The Ram (7 page)

“I’m a bit sad you know I’d rather come here than shower and eat some ham and bean soup on my couch,” Riley says, finally looking over to his friend. “But I’m only a bit sad. More thankful, really.”

Walker flips down his visor and checks on his hair in the mirror, smoothes on a new layer of pineapple-scented lip balm. Riley pulls at the door handle and cracks open his door, placing his good foot, his right foot down on the asphalt. Riley nods to his crutches stretching from the back of the tiny sports car to the front dash. If he wanted to be the responsible, hard-working man Double Al expected him to be, he would rethink a night out to a strip club after having his toes amputated. But if his recent trial had taught him anything, it was to embrace the fun of the present before the future and thoughts of the past destroyed it.

“Grab those, Walker,” he says.

Riley grinds his right toes against a flattened foam cup on the asphalt. Parts of the white matter break off and skid away over the parking lot, chunks of glacier turning into solitary, individual icebergs.

“Let’s party.”

18 Peach

“We’re going to have to wrap this up, Michel. We’re over our therapeutic hour and I need to do some paperwork before I can get out of here.”

Peach keeps her hands flat against her thighs. It’s the only way she can prevent herself from reaching up and scratching at her scalp. Michel cocks his head, presses a finger to his lips.

“You’ve changed your hair.”

Peach sighs. “You’re stalling for time, Michel.”

The man keeps his finger to his lips, speaks through it like it has been glued there. “You have done something to your hair. A rinse, maybe. You’ve darkened it. It’s a bit redder.”

Peach stands, shakes out her hands and pulls at her blouse. Michel is always good at stalling to get more of Peach’s time. She knows his attachment to her is unhealthy; he’s clearly experiencing issues with transference. He doesn’t truly love her; she knows this is a case of misplaced affection toward her because she represents a stable, caring, non-judgmental presence in his life. It’s taken her five months to get Michel to even consider his feelings for her might be less than genuine or healthy.

“It’s the lighting in here, Michel,” Peach quips, then changes the subject. “So anything you want to end with today? We’ve gone over your goals for the week: checking your paranoid thoughts with reviewing of facts and keeping a log of the times you find yourself self-abusing or self-deprecating, either physically or mentally. Any new thoughts or experiences you’d like to share with me before we end our meeting?”

The thin man moves his finger down to his goatee and strokes it absently. The hair on his chin and his head is chestnut brown in color and there is a black smudge of something under his fingernail. He picks up a knickknack from the bookshelf next to where he sits in the patients’ chair. It’s a small obelisk made of soapstone. He runs a nail over its surface but it escapes without a scrape. Peach keeps herself from snatching it away, knowing it would only upset him. It was a gift to her, from someone very dear, whom she hasn’t seen in years.

He speaks quietly, his focus on the elongated pillar that ends in a sharp point.

“Two things: obelisks were raised in the past to celebrate the achievements of great men or tell stories in pictures to the common folk staring up at their decorated sides. I learned about them in high school AP World History. Also, I’ve never hurt a woman.”

He cups a palm over the point of the obelisk and plunges it again and again into his flesh. Peach doesn’t react, doesn’t pull it away. She’s used to his acting out, his constant desire to bring sensation to his body via physical pain. If she sees blood, she’ll stop him.

“You’re being too general with your last statement, Michel. We’ve talked about this before. If you want to talk about specific experiences, that’s different.”

Peach watches Michel’s face. He’s brought up his past before like this. Always a nebulous statement of some past wrong, but never a story to back it up. She’s aware he has a history of violence, but Peach isn’t always sure where Michel’s inner world and outer world coincide. She’s not even sure he knows what’s real and what’s not. But then again, Peach struggles with that, too.

He puts down the little statue. Peach doesn’t see blood on its tip.

“Not today,” Michel says. “But I wanted to remind you. I’ve never hurt a woman.”

It’s something he says to her, plies her with each time they have a session. Peach is aware of what he means by the statement. It is less a bit of information to make her feel at ease and more a declaration.

Michel has not hurt women. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t hurt men.

