Princely Bastard (2 page)

“Bum! Bum! Bum!” the small encroaching crowd chants.

This makes me mad, and I again remember how I can’t lose this fight—how I’d be worse than dead. Way worse. I also remember there are no rules, so I lunge forward and grab Ricky’s ankles—and I push him onto the floor.

Afterward, I leap up in the direction of his head and fling my right fist, and hear his jaw crack—crack like it was made of glass. The sound strangely spurs me on, and I begin pummeling him, even if I can’t really see him. My arms are acting on their own. I don’t control them, or want to control them. They’re the only part of me that still functions.

“Stop!” someone screams. “Enough!”

But my arms aren’t listening.

I WAKE UP and see an old man stitching my right eye—an old man I don’t recognize. Or at least I don’t think I recognize him.

“You okay, Mark?” he whispers with a big smile, as if he was my grandpa or something.

“No,” I whisper back—and it’s true. I’m not okay. I’m nowhere near it.

Still, he smiles somehow even more.

“You’ll be fine,” he then tells me. “A lot better than Ricky.”

“He . . .”

“He’ll live. Maybe.”

For no real reason, I rise to my waist—and I see that I’m sitting on a towel-covered desk in some stale-smelling gray office. Also there is someone I do recognize—someone I couldn’t forget even if I was in a coma: Larry Lee—a big dumb gorilla around fifty with dyed brown hair and a ponytail, who’s gripping a huge stack of worn and crumpled hundreds in his callused paw.

“I hope you don’t mind that I collected this for you,” he says, while holding the money in front of me.

“I don’t mind,” I reply—and I reach for the cash even though I know I’ll never grab it.

As expected, he pulls it away at the last moment, and he utters, “This ain’t even close to what you owe.”

“I know,” I tell him.

“It’s not even half of your last payment. You know, the one that’s way past due.”

“I know.”

“How you gonna get the other half?”

“I need more time.”

“You don’t have any.”

“Come on—a few more fights.”

“You won’t be able to fight again for a long time, if that. Just look at yourself.”

“There’s no mirror.”

“That’s a good thing. Because I’ve never seen anyone so fucked up before. Not even from my own hands. You used to be good looking, Mark. Do you remember that? Do you remember anything?”

“What’s the line on the Pats?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just tell me!”

He pauses, before reaching into his jacket pocket for his phone—and, after playing with it for a few seconds, he says, “Minus seven and a half.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Put it all down on the Pats,” I order, while pointing at the money.

“The stupidest thing a gambler can do is bet on his own team.”

“Just do it!”

“What if they don’t cover?”

“To the Browns? Seven and a half
points—are you
fucking
kidding me?”

“What if they don’t?”

“You ain’t gonna get your money any other way.”

Reluctantly, Larry nods, and he puts the money in his jacket. He also tells me: “You ever read Shakespeare?”

“Sure,” I remark, with lots of sarcasm. “All the time.”

“There’s this story about a dude who owed another dude money—and when the first dude couldn’t pay up, the other dude wanted a pound of flesh. Well, Mark, if your ship don’t come in tonight, I’m gonna be taking a lot more than a fucking pound.”

I’M THANKFUL MY Camaro is bright red, because I’m not sure I’d find it otherwise—even with it parked out front.

Dizzily, I head toward it, and I look up and see it’s raining a little, and I stumble inside the car—and though everything’s still blurry I start the engine. I also glance at the dashboard and can just make out that it’s a little after five, which means I have less than a half-hour before the game starts—and I’m likely way more than a half-hour from home.

Still, I don’t move, and I don’t know why. Maybe I’m trying to figure out how I could’ve fucked up my life so badly in such a short amount of time. Or maybe I’m just hoping everything will just go away. I even close my eyes trying to make this happen.

But nothing happens. So, I reluctantly open my eyes and hit the accelerator. I hit it hard.

Instantly, the car thrusts forward—going faster and faster. I can now see Sunset Boulevard up ahead, with lots of traffic as usual. But strangely I don’t slow down. Not at all. I head right for it. I wanna smash through it. I wanna smash through fucking everything.

However, for some reason I stop. I stop hard at the intersection.

Why? I ask, even though I don’t know who I’m asking.

No one answers, so I make a right—cutting in front of some asshole in a honking BMW. And at once I see the drivers in front of me moving slowly, for no other reason than they don’t know how to drive in rain.

“Fucking move!” I howl out my window. “Move!”

But no one listens. It’s like I’m not even there. It’s like I’m invisible.

I’M HOME. ACTUALLY, I’m in the alley behind my apartment building.

I’m also sitting in my parked car, even though it’s almost six and the game has long started—a game that’ll decide whether I live to see next week.

Suddenly, I hear cheering from an apartment above, and I just know they’re watching the game. I know I should be, too—so I finally get out of the Camaro and head down the alley.

It doesn’t take me long. I reach the end of the alley, and I see the entrance to my building a few steps away. Though I also realize I have no booze. Or not enough. Not nearly enough.

So, I turn and walk in the opposite direction, toward the Silverlake Lounge.

chapter three

Aimee

I’M TOTALLY LIT.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been this drunk, not even when I was a kid. Which makes me think back to those days—those horrible days before my mother came along. Those days when I would cut school and escape, by finding some dark place to hide from the whole fucking world—a place where I’d drink myself into oblivion.

I really thought those days were gone for good. But I guess, I guess you can never really escape who you are. Just like I can never really escape Eimi Xaipe.

