Chapters Sixteen to Twenty

Chapter Sixteen

"You say you love me," she said one night, "but I think you just love humping me."

"That's not true, I mean I do love humping you, but it’s because I love you," I said.

"When you were trying to get in my pants, you were escorting me to dinner in a limo, now al the best you can do is Chinese take-out and an occasional scrawny little joint. I'm starting to get the message."

"I'm working on it."

"Sherry's boyfriend just took her to Max's for stuffed lobster, and for appetizers they got oysters from all over the world, laid out on ice in layered silver trays, stacked almost to the ceiling on ice."

"I'm working on it already," I said.

I had paid off the garage, and then went out and bought a Honda Civic, and put $1000 stereo system in, slapping it on my new credit card. I had factored in the cost on insurance and local taxes, so I was looking at a cash crunch again, particularly because my mom had also hit me up for a 500 loan to get her car rebuilt. Here I was working 80 hours a week, and I was barely scrapping up enough to pay for take out and a movie.

I could say that financial pressures drove me to crime, but it was more complicated that that. It was love and greed and youth, and plain not thinking things through.

***

"463, man shot Martin and Capen on a one."

"463, copy."

"Wait for PD."

We arrived to find a near riot. The cops were trying to hold the crowd at bay, while the man lay bleeding on the street corner."

"Let's get him on the board, and get out of here," Tom said as we pulled up, and I did just as he said. As soon as the ambulance stopped rolling, I jumped out, ran around to the back, hauled out the stretcher, threw a board, and collar on it, and came around to meet Tom, who had his hand shoved down the man's mouth, as he passed an ET tube. He grabbed the ambu bag, gave a couple squeezes, and said, "On the board and out of here."

The man was shot several times in the chest and wasn't breathing. We lifted him on the board, put the board on the lowered stretcher and raced back to the ambulance. A second EMS unit had arrived so the other medic jumped in with Tom, and I hit the lights and sirens on, and we headed to Saint Francis.

They did CPR in the back. Tom had me do the patch, and he'd taught me well. Short and sweet he said.

"Male approximately 18 to 20, shot three times in chest, CPR in progress, four minutes out."

They worked him hard at the ER, even cracking his chest open so the doctor could massage his heart, while they tried to fix the hole in it, but he was done for.

I went back to the ambulance to begin the cleanup. The back was littered with IV wrappers, suction tubing, bloody trauma dressings, and the man's 76ers jacket that had been cut off him. When I picked up the jacket with my gloves hands, a roll of cash fell out along with a couple dime bags of heroin.

My first thought was the heroin. I imagined bringing that over to Carrie, saying "okay woman, me and Mr. H are going to make you feel fine. I had heard that heroin gave you erections that lasted for days, and of how it turned women into love slaves. Instead of my paying a visit to Mrs. Landlord, I'd be her landlord, and she'd be my grateful tenant. But it was only a passing fantasy. You only need to work this job a week to see the destruction heroin does, turning people into skanks, their arms covered with track marks, their bodies wasted away by disease. Besides I still heard Fred’s warning and the fact that he even had mentioned it, even if it might have been a joke, scared me straight off any possibility of even a sample.

I wrapped the heroin up with the bloody dressings and put them all in a red biohazard bag Then I picked up the bloody roll of money. I felt its heft. I slid off the elastic. The outer bills were a one and a couple twenties. Inside was all hundreds. There must have been two grand there easy. I looked around and saw no one but myself. I peeled off eleven unstained hundreds and stashed them in my pocket. I put the elastic back on the rest and placed the roll back in the jacket, which I brought into the trauma room.

The room was empty now except for his body and the blood pooled on the floor. I didn't feel too bad about taking his cash. It was drug money, and it wasn't like he was going to be needing it where he was headed. It’s not like you can buy off the worms.


Chapter Seventeen

Carrie and I caught the 6:00 AM Amtrak to New York. She slept most of the way down. I had to nudge her a couple times when she started to snore. The train was filled with business people. She woke up outside of Stamford, and I went to the cafe car and got her some coffee and Danish. I was too excited to eat. The only time I had been out of Connecticut before was to go down to Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island for senior skip day in high school. While the ocean was pretty amazing, it was nothing compared to what I was seeing outside the window now as we approached New York City. Though I worked Hartford's city streets, I felt like a country hick. There were no mountains or hilltops or parks, just streets and buildings, endlessly to the horizon, streets and buildings as vast as the ocean. It made me feel like a grain of sand in the desert. Carrie read her Cosmopolitan beside me. I put my hand on her leg, but continued to stare at the new world I saw before me.

