gave it a try first before she yelled at you about worms? Dying? No, it wasn't possible.
"Bill, I thought you knew...now who could that be?"
Uh Oh
Ava was at the door, she wanted you to meet someone.
You weren't in the mood. "Oh, come on, you'll like this!" Ava insisted, smiling as she dragged you across the hall. She was wearing demure maternity clothes instead of her usual "rich bad girl" stuff.
First Station
Oh God, in-laws.
..and you stood there feeling like an idiot in an old W&H Janitorial shirt that you'd torn the sleeves off of and a pair of cutoffs because it was hot in Rachel and Cathe's apartment, exposing your tats and heroin scars. You didn't do that stuff any more, hadn't done it for three years, not since that trip through a windshield knocked some sense into you...
...they stared at you from Ava's white leather couch, and you stared back, embarassed. This wasn't how it was supposed to be...
The day you got married, Ava'd told you that they were touring Southeast Asia and couldn't be reached with the good news. Now they were here, looking at you like something they'd found on the bottom of their shoe after walking through a public dog park.
Smiling, Ava introduced you.
He's big cheese at some law firm, Wolfram and Hart. The name rings a bell, but you don't know why.
She's the president of the Minnesota D.A.R when she isn't on the boards of several local and national high profile charities.
Then there's you, the father of their first grandchild, ex junkie, ex alkie, unemployed janitor, mental patient, high school dropout, and general all-purpose shitbum basket case.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
You wanted them to see you for the first time in a suit, or at least a shirt with long sleeves and long trousers; something opaque so the tats wouldn't ghost through, giving you away. You'd like to get rid of them, the tattoos, but you can't afford to have them lasered off AND pay for your meds. Anyway, when you asked for Ava's help with this, she refused, telling you that she liked them just as they were. In fact, she'd pay to have more put on your hide, your choice of design. How about one on your neck? Or one on your face? How about a brow piercing, or a nosering? How about something on your lower lip, or one of those great big ear plugs?
We would have asked Cathe to lend us the money, we would have paid her back, but we were too embarrassed…
You shook your father in law's uncallused hand, acutely aware of your missing fingertips from when you'd started running out of veins to tap back in the worse old day. This man never had to work for a living. Golf clubs, a fly fishing rod, maybe a tennis racquet? Yes. Lifting fifty pound garbage cans into the backs of trucks, scrubbing toilet bowls and scraping gum from the bottom of chairs with a razor blade? No.
Your mother in law wouldn't look you in the eye when you shook her hand.
Worse, they'd decided to go out for dinner. You had to come too. "After all," Ava said chirpily as she gave you a big loud kiss, "You're part of the family now!"
Second Station
Mortified, you fled into the guest bedroom with what dignity you had left, locking the door behind you.
Half an hour later you came out, showered, shaved, and wearing the only sleeved shirt Ava'd given you, a black one, with a stiff new pair of black Diesels - twins to the ones Gaia'd slaughtered a few weeks back.
Right then you would have killed for a pair of chinos, loafers and a button down shirt; anything but the street wear that Ava'd bought for you and insisted you wear. A tie maybe or at least a sport's jacket, but Ava liked you tough. You liked being tough; the thug look kept people at a safe distance at her parties and on the rare times you went out with her in public. As a compromise, you'd removed all but your wedding band; leaving off the heavy silver bracelets and the wallet chain before tucking the one that held your medic alert tag down into your shirt after flattening the aggressive spikes of your hair against your scalp. There wasn't a damn thing you could do about it being blue.
What a soddin' waste of time. Remember when we tried to fit in that cheerleader's world? Didn't work mate, did it?
A look of irritation crossed Ava's face as you helped her and then her mother into their fall coats. But she held hands with you on the way out of the building and into her parent's big champagne Mercedes.
When you got there, the maitre'd had to lend you a jacket and tie before the management would even allow you in, which made Ava's mother sigh with impatience and roll her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?" you heard her moan quietly to herself.
Ava was radiant as she started to help you tie the garish borrowed tie in the plush lobby with its leather armchairs, trophy heads, oil paintings and dark, rich carpeting while her father kept pointedly glancing at his heavy gold Rolex. Your wife's face darkened subtly as she stepped back when you showed her that you already knew how to tie one.
How the Hell would someone like us, know how to tie a tie? I mean, we've never even owned so much as a soddin clip on!
Third Station
You held the door for Ava and your mother in law - apartment, car and restaurant. This too earned you the same petulant scowl from your wife.
