Authors: Michael Malflic
affluent
and powerful.
Somewhere between shampoo rinse and repeat a song from a deplorable bar band she had heard in a dive bar in Leigh High Valley during summer break in college came to mind.
“
it’s
not as bad as yesterday,
at
least that’s what I’m told,
not
much left to say,
but
I hate waking up alone.”
She remembered a thin, manic singer who looked like death warmed over, pinning at a mostly empty room as if the walls held the secret to his misery. She stood there in the steam of the shower like he stood there that night, in a low fog on the stage filled with
putrid
green light on his face, she had felt for a moment that he was truly alone in life. As she washed, she hummed the melody one last time another verse came to mind.
“Once I was in love,
but
that you probably guessed,
the
little girl shook up my world,
and
I’m still a fucking wreck.”
After years of driving everything in her world it dawned on her she no longer knew where she was going, but for the first time ever she was worried about waking up alone.
The Things That Happen in Between Living
Nadrea
found herself sitting in her office, eyes hazed from the mind numbing number of documents she was pouring through and rout conversations that were part of the daily routine. There were of course drinks here and there, mixed social activities, blatant lies and other routine obsessions about things that were for the most part trivial and meaningless, but somehow more often than not defined the very core of her being passing the minutes seconds and hours of the week. The Husker was also reading, studying positioning and debating items of significantly greater importance. Donna fretted as the final arrangements were being made for her to meet up with Paul when he arrived. Vincent readied himself, not so much for the present, but for the following week when a company they had taken an equity stake in would be headed off to the Mecca of business finance to finalize a series of new working capital through mezzanine financing, a third round placement and credit facilities required to support an IPO.
Donna and the Husker spoke daily and spent three of the first four evenings of the week together.
Nadrea
spent those evening passing her time with her usual routine of impure diversions and assorted playthings. Vincent however never
called,
she finally called him Thursday morning. Christy spent the week biding her time, waiting for Robert to cast his new toy aside and her life to get back to normal.
Thursday is almost Friday
It was a cold evening in comparison to the rest of the week and the time of the year, but somehow the fading warmth of day giving way to the cold darkness of the evening fit perfectly in line with the long anguishing life that occurred during the week. Vincent had reluctantly agreed during her call earlier in the day to have dinner at 8:30. After all he had been in the office by 6:30am and this would allow him to put in a thirteen and a half hour day before finally calling it quits so by the time he needed to leave he was overly weary but still trudged forward as agreed to pick her up.
In contrast
Nadrea’s
day ended at 5:30 and she prepared to take her day look that had been temporarily interrupted with a mid-day workout and a fruit and mixed baby greens salad at the club for lunch. So she headed home to change for the evening. No sooner than she walked through the door did the sound system kick in, the day’s theme was lust filled graphically sexual rap. As the treble setting and midrange frequencies faded giving way to a wall shaking bass thump
Nadrea
went for the tan leather pants and subtly contrasting suede blouse and a pair of matching four inch heels. Her hair was down and flowing. Her demure daytime makeup gave way to a clean face that was then painted with dark heavily curled lashes, dark eye liner and burgundy lips. Sipping a vodka and cranberry from a pewter and glass rocks glass, the look mixed with the music and the drink in hand gave her appearance a bit of an edge, a euro trash night club look.
Vincent arrived, the inside of his Acura RL glowing purple like a space ship. The charcoal gray car’s windows were tinted so dark black that the windows looked like black mirrors. Vincent’s day wear was his evening wear, dark gray Brooks Brothers trousers, Black Allen Edmunds loafers a black
Canali
blazer and a custom made striped dress shirt.
Nadrea’s
cell rings as Vincent rounds the corner onto her street.
She answered “Hello” reading the caller ID knowing damn well who it was.
“2 minutes” Vincent states. “Charcoal Acura” and just as quickly as it had been answered he was gone. No small talk or
ba
nter
, no
hell
o
, no
good
bye
,
it
was like he had fallen into an episode of dragnet “Just the facts ma’am.” Soon after the call
Nadrea
was tucked into the black leather bucket seat and after buckling in and exchanging basic greetings connected her IPod to the car’s sound system to continue with the theme of the evening of pounding rap music. Neither spoke after saying their
hello’s
. Vincent drove racing through the streets pushing the car’s handling and all wheel drive close to its limits.
Nadrea
just stared out of the dark windows singing along with the songs while counting the seconds until they arrived.
As they entered the restaurant and were seated both were stoic and silent until the waiter arrived.
Nadrea
ordered a Grey Goose with cranberry juice and Vincent a
Dewars
on the rocks. She hadn’t seen him drink or eat much either. Well other than the typically irritatingly morning pancakes from Friday night, she could still swim in that delicious memory.
“Why are you here?”
Nadrea
asked somehow wanting to break the silence as the waiter’s assistant showed up with
crustinis
.
Vincent thought about his answer, drifting back from where ever his other thoughts had actually been occurring “I figured it was a good place to kill some time. Besides all work
nd
no play
makes a
dull boy.”