When we stepped out of Penn Station, I felt like I was in a TV movie. If I had had a hat I'd have thrown in it in the air, and spun around in circles like Mary Tyler Moore on that old show I used to watch with my mom. The city bustle, street vendors, taxis, skyscrapers, it was the big time. Carrie had been before, so it was nothing to her, but to me, it represented something significant, a turning point, a broadening of my world.

"You want to impress a chick," Tom told me, "You take her to New York City for the day. She'll never look at you the same afterwards."

He mapped out a complete itinerary for me. "This is the Tom Higgins guaranteed to keep her pussy open to you tour. I have used this or variations of the this tour on three separate broads and everyone of them I could call up right now, and tonight, I'd be hearing their happy time moans, and having them cook me steak and eggs for breakfast."

"You know where you're going?" Carrie said. "You look lost. I wish you'd tell me what you have planned."

"Leave it up to me," I said, "I've got it all under control." I stepped to the curb. "Taxi!" I called.

I held the door for Carrie, then slid in beside her. "The Museum of Modern Art," I said.

She looked at me, as she would often that day, with wonder as if she was seeing a side of me for the first time, and it was causing her to reassess me in a most positive way. I felt her grip tighten on my arm.

"Now when you go to a museum, the last thing you want to do is wander around aimlessly from room to room, after awhile you’re tired bored and everything looks the same and you wonder why you even went in the first place other than to just you've gone. Here's what you do. You go see one painting -- one famous memorable painting. And if you're going to the Museum of Modern Art -- that painting is Vincent Van Gogh. Starry Starry Night. You show her that painting and you tell about how Van Gogh was this haunted young man, tortured by all his feeling for the world, who eventually killed himself, but how this painting captured the beauty of his vision, and then you sing a few lines of the song "Starry, starry night," in her ear, and tell her that that song is about Van Gogh and this painting. And she will melt. This whole trip is going to be like she is on Let's Make a Deal, and she thought you were this little booby prize box, but then Monty lifts the box up, and inside the box is a sign that says 'Door Number 3.' And up comes door number three and it's this great prize, and the prizes and surprises keep coming. At the end of the day, she is going to want to have your baby."

She loved the painting-- the blues and yellows and oranges and swirls. She had actually seen pictures of the painting before, but to actually see it in person. "It’s so rich and alive," she said.

"It’s worth millions of dollars,' I said. "It’s priceless."

"Duh," she said, though she squeezed my hand, then added, "I had no idea you loved Van Gogh."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," I said, "But there plenty of time to learn," and I squeezed her hand back.

At the gift shop, I bought her a scarf with the painting on it, as a memento.

"We'll come back here again another time," I said, "But now we have someone waiting for us outside just up the block."

I led her out, and we walked up to 59th street where just as Tom said, there was a waiting horse and carriage. For $34, we got a twenty minute ride through Central Park. The only problem was the horse stunk, but Carrie was still in such a good mood that when the horse farted, she laughed and said, "I feel like I'm right at home. What is he your brother?"

"Hey, yours don't smell like roses," I said. "Let's be fair."

I gave the guy a five dollar tip, then said, "Time for the highlight of our trip."

"Why does that give me dread?"

"We're going to the famous umbrella room for lunch."

"The umbrella room?"

"Yes, noted for its fine cuisine. People come from all over the world to eat at the umbrella room." We were standing on the street corner, and I pulled out my wallet and said to the hot dog vendor. "A hot dog for me and one for the misses, with the works."

"This is the umbrella room?" she said, looking at the green umbrella over the man's cart. "You brought me to New York to come here?"

"You go to New York, you've got to try the local tube steaks," I said, handing her the steaming hot dog covered with relish, mustard and onions. "Fake out," I said, "Dinners coming later. Eat up, we have another appointment."

We caught another cab and I took her to a salon on 7th Avenue, where I had made an appointment for her to have a massage, facial, and pedicure. "I'll be back to pick you up in two hours," I said. "Don't worry, it’s all paid for."

And the farting horse and the tube steak were forgotten. I winked at her as I went out the door.

While she had herself primed and beauty, I went to an arcade and played Doom for a couple hours. On my out I saw one of those old fashioned gunslinger machines, where you put your fifty cents in and had to outdraw the cowboy. I killed him on the first draw. "Aww, you got me," he said. "There must have been sand in my eyes."

