Totaled (40 page)

“You consider living in an oceanfront house living modestly?”

“Well, since I’m merely renting it at this point, yes, I do.”

He reached over to grab some sort of spreadsheet, handing it to me instead of looking at it. I glanced at him for explanation, but he continued to stare off into nowhere as he asked his next series of questions.

“In your fight last Saturday with Stefan Purifoy, you were victorious by knockout at the two minutes and forty-seven seconds mark of the third round.” I noticed Johns appearing to bite the skin around his fingernails in between each question. It was disgusting.

“Is that a question?”

He took his fingers away from his mouth; his cuticles were all chewed and red. “No. It is a factual statement. My question is, how did you come to be Purifoy’s opponent that night when it was originally Angel Gonzales on the ticket?” Fingers back into the mouth.

“Gonzales apparently ran into some trouble and was removed from the fight. My coach made some calls to the powers that be, scoring me the fight.” I touched the back of my neck and confirmed the feeling that I was starting to sweat around my collar. I couldn’t get over the nail biting tic.

“What sort of trouble?”

“Look, this interview is supposed to be about me. I’m not going to even pretend to know what got Gonzales removed from the ticket. But I’m appreciative for whatever it was, because it resulted in my introductory appearance and eventual victory.” Johns paused and shifted in his chair, his fingertips now tapping lightly on the desktop.

“So you have no comment about the hearsay that Gonzales failed his drug test?”

“That is correct. I have no comment on that subject. Let’s move on.” I was frustrated that he was even asking me about that. What was he probing me for?

Johns continued the interview by spouting off numerous statistics on my fight with Purifoy without looking at the spreadsheet once. The number of strikes landed, how many of those were categorized as significant, scoring from all three judges for each round, even the time that I got myself into the guillotine hold that nearly choked me out and how many seconds it took for me to find my way out of it. It was like Vince Johns, the supposed aggressive and ruthless sports reporter, was MIA and a gangly, awkward Rain Man had taken his place. I couldn’t help but be impressed. When he said the numbers, he still stared off at the wall in front of him, but his hand kept gesturing to the spreadsheet of stats, like he was daring me to glance down at the numbers and find an error or something.

When he paused for a few seconds, I spoke. “I’m sorry, was there a question in there somewhere?”

“No. I haven’t asked it yet. I’m just trying to point out to you that had you not ended the fight with a win by knockout, you likely would’ve won by decision if the trend of match continued. You were winning.”

How the hell did this guy still have any nail beds? I was so fucking distracted by his chewing and gnawing that I could hardly process the conversation. Was that his plan or could he not help the weird chewing thing?”

“Okay,” I replied curtly. “Good to know.”

“How did you get out of the guillotine hold?”

Here we go.

“I felt myself getting choked out, struggling to breathe, and I started to picture my father.”

“What do you mean? Pictured your father? What difference would that make?”

“I pictured my father’s face over me, choking me, as he had tried to do multiple times during my adolescence, and I got out of it. I wasn’t about to let him best me again.”

“Your father tried to choke you?” He stopped biting his nail beds and stilled completely, staring off to the left of his body, away from where I was seated.

“Amongst other things, yes. I didn’t exactly have a peaceful childhood.”

“Would you care to elaborate on that?”

Not really.

Chris, Arlene, and Diana had warned me in my preparation meeting to not elaborate. Their words danced around in my head. “Don’t give him more material than he needs. Answer direct questions, but don’t fill in the blanks. Just like a courtroom. Pretend you’re being persecuted, because you sort of are.”

“What would you like to know, exactly?”

“I just want you to try to allow the reader of this interview to get to know you better, and knowing where you came from and the experiences that helped shape you into who you are today.” I noticed that he didn’t put his fingertips back into his mouth this time. He seemed to reign in the off-putting tic to really be able to listen to my response.

