Johnny Blade Page 16

  The white man led the woman in black toward Felicia and Michael. The woman was still crying under her veil, that handkerchief, wadded into a ball in her fist, remained near her mouth. The man held out his hand and Michael shook it.

  “We’re Vanessa’s parents. We, unfortunately, did not know many of her friends, but it means a lot to us to see she had some close ones. We want to thank you for showing up today. If you’d like, some people are coming back to our house. So many people have brought over food that it will go to waste if we don’t share it,” Mr. Vorhees offered, graciously.

  Felicia had stopped crying, and had positioned herself in my arms so that she could see the couple in front of them. “Thank you, Mr. Vorhees,” Michael said. He had no intentions of attending, but saw no reason to say so.

  Mrs. Vorhees held out her hand, then slowly placed it on Felicia’s shoulder. “Don’t go back to doing what you do,” she said in a voice not much louder than a whisper. “Look at what happened to my baby. Please, dear God, let this serve as some kind of lesson. Don’t go back to doing what you do.”

  Sobs overtook Mrs. Vorhees. Mr. Vorhees turned her around and led her toward the waiting limousine.

  Michael heard Felicia say, “Do you have to work?”

  “I’m off,” Michael answered

  “Feel like coming with me for a drink?”

  Chapter 35

  They were both drinking beers, sitting in a back corner booth, in a small, city bar known as The Bent Elbow. With it not being more than ten minutes past eleven, aside from the newspaper-reading, chain-smoking bartender, they were the only patrons. Michael shook two cigarettes out of his pack and lit them. He handed one over to Felicia, who took it hungrily. “Mr. Vorhees,” she said. “What an asshole he is.”

  Michael waited. He knew Felicia would tell him why she thought Vanessa’s father was an asshole. She leaned back against the maroon vinyl seat. “Vanessa was the story book whore, you know?” Those gray-blue eyes brimmed with tears. Felicia brushed them away before they had a chance to slide down her cheeks. “Classic story book.”

  “Her father—”

  “Her father? Ha!” She took a long drag on the cigarette. She leaned in close, and spoke while she exhaled. “Vanessa never knew her real father. This guy was the divorce attorney. You saw Vanessa’s mother. She’s a nice looking lady. She was also poor. She couldn’t afford to pay for the divorce, but Mr. Asshole found different ways of accepting payment. So who knows what happened, right? They fell in love, or lust, or whatever, and wind up getting married. Vanessa was maybe five at the time. Then Vorhees legally adopts her when she’s like, ten. Sounds like a fairy tale, huh? Well it is like a fairy tale; like one you might read by those Grimm Brothers, because that bastard was molesting her from the time she was ten until she was a young teenager. By the time she was sixteen, he was raping her.”

  “Didn’t her mother know?” Michael asked in disbelief.

  “She had to know. They only lived in a raised ranch in Gates, not some mansion with twenty rooms. Vanessa’s bedroom was two doors down from her parents’ room. No way her mother couldn’t know what was going on. Except, I remember Vanessa telling me once that her mother got heavy into sleeping pills. No kidding. The old bag wanted to block everything out, keep herself hidden in the dark.”

  Felicia drank down her beer.

  Michael reached for her hands. She pulled away. “Why the hell do you like me?”

  The question stopped Michael cold. “Why?” He asked.

  “I’m a prostitute, Michael. I sleep with guys for money. Is that what you want in a girl friend? You want to bring someone like me home to meet your parents? Why do you want to be with me?” Felicia asked.

  Michael stared into her angry eyes, and beyond the fire in them, he saw the need to be accepted. However, words escaped him. He knew they were not in love yet. It was far too soon for an emotion as strong as love. The possibility for love was strong. How do you convey those feelings appropriately?

  “Am I some kind of novelty, Michael? You screwed a whore without paying, and now it’s like a game, a conquest?”

  “Why are you doing this? Do you think that’s fair?”

