Hi Five Page 15

  “Get ready to jump,” he said. Before the Camaro could follow, he pulled over, got out of the car. He and Dodson ran into Nifty Dry Cleaners.

  Mrs. Chin, an ex-client, was behind the counter. She was selecting a mystery chocolate from a box of See’s while she slowly chewed something caramel. “Youf inf twable, yef?” she said, which Isaiah took to mean, “You in trouble, yes?”

  “I need to use your car.” She got her bag, threw him a ring of keys.

  “Flay fenta,” she said.

  Isaiah drove the gray Sentra out of the lot and down an alley.

  “How’d they get onto you?” Dodson said. “Who told them you was at Jasper’s place?” Isaiah was wondering about that himself.

  “Gia knew we were going there,” he said. “Dwight knew and he probably told Angus. Jasper knew and maybe the other alters picked up on it. In other words, everybody.” Isaiah thought a bit, looked at Dodson. “Why didn’t Jasper ask for a ride home?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Dodson said. “Jasper don’t drive, his girlfriend left, and nobody else in the band was gonna give him a lift.”

  “He was on the phone when we left,” Isaiah said. “Maybe he called them.”

  Twenty minutes ago, Annie was laughing about catching up to Isaiah, but by the time they got back to the motel room she was her carping self again. “That was so stupid!” Annie said. “I told you not to chase him. Now he knows we’re onto him! We’ll never get him now.”

  “We might have caught him,” Sal said with a shrug. She found a warm beer and screwed off the cap.

  “Caught him?” Annie said. “You mean out there on a public street? And then what? We shoot him in front of a hundred pedestrians? That makes a lot of sense.”

  Sal shrugged and drank the beer. “I chased him and now it’s over so get off my case.”

  “No, I won’t get off your case,” Annie said. “You never listen to me and look what happened. You’ve blown the whole deal, and why? Because you always want to prove you’re a swinging dick.”

  Sal was getting angry. She set the beer down. “You better shut up now, Annie.” They went quiet. There’s a particular kind of stillness before a fight starts, a moment where you either reconsider or the shit is on. Annie backed up three steps, giving herself room. Sal tensed, bent her knees a little and spread her feet. The shit was on.

  Annie lowered her voice and spoke steadily without pause. “Don’t tell me to shut up Sal don’t you ever tell me to shut up you stupid bitch I’m not afraid of you who do you think you are you stupid fucking bitch you want to get into it let’s go—” Annie didn’t raise her voice but the words were getting louder. Sal was breathing hard, her head expanding, her pulse like a war drum, her anger coiling into fury. Annie didn’t stop. I’ll fuck you up do you hear me Sal I’ll kick your ass so go ahead and make a move I’m fucking ready for you I’ve always been ready for you don’t mean shit to me you never did you stupid fucking bitch—”

  “Shut up, Annie.”

  “Fuck you shut up you fucking cunt why don’t you bring your fat ass over here and make me but you won’t because you’re a fucking cunt—”

  Something broke inside of Sal, a pressure gauge, a release valve. Blindly, wildly, she charged, screaming, “I’ll kill you, you fucking bitch!” She grabbed Annie by the shirt, took a punch in the face, and threw her into the credenza, a lamp crashing to the floor. Annie was up in an instant, a fucking instant. She hunched low and took a fighting stance as she backed up between the two beds. Sal saw what Annie was going for—her folding knife was lying on the coverlet. She’d used it to cut the pizza. They lunged for the knife at the same time. Annie was quicker, got the knife and rolled off the other side of the bed. In another fucking instant, she was up on her feet, the knife blade open and ready.

  Annie was fierce and unafraid, a killer who had killed many times before, but so had Sal. They faced each other, every slight, insult and contemptuous look, every dismissive remark, scowl of disapproval and derisive laugh boiling up inside of them; a surging ruthless energy as unstoppable as an axe descending on a prisoner’s neck. Violence between lovers, Sal thought, was never about the present. Each of them was proof of their fucked-up lives. Each was to blame for their barren futures.

