The Leaves 03 (Nico) (7 page)

air in the room change. The pool game was gonna have to wait, and, almost as if the Uni-verse had answered my question of how to get out of there as quickly as possible, my phone buzzed with a text. Without looking at the message, I apologized and made my way to the front door as I heard Zack yell out,

“Yes, Mistress T!”

I laughed as I walked down the street, back toward the highway. Zack and Teensy were good together. I thought they had both met their match, and Becca and Teensy got along well, too. The only problem was, Zack didn’t want to give up his freedom. But his nostrings-attached lifestyle was just as soulless as mine.

My phone chirped at me. I forgot to read the message. I swiped the screen as I rounded the corner to head up the back alley toward home.

Nico,

I’m on your doorstep.

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I need help.

Moira

Moira was actually one of the few clients I had that listened to me. She was twenty-two with a fantastic Rockabilly style she wore well. Her hair, which was naturally dark, had been bleached almost white and arranged in-to huge rolls and twists. To me, she looked like a 1950’s Hollywood starlet. In reality, she was a girl that wore the shame of abuse at the hands of her own brother. I knew his name was Scott. He was twelve years older than her, and when she told me her story, I tried to get it out of my head as quickly as it poured in.

He stayed in the family home all through College to save money then started his Master’s degree. He met his wife in his last year, and finally, at the age of twenty-seven, he left home. At seventeen, when her little niece was born, Moira told her parents what had

happened,

and

they

kicked

her

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alternative ass to the curb. She admitted, at the time, she was drinking and getting high almost every day, but that was how she coped. After that, she couch-surfed. Now, she managed a clothing store downtown and took classes to become a bookkeeper.

I ran the last half-mile, knowing in my gut something was wrong. I swiped my phone and called Zack’s cell.

“Nico,” Teensy answered. “I took him down, the big baby. You can come back if you want. He’s just getting dressed-”

“I think I might need some help, Teensy.

Can you come to my place? I’m sorry, might be nothing,” I puffed. Thank God I’d quit smoking. “Client,” I said.

“We’re on our way, Nico.” Past the white, double garage and down the steps, I ran around the corner to see Moira slumped on the porch of my place.

“Nico.” She smiled, her teeth covered in blood.

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“Jesus, fuck, Moira. What the fuck?” Taking off my sweatshirt, I made a pillow and arranged it under her head. As soon as her torso moved, she screamed out in pain. “I have to call an ambulance.” I tried to stay calm, but the truth was, I was freaking the fuck out.

Zack and Teensy arrived while I was on the phone with 9-1-1. Zack ordered, “Keys”, took them from me, and opened the door to my place. He and Teensy arranged towels around Moira to keep her stable and try to make her more comfortable. I saw Teensy at her face with a washcloth, but before she could clean her up, Teensy told Zack to take photos and said it would be important for evidence.

Zack and I took my truck and met them at the private hospital up the road. Teensy stayed with Moira in the ambulance and somehow convinced them she was her cousin. We sat in the waiting room and stared at 109/510

the frosted doors hoping someone, any-fuckin’-one, would come out and tell us something.

After the police finished interviewing the paramedics, they came to Teensy and me.

Zack had gone to get coffee. Since Teensy and I had sat in a tense silence, I hadn’t known until that moment, that Moira had told her everything. “Her mom called her two months ago. She and her parents have been estranged for years now.”

“You mean your aunt and uncle?” the officer enquired.

“We’re thrice removed,” she replied, and I could see the confusion on the officer’s face as he scribbled on his note pad.

“Please continue,” he said, eyes setting on her hair and make-up.

Teensy told the story relayed by Moira, in a discreet, quiet voice. “Moira now has a niece who is about five. The grandma was noticing a change in her behavior, one that 110/510

was familiar because she’d seen it in her own daughter years before. So she offered to babysit a few days ago and took her to their family doctor. He said there was evidence she’d been… well…” She stopped and looked at Zack approaching us with three cups balanced in his hands, little red, plastic stirrers and sugar packets threatening to fall from his fingers.