“Look, Vince. I’ll answer anything you ask me, but I’m not going to sit here and spout out my autobiography. People pretend that they want to know all of the details, but they really don’t. They think that they can handle hearing about growing up in a bar instead of a home. They believe they want to picture me as young as five years old walking into the bathroom of the pub to see my own father, pants down, standing behind a woman who was not my mother. They don’t want to know that I was beaten that night during one of his many drunken stupors because he thought it was my fault that I saw that. You can write about the beatings, the many times that I ‘fell down’ and had to go to the hospital for stitches or fractured bones. You can even include a picture at the bottom of the article of all of the circular scars on my skin from cigarettes being extinguished on my back instead of an ashtray. You want me to go on?” I challenged. “It doesn’t get any prettier.”

“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay. I’m not offended. I just don’t want you or anyone else to get the wrong idea about me. I’ve worked hard to get where I am. The last thing I want is for people to sorry for me, or for me to advance anywhere in life riding on the coattails of someone’s pity. I intend to earn every step that I’m able to climb on this journey.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell anyone? Why didn’t your mother ever help you?” His voice seemed softer now, empathetic or maybe just cautious.

“My mother was a saint!” I pounded my fist on the desk, making Johns flinch and immediately bring his hand up his mouth to be gnawed on. Recognizing that I needed to calm myself down, I took a deep breath and continued. “She helped me more than I was ever even aware of. She’s the reason I’m alive. She’s the reason I have anything. She worked nights as a nurse and wasn’t around for most of it, thankfully. As for telling anyone, people wouldn’t have believed me anyway. The system of laws in place to protect women and children from domestic violence were, and still are, a fucking joke. Plus, we had nothing. We had no one to turn to. There was no place to run away and live happily ever after.”

I paused and took a couple deep breaths to try to compose myself. I knew that this would be intense, but I underestimated how emotional I would get. It never occurred to me that people would blame my mother or see fault in her for not getting me out of that situation.

“Anyway, once I got big enough to fight back instead of being his punching bag, he turned his fists to my mother. It’s me who’s at fault for that. I should’ve protected her.”

Vince reached into one of his unorganized piles of papers and pulled out a newspaper article, handing it to me. He
still
didn’t look at my face. “This is an article from
The Arizona Tribune
from the day after your father died. Can you explain the events that occurred on that night?”

I glanced at the newspaper page, confronted with an image of my childhood home surrounded with police tape, and I felt immediately sick when faced with the memory of that night again.

“The short version is that I came home after a session at the gym to find him beating my mother to death. I tried to intervene and things got out of hand.”

“Out of hand?” He was perfectly still, staring off into space, waiting for me to proceed.

“Yeah. I would say the fact that he’s dead would suggest that things got out of hand. I tried to protect my Mom, he fought me, I fought back, and he succumbed to his injuries.”

“And your mom?”

“She died a few days later.”

“I’m sorry,” Johns said quickly, out of obligation.

“No you’re not,” I lashed out. “You’re not even looking me in the eyes.”

“Oh…sorry. I’m not very good at eye contact.” His face turned and his eyes darted in my direction, but didn’t stay fixed on my face. I could tell he was uncomfortable as hell but trying his best.

“Why? How hard is it to look at someone’s face when they’re talking to you? You’re asking some pretty personal things of me here, and you have yet to look at me.”

A few seconds, ones that seemed more like minutes, passed with an awkward silence filling the space.

“It’s hard for me,” he admitted quietly. “I have a condition called Asperger’s. Personal connections with people have always been a challenge for me.”

I was caught off guard but not surprised. “Asperger’s? Like autism?”

“A form of it, yes. Are you familiar?” He glanced over again, his expression almost hopeful and excited.

“A little. That would explain the spouting of statistical facts without batting an eye.”

Johns chuckled a little. “Yeah, I’ve always been good at memorizing numbers and facts. Especially sports statistics.” He started chewing his fingers again but his lips now smiled around the teeth going to town on his cuticles.

“Well, I guess you have to make the best of what you’re given, right? I’d say that you’ve played your hand quite well.” I laughed a little, trying to lighten the mood.

“Thanks, I guess. I don’t seem to make a lot of friends doing what I do.”

