Carpe Diem - Jesse 3 (14 page)

That fucker. That little Italian fucker.

How could she do this to me? He tricked her. He lured her in with promises of meeting clients for her career. Fucking Italian sleaze ball. Who knows what he had done to her? Photographed her naked, or made a sex tape with her?

Argh! I’m gonna cut his dick off and shove it up his ass!

I mashed my foot harder on the accelerator, but even with it pressed to the floor board, the little piss ant car wouldn’t go fast enough for me to vent my searing rage.

I had to focus. This wasn’t getting me anywhere. I didn’t know what street I was on. I slowed down and tried to reason through it.

Maybe it wasn’t Niki in the photo. Maybe it was some other girl, who looked like Niki, and I jumped to conclusions. Then why were they in my trailer, on my table, right where I would find them? I glanced at the photograph a second time, lying there mocking me. Dammit, that was Niki. She was wearing the earrings I bought her the day we went shopping. Wait. She was wearing the earrings I bought her? Oh my mother fucking god, she was wearing the earrings I bought her and sucking face with that asshole?

I’m gonna pound his face into the ground. Then we’ll see who wants to kiss that.

I stopped at an intersection and looked up at the street sign. It was his street alright, but where the hell was his number? Oh for the love of Christ... just let me find this dude’s place. My nerves were as jagged as a piece of broken glass. I raked my fingers through my hair and, when I looked a second time, there was his address. That didn’t look like a studio. Is this where Niki had been spending all of her time? There were broken beer bottles spilling out of a black garbage bag on the sidewalk and a boarded up window at the address next to the studio. If I had known she was coming here every day I wouldn’t have allowed it. I should have spent more time with her and come with her, to see what she did for her work, instead of being wrapped up in my own world of dirt bikes and training for championships. Niki was so special to me, I could never live with myself if anything bad happened to her while we were here in Milan; or anywhere, for that matter. I shouldn’t have left her in a strange city every day. There were too many wolves to take advantage of her.

I turned the corner and slammed the car into park. I kicked open the car door and closed the gap between his studio door and the curb in a few quick strides, with the photographs clenched in my fist. The thought of calling Niki first had crossed my mind, but I wanted to see for myself what was going on here. Part of me wanted to catch them in the act but part of me didn’t want to know the truth. What was the truth? I didn’t know, anymore. I thought Niki and I were solid. But now this jerk, Gio, had entered the picture and was a threat to our relationship. I hadn’t liked the guy since the first moment I met him.

I pounded on the wooden door, my voice bellowing out, “Open the fucking door, Gio. Where’s Niki? I’m warning you. If you have Niki in there I’m gonna beat the shit out of you. Open the God damn fucking door!”

The door flew open and a surprised Gio met my icy glare. “Where the hell is Niki? I want to talk to her, now.”

He sneered at me and held the door with one hand, blocking my view into the studio. “Niki’s not here. She’s running errands for me. You seem upset. You should leave.”

Arrogant little bastard.
I put my palm to the door. This asshole couldn’t stop a mouse, let alone me. “I’m not leaving until I talk to her, so where is she?” I craned my neck to look past him, to see if she was in there. I half expected to see her purse, or possibly her jacket slung over a chair. “What have you got in here? A bedroom where you take all of your ‘assistants?’ Is that what you do? Take photographs of them with your little pencil dick, while you fuck them?”

“You’re an asshole. She deserves better than a beast like you. Niki’s a nice ass...” I heard him talk but before he could finish his sentence, I threw the photographs at him, followed by a shove with both of my hands. I pushed all my weight into it, sending him crashing backwards into the door he had been trying to use to block me out.

“Don’t you dare talk about my girl’s ass!” I roared. He ran around behind a small table with a wooden chair, trying to put some furniture between us, for protection.

“I didn’t say ass, you buffoon, I was trying to say assistant.”

I was seeing red and I was positive he had said she had a nice ass. So, in a rage of anger, I picked up the small chair and threw it at the wall. The leg of it caught on a canvas painting and tore a jagged cut into the surface. Then I lifted the small table over my head and smashed it to the floor, splinters of wood spiraling across the polished cement floor. Now there were no more barriers between me and Gio, so I knocked the fucking shit out of him. He landed hard on the floor on his back— out cold— with blood running out of his nose. Served him right.

