I couldn’t keep Brian as long as I wanted to because I kept getting distracted and that gave him the impression that I was just trying to flatter him. He kept getting up to go and I kept on trying to come up with things to say. Brian stayed, but I could tell that he was getting annoyed. Then I realized he might have personal reasons for wanting to go, so I let him. Howie was just as annoyed as Brian, but he didn’t have a reason to really hide it from me. Brian’s back was to him the whole time we were talking, so he didn’t notice any hand gestures or murderous glances in my direction. But now Brian was gone, and he never came back at the next hour; I didn’t think he would.
So then it was just Howie D. and I. He was blunt and to the point, and he even looked determined to end this quickly. How the eyes do deceive. The eyes are supposed to be the window to one’s soul, but that’s not helpful if you are illiterate when it comes to reading eyes.
Howie approached me and I stepped backwards, reaching behind my back in hopes of grasping something that could do some damage. Instead, I managed to bruise the back of my hand on the faucet. I had backed up all the way to the kitchen in our tiny makeshift household and now there was no way I could break for the door. For once I’d like to tell Brian the truth, and see his concern and feel his sympathy. I always found myself pushing away, listening to my inner, dark self. The part of me that didn’t care about me. It’s funny how the parts of you that you’re not supposed to be listening to sound a lot louder than the ones that you should be listening to.
Here I was again in the same kind of situation, the kind that could possibly result in some injury. Just like the scars on my back, which are long gone by now. I had to go to the doctor and get some of them removed, because they were so horribly infected that I otherwise would never get rid of them. The doctor had a bit of a hard time with them too, because they were so deep inside my flesh. But now it was Howie’s turn and I kind of felt like the baton in a running race. Mandy could have her fun with me for a while, but sooner or later I would have to be passed on to someone else. This was how it was like before I got really sick. And this is also why the guys played such a nasty joke on me. Because they couldn’t find a proper solution to my emotional problems, they assumed that I was playing mind games with them. What a twist of fate. Well, I surely proved that theory wrong and I nearly died doing it.
“Where are the pills Nick?” Howie’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. My body was starting to tire as well, and my headache still wasn’t any better than before. That would mean that a contest of strength was out of the question for me. Then I would have to beat him with my wits only and so the battle was over before it began.
I lazily pointed somewhere behind me, knowing that even if I pointed to the window, he would know that I meant I had washed them down the drain. Talking was impossible for at least the moment, because my mouth was dry and my throat tight. If I talked he would know for sure that I was terrified of him.
Then he came at me. He had been coming closer all the time, just slowly. But now he leapt at me with incredible speed and I felt my back connect with the rim of the sink. I gasped in pain and surprise; for a guy who hated physical sports all of his life, he surely had a good full body tackle. I was impressed, but my aching back granted him no right to any complements. My mantra this time was: I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry…
Howie released me to assess the damage. He wanted to kill me, but not right away because he wanted to have some fun first. My knees gave out and I slid down to sitting position on the floor, my poor back connecting with the handles of the cupboards below the sink. The wind was knocked out of me and I could feel the bile I had been trying to suppress invading the back of my mouth. I would have given up and let it come out, but Howie grabbed me up by the shirt and startled me out of it. He seemed surprised that I came up so easily, but he masked that expression with one of hatred. His eyes shifted from mine and down to my pants pocket. The pants I was wearing were deceivingly baggy, but they could not hide the jar of pills they were carrying.
Howie switched grabbing hands and adjusted his left one to my neck so that he could reach into my pocket with the other. When he extracted the dubious container, his hand shook with rage and the one on my neck increased its grip. My arms, left unguarded, were clawing frantically at the hand clutching my neck. I never knew what suffocating felt like until that day. Fishing took on a whole new meaning for me after that; I no longer killed fish by exposing their gills to our oxygen fresh air. Nature takes care of itself, I know, but on that day I was terrified that it would decide to take care of me.
Howie, a new-born masochist, dropped the pills he was so desperately searching for to clutch my neck tighter with both hands. My strength depleting, I did the only thing I could to defend myself. Since my arms were weakened from my earlier efforts, I took my weight off of my legs and aimed to kick Howie squarely in the groin. He thanked me for this later, much later, because if I hadn’t done what I did, he would have killed me.
The second after I made contact we sprawled to the ground; I was clawing at my throat because it wasn’t able to hold all of the oxygen I wanted and Howie grabbing you-know-what and howling like a wolf would at the moon. He recovered before I did, but he just stood there watching me recover and thinking about the ‘what ifs’. I was thrashing my arms and legs in frustration; I still wasn’t able to gain enough oxygen. It was as if Howie had squashed my windpipe and made it an inch smaller than it was supposed to be.
Howie waddled to the sink and I watched him take his pills. From the floor he appeared to be a giant, even so he was hunched over the sink. My head was swimming and my eyes were unable to focus. The urge to hurl had returned on me, stronger than ever. I tried to call out, tried even to call Howie’s name, but all that came out of my mouth was a dry squeak. Breathing had never been laborious for me and then I knew what an asthmatic felt like.
