Naked 2 : BAD (10 page)

Curious. Well, I was curious about her too, but now she was gone. Why couldn’t she have been alone, without that annoying dude trying to cock block me? I pictured his dumb face. He was the typical, spoiled, stuck up Cambridge boy. Thought he was better than me, probably thought he was better than ninety-nine percent of the people he met.

Just because he came from money and had options, somehow in his mind that meant he was entitled to everything he saw. Including a girl like Lindsay.

She’s special and she doesn’t even know it.

Meanwhile, that dude she was with thought that he could have her the same way he probably got to have a BMW for his seventeenth birthday.

I grit my teeth and my heart sped up. Thinking stuff like that made me angry, made me want to get in the gym and work somebody over.

Touching my stitches, I winced, and then remembered that I wouldn’t be able to do any full-contact sparring until it healed. Damn.

I hopped on the T and headed back to the South End. My mood had gone sour.

Being crushed in a moving tin can with people all around me, pressing against me, jostling for position—it felt claustrophobic.

I could smell what the guy next to me had for lunch, and I could even tell that he hadn’t showered in a few days or bothered to wear deodorant.

The Cambridge University types didn’t have to deal with this stuff. They didn’t bother with public transportation. They took cabs, or they drove, in a city where owning a car and affording parking was a luxury. They didn’t know what it was like to grow up having to work shit jobs, getting up at five a.m. to cut a rich person’s lawn so that they don’t have to bother with it themselves.

Maybe some day I’d be cutting Lindsay and what’s his name’s lawn.

Now I had a sour taste in my mouth and I wanted to change it, fast.

Once off the T, I made my way to O’Doyle’s. Big Timmy was out front reading a magazine. He looked up when he saw me approaching. We shook hands.

“Yo J.B. What happened?” he said, gesturing to my face.

“What do you think happened?”

“Looks like you got caught with a punch.”

“I don’t get caught,” I told him.

“Well, someone opened you up.” Big Timmy smiled.

“Keep smiling and I might open you up.” I grinned back at him.

“You need a beer.”

“Do I ever.” I slapped him on the shoulder and went inside.

The bar was almost empty, just a few drunks nursing drinks and watching the Red Sox on TV.

I took a seat in the middle of the bar, away from everyone. Taryn was bartending, and she immediately brought me over a Guinness. “Hey, what are you doing in here? I thought you’d be training.”

I pointed at the cut above my eye. “Something came up.”

“Awwww, that stinks. It looks painful.”

“Now that you mention it, that shit does kind of sting. Thanks for reminding me.”

“What are friends for?”

I waited for the foam on the beer to go down a little bit. “I forgot. What are they for?”

“Don’t be an ass.” She leaned forward, giving me an obvious flash of cleavage.

“Speaking of friends, Gilbert was in here earlier.”

“Now I really do need a drink.” I picked up the glass and downed some of the Guinness. It tasted cool and good.

“He asked me to tell you he stopped in.”

“Was he okay?”

Taryn stood up straight again. “What do you think?”

“I try not to think about him.”

“Well, maybe you should. He’s in a bad place right now.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“I think he’s staying at the shelter on Mass Ave again.”

I groaned. The last thing I wanted to do was go down to the shelter and see my best friend, living like an animal. But if he’d come looking for me, then I knew I needed to go. Quickly, I drank all of that Guinness and then did two shots of Yager.

Taryn was watching me anxiously. “You should come back later. I get off early tonight.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I told her. But we both knew I wasn’t coming back tonight.

I left O’Doyle’s and headed towards Mass Ave. It was getting a little chilly and I was still only in my t-shirt. Luckily the booze had numbed me to the cold and so I wasn’t bothered by the wind as much as I might have been if I was completely sober.

But I was still bothered by plenty of other things. For some reason, I couldn’t get Lindsay out of my mind. I shook my head, as if trying to literally shake the image of her out of my head. It didn’t work.

I felt like I could have painted an exact portrait of her if I’d wanted to—that’s how clear her face was in my imagination. Those eyes were so stunning, so clear and intelligent and…

What the hell is wrong with you? This is just some Cambridge chick with a cute
smile. Get a hold of yourself, Justin.

