Small crimes

Chapter 4

I found my mom in the kitchen preparing dinner. When she saw me she gave me a nervous, anxious smile and wavered for a moment before coming over to peck me on the cheek. Like my dad, she seemed to have aged excessively during the last seven years. She had shrunk somewhat, and her hair, which used to be mostly blonde with only touches of gray, was now completely white. She stood in front of me trying to smile, her eyes tiny in her now raisin-like face.

'You look tired, Joey,' she said, and then she moved back to the stove and her sauce-stirring.

I started laughing, I couldn't help it. 'After seven years that's the first thing you have to say to me?' I asked. 'Oh, and by the way, I missed you, too.'

'Of course I missed you,' she said, her voice faltering a bit. 'But you do look tired. Have you been eating enough?'

'I've been eating fine. Mom, the county jail is only a twenty-minute drive. You and dad could have visited me once.'

'We didn't feel comfortable doing that,' she said half under her breath. She started to say something else, but it died in her throat.

I watched for a minute as she stirred the sauce, her body tense, her eyes and mouth rigid. I asked her where Dad was.

'He wasn't feeling well so he's taking a nap.' She hesitated. 'Let me see if he's up.'

I watched as she made a beeline towards their bedroom. She closed the door behind her. They tried to keep their voices low, but the walls were thin and I could hear most of what was said.

'Your son is home. He's in the kitchen right now.'

'Can you keep your voice down? Joey's going to hear you.'

'The door's closed. He's not going to hear me. I want you out there with me.'

'I'm tired. Let me rest for a few more minutes.'

'Oh no you don't. You come out there with me!'

'Jesus, Irma, he's your son. He's not going to bite you.'

'I want you out there with me. You're the one who insisted that he stay here!'

'Alright, alright.'

I heard him get off the bed. The door opened and my mom came out first with my dad tailing behind her. He gave me a weak smile as he passed by and then walked over to the kitchen sink to fill up a teapot. My mom went back to stirring her sauce. After a minute of that I told them I was going out.

'You're not going to join us for dinner?' she asked, actually surprised.

'I don't think so. I'll be back later.'

'Why don't you join us? I'm making ziti and meatballs.'

I'd rather not, especially if the two of you are going to be so damn ashamed of me.'

'Don't be like that,' she snapped back at me. 'How do you expect us to feel after what you did?' My dad looked up from his teapot but didn't say anything.

I had to get out of there – I could feel my hands trembling. As I turned to leave I heard her call my name.

'Stay for dinner,' she said. 'Joey, you shouldn't go out tonight. The town paper printed a story today about you being released and what happened. They put your picture on the front page. It would be better if you didn't go into town.'

I stared at both of them for a long moment, barely able to recognize either of them. Then I turned and got out of there as fast as I could.

More than just my hands were trembling by the time I got to my car. I had to take a dozen or so deep breaths before I could calm myself down. It's funny, but after all I had lost, I'd hung on to the thought that I wasn't completely isolated. That I could somehow reestablish my relationship with my parents and use that as a starting point to rebuild my life. I used to lie on my cot and idealize the way it would be when I got out. That they'd forgive me in their hearts and mean it when they said they'd help me get back on my feet. But I had just been kidding myself. It had never been like that with the two of them, and now they were nothing but two old people who were willing to let me live in their house for a few weeks.

The hell with it.

I sat in my car for a long moment before I felt I could move. And then I drove to Zeke's.

Zeke's Tavern is a few blocks from downtown Bradley. It's been around since the early nineteen hundreds and is a hangout for cops and locals. A dark cavernous place that always smelled heavily of cigarettes and stale beer. Inside were a couple of pool tables, a dartboard, a jukebox, a few beat-up tables, and a long chipped and stained mahogany bar. Zeke's had a kitchen in the back where they'd cook up burgers and other standard bar food.

