Blue was starting to feel better. The nausea was gone, the dizziness too. The whack Endless gave him on the skull wasn’t throbbing anymore. Meanwhile he was still at Lady’s apartment in Santa Monica, and she was still treating him like a hero, her hero, the world’s hero, and at first it was pissing him off. The police had come and gone, and for all they knew, he had been just a brave man who took the hit when some psycho had burst in the yoga studio brandishing a gun. The police were treating it as some isolated act. Nate apparently hadn’t told them anything. The gorgeous blind chick whose dog had bitten Endless wasn’t saying anything—what the fuck could she say? And Blue certainly wasn’t going to either. Maybe now, Endless would just disappear.
It had been years since he spent more than one night with a woman. Lady was now at the top of his list for the last decade. What was it about her that made him, in spite of his shakes, still want to be here? He knew he had a problem. At worst it would make him kill—at best it would give him the shakes. Women pushed his buttons. Once upon a time there had been shrinks in jail who had recommended books for him to read, and his brother, who was the bookworm in the family had also made sure he had stuff to read on his various stints inside. The problem stemmed from his mother. Duh. Maybe even more from his beautiful sister who had more or less ruined him for anyone else. Until Lady came around. Just the thought of her red hair, the games she made him play, the tickling, the touching, the wicked way she shamed him into doing what she wanted. And then laughing hysterically in his face, the bitch.
Photo: Joel Goodman
Shame, shame, shame. Blue bowed his head, his shoulders hunched; the shame crawled up his belly into his chest and beat there. The beating in his chest turned soft. He felt his heart in his chest. Tears rolled down his cheeks. The blow on his head must be making him soft. He wanted to believe in a god, but he couldn’t believe; all he saw was some white guy, not unlike Santa, but dressed in a long white nightgown.
God if He existed was the mountain glistening in snow. God was the rush he had felt with the cold wind in his face, and the rush of love when Lady glided down next to him, and the snow shimmered up around them in the sun, and they kissed.
Blue wanted to be better now. Blue wanted to try. Some unseen hand had delivered him to Lady and her kindness and love. Some unseen hand knew he was sitting with his legs up, and his head propped up against pillows with a cool drink by his side. If that unseen hand was a god, he was thankful.
“Blue you’re looking downright healthy again!” Lady bent over his head and kissed him lightly.
“Maybe tonight we can wash your hair. I’ll help you!”
“Sit down, I want to talk.”
Lady picked his legs and feet up, and put them back down in her lap. She had on yoga pants, and a thin sleeveless top that she looked damn good in: the high bust, the firm arms, the still tight thighs, the shapely lower legs, and the belly pretty fucking great for someone her age, she had told him once, and only lied a little. He had sneaked a look in her pocketbook and seen her driver’s license. She was almost ten years older than he was, but she didn’t look it, and her name wasn’t Lady, it was Alice. Who the fuck cared? His name wasn’t Blue either.
Maybe it was time they started out fresh. Alice and Steve. No he’d stick to Blue and she would always be Lady to him. Still even, his Lady. My Lady.
She was caressing the tops of his feet with her long silky hands. Massaging his high insteps with her thumbs.
Blue closed his eyes and then reluctantly opened them.
“I was a bad ass kid,” he told her. “Always getting in trouble.”
“I was a good girl. I like that bad boy in you.” She kept on rubbing.
“But damn, I was real bad… I’ve,” and here he stumbled. “I’ve killed.”
She nodded, “I can tell you’ve suffered.”
He felt vastly relieved. That warm spot in his chest seemed to be growing. Those tears again down his cheeks. My heart is filled with something like love.
“I’ve been in and out of jail. I’ve panhandled; I had some trouble in another state with welfare fraud. You want something to eat and they fucking lock you in the slammer for it.”
He was losing the soft spot; his heart was growing hard again.
“You’re stiffening up. Don’t Blue! Let yourself go. Remember the mountain! The snow! You skied down the hill.”
The sun on the mountains. Salvation.
They stayed like this for a while. It was late in the day, and the sky outside her apartment window was growing darker.
Just the two of them, no one else in the whole world. God is love.
“Would you kill someone for me?” Lady said, at last.
Blue lay there, his eyes closed.
“You’re shitting me!”
“I’m not,” she said softly.
Blue opened his eyes. “Not Nate?”
“Why would I want you to kill Nate? He’s our favorite yoga teacher.”
“Then who do you want me to kill?”
Lady rubbed his feet and she told him.
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