Breaker (8 page)

I stand in the back alley, leaning on a rusty folding chair, as the trash can in front of me slowly fills up with sticks—it's how we make fires in the city, when there's nothing but concrete and frozen soil around us. I take a walk out to the boulevards in a daze, the old oak trees hanging over the streets, dead limbs reaching for the earth, others snapped off and scattered over the dirt and concrete sidewalks. I carry back the wood and drop it in a pile, over and over and over again. Cars sweep by, kids walking here and there, parents with babies bundled up, out for a stroll, cabin fever pushing them out into the cold. I find a pine tree a couple of houses up, the yard and sidewalk littered with pinecones, and a thrill rushes over me like a child on Christmas morning. I gather them up in my coat and bring them to the back, dumping them all in the can.

Christmas—that was always interesting.

As I snap the twigs and break the branches over my knees, I remember what those moments were like, the four of us gathered together, a rare occurrence, a sad little tree in the corner, lights blinking on and off, half of the strand not working, my mother sipping eggnog, my father pouring bourbon into his coffee.

The last time I saw him he was growing out a beard, his hair turning from brown to gray to white, always running his hand over his face, his forehead, and back across his head. He sighed a lot, my mother and him not making much eye contact at that point in their relationship. She'd started smoking again, something he hated, and she'd blow that smoke in his direction every chance she got.

If he didn't leave her for another woman, then I suspect he just left because anywhere but here was something better, with more hope, less defeat.

I snap the branches and fill up the can, larger ones now, the newspaper wadded up at the bottom hardly even visible anymore.

That last Christmas, what did we get? I remember the game Clue, and my father laughing, something about needing one, mumbling into his coffee mug, music playing in the kitchen, one old standard after another. My mother never bought us anything fun; from her it was socks and underwear, new jeans, ugly sweaters from Marshalls, and if we were lucky, tennis shoes or boots—something with a bit of style and pizzazz. I'd ask for Nike and Polo and get some store brand I'd never heard of instead. He gave her a bottle of Chanel No. 5 and a pair of earrings, simple gold hoops. She gave him a long, black scarf and soft leather gloves—still caring if he froze to death, but probably not much more than that.

It was up to my father to provide the entertainment. Was that the year he gave us the Ouija board? My mother leapt up, knocking over her eggnog, yelling at him to get that evil thing out of her house. The apartment smelled of turkey, stuffing, smoke, and sweat, but that board, she wanted it gone. He laughed that it was just a game, like Monopoly or Risk, but she wouldn't have it. Stephanie and I were heartbroken, the idea of communicating with the dead such a bizarre and wondrous one. Long-lost grandmother, famous celebrities, children taken too soon, killers executed by gunfire or lethal injection—there were so many ways to fill the boredom of our youth.

We watched our father take the brand-new game out into the alley and dump it in the trash can—not to be returned, not to be exchanged, just destroyed, thrown away, not to spend a moment more in our humble apartment. Stephanie and I knew there was nothing we could do about it; our mother had spoken, and now it was rule, it was history. So we played other games, rolling dice and yelling out
YAHTZEE!
as my father withdrew even farther, until it was just the three of us at the kitchen table, sleepy with turkey and mashed potatoes, sipping on hot chocolate now, wearing our terrible sweaters.

I didn't see him take out the trash that night, but I suppose he always did it, right? Wasn't my responsibility until after he was gone, Stephanie preferring the dishes, or cooking on the stove, stirring a pot as she stared into the mingling ingredients, lost in thoughts that were way beyond my comprehension—boys, sex, drinking, school, escape, hatred.

How quickly my father became a ghost after that, a cold presence at the foot of my bed, a translucent shadow drifting from one room to another, doors opening and closing, the shower running for ten, twenty minutes, his sanctuary in steam, a ritual I would later adopt. There were no conversations between us that I can remember, no long talks about hopes and fears and dreams.

No…wait—there was one bit of advice.

Be like the trains, son, and pull out on time.

I was fifteen. I didn't know what he meant.

