2 – Anna and the Kinks

 

“You knocked a man out?!” Doc’s surprise traveled from her eyes to my bleeding knuckles as she unconsciously squeezed them. I winced at the pain, but I was amused at her reaction. “I can’t believe this! You actually punched a man! Out! In the street!”

 

           “Well, not really out. Maybe down.” I thought for a while and then suggested. “I knocked a man down.” I grinned at her cheekily. I knew she wasn’t mad at me; she was too young to be mad at me!

 

          Doc heaved out a deep sigh. “I don’t believe it.”

 

          “Well, frankly, I don’t either. If not for all this blood, I really wouldn’t believe it too.”

 

          She glared at me but I saw in her eyes that a smile wasn’t too far away. “I don’t know how you even manage to pick guys up with that attitude. And it’s just a little blood, sheesh.” Doc stood up and rummaged through a cabinet behind her. “Honestly, though, it’s a miracle that you could still bring guys over to your place!” Doc was Doctor Abby Anne Torres, the dentist that lived and worked across the hall from my flat, single, thirty-ish, and very, very afraid for her future because she currently couldn’t see any man in it. I didn’t notice that I had split my knuckles, actually, not until I saw blood running down my forehead because I’d used the same hand that I punched that weird guy in the street with to run through my hair. I could’ve cleaned the wound myself, too, but when I saw one of the gaping little openings in my hand, I knew that I had to get to the Doc before I fainted, threw up, or both. She was back beside me, sitting on a plastic chair that she had pulled and placed in front of the dentist’s chair where I was seated. It was weird, really, sitting in the dentist’s chair like that but with your mouth closed.

 

          “So, what happened?”

 

          “I did.”

 

          “Excuse me?”

 

          “I mean, I happened. Me. Another one of those moody blue, little fits of rage things.”

 

          “Yikes.”

 

          “Yikes is right. I was already angry to start with – ”

 

          “And?”

 

          “And then, on my way back here already, I realized that I’d left my notebook somewhere. Probably at Maison.”

 

          “And so?”

 

          “And so I went back. I already was so mad by then.”

 

          “Daggers?”

 

          “Yeah. But I kept my head down.”

 

          “Good. And then?”

 

          “Wait. Can I just finish my story without any interruptions from the peanut gallery, please?”

 

          “Oh, sorry.” Doc grinned sheepishly at me. For someone with a real degree, she still doesn’t convince me sometimes that she actually thinks. “Well?” she continued.

 

          “Well what?”

 

          “Well, what happened next?!” Doc was wiping the area around my wound. She pressed a bit too hard when she said that and she laughed when she saw me wince again.

 

          “Seriously, Doc, you’re a little messed up in the head.” I looked up at her. “Do you take pleasure in pulling little kids’ teeth out, too?”

 

          “Only if the little kid’s either you or it’s yours.” She tossed her head back and let out a witch’s cackle.

 

          “Evil, evil.” I shook my head and laughed with her. Then I said, “Okay, so I was there, walking down Katipunan on my way back to Café Maison, when I run into this guy.”

 

          “Cute?”

 

          “Is that all you could think of?”

 

          “Whatever you say, but was he?”

 

          “Was he what?”

 

          “Cute?”

 

          I sighed, exasperated and was quite amused at seeing that look of satisfaction on the doctor’s face. “I couldn’t tell,” I finally answered, peppering my reply with sarcasm. “It was quite dark and, as I said before, I was a bit blinded by the rage.” Doc just nodded at me to go on. “So I’m there, in the middle of Katipunan, mad, notebook-less still, and now I was also drenched in – ” I bent my head down to sniff my soaked shirt. “ – cappuccino. I don’t know what exactly happened, but next thing I know, I’m turning around, heading back home, and my throat was a little sore ‘cause I kinda screamed or roared or something.”

 

          “Yeesh.” She looked up from her work. “Must be scary meeting you out in the street, girl. Careful, you might put muggers out of business.”

 

          I stuck my tongue out at her. “Whatever, Doc. So what do you think?”

