Violence (27 page)

“The usual?” The bartender asked.

“Yeah, why not.” Jeannie approved.

The bartender looked to Anderson for his drink request, but Jeannie jumped in and ordered for him.

“Double Jack on the rocks.” Jeannie yelled, pumping her arms in time with the song.

Anderson watched the bartender reach back and grab a bottle of tequila along with a bottle of triple sec as he set about making the “usual” margarita for Jeannie.

“Think you should?” Anderson asked her with some concern, nodding to the salt rimmed glass that was being set in front of her.

“I can have one.” Jeannie replied plaintively, holding up an index finger.

The bartender quickly blended her margarita and filled Jeannie’s glass. He then poured out the Double Jack order in a small tumbler glass and slid it to Anderson.

“Hardly recognized you with your hair like that.” The bartender shouted over the din, staring at Jeannie’s hair.

Anderson pushed some money across the bar to pay.

“No, it’s on me.” The bartender said, shoving the money back to Anderson and moving off to fill another drink order.

Jeannie smiled as she put her hands about the broad-bowled stemmed margarita glass and blissfully sniffed its contents. She took a drink as though it was mother’s milk and purred.

The band finished their rendition of “Cocaine” with a chaotic guitar flurry.

There were cheers and appreciative applause from the crowd.

The lead singer thanked the crowd for joining in but added, “Please, don’t bring me any cocaine!”

People shouted comebacks but the band quickly transitioned into a wildly energetic reworking of “What I Like About You,” an anthem made famous by The Romantics.

“Great song!” Jeannie exclaimed, bouncing to the beat with her drink in hand. She took another long sip.

“What did he mean about your hair?” Anderson asked as he sat down on the edge of a bar stool.

“Oh, I used to have my hair green, red… purple.” Jeannie explained. “I’m really a blonde but I dyed my hair so much I like shocked the roots. Now it just grows out brown.”

Anderson gazed at her hair and wondered what she would look like as a blonde.

“You must miss them terrible, your wife and daughter.” Jeannie speculated out loud and took another drink.

“Don’t think about it that much.” Anderson replied, sipping his whiskey.

“Do you cry a lot?”

“No.”

“Never?” Jeannie asked with disbelief. “God, I’d be hysterical all the time. Don’t you want a family, a home again?”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Nothing? That’s interesting.”

“I just try to think about now.”

“Very Zen.” Jeannie commented, and nodded. “I know I’m never going to meet someone. I failed at it and its okay. I just have to stop thinking about it all the time. I had fun…“ She shrugged her shoulders, unashamed. She took another drink and, starting to feel the effects, slipped a bit.

Anderson reached out and steadied her.

“Whoa! Watch that first step!” She shouted somewhat woozily.

Anderson gestured for her to plant herself on a bar stool but she didn’t want to sit.

“Probably should tell you…” She took a deep breath and then stated forthrightly. “…I’ve had quite a few boyfriends.”

“Telling me about your old boyfriends is one sure way of killing a romantic evening.” Anderson warned her with a cool but good-natured look of irritation.

“Oh…” Jeannie came right back to him, blearily brightening. “…is this going to be a romantic evening?” She laughed, tried to do a smooth twirl in place that turned out wobbly and ended with her spilling some of her margarita down her front.

Anderson handed her his dry cocktail napkin and scanned for more napkins on the bar counter.

“Excuse me.” Jeanne said, embarrassed. She woozily set her drink down on the bar and staggered off towards the ladies room.

Anderson, concerned, followed her. He maintained a small distance between himself and Jeannie as he watched her work her way unsteadily through the crowd, round a corner and enter a hallway. He scooted up just in time to see her put a stiff-arm to the door of the ladies room and disappear inside.

Jeannie braced herself on the edge of a bathroom sink as she grabbed paper towels from a dispenser and dabbed at the wetness on her chest. She looked in the mirror and rolled her eyes as she tried to get her bearings.

Anderson watched as other women entered and exited the ladies room. He figured Jeannie was safe for the moment and went into the nearby men’s room.

Anderson stepped up to one of the urinals inside the old plaster-walled washroom and began to relieve himself. He could hear someone enter right behind him and didn’t pay much attention to it until Jack Trax ambled up to the urinal right next to him. Anderson looked over.
What’s with this fucking guy!

