Blood Sports (18 page)

“I’m having a harder time letting go than my son is,” the nurse says with a wry smile. “He’s moved on to Power Rangers.”

“Uh, yeah,” the girl says after a long silence.

“Anyhoo,” the nurse says. “Do you know what kind of drugs your friend gave you, Tom?”

The girl nudges you.

Say, “I don’t know.”

“I think it was mushrooms,” the girl says. “It might have had a sprinkling of acid, too.”

“Hmm,” the nurse says.

“I’m remembering things better now,” you say. “I don’t think I need to do any tests.”

“Better safe than sorry,” the nurse says.

You can see only their eyes. They’re wearing ski masks.

“Where’s the coke?” one of the men says.

“I don’t know,” is not the answer they want.

Don’t scream. They slug the side of your head when you scream. Mrs. Tupper must have heard you by now, must have heard something and will call the police. Your downstairs neighbour complains when you cough too loud. She has to have heard something before they made you stop screaming.

The man with the deep voice whips the shower curtain open. The bathtub is filling.

“I don’t know. Jer took it. When he left. I don’t know where it is.” This is all you have to say. They aren’t going to believe you yet.

“Tie his arms, Rusty,” the guy to your left says as they bend you over the side of the tub. They press your face toward the water.

“You dumb fuck. You used my name,” Rusty says. “Now we’re going to have to kill him.”

“Shh,” the girl says. “Shh.”

She lowers the railing of the bed, lifts the sheets, and crawls in beside you. Her arm is heavy on your side. The nurses whisper in the corridor. The man in the bed beside you groans.

“Shh. You’re okay now.” Her breath tickles your neck as she speaks.

Believe her. For the first time in your memory, let go and believe that someone is watching out for you.

“Shut up,” she says.

5.

You are on the floor in the upstairs room of a rundown house. Handcuffs pin your wrists behind your back. Your fingers fall asleep under the combined weight of your body and Jeremy’s as Jeremy straddles your waist. In your peripheral vision, underneath the bare bulb that hangs from a yellowed ceiling, Paulina crawls near the camera tripod, her dress transparent, wet from the rain, one side of her blond head matted with blood from Jeremy kicking her head and kicking her head and kicking her head. As Jeremy lights the first cigarette, you’re flooded with disbelief so strong, feel sleepwalking calm. Jeremy tenses like a sprinter waiting for the gun, his hand pinching your neck as he holds you still.

“Did you think you could get away with it?” Jeremy says.

Remember the first time you felt this way. You were ten. On a small hill near your school, you hit a patch of black ice and the bicycle tires slipped sideways. You hurt your wrist trying to break your fall, but it didn’t matter because a very large truck was behind
you. The truck came to a stop on top of you, but it had monster wheels that lifted it high enough so nothing touched you. If you had moved, if the driver had tried to swerve, you would be under the wheels. Stare up at the undercarriage and – in the same calm – crawl out, dragging your bike behind you.

Move back an hour before you entered this room. Remember instead how Paulina’s hand felt as she led you up the stairs, how you could make out the line of her thong, the dress cotton and light blue, mid-thigh. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her nipples were hard, dark points. A bulge pressed against your jeans, sudden awareness of your own skin, anticipation made you light-headed.

Move ahead a few hours. Jeremy will press you to have pancakes as if that was going to make everything all right. Jeremy will take you home in a cab. He will chat and laugh like you went to a movie together, like you grabbed a bite to eat. The cab driver will not speak during the trip, nervously examining you both in his rear-view mirror. You will try not to bleed on his seat.

But the moment you start to believe that you could die is like a lighthouse. The searchlight circles back and back to that moment when Jeremy takes the first cigarette from his mouth. Jeremy’s face shadowed by the light from the bulb, the tip of the cigarette a red dot in the dim room.

You hate getting your cavities filled, hate the moment when the chunks spattering your mouth are bits of your tooth, when the smell from the drill is you, burning. This thought does not go through your head while Jeremy lowers the cigarette tip. This thought comes later. Before the tip touches your skin, feel a pinpoint of warmth on your shoulder, sudden like sunlight through the clouds.

If you had a time machine, you would go back to the moment when you agreed to wash Jeremy’s silver 1992 Jaguar XJS coupe
for quick cash. You would not take any money from Jeremy. You would not tell Jer about Paulina, and Jer would not seek her out and you would never see them kissing in the Jag at school.

Better yet, you would not deke out on a family dinner to go downstairs with a set of spare car keys. You would not hand the keys to Willy. You would not tell Willy the security code to the car alarm and Willy would not say, grinning, “Your own cousin, hey? Fuck, you’re cold, man.”

October 9, 1993

Paulina-baby,

I imagine you wrapped in a quilt. My granny and my aunties would make quilts and every time me and my sisters were scared or hurt they’d wrap us up tight and hug us and we’d be warm and safe.

I’m not your judge. You aren’t sitting in my court, and I don’t pass my punishments down to you. You did the best you could with what you had. The things that keep you confused and miserable you put into the hands of your Higher Power. Let go and let God.