One night, long after I'd gone to bed, a couple of weeks after Christmas, I awoke to find him sitting at the end of my bed, as he sometimes liked to do. On his lap was the Ouija board, resting on his knees. He seemed torn, uncertain about what to do.

“Dad?” I asked.

“Raymond,” he muttered.

“You okay?”

He nodded.

“You saved it, huh?” I asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“Even though Mom asked you to throw it out?”

“Your mother and I differ on a number of subjects, son, but you probably already know that.”

It was my turn to nod.

“Keep this under your bed—hide it well. Your sister, she'll want to play, too.”

I sat up on my elbows.

“You're giving it to me? To us?”

He nodded.

“You might find some answers in here, to questions that are still forming, not ready to be asked. This house is filled with a number of spirits, voices I've listened to more than once.”

“So you've used it? Here?”

“Yes. I have.”

I couldn't believe it.

“But be careful. Some spirits lie, some have their own agendas.”

I stared at him.

“Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head no.

“It means they have their own wishes and needs, and yours may be secondary at best. They may try to manipulate you. If you get scared, either of you, just put it in the trash.”

I wasn't going to get scared. Not then, anyway.

Later, though, that would change.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He slid the game under my bed and leaned over, kissing me on the forehead. We never did play with that Ouija board—it became a harbinger of doom, its mere presence a bad omen.

“I love you, Raymond,” he said.

“Love you too, Dad.”

I blinked my eyes, and he was gone.

I think that was the only time he ever told me he loved me, a man of few words, a man whose emotions and thoughts ran deep, and silent, not for the rest of the world to see or hear.

He left a few days later.

Natalie has heard stories. When she walks behind the older girls, to and from school, all kinds of words come fumbling out of lips covered in pink, purple, and red. She strains to hear them, to understand what it all means, and why some of the girls blush or giggle, while others get quiet and shrink. She has heard of a pussycat, a pussy willow, but that's not what the girls are talking about. She hears all kinds of words about the boys, some their age, some older—
penis, cock,
she knows what they are, what they look like. What girl hasn't seen her father step out of a shower or caught him changing by accident, both horrified and curious. Likewise, her mother, putting on their bathing suits to go to the beach, her breasts enormous, so much hair in so many other places. She hasn't gotten her period yet, but Natalie knows the word, and fears it. The idea of bleeding once a month, coming out of
there,
it terrifies her. She hears about tampons and pads and horror stories of white jeans, recess, and a blossom of red seeping through the denim. Some of the girls are wearing bras now, and some of them are full, others just for show, stuffed or empty, straps that don't do anything but dig into shoulders and call attention to their constantly changing bodies.

She has never kissed a boy, but has thought that maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. A kid in her class, Owen, makes her laugh, and on occasion she wears a fruity lip balm, imagining his soft lips on hers. It makes her embarrassed, so she pushes those kinds of thoughts away.

Mostly.

She's heard horror stories, too. Girls held down and raped, their virginity taken, one boy after another. She knows about the gangs in the area, and crosses the street if she sees their blue bandanas. She's heard of girls pregnant at the age of fifteen, fourteen, thirteen even—kids giving birth to babies. There have been tales of punches to the gut, angry boys pushing unwanted mothers down stairs, and coat hangers shoved inside.

And worse, the men that lurk around the school, the parking lots, the benches nearby, saying things that don't even make sense, sucking and blowing—how would that work? Hearing of one guy with his coat open, his limp dick shaken in their direction, the older girls running away laughing, but all of them looking nonetheless.

A white van was in the area for weeks, always parked at the end of her street, before school and after, the engine running, a fat man behind the wheel, his eyes red, face haggard, a dent in one fender, the tires bald and shiny to match his head. She told her mother about the man, and her mother looked outside. But he was gone by then. He wasn't stupid. For days, weeks even, Natalie told her mother about the van, but he always drove away once the girls had walked by. Her mother flipped the pages of her
Cosmopolitan,
saying it was probably nothing. Her father didn't get home until much later at night, his conversation riddled with catchphrases like
stranger danger
and
just say no.
And then her friend Melanie disappeared—didn't come home from school—and things changed.