  “Fair? What do you know about fair? I’ll bet your parents put you through school, bought you cars, paid for your clothing, took you to movies. I’ll bet you’ve hardly ever had to go without. Buzzelli. Nice Italian name. Big Italian family, right? Lots of support, hugs and kisses?” Felicia seethed. Both her hands were balled into dangerous looking fists. Michael let her keep talking, even though most of her ‘facts’ were incorrect.

  “Unlike I had a mom and dad, but you know what? I meant nothing to them. Not a thing,” Felicia said.

  Felicia seemed to throw herself back in the booth. She stopped her emotions as if it had been an easy thing to do. Michael knew already that opening up was something Felicia had difficulty with. She was used to keeping her feelings in. Who knows, maybe this is the closest she has ever come to revealing a part of her life to someone. Michael had the distinct feeling that no one knew Felicia’s ‘story’.

  There was a technique that psychologists used. They would tell the patient something about themselves, in hopes of building trust—a relationship—so that the patient would not feel awkward in return. Often times, psychologists take the first part of this practice a step too far. They open up too much. They inadvertently pull the focus off the patient and place it on themselves. Michael had no skill at this kind of thing. Letting Felicia sit and sulk was not the answer.

  “I guess I have been lucky,” he finally said. “I do have a large and supportive family.”

  Felicia made a humph sound. Michael waved at the bartender. Once he got the man’s attention, he signaled for another round. The guy looked annoyed but brought over fresh drafts, while Michael lit up two more cigarettes. When he handed Felicia hers, he asked, “What did your family do wrong?”

  She cupped both hands around the frosted mug and seemed to concentrate on staring into the white foamy head. “I had a brother,” she said, tentatively. Her lips trembled. “He was almost two years older than me. Wouldn’t you know his name was Mike, Mikey.” Again tears brimmed, and again she wiped them away on her sleeve. “I was five, he was six, almost seven. We were out front playing with a ball. I kicked the ball and it rolled toward the street. My mother was sleeping on a folding chair on the lawn, taking in some sunrays. She wasn’t watching us. She never did. And I can … I can still see everything so clearly, so clear in my mind. The image is so vivid at times. It comes into my head sometimes when I’m awake, like a nightmare,” she said, then stopped talking. She pressed the web between her thumb and first finger across her forehead and shook while she cried.

  Michael again reached over the table and touched her other hand. This time, her fingers wrapped around his. They were cold and wet from holding the mug.

  “He, Mikey, ran across the street to get the ball. He picked it up, and stood at the curb. A car was coming. He was playing catch with the ball, just throwing it a little in the air while he waited for the car to pass by. But he missed it, and as he leaned forward to snatch the ball out of the road again, to keep it from getting run over . . . the front grill of the passing car smashed into his head.”

  Felicia took back her hand. She hugged herself while she cried. Michael stood up and moved to sit beside her in the booth. First he touched her shoulder. Then he ran his hand down her arm. She fell into his arms. Michael knew he had just experienced an amazing breakthrough.

  “The car was going too fast, Michael, way too fast. And my mother blamed me for the accident. She jumped out of that chair—the driver didn’t even honk his horn, but he slammed on his brakes. He slammed on those brakes and the sound the car made as it skidded to a stop was worse than a million fingernails scratching their way down a blackboard. I’ll never forget that sound,” Felicia said.

  She seemed to have brought herself under control. She had one hand on his thigh. Her fingers squee
zed him every once in a while. Her other hand she used while she talked. It moved like a flag, waving back and forth, up and down. “When my mother talked to my father, she had to have told him she blamed me, so he blamed me, too. Then they just seemed to stop talking to me. My house was like a mime’s house. No one said a word. That year, when I turned six, there was no party. No party and no presents.