I spotted Bill Wright and Tony Flauria sitting at the bar. They were joking about something but stopped when they saw me. I nodded at them and got back only blank stares in return. I moved to the opposite end of the bar, waved the bartender over, and ordered a cheeseburger and a pint of a local brewed ale.

About the time the bartender was placing the pint in front of me, Flauria had gotten off his bar stool and was heading towards me. Bill Wright looked somewhat queasy around the eyes as he tagged along. They were both cops. Flauria, as far as I knew, had always been clean.

Flauria stopped about a foot from me and gave me the evil eye.

'How you doing, Tony?' I said.

He sniffed a couple of times in the air. 'I thought I smelled a pile of shit coming from over here.'

'I'm doing great,' I said. 'Thanks for asking.'

Flauria just stood glaring at me. Then through wire-tight lips, 'You disfigure anyone lately, you pile of shit?'

'Not yet, but the night's young.'

'You dirty piece of shit,' he stated, his beefy face flushed with malice.

'Joe, what the fuck are you doing here?' Bill Wright asked. 'You should just get the hell out of Bradley and consider yourself the luckiest fuck alive.'

'Big words coming from you, Bill. I thought you'd be buying me a beer right now for keeping my mouth shut all these years.'

'I don't know what the fuck you're talking about,' he said, but he didn't look too good, his skin color dropping a shade. Flauria, though, was still simmering with violence.

'Why don't the two of us step outside?' he offered.

'I don't think so, Tony. I got nothing against you and see no reason to hurt you.'

'You got no reason to hurt me?' he asked, flabbergasted. 'After what you did you think you have the right to walk in here and act as if you belong here?'

I could sense his thick body tensing. I sat quietly and drank my beer, my eyes focused straight ahead. Bill said something to Flauria about it not being worth it. In the bar mirror I could see him forcibly restraining Flauria, and Flauria was just barely smart enough to let himself be restrained.

'Let's get out of here,' Flauria spat. 'This place smells too much like an outhouse.' As he and Bill left Zeke's, he pointed a thick finger at me and warned me not to come back. 'You're not welcome here.'

The bar was mostly empty but the few people that were around were staring at me. A blonde, about twenty-five, came over and sat down next to me. She had come into the bar about the time Flauria was being forcibly restrained.

'Wow, that was something,' she said.

I didn't say anything. I really couldn't.

She made a loud sniffing noise. 'I don't know. You smell pretty good to me.'

I turned to see her grinning. She was thin, maybe a little too thin, but nice to look at. She had on dark granny-type sunglasses, which was a funny thing to wear in a place like Zeke's – making me think that she was a druggie. Her grin melted into a soft smile. 'You look pretty good too. Anybody ever tell you you look a lot like Bruce Willis, at least when he had hair?'

'Thanks, I guess.'

'People have told me I look like a young Meg Ryan. What do you think?'

It was hard to tell who she looked like with the dark glasses she was wearing, but she was blonde and thin, and I guess I could see the resemblance around her mouth.

'I'd take you over her any day of the week,' I said.

'In that case, why don't you buy me a drink?' she asked. 'How about a Cosmo?'

'I have no idea what that is,' I said, 'but if you want it, I'll buy it.' I waved over the bartender, who had taken a more sullen attitude towards me, and ordered a 'Cosmo'. I watched as he poured vodka, Triple Sec, and cranberry juice into a cocktail shaker and wondered why anyone would want to drink that. She let me take a sip of it after it had been poured into a Martini glass. It was too sweet for my taste.

'Come on, what was going on here before?'

I turned to face her. With her long straight blonde hair and shit-eating grin, she reminded me a little of Elaine, at least before Elaine had turned sour. As I looked at her I noticed her body was more athletic than thin. Her arms and face were nicely tanned. It took an effort to look away from her.

'Old business,' I said. 'Nothing I'd like to talk about.'

I could feel her staring at me. It did something to me to feel her staring at me.

'Come on,' she said after a while, 'you tell me your secret and I'll tell you mine.'

