If I don’t go out.
I go out….
I don’t know what Ethiopians eat for breakfast, but it seemed unlikely that it was this. Areea had made us French toast with fried eggs, links sausages, and bacon. Faux maple syrup and coffee, too. Pat and I didn’t have the greatest appetites at the best of times, but John wolfed his portion and there was no denying that everything had a delicious flavor.
All very amiable. Areea in the middle of a story about her life in Ethiopia and why, of all places, they’d come to Denver. Apparently, it had the second-biggest Ethiopian community in America, though it was hard to concentrate since she was wearing a miniskirt that showed off her long, dark, beautiful legs, which complemented her flashing eyes and beautiful smile.
Still, everything clicked along until she and John started kissing again.
“Not at the breakfast table,” I protested.
“Alexander is right,” Areea said, removing John’s big hands from her bum.
John gave her a kiss on the cheek, and turned around to look at us.
“Well, boys, are ye not eating, how’s the grub?” he asked, smacking his lips.
“Everything is just wonderful,” Pat said.
“It is,” I agreed. “You’re a great cook, Areea.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Areea said, “American food is easy to make.”
She went to the kitchen to get more coffee.
“Isn’t she great?” John moaned happily with a goofy expression on his face.
“Jesus, you’re not in love with her, are you?” I whispered under my breath.
“I might be,” John said with a grin.
“You bloody eejit. You realize, of course, the relationship has no future,” I said.
“What is it with you, Alex? You’re such a grumpy boots every morning,” John replied.
Pat lit himself a cigarette and stared up at the ceiling. I clenched my fist under the table. I felt I had been very patient with John. Not one time had I brought up the fact that he had pushed a man over a balcony and bloody topped him.
“I’ll support her, I’ll look after her, I’ll get a job,” John said thoughtfully.
“Yeah, you’re doing a fine job now,” I muttered. “Me working my ass off all day long and you smoking pot and making love, living the life of bloody Reilly.”
“Why is someone else’s happiness such a burden to you? It’s the fucking ketch, robs you of feeling for your fellow man, don’t you think, Pat?”
“I’m keeping out of this, boys,” Pat said, and continued staring at a point above his head.
I took a sip of the coffee. John was a wanker, but maybe he was on to something there. I shrugged. I didn’t want this to develop into an argument. The situation was as much my fault as his.
“Sorry, John. Look, my head hurts, my sinuses are aching, my feet are killing me from all the walking. Problems, you know?”
“The sinus problem is from the pollution,” Pat said. “They should be dealing with that and the fucking drought, not going after minorities in this state.”
Areea came over with another pot of coffee.
“Wonderful,” Pat said, and gave her a grin.
“You have sore feet?” Areea asked me, and we all reddened with embarrassment, hoping that she hadn’t heard the rest of the conversation.
“Yeah, I do, I never walk this much normally.”
Areea took a long look at my feet and offered to give me a foot massage. I looked at John, I didn’t want to get into macho head games with him, but John nodded to show he didn’t care. I retired to the couch and Areea proceeded to torture the soles of my feet with her incredibly strong fingers. Ten minutes later she was done and my feet felt much better.
“Wow, that’s really amazing, you’re totally multitalented,” I said.
“That’s not all she’s good at,” John said. He and Areea dissolved into giggles.
“Honestly don’t know what she sees in you, she can’t even get a green card off you,” I said to him.
Areea asked Pat if he wanted a massage too. Pat refused out of politeness because his feet were in a bad way, but Saint Areea insisted, ignored his calluses and an open sore and gave him a gentler massage than me, but still effective nonetheless.
My watch said twelve and, sadly, it was time to leave this scene of domestic tranquillity. Pat begged me to have at least one martini before I went, but I couldn’t. I’d had a weird high this morning, inverted and almost a bad trip, and I wanted to stay off the booze. It turned out that the heroin supply in this town was very patchy and you never really knew what you were getting. Manuelito, my dealer, always complained about it. Around here the crack cocaine was of the finest quality but the smack could be dodgy. Smackheads were all in New York: singers, starving artists, Goth girls, anorexic fashion models.
I was reluctant to go, though. I was tired and this was the best part of the day, hanging out in the morning with John, Pat, and Areea, chatting, messing about, sharing the fire escape with Pat, looking down on the world.
Of course, last night I hadn’t been able to sleep. Two nights of that now. Ever since Amber.
Amber. Hypocritical me telling John off.
For it was all about her.
It’s an old trope, the peeler who falls for one of his suspects or a witness or a victim. It’s a cliché. They even tell you about it in the police academy, apparently it’s very common in domestic abuse cases.
I should have had more sense, anyway. After seeing Redhorse, I should have scarpered. Smart thing to do. But Amber was the magnet. She had caught me. Something about her that could not be denied. Smart, beautiful, sexy. Maybe if I’d been older I would have been immune. I should have run. But I didn’t want to. And there was that feeling I’d had that she was somehow Victoria Patawasti’s polar opposite. A looking-glass version of her, a Victoria in the parallel world. WASP, blonde, prim as a counterpoint to Victoria. Both incredibly clever, but Amber lacked Victoria’s wit and Amber did not have Victoria’s sense of humor, how could she? Victoria, who had been the only Paki in the whole school, darker even than her brothers, she needed a defense mechanism right from the start. She’d verbally taken apart anyone who’d screwed with her. Sarcastic, ironic, cool, in fact. I shouldn’t have let her go. And this was before ketch and Mum’s illness — no excuses. I suppose I was too immature, too caught up in my own universe.
Too clever by half, the teachers used to say about me, and they said the same about her. But she went on to be head girl. I wasn’t subtle, that was my trouble, how could I be, growing up in that crazy house with those pseudo-hippie parents and aloof siblings — subtle would have gone unnoticed. And also, she was out of my league, destined to go to Oxford University, graduate with a first, and eventually be head-hunted by a nonprofit who would offer her a green card, free rent, a good salary, responsibilities, rapid advancement, and a chance to live in the USA. Aye. Fucked up then, fucking up now.
I sighed, went out.
Colfax Avenue. Heat, light, pollution, three Mexican guys being questioned by a motorcycle cop. A protester outside Planned Parenthood wearing a fetus billboard. Bikers in the park dealing pot.
The CAW building.
The Haitian concierge sitting at his desk and reading a green pamphlet, which was the latest security briefing from the Denver Police Department. He looked at me, smiled.
“Ça va?” he asked.
“Ok,” I said, hoping there wasn’t a description of me in there.
I pushed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator dinged. I got on. The day began.
That night, for the second time that week, I was paired with Amber Mulholland. We were soliciting in a town called Evergreen right up in the foothills. Big houses, lawns, American flags, kids on bicycles. It was odd that Amber and I would be together, for a couple of reasons. First, I had been working at CAW sufficiently long now that I didn’t need training or a partner anymore. Second, Amber told me when she did go out she did it only to keep Charles company. And yet here we were again. I wasn’t complaining. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days, not since the night she’d caught me in a lie and I’d seen her steal and we’d rescued the kids and had hard, crazy sex up against a wall. I wanted to see her, I needed to see her.