Kill Kill Faster Faster (11 page)

J
oey was like a guy in control, out of control.

Just trying to keep the women in his life straight in his head.

His daughters straight in his head.

Fleur.

Kimba.

Fleur slipping into his office. He putting on his coat. She say, Where you going?

A funeral, he say.

Oh, I’m so sorry! Whose?

My own.

One day Joey accidentally saw his daughters. They were sitting in a booth in the window of a restaurant on Sheridan Square in the Village. He knew they lived nearby there, right around there, in that neighborhood. He convinced himself it was them. It had to be them. It had to be, even though he hadn’t seen them since they were four. Him and Fleur walking on Seventh Avenue up from Tribeca on their way to the Bar Blu, where they could be alone.

The two girls who had to be his daughters were sitting at a table in the window of a little luncheonette on Sheridan Square, and seeing them through the glass, like on a movie screen, the two girls, one laughing, one frowning, Vile and Bile, it had to be them, the Piss-off Twins, spitting images of Kimba, just like Joey remembered them when they was little girls, Joey lost all color, kept walking, said nothing, kept walking.

Then kept looking back, couldn’t help it.

Fleur looked back too, had no idea what she was looking back at.

What’s up?

Joey said nothing. Wouldn’t divulge.

Don’t tell me nothing, she said, something’s bothering you. I can see it. I can feel it.

So after they’d walked another block, he told her.

She stopped in her tracks. Go back, she said. Go back, go in, say hello. Want me to do it? I’ll do it?
C’est facile.

No, he said.

The girls, the twins, his twins, they seemed so into themselves, they seemed so… Kimba-like… the two sides of her, he couldn’t bring himself.

Still Fleur insisted and he reacted, blew up, screamed at her right there on the street to mind her own business, and she just walked away.

She didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand.

And he didn’t try to explain, although after a couple of blocks he ran to catch up.

She turned to him. You are such an asshole, she said.

No I’m not, he said. I’m not an asshole.

T
here came a time when Joey could stand it no longer, when Joey was beside himself, and not cool, and his thoughts were veiled and oblique and horrible and overwhelming. There came a time when Joey felt he was not in control and he was out of control and he needed to see his daughters or he would die or he would kill and he in a moment of clarity which was not particularly clear at all decided he must see his daughters or else.

He had called Birdie and Birds had said finally she would do as she had promised, and pass his number over to his daughters, she relented and said she would do that although it was against her better judgment and against her wishes and against her being, Joey being the one who took her daughter in the first place, and to tell you the truth Joey did not blame her, not for a moment, he understood, but he tried to let her know that he was sorry, so sorry for what he had done, and he meant it, although he could not remember having done it, killed her daughter, he had killed her Kim, he had killed her beloved Kimba, and his beloved Kimba, he had killed her and he regretted having killed her, his first love, even though he couldn’t remember, he couldn’t remember killing his first love, that’s the kind of state he had been in.

So there came a time and the phone in the office rang and he picked up the phone and he said, Yeah, Joey One-Way, and the voice on the other end said, Daddy?

There were two of them. They were twins. There were two of them, because when they were in their mother’s womb the egg had split and from one there became two, and they were his and he hadn’t seen them since they were four years old and they had been so close, two four-year-old adoring little girls wanting and needing their daddy, and their mommy, and he had betrayed them, he had killed their mother and by doing this he had taken himself away from them, and he had left them alone, although they had each other and they had their grandmother, who he knew was exemplary, but he had not so neatly removed himself from the picture, excised himself, he had ended the life of their mother and he had betrayed them and he had left them to themselves and now he was back and it was more than seventeen years since he’d seen them and he was back and one voice, not a girl’s voice he once knew, but a woman’s voice, a woman’s voice was on the other end of the phone and the voice was saying, Daddy, and then a second voice, a clone of the first, said, Daddy, but the tone of the voices stopped him, because, if you want to know, the tone of both of them was dead.

Oh, man, Joey.

They told Joey it was okay. If he really wanted to see them, he could come up to visit. They said they had a small one-bedroom, west in the Village off Greenwich Avenue.

He rang the buzzer and the female voice on the intercom said, Who’s there?, and he said, It’s me.

They buzzed him in.

It was a walk-up.