'I'm sorry. I'm not in the mood for this.'

'Okay, I'll tell you mine anyway.' She reached over and whispered in my ear, 'I haven't had a good lay in months.'

I looked over and saw her shit-eating grin. Her eyes were blackened by the sunglasses but she was grinning her big grin. Like only she knew the joke.

'Buy me another drink,' she said. I bought her another one. After my burger was brought out, I bought her one also. When we were done eating she told me she wanted to go for a ride. 'Come on,' she said as she took my hand, and I let her lead me out of the bar.

When we got to the parking lot she told me that we'd take her car. She breathed lightly in my ear, 'I know a place where nobody will bother us. And I'm going to do things to you tonight you'll never forget.'

She had a later-model green Taurus. 'I'll drive,' she said. It had gotten dark. I got in the passenger side and sat quietly and watched the shadows as we went by. Within minutes we were out of downtown Bradley and heading towards Eastfield. I guess neither of us was in the mood for small talk. As we drove, I could at times make out her face in the moonlight and could see the intensity burning in it.

It took a while before we got to where she was going. We first had to turn down several narrow country roads to get to what was nothing more than a dirt path. Then we drove on that dirt path for miles. Eventually she stopped the car.

She moved herself around so she was sitting sideways and leaning against the driver's side door. I could see her plainly in the moonlight. Her skin looked as if it were smoldering. I moved towards her. She put out an arm to keep me away.

'Wait,' she said. I want to hear your secret first.'

My head was buzzing. It had been almost eight years since I'd been with a woman. I could barely talk. I did something pretty bad a long time ago,' I said.

'Come on, you have to tell me.' She started to lift up her shirt, teasing somewhat, showing off a slightly rounded belly and the bottom area of her breasts.

'Let's just leave it at that. I did something bad.'

'Come on,' she pleaded. 'You're not playing fair. I told you my secret.' She rolled her shirt up farther to fully expose her small breasts for a few seconds before lowering the shirt to just barely cover them.

I shook my head. I figured she was a wack job who got off on bad boys and violence, but I wasn't going to play her game. Even though it had been eight long years since my arrest, I wasn't going to play her game. I wanted her badly – at that moment I would've wanted anyone badly – but I was still going to tell her that it wasn't working out when she exclaimed, 'Oh my God!

'You were in the paper today!' she went on. 'That's why you looked familiar. You're the guy who stabbed that DA! Holy shit!'

I just stared at her, stared as she gave me back a crazy smile.

'What was it like to stab someone like that?'

'Why would you want to know?’

‘Come on, it must have been a rush.'

'No,' I said, 'it wasn't any rush. I'd give anything not to have done it.'

She seemed taken aback by that, at least for a few seconds. Then her crazy smile flashed back on. Her shirt had a little rip near the top and she took hold of that and ripped it the rest of the way. Her small round breasts were fully exposed. I could see her chest heaving wildly. The whole thing was crazy, she was crazy. 'Tear my pants off,' she moaned as she writhed in front of me.

When I reached for her, she whispered, 'You don't even know my name. It's Clara.'

Something clicked in my mind. I usually observe everything around me. Even if I'm not fully aware of it, I'm noticing things and filing them away. In my mind's eye I could see her green Ford Taurus idling a few doors from my parents' house. I could see it pulling away from the curb when I left earlier to drive to Zeke's. I reached up quickly and knocked her dark sunglasses off and saw pure hatred boiling in her eyes. She still had her crazy smile plastered on her face, but her eyes were nothing but black holes of venom and hate. I could see the resemblance then. I should've seen it earlier, but it's hard for me to remember the way Phil used to look. I did remember that Phil had a daughter named Clara.

She started screaming rape then. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, screaming so loud that I thought something inside her was going to rupture. It's funny what goes through your mind at a time like that. For a split second I just found it kind of interesting how wrong I had been. How what I thought was lust heating her up was in fact a completely different and more violent emotion. Then I realized I had to get out of there.

