Mobster's Angel (Mobster Series) (5 page)

“
Brice.” Joey asks. “How’s the team this year? I saw you practicing. It looks like you’ve got some good prospects on the field.”

“I think we
’re going to clean up,” Brice says, animatedly.

Good Joey, talk to him about baseball. Keep him out of my hair.

Nope. Doesn’t work.

“So did you have a good work out?” Brice asks
, leaning towards me.  “It looks to me like you did.”  He trails his eyes up and down my just showered body.  I cringe.
Yuck!
  Now I need another one.

“Joey knows how to train,
” I inform him.

“What are you training for? You look great to me,” he adds.

Can I throw up now?

“Life,” I quip.

Brice looks at me strangely, but shakes it off.

He doesn’t push. Smart.

After thirty minutes of wishing Brice would leave and mindlessly staring at the T.V., Joey gets up.  He stretches, lazily standing in the middle of the living room.

“It’s time for me to hit the road.”

Clarissa and I watch him in silence. Brice is watching me.
Ick!

“You ready, Brice
?”

“What? Oh.”  Realization dawns on him.  Joey is leaving; he needs to leave.

Brice gets up reluctantly.

“Thanks for the pizza,” Clarissa says with a sincere smile.  I wonder why she doesn’t see the same thing that I do when I look at Brice.  Her upbringing makes her typically a pretty good judge of character.

“You’re welcome.”

Joey
kisses both Clarissa and me on the head.  He and Brice move towards the door. Joey opens it. “Good night,” Brice says, turning to look directly at me.

I plaster on the best smile I have and
wave.  “Good-bye! Thanks for the pizza!” I can even here the sarcasm in my voice; it didn’t come out right. Brice makes a face and the door clicks shut.

“Still can’t stand him, huh?” Clarissa asks.

“He’s not my type.”

It’s Saturday morning. I spin into a tight spot in the parking lot of a tattoo parlor right outside Palmetto. I’m not sure what I’m doing, but I have this impulse to get a tat.
Is it because I’m crawling out of my skin or because I’m just that bored?
I don’t fuckin’ know. Last night’s fight didn’t do the trick like I had hoped. I pull open the door and a little bell attached to it rings.

A girl comes out from a back room. She smiles.

“Can I help you?” she asks with a thick British accent. A Brit chick tattoo artist.

She
’s about six feet tall and has some major sleeves going up her arms. They’re intricate with lots of color. But of all things, her red hair catches my attention the most.

It looks dyed and fake, but it doesn’t stop the image that invades my mind anytime I see red hair or anything red for that matter. I
am a fuckin’ douche.

“I’m thinking about some ink, but not sure what,” I answer.

“Let’s see.” She pulls out a huge binder and places it on the counter. “These are our most popular. Why don’t you look through this?”

She goes into the back room. I stand at the counter and flip through the plastic pages. This chick has a ton of stuff
- dragons, fairies, hearts. A ton of freakin’ pansy-ass hearts. They must like hearts in England. I flip and flip, but nothing is really me.

At the end of the book is the alphabet, A through Z
. Several versions of twisted and scrolled initials are available. My eyes zoom in on the letter E.
That’s it!

Wait, no! I can’t do th
at.
Although they’re elaborate and hard to read, people will still ask me,
what the hell does that stand for?

The girl comes out again.

“Did you find anything?” she asks.

“Yes and no.”

She glances down at the page of letters.

“Do you want some lettering? Ma
ybe for a girlfriend?” I shake my head.

“No girlfriend.” She gives me a once over.

“If you tell me what you’re looking for, then I can help you,” she offers. “Boyfriend?”

“I’m not fuckin’ gay!” bursts out of my mouth. “It isn’t
what, it’s where…,” I tell her.

“Oh, you don’t want anyone to see it,” she says
, grinning. “I can help you with that.” She points to her hipbone. “Most men who want a tat no one is going to see, unless they’re in a clinch, get it right here.”

“What the hell is a clinch?” I ask.

“You know? Shagging?” she says like I’m simple-minded.

“Huh? You lost me.”

“Sex! Intercourse! Shagging!” She laughs at me.

First she thinks I’m gay
, and then she makes fun of me for not being a Euro-dude who knows what a clinch is.

“Oh,” I
say, deadpan. Since, I haven’t been with anyone in the past year, nor have I wanted to, I doubt it’s going to be a problem.

I point to the letter E on the page.

“That one,” I say.

“Let’s do this!” she
exclaims and I follow her to a side room with a cot or some type of medical bed in the center. “Lay down right here.”

I do it, and I look up into some intense lights. In this position, I feel vulnerable and kind of stupid.
What the hell am I doing?

I close my eyes and listen to the Brit chick rummage around the room
for her tattoo shit. “Pull your pants down,” she orders and my eyes snap open at her request. Shit! I unsnap the button on my jeans and unzip them. Then I lift my ass in the air to lower my pants.

“Underwear too,” she says, hovering over me with a shiny piece of paper w
ith my tattoo on it.
Double shit!
I didn’t think this through. She reads my face and laughs. “Here.” She places a white small sheet over me. I lift my ass again and take down my drawers. She flips back a corner of the sheet where my tat is going and puts the stencil on the spot. The stencil is cool against my skin. A click and I hear a whirring begin. It almost sounds like being at the dentist. “This may hurt a little bit.” The needle goes in. I shut my eyes and let her do her job.

In a half an hour, I have a swirled E on my
hipbone. The flesh is red and raw, but the letter is cool. I wasn’t too sure how I would feel. I like it. Hurts like hell, but I like it.