 

          “About what?”

 

          “About what I just did.” I was wondering if you could consider that a hit-and-run or something to that effect and if you could go to jail for that even if you were just seventeen.

 

          “Well…” Doc stalled, bobbing her head from side to side. “Take your ring off, first.”

 

          “What? No.”

 

          “Hey, you came here for my help, so you cooperate, okay?” She shook a finger in my face as I gingerly pulled the ring off my middle finger and handed it to her, gingerly because I had to tug at the wounds to get the ring off. Doc continued, “Anyway, it’s not yours, I think, but there’s some blood that dried on it.”

 

          “What? Lemme see that.” I grabbed the ring from Doc and took a look at it myself. The seal on my high school class ring was encrusted with blood. With my free hand, I held it under the tiny faucet that was attached to the chair and then rubbed the ring dry on my baggy jeans. Some of the blood had dried between the engraved text and wouldn’t come off. “Dammit.”

 

          Doc let out a low whistle and I turned my attention back to her. “What?” I asked.

 

          “No, don’t look. You’re squeamish, right?”

 

          “A strange fact for somebody who likes watching war and gangster movies, but yeah. Why?”

 

          “This looks like it might need stitches – ”

 

          “What? No!”

 

          Doc threw her head back and laughed her witch’s laugh again. A minute later, when she could finally manage to piece a coherent sentence together, she turned to me with tears in her eyes. “I was just kidding.” She blinked rapidly, grinning crazily, one hand dabbing gauze around her eyes.

 

          “Ew, gross.” I cringed and joked along with her. “Don’t tell me that’s also what you’re going to put around my wound.”

 

          “Very perceptive, Andrea.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me and I just rolled my eyes as she laughed at my reaction.

 

          “Speaking of perception, you haven’t told me what you thought yet.”

 

          “About what?”

 

          I just sighed and glared daggers at her.

 

          Doc laughed, pushed her rimless glasses up her nose, and then started to speak. “Well, in my opinion, in the same situation, but with different elements in the circumstance, your experience could have been less harrowing and more… fruitful.”

 

          “What the hell?”

 

          There must be a full moon out tonight or something, I thought as I watched Doc cackle like a cartoon witch for the nth time. “What I meant was,” she then said, “in the same situation being a guy carrying coffee bumping into a girl in the street, but with different elements meaning you weren’t the girl, your experience could have been less harrowing and more fruitful in the sense that it could have been a perfect situation from where romance could arise.” I just blinked at her stupidly as she continued, “But, of course, the girl in the situation being you, we could always count on you to ruin the opportunity by doing something (a) stupid, (b) insane, or (c) both stupid and insane, e.g. putting the guy’s lights out.”

 

          Blink, blink.

 

          “Hey.” Doc was lightly slapping my cheek and I was yanked back into reality.

 

          I was quiet for a while, then I said plainly, “I so didn’t deserve that.”

 

          Doc slapped my cheek again. “It’s just a wake-up call, honey. You really don’t want to end up like me, do you?”

 

          “What? You’re not even forty yet! This is just when you grow out of “Felicity” and start patterning your life after ‘Sex and the City.’ You’re not old!” Doc snickered at that. “Besides,” I continued, “without me, you don’t have any income anymore.” I followed that up with big grin.

 

          Doc shook the tape she was using to hold the gauze in place in my direction. “Hey, I don’t need your toothbrush money.” Too lazy to even buy a toothbrush, I usually bought mine at her clinic. “Which reminds me of something else I want to talk to you about, Andie.” She glanced down at my bandaged hand. “Aside from your sociopath tendencies, that is.”

 

          “Aw, Doc, don’t start…”

 

          “Hey! Hey! Don’t ‘Aw, Doc’ me, you stupid girl.” Her expression turned serious now. “Let me just tell you something, okay?” Doc tore the tape off and smoothed it down firmly over my stinging knuckles. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, whatever you’re running away or hiding from, it’s nothing, okay? It’s not worth it. It’s not worth wrecking your life for.”