And for a moment I thought about the sponsor of our trip, the nineteen year old drug dealer who'd caught a round in the heart. I wondered if maybe there had been sand in his eyes. I touched my chest and pointed to the ceiling, then nodded. "Thank you, brother," I said.

We had an early dinner at a French restaurant, where the waited poured a small amount of wine in my glass, and I did as Tom had told me, swirled it around, sniffed it, then tasted it. "Very good," I said to the waiter, "Most excellent!"

He nodded his happiness at my approval and he poured Carrie's glass then filled mine.

The highlight of the trip for me was the next cab ride, when I got in, and the driver looked back at me for direction, and I looked at Carrie and smiled, then simply said, "42nd Street, Broadway!" and when the driver still looked at me, I added, "The New Amsterdam Theatre."

"We're going to a show?" Carrie asked, her face lighting up.

"Indeed we are, my little lion princess," I said.

"No," she said.

"Yes."

And to see her face when she looked up at the dazzling marquee. "The Lion King."

So we were in the balcony and not on the orchestra floor, but she held me the entire show, often looking in my face with delight. When we walked out of the theatre, she had a bounce in her step and was singing "Hakuna matata," and even got me to join in.

We had an hour to kill before the last train left. She held my arm and leaned against my shoulder as we strolled. With her sweet scent filling my dreams, I believed we would find happiness together as bright as those Broadway marquees.

Chapter Eighteen

Life was good. I was over at Carrie's house five nights a week, and every Sunday was our day to do something. We were for the first time a couple in the public sense. She would hold my hand when we walked through the mall. We went to the parties at her friend's houses, arriving and leaving together, and for my part, she kept a protective eye on me to make certain I'd didn't flirt too much with friends, and I was always attentive to her, getting her a drink, or her coat before we left. She even talked about taking me to visit her mother in Massachusetts.

I did what I could to maintain the post New York glow, and that meant taking her out to dinner more or on trips. We went down to Noank and had Lobster at Abbot's in the Rough and up to Springfield to eat at the Student Prince. I even took her on a trip Boston where we went on the Swan Boats and saw a baseball game at Fenway Park.

It did of course require that I supplement my income when I saw the opportunity. Instead of just taking dope, I needed cold hard cash. I didn't steal from everyone. I was selective. I could only take from people who wouldn't miss the money, and I could only take it when I felt no one was looking.

Drunks were my favorite target, provided they hadn't already been rolled before I got to them. We'd toss a drunk on the stretcher, and I'd pat him down looking for bottles, weapons, any injuries or in my case hidden cash. Once Tom would start driving to the hospital, I'd fish their wallet out on the pretense of getting their ID and medical information, and a twenty here and a twenty there, and pretty soon, you're talking some money. I preferred the high class drunk, the businessman on a bender to the homeless drunk on the street I took $200 off a stockbroker, who was babbling about his fuck wife taking everything off him in the settlement. Well that was $200 she wasn't going to get.

One night we got called for a car into a house. An old lady was watching The Dukes of Hazard reruns when a Ford pickup came barreling through her living room wall, stopping three feet from where she was sitting. We found the intoxicated driver still behind the wheel, honking his horn, and shouting, "Make way, make way, coming through, coming through." Once we got him out of the car and on our stretcher -- he didn't appear hurt, we were just taking him in as a precaution, Tom had me crawl back into the car to see if the steering column had been crumpled at all. As I was checking it, I saw on the floor, a bank envelope the kind the drive-though teller gives you when you cash your paycheck. Three hundred sixty bucks. I figured what did he need bar money for, he was going to be spending the next two weeks in detox.

Dead drug dealers were my jackpot. There was a turf war raging between the city's rival gangs over various neighborhoods, and I was ready to profit on it. Respond to a shooting, Tom and I would throw the patient on the stretcher. I'd hop in the back with him briefly. My job was to cut the clothes off to expose for any injury, while Tom got his equipment out, then jump in the front and drive as fast as I could. I'd carry the bloody clothes in afterwards, along with any personal effects, always after levying my surcharge. In one bloody night, I took $600 off a dealer shot at the corner of Enfield and Capen, and then two hours later got a grand off one who met his end at Albany and Deerfield. As a bonus, he had an ounce of reefer on him too.

