How To Disappear Completely Page 8

“Just take my wallet, man.” I whimpered. “Just leave me alone.”

  “I don’t want your fucking wallet!” He responded with another blow to my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up, but instead it just sucked all the breath completely out of me. Punch after punch, face, stomach, my neck, I was being pummeled with no sign of escape. The blows stopped briefly and just as I was about to compose myself, he grabbed me around my neck with both hands and squeezed. Hard. It took every ounce of energy to squeeze out a “What do you want?” complete with coughs and grunts inserting spaces harshly between words.

  He slammed my head against the brick wall of a store that had shut down hours ago. “I want you to stay away from Nicole. If I see you near her again, this might have to happen again, and next time I won’t be so nice.” As he said it, he spat violently onto my face. He was certainly not versed in hygiene, as he reeked of beer and days old sweat. He could have been one of the greatest bullies on TV. Just give this guy a job and maybe he won’t be such a dick in real life, because he wouldn’t want to take his work home with him.

  That was certainly not how I pictured the rest of the evening going and I had no intention of making things worse. So I lied, “Ok. Just let me go. Please.” He slammed me one more time against the wall and just before letting me go he kicked my feet out from under me so I fell on the sweat- and saliva-soaked sidewalk with enough force to make me cry out again in pain. “I’m serious.” He added as he stumbled away, “Leave her alone. She’s mine!”

  It doesn’t look like it to me, I wanted to scream back, but feared too much for my life. I realized then why Nicole was so shook up earlier. With this asshole in your life, how could anyone ever be happy? I sat there for a minute before attempting to get up. I had never been in a fight before, though I could have barely called this a fight (since that takes two), and decided then that I’d never really want to again. Some people were born to be warriors and I realized that night that I certainly wasn’t one of them. I finally got myself to my feet like an old man and hobbled the rest of the way home.

  Taking off my clothes, I saw cuts and onset of bruises all over me. My eye told me that tomorrow it would dye itself black and blue in honor of the occasion. My lip decided that it wanted to be supportive and would stay cracked and bloody for a while and wondered if a rib or two wanted in as well. I started a bath full of hot water and stood looking in the mirror at the broken version of myself until the water was high enough to get into. This isn’t right, I thought, as I stepped into the bath. I’d never taken a bath before in that tub and was as awkward with my body in it as a teenage lover fumbling and fidgeting about trying to be comfortable in his partner’s naked skin. The only thing that seemed moderately comfortable was to lean back with my head resting on the edge of the tub and my knees poking out of the water like a sad pair of caged dorsal fins.

  I let the water wash over my wounds as blood from my cuts turned the water a hazy pink. As I tried to relax, I let the whole scene play out again in my head, start to finish, without any commentary before going back to view it as a play by play with my inner cynic sportscaster. What the hell was this guy’s problem? I certainly understood that if such a beautiful girl dumped you, it could be upsetting, but stalking her and assaulting any guy that she dates next is a bit extreme, even for someone slightly out of whack.

  I debated calling Nicole to tell her what happened, but decided that no bad news should be given so late at night. At least let the rigors of the daytime mitigate the dark news. How could I expect her to get back to sleep after hearing that her ex had just assaulted me on my way home, probably after waiting for me the whole time I was at her apartment. But then I thought about her and the possibility of him deciding to head back to her place afterwards to wait for her. Maybe he wouldn’t even wait. A sleepless night is way better than a being beaten up by a madman.

  Luckily, my phone was within my reach, nestled safely in the pocket of my pants. Nicole’s phone, however, must have been sitting unnoticed while Nicole danced around getting ready for bed listening to a bold mix of songs I recommended. While the phone rang and rang, I pictured her undressing, dancing as if no one was watching, but as if I were there and it was my birthday or our anniversary or some other special occasion that warranted a moderately innocent striptease.

  I didn’t want to scare her so I decided to wait a few minutes before trying again. Nothing says be very scared than a collection of missed call reports from your phone in 30 second intervals. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander back to the thoughts of Nicole dancing around her room half naked. Just as she was about to finally get to the finale of her show, my phone rang and showed her face on its screen.

  “Hey.” I said with an odd blend of sexual intrigue and concern. “Hey.” She replied. “I was just getting ready for bed listening to some of those songs you gave me. They’re all pretty great so far.”

  “Good I’m glad.”

  “What’s up?” she asked knowing there was a reason for the out of turn call.

  I sighed a pretty big sigh into the receiver before I finally got up the guts to say, “I ran into Mark on my way home.”

  “What do you mean? How would you even know who he is?”

  “Well, he beat me up pretty bad.”

  “Oh my God, no.”

  “I’m ok now. I’ll probably have a black eye in the morning, but shouldn’t be anything that I can’t handle.”

  “Oh Josh.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you tonight because I didn’t want you to worry, but he was hurt pretty bad himself and I had a thought that maybe he’d try to go back to your place. He was heading that direction when he finally let me go.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Nicole?”

  After a couple beats she finally asked, “Josh, will you come back over?”

  “Why? What do you think he’ll do?”

  “If you take a cab, you’d probably still beat him here.”