“Hey, how ya doin’?” Trax chirped in his inimitable smarmy style. “Out with Jeannie again?”

Anderson quickly decided not to show any emotion. Why should he? This Trax was an asswipe. He just stared blankly at Trax as he spoke. Also, Anderson was in mid-pee and wanted to finish.

“Lookin’ for a good time, she’s the girl.” Trax continued disparagingly, taking the time to urinate also. “Yeah, everybody gets their wish with Jeannie, if you know what I mean. Million stories, man…”

Anderson just kept peeing and staring.

Trax laughed out loud and then snorted gleefully as he remembered an uproarious incident regarding Jeannie. “Did she ever tell you…” Trax went on, “…about the time they wouldn’t let her on the tour bus unless she went down on this other chick?!!” Trax laughed again. “We videotaped it! Fuckin’ intense, man!!”

Anderson simply continued to silently and stoically stare at Trax.

“Should know you’re swimming in dirty water.” Trax offered with mock seriousness before he belly laughed again as he recalled an even funnier episode concerning Jeannie. “I mean, she defined the term ‘backstage ass’!”

Anderson finished urinating and zipped up his pants.

“Another time…” Trax continued, still peeing. “…there was these guys in from this record label, about seven of us altogether, and she-” Trax didn’t get the chance to finish recounting this particular experience on the subject of Jeannie.

Anderson wrenched Trax’s arm behind his back, grabbed him by the hair and laid him out on the sink.

Trax thrashed but he was no match for Anderson’s strength or anger.

Anderson ripped off the globe reservoir of a wall-mounted liquid soap dispenser and poured the pink gooey hand cleaner contents into Trax’s mouth.

Trax gagged, flailed about as Anderson held him in place. Liquid soap ran down Trax’s face, got in his eyes.

Anderson dragged Trax into a stall, dunked him face-first into a toilet and flushed. Trax gasped for air, tried to free himself, but Anderson pushed his head into the toilet another time and flushed again.

Anderson finally released him and backed out of the stall.

Trax spewed, choked, his feet slipping out from under him as he tried to stand. He fell weakly back on the bathroom stall floor.

Jeannie, a bit steadier on her feet, almost ran into Anderson as he exited the men’s room.

Another male restaurant patron moved up the hallway and noticed Anderson’s slightly ruffled and splattered state.

“You okay?” The restaurant patron inquired of Anderson.

“Yeah.” Anderson answered and casually warned the man, gesturing back in the direction of the washroom. “Just, um, some guy is sick in there.”

The restaurant patron nodded thanks and cautiously entered the men’s room.

* * *

The two-story apartment building where Jeannie lived was in one of those porous border, largely un-policed melting pot neighborhoods where they put the alcohol and drug addiction treatment clinics. The City even dropped plans long ago to put an off-track horse betting parlor there because it was too downmarket and too dangerous.

Anderson didn’t like leaving his Mercedes on the street but hoped the gang-bangers would figure it for a bait car and leave it alone. Luckily, or not (sometimes it’s looked at as a dare), Anderson also saw there was a POD (Police Observation Device), a large video surveillance box with a flickering blue light affixed to the top of a nearby light pole that was meant to view and record crime in high-risk areas. He thought this could maybe further add to his chances his car would still be there when he returned.

He and Jeannie walked up to the dimly lit first floor open-air entrance as she tipsily searched for a key on her keychain.

“Need any help?” Anderson asked her.

“No, I’m fine.” She answered, finally finding the right key which she inserted in the heavy steel mesh metal security gate that leads to the interior of the “garden” complex.

She swung the gate back, carefully walked through the entrance and held the gate open for Anderson.

“This is it, my little world.” She said dreamily as she watched Anderson step through the opening. “Wait, you didn’t go through the doorway with your left foot leading.” She scolded him with some anxiety.

“Don’t worry about it.” He nonchalantly assured her.

Jeannie let the entrance gate clang shut and stumbled as she turned, still unbalanced from the effects of having to quickly finish her margarita (which the bartender had refilled) before they left the restaurant.

Anderson reached out and steadied her. She nodded thanks and tottered up the exterior stairs leading to her second-story apartment, stepping on the various tiles in a bizarre hopscotch pattern known only to her.