There was a red aluminum snow shovel and a ice breaker, one of those square-bladed, long-handled deals, and a bag of rock salt left in the hall. There was a sheet of ice on the front stoop where the water was dripping off the fire escape from the sun or the eaves or somewhere up above, and for whatever reason, Joey had a vision of one of his girls, his beloved girls, did he dare think of them like that?, he never stopped, coming out of the building and slipping on the sheet of ice and flying down the stairs head over heels. So Joey, before he went upstairs, took it upon himself to reach for the ice breaker do his good deed, do something for his daughters, do something, and he went back outside and he broke up the ice with a vengeance, the sheet coming away from the brownstone stoop easily, more easily than he would have liked, in big clear chunks, and he swept that shit away and he spread some salt with his bare hand, and he did that before he went upstairs to face the two of them, his daughters who he hadn’t seen in seventeen and a half years, his daughters, since they were four years old, his beloved daughters.

It’s not easy to say how many times he had imagined the scene. He walk in the door, they all over him, they hug him and they kiss him and they say, Daddy, we missed you so much, and they say, We forgive you, Daddy, we forgive you for what you done, it wasn’t your fault, you was fucked up, you was strung out, we know you loved Mama, we know you loved us, we forgive you, Daddy, we forgive you, we forgive you for what you done.

They was still four years old in his imagination.

But when the time come to climb the stairs, to go upstairs to their apartment and see them and be reunited, when it became time to go upstairs and accept their anger at him and their wrath and maybe if he was lucky their love, he could not do it.

He didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t do it and he turned around and he walked away, back outside, down the steps, across the street, and into the shadows.

He stood in a doorway and he waited. He must have stood there for two hours, but eventually they come out.

There was nothing could have prepared him for what he seen, there was no way. Because they was women. Two beautiful women. At their full height. They was lovely women, and he was ill-prepared.

He was stunned.

These women, these young women, standing in the winter sunlight, the daughters of his wife, the flesh of his flesh, was the same age of his wife when she died. Oh, man, that was the mind-fuck. Because he saw the two of them together, they opened the door, and come out on the stoop, where the ice and the snow no longer was, and the two of them was one and the one was Kimba, the two of them was Kimba, they was replicas, and he fell to his knees where he hid in the shadow and he began to sob to himself where he remained hidden, and he prayed to God, and he prayed to them, he said, Oh my babies, forgive me. Forgive me for what I done.

L
ater, in the twilight, the last light coming from the west, over the Hudson River, bathing the city in a pink and golden glow, the street, Joey remembering time gone by, Joey walking the streets, through the snow, Joey remembering walking with his daughters when they was little, trodding along, the two of them in their shimmery pink snowsuits, red mittens, and white boots.

Them taking the new snow off the garbage can lids. They saying, Daddy, this snow is so clean. Look how clean and white and pure this snow is.

Them taking the snow off the old and grimy and dirty garbage cans, putting it in their mouth, going, Yum.

Joey walking. Joey walking and walking.

Joey thinking. Joey thinking and thinking.

Joey thinking Joey is a danger.

Joey is dangerous.

Joey knowing disaster is just right over there.

Joey know given the chance in his heart Joey a good father.

Joey want to take care of his kids even though they grown up for always. Because through the haze Joey knew when they were young he was a good father, he tried, he really did, and nothing changed.

All I want is you, babies.

He imagined them hold out their arms, beckoning him, kiss them, hug them, hear them say, We love you, Papa, we love you.

No excuse, it was true Kimba could make him crazy.

Joey, man. Crazy fucking Joey.

Letting Kimba drive him stark raving mad crazy.

Fleur driving him stark raving mad crazy.

Joey had to do better. He really did.

Flowers says to him, Baby, they making love after spending the day in Coney Island, she says,
Tu m’excites quand tu fais ça.
She says,
Branle-toi. Suce-moi. Léche-moi. Suce-moi la chatte.

While he coming she’s whispering in his ear, she’s saying shit to him in French.
J’aime te lécher les couilles.
Shit like that.

Afterward, she teases him, says, It’s a sex thing between us, isn’t it? She says, It’s something else, but it’s a sex thing and that’s okay, isn’t it, Joey? It’s certainly okay for you, isn’t it?

She says, I love you so much.

She says, You are the love of my life.

It’s a funny thing about Joey.

Joey lay there and he took it. When she said she loved him, he knew he didn’t deserve it, didn’t deserve her love, to be loved by her, but he took it and said, I love you, back.

Before it happened, before everything fell apart the first time, his daughters used to play this game with him.

They’d say, Whatsamatta?

And he’d say, Whatsamatta, whatsamatta?

It cracked everybody up.

Joey don’t know.

Joey don’t know whatsamatta.

Joey don’t know a damn thing.

Joey scared he being played.

Everybody playing Joey.

Joey like a victim.