  Sal had to arm herself. She tried to pick up the chair but it was heavy and awkward and a leg banged into the wall. Annie screamed, lunged forward and slashed Sal’s arm. Sal stumbled and fell on her back. Annie was on top of her, the knife raised, Sal holding Annie’s wrist, a foot between the knifepoint and her death. Sal punched her with the other hand. Annie cried out and fell to the side. Sal ripped the knife away, wrapped an arm around Annie’s neck and held the blade to her throat. “Don’t move, Annie, or I’ll cut your fucking head off.”

  “FUCK YOU!” Annie screamed. She grabbed Sal’s arm and tried to pull it off while she kicked and writhed. Sal grimaced, growled and pressed the blade in. “I told you not to move!”

  Somebody hammered on the door. “Hey! What the fuck are you doing in there?” The guy from the front desk. “You cut that shit out or I’ll call the fucking cops!” He banged on the door again. “You hear me in there? And if you fucked up the room you’ll pay for it!”

  Sal let Annie go. She got up, coughing; she leaned over and vomited. There was a cut on her neck. She touched it and looked at the blood on her fingers. Sal’s slashed arm was bleeding heavily, the blood pouring out of the wound. She was going into shock. “Help me,” she said. Annie wiped her hand on her pants and looked at Sal for the longest moment of their lives.

  Sal lay on the gurney as the doc and a nurse stanched the wound. “What happened to you?” the doctor said.

  “I cut myself shaving,” Sal said. They stitched her up, bound her arm and set it in a sling. She got pain medication, a tetanus shot and antibiotics. Annie was let in to see her. She stood alongside the gurney, not speaking, not making eye contact, not saying she was sorry but neither did Sal.

  “Go back to the motel,” Sal said. Annie left. Sal closed her eyes against the harsh fluorescents and felt the pain meds’ slow creep. Amazing, to be so far away from love. Sal didn’t know when she’d crossed the line into hatred or maybe there’d never been one. But when this was over, she’d kill Annie. If Annie didn’t kill her first.

  Chapter Twelve

  Some List

  Grace walked through McClarin Park. It was a nice day and she was on her way to meet TK for the church picnic. She was looking forward to it, curious about his mysterious love interest and eager to meet his friends. A couple of years ago, she would have been intimidated, worried she’d be rejected and afraid of doing or being the wrong thing.

  At the time, her psyche was already fragile. Then the Walczak thing happened and smashed it to pieces. The evil son of a bitch had killed her father and avenging his death had brought her no satisfaction or relief. The pain still visited her every day.

  It was agonizing to leave Isaiah but going to New Mexico was good for her. She reconnected with her mom. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years and catching up was equal parts heartbreaking and joyful. It was good to get away from Isaiah too. Their time together had been so intense, so fraught with danger and chaos that the artsy town of Santa Fe, with the gentle desert hills rolling into the horizon, was a sanctuary. Peace. She had longed for Isaiah; she daydreamed about him and held his imaginary hand even when she was with Noah.

  She meant it when she told Isaiah she still had problems. There was her baggage, of course, but therapy had also uncovered a deep well of self-hatred. Thankfully, Isaiah hadn’t seen it and hopefully never would. Frustration with herself would bring it out. Minor things. She’d get stuck on a painting, she couldn’t remember where she parked her car, she burned the eggs, she missed an appointment, someone beat her to the parking space, the shirt she ordered from Amazon was the wrong size. Instead of returning the shirt, she’d throw it in the trash. Instead of finishing the painting she’d slash it with a box cutter. Instead of method
ically looking for her car, she’d walk or take the bus, muttering, “Fuck the goddamn car,” and with every incident came a torrent of self-abuse, cursing and berating and yelling at herself for being so stupid, clumsy and inept. It went on and on until she was spent and sobbing.

  “It’s called displacement,” her therapist said. Her name was Rebecca. She was somewhere in her fifties; warm, wise and safe. “You’re angry about one thing and it comes out in ways that don’t have anything to do with the real source.”

  “What’s the real source?” Grace said.

  “That’s what we’re going to talk about.”