You held your mother in law's seat, and then Ava's. This made Ava scowl at you behind her parent's back.
You quietly turned down the wine and cocktails, sticking to iced tea. This made Ava's scowl worse.
What, you wanted me to get plastered and make an even bigger jackass out of myself than I already am?
You ordered from the cheaper side of the menu by pointing, sticking to the diabetic routine that Cathe was lately drumming into you. Ava was beginning to shoot you dirty looks in front of her parents.
What, you want me to whine for a hamburger and fries? God, I know what most of the shit on the menu is, don't know why: the closes thing I've ever come to a posh place like this was washing their goddam dishes... Do you think I want salad and rare prime rib? Bloody Hell, woman, I want Welsh rarebit with a pint, no six bloody pints on the side, I want salmon with wild rice pilaf. I want coq au vin, hold the coq and keep the vin coming, but noooooo, I'm diabetic, remember?
She almost said something when you unintentionally showed her that you knew what to do with the half dozen eating utensils in front of you. You even knew what fingerbowls were for. By this time Ava was visibly giving off heat waves.
What, you thought I'd drink out of the bloody fingerbowl like a dog? I know better than that, I did it when I was six in front of my mum - she smacked me on the head with her fan so hard that it broke in half, the fan, not the head. Hang on! When I was six, my therapist and the pills tell me that she was smoking brown sugar and selling slap and tickle down in Piccadilly.
You politely excused yourself; fleeing out into the parking lot for a badly needed smoke when the dessert cart, with its heavy burden of crème Brule, assorted mousses, and tarts, rumbled into sight.
Oh God, sugar!
Fourth Station
Standing out of the August rain with loosened tie beneath the striped canvas awning that sheltered the front door, you lit up, your battered steel Zippo cold against your fingers. Between the fishy stares of your new in-laws and Ava's inexplicable growing rage, you didn't know what to do.
No, we knew exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to call a taxi and have it drop us off at the nearest AA or NA meeting. Not because we wanted to drink or shoot up, but because sitting on a hard metal folding chair an overlit room in some VFW hall, drinking bad coffee surrounded by our fellow castaways was preferable to going back into that dining room!
Your father-in-law joined you during your sixth Marlborough.
Wordlessly he handed you a check.
You squinted at the amount, contact lenses aching before looking at him for an explanation.
"All right then," he pulled out a checkbook and with a gold pen, wrote another one and then handed it to you after you handed him the first one back. You held it up, trying to make it out.
"Is this enough, then?" He wrote another one and held it out.
Curious, you accepted it.
"That's my final offer." He took the second check back, tearing it up like he had the first and dropping it into the pocket of his double breasted suit coat.
Puzzled, but beginning to get what was going on you just stared at him, trying to figure out how to say something without making you look like a fool.
Don't give me that, we knew what he was about.
"My daughter Ava has had only the best in her life. What can you possibly give her?"
You knew this was coming.
"Don't just stand there like a stuffed dummy!" he said impatiently, "If you leave quietly without a fuss and relinquish all claims on my grandchild, there's another check just like that one. It's a good deal." He handed you a business card printed on heavy paper, stamped in gold, "Come to my office tomorrow and I'll draw up the papers."
Speechless you looked at him as he turned 'round and slowly walked back into the restaurant, one of the parking valets opening the door for him.
You shoved the check and the card into your jacket pocket, not knowing what else to do.
No, we knew what we should have done. We should have taken his word for it and been a good lad.
Fifth Station
Unable to go back into the restaurant, you flagged down a taxi. Destinationless, you rode around Minneapolis for hours, mind blank until the driver nervously ordered you out without demanding that you pay. Ava's windows were dark, but you'd tossed pebbles at her windows anyway, drenched and embarrassed because you'd forgotten your keys until you decided that she wasn't in or was furious with you for dumping her on her folks and had decided to leave you out there.
So you tossed a couple of pebbles at Cathe and Rachel's windows. Cathe had a strange look on her face when she let you into the building, Rachel was gripping her sleeve, towels and a cup of coffee ready.
You ended up borrowing Cathe's bathrobe, a plain terrycloth one while your clothes were being dried. After that, they sat up with you, watching some shit late night talk show. You sat on the couch between them, Rachel's hand slowly smoothing the curls that the damp had brought out in your hair. You'd leaned against her like a dog, unable to focus on the pop tart of the moment being interviewed on the telly. Cathe gave off waves of silent anger that you couldn't ignore.
