How To Disappear Completely Part 5

She was clearly offended at the fact that I had both put her down as well as her business.

"Look," she huffed, "I have no intention of hiring you. I'll take this application and keep it just in case no one else applies, but you may as well keep looking elsewhere. You will be nothing but a worst case scenario, if that."

"Don't I get any points for remembering your drink? I can't be all that worthless if I can remember something so specific."

She took a sip and tried very hard not to enjoy it.

"Even if I gave you a few points for that, you'd still be far from breaking even, let alone having a good score."

I gave her the finger with my eyes.

"Carrie, it was nice to see you again. You're both welcome for the drinks."

As I pushed the door open, I heard the beginnings of her version of the Starbucks incident. I would have loved to hear her version to see how deranged I was in it. How deep into the circles of h.e.l.l she wanted me to be sent. I would have loved to see Carrie's reaction to the whole thing, but alas it didn't seem to be my destiny. I ran a few numbers through my head to figure out a ballpark figure for the chances of her being the woman that I wanted a job from, and decided that I had a better chance of winning the lottery. On the walk back home, I stopped in at a corner store to buy a lottery ticket. Most people think that luck, whether good or bad, is a lot like lightning when operating on such small chancesthat it doesn't come around more than once or twice a lifetime. I decided to find out for myself and put 20 bucks down to win on the Ma.s.sachusetts Jackpot.

When I got home, an instant message from Nicole was waiting for me, as well as one from Allison. Oddly enough, they both said the same thing. "What are you doing today?"

I answered Nicole's first with a "hanging out with you?" Apparently that was the right answer.

nickylox85: good, maybe you could come over for dinner?

jbone1492: that sounds great, what time?

nickylox85: 5:30ish? you can help me cook.

jbone1492: should i bring anything?

nickylox85: just some whiskey if you want it. though after last night maybe that's not the best idea.

jbone1492: yeah, we'll see.

Though after the excitement at the cake shop today I felt like I could certainly use a good drink.

nickylox85: did you drop off that application?

jbone1492: i did, and you are never going to believe what happened.

nickylox85: what?

jbone1492: i'll just tell you tonight, alright?

nickylox85: ok, I have one more cla.s.s to head to today. i'll see you tonight ok?

jbone1492: i'll be there.

She left as usual with a? and put up an away message that said 'cla.s.s, then josh?'. I certainly wasn't used to all the smiley faces, but supposed that I could get used to them. I had a few hours to kill and wondered what to do. Just for fun I decided to write. Remembering how amazing the band was the night before, I decided to write a mock review of the show. I tried to start without thinking too hard and just letting the words find their own way out of my fingertips.

I typed non-stop for a few minutes then leaned back in my chair and read it back aloud. This is actually pretty good, I thought, and decided to print it out to bring to Nicole. She was the bug carrying the spores of inspiration in my ear telling me to write, so she may as well get credit for it and see the fruits of it. Fortunately and unfortunately my review took only 15 minutes to write and I still had a few hours before leaving. I wondered how many websites there are that review shows and alb.u.ms and how many of them may need freelance writers.

There were a surprising number of sites that raised their hands to Google's inquiry, so I picked out the most promising ones for further research. All of the few sites that I found had staff writers and surely didn't need any more. Then I tried to find a blog or two on the subject, resulting in more dismal prospects.

I didn't know the first thing about websites, but I thought that maybe I could start a blog of music reviews. If I wrote specifically for college kids, I could probably get a reputation going. My mind buzzed with ideas like a coffee shop full of beat poetseveryone vying to be heard as a fresh voice. I spent the rest of the afternoon looking into how to make it happen. I signed up with BlogSpot.com and set up my first blog. Boston Gig Reviews. I used my review of Wally and the Whale as the first post. With just enough time to shower, get ready, and head over to Nicole's, I sat back for a moment to marvel at my creation. I didn't create very often, nothing original at least. Coffee drinks, essays, some dumb, trite poetry were always part of my palette, but nothing as original as this. And as much as I loved music, I had never learned to write it.

After hurriedly getting ready for the evening, I marched my way triumphantly over to Nicole's as if I had just been part of a military coup, ready for a new life. She opened the door, happy to see me, but her face wasn't quite as full of life as normal. Asking a girl if she's alright is like jaywalking across a black ice-covered 4 lane street: You think you can make it safely to the other side, but you're more likely to slip and fall to a most certain death. I was not in the mood to die. She kissed me blankly on the cheek and I thought how it may as well have been Allison. I decided that I'd better ask. "Are you ok?" I spat out hesitantly.

