BREAKDOWN

—Chapter XII—

A door opened and the noise of people yelling and complaining broke the awkward silence surrounding us. It seemed that two new arrivals waited to be processed in the contiguous room.

I rubbed my eyes with my fingers, my head was still spinning, and I was feeling nauseous. The cup of that disgusting liquid that Pietro shamefully called coffee wasn't helping me at all. I've never been in a police station before and it didn't take me long to find out it wasn't the best place to have a hangover.

The buzz and the voices silenced like magic. I looked up. Beth was standing tall by the closed door. She wore sweat pants, those I knew she used when she was at home, and my oversized raincoat that I kept hanging near the entrance. Her hair was messy; no make up, the freckles dancing all over her pale, worn-out sleepy face.

—Wait! What on Earth was she doing there? I turned to Mauritzio for an answer.

"Don't blame me" he said, raising both arms. "She called me."

"I found his number in your address book" she said as she came to us. "I called him when I noticed you didn't arrive at home."

"What's this, Gio?" Pietro frowned, "you're living together, now?"

"Long story. Long story—" I grunted. "Can we talk about that later?"

Beth looked to the woman sitting right next to her, in front of me. She must have recognized her from the office. Of course, she wasn't in her best. Jenny Vitelli had a minor injury in the head, her body covered with dirt and was shaking cold inside that little party dress she was wearing. .

"What happened?" Beth asked Mauritzio.

He did his best to explain that we just arrived from the hospital because we found Jenny in the streets just a few hours ago after someone tried to mug her.

"We don't know if it was a mugger" I said, taking another sip of that awful coffee, "or what could've happened if I hadn't shown up."

"They took her purse," Mauritzio said, "no?"

"But it was left on the sidewalk just a few feet away, all the money still inside" said Pietro checking something in the computer. "Okay, Jenny, I'm going to finish your declaration by myself. Do you feel better now? Can you talk?"

She nodded. It was clear to see she was still uneasy.

"Tell me what you remember about the attacker."

Her shaky hand positioned her black-rimmed glasses in place. One of the crystals had a little crack. They must have fallen to the floor while she struggled for her life.

"Very little, I couldn't see him at all. I told you all I remembered. I was walking towards the metro station when I heard someone calling for help. It was a strange voice coming from a corner. The alley was dark so I didn't venture in."

"A creepy voice?" her brother asked.

"Like an old person, an old man or something. I can't tell… It really was very odd."

"Are you sure it was a male voice?"

"I think it was. But it could have been someone faking it. I don't know" she said. "Like someone hurt or dying. It was so sad."

"Then?"

"Then I don't remember much. I should have ran but I asked if he was alright. The voice asked for help again. It was as if he was suffocating, having a hard time to breathe. I got a little closer trying to see where the person was but it was very dark."

"That was very careless of you" Pietro said.

"I couldn't help it. He just kept calling for help. What could I've done?"

"Then what?"

"Someone pulled me down by the hair. It all happened so fast. I cried for help and then something hit me" She said touching her bandaged head. "Next thing I remember I was in the hospital with Gio and him" she pointed at Mauritzio.

"You didn't see a face? Anything? And God! what were you doing walking alone so late at night?"

"I just came from seeing someone. I already told you that" she blushed, tears still covering her face.

"And he couldn't walk you home or even to the fucking train station? What kind of son of a bitch is he?!"

"Pietro, please" Jenny whispered and hid her face in her hands.

"You were just a few blocks from Meade. You were there, weren't you?"

Jenny avoided his brother's stare.

"She doesn't tell me. She knows better" Pietro hit the desk with his fist. "Because I'd kill him!"

"Come on, man," I said, "easy."

"You're pregnant. Aren't you? How are you going to tell everyone?" Pietro yelled at her. I don't think I've ever seen him lose his temper like that but I reckon he had a soft spot for his younger sister. "He knocked you up and left you alone! Fucking bastard!"

"Stop!" a loud cry echoed in the office.

But it wasn't Jenny who yelled. I looked over my shoulders and Beth was standing behind me, her eyes watered with emotion.

"Stop, please. You're hurting her. Are you blind? You're family! It's not fair" her voice changed into a softer tone but was still shaky and commanding when she spoke to Pietro "Look at her, she's trembling."

So Beth did have a soft side after all. Mauritzio tried to put his hands on her shoulders but she motioned away from him.

"Jenny. I'm sorry. I'll take you home now" said Pietro to his sister. "I think we're done with you. Let me finish with these two, okay?"

After signing her declaration, one of the female officers came to help her stand up and accompany her to the ladies room.

"I'm not pregnant, Pietro. I just don't want to talk about this, now" Jenny gave me a kiss before leaving. "Thank you, Gio. You saved my life."

While I felt her lips touch my cheek, I had a sudden déjà-vu. Beth, who rarely let anyone get too close to her, had also kissed me, once. I'd almost forgotten it.