 

          “I am not running away from anything.” I replied indignantly.

 

"Oh, yeah, whatever." She smirked at me. Then she sighed again and took both my hands. I think she was so absorbed into the moment that she forgot about the cuts in my knuckles. "It's just that..."

 

"What?" I wondered if Doc had ever been attracted to me. Eek.

 

"Well... well, it looks like you've been hurting yourself on purpose!" She released my hands and threw hers up in the air.

 

"What?! What do you mean?"

 

"What do you mean, 'What do I mean?'" She was near hysterics now. May-be, may-be... I was nodding in my thoughts. Maybe she was attracted to me sometime in her life. Ew. "Andie, look at your wrists! You don't just knock out guys in the street!"

 

"I did not knock him out, I told you."

 

"THAT'S NOT THE FREAKING POINT!"

 

That shut me up and taught me not to tease a raving dentist.

 

"Andie, look at yourself."

 

I just blinked at her. She was pacing around the tiny washroom-looking clinic like a madman.

 

"Your- your toothbrush!" She suddenly pointed to me.

 

"What about my toothbrush?" I was very confused now.

 

“People normally wear them out after six months. We dentists recommend them to be replaced after five."

 

Blink blink.

 

"Andie, you buy a new toothbrush from me every two months."

 

I scoffed. "So I brush more often because I'm more concerned about my hygiene than most people. Is that a crime?"

 

"You gums look like they've been beaten to a pulp."

 

"So I enjoy brushing my teeth."

 

"Do you also enjoy banging your head on your door?"

 

"Wha - how did you know - " How did she know about that?!

 

"I hear you sometimes. At first I thought you were just punching the door, but then I listened to it a bit closer and it actually sounded more like your head." That really could’ve been funny if it weren’t directed at me.

 

I bit my lip and glared at her. She walked over to where I was sitting and pulled a chair in front of me. "Hey, I'm just trying to help you out, okay?" She took my hands again and smiled.

 

This time, I smiled back. "We've made more progress here in five minutes than what we've done with my counselor in five months." She laughed at that and I continued, "Okay, I'll try not to... do whatever I've been doing."

 

"Why are you doing them in the first place, anyway?" Doc regained her kooky look.

 

"Well..." I looked up and creased my forehead, "I'm not really sure, either. Probably just the blues kicking in unnaturally hard in my case or something. And then aggravated by the current obsession, whatever it might be in any time."

 

"What, or who rather, is it now?" She raised her eyebrow and leaned closer to me. “Is it that Andrew character that keeps forcing you to have sex with him?”

 

My turn to laugh. "What the – Drew is not forcing me to do anything! Naw, it's stupid! Actually, it’s more stupid than you think. It's stupid and pointless." I grinned at her. "Like remember the time I was so hung up on Bruce Willis?"

 

"You still are."

 

"Oh yeah.. But that's not the point." I snapped. "The point is, it's just another stupid and pointless obsession that I'll definitely, sooner or later, get over."

 

"Who?"

 

"No."

 

"Come on, spill. It’s not like I’m going to meet the guy in this lifetime and tell on you."

 

"No."

 

"Aw, come on. You know you want to spill. I particularly know you don't have anybody else to tell it to." She was moving her eyebrows up and down maliciously. I finally sighed as a smile slowly crept across my face. I leaned closer to her and took a deep breath. She was right. I didn't have anybody to tell it to and for the past month, I had just been dying inside. This is going to be a really long night...

 

And so I started. "Okay, get this: His name's Orlando Bloom..."

 

*       *       *       *

 

I was back in L.A., in her Corvette, in the passenger seat. The top was down and she was driving with the wind in her hair, not a sight you see everyday, but a sight that could’ve taken your breath away any day. She’s singing along with the radio, that “Passenger Seat” song or something like that, and she was teasing me in her Southern twang. I was leaning over to kiss her when she suddenly grabbed me by my hair and plunged my head into a bucket of ice water that was nestled between our seats. Then she laughed a chilling, hideous laugh as she kept my face underwater and as I continued to drown.

