“It must be really serious, huh? What’s up?” I was pressing my entire body against the door now, and the weight of it was cutting the circulation out of my ear. My fingernails, now white, held me up perfectly so that I wouldn’t slide down the door.
“Something’s really wrong with him. I told you before that he says that he goes out, but he stays here. Today, when I confronted him about it, he got angry and blamed it on you. I think he has misdirected anger.”
“He misses you Bri,” she cut in.
“I asked him if he wanted to do something.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be pitied. Or maybe it’s just pride. Do you think it’ll boil over?”
“Naw, don’t think so. This has been going on for too long. The sad part is that none of the other guys have really noticed. I asked them about it and they had no clue.”
“Has he been doing anything else strange?”
“I caught him reading…”
“So what that’s…”
“No, I’m not finished. I caught him reading a pamphlet on depression. Then I caught him with a book this thick,” he paused possibly to show her, “on depression. He was half way through it.”
“You don’t think that it’s that dumb, abusive bitch Mandy do you? I mean she shred your arm to pieces and she ripped my favorite blouse in two!” At this I growled and involuntarily pounded my hand against the door. She had no right to say those things about Mandy. Just because Mandy was a little angry that day, I thought. Leighanne actually was lucky. She and Brian got out with the skins on their backs. That day I barely did. I was sleeping when she came into my room (she still has my bloody house key) with no shirt on, just the way she likes it. Mandy likes it that she’s the only person I, quote, “share my stomach with”. When she gets mad, she takes it out on everyone. That day, she was declined by another label, and I was the one who felt the real pain from it. She drove her lengthy, manicured nails into the flesh of my back. I woke up to my nerves screaming at me from every direction, and a familiar hot pain surging out of my back. It was so embarrassing, hiding it from the guys. I had to beg for her stop, to please stop. Mandy never stops until she finishes though.
When she did finish, I could feel chunks of skin she had collected laying on my tailbone. I was afraid to move, but I could feel her hands rubbing the parts of my shoulders she hadn’t touched. Then they were on my chest and the excuses started. She talked to me as if I were a child, “Mandy had a bad day today Nicky, and she’s very sorry.” In other words, I had made her feel better by just being her scratching post. How touching.
Mandy left the room to clean up her fingernails. She broke a couple, I was sure, on the bone of my back. It took all of my strength to keep from crying, to keep from calling Brian and screaming, “You think you have it bad? Take a long look at my goddamn back and tell me who has it worse!” But Mandy still wasn’t finished yet.
“Nicky, honey, give Mandy a kiss to let her know you’re not mad, ok?” Well, what choices did I have? I didn’t have much skin left and the thought of her digging her nails into my open wounds dismayed me. I helped myself up, biting my bottom lip and concentrating on trying not to scream.
As soon I struggled into a sitting position on my bed, her mouth was on mine and her hands were tucked safely behind my back, fingernails retracted. It was fine for a while, I mean, I love to be kissed and all. But Mandy is different; you can never be too sure with her. Her moods change so rapidly, it’s hard to keep track of the signs. When her nails began to sink inside the skin at the nape of my neck, I hardly noticed. Despite her, despite the pain I was feeling, I still had my longing to be kissed.
Mandy realized that I wasn’t getting the drift quickly enough. She dug her nails deeper into my neck, searching for bone and at the same time she bit the tip of my tongue with her front teeth. I let out a strangled cry before she switched to biting my lower lip. It had nothing to do with intimacy, she was getting angry was all it was.
She released her grip on my swollen lip only to slap me across the face. “Pervert!” she declared angrily, “I come home after a hard days work and all you can think about is pleasing yourself! I’m going out now because I can’t stand the sight of you!”
I stared after her until I couldn’t see her anymore, then I just stared at my blank, white walls with a stupid smile on my face. Sometimes I smile because it helps me conceal tears. There was blood dripping onto my pajama bottoms, but no one would notice because they were black. That was a cause for some relief on my part. I sat like that until I tired and fell asleep.
Now Leighanne was putting her down, and I was still sticking up for her. I felt torn, standing alone and depressed by that door. Brian was talking trash to Leighanne behind my back, and the scars on it so evident, unconcealable…
“What was that?” I heard Leighanne. She had heard my fist against the door and almost before I could react, it was opened.
I nearly stumbled onto her because some of my weight was still concentrated on the door. She stared at me as if to say, “Well, are you going to come up with a wise lie about why you were eavesdropping, or not?” I wasn’t going to do that unless she said something first. And she did.
“Nick, were you listening to our private conversation?”
“No,” I informed her bluntly.
“Well then what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I think that I came here to ask if I can borrow some toilet paper. And I also think that I’ve just changed my mind about that.”
“Well, I thought that you came over to apologize to Brian for what you did, then decided that eavesdropping on us would be much more entertaining.” Brian was watching me from the table where he sat, wearing his most intense gaze on his face.
“I have better things to do with my time than listen to you guys have sex in your hotel room. If I wanted that, I could just order porn videos. Though I am curious as to how Brian can have sex with you.” Boy, was she ever pissed then. You should have been there to see the look on that girl’s face.