I reached over and turned the tape recorder off, eliciting a confused look from Johns. I didn’t want my next statement to be on tape.

“That’s because everyone thinks you’re an asshole,” I said honestly. “They probably don’t know how to take you and are intimidated by your approach.” I didn’t know this guy from Adam, but he seemed like a good enough person, just really misunderstood.

“That makes sense.” With great effort, he was looking at me now. He looked like a regular, nice guy. I turned the corners of my mouth up into a grin and he returned the expression.

I switched the tape recorder back on and the remainder of the interview was no sweat. We just sat there and had a normal conversation with each other. My heart rate slowed down. He relaxed, slightly, and it was much more informal. He asked me more about the details surrounding my parents’ deaths, but it was as if I was having a discussion with a friend, not a cutthroat reporter.

When I left, Vince Johns took my hand when I offered it for a shake and thanked me for doing the interview. I thanked him for not being an asshole and invited him to come down to Florida anytime he wanted to see the gym. He seemed surprised and said that he would love to.

I hope he does.

Chapter Forty-Two

BREE

“I seriously might be melting. This is miserable,” Sue whined. “I’m getting in the water.”

“I’ll go with you, hold on,” I said, hurrying to secure my e-reader in my beach bag. I didn’t want to stop reading in the middle of the chapter I was engrossed in. The book that I was reading was almost unputdownable. An extremely drunk and bitter Bo, the main male character, was on stage performing Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” to Ember, the main female character, who was at the bar with her ex-boyfriend, Adrian. Shit was about to go down, but I was sweating and needed to cool off in the ocean.

I followed after Sue and caught up to her bitching to herself about the dreadful August heat and all of the tourists crowding up
her
beach. On the short walk from our lounge chairs to the edge of the water, I spotted two shark teeth and picked them both up.

“You really are freakishly good at finding shark teeth.”

“Yeah, I guess it is kind of weird. I don’t even try. It’s like they jump out at me.” As we advanced into the water, quickly up to our knees in the waves, I walked forward, welcoming the cool water on my thighs. “God, this feels good.” It had to be pushing one hundred degrees outside and the humidity (as usual) was through the roof.

“I was trying not to get my hair wet, but fuck it.” Sue dove into the next wave, swimming underneath it and resurfacing a few feet away. “I can’t handle how hot it is today.”

“Why didn’t you want to get your hair wet?” I thought to myself that it was kind of stupid to come to the beach in August and not intend on getting wet.

“I don’t know. I was just having a good hair day. That’s the one and only plus of this ridiculous humidity. My curly hair thrives.”

I eyed her suspiciously, noting that she was looking away from me and her demeanor was peculiar.

“You’re always having a good hair day. What’s the real reason?” Something was up with her. I knew her better than she even did sometimes.

“Okay, nosey. If you must know, I have a date tonight,” she replied bashfully. Sue was never bashful or nervous. Never.

“Oh, do you now? With whom?”

“You don’t know him,” she quickly dismissed.

“So who is he? Why haven’t you mentioned him before?”

“He’s just some guy I met at school. He helped me find something in the library the other day and we’ve talked a few times since then.” She was standing in the water, fidgeting with her wet hair and adjusting her bathing suit over and over again.

“Why are you being so weird about him?” I had never seen her act this way before.

“I’m not. He’s just…well, he’s different.”

“Different how?”
What the hell?

“He’s just different from what I would normally be attracted to. He’s kind of nerdy. And shy. But there’s something about him that intrigues me.”

“Interesting. What’s his name?”

“His name is Keith. He’s a philosophy major. Very smart, like
way
smarter than me, but he doesn’t make me feel stupid. He’s just sweet. So, we’re going out tonight. And I don’t have a whole lot of time to get ready because he’s taking me to a concert in Jacksonville Beach. Some local band called Speaking Cursive, which is the coolest band name I’ve heard in a long time. I just hope we have things to talk about. I hope he’s not too nerdy for me. If so, I’ll have to nip it in the butt and end the date.”