A black SUV pulls up next to me, bass bumping out of the car as if it’s a robot’s heartbeat. The passenger side window rolls down revealing Violent her once red hair is now a blinding blue.
“Get the fuck in.” She said.
I don’t even think I open the door and jump in the car and she speeds off before I can ever shut the door. Even with the loud music the awkward silence in the car is bubbling out. It isn’t until I look over that she is talking to me. I go for the volume nob and turn down the music.
“I put that rape charge on Fingers so he wouldn’t go to jail for a murder charge he was going to be arrested for. I just got a call from him telling me that he was just released from prison and he’s making his way back to Omaha. He doesn’t know I’m in Lincoln.”
“You’re Veronica?”
“You didn’t know?”
“You didn’t say.”
“Look, he got my number from a website and I’m sure he’s looked up as many people has he could. He might come looking for you.”
“Me? Why in the fuck would Fingers come looking for me?”
“A man out of prison is looking for normalcy, something familiar and we are the closest thing to family Fingers ever had.” She said.
“What are you talking about? Fingers never considered anybody or anything as family and if he did I can see why he’s so messed up. He doesn’t know the first thing about family.”
“If you only knew.”
“Only knew what? That he poured gasoline on a kid and chased him down the street with a torch. He’d punch you for looking in his direction, and everything he did to any of the women at the house.”
“He never did any of that to you. He never did that to anybody who didn’t deserve it.”
“What are you talking about?”
Veronica pulls out a blunt seamlessly out of thin air and lights it and hands it to me. I stare at it and she shakes it.
“Take this shit.”
“What is it?”
“It’s just weed you faggot.”
“I’m not that pompadour kid that works for you. You don’t talk to me like that not now, not never.”
“Fingers own words out of your mouth. Do you use things he used to say around people who don’t know him? Fingers is a great guy.”
“Maybe in hell.”
“Let me remind you that he is.” She said. “I had just shown up in Omaha, I was train hopping and Omaha kinda looked like the town I came from. I got off the train walking around the city only to find that it wasn’t like my town at all. The difference between a town and a city is, in a town people know why not to like you and in a city people just don’t like you. I’d been walking around for a spell and I came to Gene Leahy Mall, it was occupied by gutter punks and goth kids.
“I mixed into the crowd and bummed some smokes and waited until I would hear those sweet words, “Going to a friend’s house.” A place to crash possibly, something to eat, you can get by on the word of others very well if you know how to do it. Just when I thought I wasn’t going to hear it I heard, “I’m going to Finger’s place to get my tattoo.” I asked if I could come along and the guy said yes.
“I didn’t expect it to be a house but I didn’t expect it to be a place of business either. The front porch of the place had every type of less than there. After I pasted the wall of ne'er do wells and simple fucks I entered the house. I’ve never been dragged along to anyplace but I seemed to be this time. I wasn’t interested in anything in other rooms the people using drugs, playing guitar, fighting, nothing else. I was compelled to go up the steps.
“Once I got to the top of the steps and went through the door at the top. Was the first time I met Boyd.”
“Boyd?” I said.
“Boyd Grimmond, I think that could have been his name. I found it on a large green duffle bag with four numbers on it. I packed my things in it when I left. You going to hit this?”
I put my hand up as a block to say no to the blunt.
“Fingers was sitting on the side of his bed his shirt off showing the decoupage of tattoos that were stabbed into his body. A retched polychromatic blend of images and colors on the body of a shaved Sasquatch. I was unable to make out anything from where I was standing but I would later learn all of his tattoos. The kid I came with gave Fingers a bag of weed and he went to work. I watched him bleed the kid out while working on his tattoo. The kid got a pair of boxing gloves hanging on a nail on his left shoulder blade. He cried and screamed the entire time.
“The kid couldn’t even put his shirt on Fingers roughed him up so badly. He didn’t even remember that he met me. Fingers went into the bathroom that was in his room and dropped his tattoo gun into the toilet. He went back to his bed and laid down on it taking all of the space. I stood in the room frozen, not with fear or anything I just didn’t want to leave. He wasn’t staring at me or saying anything to me I didn’t think he noticed me.
“Sound off, what do you want?” He said.
“I’m hungry, got anything to eat?”
“You know what, I’m hungry as a P.O.W. and I could get out of this house for a while?”
“As we were leaving the house I found it very strange that no one was looking at us, but it wasn’t that they weren’t looking at me more that they were trying not to look at Fingers. When we got to the bottom of the steps I was looking for a car but he just took a right and started walking down the street. I had to jog a little to catch up. Once I got next to him he looked down at my feet and did a little skip and we walked in step with one another.”
“When you get into town?” He asked.
“How did you know?”
“Those are the dirtiest clothes I’ve seen since Korea and you didn’t talk to anybody in there. No one knows you and you don’t know anybody and you smell just a bit. When we get back from Frank’s you can use my shower.”