“Now guys,” Brian interjected.
“Guys is the operative word here.”
“Brian! Kick him out before I kill him with my bare hands!”
“Nick, I think you’d better leave…”
“I think I’d better too. You have better things to do with your time than waste it on me.” Leighanne slammed the door and I spun around on my heels to leave. I could just hear her scream, “Fat ass!” out the door behind me. Luckily my room was so near theirs, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle anyone asking me what was wrong. Because I was crying, again.
In my room, with tepid tears following worn paths on my cheeks, I lay curled up on my bed. I’d inadvertently turned her against me, exactly what I’d set my heart against doing. My stomach hurt from the violent shudders that accompanied my tears, kind of like when you laugh at something that really tickles your funny bone. I shoved my hand into my mouth until I could feel the tips of my fingers pressing against the back of it. Biting into the soft, pudgy skin of my hand kept me from screaming. Instead, I made tiny gargling noises that evaporated into the air as if they never existed.
Then I lost it completely. Sitting up quickly from the position I was in caused me to see tiny black dots in continuation. I only sat until they went away because I hadn’t quite thought about what I was going to use this new rage I had for. My eyes settled on the old-fashioned lamp that rested on the little working desk I had in my hotel room. Thoughts flashed by in my mind, thoughts like: “We’ve never trashed a hotel really…” “…play fighting…” “…broke a lamp…” and my bitten hand connected with its base. The rush I got from it was like nothing else in the world. Surges of adrenaline rushed through my veins and I could feel it mix within my blood. Every feeling was amplified, the feel of flesh against cloth and flesh against flesh. It was even better than a high, better than the heroin.
The lamp broke in slow motion, first the lampshade disconnected from the base and cracked down one side. Then the light bulb shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, none larger than the size of my pinky fingernail. Its purple base managed to break into larger chunks, some bigger than the palm of my hand. And I wanted to do it again.
The sheets of my hotel bed went next. I tore them off so hard that when the sheet got caught on a loose wire, it ripped in two. When the sheets were off, I just clawed at the bed. The mattress looked like Swiss cheese when I was done with it and my fingernails were torn from when they made contact with the springs on the mattress. By then I was also screaming at the top of my lungs and crying silent tears.
I turned my rage to my suitcase. There was nothing breakable inside, but the sound it made when it crashed against the wall was deafening. The lock on it shattered as it made contact with the wall, the weight of the entire suitcase caused it to break. I like to fill my suitcases as full as possible, because that way I have less suitcases to carry around. My clothes scattered all over the floor, and I tripped over them on my way over to the oak furniture.
By the time I was done, my throat was raw and it was painful to swallow. Everything in that room was utterly destroyed, including the walls, which were damaged the most by a chair that I beat them with. There was no where to step without putting your foot into something sharp. Mine were bleeding right through my socks.
In the bathroom, I’d pulled the faucet right out, along with the expensive showerhead. The mirror lay shattered on the floor by the mattress I plucked bare; you know, the kind they put in front of the shower/bath so that you don’t slip and fall and sue. That stupid mattress was what really got my blood boiling because I was trying hard to rip it, but it just wouldn’t go. It has those gripping things on the bottom and those are impossible to rip using your bare hands. So I just plucked it.
During my escapades, I failed to notice that people were screaming at me from the other side of the door. Sighing, I went to unlock it. They had ruined the mood I’d set.
“What?” I let them know I was clearly upset that they interrupted. I stepped outside so that they wouldn’t get a good look in. It was only Leighanne and Brian.
“Nick are you ok?” Brian asked. I could see that he was terrified, but I didn’t know why.
“No,” I answered truthfully. I had my arms crossed and my back to the door. Leighanne was giving me a funny look that made me insecure, so the less she saw the better.
“You’re bleeding!” More of that good honest concern from Brian.
“No shit Sherlock.”
“Nick we heard a lot of noise coming from your room, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“More specifically, we heard stuff breaking. What are you doing in there?”
“Getting laid. What else does a fat ass guy like me do on a Saturday?”
“Now you’re not only fat, you’re crazy aren’t you?” Leighanne sneered at me. I opened my mouth to respond, but no sound came out. Instead, I retreated back inside my room, leaving the door opened a slot. I’d ripped out the magnetic device from the door, so it no longer shut unless I decided that I wanted it shut. Brian let himself in and I could hear him gasp. Leighanne decided to stay outside, which was perfectly fine with me.
I grabbed a shattered picture frame; the one with the most jagged edges, and heaved it into the hallway at Leighanne. She shrieked and dodged it, her purse interrupting its flight. It slowed to a halt about halfway down the hall. Brian didn’t say anything to her; he was just looking at me. I looked back, a big mistake because I think he saw something in my eyes that he shouldn’t have. When I noticed the change of expression on his face upon seeing this, I looked away.
I nudged past Brian to the hotel phone and pressed “O”. The always-friendly voice on the other end of the line answered.
“I would like a maid for room 1907 as soon as possible please.”
Chapter 41
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