"Wow!" I chuckled while I followed Jenny with my eyes as she left the room. "Can I still be a hero even if I was drunk?"

"Decisamente no! I'm the damn hero of this story. So unfair! I rescued you è la fanciulla in pericolo and you get all the credit!

"I've always been the cutest. They like me more" I found strength enough to tease him a little. "Like a… Don Giovanni."

"Eh, eh! Don Giovanni voi?!" He said patting me on the head with more strength that I would have wanted to. "Basso, io sono Don Giovanni!"

Pietro clapped his hands and shut us up.

"Gio, you first, tell me what the hell happened."

"Honestly Pietro. I have very little recollection of what happened there" I tried to place the empty cup in the desk but it fell from my clumsy hands, splashing its content on the floor.

"Where you driving in that condition?" I felt the disapproving eyes of Pietro and Beth fall upon me.

"Listen. This is not usual in me."

It was Mauritzio's turn to throw me his judgmental stare.

"Fine. I've been having a couple of drinks every now and then these days. And I went to this bar, okay? I wasn't driving!"

"Were you planning to get wasted?" Pietro started typing something in the computer. I tried to look but he shoved me away.

"Sort of" I admitted my clumsy tongue made it difficult to speak. "Come on. I'm a guy, what's wrong with a few beers?"

"That turned into too many."

"Pietro, I don't think that's the way to treat the man who just saved your sister."

"Just tell me anything you remember."

"Well, I was about to pay and leave the place. So I called Mauritzio to pick me up."

"You should've seen him when I found him" he laughed.

"Not helping."

Pietro asked me to be quiet.

"Did you go with the van? Don't tell me I'll have to enter the plate number in the system after all I did trying to cover you with the boss."

"No, because I don't have the keys. So I went on foot."

"It's also in the garage, Pietro. We don't have the van these days."

"But you live in Queens, too. Am I right, Mauritzio?"

"Well, to tell the truth I stayed the night somewhere else" He passed his finger through his light brown hair. "So I was already in Manhattan, quite nearby."

I mentally smiled and guessed that Amanda had successfully worked her charms on him —or was it the other way around?

"Pretty damn lucky coincidence" Pietro said with irony. "What else?"

"Um, So I came to pick him up and then he said he needed to go to the toilet before we leave. So I waited. I was getting impatient when I saw it had taken him too long."

"How long you've waited?"

"I don't know. Maybe, ten, fifteen minutes?"

"That's an awful lot of time. What the hell were you doing, Gio?"

"I think I mistook the door of the bathroom with the emergency door."

"They're side by side" Maurtizio added "at the far corner of the place. I didn't hear anything. I had no idea."

"I must have been pretty bad. I barely realized I'd tumbled outside the place. And it was so freaking dark I couldn't see anything. I could barely notice a bit of clear light from my left, where alley ended on the street. Anyway, I was already there and, since the door didn't open from the outside, I rested against the nearest wall and decided to take a leak. I think I dozed off for a moment."

Mauritzio chuckled.

"Okay, Okay. I was a bit drunk" I tried to justify myself. "I don't know how long I was resting against the wall but I was abruptly woken by a woman's cry, so loud and frightened that it made my skin crawl. I'm telling you, it's not a pleasant feeling to wake up in such way. I sensed two people struggling a few meters away from me. Close to the sidewalk entrance of the alley. I heard a sound and one of them fell to the floor. I shouted something and the other shadow quickly ran and disappeared. Then I found your sister lying unconscious on the floor."

"What did you do?"

"I yelled for help myself and called Maurtizio aloud, I think. Really pointless and stupid. He was inside the bar. I guess I wasn't thinking clearly. Then I searched for my cellphone and managed to click redial. He answered after several tries and came for us."

"Why didn't you answer the phone the first time?"

"Oh well. I—I thought it was someone else. You know, she's a real pain in the neck, that chick. So I ignored it. But then I saw it was Gio. I ran to the bathroom and then he sort of explained he was in the back alley. I couldn't understand him clearly but I finally found them and then I called and ambulance. That's pretty much it."

"Should've called the police"

"Hey man! I did what I could. I had a drunken man and an injured lady. Don't blame il vero eroe!"

"You're telling me, Gio, you couldn't recognize anything about the attacker?"

It was frustrating. My mind was totally blocked.

"I only remembered a shadow and I can't make anything of it."

And yet something about the shadow made me feel uneasy and anxious, just like my nightmares, a strange disturbing feeling.

Pietro let us go and Mauritzio got a cab to make sure Beth and I arrived safely to my apartment. I turned to face her, prepared for a lecture. But she didn't say anything at all. The disappointment in her grey eyes told me all I needed to know.

She didn't go to the bedroom. Instead, she laid on the sofa, cuddled between the sheets, and muttered a quiet good night.