Melanie was on the edge of Natalie's group, the fringes, sometimes there, sometimes not. She was a few years older than Natalie, blond hair and skinny, with black boots that ran up to her knees. She was pretty, and friendly, partial to Charms Blow Pops and ponytails. When they found her in the woods a few days later, over in Humboldt Park—down by the pond, just west of the tennis courts—nobody was surprised. Kids liked to hang out by the Leif Ericson Monument and get high, but that wasn't what happened, as far as Natalie was concerned. Melanie had been strangled—her pants and underwear down around her ankles, and at that point Natalie had stopped listening. She didn't want to hear any more, didn't want to know what horrors had happened. The one time she let her mind wander to those thoughts, to what could have happened in the dark, she ran to the bathroom and threw up. She never saw that white van again, but she told the police what she knew, and they wrote it down, the information on that van, one of thousands in a city of millions.

This all happened last winter, many months ago, but Natalie vowed that she'd kill the man if she saw him. She carried around with her pepper spray, from her mother, and a pocketknife from one of the boys up the street in exchange for a peck on the cheek, and a small part of her deep inside turned from beating, fleshy, and alive to cold, dark, and still. It was the part of her that would allow her to kill a man, and she embraced it with a sad acceptance.

The sticks crackle and pop, the fire shooting up out of the can, licking the sky as it fades to black. When I feel a shadow slide up alongside me, I know it's Natalie.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Burning stuff.”

“Why?” she asks.

“Why not?”

I turn to look at her and her gaze stays locked on mine. Something about her isn't right, but maybe that's what draws me to her, the shared darkness that rests inside us both.

“Good point,” she says. “Smells good. That the pinecones?”

“Probably.”

“Can I ask you a question?” she says, wrinkling her nose, scrunching her eyebrows down.

“Sure.”

“You heard about the van, right, my friend Melanie?”

“No. What happened?”

Her mouth opens, and she looks from side to side as if searching for an audience.

“How didn't you hear about it? Didn't they knock on your door? Didn't you see it on the news? It was in all of the newspapers, too.”

“I tend to stay to myself.”

She stares at me.

“I work nights.”

“Doing what?”

“None of your damn business. So what happened to your friend? Is she okay?”

Natalie goes quiet, toeing the ground, head down.

“No, she's dead.”

A twinge flutters in my heart.

“Some asshole grabbed her up, strangled her down in Humboldt Park. Other stuff. I never got all of the details. She was my friend, right? I didn't really want to know.”

I take a deep breath.

“Yeah. I know. Sorry. That sucks.”

“Yeah, sucks,” she says.

The sun is fading over the garages and apartments that line the alley. A flock of blackbirds takes off into the sky, swirling, and then off in a line to some other place.

“I…”

She leaves her mouth open, searching for the words.

“What?” I ask.

“I saw the white van. I saw the guy. I'm not sure it was him, not a hundred percent, but I think so.”

“Jesus. Did you tell the police?”

“Yeah, I did. White van, fat bald white guy—not much help, I guess. No plates.”

“Yeah.”

She looks down at her hands, rubs them, and looks up. Tears hang at the edge of her eyes, her lower lip trembling. I bend down onto one knee and lean in close to her.

“It's okay, Natalie. We can talk.”

I place my hands on her shoulders and see her for the first time, really see her. This poor little girl, she is so scared, and so alone. And yet there is a spinning anger inside her, a long, thin thread that falls down into her eyes, to a deep, dark place that I recognize very well.

And I think she sees me, too. I dwarf her, I have scars and blemishes, pale skin, my voice deep and guttural, my hands on her like two baseball mitts, and she doesn't flinch, doesn't retreat, or shy away from me at all. Birds of a feather, right?

“You…When you leave here at night…I see you sometimes,” she says, taking a breath. “I see you when, when”—she breathes in, and then out—“when you return. I see you hurt, and bleeding, your hands, your face.”

“Yes?”

“I need help. I…” She hesitates. “I need to do things, I need to be able to protect myself, to, to, to…if it comes to it, if I see this man, this van, I…” And her eyes fill with tears again, overflowing, and I pull her to me, and hold her for a moment. She shakes and sobs, and is so small, tiny even, and fragile. I hold her at arm's length and look at her.