Peach knows advertizing this fact is a point of pride for her patient. And though she should curb his boasting, it helps his self-esteem. And without it for a groundwork, she has nothing to build on. If Michel identifies as a violent man, who is Peach to tell him he cannot be such a thing?

She considers coming up with her own slightly perverse statement to say to herself each day. Perhaps it will give her a solid backbone to make the changes she needs to make in her life.

“
Ma chérie
,” he whispers, eyes looking at the bloodstone pendant around Peach’s neck. She can see he notices she’s drifted off in thought and won’t give him the satisfaction of asking today about his run-ins with other men.

“The only part of you that’s French is your first name,” she says, smiles. “And we’ve talked about the pet names. Let’s stick with Peach. I’m not deserving of your attention anyway, Michel. Save it for someone special.”

He stands up abruptly at this, nearly knocking over a mug of cold tea at his feet.

“You’re the perfect woman. Perfect Peach. I use this name for you when I’m not using
ma chérie
. It’s true and you are. Perfect Peach.”

She bends, moves the cup away from Michel and does her best not to make eye contact with him. He has the habit of locking in his stare, moving with her as she squirms to break his focus. She keeps quiet, head down as she walks to her office door and pulls it open. Perfect Peach. Perhaps this will become her new mantra, the thing she says to herself over and over.

“I think we’ve had a great session, Michel. I’ll see you next week. Don’t have too much fun this weekend, okay?”

Peach keeps her focus outwards on the hallway, her body pointed in the same direction. Michel re-shelves the soapstone pyramidal statue, pats down the front of his cardigan and reaches into his shirt and pulls a single cigarette from the front pocket. He places it in his mouth and lets it dangle unlit from his lower lip.

“Women are better than men, Perfect Peach. They’re soft, fragile. Both their bodies and their hearts. They’re worth defending and protecting. Not like men. Only the most precious things are breakable, right?”

He holds his place in the office and Peach looks at the wood grain of her office door. It’s painted white, but she can see the swirls, gaps and texture of the natural material through the pigment. The random patterning suggests a puppy’s face, a cluster of bananas. And near the base of the door is the writhing form of a dancing woman, thick and lush, her hips bumped over to one side. Asking for it.

19 Riley

It’s the third bourbon that makes Riley finally relax into his chair. It’s the same chair he always sits in at Blaze Lounge: the one with a view of the entire length of the stage. It’s closest to the pole jutting out of the raised walkway. And from here, he watches Nell work.

Nell Hyde, surely a stage name. He doesn’t know why she’s his favorite stripper. She’s a bit stiff when she dances. Her legs seem to always stay rigid. She brings a knee up to hook around the pole and lets her body weight twirl her back down to the stage. But her foot, toenails painted bright blue in a platform heel, stays taut with muscles flexed.

Of course, Riley knows his presence must not be helping the woman relax as she shimmies and lifts her body through the routine set to “Ice, Ice Baby.” He’s aware Nell dislikes him. She has a sneer reserved for him alone. And this, naturally, makes him want her all the more.

Walker plunks down two more Maker’s Marks at the table and pulls a chair under his butt. “This is the last one. Then I’m cutting you off. Booze and prescription pain killers are an awesome combo. But only when you’re not post major amputation.”

“I’m totally fine. It’s been a few hours since my last oxycodone,” Riley says, eyes on the way Nell’s top rides up her breasts. He can see the fullness of the underside of her chest slip under the skimpy band of fabric taxed with keeping it all in. He wonders if she has scars where they slipped in the silicone bags. The club is too dark to yield up any clues. “My toes feel great.”

“The toes not there anymore? Those are okay? I’m glad,” Walker smiles.

Nell finishes her set with a front bend. She grabs and holds her ankles and twerks her ass at the patrons at the bar behind her. Riley misses the view but he notices Nell looking at him while she moves. Her eyes are on his bandaged foot. Her mouth twists, shows her top teeth.

There’s ragged applause. Riley doesn’t bother with clapping when she lifts herself up and makes for the backroom. Her heavy platforms clack audibly against the hard stage. He can hear Walker yell something, but he’s feeling the alcohol now. It feels like there are wads of cotton in his ears.

