Playing Patience

One

Zeke

I exhaled a stream of smoke, and a rib-rattling cough took hold of me. My chest ached and my lungs sizzled. The burn in my throat intensified and then relaxation began to seep into my pores. The smoke-filled space swam before my glazed eyes as I melted into Finn’s ripped leather couch. The couch separated the band space from the rest of his junky garage.

“If you don’t cough, you don’t get off,” Finn said as I passed him the joint. “So what happened with Ashley?” He took a hit. The tip of it lit up and crackled. “Did she blow you or what?” His voice was strained as he struggled to hold in the smoke before he finally blew it out and hit it again.

“I don’t want her mouth anywhere near my junk. Did you see that nasty blister on her lip last week? She tried, but I wasn’t having it.”

“Can’t blame you there. You need to get laid, dude. It’s been two weeks since that freak at The Pit. What was her name again?” He lifted his legs and dropped his heavy, mud-covered boots onto the coffee table in front of his couch.

“I dunno. I didn’t ask.” I shrugged.

I strummed my guitar as I tried to tune it.

“Lucky son-of-bitch. You always get the ones that disappear. I get stuck with clingy bitches. Remember that one last summer that followed me around for a month? Damn, she was a good lay, though.” He took a swig from his beer and shook his head at the memory. “Anyway, I say get a piece of ass before this weekend’s gig. You play better when your balls aren’t in a bunch.”

He passed the joint back to me. The smoke filled my lungs as I hit it hard, held it, and then exhaled.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

I wasn’t feeling it. Too much shit was going on around me and I was getting burnt out on the same old slutty girls.

Once the rest of the guys got there, we practiced for two hours before everyone split and went home for the night. After throwing my guitar case in the back of my rusted El Camino, I drove around for the next hour. My old man didn’t usually pass out until eleven, so I knew better than to go home before then.

After a good amount of time, I rolled my car into my yard and cut the engine. All the lights in our single-wide trailer were out, but I could see the flicker of the TV in the front window. Falling asleep in front of the TV was my dad’s thing.

Drizzle splattered against my cracked windshield and streams of dirty rainwater started to run down my windows. My boots sank into the softening dirt when I got out of my car, which meant the yard would be a muddy mess in the morning.

A stray cat ran from underneath the bottom step as I walked across the small stretch of front yard from my car to the front porch. Dad’s tow truck was parked sideways in the rocky driveway and the cat disappeared under it.

I crept up the broken, wooden steps and stuck my key in the doorknob. The hollow aluminum door begged for some WD-40 as it creaked when I opened it. The door would be my demise one day since it seemed to love waking my dad. The rotting plywood porch buckled under my weight before I stepped into the smoke-filled space.

The scent of beer, Marlboro Red’s, and motor oil filled my nostrils. I slipped through the cluttered living room to the hallway that went to my side of the trailer. Dad was passed out in my mom’s old mauve recliner. The lights from the TV screen danced across his greasy face. He still had on his dirty work clothes and the bottle in his hand was bent just enough so the matted shag carpeting was getting sprinkled with beer when he breathed out. The ashtray next to him was full of ashes, cigarette butts, and beer.

I didn’t bother turning off the TV. I didn’t want to risk waking him. Instead, I skulked through the trailer to my bedroom. I was careful to step over the part of hallway where the floor was weak. There was a leak in the bathroom a few years back that ruined the floor and left the lingering stench of mildew right in front of my bedroom. It made living there ten times worse and did nothing to squash the hate I had for the place.

Peeling off my jacked, I stripped down to my boxers. The heater in our trailer was shit, so my room had a lingering chill that only my mom’s tattered wool blanket could cut. I turned my radio on low volume and fell onto my bed.

Outside I could hear our neighbors arguing in Spanish and a baby crying. Far off in the distance there were police sirens and the sounds of breaking glass. The interstate was just on the other side of the fence from my place, so the sound of speeding cars was endless. For many years this had been the place I called home. I had a hard time falling asleep in total silence after years of noise pollution to rock me goodnight.

I was dozing off when I heard the loud thump of my dad closing the recliner with his legs. The trailer shifted under his heavy footfalls as he made his way down the hallway to my room. I braced myself for the attack when he plowed through my bedroom door. A dim light lit the space when he flipped the switch. I silently wished he’d just do it in the dark. That way I didn’t have to see his fists coming for me.

“Where the hell you been? Did you take money out of my wallet?” He stared down at me with drunken, red eyes.

I didn’t respond. There was no need to deny taking the money. He didn’t care whether or not I took it; he just wanted a reason to hit something. I knew the feeling all too well. I curled up and protected my face and stomach. His fists invaded the flesh on my arms and occasionally made it through my shield to my face. There were a few hits to my ribs until, finally, he was satisfied and left. Thankfully, he was drunk. He was weaker and slower with a case of beer under his belt. Usually the beatings were worse, but I never fought back even though I could easily whip his ass.

It wasn’t fear that kept me from beating him within an inch of his life. It was a promise I made to my dying mother. Every time I thought about lifting my fist and putting it through his face, I’d hear her soft voice asking me to let it go.