“It’s important we get the entire story while it’s fresh in your mind,” the officer said.

As she continued, I learned that Moira’s mom, Judy, called her daughter-in-law, Stephie and said it was important she come over to speak to her right away…
without
her son. The next call she made was to Moira.

Her dad, Aaron, couldn’t believe his son was capable of such a thing. An appointment was set up for the daughter-in-law with the same family doctor and child protective services, and she didn’t need any more convincing.

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She had known for months that something just wasn’t right with her little girl.

Moira filed a statement, explaining there was a history of abuse from her brother, then mother and daughter moved to a hotel. Now, not only was CPS involved, the police were also involved. When the police had gone to gather evidence and interview Scott, he snapped. It didn’t help that Stephie had asked for a divorce, and that Moira had shared her history.

Moira’s tattoo was a beautiful mural of the Swallows returning to Capistrano. I loved transforming the blank canvas of her back into the Mission, with palm trees, roses, and bougainvillea climbing around. It was her hometown, and the Mission held some of her happiest memories as a kid. But every now and then, she would come in and get a new Swallow.

Teensy’s statement ended with Scott following Moira after work. She just happened 112/510

to be coming down to the shop. The knowledge of her little niece suffering like she did had brought all that pain to the forefront again. He chased her into the alley next to my garage and violently beat her for having his wife and child taken away from him. If there was any silver lining at all, he was definitely going to be arrested.

I had just finished giving my statement when Moira’s parents, Aaron and Judy, arrived at the hospital, the police spoke with her father while her mother spoke to a staff member. With all my women, all the broken birds that came to see me, not one of them had ever led me to the situation I currently found myself in. I had never been face-to-face with the abuser, the enabler, or the monster… until now.

My heart was racing, pounding out of my chest. I gripped the padded arms of the waiting room chair, prepared to rip it to pieces in an effort to control my rage, but it didn’t 113/510

help. The rubber soles of my boots screeched across the smooth floor as I came to a halt, slamming Aaron Frieze into a wall. I was holding him off the floor by the lapels of his fuckin’ blazer. I pulled my arm back, ready to smash his goddamn face in. The arms of the two officers, a security guard, and Zack were pulling me off, all of them barking orders at me.

Mr. Frieze, his ashen face full of remorse and regret, stared back when I yelled, “She fuckin’ told you! And you turned your back on her. And now it fuckin’ happened again!

This is all on you, you cocksucker!” I stopped fighting the arms holding me. “I’m fine! Let go of me.”

“Sir, let’s step outside.” One of the security guards appeared, flanked by another to escort me out of the building.

I should’ve been there for Moira. What a fucked up, selfish move I had just made.

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Judy Frieze walked up to me, pushing past the guards and the cops. She looked to her husband, whose face was now red, his eyes glassy and swollen, then to me. She put her hands on my cheeks and met my eyes, and I was sure they matched her husband’s.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you,” she said again, brushing my hair from my face. It was a mothering gesture, and it undid me completely. Every emotion, every single ounce of rage in me needed to get out, and I, in turn, had to get the fuck out of there.

Chapter 5

I left Zack and Teensy with my truck and walked the couple miles home. What a fucking day.

Standing in front of my shop, I looked in the windows, wondering what drew these women to seek me out. Even that first time with Anika, I had no idea why she’d chosen my tattoo studio and me over anyone else.

She didn’t even live in Laguna; she lived in San Clemente. But her coming in had led all these other—what I now decided to call broken birds—to me for help.

Instead of heading up the steps, I walked another mile downtown and went straight into the diviest bar our town had, Jack’s.

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It was almost two, but this was the kind of place that bent the rules. I ordered four shots of cheap whiskey and slammed them, one after the other. Then I ordered two more.

“Nico, what are you doin’ here?” Diana was, for all intents and purposes, a prostitute. She was probably in her fifties, not bad looking, but not somewhere I wanted to stick my dick. I took the next two shots and looked over at her. Taking my wallet from my jeans, I paid for the drinks and also checked to see how much cash I had.

