Fucking shoot me.
I take a long, hard look around me, foot crunching on a burger wrapper. It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Killian is gone and I’m still sober, which are the only two reasons I decide to clean up my room. For an anal retentive freak, Killer has this thing where he’s happy to ignore my mess right up to the point that I intend to do something about it, which is when he turns into a drill instructor. He has a harder time watching someone clean a mess than make one and I’m not in the mood for that shit, so I wait until he’s halfway to Houston to pick through the debris on my floor.
I’m a slob, but I admit that it’s particularly bad, even for me. The task is slow going, mostly because I’d rather be taking a swan dive off a cliff than gathering up all my empties, old food, and dirty clothes.
The nausea doesn’t make it any better. I haven’t had a drink in almost two days, and I also haven’t taken any pills or smoked any weed. My stomach has an opinion about cold turkey, and it sounds a lot like me dry heaving over my toilet all day. Our Lady is going to find out real quick that sobriety doesn’t suit me.
I make a pile for trash, and then a pile for shit that needs to be taken downstairs, and then I pause for a cigarette, which I smoke while leaning halfway out my window.
Two hours later, I run into Story on the second floor landing.
I’m cradling three bottles of liquor in my arms. The vodka is half empty, but the whiskey is almost full, and the third is just an embarrassingly almost-empty bottle of cheap malt liquor.
Oh yeah, you can take the boy out of South Side…
She pauses, eyes falling on the bottles, and then does this…thing. It’s a little too annoyed to be called a frown, but it reeks of disapproval and hurt, and it pisses me right the fuck off.
Before I can explain, she turns on her heel and bounds down the stairs, ponytail swaying behind her.
“Fuck you, too,” I mutter.
She didn’t call me last night. It was probably the first night in weeks we haven’t spoken over the tinny connection, one or both of us usually shoving our hand down our pants and coming apart as the other breathes all hard like a stalker creep into the speaker. I’m smart enough to see those calls for what they are. We walk around here all day tense and restless, orbiting each other in liminal spaces, and a nice orgasm is the closest thing we have to a catharsis. I wasn’t awake long enough this morning to dwell on my disappointment, exhausted and queasy with the craving for an oblivion I won’t let myself give in to.
It’s not that she automatically thinks the worst of me. I’m pretty sure I’ve earned that. It’s that she’s hitching some kind of expectation onto me, like I should stay sober for three days because I care about and want her enough. Like the thought of her getting a full night’s sleep beside me in bed is easily worth the hassle.
Mostly, I’m annoyed because she’s probably right.
Since my luck is demonstrably dog shit, she’s nowhere to be seen when I heave it all into the kitchen and start pouring it down the sink, watching angrily as the liquid disappears down the drain. It’s a waste of perfectly good liquor that Tristian or Killer could easily enjoy, but suddenly the sight of the bottles makes me want to hurl.
“Don’t you dare.”
I look over my shoulder to see Ms. Crane walking out of the pantry. “You want them?”
She doesn’t even look at the bottles. “The only thing I want is to not be cleaning up whatever rancid sludge is currently occupying the bottom of your stomach. If you throw up, then you can find the bucket and mop yourself. Got better things to do.” The ‘better thing’ would appear to be the unlit cigarette she’s got pinched between her fingers.
I turn back to the sink, dragging a wrist over my brow. “Don’t sweat it. There’s nothing left to come up.”
There’s a long beat of silence, and then she lets out this loud, long-suffering sigh. “Finish that up and follow me.”
I stare down at the Formica tabletop, stomach rolling once again. Even the sight of the crackers and ginger ale makes me want to blow chunks, but Ms. Crane just pushes them closer.
“Doesn’t look it now, but it’ll settle it,” she assures, looking annoyed that she needs to. Her rooms are tidy and dimly lit, and I keep looking around, surprised to be invited in here. Ms. Crane isn’t exactly the mothering type, but she has her rare moments. Unfortunately, I seem to have fallen prey to one of them. “You think you’re the first soggy drunk I’ve had to nurse back to the land of the living?”
“I’m not drunk.”
She flaps a hand until I warily crunch on the corner of a cracker. “I’ve seen worse. Once had a girl so strung out on dope that she looked possessed by a goddamn demon. Took a week to get her back to something coherent.”
I gnaw on the cracker, wondering, “Yeah? And where is she now?”
Ms. Crane nods at the ginger ale. “She’s running the Velvet Hideaway, evidently.”
“Augustine?” I can’t tell if my grimace results from the cracker hitting my stomach or the mention of Daniel’s shiny new madam. “I didn’t know she used to be a junkie.”
“Some of my girls did,” she responds, her eyes faraway. “Pimps like that, you know. Get a girl hooked on dope, and you’ve got yourself a nice little pet. You can pay them with it, punish them with it, keep them on a short leash with it.”
“Your old man used to do that to his girls?” Usually, I wouldn’t ask her about Mr. Crane, but usually I also wouldn’t be in her private rooms. The questions never do anything but put her in a shitty mood, which I guess is understandable. When you stab your husband to death, you probably want to just forget he ever existed. But their old setup was a thing of legend, and even though Mr. Crane owned the operation, Ms. Crane was the icon behind it.