“He’s a good man and he loves you. He’s just got a lot on his plate right now,” she’d say as she iced my face.

There was once a time when she took the beatings, but when the cancer came he transferred his rage to me. I was glad to take it—better me than her.

Bruised ribs or black eyes were such a natural occurrence for me that I hardly even noticed them anymore. It was shitty to think I could get my ass kicked once a week and it was nothing, just another day.

I fell asleep with blood on my pillow from my nose and aching ribs.

The next day at school I sported a black eye. I was always fighting, so no one paid any attention to my shiner. It wasn’t that I started fights purposely, but people pissed me off easily. Usually my fights took place after a run-in with my dad. I knew deep down it was my way of fighting him back, except it wasn’t him I was fighting; it was a football playing jock, or some shitfaced old guy at The Pit.

“I hope his face looks worse than yours,” Chet said. He leaned his head back and made smoke rings as he exhaled.

“Do you doubt me?” I lifted a brow in question.

“No doubt. I’ve seen you in action, bro. I bet he’s unrecognizable. Anybody I know?” He flicked his cigarette at Principal William’s parked car.

“Nah, just some a*shole from my neighborhood.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and leaned against the light pole. “We practicing at Finn’s place tonight?” I changed the subject.

“Yeah, Finn’s got some new shit he wants us to work on. He said around seven.”

Finn, the lead singer of our band, Blow Hole, was older than the rest of us by four years. We all knew him; he’d failed school so much that he was only a year ahead of us before he finally dropped out. He still lived in his mom’s house. The junky garage became our hangout and we called it the Blow Hole since you could walk in and score a line of coke at any given moment. The name somehow transferred to our band and that’s what we’ve called ourselves ever since.

Somehow Chet and I had managed to make it to senior year. We were both a year behind where we should be, but we were still there. I wanted to quit, but staying in school was another promise my mom had managed to pull out of me with her dying breaths. So come hell or high water, I was at school every day. Whether or not I went to class was a completely different story.

Later that night, we practiced an extra hour at Finn’s house. We were three days away from our gig at The Pit and we’d added a new song to the mix. Mostly, we covered songs to get the crowd going, but every now and again we’d throw in an original track.

My fingers ached from playing the guitar so hard for so long. I had to admit we sounded badass. Chet was on the drums and Tiny could play a bass guitar like his life depended on it, but it was Finn who ran the show. He was one hell of a front man and our name was slowly spreading.

When I finally stumbled into my house that night, Dad was already in bed. I fell into a fitful sleep while the neighbors cussed each other in Spanish and the interstate traffic played its familiar lullaby.

After that, the week flew by in a haze of getting high and playing in Finn’s garage. It wasn’t long until we were setting up for our Friday night Pit show. The stage was small, but it was our favorite place to play. The crowd was wild and a lot of the people came out just for us.

The Pit couldn’t have been named more perfectly. It was a large, concrete, underground space. It looked like a vandalized parking garage with a bar, a stage, and a bathroom. The owner allowed graffiti as long as it didn’t look like shit, so the concrete walls were covered in large, colorful pieces of art and jagged words. There was even a special spot on the far wall with our band’s name in red and black.

After we set up and the horde came rolling in, we played our asses off. The crowd went wild after my guitar solo as Finn belted out a Chevelle song. Tiny, who was at least three hundred pounds, hit the room hard with his bass playing. I looked back at Chet who was playing the drums. He was so high his eyes were thin slits on his face. He nodded at me with a smile, tossed his drumstick in the air, and then brought it down hard. It was a damn good night.

After an hour of playing, we took a break.

“Watch my strings,” I said to Finn as I set down my guitar by his mic.

I drank more when I played and I was going to spill over if I didn’t take a piss. I cut across the crowded space as the DJ took over and blasted loud techno music. The place lit up in laser lights while the dance floor crawled with dancers that jumped up and down, wigged out of their minds.

“You sounded good up there, Zeke,” some random chick said as I walked by.

She reached out and boldly grabbed my ass. This was a normal thing for me and nothing caught me off guard with the girls at The Pit. I turned and was met by a hot redhead with cleavage spilling out of a too-small top. Most of the redheads I’d had were wildcats under the covers, so I was definitely down if she wanted to play later. I leaned in to make sure she could hear me over the loud music.

“Nice tits.” I grinned down at her as I ran a finger across her bulging cleavage. There was a jagged tattoo just under her lacy bra line that I wanted to have a look at. “Meet me beside the stage later.”

I wasn’t asking. I was telling. My blunt nature was something I was known for and that suited me just fine. Dishonesty wasn’t my thing and I was born without a filter around my brain. Anything that crossed my mind came out of my mouth, whether it was hurtful or not. The no-filter thing initiated some pretty bad fights in my life. It also didn’t help that I had no idea how to bite my tongue.

I pushed on the black door to the bathroom. There were no men’s or women’s; there was just this room with stalls lining one wall, urinals on the other, and a single sink with a smudged, cracked mirror. It wasn’t a hygienic place, yet there were still times when you’d walk in on some dude wall-banging the shit out of some chick. It was no big deal to take a piss next to a couple going at it.

