I had been seven or eight; or, at least, when I’d first started thinking about the memory, and trying to make sense of it, that had been my best guess.I’d been in the living room, holding Optimus Prime, and standing totally, perfectly still because if I didn’t move, they couldn’t see me.They were in the kitchen because my dad had been getting a beer.They were screaming at each other.It had started the way it always started, my dad coming home from work at the plant, my mom bored from another day at home.She started getting the vodka out of the freezer around noon.He wanted peace and quiet.She wanted to talk.He turned on the ball game.She turned on music.He turned off the music.She turned it back on again, louder.She wanted to dance.The sound of his fist.The door slamming shut.Her sobbing, and the volume on the ball game going up, up, up.
And now they were standing in the kitchen.He’d gone to get a beer.And she’d come out of their room.And I remembered how tight my body felt, every muscle rigid and locked.I remembered the plastic of Optimus Prime’s body biting into my hands.I remembered how badly I needed to pee, and the thought, full of its own, secondary urgency: Big boys don’t pee their pants.
She’d changed; she was wearing a red babydoll trimmed in black; I didn’t know that’s what it was called until I started looking at porn.The mark on her cheek was red.He was holding the beer, the fridge door still open between them, and it wasn’t until later that I realized he was standing behind it because, in some way, he’d been afraid.This time, she hit him—a big, openhanded slap that he must have seen coming from a mile away.He dropped the beer.The bottle broke on the floor.Beer foamed and hissed and sprayed.Glass spun across the tile, winking under the light.He grabbed her by the hair.He was still shouting.She was screaming, but different now, as he dragged her to their room.The door slammed shut.They kept screaming.The thud of furniture, of bodies, of small, hard things thrown.
The fights always ended the same way: they turned on the radio.And then, the rhythmic thumping would begin.I was too young to know, at the time, what it meant—only that the fight was over.For now.It was AC/DC that time.“Hells Bells.”I was in college when I learned the termpork track.
“AC/DC,” I said.
Darnell laughed.“For real?I was sure you were going to say NSYNC.”
And that was it.We moved on.
Things might have gone on like that forever, I guess.Until one evening, late in June, when I found myself once again sitting outside Tip Wheeler’s apartment.
8
As I sat outside Tip’s apartment, the car idling, the air conditioning struggling to keep up with the swampy heat, my phone buzzed again with another message.
I recognized the number.I hadn’t saved it in my phone, but I’d gotten enough messages from it that I knew, now.
The content of the messages made it pretty easy, too.
The first one was innocent enough, coming out of the blue not long after my first visit:heyy.
I’d ignored the message because Darnell and I had been watchingAmerica’s Got Talent.And because fuckboys—since that’s clearly who this was—need a little winding up sometimes.
The second message came a few minutes later:what up?
And I’d ignored that one too.
The third one said:This is Rory.
It didn’t take Emery Hazard to figure out how he’d gotten my number; I’d given Tip and Jordan cards, and my cards had my number.Looking back, it was kind of obvious Rory could have gotten the number if he’d wanted it.And apparently hehadwanted it.
Want to come over?
Darnell looked at me.
“Turning it off,” I said.
And I did.
But a couple of days later, as I was brushing my teeth before bed, my phone vibrated, and there was the number again.This time, it was nothing but a picture: one of those awkward shots guys took of themselves lying down, the phone held near their head so that you could see their torso and, in theory, their dick.In this case, Rory’s chest was exposed, but a thin sheet had been pulled high enough that only a hint of dark, trimmed hair showed below his navel.
Another photo came through; the same pose, but now his free hand held the sheet—teasing, suggesting, stroking.
I went to bed.
The next time, it was another pic.It was the middle of the day, and he was clearly in a public restroom of some kind.A gym, I thought, to judge by the tank that hung around his neck and the shorts pushed down around his ankles.He’d taken a picture of himself in the mirror, one hand on the wall, looking back over his shoulder so that his ass was on display.
Miss u.
And I’d texted back:hot.
It went on and on like that for weeks.
The problem wasn’t just that it had been stupid the first time.It had been beyond stupid.I mean, sure, technically it wasn’t my investigation, and I wasn’t involved in any official capacity.But I had, for all practical purposes, fucked someone involved in an ongoing investigation.The first time I’d met him.Why?It was one of those questions I didn’t want to look too closely at.Because he was cute.Because he’d wanted it.Because of the way he’d looked at me.Because he’d been there.Why didn’t matter.Why didn’t tell you anything useful.