 

“You stupid bastard.”

 

Lij. He was hunched over me, holding an ice bucket. An empty ice bucket. I shivered involuntarily; my face felt numb. Obviously emptied on my face. I pushed myself up, failed, and he slipped an arm under mine, across my back. We started walking in the direction of the flat. I was still feeling quite dazed and my left cheekbone hurt like hell. “What happened, mate?”

 

He looked at me incredulously, “I was hoping you could tell me that. I was in that club when somebody mentioned something about a guy lying on the street.” A pause as he turned to smirk at me. “I had a feeling that he was talking about you.”

 

I chuckled softly before I realized that it hurt to, and stopped.

 

“What happened anyway?”

 

“Don’t know, really.” I rubbed my left cheek and winced at the pain. I looked down at my fingers and saw blood. “Oh shit, mate, I’m bleeding.”

 

“Well let’s ask around for a doctor or something and you tell me what happened on the way.” He slipped his arm off and walked over to a security guard standing in front of a Pizza Hut. A minute later, he returned, smiling and shaking his head. “That guy talked better English than Jet Li and Penelope Cruz combined. He said there’s a doctor two blocks away, but he thinks it’s closed by now.” I groaned.

 

“But there is a dentist who lives up there.” He pointed at a yellow and orange building with a giant inflated jar of peanut butter on its roof. I sighed, resigned. It was ridiculous (and I really didn’t want to be caught dead in anything like it), but it was only six paces away.

 

I let Lij slip his arm across my back again. “The dentist, then.” I felt around my mouth with my tongue. “I think I chipped a tooth, anyway.”

 

*       *       *       *

 

“Good Lord, what happened to you?” Abby Anne Torres was suddenly wide awake again at the sight of two tall, Caucasian young men at her door. It was already past one; she’d talked to Andie a long time ago, closed up a longer time ago, and was about to turn in when she heard a rapping at her clinic’s glass front door.

 

“Nothing wrong with me, really,” the more upright one with amazing blue eyes, which was the first thing she noticed about him, spoke. They were now inside the receiving room and Anna Torres led them to her tiny dentist’s clinic. “I’m just a little out of breath from the climb,” he continued. “I’m Lij.”

 

Anna Torres smiled weakly. “They shut the elevators down after six. Abby – Anna. I’m Anna. So, what’s the matter?”

 

“My friend here,” Lij cocked his head in the direction of the semi-conscious man leaning on him. “Seems to have gotten into a fight. Or something.” He helped Anna put the taller man on the dentist’s chair and the doctor didn’t waste any time. She walked over to the medicine cabinet at the back of the room and took out some of the things she’d also used not long ago with Andie.

 

Walking back to the chair, she held the same washcloth that she used to clean Andie’s cut under the tiny trickle of the faucet attached to the dentist’s chair and started dabbing it around the man’s wound. “You weren’t together?” she asked without turning to Lij.

 

“Oh, no. I was in this club over there when I heard somebody say something about this guy sleeping in the street. I remembered that he was already drunk to begin with tonight and I had a feeling that the guy they were talking about was my stupid and intoxicated friend here. And well, surprise, surprise. I just didn’t expect him to be all bloody when I found him. He said someone knocked him out in the street. I was thinking more in the line of him running into a lamppost.” Lij chuckled.

 

Anna finally cleaned most of the grime and blood off the wound when she saw something that made her look at closer at the wound. “Well, that must’ve been a pretty strange lamppost, with decorations and all.”

 

“What do you mean?” asked Lij.

 

“Well,” Anna started dabbing antiseptic around the wound and saw a strange cut, like a marking, becoming clearer as the antiseptic stuck around its tiny troughs, “It looks like your friend here bumped into something with some decoration or marking on it. Like an engraving on something like a – ” Anna’s hands suddenly failed as she her breath left her as well. The marking was very clear now, and she recognized it. Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. I know this mark. I know this. It’s – it’s Andie’s –

 

“Ring.” It was Lij, who already was standing behind the dentist. Anna nearly jumped out of her skin. “Yeah, I can see the design. It’s definitely some kind of ring.”