"Yeah, school was rough today."

"What happened?"

"Apparently my ex-boyfriend has been following me. Last night he was there at the club, watching us. Then he interrupted my cla.s.s this afternoon and said some pretty terrible things, in front of everyone. My teacher ended up calling security and they escorted him out recommending that I get a restraining order. After cla.s.s the campus security helped me fill out the paperwork and now he's not allowed within 50 feet of me."

"I don't know what to say. That's just awful."

I really didn't know what to say.

"I've never had to do anything like that before."

"Hopefully you never have to again now."

I pulled her close to me and put my arms around her as her hands covered her face to shield me from view of tears. I'd learned a long time ago that often the best thing you can say is nothing. Instead, I offered the comfort of my arms for as long as she needed, stroking her long, soft strawberry blonde hair as she wept quietly. Eventually she calmed herself and pried her face away from my tear stained sweater. "I'm sorry." She said as if something were her fault.

"There is no way that this could be your fault."

"I just didn't mean to ruin the evening."

"Nothing is ruined. Let's get you a drink."

Suddenly my whole day seemed too pale in comparison, so I opted to not share until she was ready to ask. I thought that I would have sounded either like I was trying to make my morning seem worse than her incident, or my afternoon would have seemed like bragging. I made her a whiskey sour, poured myself a double on the rocks, and ushered her to a seat on the couch where we could relax for a minute. "It's all over now, let's just try and relax."

"Ok." She said horribly unconvincingly.

This was not going well. I had to think of the catalyst, the thing to turn the whole evening around, and fast. "I took your advice" I said hopefully, "I decided to start a music review blog."

Her face widened and mine lifted in response. "That's so great!" What are you going to review?"

"Well I was thinking of starting with the band from last night and then just go to shows and check bands out and then write about it. Maybe eventually they'll invite me to shows and stuff. I might try and keep it indie and local."

"That is a great idea. You already wrote something about last night?"

"It's actually already online."

"No way! Let me see it."

I navigated my way to the as yet undesigned blog and let her read the lonely review.

"This is so great." She smiled, "you should send this to the band. I'm sure they'd love it."

'I did it!' I thought. It worked. For the rest of the night we laughed, drank, cooked, and after I had a little more to drink she got me to learn a few more dance moves. I made her promise, though, that she'd make me drink more water and take more breaks if we ever went to another dance again, to which she gladly agreed. This is how a relationship should be, I thought: fun. We just had fun together. We could just hang out together and have plenty to talk about. There was so much to learn about each other and we wanted to learn it all. I waited for a while before telling her about what happened that morning and the absurdity of the coincidence that the fat b.i.t.c.h from Starbucks was also the manager of Sweet & Nasty. It hit me then that I'd probably have to start over on a job search. Even if they did call me back I wasn't entirely sure that I'd want to work for the woman who had actually gotten me fired from my previous job. I was tempted to apply at the Starbucks on Newbury, but figured that I wouldn't have a chance after being fired from another, unless I lied and didn't put that on my resume. Then I'd just seem like a fast learner, which is never bad.

No, that would be stupid. The point in the evening came where a decision had to be made about the precarious sleeping arrangements of new lovers. Should I stay or should I go? I still wasn't sure if I was ready to make the plunge into a s.e.xual relationship with Nicole as the guilt would be unbearable when I actually finally talked with Allison. So I made the decision to leave once again. She actually asked me to stay, but I explained why I had to leave which made her want me to stay even more.

The look in a girl's eyes when she wants you to follow her into her room and into bed for the first time is one of the few things that still make me believe in G.o.d. It took every ounce of willpower and persuasion to convince myself to leave, but eventually I did and tried to think about how amazing it would be when I finally got to stay over. I walked home in a pleasant whiskey haze without a care in the world and later that night about Nicole and how things might play out on our first night together, whenever that would be.

About halfway home, every few steps I felt as though someone was following me, though every time I turned around to look there was no one there. I had never felt so spooked by the silence or the air of a dark night before, and felt in my gut that something was wrong. After a few more minutes of that feeling coursing through my body, I suddenly felt the sharp sting of a blow to the back of my head. I didn't scream, though I was. .h.i.t hard enough to make my eyes water. I felt around the back of my head with my hand but didn't find any blood. I turned around at that same instant to see the outline of a manly figure through a watery blurred vision.