  “By the time I was in junior high I’d become used to the silent treatment. I wasn’t at all surprised, nor did I care, when my parents got separated. They never discussed it with me. One day I got home from school and my dad was just gone. His stuff was all cleaned out of the garage and from his den. I remember asking my mom, and all she said was he was leaving for a while. It was years later when they finally worked things out between each other. That was a real shocker, too. I got home one night and my father’s on the sofa with my mother. They’re sitting real close, you know? They tell me they’re getting back together, that they’ve worked all this crap out. They want me to forgive them and just forget the past,” Felicia explained. She let out a laugh as if the thought of forgiving her parents was part of a joke. “So when they get together what do they do? My father gets my mother pregnant. Marcia’s on the way, right? My brother’s dead. I’ve been ignored. My parents split, get back together—and the first thing they do is have another baby. Where do I fit in with those plans? Even if I accepted their apologies, even if I forgot the past, don’t you think they’d be too busy for me? Wouldn’t the upcoming arrival of the new baby keep them from spending any quality time with me? What about all the birthdays where I got nothing or all the Christmas mornings where Santa didn’t bother coming. Why would he? After my brother died, we never got another tree. What about me?”

  “Did you give them a chance?” Michael asked.

  Felicia shot him a desperate look. It said, Don’t.

  “But before they get back together, before the baby’s on the way, I’m hitting puberty, right? At this point raw, toxic emotions are surging through me. I’m a mess. I wear mostly black make-up and teachers can’t stand me. I have no friends that are girls—because all the boys are attracted to me. It isn’t long before I find out why, either. I had sex for the first time when I was twelve, and despite my distorted past, I enjoyed it. Having sex made me feel like I counted . . . all the guys at school paid so much attention to me, it was amazing,” Felicia retold the story with a thin smile.

  “I know what you’re thinking, I had low self-esteem. I have low self-esteem. But that’s not it. That wasn’t it. Maybe I did have low self-esteem, but so what? Having sex felt wonderful, having people wanting to talk to me felt wonderful. Not since before my brother’s death had I ever felt so . . . so necessary. And when I was sixteen, I dropped out of school and left home. I started working as a hostess at a strip club on Lyell Avenue. The owner didn’t care that I was sixteen. He paid me under the table. He had enough mob ties that he didn’t have to worry about the police showing up unexpectedly. There were enough hiding places in that place, if he needed me to be invisible, I could easily become invisible.

  “It wasn’t long before I was dancing for him, too. I drew in a crowd. I did some stag parties, making more money than I thought could be possible. And then I learned how to make some extra money at those parties. I did this to one guy, let another guy do something to me, and they practically threw money at me,” Felicia said without emotion.

  Michael was again at a loss for words. In her short life she had experienced worlds that he would never know or understand. He could not even begin to comprehend some of the things she must have felt. One question kept flashing in his mind, over and over again. What is their next step together?

  When Michael drove her home, they sat silently in his car for several long, uncomfortable minutes. “You know,” Felicia said, “I’ve never told anyone that much about me before.” Michael stayed quiet. “Don’t even ask me why I told you any of it,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. They landed on her lap, and immediately after, her fingers began fidgeting with each other. She had lowered her head, and Michael knew she was crying, again.

  “Felicia,” Michael said.

  She held up a hand. “Stop. Stop it right now, Michael. I don’t want to hear whatever it is you think you have to say to me. I don’t want to hear. You know what I want? I want some time alone. I want to go into my home, have a beer, and fall asleep on the couch. No radio, no television, nothing.” She looked over at Michael.

  He loved her eyes. It was a shame that they looked even more beautiful when wet with tears, because he hated to see her hurting so much. “Then good night, sleep tight.”

  “I hate that saying, what does it mean?” Felicia said, trying to smile, as if trying to make it look as if everything was going to be all right. Maybe she wanted Michael and the entire world to know just how strong she was; a high school drop out, orphan and loner . . . but tough and determined.

  “These old mattresses, back in the time of Shakespeare, were literally tied to the bed posts with rope. You had to pull the ropes every night, get them good and tight if you wanted a firm mattress. So goodnight, sleep tight is derived from that,” Michael said, casually.

  “You sound like Fatso,” Felicia said.

  “He’s the one who told me.”