I zipped up my jeans and went to the sink to rinse my hands. There was never soap in the dispenser so I didn’t bother. Using my shirt as a towel, I turned to go. A flash of white stood out against the grimy wall and I stopped in my tracks when I noticed a miniscule blond girl balled up in the corner. She was rocking back and forth with her knees drawn up to her chin. Her platinum locks were plastered to her sweaty face and her glazed, red eyes rolled back in her head.

I knew a geeked-out broad when I saw one. I’d probably find out tomorrow that some chick overdosed in the bathroom. It’s happened often, but no one really paid attention, so neither did I when I turned and walked away. The least I could do was stop by the bar and let someone know she was in there before I got back on stage.

Before I could make it to the door, she spoke.

“Please help me.” Her voice shivered.

She had a soft voice. Not raspy and deep like most women I knew. They all smoked, and hacking up a lung had changed their voices. Instead, her voice was smooth and as small as she was. I turned back to her and she looked up at me with glistening blue eyes. They weren’t rolling back in her head anymore; now they were wide in fear.

It was then that I took in her clothes—khaki pants and a white button-up collared shirt. Definitely not the low-cut jeans and high-cut tops the girls I knew wore. She had clean fingernails and no makeup.

How had I not noticed her there before? She stuck out like a whore in church. Except in this case it was the direct opposite. She stuck out like an angel in hell.

Either way, I wasn’t going to be fooled. She was probably some rich bitch that came to The Pit for a fix and hid it from her wealthy friends, but then again, it was the loaded ones that had the best shit. Again, I wondered what she was doing in such a vile place, wrapped in all that innocence.

“Please,” she whispered. “Something’s wrong with me.”

She slid up the ceramic tiles and then used the wall to hold herself up.

The stage and my band were calling me. I didn’t have time for this shit. I needed to walk out, let the bartender know some chick was f*cked up in the bathroom, and then get back to my guitar. Except, the more I looked down at her, the more I knew I wouldn’t be able to just walk away. Something about her seemed legit and part of me knew she wasn’t here to score drugs.

It wasn’t in my nature to give a shit, so it made me angry that I kind of did. I didn’t want to see this chick get hurt and she would, since she was obviously out of her element.

“Shit,” I growled as I closed the distance between us.

She flinched like I was going to hurt her when I lifted my hands to her face. Her flinch angered me. I’d never hurt a female, but I imagine I did look scary to this petite, straight-laced girl. Her pale skin got whiter and started to blend with her sandy strands of hair. Her baby-blue eyes took on a whole new fear as I moved in closer and used my fingers to open her eyelids wider.

Upon closer inspection, I could see that her bloodshot eyes were severely dilated. Empty black dots surrounded by a sea of blue swam inside her eye sockets. She was definitely on something.

“What did you take?” I asked roughly.

She looked at me like I was insane. Her silky forehead puckered in confusion.

“I didn’t take anything, I swear,” she slurred.

“Did anybody give you anything, maybe a piece of candy or something powdery?”

My fingers slid down her face to the side of her neck to check her pulse and she stiffened. As I suspected it would be, her heart was beating too slowly. She was tripping on something and her body wasn’t taking kindly to it, either.

“No, no one gave me anything.” She was starting to freak out.

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.” I turned to walk away.

I didn’t have time for this and my bullshit limit had been reached.

“Wait.” She reached out and grabbed my arm. She jerked her hand back like it was on fire.

“What?” I sighed.

Damn, I was getting aggravated. There were people outside waiting for me to finish a set and here I was f*cking around with some little white-haired pixie.

“A guy at the bar gave me a drink.” She looked at me with crazed eyes. “I thought he just got it from the bartender. It was really sweet, but it tasted fine. I don’t think there was anything it in. I would have tasted it, right?”

“Great, just f*cking great.” I threw my hands up in aggravation. “You got spiked.”

I leaned my head back and ran my hands roughly down my face. This was just what I needed.

She reached out and laid her hand on my arm. I looked down at her fingers. The contrast between my tan, tattooed skin and her perfectly manicured, pale fingers was shocking.

“Am I going to be okay?” she asked in a panic. “Should I go to a hospital? My friend, the one who brought me… I can’t find her. She wanted the drummer and now I can’t find her. Please don’t leave me.”

Her chest heaved as she began to hyperventilate. She leaned her head down, allowing her hair to come around her shoulders. It was much longer than it looked from straight on. Reaching up, she pushed her hair from her face. She was on the verge of a major breakdown.

With her hair out of her face, I got a better look at her. My eyes were met with soft, untouched skin and flushed cheeks. She had a tiny nose and slightly slanted eyes. She looked foreign, all pale with naturally platinum hair, not the box-dyed white that chicks liked to use. She reminded me of a tiny snowflake fairy.

Shaking my brain and alleviating the crazy thoughts, the situation at hand came back to me.

“I’ll go get you some help,” I said as I turned to walk away again.

She reached out once more and grabbed my arm. Her fingers weren’t as soft as before. Instead, they dug desperately into my forearm. Her mouth gapped open like she was about so say something and then her eyes rolled back in her head. I had to catch her when she fainted in my arms.