Sixth Station
Midnight came and went. Still no Ava.
Cathe and Rachel made up the sofa bed, Cathe snarling beneath her breath, Rachel murmuring at her soothingly. You fell asleep dressed in your freshly dried clothes.
Seventh Station
The agony of your half-sister's teeth slashing into your throat made you choke as she embraced you naive and heartbroken in a filthy London alley, not knowing how cherished you were by people who weren't your mother until it was too late and you no longer cared... even as you watched a girl you once loved fall from a lunatic's tower, helpless to stop what was happening. Later you held her coffin scarred knuckles in your hands, looking into her empty unblinking eyes only to have her friends chase you away... but they couldn't because you were locked away in a basement with only the contents of your own head for company as you screamed and pleaded to be let out of your own coffin while a woman with the face of a debauched virgin gleefully slid a knife across your throat... as you watched your old high school guidance counselor's coffin being lowered into the ground beneath the killing sun, too timid to come out of the shadow of a crypt to join the people at the graveside for fear they would chase you away because someone like you had no right to mourn for someone like her… anyway, they couldn't because you were too busy being strapped face down on a table beneath blinding lights while a stranger did something to you while saying, "Pay no attention to his screaming. This particular species of demon doesn't feel pain the same way as humans do, it's all protective coloration." ...even as a large, dark-haired man snarled at you, "You stole it, you little bastard. It was supposed to be mine and you stole it!" He snapped your arm like a twig, leaving you curled up on the floor in a ball moaning, unable to say anything coherent because it hurt so much... of slinking off …fleeing into daylight... your blood a delicate scarlet thread rising in the clear plastic tube of the hypo as you slid it beneath a thumbnail, having run out of veins in your arms and legs ...bringing with it sweet stinging relief so that you no longer minded the taste of another man in your mouth behind a bar because it meant cash for more brown sugar... ...the rubbery crunch of cartilage of another man's nose between your teeth in some Podunk town's jail shower because you didn't like the way he looked at you... your face going through glass...bright lights... restraints... your head... tables ...strangers...
You sat up, trying not to scream; it was six o'clock in the morning and still dark outside.
The mattress was soaked with sweat, the sheets a damp, musky tangle. You heard voices out in the hall.
Eighth Station
Dazed, you look around you.
Rachel's gone.
And its a different courtroom.
It's been two months since the judge declared you against all expectations, competent enough to stand trial.
Its been fast, but Gaia's father's law firm has clout, and dockets were rearranged in her favor.
Ava is there, your child within her body bigger than ever .
Her family sits behind her, sharing space with Gaia's mother, aunt, and grandparents.
Gaia's face has cleared up and she's stopped shaving her head. She's lost weight, and is wearing a tailored lavender suit that matches Ava's. Both have similar sets of pins on their lapels: PETA, Act Out, NOW, Amnesty International, the Green Party, and pink triangles. On Gaia's is a two lobed silver blob.
Squinting, you realize that it's female genitalia, rendered as art,
You always thought Gaia was a big dumb cunt. Now she's advertising it to the world on her jacket. You'd laugh if you had the energy, but you don't. So instead you settle for a long, juicy cough, courtesy of the pneumonia that followed the flu outbreak at St. Pete's, which instead of killing you has left you lethargic and emaciated so that you look like a scarecrow in your shabby, borrowed suit.
Gaia's holding hands over the railing with Ava's beaming mother, who now has a pink triangle next to the D.A.R. pin on her own lapel.
Ava's father joins them. He too wears a pink triangle and kisses Gaia on the cheek before he sits down beside his wife.
The judge taps his gavel; everyone settles down.
Today is the day you are to be sentenced.
And you are on your own. Cathe died last month when you were sick, the cancer finally catching up with her in her sleep. Like someone else you once loved, you weren't allowed to go to her funeral to say goodbye. Michael whisked Rachel away to Germany to live with his wife, and five grandchildren before she could even come and say goodbye.
You have never felt so alone.
Not even when you slept in doorways and ate out of garbage cans after you finally gave in and gave Gaia what she deserved.
Ninth Station
You remember confronting Gaia and Ava in the hall. They were holding hands.
Ava was wearing shapeless hemp maternity clothes, something you thought she'd never be caught dead in.
Gaia was smugly radiant and reeked of lavender soap.
Ava saw you and said, "Gaia, sweetie, go inside. I'll deal with this."
