The bags of burgers and fries sit on the dining room table. After the events of the day, no one has an appetite. My everything hurts. I do as my brother, the good doctor Jari, instructed and take some meds. Fast-acting opiated painkillers dissolve in water and bring a near-immediate rush of relief. Jari was right. Tossing out the crutches and relying on a cane puts more pressure on the shot-to-pieces joint in my knee, and I’m paying the price. The cortisone and mild dope keep me mobile, though.
Jenna says she feels disgusting and goes to the shower. Sweetness brings us beers, a kossu bottle and glasses. We sit on opposite sides of the table, the junk food between us. We shoot down the shots. He refills our glasses.
“This is one time I’d like to get brainless whacked,” I say, “but I can’t. I have to look after Anu.”
Sweetness says, “Jenna has been off booze, maybe she’ll do it.”
This is about the most selfish, thoughtless, mindless thing he could have said. She’s been through hell and back today, and he suggests asking her to take on responsibility, rather than do everything in his power to see to her comfort. I’m glad she didn’t hear it and am about to tell him so when she walks in wearing only a towel, her wet blond hair hanging down to her ass.
Jenna is five foot nothing and max a hundred and ten pounds. Approximately half that weight is in her breasts. She snatches the kossu bottle from the table and turns it up. I count at least four mouth-full chugs. She slides it back across the table to us. “Bottoms up, boys.”
She just had a miscarriage. To my knowledge, she didn’t know she was pregnant and Sweetness didn’t know he was going to be a father. Given her illness and being disgusted by alcohol, I should have guessed it. I decide I should get out of the way. “I need to sit somewhere more comfortable for a while,” I say, take my beer and shot and go to my armchair. I put my feet up on the footrest, have a sip of kossu, and tune them out. Anu is in my lap. Katt climbs to the top of the chair and puts his paws on my shoulders. Within a few minutes, I’m almost asleep and miss what sparks the fight.
“Haista vittu”-Sniff cunt-Jenna says.
“Suck my dick.”
“Suck it yourself, cuz you’re never getting sex from me again!”
So much for my nap.
Jenna is pissed off as hell. “You know why I’ve been sick and why I was going to the doctor today?”
Trepidation begins to replace anger in his voice. “No, why?”
“Because I was gonna get an abortion, you oversized lump of shit.”
Now the anger and trepidation are gone, replaced with sorrow. “I was gonna be a father, and you were gonna do that? Why? It would have been my baby, too. I had a right to know.”
He’s sitting, she’s standing over him, so because of their size difference, they’re looking almost directly into each other’s eyes.
She laughs in his face. “Your rights. Your fucking rights. You lied to me. You promised to stop drinking twenty-four/seven. Your job is beating the shit out of people.” She points at me. “You were a nice guy until you met him. Now you’re a drunk and a violent criminal with a police card. You fucking lying bastard.”
Now it’s my fault? His brother’s death made him a violent drunk. I just gave him a job.
“And in case you haven’t noticed,” she says, “I’m sixteen fucking years old and like to have fun. You think I want to spend my young life changing your baby’s diapers? And don’t lie to me or yourself and tell me you would fucking help.”
He screams. “You were going to kill my goddamned baby!”
He rears back, winds up to hit her. If he does, he might kill her. I scream “Stop!” I take my.45 from its customary place under the cushion of my chair and point it at him.
Anu is in my other arm, upset by the commotion and screaming her lungs out, adding to the chaos.
Sweetness pauses and looks at me. His laugh is so sinister that it’s hard to believe it came out of him. “What? You gonna shoot me now, pomo?”
“You can’t hit her,” I say. “You’ll break her in half. I won’t kill you, but I’ll take your legs out from under you.”
His mouth moves, but nothing comes as he tries to form some half-assed rebuttal. I watch both of them. Jenna bunches her hand into a little white fist-not much I can do about it, as I’m not going to shoot her-and hits Sweetness with a solid roundhouse to the nose. He saw it coming and let her do it. I hear it snap and his nose folds over onto the side of his face. Blood runs out of it, drizzles like a water tap with a bad gasket.
He doesn’t react or complain, just pulls a wad of napkins from a Hesburger bag, spreads them out on the table and leans over them, to keep from making a mess.
Jenna grabs the kossu bottle and chugs some more. “Fuck both you guys.” She takes the bottle and disappears into the bedroom they share with Anu.
I put Anu in her carriage, walk over to Sweetness and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry,” I say.
“Naw,” he says, “you did right.”
“Want to go to the hospital, or do you want me to set your nose for you? The hospital might leave you prettier.”
“Fuck it. Just set it. Gimme a stiff drink first.” Luckily, he buys kossu by the case.
I give him a couple of my painkillers and a half water glass of kossu. He drinks both down. He sits and bleeds for a few minutes, waiting for the combination to take effect.
“OK,” he says.
We go to the bathroom, where the light is good and the blood can fly and be easily cleaned up. I grab his nose with my thumb and forefinger and jerk. I hear and feel the grinding of cartilage, but it doesn’t quite make it. He doesn’t make any noise, but it brings tears to his eyes. I have another go at it, and I feel it almost snap back into place, but not quite. This time he winces and yelps.
“Goddamn,” he says.
“Sorry. I think I can’t pull straight enough with my fingers. I could stick pencils up your nostrils and jerk. That might give me the right angle.”
“Fuck that. Give me the bottle.”
The break looks clean, since his nose is folded over on the side of his face instead of crushed. “The trick,” I say, “is to lift your nose off your face, pull it out and over so it sits back where it belongs.”
I go get the bottle and he swigs deep. I have a gulp myself. He looks in the mirror, grabs his nose tight with the meat below his thumbs, and jerks it forward. Cartilage and gristle crackle. His nose settles back in the right place. “Fuck,” he says, “that feels better. That dope you gave me, at least with kossu, helps a lot, too.”
“Yeah,” I say, “it does. All of a sudden, I’m hungry as hell.”
“Me too,” he says.
He jams toilet paper up his nostrils to plug up the bleeding, then we go the dining room and scarf double cheeseburgers and fries.
“It’s not my business,” I say, “so feel free to tell me to fuck off, but don’t you and Jenna use birth control?”
He has half a burger stuffed in his mouth. It takes him a minute to answer. “Sure we do. The rhythm method. Usually the rhythm of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They’re Jenna’s favorite fucking music.”
22
The sound of the door opening wakes me. I hear the trundle of suitcase wheels. Kate is home. I pull on sweatpants and go out to greet her. Her eyes are flat, lifeless. She looks like she’s aged ten years in a week. Milo is behind her, as if to cut off her escape. I hug her. She allows it, but doesn’t return it.
“I missed you,” I say.
She slurs, “Where is Anu?”
“In her crib, sleeping.”
“Would you get her for me?”
“Of course.”
I knock on the door, wondering what kind of scene I’ll find after Jenna’s anger and her TKO of Sweetness last night. “Come in,” she says.