  Grace was angry about a lot of things. Some rational, some not. She was angry about her mother abandoning her and that she was failing as an artist. She was angry because she’d spent so much of her life in self-imposed isolation. She was angry because she had to kill a man and that Walczak had murdered her father. She was angry because she had to leave Isaiah, the love of her life, and go to New Mexico because she was so fucked up. Because she couldn’t handle her shit, because her goddamn problems dictated what she could and couldn’t do. Angry because she was always always in her own fucking way. She wondered if there were other people like her; walking around, seemingly normal and workaday, while underneath, a blazing pool of magma waited to erupt, incinerate and lay waste to reason.

  Rebecca said the anger was dangerous. She warned Grace that one day it would be about something more than burned eggs or a parking space; it would be about something important. A crisis where the stakes were injury, death or worse.

  “Or worse?” Grace said, almost laughing. “That’s kind of heavy, isn’t it?”

  Rebecca stared at her. She was serious. “You see it all the time,” she said. “Road rage, a cop beating a bag lady, a parent killing a child, a wife murdering her husband. Something small sets them off and by the time they come out of it, they’ve done something irreparable. That could happen to you, Grace.”

  She shifted in her chair. “So what do I do about it?”

  “You’re not sick and you’re not a slave to your emotions,” Rebecca said. “When you go off like that it’s a decision. A bad habit. Exert control or I’m telling you, in all sincerity, you will live to regret it.” Grace came away from the session talking to herself. That’s not gonna happen ever again, do you hear me, asshole? You will be aware. You will handle your shit.

  As the weeks went by, the tantrums lessened but didn’t go away. They were less the first-string quarterback and more the substitute, on the bench but warmed up and ready to go. Put me in, Coach. Grace’s fear of the present gradually receded, her fear of the future saw possibilities instead of disaster. She spent fewer nights wrestling with her nightmares, fewer nights painting and drinking coffee to keep the demons away. Sometimes she would wake in the morning, feeling—at first, she couldn’t identify it until she realized she felt good, like the actors in the Sleep-Eze commercials, smiling and yawning as they stretched, ready for another day. It was both strange and exhilarating. How had this happened, she wondered? She marveled at the power of human contact and understanding.

  She could remember the exact moment when she decided to go home. It was daybreak. She was standing on her balcony in her boxer shorts and T-shirt, drinking her second cup of coffee, when she heard someone calling her name. At first, it was hollow and distant, as if it was coming from a canyon somewhere in the foothills. Bit by bit, it increased in volume. And then a tiny figure appeared on her heart’s horizon, waving wildly and breaking into a run. She could see the familiar outline—tall, straight and sure, and then the contours of his face and the color of his eyes and it was Isaiah and she was crying and there was nothing better in the world than his arms around her, his breath in her ear, his voice, as beautiful as the dawn. The next day, she packed, said goodbye to Noah, and made the long drive to California, wondering all the while, Am I too late? Is Isaiah with someone else? Has he forgotten me? In a way, it didn’t matter. She would love him whether he liked it or not.

  About sixty people had gathered around a cluster of picnic tables, covered with an array of colored bowls, casserole dishes, Dutch ovens and Tupperware. There was macaroni and cheese, macaroni salad, Jell-O salad with shreds of carrot, oxtails, hot wings, green beans with almonds, pig’s feet, corn bread, collard greens cooked with ham hocks, red beans and rice, corn on the cob. A feast too good for a mere king.

  “Who is this, TK?” Reverend Arnall said with a smile as warm as the day.

  “This here’s my friend, Grace Monarova,” TK said. “Grace, this is Reverend Arnall.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Reverend,” Grace said. The man had stature; a presence both solid and embracing. In his eyes, you were a child of God.

  “No, I’m only the reverend in church,” he protested. “At picnics, my name is Daniel.”

  “Okay, Daniel,” she said, with a smile as warm as his.

  “We’re glad to have you, Grace. Please partake of God’s bounty and enjoy yourself.”