  “This was a while ago.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Nicole, do me a favor and call the police, tell them about the restraining order and that you think he might be outside your house. I’ll get in a cab and come right over, ok? That way we’ll both hopefully be safe when I get there.”

  “Ok.” There was no life in her voice anymore.

  “Can you do that? Will you call the police?”

  “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll call right now.”

  “Don’t go outside until they or I get there, ok?’

  “Ok.”

  The water, stained with blood, marched slowly down the drain in formation. There are no amateurs here, I thought, as I looked up the number for a cab. Five minutes later the cab arrived like a B-52 picking up fresh soldiers to bring back to the front. I gave the address and we were off into the fray.

  After walking around in the city, occasionally taking public transportation for so long, it was absurd how fast the cab got to her place at 3 in the morning. Maybe I did beat the old nut, I thought as I paid the cabbie off and walked out into the battle. I didn’t see any sign of Mark and silently praised the gods for such luck. I rang up to her place and she let me in without hesitation.

  I ran up the stairs to her door and before I even reached the entry, she flung herself on me as if I were a rock star and she was a groupie just waiting for the chance to touch me. Unfortunately, the pain and bruises made it hard to enjoy my moment of fame. It wasn’t until we actually walked in the door that she noticed my confidently forming black eye and various cuts and bruises.

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry that you had to be a part of this.” She spoke as if I were part of a Nazi work camp or something. “I’ll be fine.” I reassured her. “Really it’s not so bad. A week or so and I should be back to normal.” She poured me a drink and one for herself as well. As we sat on the sofa waiting for the cops to arrive, I recounted as best I could remember, the brawl that took place. It was an amazing sense of power I had as she
oohed with every punch and winced with every mildly gory description of each blow. For the first time in my life I actually felt like a hero even though I had lost the battle completely.

  Right during the final moments of the story, there was a buzz at the door. “Good, the police are here.” Nicole sighed with relief. “Let me talk to them, ok? You just relax.” And I did. I took a slug of whiskey, closed my eyes and felt it pass through my entire being like sweet, sweet love. The sound of Nicole screaming pulled me right back to reality. “No, Mark, get the fuck out of here, I don’t want to see you anymore. The cops are on their way right now!… No… He’s not here Mark… no I don’t care what you saw… . please just leave me alone.”

  Two car doors slammed, silencing the argument and two sets of feet marched forward. I opened up a window to the front of the building to hear what was going on.

  “Can I help you, sir?” a deep voice rustled.

  “I’m just here to see my girl.” A hesitant voice replied, apparently Mark’s.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mark Dimble. What’s yours?” Mark was trying to act tough now.

  “Officer Lawrence.”

  “You bothering Ms. Narim again?”

  “No, she asked me to come over.” He lied as they shone a flashlight into his face.

  “You ok?”

  “Yeah I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look so good. You in a fight?”

  “Nah I just fell on my way over here.” His confidence clearly waning.

  “Let’s say we take you to a hospital, eh?”

  “Nah, I guess she’s out for the night, I’ll just head home.”

  “What do you say we take you home.”

  “I’ll just walk.”

  “We insist.”

  Mark started to run, the poor bastard, and tripped before he got to the end of the block. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him and his complete lack of common sense as the officer’s footsteps slowed as they caught up to him. I could barely make out the words from that far away, but I did catch an echo or two of the prologue in the fabled ‘you have the right to remain silent’ act. I never imagined that I’d hear it in person. Nicole and I made our way downstairs to talk with Officer Lawrence as Mark rested face down on the hood of the car mumbling obscenities to the system.

  Mark’s disobedient head was rammed into the backseat of the cruiser without any sense of patience or care. A quick wave and nod from the officer and he drove the mangy miscreant away. We stood there motionless for a minute until we could no longer see the difference between the night and the car, my arm wrapped casually around her shoulder as if I actually had the means to protect her from the world. It was clear, though, at least to me, that I was not a protector. The walk back inside to her apartment felt like we were running a marathon. Both of us completely drained from a truly ridiculous day. Our emotions were a stability ball trying to hold a small, very round woman on top of us.

  Her bed welcomed us without any sense of lust or mischievous intent, but rather to hold our weary bodies and minds. Any prior thoughts of sexual intent we had when I was there earlier that evening were completely wiped clean from our minds and we fell asleep holding each other, fully clothed, waiting for a new day to come.

  Chapter 10

  We woke up in the same position we fell asleep in. Despite the lack of sexual activity of the prior evening, our intertwined bodies made what seemed like a new Kama Sutra pose, completely by accident. I made a note of it for future reference. How someone looks at first light has always been important to me. It was a good indication of a person as a whole, especially when girls have the matters of make-up altering their true selves. I was happy to note that Nicole was a true beauty that morning. I hadn’t thought about her not wearing any make-up the night before because everything was so intense. I realized now that I hadn’t noticed her naked face.

  The realization made me smile as she looked up at me from my chest, which she had used as a pillow. “What are you smiling about?”

  “I just realized how beautiful you are without any make-up.”

  She glowed even more from the compliment.

