“So it lives.”
I look up and it’s the Meerkat. She aged while I was gone. Or maybe that’s just me and maybe I’m in denial because she also regressed again. She’s back on Columbine, squinting.
“Nomi,” I say. “Congratulations, graduate. How you doing?”
“Well I didn’t get stabbed in the head.”
“Shot,” I say. “But it’s no big deal.”
She wants to see the wound up close and I tell her to stay where she is because if you are watching us—and I hope you are watching—I want you to know that I’m not using my wound to get attention and I would tear this Band-Aid off my fucking head if I could. She nods. “Cool.”
“Look, I’m sorry about disappearing…”
“Oh, I’ve barely been here. I made some friends in Seattle, been at Don and Peggy’s a lot. Anyway, are we moving back to your house? Cuz the Marshall Suites is so gross and I hate sharing a room with my mom.”
You hate me so much that you moved into Oliver’s old hotel and damn you, RIP Love Quinn. “Well,” I say. “Your mom’s not too happy with me right now…”
She shrugs. “My mom’s never happy. Except when she’s with you.” And then she rocks back and forth on her sneakers that are too young for her, sneakers that light up. “Seriously, Joe, see you soon. I mean it’s fine. It is.”
She says that with such confidence and she knows you in ways that I don’t. She’s known you her whole life and she tells me that she’s right about you, Mary Kay. You are happy when you’re with me and that is the bottom line and I see you in the library. You see me and the Meerkat catching up. You know this is meant to be. The Meerkat takes off—Sorry you got shot in the head—and I look into the window, into your eyes.
You don’t wave but you don’t give me the finger. You turn your back on me right now and pretend to be busy with a Mothball—you’re not—but you’re not done with me. I just have to make things right.
The walk home is brutal and my head is throbbing and I should probably have taken a cab from the ferry to my house and I should probably have lain low on my first day back. I finally give in and pop a pain pill and I pick up your filthy doormat and throw it into the washing machine—I have to get our house ready for you to come home—and I watch the doormat go round around—it’s the drugs, I hate drugs—and I put my hands on the glass—see the boats go sailing—and I am drooling and sweating and my head is full of tainted cotton candy.
These pills are too much and the doormat is a sailboat. I’m hallucinating. I hear Stephen Bishop in the airport, singing about women in Jamaica and then the music that isn’t real dies and I am back in my house and my feet are on the floor of my laundry room and these are my feet and the doormat isn’t a sailboat.
But I am not alone.
I see a man in the glass. This is Bainbridge and it’s safe but I was gone for two weeks and criminals do this. They watch houses. He probably thought I was gone.
He takes a step forward and I make a fist and his shadow is clearer now and this is Bainbridge and it’s probably a misunderstanding, a neighbor concerned about the sudden activity in the house. But Bainbridge is an island in a state in the country of America, and America is violent and if the man were here on a wellness call, he would say it.
I squint like the Meerkat and take a closer look at his reflection. I see a baseball cap and narrow sloping shoulders. He is short. Short as Shortus. I turn around and it is Shortus but he didn’t pop by my house to make sure I’m okay. He’s armed and I’m empty-handed and slow—drugs are evil—and the blow is fast. Thwack.
Man down, Mary Kay, one of the good ones.
44
People say that victim shaming is a bad thing, but sometimes, the victim should be fucking ashamed. I took a goddamn pain pill on an empty stomach and I didn’t lock my doors, as if I’m some fourth-generation Bainbridge bum fuck who refuses to lock his doors because once upon a time the island was safe and you didn’t have to lock your doors so you know what? I deserve to be tied up by a sixth-generation Bainbridge CrossFit lunatic in his Olympic Mountain hideaway cabin.
Shortus didn’t do this to me. I did this to myself.
I smell Windex. Clorox. Things that end with the letter x, and I can’t punch him—my hands are tied—and I can’t kick him—my legs are locked at the ankles—and I have a head wound and I don’t know karate.
He put a bag on my head. I can’t see. He stuffed a sock in my mouth—I think the sock is dirty—and I wiggle my tongue and this is not how it ends for us. Shortus will not kill me.
Or maybe he will because he’s close now. “You just couldn’t stay away, could you?”
I make a sound and he spits at the bag over my face. “You worm your way into that library. You worm your way into our lives. That piece-of-shit has-been crybaby drops dead and you worm your way into her house.”
I was right. This is about you. I try to worm the words out of my mouth but the sock won’t let me and he’s on his feet now. Stomp, stomp, stomp. “And the worst part is, I knew it. I knew you were bad news.” You and me both, asshole. “You move here and suddenly all’s I hear about is Joe. He volunteers. He reads a lot. In my head, I’m thinking, Sounds like a fucking pansy. But she won’t shut up about you. So I figure, I gotta meet this guy, see what he’s about. And then I get a look at you and you’re soft. You got no job. You’re a loser. I’m thinking, This poor loser’s no threat. I get you a deal at CrossFit, I let you tag along for beers, even though everyone thinks you’re a fucking snob. But do I worry? Nah. You crash lunch at the diner and you’re talking chick flicks with Melanda. You’re an even bigger pansy than I thought and I think… good. Maybe that feminazi will finally shut up if she gets some good dick in her.”
I knew that lunch with your Friends was a bad idea, Mary Kay, and he’s twisting my words and this is Twitter in real life. I am muted. Blocked.
“I let you mope around in your slick sweaters…” Cashmere isn’t slick, you moron. “I let her go on about how smart you are even though you didn’t even go to college…” Even in Cedar Cove there has to be some asshole talking about college and FUCK YOU, AMERICAN CASTE SYSTEM. “But I’m no dumbass, you sweater-wearing volun-fucking-teer.” The bump on my head is playing Ping-Pong with a hockey puck in the hole in my head and he’s close again. Breathing. “She had it bad for you. You got her to move in with you.” I think I hear his heart. Does he have a knife? “Even then I wasn’t worried. You moved in on her after the has-been finally croaked and all girls go nuts when they’re sad. I wasn’t surprised when you split. I told her myself, You can’t trust a man who doesn’t take care of his body. And I was just about to get back in there.” I smell urine. He’s peeing on me. On my legs. “You shouldn’t have come back, pansy. And you shouldn’t have gone to the library and tried to get her back.”
He zips up and this is why you kill people, because most people are horrible. He kicks me in the balls and it’s so predictable that it doesn’t hurt quite as bad as it would have were there an element of surprise and the pain in my balls is another hockey puck and now my balls are in the game with the hole in my head and the bump on my head and is this how I die? From Ping-Pong?