“Don’t fucking mess with my girl again.” I spat the words at him, though he couldn’t hear. A slender girl with long dark hair came running out from a back room, another one of his “assistants” I guessed, shrieking and calling his name, cursing at me and threatening to call the police if I didn’t leave.
Fuck her. I hope she gags on his dick, next time she goes down on him.

I’d had enough of these people and their perverted pretense. Photographers and fashion models? Right. Debbie Deep Throat maybe, and her so called “photographer.” Who the fuck was this Gio guy, anyway?

I left her kneeling over him when a couple more dudes came rushing out from the back room to see what all her screaming was about. I high-tailed it out of there before the police could arrive.

Jesse

I
was miserable. Niki hadn’t come back to the hotel and she wouldn’t answer my phone calls. At least she had answered one text so I knew she was alright, but she was pissed at me. I could tell because she hardly wrote anything in the text. It was brief and to the point.

“Fuck off.”

If she would yell at me, scream at me and call me names, I could handle it, but the silent treatment hurt me badly. And, on top of that, I was in a world of shit with Coach, too. When I didn’t go back to the training camp my phone blew up with messages and missed calls from him and several of the other guys, especially Johnny. He kept messaging me, “Come on, Jesse, answer your calls. I can’t put off Coach much longer. He’s asking where you are. Answer, dude.”

Johnny was a good guy. I guess he knew by the way I’d left camp earlier today that something was up and Johnny was the kind of guy who always had my back, in good times or bad.

I threw my phone on the bed. I had been staring at the screen for hours until my eyes were crossed, hoping for a message or call from Niki. I couldn’t believe it. Things had really gone to shit. I brought Niki all the way over here and now I didn’t even know where she was. How was I supposed to explain
that
to her father? I was just a fucked up loser, like he said. All I was good at was riding motocross and fucking things up. But hey, she’s the one who cheated on me. She’s the one who was locking lips with that Italian photographer in the pictures. I was hurting and it was tearing me apart.

I tipped the bottle of Jack Daniels and took another swig. It burned good on the way down, a familiar feeling I had come to rely on too many times in the past. So what the hell? I figured now that I had screwed up big time, I may as well have a little therapy session with my old friend, Jack. He never let me down. He might kick my ass in the morning, but he never let me down.

I slumped to the floor and sat with my back against the side of the bed. I couldn’t bear to lie on top or even sit on top of it. Not without my angel. Not without Niki. I was content to sit on the floor with a bottle of Jack, the way the homeless guys sat propped up against buildings on the sidewalks in L.A.; I was miserable and feeling sorry for myself. Why did everything always go wrong in my life?

There was a knock at the door and I picked up my chin. My head had fallen forward as the effects of the booze kicked in. For a moment my heart lifted. Was it Niki? Had she come back?

A male voice called through the door, “Polizia. Aprire la porta.”

I guess what they say is true, “shit always rolls downhill.” I barked out, “Speak English, mother fuckers.”

“Police. Open the door.”

Aw, fuck.

Whatever. Come on, Jack, looks like we are going to the pokey.

I stood up and sauntered over to the door with my hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle. It dangled at my side as I swayed. I opened the door and threw my arms out wide in a greeting gesture, like I expected a hug. “Hey, guys, c’mon in.”

They definitely didn’t look happy to see me. Their faces were solemn and stern. “What, no kisses? I won’t use tongue, I promise.” I thought I was a funny mother fucker but apparently the “polizia” didn’t agree. The larger of the two officers grabbed me by the arm and snatched the bottle from my hand. He was big at the top, wide in the shoulders, but didn’t have enough ass to fill his pants.

Mr. Baggy Pants held me while the second officer began the questioning, but due to my inebriation there was a little lag in my reaction to his query and I was only just responding to having the bottle taken away from me. “Hey now. No need for that. Can’t Jack go with me?”

“Are you Jesse Morrison?”