“Lap dance, sweetie,” Walker says and waves a fifty at Nell. “For my boy here with the battle wound. Well, work wound, I suppose.”

He stands and proffers a hand to the stripper. She takes it and he helps her down off the stage. She trips on a bit of nothing, an ankle twisting slightly, but Walker catches her right above the g-string at her hips.

“Him?” she asks, pointing to Riley. Her lips flatten, eyes narrow.

“I’ve missed you, too, Nell,” Riley grins. He reaches for his drink and nearly tips it over. A drop or two of amber liquid falls on the sticky table.

“No hands. I remember the first time I danced on you. No repeats of that shit,” she says and abruptly turns and hovers over Riley’s lap. He knows she’s somewhere far away mentally, nowhere near him. Her movements are staid and rehearsed. She hums along with the song playing over the loudspeakers, some poppy bit of fluff that makes pole work easier for the girls. She smells like jasmine and garlic and her dyed, burgundy hair hits Riley’s chin.

After a minute, she says something to Riley but he can’t catch it with her face turned away and the music blaring. She speaks again, louder, with her neck craned around to see his face.

“What happened to the foot?”

Riley puts his hands on her hips and roughly pulls her down onto his crotch. His dick is hard and he holds her there for a moment before she pries back his fingers and stands up in frustration.

“Life,” he says and then smacks her sharply on the ass.

And he knows there are repercussions to his actions. Except he’s not manhandled out by bouncers or yelled at by some other staff member. A big, pasty cheeked man wearing small hoops in his earlobes walks over to Riley and pulls Nell toward his chest.

She yields, folds into the man’s wide embrace, and smirks at Riley.

“Ah, the boyfriend! The savior. The dude who plays at being muscle when he’s nothing more than a creepy stalker.”

Sev wrinkles his nose, speaks with a noticeable Australian accent. “My girlfriend, my ass.”

Walker watches the exchange from his seat. Sev pushes Nell away and hovers over Riley with his mass. He wears a beat-to-shit black leather duster and a set of fingerless gloves on his hands. He drops a bar napkin in Riley’s lap and walks away, back to his barstool and a waiting bowl of red-skinned peanuts.

The napkin blows off his legs and under his seat due to the revolutions of an overhead fan. He fishes it back, sure to not put weight on his left foot, and squints to make out the few lines written there. The man’s handwriting is all caps, heavily inked and more squat than elongated. There are a few holes where Sev pushed too hard with his pen and ripped through the white napkin. He reads it once and hands it to Walker. Walker snorts, reads it aloud.

“Dark waste blooming, sinews snapped. We are monsters.”

Riley picks up his whisky and tips it in Sev’s direction. The only acknowledgement he gives Riley is a set of raised middle fingers.

“Fucker is a poet,” Riley says.

20 Peach

By the time she leaves the blue-green, three-story office building, dark has closed in on the day and the solitary croak of a frog escorts her to her car parked in the attached asphalt lot. Peach thinks it’s a bit early for the amphibians to be waking up, but this spring has turned warm in the last few days and the earth begins to thaw, readily pliant and fresh. No doubt the frog came back to life early, resurrected from his hibernation under an awning kept from harsh winds or a pile of decaying leaves.

Her attention is on the throaty rumble of the frog when Michel steps up next to her. She has her car keys in hand as always. It’s her poor plan for self-defense when she leaves work late and she’s not really surprised she doesn’t think to rake the jagged metal of her keys down his arm and run. Peach isn’t a natural fighter. She simply turns and faces him, resigned.

“You’re amazingly quiet,” she says and leans her back against her car door window.

“I’ve learned it doesn’t ever pay to be too loud. Sneakier is better. Silent is best.”

“Okay,” Peach says and puts her hands in the air. “I give up, Michel. What do you want me to say? All the clichés? I don’t think it would work. We’re not a good fit. It’s not you, it’s me. You only think you love me. Shall I go on?”

“One date with me,” Michel whispers. He doesn’t press in closer to Peach, careful to keep his body from touching hers. She tries not to think how long he’s been waiting for her outside. Hours of waiting could be considered stalking, but she has no desire to escalate the situation. While she trusts he has never harmed a woman, there is nothing stopping him from starting today.