She doesn’t look put off by the question, giving me a slight nod. “Oh, yes. No leash was beneath him. Can’t even tell you how many beatings I took standing between him and whatever sorry new piece of stock he’d dragged in there.”
Well, fuck.
Now I’m in a shitty mood.
It doesn’t get any better when she adds, “She’d be good for you.”
“Who?” I ask, even though I already know.
“My Auggy.” She takes a slow, contemplative sip from her mug of coffee. “Tough girl. Disciplined. Hard worker. Someone you could trust. It’s the only reason I could leave them all behind. I know my girls will be in good hands with her.” Tipping her chin down, she tacks on a smug, “And she’s had her eye on you since the first time you walked into my whorehouse, pierced little fuckface and all.” She gives me a long, unimpressed glance. “Don’t really see the draw, myself. But can’t deny that the girl is smitten.”
“I don’t want Auggy.” I say this in no uncertain terms. I could have had her years ago—I’m not a fucking idiot here. She may be charming and disciplined, but she’s never been subtle. I’ve done my best not to be a complete dick about it, but the truth is, it got old quick.
“Of course you don’t. Because you’ve got shit for brains.” She sniffs, examining the rim of her mug. “At least she’s not being hunted by some psycho who wants to axe murder any man who jams his prick into her cunt.”
I snort. “Probably because no one has that many axes.”
Her eyes flash, and on anyone else, it’d look like anger. “Look here, you rat-faced degenerate. There’s nothing wrong with choosing what’s safe. Sometimes that means working for Daniel Payne. Sometimes it means settling for someone who’s stupid enough to care for you.”
I give her a series of fast, surprised blinks. “I’m sorry, is this whole thing actually a cleverly-disguised expression of concern?”
She completely ignores this. “And what’s it matter to you that my Auggy’s got experience? That girl has skills that would bring you to your goddamn knees. Could suck a watermelon through a straw. And god knows Pollyanna up there isn’t in any hurry to wrap those scrawny thighs around you.”
Fucking yikes.
Ms. Crane has been out of the business for so long that it’s easy to forget her girls were always more than products to her. I’ve never been able to tell if she sees them as daughters or as works of art she’s crafted with her own two hands.
Either way, she’s obviously insulted.
Gently, I begin, “Delores…” I can count the amount of times I’ve used Ms. Crane’s first name on one hand, but it seems necessary here. She just basically tried to give me her best girl. Possibly that’s a show of affection I’m not even prepared to calculate. “There’s nothing wrong with Auggy. It’s not even that she hustles, it’s just—” I pause, realizing the words I want to say are going to sound stupid.
I can’t imagine myself playing music for her.
I can’t imagine watching her from across the room, or tucking her against me while we sleep, or pulling her into a bath and rubbing the tension from her shoulders as we smoke a blunt. I can’t imagine fucking her and being overtaken by the urge to look into her eyes as I do it, worried that it’ll be too exposed, but unable to give a shit. I can’t imagine her ever being mine, and I can’t imagine ever being hers.
Not like with Story.
Ms. Crane wouldn’t get it. She’s set her girls up with men before. Nice men who’d take care of them, treat them right, get them away from whoring—away from South Side. This offer is the highest compliment she could probably ever give me, because that’s what relationships are to people like her; arrangements that are made because they’re convenient and sensible. It’s why Auggy wants me so much, because maybe she really is like a daughter to Ms. Crane, but she’s also that piece of art that’s been shaped by her worn, rough hands.
Carefully, I explain, “There’s no spark there. If I let it happen, that’s exactly what I’d be doing. Settling.” I bitterly wonder, “Don’t I do enough of that?”
Her mouth wrinkles up with a purse as she stares me down. I’m not sure what she sees on my face, but whatever it is makes that ember in her gaze disappear. “Yeah, you’ve got it real hard in your mansion, with your fancy schooling and rich friends.” There’s a curl in her lip when she slides her gaze toward the door, and I think at first it’s meant for me. But then she says, “Living here has made us soft, rotten little shits, hasn’t it?”
I bite another cracker. “Probably.”
“How long you suppose it’s been,” she asks, eyes dark, “since you slept with your shoes on?”
I spare her a low chuckle. It’s an old South Side meme by now, but no less accurate. People in the neighborhoods we come from sleep with their shoes on so they can bolt at a moment’s notice. “Not since moving in here,” I confess. But in a way, I was eased into it. Back when I slept over at Tristian’s or Killer’s houses, it felt wrong to go to sleep without my shoes, but more wrong to picture the looks they’d give me if I tried. After so long, it wasn’t so difficult to conceptualize the line between safety and home, and the exact moment I was crossing over it. “You?”
She gives me a perplexed look. “I never stopped.”
I’d suspected as much, but it still makes a heavy, disappointed weight settle in my gut. “Killer’s right, you know. It might not be safe for you here, so if you need to leave—”
“I couldn’t give two fucks about ‘safe’,” she sneers, pitching forward. “Wasn’t a day in my life I ever was. I might be old and tired, but I’m not stupid. The second I walk out that door, I’ve got a bounty on my head. A dozen or more paranoid old men just waiting in the rafters for the chance to take my head off with one clean shot. You think I’m here because it scares me, boy?” She fixes me with a long, challenging stare. “I’m not scared to die. I made peace with my maker before you were even a stain on your mama’s tattered bed sheets. Death is coming for me just as sure as it is you. All that matters now is what I’m dying for.”