Gaia started to protest, but Ava silenced her with a long deep kiss, the kind of kiss she would give you only if others were watching.
Beaming, your nemesis closed the door behind her.
"What are you doing here? I thought daddy paid you off last night." Ava drawled up at you.
"W-where w-w-were..."
Ava interrupted you, "Look, feeb, I spent the night at Gaia's. We had a little talk." She brushed distastefully at the nondescript color of her baggy new outfit, "She finally sees things my way, which means no more crazy talk of giving all of her inheritance to NOW and joining the fuckin' Peace Corps and helpin' homeless whales or whatever after her old man dies and leaves her his third of the family business. So, before you leave town and spend your cut, do me a favor and go on over to his office this morning after ten and sign those papers so Gaia and me can get married ASAP before she changes her mind again and decides to sign all of her assets over to Greenpeace or whatever bleeding heart charity is hot at the moment, understand? Then we can all get on with out lives: me with a billionaire's daughter, and you with, well with whatever you and daddy decided was enough for you to disappear." She shoved a hand in your jacket pocket and pulled out the forgotten check, "60k? I would have held out for 100k plus expenses, but hey, it's your life. Meet me here at 9:30 and I'll drive you downtown myself, save you the bus fare."
She turned to go into the apartment and you put your hand on her shoulder, to stop her, to ask her what you'd done wrong...
"Ugh! Don't touch me crip! God, that's all you're getting from me, a ride and 60k from daddy, now get lost until it's time to go downtown!"
From there things went too fast. You remember Gaia coming out and calling you a retard as she shoved you away from Ava. Then you chased her fat ass through Ava's apartment as Cathe tried to hold you back. Gaia stood out of arm's reach, taunting you, "Crip! Feeb! Eunuch!" after Cathe wrestled you into a hammerlock and tried to drag you back out into the hall before things got any worse. Ava screamed, the white leather sofa tipped over, followed by the liquor cabinet. You managed to slither out of Cathe's grip, stumbling after Gaia, who threw a Jack Daniels bottle at you, which bounced off of your chest. You fell back, accidentally slamming Cathe up against the wall before you took off after Gaia. Ava in her panic ran directly in your limping path.
You never would have hurt her and the baby.
You never would have hurt Cathe, not on purpose.
Never.
They just got in the way.
Flailing for balance, Ava clung to you as you dragged the drapes from a window frame with a tearing crash. Gaia turned around, saw what was happening and tried to pull Ava away from you as you tried to lever yourself upright against the wall, "No you don't, you viciously stupid representative of the phallocracy, don't you touch my soulmate," She bellowed as she bared her teeth at you, "You are beneath her!"
With your back to the wall, the two of you paused and stared each other down, panting as Ava crawled away from you and collapsed into a nearby corner, sobbing while cradling her belly.
Your heard your voice say as if from another room, "W-what w-w-was th-that y-you ssssaid?"
Gaia got in your face. "You. Are. Beneath. Her." she repeated derisively, enunciating slowly and carefully as if to a Down's child, "Buh-buh-buh-billy." Her breath smelled of peanut butter.
"I-it's B-bill." You said quietly as you gathered Gaia up by the collar with your right hand while ignoring the stab of peace symbol pins in your palm, and punched her squarely in the mouth.
Wham. Just like that.
You felt Gaia's teeth resist and then give way behind the soft squishiness of her lips as your skin peeled off your knuckles while the sweet numbing shock of impact traveled up your arm and into your shoulder.
Blood spurted from her nose, spraying the walls.
Slowly you pulled your fist from the remains of Gaia's mouth and drew back, ready to do it again and again until there was nothing left there to torment you.
A cop tasered you in the back before you could commit murder.
Tenth Station
Twitching, you went face down in agony, only you didn't land on Gaia but on a darkened asphalt and gravel roof that was still warm from the afternoon sun.
Soldiers dragged you off by the heels to a place where the lights were too bright and nobody was afraid of you.
Strangers took away your clothes and your name.
You screamed and someone shoved a gag in your mouth while they opened up your head and did things to you that you didn't understand.
Terror gave you the strength to break away from the cops as they were loading you into the patrol car on legs that you barely felt… still handcuffed, you hid in a storm drain, pursued by soldiers in you head and cops on the street above you, later spending the night huddled in a doorway, hungry as the medications that held you together slowly faded while your hands and feet began to go numb with the cold.
Somewhere along the way, you managed to slip out of the handcuffs.