It had to be the booze, I decided. I probably was more buzzed than I realized after drinking so quickly.

Finally, I arrived at the shelter. It was in a shady area of town, and as I got closer, there were more and more guys hanging on corners, smoking, lounging on steps, giving me the hairy eyeball.

I didn’t mind that much. I didn’t really look like the kind of guy you wanted to mess with for fun. I would make sure that anybody who fucked with me came away with lasting memories, and not the good kind.

They wouldn’t let me into the shelter. But I didn’t need to go inside anyway. I told them that I was looking for Gilbert Diaz, and of course they knew exactly who I was talking about. Everybody knew Gilbert, that’s just the kind of guy he was.

I hung around in front of the shelter and waited while they went and got him.

There wasn’t a lack of entertainment while I waited for him, either.

A woman and a man were loudly arguing over who’d made the most money panhandling that day. Another guy was playing a harmonica and singing a Bob Dylan song, as if competing with the noise from the arguing couple. His harmonica playing got more and more fervent and spastic, and then the couple’s voices grew louder in response.

Just as everything seemed to reach a fever pitch, the door to the shelter opened and Gilbert came out, smiling at me. “J.B., you came!” he said, running down the stairs and giving me a big hug.

“Of course I came. Taryn told me you swung by the bar earlier.”

He pulled away. “Want to go to the corner store? I need cigs.”

“Sure.” We began walking, and the sounds of the harmonica and arguing faded into the distance as we went.

Gilbert was about my size, but skinnier and his complexion was darker than mine.

Still, I thought of him like a brother. We’d been best friends since third grade and he’d been into wrestling and then mixed martial arts, just like me. In fact, Gilbert had been a standout wrestler, much better than I’d been in high school. He was destined to get a full ride to a Division I school until he’d gotten into heroin.

Now he was a shadow of himself, a shadow of the kid I remembered, the one who’d always been full of jokes and pranks and dominated the best of the best on the wrestling mat.

Both of us fell quiet for a time. I was thinking about the past and maybe he was too.

“Taryn said you’re being scouted by the UFF,” Gilbert said.

“A guy came to my last fight but that doesn’t mean anything,” I told him, suddenly embarrassed about the thing that I’d been most proud of up until this moment.

Gilbert shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about, man? The UFF is the biggest MMA organization on the planet. If you get a deal with them—”

“I’m not getting a deal. He was just at the show.”

“Did he come to see you or not?”

I sighed. Why couldn’t I let Gilbert know the truth? “He was there to scout a few people. I might have been one, I don’t know.”

“You’re going to be one. You’re too fucking good not to be.”

“Thanks.”

We got to the store and went inside. I bought Gilbert two packs of Marlboros, his favorite brand. Then I handed them to him and we went back outside, where he lit up and smoked.

“How are you doing?” I asked him. “Are you good?”

We both knew what that meant. If he was doing good, that meant he wasn’t on any hard drugs—especially not heroin. If he wasn’t doing good, it meant he was strung out.

“I’m okay,” he said finally, blowing a long plume of smoke out of his nostrils.

Okay meant something else entirely. I wasn’t sure what. “Tell me what’s up.”

He seemed like he was about to say something, but then there was the sound of a gunshot in the distance—or maybe just a car backfiring. Whatever it was, Gilbert grew distracted. “I’m fine, man. I’m good. I just missed you while I was away.”

“I missed you too.” I glanced at him. He was skinnier than before. And he looked twice my age.

“They sent me to max security, dude. That shit was not fun at all.” Gilbert flicked the cigarette ashes to the cement. “Not fun at all. Fucking nutcases up there.”

“Yeah, they’re nutcases,” I agreed. “That’s why you’re not supposed to be there, Gil. You got to stay out of jail, man. Stay clean.”

He glared at me for a moment, and in his eyes there was somebody different, someone I’d never seen before. That kid from high school was long gone, I realized. “If it was that easy, don’t you think I’d have done it by now?”