I was growing bolder, but even I had my limits. Two masked men robbed a bank on Blue Hills Avenue. The alert teller hit the silent alarm, and the cops were pulling up as soon as they came out of the door. In the resulting foot chase, a good Samaritan tackled one of the robbers, upsetting the bag of cash. The robber punched the man in the head and kicked, then grabbed handfuls of the packets and tried to escape, when a police dog tore into his side. When we arrived to treat the two men, there were packets of bills scattered all around us. I had never seen so much money. The area was taped off and police officers stood by. A TV camera crew was there. I spotted one packet in the robber’s front pocket. I figured there might be ten thousand dollars there. With that money, I could buy Carrie a car to replace her clunker, I could get her a big wedding ring with enough left over to take us to Hawaii. On the other hand, I saw the footage on the evening news, my hand reaching for the money, my hand going into my pocket, another hand grasping my hand, iron cuffs being placed on my hand, then I saw a thick massive hand grabbing my hand, and all of a sudden I was in a small cell with bars over the sunshine, with a roommate named Big Smoke, who smiled at me, and said, "I always wanted a nice wife with a tight like butt. Bend yourself over now, sweet thing."

Scratch the reservation at Carbone's.

Chapter Nineteen

“Are you okay?” I asked when we found her on the floor again, for the third time in two weeks.

“Just my pride is hurt,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve had a bit of an accident.”

“I’ll say,” Tom said.

She had soiled herself. A trail of feces led from the bathroom to the side of her bed where she had again managed to knock the phone off the nightstand to make the emergency call.

“You know you really ought to either get a nurse to sit with you overnight or else get one of those medic alarms to go around your neck. Push the button and say ‘Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.’”

“I suppose I should.”

“You can’t drag yourself to the phone who’s going to find you? How often are the visiting nurses coming in?”

“Once a week. And the grocery service comes once a week, but on the same day.”

“You fall the day after, no one finds you for a week. Look at you now, imagine you after a week.”

“I guess I see your point.”

Tom made a point of snapping on his gloves. “Time to get you up.”

“Hold on,” I said. “We can’t put her in bed like this.”

“You have another plan?”

“We have to clean her up.”

“I don’t do clean up.”

“I really don’t want to be a bother.”

“Do you have a towel I can use from the bathroom?”

“Yes, go right ahead.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tom said.

I got a towel and ran warm water on it. We lifted her up to her feet, then removed her gown. Tom had her hold onto her walker. Once she was balanced, he said, “I’ll be down in the ambulance.

I didn’t answer.

“You’re awfully sweet to do this,” she said, as I toweled her off, scrubbing at the dried stains. I didn’t like the smell much and fought back a gag when I caught too heavy a whiff.

I felt a shaking in her body and saw that she was sobbing.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You’ll be done in a jiffy.”

“It’s not okay,” she said. “It’s humiliating. I’m sorry. You are kind. Forgive me. Don’t get old. ”

I cleaned her off in silence, not knowing what to say. Mozart played on her stereo. I had to use a fresh towel and warmer water to get off all the stains. I draped a bathrobe over her, and then as she directed found a fresh nightie in her drawer. I pulled the bedspread back for her and helped her in, then pulled the cover up. I thought of Tom sitting down in the ambulance and while I knew he would tease me, I thought fuck him. I would do what needed to be done.

I made her some tea, and then sat by her side. I knew what it was like to be lonely.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you,” she said. “I’m sure there’s other people who could use your assistance.”

“It’s not a trouble at all. Our jobs not just about shootings and car crashes.”

“You have a good heart. That’s rare.”

“What about him?” I asked. I pointed to the picture of the man in the straw hat.

“No, no he didn’t,” she said. “But he was handsome.” She laughed, and then she looked wistfully at the ring on her finger.

“Were you married?”

“No, no, we never did.”

“What happened?”

“Life happened…Life happened.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

“Don’t be, but tell me about your girls. I remember you said you had several. Are they pretty?”

“I pretty much just have one. She’s okay looking.”

“Does she please you?”

“Yeah, she does all right in that department.”

She laughed. “Good. Do you love her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then don’t tell her you do.”

She started crying again and I felt terrible. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, and said, “You are a beautiful woman, Mrs. Broadbin.”

She took my hand and held it to the side of her face. I felt her warm tears on my skin. She held it there for the longest time. I just sat and listened to the Mozart and looked at the diamond ring she wore and tried to imagine just what it was that had happened to her and broken her heart so long ago. After about fifteen minutes, she had closed her eyes and lightened her grip and while I don’t know if she was truly asleep or just feigning it so I could leave, I slipped my hand out, turned off her light, gave her another light kiss on the cheek and left.