—0—

The next morning I woke up into an empty apartment. Only Beth's spirit was left hanging in the air of the rooms. You could tell she'd been there in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the tidy living room, where the sheets were carefully folded on the sofa. It looked like she had woken up earlier than me and I didn't see her until very late that Sunday. What was she thinking of me? What kind of man she thought I was?

I guess it was somehow a relief. I didn't want to see her judgmental eyes. I used to laugh when Betty gave me that look at me; with Beth, it just hurt.

I took some time to gather all the newspapers and the framed articles and hid them inside a box. I didn't find courage to throw them out just yet.

I found myself bored with nothing to do for the rest of the day but I had no idea what possessed me to dial the phone number I had on top of the coffee table of the living room. It was Sunday but I found myself in a desperate need to make an appointment to meet the shrink as quickly as possible to be able to face Beth again. It must sound funny the idea of me, a street-wise strong guy from Queens, being afraid to face a skinny girl who was five years younger than me.

But I was.

I called the doctor on a Sunday but I was surprised that not only she agreed to take me but, as soon as I told her I was friend of Beth, she booked me for the next afternoon. It was amazing how easily the Hartleys opened doors in this town.

So, against my usual judgment, I went to her office that Monday, partially out curiosity, partially to please Beth but mostly, trying to find a way to get out of the dark days I've been living. I wanted so badly to rest again, to be who I used to be.

I told her about Betty and Matt, my hate, my unrequited love, about my frustration and my failed hopes. I told her about the nightmares I've been having for the past few weeks, ever since I've read that article on the paper that opened a wound I thought was long closed. How I always thought Betty would come back. That I'd just had to wait and she'd come back to me, that everything would be back like it was before and nothing would have changed between us. Nothing would have changed at all...

I told her I didn't believe in premonition or all that crap my mother kept telling me about. The psychoanalyst explained to me, in some ridiculous wording, that it could be my subconscious telling me something or communicating my fears through images. She told me I should face my fears. I thought I had wasted a my time and money by coming to see her.

"Close your eyes and try to remember that dream."

I did as she asked and I flinched for a second as the images came back to me. There was that bloody room and the people I've met in my dreams over and over for endless nights.

"Look at the scene and tell me how do you feel about yourself."

I told her that sometimes I don't recognize the man in my dreams. I know it's supposed to be me and he looks like me physically, but the feelings inside of him and that frightening face—its just not my nature to have those feelings. It's somehow disturbing how he doesn't care about the death of the person in the floor. He's cold and I can feel his mind thinking of million ways to kill someone.

"How you feel about the murderer? Do you know that person?"

The woman of my nightmares kept changing shapes and voices. I told her I couldn't see her features clearly but that I was certain that she was someone very important to me, that at times I imagined it's someone else; and that sometimes, she's Betty.

"Do you feel scared or disgusted by what she did? What do you feel when you look at her?"

I paused a moment and closed my eyes tighter. The feeling came back to me opened and clear. I feared I was probably going to say the sappiest words she would ever hear in her professional life.

"I feel love" I said.

Man! I felt embarrassed the very moment the words came out of my mouth. But I knew that was love. I was certain that was the void I felt that sucked my insides.

"You feel love" she said and wrote something on her pad.

"Listen, I know it's silly. But I don't want to run or escape from her. For a moment, I don't even care for the blood or the murdered person in the floor. I just feel the need to protect her above everything else, that I have the urge to do something, anything, to save her even if she doesn't want me to. "

The voice in my dreams came to me clearly as if someone just whispered the words against my ears:

'I'm sorry'.

It was always so painful. My heart sank inside my chest; it took the air out of me.

"Could we change the subject?" I begged the doctor.

I asked her about the memory blackouts, about my sudden outburst of rage and swings of mood. I wondered if it was some sort of premature Alzheimer. She said it was some sort of a emotional phase, a sort defense system I've developed. I wasn't sure I was relieved or more worried. But she insisted it usually happened after the high exposure of stress conditions and high doses of alcohol or maybe my brain was trying to erase some unpleasant memories.

I stared at my hands for a moment. What if I became more violent over time? What if I already had? What if I did something terrible and couldn't remember?

"Tell me doctor," I asked nervously "would I be able to kill someone in this 'emotional phase'?"

"Do you feel like wanting to kill someone, Gio? Do you want to talk about it?"

I don't think she really understood my question. I moved uncomfortably in the seat and ran a finger through my drenched forehead. I was sweating.

"Doctor, would it be possible for me to hurt someone and not remember anything about it?"

There, I've finally said it. I let out the fear that had been tormenting my mind for days: what if I was the killer?

Will be continued

right after I update some of my other fics

Notes:

"Decisamente no!" = (it.) Of course not!

"è la fanciulla in pericolo"= (it.) And the damsel in distress.

"Basso, io sono Don Giovanni!" = (it.) Shorty, I am Don Juan (Casanova)

"Il vero eroe" = (it.) The true hero.