Joe (8 page)

She began retching, and Joe took a step
back. After a few gags, the woman began spewing up the alcohol she’d consumed.
Joe looked back at Michael, who just stood there watching the whole thing in
utter confusion. Joe looked back to the young woman.

“J-j-just muh-move over here, would ya?”
Joe said, gesturing the young woman toward her.

Michael wasn’t sure what to think of the
whole scene. It seemed to him as though he were missing something here. He
continued to watch. The young woman was fully in the clutches of regurgitation
now, and Joe’s face was pinched up in disgust, but she also looked nervous.

“Ma’am, p-please, muh-move out of the
street!” she demanded.

The woman lifted her right hand from her
knee and held up her middle finger. Everything that came next seemed to happen
so fast. Michael heard the squeal of tires and the sound of drunken laughter.
The blinding glow of headlights came next. He was too far away to be any good,
and the young woman with throw-up running down her shirt was right in the path
of the oncoming vehicle, which was moving way too fast.

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he
heard Joe utter a bad word, and then she took off at a sprint, hit the woman
hard in the side, and tackled her out of harm’s way a split second before impact.
The driver of the vehicle blasted the horn, shouting expletives out of his the
window, and fish-tailed out of the parking lot.

Michael looked over at Joe, who was now
crawling to her feet. The knee of her jeans had torn and her t-shirt was ripped
on her right sleeve, where blood was rolling down from her shoulder and falling
at the crook of her bent elbow. The other young woman was also regaining her
feet, and she was all but shouting.

“Holy shit! Jesus Christ! Oh my shit!
That fucker almost ran me over!” she said, pulling herself upright for the
first time since Michael had seen her. The shock must have knocked the weak
stomach out of her.

Joe was glaring at the girl, and Michael
thought that she might just tell the idiot off, but instead, she turned on her
heel and began heading back toward the bar.

“Hey, wait!” The lady said. “You saved
my life. Thank you.”

Michael watched a little of the tension
go out of Joe’s shoulders, but she didn’t turn back around. “Come sit on the st-st-steps,”
she said to the woman. “I’ll cah-call you uh-uh-uh cab.”

He ran to catch up with Joe, the drunken
woman stumbling behind him. When he caught up to her he realized that he didn’t
know what to say, so he just walked beside her. Joe didn’t look over at him at
all. She seemed frustrated and still a little nervous.

When his arm brushed hers, he heard
Joe’s teeth click together, and realized he had bumped against her wound.
Finally, words came to him. “Oh, sorry. Are you okay?” he asked.

She was cradling her arm against her
stomach, but no pain showed on her face. “Be fuh-fine,” she said.

Before he could stop himself, Michael
grabbed Joe’s arm gently. “Let me see,” he said, examining the arm that she’d
fallen on. “This is pretty deep. I was in pre-med before I decided to major in
Literature. You should let me clean it up. I have a first-aid kit in my car.”

When he looked up from her injury he saw
that she was staring at him with her brows drawn together, not in anger, but
more so surprise at his contact. He released his hold on her and cleared his
throat. “I mean, if you want me to,” he added. “I don’t mind.”

Her silver-blue eyes studied him for a
long moment, and he was all but sure she was going to refuse. Finally, she
said, slowly, “Okay, where?”

As Michael led Joe over to his car she
pulled out her cell phone and called a cab company for the woman who was now
slumped down on the steps of the bar. He opened the passenger door of his car
for her and ran around to his trunk to retrieve his supplies. Kneeling down in
front of her, where she was turned sideways with her legs out of the passenger
door, he placed the first-aid kit on the ground and opened it up.

Joe was silent as he cleaned her arm and
applied disinfectant, though Michael knew that it had to sting. He was
inexplicably nervous, so he tried to make conversation. “This one could use
stitching,” he told her. “Did you fall on some glass?”

She shrugged. “Don’t have insurance,”
she said slowly, “but, yuh-yes, glass.”