This was a chick whose job it was to make me come, not to have a conversation, not to tell me about her fucking day or the shoes she bought to go with the dress she was wearing, I couldn’t give a fuckin’ shit about any of that.

“Diana.” I said her name, and her hand found my balls outside my jeans. “You mind showing me where the bathroom is in this place?”

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“Have to say, I’m surprised, Nico. Must have been a pretty bad day.” She winked.

I didn’t answer her. We went to the back of the bar as I gave a nod of appreciation to Flap and dropped another twenty as we walked by. I knew we would not be disturbed.

She locked the door and asked, “Anything special you want?”

“Just my dick in your mouth,” I answered.

“Sure thing, baby.” She was on her knees with my dick down her throat only seconds later. Fuck, this was worth every last fuckin’

dollar. She asked for twenty; I gave her forty.

“Yessss,” I let out, my head falling back as she slowly took me into her throat again.

She pulled back, her tongue swirling around the head, and told me, “You pay double, I swallow. Triple, I—”

“Just suck my dick, Diana.” I grabbed her head. Not to guide her; she didn’t need any fuckin’ guidance. I just wanted to feel her 118/510

hair in my hands. I wanted to smell her perfume on me later so I had something good to think about, even if it was just a blowjob in the bathroom of a seedy bar. “Fuckkk…” I groaned out, holding her mouth at the base of my dick as she swallowed every last drop.

I slumped to the disgusting floor, not giving a fuck when my hands met the sticky surface.

“See ya, baby,” Diana said, opening the door. “You ever wanna fuck, first one’s on me, baby. You have a nice cock.” I nodded and tried to stand. I was totally fucked up, but I didn’t want to go home. The only thing I would do there was drink more, maybe pull my dick, and pass out. I stumbled by the trendy stores and their even trendier displays. Surf shops with long boards and swimwear and photos of stick-thin women in bikinis. Then the more touristy shops with magnets, framed pictures of Main Beach, and lighthouses made out of sand. I 119/510

stumbled around the corner and saw a new shop; the shelves were filled with bottles of wine, fancy glasses, and jars of fat, green olives. The other window had a display of stationary with Montblanc pens and big, leather diaries. Fuck, I lived in an expensive city. I put my hands flat on the windows, but noticed they stuck to the glass with whatever bathroom residue was on them.

Then I heard it… the ocean.

I used to sit on my roof an average of six days a week, unless the weather was really shitty. I would lift myself up from the front railing and just listen to the cars, to the waves breaking against rocks, to women giggling after a long night of drinking… then I stopped. I lost the ability to listen. I lost the ability to appreciate the beauty that surrounded me every single day.

The weather wasn’t exactly warm, but I didn’t give a fuck. I walked up a small hill, away from Main Beach, since, being a place 120/510

with dickhead-laws, you weren’t supposed to swim after ten or some shit. I stripped down to my boxers and walked into the waves. The swells were small, low tide, so I swam out in-to the water easily, the brisk temperature welcoming.

I floated on my back, looking up at the night sky. I thought about all the different designs I’d put on peoples’ bodies and how they would live with them for the rest of their lives—my contribution to something they felt so strongly about at the time. It was there permanently. Some tattoos were so fucking stupid though, but who was I to judge. I wasn’t exactly making stellar life choices myself. Either way, they would likely look at it and be reminded of a time when their stupidity or their passion led them to get that tattoo in the first place.

I was passionate about nothing. That was what occurred to me, floating there. The black night sky, the water holding me, I let 121/510

my body collapse below the surface, just to feel that escape for a moment.

Then something brushed past my leg. I convinced myself it was probably just seaweed, until it happened again. Through my whiskey-fog, I made a conscious decision not to panic; instead, I began to swim back to shore. I hadn’t realized how far out I was. If I were to yell to the houses on the cliff, it was unlikely anyone would hear me. I kicked out with my right leg when something nipped my ankle. The skin had for sure been punctured, and my previous decision not to panic van-ished. I increased my speed and fought against a current I didn’t even know was there until I had to work against it. But now, my boxers were in the grip of a creature I could not see, and it was probably better that I didn’t.