“So,” Geno said. “Do we just pick up where we left off? Pretend I wasn’t an asshole?”
Stef waved a hand. “Bygones,” he said. “But it’ll probably be weird a little while. You slept on my couch and had breakfast with my mothers. The usual boundaries are…”
“Erased?”
“Smudged.” Stef’s dark blue gaze was piercing, but he smiled below it. Through the residual guilt he was still carrying around, Geno exhaled in relief.
“How have you been feeling since the arrest?” Stef asked.
“Vengeful.”
Eyebrows raised, Stef pointed a finger. “Good word.”
“Weird emotion.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ve been having these…fantasies, I guess. Revenge fantasies.”
“Completely normal,” Stef said.
“You think?”
“Can you tell me one?”
Geno rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. They’re pretty twisted.”
“Sideways question,” Stef said. “Before now, before the arrest, did you entertain thoughts of revenge on Anthony? Tame or twisted?”
“You know, I didn’t think much about him at all. Other than the generalized, nauseating awareness of him being out there in the world still, I didn’t imagine him dead or getting killed or anything. But now?”
“Now?”
“Dude, it’s all I fucking think about.” Geno’s eyes blinked rapidly, his heart galloped like a wild horse.
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because he’s behind bars?”
Stef nodded. “The beast has been caged. He’s in chains and on display. You can get up close and taunt and jeer. Throw garbage. Spit on him. Scream for justice.”
“Yeah,” Geno said. “It’s, like, obsessive.”
“You’re entitled to it,” Stef said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you have the means or connections to order a hit on him inside prison walls.”
A tiny smile broke through the tremble of Geno’s jaw.
“I don’t condone violence of any kind.” Stef looked around the room and cupped his hands around his mouth. “For the record,” he said loudly, “I don’t condone violence.” He dropped his hands. “But it’s a sad fact of the penal system that life for sex offenders is not pleasant on the inside. Your visions of revenge have a high chance of coming to fruition.”
Geno nodded, licking his dry lips.
“I imagine they’re pretty elaborate,” Stef said quietly.
More nodding.
“Have you been drawing them?”
“I try.” Geno took out his pad and flipped to the last used page. He turned it to show Stef the hands gripped around prison bars. “By the way, hands are fucking hard to draw.”
“I know,” Stef said. “That’s why I draw hooves instead.” He turned the page. The next leaf was torn out at the spine, only a little fringe of paper left clinging.
“I had to rip it out,” Geno said. “It was so bad.”
“I’ve seen bad,” Stef said. “If you trust me, I’m a pretty good litmus test of what’s normal and what’s psychotic. If you show me, I give you my word I won’t judge you as good or bad. I already know you’re good. You have zero chance of horrifying me because you drew your ordeal flipped on the one who deserves it.”
“It’s in my room.”
Stef smiled. “I’ll wait.”
Geno went and got it. “Jesus, my heart’s pounding,” he said, putting the folded sheet of paper in front of Stef. Stef opened it briskly and his eyes flicked top to bottom, side to side.
“You’re normal,” he said.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Geno said. “Scale of one to ten, one being apathy and ten being psychotic. Where am I?”
“Where are you or where is this drawing?”
Geno flicked the paper with his index finger.
“Four,” Stef said.
“Four?”
“Under the circumstances, this is on the lenient side. None of them are raping him with objects.”
Geno stared. “I didn’t think of that.”
“Take a deep breath,” Stef said.
Geno inhaled deep and let it go, slouching in his chair a little.
“Take another one.”
Geno did.
“Now pretend for a minute I don’t know jack about you personally or the details of your experience. I’m Joe Shrink, I walk in off the street and all I know is one, you were gang-raped by seven men, and two, you’re drawing a revenge scene. That’s all I know. Okay?”
“All right.”
“First thing, like I said, no objects are involved. I’ve seen pictures like this with mops, brooms, pool cues, broken bottles and baseball bats. You haven’t drawn any blood, literally and figuratively. Next, and forgive the crassness, but I don’t see any double-penetration. It’s not a free-for-all or an attempt to inflict the greatest amount of damage at once. This guy’s going at it, and everyone else is lined up over here, waiting their turn. They still have clothes on. Nobody’s even reaching for their fly or touching themselves. It’s civilized for revenge.”