Nadrea
wasn’t sure what he actually meant by his answer. Sure he was typically irritating often he avoided her, more often he interrupted her but at the very least he had always been playful. It occurred to her that this was the first time she had been with him even for a few minutes that he hadn’t laughed. Vincent hadn’t carried on with
anyone,
instead he just ordered dinner, conversed when she engaged him and kept most of his own thoughts to himself. There was wine with dinner she had steamed Sea Bass with Asian vegetables and jasmine rice, he had seared
Ahi
with a
Miso
paste Glaze and Wasabi and Bok Choy garnish.
They walk toward his car a little over two blocks away and at dinner
Nadrea
had finished the better portion of the bottle of wine just chatting away at Vincent, she was finally starting to relax and unwind. He just took it all in formulating his own thoughts about what was being said. The street grew darker as they neared his car which was in a short stretch with two burned out street lights along a row of businesses that had closed for the
evening ,
trees and grass were between the sidewalk and the street. Dimly lit apartments hovered above the businesses below them. In the darkness of an otherwise quiet street Vincent unlocked the car and trailed
Nadrea
to her side to open the door for her as she continued to talk away. A man appeared from behind the SUV in front of them “Give me the fucking keys” he demanded. Vincent turned to face him watching the man as Vincent’s size became apparent to the attacker. He closed the door before
Nadrea
could get in so as she stepped back away from the front of the car Vincent asked his counterpart. “Give you the fucking keys, or what?” He surmised that
the
would
be attacker was about five seven and a hundred and forty five pound man in his early to mid twenties. “Don’t make me.” The attacker said his voice wavering between angry and violent and nervous. Vincent was worried, there was no weapon being brandished, the assault had started at a distance, not a pro, just some bush league thief looking for an easy grab who was not prepared to deal with conflict.
“Get the fuck out of here before I fucking hurt you” Vincent instructed him as he approached. Most men when threatened wouldn’t have held their ground
, a
small percentage might have tried to diffuse the situation but only on a rare instance would someone have advanced on an attacker not out of a defensive posture to protect them self but out of pure aggression. Vincent didn’t keep his distance but kept moving closer. Advancing past the front of the car to the sidewalk
..
Nadrea
moved to the edge of the front door still standing three feet back from the vehicle and now in the middle of the deadly still street. As the confrontation unfolded Vincent slid the keys in his front pocket after hitting the button to relock the car. It was the moment for the attacker to decide, the most basic human survival instinct fight or flight. A reaction that should have been part of his evolutionary make up,
but something must have been
mis
-wired. The attacker’s hands were in plain sight, he didn’t reach for a weapon. Most people, especially most yuppies, would have simply
folded,
tossing the keys and calling the police form their cell phones. Vincent just watched his body tensed waiting for the seconds that felt like a lifetime in slow motion for the assailant’s move. When it came it was a charging movement toward Vincent, a pathetic stupid attempt to retreat to where he had come from rather than in the opposite direction of danger. It was like a slow wounded zebra running toward the lions. Vincent caulked his leg stepping into the attacker as he passed landing a shoulder in his ribs and a fore arm across the attacker’s head as he fell backward, his eyes unfocused staggering to keep his balance and gather his breath.
Nadrea
was mesmerized, watching with a morbid curiosity as Vincent landed a bone shattering blow across his opponent’s left cheek cracking his nose where it met his face.
As Vincent unleashed a merciless flurry of primitive brutal blows on to a man who was crumbling to the ground at his feet
Nadrea
thought how it was like flying over a Florida lightning storm during dusk, flashes of light and beauty in the darkness that despite the danger was worth ever pulse pounding second, she felt so alive. Vincent stood over the crumpled mass of a man half conscious and bleeding from his mouth and nose the red drops spewing from his body through the cool night air onto the cold damp sidewalk. Vincent’s nostrils flared still filled with blood lust, “Now get out of her before I really hurt you!”
Nadrea
still anticipating additional seemingly obvious violence drifted slowly even further back. Not until something caught her eye in the distance did she realize she was in the middle of the street with a car just a few blocks away pointed its lights in her direction.
“Should I call the Cops?”
she
asked as the humbled assailant attempted to move away from Vincent. “No. Get in the car.” Vincent replied unlocking the car and tossing the keys in her direction.
Nadrea
missed the keys and scrambled into the street to retrieve them. “Start it before I get in.”
Vincent’s tone leaving no room for questions his eyes still watching his attacker intensely.
Nadrea
started the car. S
he sat and watched through the dark windows, her date still towering over the injured man. “Never kick a man when he’s down.” Vincent said not at all pleased that he was still in the company of the moron who tried to steal his car. “Bullshit!” he yelled his voice filled with murderous rage.
He kicked
the already befuddled injured criminal in his ribs breaking two of them making each breath more painful than the last while he shielded his head fearing more unprovoked attacks. The blow delivered another brilliant flash of his brutalit
y in retribution that was other
wise uncalled for.
“Should have run when you had the chance.”
Vincent said quickly, climbing into the car locking the doors as soon as he entered pulling away into the street quickly as if it was he who had stolen the car, echo’s of Ludicrous echoing in the space they had just occupied.