Chapter 8 Beating Yourself Up
Jenny was nestled snug and warm in Carmen's arms on Monday morning. Her bare butt was tucked into Carmen's lap and Carmen's breasts pushed gently into her shoulder blades. The backs of her thighs were nestled against the fronts of Carmen's. The soft, quiet, whisper-snores of Carmen's breathing lightly brushed the back of her neck. The wet spots on the bed had dried, yet again, although the sheets were definitely going to have to go into the wash before nightfall. It had been almost exactly twenty-four hours since their first love-making, and twenty-two hours since their second. On Sunday afternoon Carmen had to DJ a bar mitzvah, and she didn't get to Jenny's house until almost 10 p.m., shortly after which their third love-making took place. The fourth and most recent had taken place about 5 a.m., when Jenny awoke to find Carmen crouched between her legs. Before long they were in a languid sixty-nine, after which they both fell asleep when Carmen reversed herself and pulled a limp, satiated Jenny into her arms again for a short nap that actually lasted three hours. Something made Jenny wake up, and with one open eye she glanced at the clock/radio.
Jenny suddenly realized what day it was and what time it was. "Oh my God, I've got class!" she shrieked. Her shout scared the shit out of Carmen, who sat bolt upright in Jenny's bed, the sheet falling down off her naked body. She saw Jenny naked and hoping about on one leg trying to put on her panties.
"I forgot to set the alarm last night," Jenny moaned. "I've got my writing class in thirty-five minutes! I gotta run!" She scrambled for the rest of her clothes, while Carmen climbed out of bed and began to dress with less urgency. Now that they were awake they could hear rock music blaring from somewhere in the house. Carmen cocked her head, listened, identified it as the song
Apology
, by
Nasty On
, from the
Fistful of Rock 'n' Roll
anthology, volume 12. Somebody had it cranked way up. She fastened herself into her bra, couldn't find her panties, climbed into a pair of sweatpants, and threw on her top. Somewhere in the house the telephone started ringing.
So much for the possibility of some good, leisurely morning sex, one of Carmen's specialties.
Jenny hurried down the hall to the living room, where she found Shane, rumpled, still dressed, but asleep on the couch with her hand over her face. The phone was ringing and
Apology
was blaring from the stereo. Jenny balanced on one foot then the other, struggling to put her shoes on. "Fuck, fuck, I'm so late for school! Fuck!" Then she picked up the phone. "Hello?" She covered her other ear so she could hear. She shouted, "Yeah, hang on a sec! Shane! It's for you!"
Carmen came into the living room, assessed the situation, and went over to the stereo and turned it off.
"It's Veronica Bloom!" Jenny shouted at Shane, who might actually have been dead, based upon the total lack of movement on the couch. Finally her hand moved, and she squinted up at Jenny.
She yawned, rolled over, and muttered, "Tell her she can kiss my ass." She appeared to go back to sleep.
"Um! She's not around right now," Jenny said into the phone. "Can I take a message?! ... Okay! Bye!" Jenny hung up the phone and began looking for her school notebook. "Shane! She would like you to please call her back!" To Carmen she said a fast "Good-bye!" and blew her a kiss. Carmen waved as Jenny ran out the door. She stood, leaning against the door frame, regarding the corpse on the couch.
"She can kiss --" Shane mumbled again.
"-- your ass," Carmen finished for her. She leaned against the door jamb leading into the kitchen, her arms folded across her chest. Carmen's face was that of a traffic cop who'd just stopped you for doing eighty in a thirty-five school zone.
Shane looked up at Carmen. Carmen rolled her eyes. Shane's head was throbbing, and her mouth was dry and tasted like the inside of a rabbit hutch. And she knew something bad was coming.
"You wanna know something?" Carmen finally asked.
Here it comes, Shane thought. She rolled onto her back, sat up, put her head in her hands, tried to ignore the cascading roar of noise, the Niagara Falls of sound pounding inside her head.
"You've been getting away with this shit for far too long," Carmen said. "I don't know what that poor, ass-kissing woman did to piss you off. You know, maybe you guys were walking down the street one day and she smiled at you too sweetly by accident! Okay, but maybe -- maybe she bought you a gift to let you know that you're kinda special to her!"
Then Carmen started to cry.
Shane looked up, startled. What the fuck was Carmen talking about? She started off talking about Veronica Bloom, right? Then, the crying. WTF?
