I introduce myself, and because I’m mildly drunk my approach is softened, less awkward, more mature. The words flow freely when I drink, which is a bonus. She’s meek and shy until she gets a few beers in her and then she loosens up. Like pulling at stray yarn on a worn sweater, she begins to unravel. As it happens it’s a seesaw, she goes up and I come down. Because the moment I take that seat next to her no more alcohol passes my lips.
Her name is Jessica. She’s twenty-four, recently moved here from Philly, and lives with her older sister. She’s also newly single. The way she talks about her ex is amiable, but the terror in her eyes isn’t. It’s a tattletale. I listen to her words. I listen to her eyes. And I decipher the truth between them. The more she drinks, unbidden honesty coaxes the two to blend into middle ground and my suspicions are confirmed. She ran away. Because he beat her.
I don’t say much, I’m the listener, remember? But as we approach the fine line of the precipice I try to avoid, I tell her the same thing I’ve told all the others: “You deserve better.”
I’m talking about her past company and her present.
When she’s done talking, and there’s a discernable level of balance between her state of drunkenness and the lightening of her worry, I ask Dan to call us a cab.
You’re waiting for me to dish on what happened next, aren’t you? You want all the juicy details? Too bad. I’m an assholeanda gentleman.
It’s after one in the morning when I walk in the front door of the Victorian on Clarkson and head up the stairs. My feet are tired after the long trek from Jessica’s. So is the rest of me. But I’m tucked away into that quiet corner of my mind that rarely allows me to feel—different, better; I try not to put a label on it because it’s temporary—but Ifeel.
When I jab the key in the lock to Johnny’s apartment, I’m praying he isn’t here and that Cliff is asleep.
Johnny’s bedroom door is open and he’s not in it. A reprieve. The same cannot be said for Cliff.
The stench of burnt microwave popcorn is an unwelcome guest in the kitchen. Cliff’s bedroom door is open. His TV is blaring and he’s watching me. I can feel his beady eyes like tractor beams.
“Did you get any?” he calls out crudely.
He’s talking about sex. He asks a variation on the question at least once a week. Not as if he’s living vicariously through me, but as if it’s a link of camaraderie he and I share.
I don’t dignify the question with an answer. I never do. I grit my teeth instead.
“Applause finally gotSid and Nancy.” Applause is the video rental store down on Colfax. Cliff’s been stalking it for weeks trying to get his grubby mitts on the story of his hero.
I can’t help my shock. “They rented to you?”
He was banned from further VHS rentals until he pays late fees he racked up when he kept a movie ten days past its return date.
Pride twists his lips into a smirk and I know before he says the words that they didn’t. “Stole it.” He sings the reply, he’s so proud of himself. “They’re not getting this one back. She’s mine.”
I raise my eyebrows, more to acknowledge my body’s pleas to get it into a swift state of slumber than to congratulate his thievery.
“Watch. If you want.” His words are flippant. His tone isn’t.
He wants me to watch it with him. Hereallywants me to watch it with him. He’s a Sex Pistols zealot and he wants to baptize me with their debauchery by watching the true story unfold on film.
“I know how it ends.” Both of them drug addicts. Both of them dead. I read articles on microfiche at the library last week. I’d been listening to the band and was curious. When I’m curious, I read everything I can. I get obsessive. Ask me anything about the Sex Pistols, I can probably answer it.
“Sid Vicious is a legend,” he says it knowingly, the camaraderie in his voice again.
I shake my head and mutter, “Legend is the last word I would use to describe him,” and shuffle past his door to mine and unlock my padlock. Cliff needs a new role model.
Door shut behind me in my room, I toe off my shoes and shed my sweatshirt and jeans. There’s no window, no light, so I crawl into my sleeping bag by feel. Then I replay the events of the evening after Jessica and I left Dan’s until I drift off to sleep.
And I dream nondescript dreams about nothing important.
No nightmares.
No voices.
It’s beautiful.
Chapter Two
Present,February 1987