Before Geno could interject, Stef held up an index finger. “Remember, I don’t know you. I’m just looking with my master’s degree and objectively saying what I see.”
Unasked, Geno took a big breath.
“Last,” Stef said, “and most significant, is the number of men here.”
“What do you mean?”
Stef turned the drawing around to face Geno. His finger circled the man on his hands and knees. “This is Anthony?”
“Yeah.”
His finger moved to the man mounting. “Count with me. One.” He pointed to the lineup. “Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.” His fingertip held on the last man and his eyes pressed Geno hard. “Not seven. Six.”
Geno stared back, not understanding.
“You’re not in here,” Stef said. “You’re not one of them.”
Warm wet trickled down one side of Geno’s face and into his mouth.
“I keep telling you, man, they didn’t get the best of you.”
“I’ll be right back.” Geno went to his room and got the others. He’d drawn dozens of scenes, each worse than the last. Disturbing and grotesque tableaux. Exaggerated dimensions. Graphic depictions of oral and anal sex.
“I have so much fucking hate in my heart,” he said, looking at the gallery of violence spread across the art room table. “So much hate and anger and… My mother always said she only wanted me and my brother to be kind.”
“Your mother would’ve killed these men with her bare hands,” Stef said, the words thin and tight between his teeth.
“Man, I’d watch that,” Geno said. “I feel like my heart would fucking love it. That’s one way I changed that really scares me. Like my heart’s different now.”
Stef was quiet a long time, his eyes resting on the drawings. “Did you ever read your medical file?” he finally asked.
“No.”
“None of it? None of the reports from the hospital?”
“No. Why, did you?”
Stef nodded. “Did you know you almost died?”
“Well. It felt like it. But—”
“Do you know what Ketamine is?”
“No.”
“It’s an anesthetic primarily used by veterinarians. Street name is Special K. It’s a date rape drug. A roofie. Know what Rohypnol is?”
“It’s like a roofie too?”
“Yes. Know what a Trimix injection is?”
Geno shook his head.
“It’s a mix of three drugs. Phentolamine, Papaverine and Alprostadil. PDE5 inhibitors. You probably know them by their brand names. Viagra, Levitra and Cialis.” Stef crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Overdosing on Ketamine or Rohypnol or PDE5s can put you into respiratory failure. ER doctors found all three in your bloodstream.”
“I don’t…remember much from the hospital,” Geno said.
“Considering your blood pressure was seventy over forty-five when you got to the ER, I’m not surprised. You were bleeding internally, in the early states of peritonitis and you needed immediate surgery. But with the Trimix and the sedatives in your bloodstream, plus your system in shock and fighting an infection, surgeons knew they had a significant chance of losing you on the table. Let me tell you something, Geno. The only reason you’re alive today is because you have a strong heart. A really strong heart.”
Geno stared.
“You had one of the top surgeons in Manhattan putting you back together. Still, Dr. Bloom gave you only a ten percent chance of recovering normal bowel function. That means you had a ninety percent chance of going the rest of your life with a colostomy bag. Ninety percent. I know it doesn’t sound as romantic to say you have a strong gut to go with your strong heart, but I’ll say it anyway. What I won’t say is it was a miracle. You didn’t have divine help getting better. You did it all yourself. Somehow, in spite of everything that could’ve killed you, your heart found a way to live and your body found a way to beat the odds and heal.”
Stef leaned forward, his right hand extended, elbow planted as if inviting Geno to arm wrestle. “Let me tell you something else.”
Geno hesitated, then put his palm against Stef’s and their fingers folded down. The gesture felt ancient. Medieval. Rooted in the mysteries of brotherhood.
“I think you’re the strongest, most resilient person I ever fucking met in my life,” Stef said.
Power radiated through their clasped hands, making the air shimmer and press.
“Thanks,” Geno said, barely able to make a sound.
“Your heart is bigger than hate,” Stef said. “You tell the story. Words or pictures, nothing’s going to push me away, all right? If you can live it, I can listen to it. If your heart can survive it, mine can too.”
Geno’s palm thrummed. The blood sang in his veins and his strong heart thudded like military drums. Banners unfurled and flags fluttered in Nos, even the stars were crowing with joy.
Beware the wrath of Caan, for his heart is strong and will not be vanquished.
He was vindicated. Affirmed and validated. He was good. He wasn’t a monster.
He would never understand why he did what he did next.