Yammering and filthy, you walked through crowds of college students after a night game, only in your head you were trying to explain to someone that you simply had to go back to the way things were... only later to discover you'd draped yourself across a stone cross in some abandoned cemetery, surprised that there was no smell of burning meat... because you'd lost that power and all that was left behind was you.
And "you" didn't know where or who he was as he grubbed through trash cans and dumpsters, infected hand throbbing unheeded in the October chill while voices that only he could hear screamed in his ears, telling him to corner some poor woman with blue eyes and long black hair and demand the impossible from her...
Eleventh Station
...that's the state Rachel and Cathe, her arm in a sling, found you in.
Crucifixion, Postponed
A man even more professional looking than the woman that represents your wife and her lover has approached the bench even before the judge can open the proceedings.
He and the judge confer, their voices a quiet murmur in the nearly empty courtroom.
Your court appointed attorney, the same harried woman as at your competency hearing, fidgets beside you.
He and the judge appear to have come to a decision. The judge calls Gaia's lawyer to the stand.
The three of them confer, occasionally looking at you.
What's going on?
Gaia's lawyer takes a document from the new arrival, scans it, nods, and shows it to her clients.
Gaia shoots you a venomous look.
Then she shoots him a venomous look.
Finally she nods.
Ava shrugs, hands clasped over the swell of her middle.
The newcomer sits down beside your father-in-law after greeting him familiarly.
Your wife's lawyer approaches your attorney.
The two of them confer without bothering to include you.
Your attorney nods once more before saying, "Bobby..."
You interrupt her, almost snarling, "B-b-b-bill!"
She frowns at you, "All right, Bill." before continuing, "My colleague has presented us with a very reasonable offer. Are you willing to hear me out?"
You nod, ears ringing, eyes fixed on Ava.
"Simply put," Like Gaia, she enunciates every syllable as if she's talking to someone retarded but you're too exhausted to protest, "This document, if you sign it, means that all charges against you will be suspended."
Oh God, this isn't happening.
"In return, you must agree to grant a no fault divorce."
"A-a-a-and?"
"Relinquish all claims to the child your wife is carrying."
No! Not that! Please...not that?
Dully you sit there, staring ahead, picking at the IV scabs on the back of your left hand, as she continues, "And you will provide 75 of all your income until said child is 21."
This isn't happening.
She continues, "You will make no attempt whatsoever to contact this child. If you do and are found out, your suspended sentence will be carried out, without question"
This isn't happening.
So you sit there, staring at the state seal over the judge's head without actually seeing it.
"Bob...Bill, take it. It's a very reasonable settlement. If you don't, you will go back to M.S.H. permanently, or worse, prison." impatience creeps into her flat twangy Midwestern voice. "I strongly recommend that you accept their offer."
Joyce, Rachel, Cathe, Giles?...anybody? What am I supposed to do now?
"Your honor, give my client..."
"No." Is all you say as you hold out your left hand. She gives you a pen and places the document in front of you on the table, showing you where to initial. There are pages upon pages and you can't make them out because there's now something wrong with your eyes that even your glasses can't fix. Finally she shows you where to sign your name.
She has to tell you what day and year it is because you can't remember.
And then you sit, coughing a little, as the bailiffs prepare for the next case.
Gaia walks past, her face sourly triumphant with Ava on her arm, her family and future in-laws gathered around her, congratulating her and each other on their good fortune at ridding themselves of you.
Your attorney shakes hands with theirs, shuffles her papers around, and finishes her coffee while waiting for her next case.
Eventually a bailiff removes your shackles and takes you downstairs for out processing
It's snowing.
Crucifixion
Two weeks after Christmas you received a plain brown manila envelope in the mail.
There was no return address.
But the postage mark was local.
It contained a photocopy of a birth certificate. Taped to it was the picture of a newborn baby, cut from some newspaper.
Ms. and Ms. Gaia Scuggs are listed as the parents.
You are listed as "donor" somewhere near the bottom.
They spelled our last name wrong.
You crumpled it up, tossed it at the waste basket in your room at the group home, and missed.
It sat on the floor for a week.
Finally you picked it up but only after the orderly in charge of your hallway ordered you to after you failed weekly inspection for having a messy floor.
You meant to throw it away without looking at it.
Honest.
But you looked anyway - after picking it up and carefully smoothing it out across your knees with your mangled hands.
"Anarchy Selene Scuggs, female, five pounds, eleven ounc..."
Oh God. What have I done?