“You want another?” the bartender asks, while pointing to the empty bottle in front of me.

“Sure,” I tell him, even though I really don’t want another beer. I don’t want anything. I don’t even want another breath.

“What’s the score?” suddenly comes a deep male voice from right next to me—one that sounds both excited and scared.

“Seven–nothing, Patriots,” the bartender replies, as he bends down to get my beer.

The man claps at this news for some reason, and I turn and look up at him. And I see he’s a mountain—one maybe a few years older than me, with short curly black hair and even darker eyes.

Strangely, it’s not his height that makes him look like a mountain, even if he is tall. It’s that he’s made only of muscle. It’s everywhere on him—on his chest and on his arms and on his shoulders. I can even see the outline of his rippled abdomen through the damp T-shirt he’s wearing.

But remarkably all this isn’t what I really notice about him. What I really notice is his face. It’s beaten and gashed, as if he had been attacked by a bear—and his right eye is so swollen that I doubt he can see through it.

And I’m not the only one who notices these things. The bartender notices it as well when he rises with my beer—and he stares at the mountain with a face full of shock.

“What happened to you?” he eventually mutters.

“Just get me a beer,” answers the mountain.

“What kind?”

The mountain responds by tilting his head inquisitively at the nearby taps for a few moments, prior to returning his attention to the bartender and pointing at my beer—while telling him: “That’ll be fine.”

Right then, I realize something. I realize the mountain is speaking with an accent—an accent quite familiar to me.

Too familiar.

Badly, I want to forget it—and him, but I’m just too drunk. So, instead I say, “Where in Boston are you from?”

He looks surprised. Not just at what I said, but that there’s somebody next to him.

“What’s it to you?” he growls without looking at me, just as the bartender brings us our beers and asks the mountain if he wants a tab.

“Yeah,” he replies. “And just keep bringing these every five minutes.”

The bartender nods and walks off, and I slur, “Is it a secret?”

“What?” the mountain roars, as he finally looks at me—or, more exactly, looks down at me.

“Where-in-Boston-are-you-from?”

“You wouldn’t know it.”

“Try me.”

“West Ninth Street.”

“I know it. I even knew some people from around there.”

“Yeah?”

“All assholes.”

“I guess you do know it. Where you from?”

“East Boston.”

“You don’t sound like no Eastie.”

“I haven’t lived there for a long time.”

“Where’d you live?”

“Lots of places. Too many.”

And they’re all coming back to me. One in particular—my very last one. Also coming back is one of the few good memories I have of it.

I CAN REMEMBER everything about the day, even in my blurred state. I can see the entire playground and all the kids—kids who usually kept their distance from me, and with good reason.

I was ten at the time, and had been living at the Bennington Street Home for Girls for about eight months when its director, Mrs. Falcona, came marching up to where I was standing against the fence. Which caused me to gaze out into the street. I was often gazing, no matter where I was—looking for something better—or at least something different.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw the gaunt and perpetually crabby middle-aged woman put her hands on her hips, like she usually did whenever she was about to lecture me. Then, she said, “You ever hear of the Goodwin Foundation?”

“Nope,” I told her, before crossing my arms.

“Look at me,” she commanded.

Reluctantly, and with a loud sigh, I turned toward her.

“They help girls at risk all over the world,” she continued. “That means you.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“They’re opening a community center up on Chelsea Street in a few weeks. The head of the foundation—Rudi Goodwin—will be there personally for the grand opening. And we’ve all been invited, even you.”

“I don’t wanna go.”

“But you will. And you’ll be on your best behavior, young lady—or I’ll make your life hell.”

“It’s already hell!”

Angrily, the woman leaned down and shook my arms—and she howled, “You only think it’s hell! But it can be worse—much worse!”

She was actually right.

“RUN, YOU FUCKING prick—run!”

These are the words of the mountain, who’s screaming at the TV as if the players could hear him. He afterward claps and hoots as if they could hear that, too.

With lots of disinterest, I look up at the screen and see that it’s the middle of the second quarter, with the Patriots up 10–0. I then turn my gaze toward the mountain and I notice that—despite his battered face—he’s sort of attractive in an odd way—a way much different than Julian. In fact, the two couldn’t be more different, which makes him even more attractive. So much more that I try to convince myself that he could be an even better escape than the booze.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply, or even seem to recognize I’ve spoken. So, I repeat myself—this time louder.

“Mark,” he says, after a terse sigh. Actually, he says “Mahk”—dropping the “r” just like I used to do.

“Aimee,” I tell him.

“Can I get a shot of whiskey?” he shouts at the bartender, who’s a good distance away.

“Get me one, also!” I yell.

For seemingly no reason, Mark spins toward me, and he whispers, “You’re annoying, you know that?”

“Yeah,” I answer, as bitchy as possible. And I can see he wants to smile at this just as much as I do. But he stops himself. He stops himself and finishes his beer, before raising the empty bottle and calling out, “I need another of these, too.”

THE THIRD QUARTER has just ended, and the Patriots are up by twenty and driving for another score, and Mark has become more friendly—at least a little. He’s also become more drunk. A lot more drunk.

Even more drunk than me.

“You ever go to Revere Beach?” he asks me during the commercial break—a question that comes out of nowhere.

“A few times,” I tell him, while feeling myself beginning to fade. I actually want to rest my head on one of his impossibly big arms, and I even lean my head that way.