“Well, you sure as fuck didn’t come here to die for us,” I argue.
There’s a suspended moment of silence as her gaze wanders to the distance, a pensive frown creasing her face. “I came here because I was sick of training South Side pussy for scum like Daniel Payne. Me and my girls worked hard building an empire we never had a chance of running. Knock one of them down, another pops up in his place.” She flicks her hand in a sharp, frustrated gesture. “I can’t keep stabbing men to death.”
I snort. “Not with that attitude.” It’s the first time it occurs to me that maybe she didn’t just kill her husband because he was a major league piece of shit. Maybe she thought she’d inherit it all, do it her own way.
And then Daniel had to swoop in and save her from prison.
That doesn’t come cheap.
She continues, “Now we have some psycho running around killing women who work for Daniel. I’d rather fuck myself with a chainsaw than work for the likes of him again, but you listen to me, boy.” She shakes a finger at me. “If something happens to Auggy, or any of my other girls, I’m going to be using those shoes I’m sleeping in to run my crusty old ass back to them, and none of you three are going to stop me. You hear?”
Ah, so this isn’t just about me setting my sights on safer pussy.
She wants someone with Auggy. Someone who’ll watch out for her, protect her, shelter her. It’s such a fucking joke, because I’ve been stoned and drunk out of my mind for the past six weeks. Something heavy and alarming churns in my stomach at the realization that anything could have happened and I wouldn’t have been in the position to stop it. Killer and Tristian were there to pick up my slack, but I wasn’t protecting a goddamn thing. I was a weak link. A perforation.
Suddenly, I don’t feel worthy of whatever approval was hidden within Ms. Crane’s offer. I push my hair from my eyes, promising, “We’ll try to keep a closer eye on the Hideaway. But whoever this guy is, I don’t think he’s interested in them. I think he just wants to piss us off.” Looking up at her, I add, “So my showing an interest in Auggy will just make it worse for her.”
She doesn’t exactly seem relieved, but some of the tension fades from the lines in her face. “You don’t care about that. You’d just rather be gunning for the pussy upstairs.” Sniffing, she leans back into her seat. “Can’t say I’m surprised. We don’t got it in us to go for the simple stuff. She might be a lot of things, but easy isn’t one of them.”
“She fucking drives me crazy,” I burst, thinking of those empty bottles of liquor. “She can’t sleep, but she refuses to sleep with someone else, even though she’s walking around here all day like a goddamn zombie. So now we have to…what, exactly? Fuck if I know. Prove ourselves or wait for her to come to her senses. It’s fucking stupid. The whole point of having a Lady is that you don’t have to play these games, but here I am, dancing like a goddamn monkey.” I shove my fingers through my hair, too agitated to care about the bemused look Ms. Crane is giving me. “And you know what else? I’m the one who should be pissed at her. You heard what she did to me. Am I making her jump through hoops about it? Fuck no.”
“I tried to tell you,” she says, tapping her pack of cigarettes. “There’s only so much a woman will take before she strikes back.”
I don’t need to notice the dark gleam in her eye to know she’s talking about herself as much as she is about Story. “So what do I do?” I ask, realizing that Ms. Crane has, like, perspective here. “How do I wear her down?”
Snatching my empty ginger ale can away, she stands to walk it over to the garbage can, pitching it in. “She played your games for weeks, you sadistic fuckwit. You can’t handle a little monkey dancing? Then maybe you should give Auggy a call. God, men are the biggest pussies. Everything we put up with from you, and you’re bellyaching about a little—” She pauses, narrowing her eyes at me. “What does she want you to do?”
“Stay sober for three days.”
On her way past, she lobs a sharp smack to the back of my head. “Get the fuck out of my kitchen.”
I clutch my head, scowling. “I’m being serious!”
The glare she levels at me isn’t anything but serious. “You want to know how to ‘wear her down’? Here’s the secret, you flaccid sack of meat. You don’t. If you really cared about that girl, you’d try building her up for once. You think this is a game to her because that’s how you and your rich pals work. She’s not playing a game. She’s trying to find one fucking crumb of something genuine from a bunch of boys who make it their business to be anything but.” When she scoffs, looking away to mutter, “Eat my goddamn crackers and shut your mouth,” I know she’s letting it drop.
Mostly.
For the next ten minutes, I let her berate me for being soft. For not being ‘South Side’ enough. For being too big of an asshole to women. For being a pussy. For claiming that I don’t want to settle, but then bitching about having to work for what I want. For living with the likes of a Mercer and a Payne, and accepting their scraps like a stray dog. I take it like a man, because I know it’s something I need to hear. I don’t belong in their world any more than they’ve ever belonged in mine. But what Ms. Crane doesn’t understand about us is that we don’t need to. We’ll make our own world.
And I’m going to make damn sure Story is a part of it.
Even if it kills me.