Sensing she needed help again, he grasped her arm.

“Don’t do that!” Jeannie protested, restarting her ritual. “Now I have to go back to the beginning! I touch the third tile from the right railing on the second step two times. Then I touch the fourth tile from the left-”

Anderson put his feet in her way.

“Come on, I have to do this before I can go up the stairs.” Jeannie whined.

“Or else what?” Anderson asked.

“I don’t know.” Jeannie whined. “Something bad will happen. God will get me.”

Anderson swept her up in his arms and carried her up the staircase, two steps at a time.

“God can get me.” Anderson proclaimed upon reaching the top landing.

“But now I have to get in my apartment.” Jeannie mentioned almost threateningly as she dangled out her keys.

“Is it going to take long?” Anderson asked with playful annoyance.

“Maybe not.” Jeannie coyly answered then boldly asked, “Are you going to carry me over the threshold?”

“If that’s what it takes.” Anderson guaranteed her.

Anderson leaned in and Jeannie met him halfway. Their lips converged. It was a kiss in the moonlight. A nice first kiss but it didn’t last long. Anderson looked out of the corner of his eye into the dark corridor just beyond where they were standing.

“I think we’re being watched.” Anderson announced without breaking from the kiss.

“Jack?” A young girl’s voice called out from the shadows.

The young girl got up from where she was sitting on the corridor floor. She stepped out of the dank walkway and it was soon clear in the dim light that she was probably not past twenty-years-old yet. She likely would pass her twenties looks-wise in one leap at the rate she was going. A modern day waif. Scorched brain. Too much meth. Too many amphetamines, period.

Anderson set Jeannie down.

“You’re not Jack.” The young girl grumbled after giving Anderson the once-over.

“Who’re you?” Jeannie asked scornfully.

“A friend of Jack’s. Are you Jeannie? Jack said I could sleep here tonight.” The young girl declared with complete authority.

“Did he?” Jeannie responded derisively. “Far fucking out! Well, Jack doesn’t live here anymore!”

“No shit?” The young girl sagged. She checked the address on a scrap of paper in her hand.

Jeannie opened her apartment door, marched inside and quickly began throwing heaps of clothing out into the corridor, specifically Jack Trax’s clothing.

“But he did leave a few of his things. And…” Jeannie fumed to the young girl as she flung his clothes. “…if you’d be so kind…” She tossed more clothes. “…to let him know…” She heaved ever more clothing and it was really piling up. “…where he can find them!”

Jeannie tossed the last articles of Trax’s clothing against the opposite wall of the corridor where they cascaded down on to the pile. Jeannie found a bottle of tequila among Trax’s remaining belongings but decided to keep it. She did, though, pitch Trax’s guitar, small amp and guitar picks on to the clothes pile.

“Oh, and one other thing…” Jeannie pointedly addressed the young girl in closing. “…when you fucking see him, tell him his fucking lease ran out!”

With that, Jeannie pulled Anderson into the apartment and slammed the door shut.

Anderson was impressed. Not with the apartment. It was a real dump. No, he was impressed with how fast Jeannie got rid of the young girl and Trax’s possessions.

Jeannie quickly bolted and chained the door.

“What do you call a musician who breaks up with his girlfriend?” Jeannie asked, and then answered the joke’s set-up line herself. “Homeless.”

“So he was your boyfriend?” Anderson asked her.

“He fucking wishes!” Jeannie sniffed, holding out the tequila bottle. “Drink?”

“Why not.” Anderson sanctioned the suggestion.

Jeannie looked at the label on the bottle, turned up her nose but grabbed two shot glasses off a table. She filled both glasses and handed one to Anderson.

They toasted, clinked glasses, drank and kissed.

This time he pulled her tight, kissing her intensely and she devoured him in return. She tore at his shirt. He yanked down her top. She jumped into his arms, straddling him and he ran his hand along her thigh, gripping it forcefully.

They were on her bed making love within minutes.

“That’s right, that’s right, a little to the left…” Jeannie instructed Anderson as he pumped away atop her. “No, no, you’re hitting the wall…” She complained, regarding his penis angling uncomfortably on the pelvic floor of her vagina.

Anderson shifted, altered the slant of his thrust.