  Felicia reached out and caressed Michael’s face with the back of her hand. “You really are a special person, aren’t you?” She kept her eyes open only a little as she leaned forward and pressed her lips gently against his. The kiss was brief, tender, loving. “I’ll see you around.”

  She got out of the car and ran up to her door. Michael waited in the driveway until she was inside. His heart was hammering inside his chest. His mind was all mixed up. He knew there could be no denying his feelings. He was falling in love with Felicia, and though she was denying it, fighting it, he knew she felt the same way.

  Chapter 36

  Wednesday, January 23

  Bob Wendell, the local high school football star at Greece Athena enjoyed smoking a little pot now and then. He knew he did not have a problem with the drug because he never bought the stuff and during the season he never touched drugs or alcohol. Well, sometimes he drank a few beers at a party, but he had to. Peer pressure took on an entirely new meaning when you were captain of the football team.

  His parents talked to him many times about being a leader and not a follower. He knew they loved him, and he respected their well-meaning talks. He even loved them more for it, despite the fact they were getting on his nerves.

  They were always explaining to him the power he had to make a difference because of who he was. Everyone knew that he, Bob “Gunshot” Wendell, was a school leader. The other players on the team looked up to him. The other students admired him because of his accomplishments and notoriety. His touchdown pass throwing abilities made him a local star. He had taken his varsity team all the way this year, bringing home a grand regional trophy. Wendell had even appeared in a television commercial for a used car dealer.

  What his parents failed to realize was the fact that being a leader made him feel even more like a loner. Having people idolizing and worshiping him felt more stressful than most people could imagine. At many times feeling untouchable made him feel ostracized. The guys on the team never seemed to have trouble saying hello, but they always treated him differently from how they treated each other. Wendell’s father, a supervisor with Kodak, tried one time to put it into some kind of perspective, by making the comparison that Wendell was like a supervisor. His people, the players, would respect him, but not necessarily like him—and that, according to Wendell’s father, was a good thing.

  How could he not smoke a little pot at a party where everyone was smoking?

  He remembered his first time. The paranoia he had felt after finishing a joint. He thought for sure that he would get caught. His parents would kill him, but not before the coach made sure he would never play another high school sport. He would never get an athletic scholarship t
o a decent college and would wind up trapped in Rochester for the rest of his life, maybe working at Kodak like his father.

  After that night, and after not getting caught, and not getting killed by his parents, the paranoia slowly faded away with his increased usage. He swore, he made a pledge, if his grades ever suffered because of his pot smoking, he would quit. Aside from his political science, chemistry and English classes—where he had only dropped a single grade level—his grades have not suffered at all.

  When Kenny, the team’s wide receiver, stuffed the small bag of weed into Wendell’s knapsack at school this afternoon, he had said, “Keep it. I’m giving it up.” When Wendell got home from school, he studied the bag. There was just enough in it to roll a single joint. Not wanting to risk having his mother or father find the baggie, he decided he had better get rid of the stuff.

  Wendell tore a piece of paper out of his history notebook, folded it, and tucked it and the bag of weed into his front pocket. Leaving his knapsack in his room, and putting his winter coat back on, Wendell ran out the garage door. His house backed up to the woods outlining Sawyer Park. Growing up, he and neighborhood friends practically lived in the woods and at the park.

  Now, he sought solace. He felt as if all the neighbors backing up to the park were standing at windows watching him knowingly as he made tracks toward the woods. It took every bit of strength he possessed, not to turn and check out the houses around him. If someone were watching him, they would find it suspicious if he kept nervously glancing over his shoulders. Instead he stared at a tree directly ahead of him and focused all of his concentration on it, until he walked past it and into the refuge of the trees.

  The water seemed to be running fast and hard as if despite the cold, the snow was melting and the creek was filling with more water than it could handle. The sound it made felt exhilarating. Bob Wendell knew right where to go, to keep hidden, but to be close enough to the water to enjoy the natural surroundings while he rolled and smoked his reefer.