“Yeah, I know. I know.”

His body relaxed. “I’m just stressed. I been out for a month and I’m sick of being fucking homeless.”

“Tell me what you need.”

He looked at me again, and his eyes didn’t waver. “I need money.”

I reached in my pocket, not surprised. I wondered if he knew somehow that I’d just gotten paid recently. Junkies were notoriously smart like that. But then I put the thought out of my head. Whatever Gilbert needed, I would give it to him—always.

I handed him a wad of cash. “That’s every cent I’ve got right now,” I told him.

“Everything.”

“I can’t take this much.”

“Just don’t do anything stupid,” I said.

We hugged again and then I left him there, smoking another cigarette and looking happy. I knew that money wasn’t going to make everything okay, any more than it had the last time I’d given him a bunch of cash.

But seeing him happy again, even for a second, was worth it.

***

I wasn’t sure how I ended up at Cambridge University.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I’d walked the entire way, which had taken me almost two hours. It had felt good to just walk and clear my head.

There were too many thoughts that I didn’t want to think, too many memories of the past that were crowding in.

Walking helped.

And then, before I knew it, I’d come to the pristine campus, and I realized that I’d been heading there all along.

You don’t even know what building she’s in.

I looked around. Cambridge University owned the entire town. She could be anywhere. But then I saw all of the moving trucks and parents with their spoiled rich offspring, walking back and forth all over the place, and it hit me.

It’s move-in day.

I started walking with a purpose. “Excuse me, where do I go to get my registration…ah…materials?” I asked some kid with big ears and spiky hair who was walking his bike through the quad.

He looked at me, a little perplexed, but then pointed to the large building almost directly in front of us. “Registration ended hours ago,” he said, shaking his head at my ignorance. “They moved everything into the library, but I’m not sure if there’s anyone there anymore.”

“Thanks,” I said, running past him and into the library. It was enormous, intimidating even. There were a couple of students – a girl and a boy -- at a big round table with pamphlets and binders on it. They appeared to be packing up.

“Excuse me!” I yelled, running towards them. “Excuse me.”

They looked up at me, surprised. After all, I’d just committed the cardinal sin of yelling in a library.

“Can I help you?” the girl asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Yeah, sorry. I just—I got lost. I’m looking for a student, her name is Lindsay Cramer. I’m her brother and I was supposed to help her move in today.”

The girl frowned. “I’m sorry, we’re closing for the day and we can’t give out any student room numbers.”

“Please. She’s not answering her phone and I know she needs my help. Or you can call her room for me and check my story out? Please.”

The students exchanged glances. The guy quickly opened a binder. “Lindsay Cramer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She’s in Lanard Hall, straight across the common, next to the Faculty Club.

Room 232.”

“I so appreciate it,” I told them. “Thank you so much.”

Then I ran out of there, my heart pumping. I wasn’t thinking about anything but finding her again, and I wasn’t sure what I would say when I saw her or why I was even doing this.

I ran into Lanard Hall, and it was easy to get past security because there were so many people still moving in. I ran up the first flight of stairs, and then, still out of breath, made my way to Room 232.

I hesitated for less than a second before knocking rapidly, three times.

“Hello?” she called.

It occurred to me that her family might be inside with her, and that would be awkward. “Is it okay if I come in?” I asked, and then turned the knob and opened the door to her dorm room before she could answer.

Lindsay was coming to the door, and she stopped in the middle of her room, like a deer in the headlights and stared at me. “What…what the…how did you…”

“Relax.” I was really glad to see her. It was strange how much better I felt, the instant I saw her face. She was real again, she existed. I’d found her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, looking behind me, as if cops might burst in and arrest me at any moment.

“Why not?”

“Because….you don’t go to school here.”

“Yeah, but I came to see you.”

“How did you know where I live?”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty smart, I guess. Maybe not a rocket scientist like your friend—the guy at the hospital. But I can hold my own.” I looked around her room.

“Nice place you got here.” I saw the empty bed nearby. “Where’s your roommate?”