Howie turned slowly from the sink, still nursing his wounds with one hand. The glass was poised just before his mouth, and he glared at me over the rim of it. I shut my eyes and still could see large spots, white ones, like when you stare at the sun for too long. In my ears I could hear my own heartbeat slowly pounded against sensitive inner walls. At least it was beating. It had slowed down so much that I was afraid it was too weak to start up again. Howie was still doing his glaring routine, tipping the glass every once in a while to his mouth to drink the last of his tampered tap water. Meanwhile I averted his gaze by studying the intricate patterns of our Oriental rug. Howie’s Oriental rug. As I traced the pattern with my fingertips, I noticed my hands were shaking.
A loud crash interrupted me from my thought. Initially I imagined Howie standing beside me with a pan raised inches away from my face, planning to whack me with it like a golfer would a golf ball. Swinging the pan back to get some speed, he would hit me in the dead center of my face. Luckily, my eyes set sight on the bathroom door, which was the cause of that loud bang, and my panic attack subsided. Somehow the bus must have jostled because of the storm outside, and the bathroom door swung erratically out of position. An urge to make a run for the bathroom and heave the contents of my stomach into the porcelain God came to my mind. As if to mock me, the door swung back and forth, revealing the toilet, then shutting it up again. Mentally I placed it on my agenda for later, first I had to show Howie that I had the balls to face him.
Speaking of Howie, by the time I through my semi-conscious thoughts of revenge, he had already made his way to the refrigerator. For an effect, he dropped the glass he had been carrying when he peered inside. The sound of the glass shattering against the floor startled me so badly that I tried to gather myself in a hurry. At first I wanted to stand, but I could only manage a kneeling position thanks to my throbbing head and my aching heart. I swear it was only beating ten times a minute.
In the mean time, Howie had cleaned up the shards of glass, and was making a big scene about the vacuity the fridge had about it. We sometimes called it the black hole of the bus, since it was exhausted so often. I could see Howie grimace and shake his head at a lonely half-empty bottle of ketchup out of the corner of my eye. He was going to say something about my eating habits, I knew it. An empty fridge and a guilty persona; it was all too obvious.
“You could have at least left me a pukey tomato if you were going to pack away the entire fridge. Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?” Unable to say anything to defend myself, I looked down at my hands in shame. They looked a bit bloated suddenly.
Howie picked up the tray he had put the pieces of glass upon and brought it over to the sink. Under the sink we have a garbage can; a big one which has enough capacity to last us three days at the most. His gaze shifted from the large garbage can to the stack of dishes piled a mile high. “Or maybe you coulda left me a plate to chew on.” He searched for a place to put the cup that I’d left on the table and, finding none, he settled for returning it to the table.
I was content with just turning around and listening to him. Everything he did, I saw, but there was nothing I could do. The air around me burned so badly and my lungs felt like they had collapsed. Of course that was impossible, but that’s what it felt like. It was a good thing that I was a scuba diver and part of my training is learning to hold my breath for more than two minutes. It’s a good thing for my singing voice too; it builds up stamina. Now I was a bit worried that Howie might have done some serious damage to my singing voice.
“Okay, so I have a bit of a bladder problem, no biggie. It’s genetic, all right? There’s nothing I can do but take these pills four times a day everyday and hope that a reporter doesn’t find my prescriptions. Only you, my pharmacist and my doctor know about it. I hope that it stays that way.” His eyes tried to pry at mine, but I kept my gaze neatly avoided. I smiled a bit at what he said to hint that I could not be trusted. To my surprise, he smiled back.
“You know Nicky, I’m a lucky guy. My problem is practically non-existent and it’s totally controllable. But your eating problem, now that’s something difficult to hide. I mean it’s so obvious to everyone now.” The spite in his voice felt foreign to me and I cringed just a little. Before I could react to his harsh words, he crossed the room and yanked my pajama shirt over my head. My armpits stung and glowed red from the friction, but I did not dare protest. At the time that this was happening I was nineteen and technically a man, therefore entitled to keep my mouth shut instead expressing any pain. So I bottled it in the jar I keep locked in my heart. Kind of corny, but if I think about a physical thing like that, it’s easier for my to conceal my feelings. Really, it’s dumb to conceal your feelings in the first place, which is what got me in so much trouble all along. If you’ve got something that’s bothering you, just spill it; at least that’s what I learned from all this.
Howie grunted, then squatted so that he could get a hold on my sore armpits. I wavered to my unsteady feet, ready to bolt out the door as soon as I was stable. My hand inconspicuously groped my pocket, searching for the lumps that were my bus keys. No longer inconspicuous, I jammed both of my hands into their respective pants pockets, and still couldn’t find a thing. Not a hole, not a trace. I looked at Howie grimly and he just smirked, holding out my set of keys with one hand.
“Oh shi…” I trailed off to glance sideways at the door. Howie and I bolted for it at the same time and although he was closer we got there simultaneously. There was a bit of a struggle, but not as much on my part as Howie’s, especially considering I am about half a foot taller than him and was notably heavier. He had one hand on the doorknob and the other scratching me. Both of my hands were securely fastened to the door, and Howie was trying to loosen my grip. It was the duel of the strongest two. I’ve never really had a physical fight with Howie before; supposedly he doesn’t believe in sports and that sort of stuff. If that’s so true, then how did he get so damn good?
Chapter 46
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