“I understand, Natalie.”

“You do?” she says, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve.

“I might be able to teach you a few things.”

She smiles.

“Do you know how to make a fist?” I ask.

She holds out her tiny kitten fists and they are bruised, cut, and slightly swollen.

“What happened here?” I ask.

“Stuff. Training. Got angry.”

A slow grin spreads over my face.

“Whatever you were hitting, that's not going to help you. And don't tuck your thumbs inside your fists—you'll just break them.”

“Oh. Okay.”

I stand up.

“Let me give you a few tips to start with, things you can take away from tonight immediately. Assuming you have only your hands, and no weapon, there are places on the human body that are more vulnerable than others.”

“Like the balls,” she offers up.

I laugh.

“That's one place. Where did you hear that?”

“Oh, everyone knows that.”

She grins at me—an imp, a dark fairy.

“The temples, here, at the side of my head, very soft, and vulnerable. The nose in general, the bridge, the tip—both can cause unconsciousness and even death, with enough force.”

She nods.

“The Adam's apple, a fist or chop here can crush the trachea. You may not know this, but both men and women have an Adam's apple, it's just more pronounced on men.”

“I did not know that,” she says.

“The eyes. Up close, you can dig your thumbs in, and gouge them out.”

“Gross,” she says.

“When you're up close and personal, Natalie, you're not going to have the strength to overtake a man. These are the soft spots—the balls, the eyes, the ears even, you can rip them right off, or clap your hands over them, rupture the eardrums, break the nose. You aren't going to be able to overpower somebody twice your size, so a choke hold, a punch to the chest or gut, isn't going to do much.”

She nods again.

“Come here,” I say, and I kneel again, this time down on both knees. “I want you to punch me as hard as you can in the chest, the stomach—not in the face, not in the balls, okay?”

She steps forward.

“Why?”

“I want you to see what you're up against.”

She steps closer, and I hold my arms behind my back.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Let's see those fists.”

She holds them out, thumbs on the sides.

“Go.”

She pummels my chest, my stomach, and I clench the muscles tight. She's huffing and puffing and going at it, her tiny punches almost tickling. I let her go for a minute or so until she sounds out of breath, slowing down.

“Okay, stop.”

She does.

“Do I look hurt?”

“No,” she says, a frown drifting over her face.

“See what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

She looks dejected.

“One more punch,” I say, “this time, right in the nose.”

“What? No, I can't do that, I'll hurt you.”

“I know. I want to show you.”

“I can't do it, Ray.”

“You can and you will or our training stops right now.”

She stares at me, angry and uncertain.

“How many times do you think I get hit in the face when I fight, how many times do you think my nose has been broken?”

She doesn't speak.

“Dozens. It's okay. You won't kill me. I'll be fine, honest.”

She makes a fist, a dark determination in her eyes.

“Ready?” she asks.

“I'm ready.”

She pulls back, hesitates, and punches me right in the nose.

Stars, a dull pain in the center of my face, and I tip backward, but don't fall over. I hold my hands up to my face. It was a good shot. She has stepped back, her hands up in front of her face, eyes wide.

When I open my palms, there is blood on my fingertips. I smile and it runs down over my teeth.

“Good. This is where it starts.”

She nods.

“Don't worry,” I say, touching my nose gently, “it's not broken.”

She smiles.

“Now, imagine if you had that brick over there in your hand,” I say, motioning my face toward the side of the building, “or a lead pipe, or brass knuckles, or a baseball bat.”

Her face goes pale, slowly nodding.

“You need to be prepared, Natalie, if you want to survive. Ready for anything.”

A voice yells down from upstairs.

“Natalie!”

“That's my dad, I have to go—dinner.”

“Go. I'm okay,” I say, standing up, as a few drops of blood fall to the dirt below. She rushes forward and gives me a quick hug.

“Later,” she says, running up the stairs to her apartment. I wipe the blood off my face and fling it to the earth below. Standing in front of the fire, I see so many things.