Now if I could only get rid of one more person.
Because of a track fire at Seventy-second Street, the train went out of service at Columbus Circle, and I decided to walk home rather than wait for a bus. As I opened the door to my apartment, I braced myself for another attack from Rebecca. Sure enough, it came.
"Why'd you fucking hang up on me?"
She was standing in the foyer, several feet in front of me, looking like hell. Her hair was a mess, hanging over her face, and she looked exhausted. The glassy look in her eyes told me that she was drunk, on something, or both.
"I hope you found someplace to live," I said.
I tried to go around her, but she wouldn't budge out of my path.
"You can't treat me this way," she said.
"Excuse me," I said as she continued to block me.
"Where were you?" Her breath smelled like alcohol. I glanced beyond her, at the kitchen counter, and saw the open bottle of whiskey that had been in the closet above the refrigerator.
"That's none of your business," I said.
"Were you cheating on me with Angie?" She smiled ambiguously, as if maybe she didn't believe that Angie existed.
"Maybe I was."
"You're full of fucking shit," she said, giving my face a nice shower of saliva.
I tried to get by her again; this time she grabbed my arms, above the elbows.
"If you don't let go of me I'll»
"You'll what?"
I backed away, freeing myself, then said, "I want you out of here tonight."
"I'm not going anywhere," she said.
"Yes, you are," I said.
She tried to kick me, but I reacted quickly, avoiding her skinny leg. I pushed past her and headed toward the bedroom, figuring I'd lock myself in for a while, when I felt the blow on the back of my head. I stopped and covered my head instinctively, not sure what had happened. I straightened up and turned around just in time to receive a hard punch to my chin. My head jerked back and my body followed. I landed on my back, and, before I could react, Rebecca was crouching on top of me, looking rabid, slapping me in the face. If she were in a zoo they would've shot her with a sedative dart.
Rebecca's face had turned dark pink and she was shrieking at me; her voice was so loud and shrill I couldn't understand a word she was saying. She continued to slap me in the face I blocked a few of the blows, but some connected and then she leaned forward and started to bite me, just below my left cheekbone. I grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her off me. But she wasn't through. Still shrieking, she started slapping me harder in the face, and I knew I had to do something. I couldn't just lie there and let a hundred-pound woman beat the living shit out of me.
Like a wrestler escaping the three-count, I raised my legs off the floor, brought them down, then raised them again swiftly. The action was enough to catapult Rebecca and her slight frame off my chest, and my hands did the rest. Grabbing her hips, I continued her momentum and she flipped over my head. I heard her bang against the hallway wall, but I didn't wait to see if she was okay. I rolled onto my side and got onto my knees, then turned to face her head-on. Sure enough, she was coming after me again, her hands spread open like claws, closing in on my face. This time I was ready, lowering my head and grabbing her by the waist. It wasn't hard to force her onto the floor and pin her down. She was still shrieking, spitting at me, acting like a mental patient, and I just wanted the noise to end. My hands moved off her shoulders to around her neck and I started squeezing. The sudden silence was a big relief, and I was barely aware of the shade of blue her face was turning. If I just squeezed a little harder… I let go just in time. Rebecca was coughing, trying to catch her breath, and I backed away, trying not to believe that I'd almost strangled her.
I became aware of someone banging on the front door. Then I heard Carmen, the old Italian woman from next door, saying, "Will you stop with all the noise in there? You two are fighting and screaming all the time, I can't even hear my television. Hello? Hello?" She continued to bang on the door.
Rebecca was still coughing, rubbing her neck where my hands had been. I looked down at my hands, which were still curled into the shape of her throat.
"I know you're in there," Carmen said. "Open this door right this instant!"
"Shut the hell up!" I screamed, and then I stood up and marched into the bedroom. I went into one of the closets Rebecca had taken over, grabbed a big armful of her clothes, and stormed back through the hallway. Rebecca, still kneeling on the floor, saw me pass, but didn't say anything.
I opened the front door and saw Carmen standing there. She was a squat, hunched-over old biddy with a big bun of black hair.
"I hope that wasn't me you were speaking to that way," she said.
"There's so much screaming coming from your apartment every day I can't hear what the people on TV are saying."
"I'm sorry, all right?" I said.
"This better stop right now or I'm gonna call the police," she said.
I sidestepped around her and went toward the vestibule and then outside. From the top of the stoop, I tossed Rebecca's clothes toward the sidewalk. Carmen was gone from in front of my apartment, but Rebecca was still in the hallway, trying to grab my leg as I went back toward the bedroom.
"I'm so sorry, David," she said. "Please forgive me. You have to forgive me."
Ignoring her, I grabbed more of her clothes from the bedroom closet, then went by her again.
"Don't do this to me, David," Rebecca said. "I'm warning you."
I dumped the clothes onto the sidewalk, then returned to the apartment.
This time Rebecca clung to my legs as I attempted to pass.
"Please don't leave me," she said desperately. "I can't lose you again I can't go through that again."
She was making no sense. I decided I just needed to get away from her as soon as possible.
I wriggled free, then said, "If you're not out of here by the time I get back, I'm tossing the rest of your shit onto the street."
I grabbed a jacket and left the apartment. The annoying homeless guy who always panhandled to the curbside diners on Amsterdam and Columbus by singing "What a Wonderful World" had started collecting Rebecca's dresses. I walked right by him and headed down the block.
I didn't have a destination, but when I approached Dublin House, a bar on Seventy-ninth and Broadway, I decided to go in. It was a dark, dank, narrow bar that Barbara and I had gone to a few times. I sat on a stool near the front and ordered a Bud. The bottle arrived, and when I put my hand around it I remembered how I'd had my hands around Rebecca's neck. With a gulp of beer I tried to wipe that image from my mind, and then I saw myself holding Ricky in a headlock, ramming his head against the steel door. I told myself that none of it was my fault, that in both situations I'd acted in self-defense, but I wasn't sure I believed it.
I took another swig of beer, then looked down the bar and saw Barbara.
She was with a guy, laughing at something he was saying. I looked closer and realized the woman looked nothing like Barbara. She had the same wavy brown hair, but her nose had a bump on it that Barbara's didn't, and Barbara had been much better-looking.
The woman was looking at me, and I shifted my attention straight ahead, not wanting her to think I'd been staring. I took another sip of beer, then took out my wallet and slid out the picture of Barbara. I stared at the picture, drinking my beer, remembering when it was taken on the night of her junior prom. She blew off all the parties and her friends to stay at home with me, and we spent the whole night just hanging out, listening to music and laughing.
"Why do you still have that?" she asked. We were at her apartment on Eighty-fourth Street, watching some TV movie, when I took out the picture and showed it to her.