“Okay, well, I’ll put some liquid
bandage on it and close the laceration by squeezing it with my fingers. It
might hurt a little, but if I don’t do it you’ll end up with a pretty big
scar.”

Joe sighed. “By ah-all means,” she said.

Michael did as he said he would, and
still the girl was silent. She really was a tough one to converse with, but he
liked hearing her speak. “So, that was pretty badass,” he said.

One side of her mouth pulled up. “Yep,
it was grrr-reat.”

Michael laughed as he finished sealing
the cut. Then he took out some gauze and tape to protect his liquid stitches.
He really would have made a fine doctor, he thought. Maybe even a better one
than his father, but the two had different passions. Michael liked helping
people, but he believed his true gift was with words, and that sometimes they
could mend things better than medicine. His father had been of an opposite
mind.

“Try not to get this wet for a couple
days,” he said. “May I?” He gestured toward Joe’s knee, where her jeans had
ripped through. She nodded, but shifted a little in what he thought was
discomfort.

Gently sliding the denim up her leg and
past her knee, he examined the scrape she had there, and began to clean it.
Again, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Thank you,” she said.

Michael looked up and smiled. “No, thank
you for the drinks,” he replied, reaching up to the dashboard for the bottle of
disinfectant he had placed there. He was busy looking at Joe, and his hand
knocked the open bottle off of the dashboard. He cringed inside instantly.

It would have spilled all over her lap,
but instead, Joe reached out and caught the bottle before it fell. She sighed
again and set the bottle down, shooting what Michael thought was a nervous
glance at him.

“Wow. Good reflexes,” he said.

This made Joe smile, but he thought it
was the kind that was meant for an inside joke, like she knew something he
didn’t know. Michael stood up and held his hands out to her. She took them and
got out of the car.

“All done,” he said. She nodded and
began heading back toward the bar. Michael hurried after her, searching for
something say.

“Joe! You okay?” said a woman’s voice.
Michael looked up and saw the owner of the bar, Susan, heading toward them.

Joe nodded. “Yes, ma’am, juh-just fine,”
she said.

“What happened to your arm? Oh, who’s
your friend?” Susan asked, looking at Michael and smiling, but he noticed that
she shot a nervous glance at Joe as she said it.

“Michael, ma’am,” he said. “You may not
remember me, but I used to come in here with my father when I was little. Peter
Wilkens?”

Susan smiled. “You’re Pete’s son? Sure,
I remember you. Shirley Temples, right? How’s your father doing?”

“He passed five years ago,” Michael
said, swallowing around the lump that always formed in his throat when he spoke
about his father.

“Sorry to hear that. He was a good man.”
Susan looked Joe over, taking in her injuries. “Joe, you can go on home, honey.
I’ll collect your tips. We close in an hour anyway.”

“That’s okay. I can fuh-finish up,” Joe
said.

Susan nodded. “Okay, come in whenever
you’re ready.” She smiled at Michael. “Good to see you again,” she said.

“You too,” Michael agreed. Susan headed
toward the bar, tossing glances at them over her shoulder the whole way.
Michael turned to Joe. This was probably his last chance to say something.

He opened his mouth to speak, but at
that moment Trey came out of the door to the bar. He spotted Michael and began
heading his way.

“Well, see ya,” Joe said.

Michael smiled. “Yeah, um, when do you
have class?” he blurted out.

Joe gave him a look of confusion.
“Muh-Monday through Friday,” she said.

“Oh, I only see you on Tuesdays and
Thursdays. I guess I’ll see you then,” he said. He felt like an idiot.

An odd look came over her face for just
a moment, and then it was gone. Then, she gave what he thought was a sardonic
smirk. He really was good at reading others. “Huh-hopefully,” she said, and
headed into the bar.

Trey raised an eyebrow at the girl as
she passed by. “So that’s what you were doing out here. You had me worried for
a minute, bro,” he said.

“You ready to go?” Michael asked.

Trey shrugged. “I guess. Who was that?”

“Joe.”