Lather.

Rinse

R
epeat.

That’s how I feel. It’s a monotonous routine, keeping up appearances, and Saturday
night comes all too quickly. After Clarissa suggesting I see a therapist the other day, I need to step up my game this evening.

I stand in front of my closet that is jam packed with beautiful, high-end clothes. I’m stuck. I don’t know what to put on for
the club tonight. It’s exhausting making decisions, especially when they’re not the decisions you’d like to be making. I push a couple of hangers aside when my computer pings with an email. I take a break from figuring out what to wear and shake the computer mouse to wake up the screen.

[email protected]

It’s from my mother. A perplexing knot forms between my brows and I sit down at the computer, intrigued. Why is she emailing me?

FORWARD:

Subject: Academic Opportunity, H.S. + Program

NJU is offering precollege programs for talented high school students. Experience the excitement of college life, take college courses, receive high school credits and complete required general education courses.

Offered courses:

• English Composition

• Physical Science

• Math

• Humanities

This accelerated program is a pilot program and will only be offered to a limited number of students, freshman to senior, across the state.

Appropriate good standing at your high school and exemplary GPA are required. If you are interested in this opportunity, please complete the required forms by July 10th for the Fall semester and submit to your district Superintendent.

Sincerely,

Jason Howard, President

New Jersey University College Road

Vicks, NJ

Education is Excellence

ATTACHMENT
:

Application
_1.doc

Hmmm. I guess this is my mother’s subtle way of saying she wants me to come home.

Knock...Knock
.

“How’s it going in there?” Joey asks through the do
or. “Don’t get like Clarissa!” he jokes. “Or the two of you will never leave the dorm!”

I hear Clarissa whisper to him
, and I suspect it’s about me and my mental state.

“I’m fine!” I yell back and close my email window. “I just have to
o many clothes to pick from!”

There is whispering again. I don’t want them conspiring or worrying about me.
  I reach for the door handle and fling the door open fast.

“
I have superhuman hearing you know. I’m. Fine.” I say quickly. Joey and Clarissa are standing there, shame-faced.

“Oh please! These doors are paper thin. A ninety year-old without their hearing aids could hear through this door,” Clarissa
says with a sarcastic grin recovering quickly from my confrontation.

“I. Am. Fi
ne. Help me pick something to wear!”

“Geesh, don’t get all huffy.” Clarissa prances into my room and
over to my closet.

“Don’t take all night,” Joey says and walks away to wait for us in the living room.

*****

California weather is alw
ays comfortable to me. Being from the Northeast, I’m used to quick weather changes and needing a coat in the spring. We finally settled on a dress of all things, clingy material with a halter-top. Clarissa and I don’t carry pocketbooks because we like to dance and Joey won’t hold them for us: he’s accommodating, but he draws the line at purses.

The club isn’t too
far away; it’s only about a twenty minutes drive. This is the closest club to the school. Any other one, and we would’ve had to drive for at least an hour. Clarissa and I always get in because Joey uses his “charm.” Occasionally, we run into other students from our school who have fake ID’s. Clarissa and I look fairly young, though. We could pass for eighteen, but twenty-one? I don’t think the bouncer would fall for it. Joey isn’t quite there yet either, but he knows how to grease the system.

Even with the car windows up, you can feel the vibration of the club’s music thumping. Joey swings into a snug spot near the
entrance. A long line of people are huddled along the sidewalk waiting under the glow of street lights to be let in.

“Here we are! Who’s ready to dance?” Clarissa sing-songs.

Inside, it’s wall-to-wall bodies and that makes me nervous.  I think it stems back to my recent trust issues.  Crowds don’t generally bother me too much, but tonight seems exceptionally packed.

Clarissa does her trade-mark bounce to the bar. She orders two bottled waters.  Joey secures a stool over to the side where he can have the best view of the dance floor, tables, and exits.  His view is going to be obs
cured by all these people here tonight. If I wasn’t wearing these spike heels, I would be blind in here.

Clarissa hands me one of the bottles, and we work our way over to Joey. The crowd thickens as we move, and we have to slip our bodies between groups of people.
A girl from our school tugs on Clarissa’s shirt to say hi. Clarissa gives a wave, and we continue on.

From this distance, I can see
that Joey is on his phone. How he can possibly hear anything in this place is beyond me. The music thumps, blasting out all of our eardrums.  The dance floor has grown bigger due to the amount of bodies.  People are dancing in the walkways and by the bar.  I’ve never seen it like this.

As we finally approach him,
Joey motions for us to go dance and he mouths
have fun
.  He must be doing some mob business.  We plop our water bottles in front of him and take off into the jungle of dancing bodies.  Clarissa leads us right to the middle.  It’s a little bit of a fight, but we get there.

I let go. I allow my body to move with the music.  Clarissa takes my hand and we jump and shout to
each song.  We get silly, hyped up on the atmosphere of the club.  Our favorites are played one after the other.  I’m laughing my head off.  A few times a couple of guys try to dance with us, but we are just too wild and they nonchalantly scamper away.

Something hits my back.  An elb
ow, I think.  I go to turn, and an entire herd of bodies collides with me.  Even over the loud music, screams, yells, and curses echo and bounce off the walls.  I lose my balance and topple over, landing on the people behind me.  Body heat, sweat, and anger boil around me as I flail on the floor like others trying to get up.  The
mob,
not like the one my father belongs to, but rather a reckless, panicked riot, presses forward.