Hugs and much respect,

Jazz

October 12, 1993

Dear Tom,

I can’t stop thinking about you. Not in a sexy way. Not that you aren’t. You’re cute, but, you know, you’re goofy. It’s not a bad thing. But I don’t find that sexy. I don’t want anything from you. I’m not writing to

crap

Hey Jazz,

Thanks. I needed that. I wish you could come every day. I don’t get anybody here. Or they don’t get me. I don’t know. I’m only here because my ex-friend from high school Carrie Fucking Lanstrum thought I was hot for her useless boyfriend. Her lame-ass Barbie gang in matching mini-Ts and belly-button rings tried to swarm me at the Broadway Sky Train station. Had to laugh, hahahaha, save me! I’m being threatened by stick figures.

We’re going to teach you a lesson you are going to carry on your face forever, bitch. Carrie Fucking Lanstrum, spouting bad trash talk, flashed her dinky switchblade. Her anorexic Barbie gang moved in to grab me.

Hahahaha. God, it felt good to laugh. Everything felt good. Kind of buzzed. First hit after three sober days. Slummed it in a McDonald’s toilet stall. Snorted off a steel Never Out toilet paper holder. Never Out. Never Out. Never Out. It meant something deep, and I was the only one who knew. Finally felt human after three days of trying to go straight. Late-night streets wet and black and shiny and dazzling. The escalator taking me up to a
higher plane. Carrie Fucking Lanstrum, at the other end of the Sky Train platform, whispered to her friends. Last train for the night due in five minutes.

Missing my Chevy. What a piece of shit that thing was. Wasn’t even worth the coke I got for it. Busted up and handed down through all the Mazenkowski boys until it got to me. You couldn’t make that car cool to save your life. Jake’s big loser flames on the hood – took three cans of spray paint to cover that mess. Matthew’s big-boobed mud-flaps and playboy dice. Dan stuck a huge muffler on it, trying to make the engine sound mean.

Jake had two surviving eight-track tapes,
Dr. Hook
and
The Best of CCR
, and one or the other’d be playing as we tooled around the driveway. Jake’s crabby-ass car-care lectures: Your oil’s filthier than your mouth. When was the last time you fucking checked your fluids? Don’t fucking laugh. This is serious. Your tires are flatter than Dad’s ass. What’s your pressure? Fucking get a gauge, you cheapskate. This is your fan belt. Faaaan. Belt.

I heard you blew Brandon for a dime bag, Carrie Fucking Lanstrum said. Is that true? Are you a whore?

I heard he fucks you up the ass because your cunt could swallow a bus, I said. Is that true? Are you a less-than virginal asshole?

They were all quiet. I think they were trying to menace me. I wanted to tell them they’d have to work a lot harder. I have been menaced by the best. I have been worked over and worked under and worked and nothing you can do can touch me.

But while my brain was putting together that speech, I bulldozed Carrie Fucking Lanstrum. Tackled her like she was holding a football. She flew backward. We rolled off the platform as her Barbie gang leapt out of the way. We landed between the tracks. Her Barbie gang shrieked as the Sky Train headlights rounded
the corner, bearing down. Carrie Fucking Lanstrum fought to get me off her.

Do you think it’ll stop? I said.

Her Barbie gang all holding out their hands to her.

Carrie! Get off her, bitch! Get off her!

None of them are jumping down for you, I said.

Carrie Fucking Lanstrum was too busy crying to answer. Crying and screaming. She caught me with a sucker punch and I rolled off. But I grabbed her around the neck and held on as her friends dragged her back. One of them tried to kick me off, but the rest were too freaked to bother.

The second I was on my feet, I connected my fists with noses, eyes, guts. They would have kicked my ass in the end. Ten to one. But the train had pulled into the station by then. I could see the security guards jogging past the stray passengers who paused to watch the fun.

October 18, 1993

Dear Tom,

This is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write. Except for the one I wrote Mom. And the one I wrote Dad. And my ex-friend Carrie. Okay. This is still a hard letter.

It kind of is the hardest letter because you already forgave me in the hospital and I lost respect for you. But everyone here says forgiving someone is actually a sign of strength and that weak people can’t forgive anybody, especially themselves. But it felt codependent. You know? I know your mom’s a big alkie so I think you’re trained

crap

Hey Jazz,

Mom visited today. She’s moving in with my good old brother Matthew and his dishrag wife. She’s supposed to stay a couple of weeks. Wayne Baker paid Mom a visit a few days ago. He said he was looking for me, but she’d do in a pinch. A mere eight months after the fact, Wayne figured out where my parents live and then he punched in the front-door window in full view of the neighbours. I think that’s what got Mom upset. Not the tooth for a tooth, leg for a leg bullshit. Mom wanted me to look her in the eye and tell her The Truth. Crying away for the guards. What happened to you?

Dad’s all excited. He went out and bought a security system and a shotgun. He’s been practising at the range. They want Mazenkowski blood! They’ll have to pay for it!

Please. Willy stole a Jag from a certified psycho and then he
bragged
about it. He’s lucky he’s breathing instead of chopped up and dumped in garbage bags around the city. Wayne pulled a nickel in Haven because he forgot to gas up the getaway car. Yeah, we’re
being menaced by criminal geniuses here. I told Mom to phone Wayne’s parole officer and report him. She stopped crying.