“Well, there’s a nice howdy-do. How about some coffee and donuts, guys? Or don’t you Italian
po-li-zi-a
like donuts?” I enunciated the word, sounding out each syllable, as I struggled to get my tongue to work properly. It felt thick and awkward in my mouth.

If I appeared rude, I didn’t give a damn. Luckily for me, they ignored my drunken prattle and surveyed the room with scrutinizing eyes; they seemed more interested in following their arrest procedures than what I had to say.

They both began to question me at once while the burly one patted me down. “Do you have any identification? Passport?” Then the other one said, “Do you have any weapons on you or in the room?”

“Fellas, fellas, can’t we just all get along? No need to manhandle me. I’m a sensitive mother fucker.”

I swayed as he kicked my feet apart to stand for his inspection of my legs. Like I would hide anything up there. “Don’t get too close, sweetheart, we just met. I don’t go down on guys on the first date.”

Officer number one spied my wallet on the desk that held the hotel phone. He walked over and grabbed it, removing my driver’s license, while Mr. Baggy Pants slapped the handcuff on me, with my arms behind my back.

“Does this mean we’re not going to be friends, anymore?” I rolled my head to the side to talk to him but he was silent. Probably the best strategy in these kinds of situations. If I knew what was good for me, I would keep my mouth shut, but Jack kept putting words in my mouth— and I didn’t give a fuck what happened to me.

The first officer had checked the picture on my driver’s license against my mug and shoved it, along with my wallet, into my front pocket. Then he spoke to his partner, “It’s him. Let’s go.”

They marched me out of the hotel room that Niki and I had shared. I glanced back and the last thing I saw was my cell phone, still lying on the bedspread where I had tossed it. The screen lit up with a message and the alert chimed, then the door slammed shut behind me.

Jesse

T
he next morning, the Italian police sat me at a small metal table in a sterile looking room at the police station. I had slept off my drinking binge from the night before. My mouth was dry and my head was pounding. Before I had time to ask one of the gruff looking officers for a drink of water, Coach appeared in the doorway and was ushered in. He nodded a thank you to the man and took a seat across the table from me. I couldn’t look him in the eye. I was too ashamed to admit that I had let him down.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked, staring at nothing in particular on the table top.

He rubbed his nose with his hand, then leaned back folding his arms across his chest. “Most of Milan knows what the fuck you did,” he said with a scowl.

I looked up with pleading eyes. “You’ve got to get me out of here, Coach. I can’t sit here. I have to get back to training.”

He unfolded his arms and laid a hand on the table, tapping the surface with his forefinger. “Yeah, about that, I’m afraid you’re suspended. The sponsors made it clear that anyone who gets in trouble with the police can’t be on the team, especially here in Italy, where their brand is so popular.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why’s everybody screwing me over?”

“You should’ve thought about that before going ape shit on one of the most popular fashion photographers in Italy. They’re like rock stars in this town”

“But he slept with Niki. Am I just supposed to ignore that?”

Coach worked his jaw from side to side. “I knew from the moment I picked you two up from the airport that bringing her was a bad idea. You know Italians; they can’t let a girl alone, especially if she’s taken. It’s a challenge. It’s like you don’t go swimming when there are sharks in the water.”

I was yielding to the seductive pull of self-pity. My head was pounding with a killer headache and I still hadn’t had a drink of water.

“So, what now? How long am I going to sit here?” I sat back in my chair and rubbed my hand through my hair.

“I don’t know. Other countries do things differently than the U.S.” He studied me and cocked his head to the side. “What does Niki think about all this?”

“I haven’t seen or heard from her. When I was arrested, the cops took me away before I could grab my cell phone, so I haven’t been able to call her, though I doubt she wants to hear from my sorry ass.” It was tearing me up inside that I had no way of contacting her. I wanted to explain, to tell her I was sorry for my crazy macho guy reaction, that she meant the world to me and I just wanted her back. But that wasn’t likely to happen.

She had betrayed me, broken my heart and was probably with Gio as we spoke, planning out a fabulous fashion career with her fashion photographer boyfriend.