"Or just maybe ... maybe she really liked you," Carmen said, making no effort to hide or even stop the tears running down her face. "I think that... that's something ... that you just don't know how to handle right now," Carmen nodded, affirming to herself, "...and, uh ... " she wiped away some tears, "...and I also think that ... that we
sweet
... simple folk..." she smiled, " ... will not go around kissing your ass forever."
Shane was stunned. Carmen looked at her for a long minute, her face so perfect, so beautiful...but so sad and so hurt. Then she went back down the hall to Jenny's room and slammed the door closed. Shane laid back down on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.
"Fucking fuck me," was all she could say.
***
Late that afternoon Mark was sitting at his computer console in his studio office/bedroom behind the house editing a tape when his cell phone rang. He paused the tape, which showed Shane bare-ass naked on her bed, humping some chick named Courtney a couple nights ago, and answered the call.
"Hello? Hey, Shane!! How you doing? I didn't recognize your number. Um ... you know, I think Jenny just left. But um ... " he rose and looked out the window, and saw that Jenny's car was gone. "Yeah, no, she's not back... Is everything all right? You sound kinda spacey... Hol - hold on, slow down, slow down. I can't hear you. Say it again? ... I - um - listen, it's - that's totally normal. Just, just... be cool. Tell me exactly where you are, okay?" He picked up a pen and jotted something down. "Uh-huh. Yeah, of course, but - but where, specifically? ... On Venice. On Washington. Okay... on the Washington side. So... the phone booth right by the alley. Okay. I want you to just sit down, right there, and I'm gonna be there in like twenty minutes, all right? And just, just be cool, and um ... just, just don't move from there, okay?"
Still holding the phone to his ear, he reached for his jacket lying on a chair near the door and struggled to put one arm in a sleeve. "Um, you're not drinking too much water, are you? 'Cause I heard this thing about this guy who was, uh, at the Burning Man Festival --" he grabbed his car keys off the computer table – "OD'ing on X, and, uh, he wound up drinking all this water - you know what, just - I'm gonna be there in, like, twenty minutes. Just - don't drink a lot of water."
Mark thrust his cell into his pocket and ran out the door.
Traffic was heavy and the afternoon rush hour had begun. What might have taken fifteen minutes at 2 p.m. took him twenty-five in rush hour to get to the block in Venice Beach Shane claimed to be calling from. He circled the block twice, looking for Shane or a parking spot, whichever came first, and got lucky on the second circuit, turning a corner just as an SUV up ahead was pulling out of a metered spot. Mark waited for the SUV to clear and head down the street, pulled up, and then paralleled back into the opening. He jumped out of the car, ignored the meter, and looked up and down the street. He saw the phone booth by the alley -- empty. Fuck it! Where was she? Shane could have wandered off anywhere; she could even have been arrested or something.
"No more, you fucking crazy bitch!" Mark heard some guy yell behind him, across the street and down the block. He turned and saw two men come out of a club, dragging a struggling and pugnacious Shane between them. Shane tried to kick one of the guys but missed as he dodged out of the way, still grasping her arm and trying to subdue her, or at least keep from getting attacked.
"Fuck you, Mel!" Shane yelled at one of them as Mark jumped between two cars, ran into the street, dodged traffic, and ran to where Shane and the two men were fighting.
"Get out of here, you little freak!" the man called Mel shouted at Shane, releasing her arm and pushing her away.
"Fucking lay off!" Shane yelled at him, charging him and trying to land a punch, but she was intercepted by the other guy.
"Little freak!" Mel hissed at her as she tried to kick him in the nuts. "She don't look like no fucking girl!"
"Eat shit!" she yelled at him. The guy restraining her spun her around and punched her in the face, and Shane went down hard. A second later, Mark slammed into the guy, knocking him right off his feet. When Mel went after Shane Mark yelled, "Get off, man!" but Mel ignored him, and a second later found himself in a headlock, his head under Mark's arm and Mark's free fist delivering a couple of body blows that took the wind out of Mel's sails. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. Mark turned to see Shane and the other guy going at it, the guy dragging Shane to her feet in order to punch her out again. He had his arm back, cocked to deliver the punch when Mark came up behind him, and sent the guy into some kind of flip with some cool-shit Jackie Chan ninja move. The guy hit the ground, tried to stand and charge, and got another cool-shit Jackie Chan leg kick to the chest that sent him backwards into Mel. Mark stood, Shane behind him on her knees. He watched the two men, who slowly stood up, panting and bleeding. He could take both of them; they knew it, and he knew it.