  The women were equally as welcoming; not shy at all about introducing themselves and telling her they were glad she’d come and asking why she was hanging around with an old man like TK. They filled her paper plate with so much food it nearly folded in the middle. She’d never had a meal this good or satisfying. Her limited social life had been spent with artists, everybody with an agenda; wanting something, needing something. There was always intrigue wherever you went but it wasn’t evident here. Just ordinary people, talking, laughing, gossiping, scolding their kids, appreciating the food, the weather and the grace of God. Grace had always been iffy about God, but here in the shade of the maple trees, their branches sieving sunlight into gilded beams and backlit by a sky blue as a cornflower, she thought these folks might be onto something.

  TK sat down next to her with no plate and a cup of red punch. “There she is over there,” he said nervously. “That’s Gloria.” Grace saw a stout woman in a dark print dress, wearing glasses with rhinestones in them and black shoes with thick crepe soles. She was at the dessert table, seemingly in charge as people brought their offerings. To some, she afforded a charitable smile, to others she reacted as if they’d brought their laundry or a dirty football. She seemed severe to the point of hostility. TK said she had been the vice principal at Carver Middle School for twenty-five years and she definitely looked the part.

  Grace swallowed and cleared her throat. “She’s very, um, attractive, TK.”

  “Ain’t she though?” TK said, looking at something in a parallel universe. “Now here’s where I get stuck, see. How’m I supposed to talk to her when she’s all busy like that, and she’s always busy. I just go on up there out of the blue and say, ‘Hi, my name is TK, and I own a wrecking yard’?”

  “Yeah, I see your point,” Grace said. She understood why TK was so anxious. She didn’t know how old he was but there weren’t many years left to find love. She was much younger and had felt the same way. She got up from the table.

  “Where’re you goin’?” TK said.

  “To get some help.”

  “Gloria?” Reverend Arnall intoned, like there was pleasure in saying her name. “I’d like you to meet Thomas Marion Kahill. TK is a respected businessman. We’ve known each other since we were children. Thomas, this is Gloria Simmons, a stalwart of our church and our community.” Grace sat down close enough to hear the conversation.

  “Pleased to meet you,” TK said, taking off the STP cap he wasn’t wearing. Gloria looked at him for what seemed like a long time, as if she were trying to recognize his species or whether he had some kind of mental condition.

  Sensing unpleasantness, the reverend said, “Excuse me, I should be mingling,” and he moved off like Christ had called him to prayer. TK didn’t know what to do with his hands, taking them in and out of his pockets and wiping the invisible oil off on his pants.

  “I’m pleased to meet you too, Thomas,” Gloria said, with an expression that said she wasn’t pleased at all. “I’ve seen
you in church, haven’t I?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said. Grace cringed. She’s not your aunt, TK. He corrected himself but not before Gloria’s glare put a knot on his head. “I mean, yes Gloria, you have…seen me in church that is…more than once I’d say.” He stood there with a strained smile on his face, a drop of sweat trickling down his neck. Grace couldn’t stand it. Say something, TK!

  “Did you bring a dessert?” Gloria asked sharply.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” TK said.

  “Did you bring anything at all?”

  “I was going to but—”

  She harrumphed. “Just like a man, showing up empty-handed and expecting to be fed. Well, run along now. I’m busy.”

  Grace and TK returned to their table. TK looked miserable, dabbing his face with a napkin. “This is hopeless,” he said. “I feel like a damn fool. I’ve only known her a minute and a half and she don’t like me already.” Grace didn’t say anything. Advice to the lovelorn was way outside her wheelhouse.

  “I don’t know if I would say that,” she said. She was a terrible liar.

  “I’m goin’ back to the yard,” TK said. “You comin’?”

  “No, I think I’ll stay awhile.”

  She was helping the ladies clean up when a woman about her age approached. She was striking without trying to be. Beautiful, yes, but more than that, she was sure of herself. She knew herself. She was a truth teller. It was obvious.

  “Grace? I’m Cherise, Dodson’s wife.”

  “Oh, my God.” Grace laughed. “I’m so glad to meet you.” They hugged and held on. You can tell a lot from a hug. They were going to be friends for a long time.