“Joe?” Trey asked.

Michael nodded. “Yeah, her name is Joe.”

Trey laughed. “Okay, well, did you get
her number?”

Michael shook his head. “Why do you think
I’d ask for it?”

“Because you’re obviously interested in
her. You should have invited her to your poetry thing at the campus on Monday.
Chicks love that shit.”

Michael laughed and began heading back to
his car. “Something tells me she’s not the type to be wooed with words,” he
said.

“Wooed? Who the hell says ‘wooed’?” Trey
said. “Well, don’t worry, I’ll be there to snap my fingers or whatever it is
people do at those things.”

They drove back to their apartment, and
Michael could think of nothing else but Joe the whole way. The events of the
night were distracting him as well, and he wondered if the raven-haired girl
always had such interesting occurrences. Maybe he would invite her to his
poetry reading at UMMS on Monday.

Life could always use a healthy dose of
interesting, if you asked him. Mondays especially.

Chapter
Fourteen

Joe

“He
likes you,” Aunt Susan said.

I looked up from the glasses I was
polishing. The bar had closed thirty minutes ago, and the last customer had
finally left. I was exhausted, and the arm I had fallen on while tackling the
drunk lady was beginning to throb. It had been a long day.

“Hmm?” I said. “Wuh-what makes you think
that?”

Aunt Susan gave me a droll look. “You
said that when you ran outside to save the drunken idiot, he followed you. Then
he offered to tend your wounds.
Then
he asked about your schedule.
Sounds to me like he likes you.”

I shook my head. “He was being
pa-pa-polite. The puh-point is, he sssaw everything. Wuh-why would he follow
me?”

Aunt Susan crossed the bar to stand in
front of me. “That’s not what’s bothering you, honey. You’ve got something on
your mind.” She held up a hand when I opened my mouth to deny it. “Don’t try to
lie to me, Joe. I know you too well. What did you see? By the way you’ve been
acting I would guess it’s something big.”

I sighed, returning a beer mug to its
proper place on the shelf behind me. I considered for a moment whether or not I
should tell her about the shooting that was going to happen at UMMS. In fact,
as I stood there, the urge to unburden myself was overwhelming. When my eyes
started to gain moisture, I took a deep breath and turned back to face her.

“It’s nuh-nuh-nothing,” I lied, forcing
a smile to my lips as to reassure her.

She released a heavy breath. “It’s not
you against the world, you know. I know you think that because you’re the one
with the gift that you have to be the one to deal with its burdens, but that’s
not true, Joe. Tell me, and I’ll help you any way I can.”

Again, I felt my eyes begin to water,
but I forced back the emotion that was welling up in me. Crying wouldn’t solve
anything, and if I broke down right now, Aunt Susan would never stop pestering
me until I gave up the goods. I couldn’t tell her, no matter how bad I wanted
to, because then she would insist on being foolish with me. One fool in the
line of fire was enough. I couldn’t allow her to risk her life. She had too
kind a heart to die so young, whereas I have multitudes of demons.

I smiled again, but my fists clenched a
little at my sides. “Everything is fuh-fuh-fine. I puh-puh-promise,” I said.

Aunt Susan stared at me a moment, then
moved off to complete the rest of the closing tasks. I released a heavy breath.
“You stutter more when you lie,” she tossed over her shoulder, and disappeared
into the kitchen behind the bar.

On the drive home, I did cry. I am not
ashamed of this. I was all alone, the world dark outside of my car windows, the
road under my tires the only sound other than the rapid pace of my heart. My
foot fell heavy on the gas pedal, though I never make a habit of speeding, but
it seemed as though my life was racing forward with the El Camino, every minute
ticking by just counting down to what could be my last.

So, yes, I cried, but not just for me. I
was a fool, and folks don’t cry over fools. I was crying for the people who I
could fail on Monday, whose lives were also speeding toward an untimely demise.
I cried because none of them even knew it. No one plans on dying, you see. No
one should have to.