Jude
After I help the old man up to his apartment, I return to the streets.
I walk aimlessly, just thinking. I think about Emily, about how we met, about how angelic and perfect she looked when she stepped from the crowd in that cold dark place she had no business being. I think about our sex, about the closeness. I think about how different it is with Emily, how it’s nothing like it was with Anna. I care about Emily, really care in a way that reaches into my chest and squeezes my heart. I want her to succeed, I want her to be happy; there’s so much more to us than just sex.
I wander, checking my cellphone every few seconds and taking slugs of whisky to help me along. My feet lead me to toward the city proper, skyscrapers and yellow cabs and honking horns and chaos. I want to see Emily so bad it’s an ache in my body, starting at my fingers and going all the way to my toes. My whole body yearns for her. I skirt around people and each time I see a woman, I think it’s Emily. But it never is. They’re never as attractive, never as vibrant. No other woman can pull at me like Emily can.
Without even meaning to, I wander into the bar. I didn’t even realize I was heading in this direction before I walk through the door.
The place is empty except for Tool, who sits in the back, head lolling, snoring softly. When the bell above the door rings, he snaps awake, hand going for his gun.
“Oh.” He laughs gruffly. “Thought someone had come to end me, man.”
“Not today,” I mutter. “I thought everyone had the afternoon off.” I join him at the table, legs wobbling a little from the whisky.
“Yeah, we did. But the boss called me up and asked me to sit in for a little bit. Wanted someone to watch the place whilst he went out. No idea where he went, though.”
I wince. “My fault,” I admit. I explain to him quickly about Emily mistaking Barry’s blood for Patrick’s.
“That’s rough, man. Can I have a swig of that?”
I slide the whisky across the table. He takes a long sip and then wipes the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Yeah, that’s rough. But why didn’t you just tell her the truth?”
“I just…” I think back on it, at her distraught face, at the reaction which made me question where the hell her allegiance for that prick comes from. It’s damn hard to look into the face of somebody you love and see that they care for a man who’s beaten them countless times. “I just couldn’t stand how she reacted. I don’t know. I got…I got angry. But almost straightaway I regretted it. But by then it was too late. She was already gone. Left her cell, too.”
“Ah.” Tool rolls a cigarette, strikes a match, and lights it. “The boss’ll find her, man. The boss could find a needle in a needle factory.”
“Yeah. But he hasn’t texted me.”
I realize I sound desperate. I hate it, and yet I understand it at once. I am desperate. Desperate to be close to Emily, desperate for her to be safe. When it comes down to it, I’m just standing on the shore, watching helplessly as my parents sink to their deaths. When I think of Emily, I’m that boy all over again, only Emily is sinking into herself, into years of abuse, into a life spent on an unquestioned leash.
“Maybe he’s just talking to her,” Tool offers. “You know how the boss is. Once you get him talking, he doesn’t tend to stop.” He pauses, squints at me. “Jude, man, do you love this girl?”
“Yes,” I say without pause.
Tool flinches; I flinch, too. In this life, you don’t admit how you feel so quickly. But with Emily there is no goddamn question. I love her and the thought of her wandering, somewhere unknown, is like acid in my belly.
“Good for you, man,” Tool says. There’s no judgment in his face, as I expected there to be. But then, I remind myself, Tool is married. “You should’ve told her straight-up it was Barry’s blood.”
“I know.” I lean back, sighing. “I fucking know that. But what’re you supposed to do when the woman you love refuses to give up her abusive brother?”
“The boss’ll talk to her,” Tool says confidently. “He’ll make her see things in a different light.”
“Right,” I murmur, wanting to believe him but finding it difficult. “But you didn’t see the look on her face.”
“I can’t pretend to understand people, man. I never have, not really. Half the time it’s like I don’t even know my own wife. But that’s only ’cause people are fucking hard to understand. Who knows what’s going on behind their eyes, you know? Not me, that’s for sure. But the boss does, and I think you do, too, a little—more than me, anyway.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask, genuinely perplexed.
“You’re a good man, Jude. In a different life you would’ve been a vet or a medic or some shit like that.”
We both laugh. Tool says: “I’m serious, man. Everyone says you’re a good man. Nobody would ever say otherwise.”
“Except my marks.”
“Well…” Tool shrugs. “Yeah, except them. But who gives a fuck if killers and rapists and assholes don’t think you’re a good man?”
“Has that whisky gone to your head, Tool?”
“Ha, ha.” He takes another swig. “Not yet, but it’s getting there.”
“I just wish it was simple,” I say.
“What was?”
“How people feel. I wish it was just one way. But with Emily it’s like there are two people inside of her. She still has black eyes from where that piece of shit beat the hell out of her, and when I come home and she thinks I’ve killed that same piece of shit—she freezes on me. How does that work?”
“People, man, I’m telling you…”
We drink in silence for a few minutes. I check my cellphone about one-hundred times, but there’s nothing. No texts, no calls. Nothing. I stuff it back into my pocket with a growl deep in my throat. My mind goes into overdrive thinking of all the things that could be happening to Emily right now. Maybe she got drunk and ended up at some dingy bar somewhere; maybe some guy is taking advantage of her. Maybe she ran into Patrick; maybe she’s dead. Why did I let her leave, dammit!
It’s not the same because I didn’t care even one-tenth as much back then, but it’s similar to when I let Anna’s parents ship her away. I just let her leave, swept away to a rehab clinic to cure her after her stint with me. See, I think bitterly, that’s what you do to people. Anna didn’t need rehab for the drugs, Jude. She needed rehab from you.
“You alright, man?” Tool asks.
I realize I’m rapping the table over and over with my knuckles.
“Fine,” I grunt. “Just my mind is making me crazy. Keep thinking of all the things that could be happening to her, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. I get like that about my kids. Make myself mad over it. That’s how you know you really give a shit about a person.”
“It doesn’t feel great.”
“Not when you’re apart, no.” Tool laughs. “But that’s life, man. Better get used to it.”
“The bakery,” I mutter, after a pause.
“Bakery?”
I jump to my feet. “That’s where she might be. I’m going to check. See you later, Tool.”
He holds up the bottle. “Don’t you want it?”
“Nah, keep it.”
“I told you, man, you’re a damn good person!” he calls after me as I leave the bar.
Please be there, I think as I pace down the street. Please be there. Please be safe.