“Frank’s wasn’t a restaurant it was a house and it was filled with the adult version of everyone who hung out at Fingers’s place. Bikers, drug dealers, gang members, white, black, Mexican, a regular U.N. of crime. As soon as we sat down at the table a man brought each of us a plate. Both plates had steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I started eat when the plate hit the table. Fingers asked me to watch his food while he had to talk.
I had finished my meal just a few minutes after Fingers left the table leaving me with the miscellaneous criminals.
“You fuck for money?” A man asked me.
“No.”
“You ever thought about it?” The same man asked.
“Once.”
“Does three hundred dollars sound like a lot to you?” He pulled out a roll of money which was more than three hundred dollars.
Fingers walked back into the room.
“Sal, put that roll back in your pocket before I shove it up your ass.” “Oh promises, promises.” The man said.
“You still hungry? If you are you can finish mine.”
“The men sat at the table speaking about things at that time seemed improbable but now all of those things they talked about seem like normal days, hell more like holidays. Strong armed robberies, murders, beatings, torture, a slew of corrupt behavior. Once I had finished Finger’s meal he stood up and announced that he was leaving. I stood up with him.
“When we got back to the house the place didn’t even skip a beat, the same people sat in their same spots doing whatever they were doing when we left. I continued to follow Fingers and once again I was in his room.”
“The bathroom in the hallway is clean I make the faggots down stairs keep it clean. Let me get you some towels.”
“I showered and went back into Finger’s room, laid out on the bed was a large shirt with a pair of shorts.”
“I had one of the kids put your clothes in the wash. I got some shit to do so you can shack up in here. Oh shit, you know what? What’s your fucking name?”
“Veronica.”
“Not Vicky, or some other dumb shit?”
“No just Veronica.”
“Good, don’t let anybody call you anything else.”
I happen to look outside of the window and I was staring at my house, the car parked in the driveway, the lights on in the living room.
“How in the fuck?” I said.
“You know that invention the phone book. There is a lot of information in it. Fingers is coming to town and he is the furthest thing from Santa Claus there is. He’ll want to see old friends.”
I leave her car without saying a word and I once I’m outside of it I can see Martha Jo standing before the front door. She can see Veronica in the driver seat, I can tell by the face she is making. Once I’m clear from the car Veronica speeds off and her acceleration is how the car door closes.
Martha Jo and I don’t speak until the next day. Martha Jo’s anger made every room she was in like getting into a car that had been parked in the sun with the windows rolled up. I thought she was going to speak to me but every time she looked at me about to say a word her eyes would flare and she turned away from me.
I controlled my anxiety and went to Martha Jo, I put her hand in my hand and said to her.
“I’m sorry. If you’ll let me talk I think we should be able to get past all this. I took her silence as her acceptance. When I left the shop Violent…I mean Veronica picked me up on the side of the road. She told me that Fingers is out of jail and might be around.”
Martha Jo’s hand seemed to past through my as she left my presence. She was walking furiously toward the bedroom.
“What now?” I asked.
“You’re not talking about anything I want to hear. I want you to tell me that you will or you will not be going to the literacy program. That’s all I want to hear. I’m not going in today if you want to, drive yourself.”
“I can’t drive.”
“That sounds like a problem from your pile.” Martha Jo shut the door and I heard the click of the lock.
I get on the phone and call Sally at the shop.
“I need a ride. Could you come and get me?”
“I can’t I have a client coming in today in five minutes. Niles is booked solid and had two walk-ins scheduled for today. Is Martha Jo okay?” Sally asked.
“She’s fine. Thanks I’ll be in when I can.”
Once I hang up the phone I can see the keys on the counter and I stare at them as if I don’t know what they are. I think to myself how hard can driving a car be? I do it in video games. I’ve watch Martha Jo do it for years. That could be easy to do but I only know my way to the shop by passenger memory. I only know my own brand of landmarks, I don’t have a route to get to work. My next idea is call cab but the number is in the phone book. I sit down on the arm of my couch and I’m trying to make myself cry. I just want to get this feeling out of me.
I want to hit something, I want to break something, it’s the only way I’ve ever be able to manage feelings. Punching a wall, throwing something that was an arm’s length from me, never made me feel better but it was something I could do to release a little of what was inside of me. What is inside me now can’t be released only unlocked. An ability I’ve denied myself because I don’t like myself, I don’t trust myself. Everyone else seemed to just learn it, everyone around me just knew what to do, and I felt that if I didn’t get it then I wouldn’t get it now.
I’d been looking down a while I was thinking and a pair of feet stepped into my field of vision. Knowing it was Martha Jo I looked up and when she saw my face she kissed me on the lips.
“Are you okay baby?” She asked.
“I’ll go Martha Jo.”
“No, don’t go. Please stay.”
I gave a little chuckle, wiped my eyes with my pointer finger and after I was done I kissed Martha Jo on the lips.
“No I mean to the Literacy center. I’ll go, I’ll take the classes.”