Joey don’t take no responsibility.

Because Joey, you know, Joey ain’t responsible, man.

Joey having a hard time with responsibility here, with Who’s liable for this? Who’s liable for that?

Joey don’t know.

Never did. Never did know.

Seeing the girls fucked him up royally. He didn’t know what the fuck.

Walking the streets, looking for a fight, didn’t matter with who.

Joey down and dirty tormenting himself.

Joey walking, Joey mumbling, Joey going over and over repeating to himself, Don’t get killed, don’t get arrested.

J
oey going nuts.

Joey feeling the pressure.

Joey telling himself he can’t see Fleur no more.

Everything too complicated.

Everything getting wrong.

Joey liked it when it was sweet and innocent, which, if you want to know the truth, was never.

Joey don’t like complications.

Complications give Joey a headache.

He have a headache now.

Joey could take some Tylenol. But Joey scared of Tylenol.

Before Joey got out of jail, while he was still in the lockup, Joey saw a report on some television news show. The report said Tylenol, the headache drug, made people die. The report said Tylenol sometimes attacks the liver, can destroy the liver in a matter of days. Tylenol dangerous to people with a history of liver trouble.

Joey’d had liver trouble. Joey’d had hepatitis.

Joey had hepatitis that wasn’t A and wasn’t B. That’s what the doctor said when Joey went to the doctor. Non A. Non B.

Joey wasn’t feeling well. It was when he was a junkie and he was on the street, scoring on the street. He hadn’t turned yellow or anything, his piss hadn’t turned brown, his shit hadn’t turned white, but his right side hurt something awful, and finally Kim took him to the doctor and the doctor did what he said was blood work, and the blood work came back to Joey and it said Joey had hepatitis that wasn’t A and wasn’t B. Doc said Kim should watch out too because it could be sexually transmitted, but her tests come back negative.

Later on Joey had a scare when he was in the joint. He had a pain in the side again, but this time it was on the other side, and he went to see the prison doc. The doc checked him out, and he asked Joey where was the pain Joey was feeling? Joey showed him. It was on the left side. Not a sharp one, but a dull one that never left him.

Doctor checked Joey out and he couldn’t find anything. He said there wasn’t much on the left side that could be giving Joey trouble. He offered, he said, We can do a blood work-up. The doc liked Joey.

When the tests came back they showed positive for hepatitis C. Doc said, We can put you on interferon. He said, It’s an experimental drug, but I feel confident I can get you in a program. I know a guy doing research. It might save your life. The doc said, If you don’t do it you’ll be dead within the year.

Joey looked at the doc. Joey didn’t feel like he’d be dead within a year. Joey felt okay. Except for the pain. That dull pain, eating away at his side, making him wince.

The doc was a handsome guy. He had black hair and an olive skin. He was tall and had excellent posture. The doc did a lot of AIDS and hepatitis B work in the penitentiary.

Joey had no reason to doubt the doc. But Joey didn’t feel sick. Joey had this pain, like I said, but Joey didn’t feel sick. Joey worked out in his cell and his body was pretty good considering all those years of abuse, pretty fuckin’ strong. He did six to eight hundred sit-ups a day and a couple or three hundred push-ups. So Joey looked at the doc, studied him, and he said no thanks.

There was a guy in the lockup who did hands-on incantationary medicine. Joey went to him and the guy checked Joey out. The guy wasn’t a doctor, but he was a healer. He had a gift. He felt here and he felt there. He said to Joey, You ain’t sick. He said, There’s this nerve that runs through your liver to the left side. He asked, Joey, did you hurt yourself in any way?

As a matter of fact Joey had hurt his knee. He was down on his knees doing something, you don’t need to know what, and when it came time to get up, Joey had trouble. Joey had a real stiffness. For a couple of days or a week he was hobbling around.

The healer said, When you were hobbling you put strain on your side. You were walking this way and that put unusual strain on your infrastructure, and when you compensated that strain inflamed the nerve. The nerve gave a signal to the liver and that’s why you’re getting that fucked-up reading. But the liver ain’t inflamed. I can feel it and it’s not swollen or out of sort. That hepatitis you had, that’s become part of your immune system. You’re okay. You’re not gonna die. Not yet, not from hepatitis anyway.

The healer said, Do some gentle stretching in your cell and deep breathing. In three weeks go back to the doctor, have him run the tests, they’ll be negative.

And so they were.

But that don’t change nothing. Joey still afraid. Joey afraid of his shadow. Joey don’t want to die. And somehow, with Fleur, Joey smell death.