The pain was enough to render my mind completely useless for a moment. Not thinking of a means of retaliation or escape, I just stood there, stunned. The figure started moving towards me at an unbelievable speed, and quickly, without thinking, my mind screamed, "Run!" I bolted as fast as I could down the street, but I was still a little drunk. I could hear him catching up to me and just before he finally did, I dropped to the ground and he tripped over me, completely unprepared for the accidental defensive strategy.

His hands couldn't react in time and he fell hard and fast square onto his chin. He squirmed a little on the ground and turned to face me. Blood was pouring out his chin like a faucet. It was pretty clear that he was badly injured, but he showed no signs of it. He must have been on some sort of amphetamine or speed, because he got up as if nothing had happened, wiping the blood away from his chin though it quickly reappeared. By the time he stood up, I was also on my feet and had locked myself into a defensive position that I'd probably seen in a movie, though I was completely unprepared for that sort of thing. He leapt forward with a fist moving faster than his body and it struck me across the cheek before I could even think to react. The pain was unbelievable.

"Just take my wallet, man." I whimpered. "Just leave me alone."

"I don't want your f.u.c.king wallet!" He responded with another blow to my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up, but instead it just sucked all the breath completely out of me. Punch after punch, face, stomach, my neck, I was being pummeled with no sign of escape. The blows stopped briefly and just as I was about to compose myself, he grabbed me around my neck with both hands and squeezed. Hard. It took every ounce of energy to squeeze out a "What do you want?" complete with coughs and grunts inserting s.p.a.ces harshly between words.

He slammed my head against the brick wall of a store that had shut down hours ago. "I want you to stay away from Nicole. If I see you near her again, this might have to happen again, and next time I won't be so nice." As he said it, he spat violently onto my face. He was certainly not versed in hygiene, as he reeked of beer and days old sweat. He could have been one of the greatest bullies on TV. Just give this guy a job and maybe he won't be such a d.i.c.k in real life, because he wouldn't want to take his work home with him.

That was certainly not how I pictured the rest of the evening going and I had no intention of making things worse. So I lied, "Ok. Just let me go. Please." He slammed me one more time against the wall and just before letting me go he kicked my feet out from under me so I fell on the sweat- and saliva-soaked sidewalk with enough force to make me cry out again in pain. "I'm serious." He added as he stumbled away, "Leave her alone. She's mine!"

It doesn't look like it to me, I wanted to scream back, but feared too much for my life. I realized then why Nicole was so shook up earlier. With this a.s.shole in your life, how could anyone ever be happy? I sat there for a minute before attempting to get up. I had never been in a fight before, though I could have barely called this a fight (since that takes two), and decided then that I'd never really want to again. Some people were born to be warriors and I realized that night that I certainly wasn't one of them. I finally got myself to my feet like an old man and hobbled the rest of the way home.

Taking off my clothes, I saw cuts and onset of bruises all over me. My eye told me that tomorrow it would dye itself black and blue in honor of the occasion. My lip decided that it wanted to be supportive and would stay cracked and b.l.o.o.d.y for a while and wondered if a rib or two wanted in as well. I started a bath full of hot water and stood looking in the mirror at the broken version of myself until the water was high enough to get into. This isn't right, I thought, as I stepped into the bath. I'd never taken a bath before in that tub and was as awkward with my body in it as a teenage lover fumbling and fidgeting about trying to be comfortable in his partner's naked skin. The only thing that seemed moderately comfortable was to lean back with my head resting on the edge of the tub and my knees poking out of the water like a sad pair of caged dorsal fins.

I let the water wash over my wounds as blood from my cuts turned the water a hazy pink. As I tried to relax, I let the whole scene play out again in my head, start to finish, without any commentary before going back to view it as a play by play with my inner cynic sportscaster. What the h.e.l.l was this guy's problem? I certainly understood that if such a beautiful girl dumped you, it could be upsetting, but stalking her and a.s.saulting any guy that she dates next is a bit extreme, even for someone slightly out of whack.

I debated calling Nicole to tell her what happened, but decided that no bad news should be given so late at night. At least let the rigors of the daytime mitigate the dark news. How could I expect her to get back to sleep after hearing that her ex had just a.s.saulted me on my way home, probably after waiting for me the whole time I was at her apartment. But then I thought about her and the possibility of him deciding to head back to her place afterwards to wait for her. Maybe he wouldn't even wait. A sleepless night is way better than a being beaten up by a madman.