***

“I can’t believe you wiped her butt,” Tom said to me when we got back in the ambulance. “That is just not in the job description.”

“I couldn’t leave her there covered in shit.”

“I could. Roll down the window. You stink of that lady.”

I rolled the window down.

"And what the fuck where you doing up there for so long? “

“I was just talking to her.”

“Talking to her. I don't know about you sometimes," Tom said, "I just don't know. I think you might be some kind of freak."

I thought I was a good partner. I did whatever he said and I never ratted him out when he screwed up, which wasn't often or when he was inappropriate. Just that afternoon, tired from picking up a repeat psych patient who’d tried to slash his wrists by cutting himself horizontally, Tom had grabbed the razor and said, 'Look, you want to do the job right, Cut this way. Vertically, down the length of the artery, split it wide open, not this sissy cut you're doing. Either fucking get serious about it or quit wasting our time.' He stormed out and I had to tech the call. Another EMT might have reported Tom, or if the patient, complained, ratted him out.

The last thing a medic wanted was a partner who didn't watch his back, and Tom knew I had his. Maybe I was just being sensitive, but on this night, his words hurt me. I didn't feel he said them in an endearing way, but in a way that made me feel he really did think I was odd, and not in a good way.


Chapter Twenty

We got a late call that night so I didn’t have time to stop by my apartment to shower and change before meeting Carrie at her place. She generally didn't like me showing up in my EMT uniform. I didn't understand that because we always ended up naked on the couch anyway unless her roommate was home, which was rare because she worked the night shift. Some times I'd come over in the slacks and polo shirt, she had bought for me, and I wouldn't have even made it to the couch and we'd have our clothes off and we'd be humping on the carpet with her leaning over the ottoman. Maybe it was the aftershave she had given me. One day I just put the aftershave on as a quick shower, but she scolded me and said, this is not the shower, it is for after the shower. She had a bit of sensitive nose, and I might have done just as well to risk her wrath being late as risk it coming unshowered.

But I had promised to pick up dinner and a video, and she'd agreed to watch the watch the new Denzel, which in addition to being a promising movie, always got her horny, so I just want to get over there.

“Something smells,” Carrie said after I’d been sitting next to her on the couch for a few minutes.

"I think it’s the Mu Shu Pork," I said. "Its good though, let me make you one.”

"No, it’s not Mu Shu Pork. Most definitely, it’s not. It smells like dog shit. Did you step in something and not check your feet?”

I started sniffing. I still smelled the old lady, but I thought it was just a memory smell. Sometimes you smell something bad and it just hangs in your bones all day. Its why most EMTs who come to the job with mustaches, ended up shaving theirs. "I just smell Mu Shu Pork," I said.

"Oh, gross. Oh get out of here. Oh, Jesus! Get right up right now. You have shit on your leg." She jumped up, and in doing so knocked over her sweet and sour chicken, and she swore again, and looked at that mess, then looked at the brown streak I now saw on the back of my leg, and she screamed so tears were coming out of her eyes. "You brought shit into the house and you got it on the couch. Oh gross! Get out of here. I can't believe you,. That's so disgusting."

I stared at my pant leg. At the brown smear on the back of my pant leg, some of which had already transferred onto the couch fabric.

“I can’t believe you. That is so gross. You go home. Go home right now. And don't come back until you've showered and scrubbed and changed. Oh, I feel sick."

"Can't I clean up here? I mean, what about our dinner? What about Denzel?"

"Get out! Get out now. I’m going to puke if you stay. Oh, how am I going to clean this up?"

"I'll do it. Just get me a paper towel."

"Now, you're just to get it over everything else. Where else do you have it. It is dog shit, isn't it? It’s not human shit. Oh, it is. It’s human shit. Oh it’s probably diseased."

I don't remember everything else she said, but I got out of there. I went home and put my pants in a plastic garbage bag and showered, and scrubbed and loaded on the aftershave, and put on the nice clothes she liked me to wear, but when I got back in my car, I was just thinking how she was just going to get all in my case again.

I was so ticked at her, I drove to Uncle Frank's instead. I hadn't been back since the night I got so shit-faced, they had to call the ambulance for me. They had a new crop of women working there. Instead of sitting at the bar, I took a seat in the couch area, and ordered a beer. A dancer and came over and I took a crisp twenty out of the stack I'd gotten at the bank that afternoon when I'd cashed my paycheck, and I laid it on the table next to the big arm chair. A lap dance only cost $10, "But I just looked into her eyes and said, double the fun."