As I turned towards the door, she was on me. One hand was clawing at my face, her other arm wrapped tight around my chest. All the time she was screaming rape. I saw them off in the distance then. Two guys running towards the car.

I tried to push her off but she kept clawing and screaming. I had no other choice so I used my elbow. I swung it behind me and felt it hit something hard. She made a short moaning noise and her grip loosened enough for me to get away from her. I was out of the car and watching as those two guys ran towards me.

They were less than thirty yards away. They were both big boys, probably played offensive line on their high school football teams. The guy leading the charge was holding a tire iron. What I did next surprised them. I raced right at them.

The guy with the tire iron was caught off guard – he just wasn't expecting it. He was off balance somewhat as he tried to hit me with the tire iron and only glanced it off my arm. The blow hurt but didn't do too much damage. I was right on target with my punch, though. I put my whole body into it and caught him flush In the jaw. His mouth exploded into a pink spray and he was out before he hit the ground.

I turned to face his partner. He had stopped in his tracks. I could see he was scared – I was more than he had bargained for. I guess they thought their job would be nothing more than pulling me out of the car and beating me senseless. He took a cautious step towards me and looked like he was going to throw a haymaker at my head. I feigned left and then hit him hard with a right jab to his stomach, and then followed that with a quick rabbit punch to the side of his head. My last punch knocked him off balance, and before he could regain it, I kicked his feet out from under him. As he lay on the ground, I grabbed his arm, swung it behind him and broke it by kicking down hard with my foot. He screamed and then I think he passed out. In any case, he stopped moving or making any noise.

I could make out a jeep parked off in the distance. The guy on the ground in front of me couldn't have been more than twenty-two. I regretted what I did to his arm – he'd never be able to use it quite the same again – but I wanted to put him out of action as quickly as possible. It was a tough lesson to have to learn. I searched his pockets but couldn't find any car keys.

I went over to the other boy, the one with the busted jaw. He was still out cold. Like his friend, he was also only in his early twenties. I searched his pockets and found a key for the jeep. As I was standing up, I was pushed hard from behind and almost knocked to the ground. Clara had jumped on my back and was screaming every vulgar obscenity I'd ever heard in my ear. She was also scratching up my face and trying to get to my eyes. I threw myself backwards and landed with a thud. The blow knocked the wind out of her. She looked a little woozy, but she was still conscious. I got to my feet and started running towards the jeep.

When I got in it I looked in the mirror and saw that she had scratched me pretty good under my cheekbone and had missed my eye by only an inch. I put my hand to my cheek and felt a warm stickiness. Blood was beginning to trickle down my face. I put the jeep in Drive, turned it around, and started back down the dirt path. The headlights momentarily caught Clara and her two accomplices. Clara was sitting with her face in her hands, her thin shoulders convulsing as she sobbed. The two boys were still lying on the ground as if they were dead. Even though they had tried to frame me for rape, and possibly had even planned to beat me to death, I couldn't help feeling sick to my stomach about what happened to all three of them.

I could understand the hatred that must have been burning inside her to push her into such a crazy plan. And it was crazy and juvenile and poorly thought out. I don't know how in the world she thought she was going to explain what her two friends were doing on that dirt road so they could just happen to come across me while I was 'raping' her. But I could understand the hatred that drove her to try framing me. I could imagine her looking at her father's face every day for eight years and hating me just a little bit more each day. I could imagine how her rage must've boiled over when she heard that I was being paroled after only seven years. She probably had convinced herself that she was only correcting a gross miscarriage of justice – that it would be only right for me to end up serving another twenty years, and in a harder place than county jail. I was lucky she hadn't gotten herself a gun and walked into Zeke's and started blasting away. And I wouldn't have blamed her if she had.

I made up my mind then to leave Bradley. I'd only been kidding myself for a long time. There are some crimes that just can't be forgiven.