Luckily, my phone was within my reach, nestled safely in the pocket of my pants. Nicole's phone, however, must have been sitting unnoticed while Nicole danced around getting ready for bed listening to a bold mix of songs I recommended. While the phone rang and rang, I pictured her undressing, dancing as if no one was watching, but as if I were there and it was my birthday or our anniversary or some other special occasion that warranted a moderately innocent striptease.

I didn't want to scare her so I decided to wait a few minutes before trying again. Nothing says be very scared than a collection of missed call reports from your phone in 30 second intervals. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander back to the thoughts of Nicole dancing around her room half naked. Just as she was about to finally get to the finale of her show, my phone rang and showed her face on its screen.

"Hey." I said with an odd blend of s.e.xual intrigue and concern. "Hey." She replied. "I was just getting ready for bed listening to some of those songs you gave me. They're all pretty great so far."

"Good I'm glad."

"What's up?" she asked knowing there was a reason for the out of turn call.

I sighed a pretty big sigh into the receiver before I finally got up the guts to say, "I ran into Mark on my way home."

"What do you mean? How would you even know who he is?"

"Well, he beat me up pretty bad."

"Oh my G.o.d, no."

"I'm ok now. I'll probably have a black eye in the morning, but shouldn't be anything that I can't handle."

"Oh Josh."

"I wasn't sure if I should tell you tonight because I didn't want you to worry, but he was hurt pretty bad himself and I had a thought that maybe he'd try to go back to your place. He was heading that direction when he finally let me go."

She didn't say anything.

"Nicole?"

After a couple beats she finally asked, "Josh, will you come back over?"

"Why? What do you think he'll do?"

"If you take a cab, you'd probably still beat him here."

"This was a while ago."

She didn't respond.

"Nicole, do me a favor and call the police, tell them about the restraining order and that you think he might be outside your house. I'll get in a cab and come right over, ok? That way we'll both hopefully be safe when I get there."

"Ok." There was no life in her voice anymore.

"Can you do that? Will you call the police?"

"Yeah, I can do that. I'll call right now."

"Don't go outside until they or I get there, ok?'

"Ok."

The water, stained with blood, marched slowly down the drain in formation. There are no amateurs here, I thought, as I looked up the number for a cab. Five minutes later the cab arrived like a B-52 picking up fresh soldiers to bring back to the front. I gave the address and we were off into the fray.

After walking around in the city, occasionally taking public transportation for so long, it was absurd how fast the cab got to her place at 3 in the morning. Maybe I did beat the old nut, I thought as I paid the cabbie off and walked out into the battle. I didn't see any sign of Mark and silently praised the G.o.ds for such luck. I rang up to her place and she let me in without hesitation.

I ran up the stairs to her door and before I even reached the entry, she flung herself on me as if I were a rock star and she was a groupie just waiting for the chance to touch me. Unfortunately, the pain and bruises made it hard to enjoy my moment of fame. It wasn't until we actually walked in the door that she noticed my confidently forming black eye and various cuts and bruises.

"Oh my G.o.d. I'm so sorry that you had to be a part of this." She spoke as if I were part of a n.a.z.i work camp or something. "I'll be fine." I rea.s.sured her. "Really it's not so bad. A week or so and I should be back to normal." She poured me a drink and one for herself as well. As we sat on the sofa waiting for the cops to arrive, I recounted as best I could remember, the brawl that took place. It was an amazing sense of power I had as she oohed with every punch and winced with every mildly gory description of each blow. For the first time in my life I actually felt like a hero even though I had lost the battle completely.

Right during the final moments of the story, there was a buzz at the door. "Good, the police are here." Nicole sighed with relief. "Let me talk to them, ok? You just relax." And I did. I took a slug of whiskey, closed my eyes and felt it pa.s.s through my entire being like sweet, sweet love. The sound of Nicole screaming pulled me right back to reality. "No, Mark, get the f.u.c.k out of here, I don't want to see you anymore. The cops are on their way right now!... No... He's not here Mark... no I don't care what you saw... . please just leave me alone."

Two car doors slammed, silencing the argument and two sets of feet marched forward. I opened up a window to the front of the building to hear what was going on.

"Can I help you, sir?" a deep voice rustled.

"I'm just here to see my girl." A hesitant voice replied, apparently Mark's.

"What's your name?"

"Mark Dimble. What's yours?" Mark was trying to act tough now.

"Officer Lawrence."