She was all over me. We were in a dark corner and she had her back to the door and the bouncer who was supposed to keep things clean. I'd had lap dances before, but not like this one. She blew hot air in my ear and rubbed her breast up against my face. He hips were grinding into me and I felt her hand on my groin, and I know she was feeling me. All the time, she was whispering to me. I tell you I was thinking about Carrie, but not like in the past, instead of missing her I was thinking fuck her. I was into this, into it in a big way. I was close to blowing my load, and if I did, she could have reached in my pocket and taken everything and I would have been happy.

"I'll be in the back in ten minutes, you want to party some more."

"Huh?"

"Back past the ladies room, there is a door."

"I didn't think."

"Talk to Jimmy," she said, and nodded to the bouncer. His eyes met hers, and then he looked at me like he was looking me over and then he nodded at her.

She did another dance, then walked past me and blew me a kiss. I waited a few minutes, then got up to follow. Jimmy the bouncer stepped in my way.

"Where you going?" he said.

"The back," I said, tentatively.

"You going to shake my hand?"

"Yeah, I was." I reached as discreetly as possible into my pocket and crumbled a twenty up into my palm, then shook his hand with it.

"One door past the lady’s room," he said.

It was really not much bigger than a walk in closet. Vicki was there washing her hands in the sink. "Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the one wooden chair. "Eighty bucks," she said. “The condom is on me."

I would have given her hundred, whatever I had, not because I really wanted it, but because I was just going with events now.

"Drop'em first," she said, "then sit."

I dropped my pants to my knees. I was at full attention. She gave it a quick wash with a wash cloth, then slid a condom over in. She got down on her knees and put her mouth on me. I didn't think about Carrie at all. I just thought about this new woman and I imagined her as my wife , and how whenever I would come home she would take care of me and how it great it was. I thought that for about the forty five seconds it took, then she was pulling the condom off, tossing it in the trash, and up on her feet, and at the sink, washing her face. "I'm here Fridays and Tuesday," she said.

I stood awkwardly and pulled my pants back up. I hoped that she would give me a hug, but I knew that was unreasonable. I just got an empty smile. "Go on now," she said. And I left.

I didn't go back to my seat. I avoided Jimmy's leer. I went right out into the parking lot and got into my car. I sat out there in the parking lot and cried. I cried because I was pathetic, because my girlfriend didn't really care about me other than as someone to boss around and to fuck her provided I was showered and smelling clean. I cried because my partner thought I wasn't right. I cried because I spent $140, and for it felt puny and empty. I cried because I saw myself in fifty years, a pathetic old man taking cab rides into the north end to get $10 blow jobs from crack whores.

I lay in bed listening to the phone ring. It rang a couple times, not a few minutes apart, and then it rang no more.

***

The next day I was desperate. I had no will power. I had lasted all day without calling, but then when evening came around, the thought of being alone was too much for me, so I called.

"Hello," she answered. Her voice was confrontational. She had caller ID so she knew it was me.

"I wanted to apologize for my unfortunate oversight last night. I am terribly sorry."

“How come, you didn’t come back over?” she said. "Where did you go?"

"I was angry,” I said. “I didn’t want you tossing me again.”

“But I called and you weren’t home.”

“I was asleep.”

"Don't fucking lie to me. I know when you're lying."

"Okay," I said. "I went to a bar. I was angry."

"And then what."

"Nothing, I went home and went to bed."

"Let's go back and talk about the bar."

"What's there to talk about."

"What bar did you go to?"

"Just a bar."

"How about Uncle Frank's?"

"So?" I didn't like where this was going.

"So I heard you got a lap dance."

"That's not illegal."

"You don't want to get me started."

"Look I was angry. I went to the bar. I got a lap dance. I had a few beers and went home."

"That's not what Jimmy told Mike."

"Mike?"

"Mike, my old fiancé, and you know who Jimmy is?"

"Your old fiancé. You trust him. He never lied to you before?"

"You taking me out to Carbone's tomorrow night?"

"I'm a little short this week."

"I should say you are. Why don't you just do me a favor?"

I hoped I was getting off easy. "What? Anything."

"Next time, call me and tell me you're not coming so I can make other plans."

"Okay."

"Asshole!" Then all I heard was dial tone.

I tried to call her back to apologize again and tell her that I loved her, but no one answered.

Chapters Twenty-One to Twenty-Five