Lee Johnson - Nitro Mountain

My last boyfriend almost killed me, after I tried to get him killed. I didn’t know at the time he’d already killed the guy I was with before him. And that first guy also tried to kill him. I know it sounds crazy. It was. I tried to forget about it. Pretend like nothing ever happened. Start over new. Those memories need forgetting. We were young. Still are. One of us will be young forever. I wasn’t saying his name out loud. Who would that help? There was no need for punishing myself anymore. I was not getting any younger. Nobody was getting any aliver. I kept my head down. You should’ve seen me. There I was, making change for strangers.

It got late, close to the final match, and people were rooting around the tables. The smell of cologne and carpet conditioner. The lights went down and the drinks went down and the music went up. Girls leaning in the corners, sipping frozen mixers and watching their guys whack balls. That was the first time I noticed how good it felt not to be drunk. When you’re sober, everything’s a sharp image contained in its own little world. And there I was, contained in mine.

I looked around for that guy but he was off with some girl. She was all right, but she was no me. I should’ve let it go but I couldn’t. I wanted to mess with him some. Just something small. The two of them were sitting at a table holding hands. I made more change and tallied up another team’s win.

Hands on my shoulders pulled me backward. I felt Arnett dragging me down, but the hands spun me around and I saw it wasn’t him. “We having fun yet?” Don was saying.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I said.

“So she does talk!”

The music was so loud that you could only yell. It smelled like he’d been drinking whatever he had the carpets cleaned with. “Listen,” he said. “The hand that feeds you? Don’t bite it. Okay, babe?”

He bit his finger, shook his head, tapped my cheek with the bit finger and walked away. He was an asshole but it did feel good to get handled.

The nights ended easy. All tabs settled. No disasters in the bathroom. The billiard area was always spotless: the sharks treated it like a church. It was a fifteen-minute walk back to the apartment. Kernel liked to curl up on my pillow and watch antique planes drop bombs on people. Amanda was usually asleep when I got back. I unfolded my blanket and Kernel burrowed between my legs, not letting me move the rest of the night.

—

I was a hard worker. A new person with a new life, quietly waiting for what I wasn’t real sure. I was just keeping out of trouble.

I filled out a piece of paper for a doctor once. It was about anxiety. The bullet had just grazed my shoulder, the spot it hit had been dealt with and sutured, and now they were dealing with my mind. The doctor read my paper and told me I had PTSD. I said, “Excuse me, but Vietnam was a long time ago and if I look that old to you then you can’t even guess what you look like to me.” I pop-sucked my middle finger and stuck it at him. “Suck a fuck,” I said.

That was my last day in the hospital — they couldn’t hold me any longer legally — and those were the first words I’d spoken in weeks. Even longer since I’d acted like that. It got me nervous about my old crazy coming back. Everybody calm the fuck down. That’s what Leon used to say. (Damn, there’s his name.) I thought that would make a great bumper sticker. I spent a few months calming the fuck down.

Being a good girl isn’t easy, but when you’re lying low so somebody can’t find you, it works.

You’d think I’d have missed him more than I did. But I didn’t miss anybody because they all reminded me of a life I was through with, and I didn’t know what else to be except thankful.

I still thought I was beautiful. Except under good lighting like in public bathrooms. I tried to keep it so you couldn’t really see how busted I was. What cigarettes and booze and men’s hands had done to my face. It wasn’t extreme, it was just like, Whoa, somebody wrinkled her up and tried to smooth her out again. Which you can’t do. Around the eyes and the mouth there’s no going back. You can’t ever unwrinkle the bag. It looked like I’d been smiling too much.

Under these pool hall lights, though, I looked good. We had the black lights going in the main room and in here the overheads were on a dimmer. At eight o’clock I got to set them the way I liked, which was low. This place used to be a Chinese restaurant. You could tell by the mural on the wall across from the counter where I stood at. It still had the characters and the dragons. Some of the images were 3-D and they moved when you moved. The eyes of some bald fat guy in robes — Buddha, I guess — watched over me wherever I went.

One of the pool tables sat under the hanging light fixture for a buffet table. You could imagine Chinese food scattered across the green felt. The cues were long chopsticks. Can you see it?

These were the things I thought about at work. One night before Don left, I asked if he might give me a job in the kitchen.

He looked at my tits and said, “Only if you give me one first.”

“I want to quit thinking so much,” I said.

“Nobody will notice if you just keep quiet.”

“Can you put me on dishes?”

“I could, but that wouldn’t be very comfortable, would it? How about a mattress?”

“I don’t get it,” I said, right as I realized what he was talking about. Now that I was sober, I forgot to take into account other people’s drunken minds and what they thought about. “How about a prep cook?” I said. “I’m good with knives.”

“If you sleep with me I’ll think about it before saying no.”

He ended up leaving without anybody noticing. He was on the verge of causing a situation, caught himself, and then disappeared. Like a pro.

The next day he looked like he’d recovered from the last night. I waved at him and he came to me.

“Apologies for the disproportionate amount of cheer,” he said. “It was just the merriment overflowing and you happened to be close. I’d like to keep you here.”

“I hope you do.”

Out the front windows behind him, just for a second, it looked like Arnett running past, slatted by the blinds.

“I will,” he said.

“And it’s fine,” I said, “your merriment overflowing and all.”

“No it’s not. I’m your professional boss. Are you still at Amanda’s?”

“Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, she’s great for helping me.”

“How do you deal with that dog? I saw that thing jump once from standing still to snatching a tennis ball off her shoulder.”

“Oh my God, right? I was eating a slice of pizza the other day? Dog came flying by and just snapped it out of my hand.”

“I’ve got this thing you might be interested in.”

—

Amanda wanted to talk with me before I moved out. About my life. About improving it. She said there were a few decisions I needed to make. Like for example, I should never have any kids. Ever. I acted like she talked me into that one. I always thought of myself as being a mother someday, but given my “life patterns” she said it was probably a good thing if I made sure this didn’t happen.

I nodded while she talked.

—

It’s hard to describe the first glimpse of the room and the bed that would be my own. I was willing to do anything to make sure it didn’t go away.

“Blanket, sheet, pillow,” Don said. “No dog.”

It was half past ten in the morning when he showed me around this cute efficiency. He was going to collect rent after I started making enough money. Until then I could stay for free.

Almost for free, I saw, as he leaned in and put his lips on my forehead.

“Whatever,” I said.