  “I’m so glad you came back last night,” she whispered groggily, “I was so scared.”

  “Me too.”

  The pain in my body screamed at me as I made my first move to get out of bed and couldn’t help but grunt a little. “Are you ok?” she asked.

  “I’m just really sore.”

  I finally crawled my way out of bed and looked at myself in the nearby mirror for damage report. My eye was as black as I expected, my lips had multiple cuts, and I had a tattoo in the shape of Marks’ hands circling my neck. I lifted up my shirt to reveal another batch of bruises on my stomach. For a second I actually felt like a bad ass, telling the story of my battles through the wounds on my body. Just as the story was about to get good, Nicole looked over and caught the tail end of it and ran over to me frantically.

  “Oh my God,” she cried, “that looks awful.”

  “It’s really not so bad. I’m just sore.”

  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” her fingers cried as she traced the bruises, nicks and cuts. When her hands roamed across my face I felt her shudder. I wrapped my arms slowly around her neck and pulled her into a hug. She tried to hide it, but her whimpers couldn’t be hidden. Knowing she tried so hard to keep me from hearing her, I never said a word I just held her until she was ready to let go.

  “Can I make you some breakfast?” she asked as she grabbed pans, a carton of eggs and some bacon and started cooking. I answered by sitting down at the table. “I have to go to class in a bit,” she explained, “but feel free to hang out here until I get back. It’s only an hour class.” The smell of the bacon and eggs moistened my mouth and by the time she scooped some eggs from the pan I had already swallowed their weight in saliva. “There are towels in here if you want to take a shower and please just make yourself comfortable.” A few more formalities and she ran out the door hoping to make it to class on time.

  I ate way too quickly, as I tend to do, and wished I could have let the taste linger just a little bit longer. I cleaned up and washed the dishes that were in the sink. I felt like I had been driving all night so when I started to feel her lonely bed beckoning me back I gladly obliged. I didn’t sleep, but I laid there staring around the room getting a backstage look at the life of Nicole. Not wanting to actually snoop around, I stayed in bed and just looked around. She didn’t have a whole lot in her apartment, though I noticed an abundance of photos and photo albums. I hadn’t had film developed in years and wondered how old the photos were.

  Her laptop sat on her desk with the rest of her thick pile of overweight schoolbooks. Her laptop’s desktop picture was of her and another girl that I guessed was her sister and there was a surprising lack of icons on the screen. I would have guessed that she would be one of those people who tried to be organized, but their desktop got cluttered quickly from all the downloading and moving around of files. I was not one of those people and was pleased that she wasn’t either.

  A quick glance through her open closet doors showed bits of her sophisticated style. No slutty club clothes, no knee-high boots, just cute clothes that a young intellectual would wear, though nothing too conservative. I got up to go to the bathroom and on my way I glanced over at her laptop and noticed that she had received an instant message. Though I was trying not to snoop, I couldn’t help but read it.

  aligurl13: hey nicole, how’d it go last night?

  It took me a minute to actually piece together the letters I was seeing into something that my brain could fathom. The last piece fell into place–that was Allison’s screen name. My Allison. The very girl that denied me as a future part of her life and the girl that would be horribly devastated if she knew that at the other end of her innocent message stood the man who was betraying her. I tried to figure out how they might know each other, but I couldn’t grasp at any ideas.

  Allis
on went to BU and had graduated 6 years ago. They wouldn’t have even been in college at the same time. She was from Vermont and Nicole was from Texas. They were almost exact opposites in every equation I popped them into. For a few minutes I thought of different scenarios in which they may have crossed paths and become friends, but my muse decided to call in sick and I kept coming up empty. Then the screen offered up another tease.

  aligurl13: i still haven’t heard much from my josh. i hope he doesn’t stay too mad at me for long.

  The feeling of momentary terror turned into a horrible dread that made my body weak and had to sit. Nicole told Allison about me. How could they not realize? I told Nicole everything about me and she probably relayed to her friend as anyone normally would. Allison had to have told Nicole about the proposal. Does Nicole know, but she doesn’t want to let Allison know? The possibilities soared above my head like a squadron of fighter planes breaking the sound barrier. I covered my ears to try and dampen the sound, shaking my head wishing it would all go away.

  A photo on her dresser pulled me away. Nicole was much younger in the photo, maybe 14 or 15, and she was just as beautiful. Around her were about 6 other girls about the same age with one older one in the middle. It was a little harder to see the resemblance, but I knew at once that she was none other than a younger Allison. My heart sank like a school bus. Summer camp. You have got to be kidding me. I could just see the scene…

  After the hugs, laughs, goodbyes, and a few tears running down sun soaked cheeks, they exchanged information to keep in touch after camp was over. They of course would be the only two to actually stay in touch, until in the era of social networking suddenly they were all reunited. Nicole must have looked up to Allison because she was many things that Nicole was not, but wanted to be. Allison must have liked Nicole for her kindness and curiosity. They had to have been instant friends from the first day of camp when Nicole’s too large bathing suit top came off her as she dove into the river. Allison of course comforted her as the other girls laughed at her and her yet undeveloped body while her suit floated away down the river.