 

Suddenly Anna felt faint, her knees weak. Oh dear, oh dear, what have I gotten myself into now? Andie, if they ever find you and then come back for me, I swear I’m going to murder your first… “Yeah, well, good luck finding the owner, then.”

 

Lij laughed at this, which made Anna jump again. She had a feeling that the young man behind her was coming closer and closer by the minute. Too close for comfort now. “Well, if we ever do find him, though, I don’t think my friend here would do anything about it. He’d probably just run away and – “

 

“Talking behind my back, are we, Lij? And while I’m only two steps away and unconscious, too! It’s so just like you to do that, you unbelievable bugger,” The taller man’s left eye opened partially to reveal a clear amber orb that rolled to meet Anna Torres’s own eyes. “Excuse my French, miss.” Anna Torres caught her breath as the man weakly raised his right hand for her to shake. “My name’s Orli.”

 

*       *       *       *

 

Searching all my days just to find you

I’m not sure who I’m looking for

I’ll know it when I see you

 

          I turned to glare at the singer. Kris had her back to me, her head bobbing to the beat, her hips apparently hypnotizing Pracha the boyfriend into a disgusting trance. He was following every move of her invisible ass as Kris ran from one end of our flat to another and then back to her bed, where her travel bag was. She said she was going home for the weekend and wasn’t going to be back until Monday for the start of the summer classes. Going home for the weekend, huh? In the middle of the night? Who’re you kidding? I rolled my eyes at her and turned back to the computer screen. I was already done with Memphis Belle and was halfway through Disc One of Godfather II when Kris decided to listen to the radio while packing and unconsciously adding three more points to her Push-Your-Roommate-Over-The-Balcony scorecard.

 

          Around five months ago, I moved into the flat that I was living in now. As it turned out, the flat was intended for four people; one had been living there for a year then, and another girl and I were the ‘new roommates.’ Apple, the former, was okay. We even got along just fine, since she knew when to strike up a conversation and when to just shut up. Kris, on the other hand, was like a loose cannon, constantly putting her foot in her mouth. At first, I thought I’d give her a try before booting her out – literally. I started keeping a mental scorecard for her instead, the points added to her card every time she did something totally, drastically worth strangling her for, the points given to her according to my judgment. My conditions were: if she ever reached a hundred points, she was out of here. Unfortunately, she was already at a hundred and twenty-two by the end of the first week only. So I revised the scheme a bit. This time, it was just if she reached a thousand by the end of the semester, she was duck meat. Then I changed the limit to ten thousand. I didn’t really enjoy hurting people, and this one, I just saw this one as something inevitable. But I didn’t want it to happen yet.

 

          “Are you sure you’re gonna be all right here all by yourself?”

 

          I nearly snapped at Kris, but I caught myself in time and turned slowly to smile at her instead. “Oh, I’ll be fine.” I wrinkled my nose for extra effect.

 

          But I guess that didn’t really convince her because she was suddenly sailing across the room towards me with her arms wide open, cooing, saying “Oooooh…” Next thing I knew, I was being hugged tightly and hesitatingly patting my roommate’s pointy shoulder blade. Thank God, she’s flat-chested. I sighed and looked up.

 

          “Oh, I wish Apple had summer classes, too. I wish I could also stay here for the summer… but of course, this place is just unlivable that I actually admire your er… ability to quickly adapt to environments like these.” What the fuck?! Is she calling me a highland native or something like that now? She pulled back from the embrace and I nearly sighed from relief when she suddenly cupped my face in her hands. Alarm bells went off everywhere in my brain. I tried taking her hands off by holding her wrists with my index fingers and thumbs – gingerly.

 

          “Uh – Kris… Body. Contact. It’s – “

 

          She looked at me, concerned, her palms still over my now cold cheeks, though, “I’m making you – “

 

          “Uneasy, yeah.” I grinned at her sheepishly. Body contact wasn’t really my cup of tea, even though I gave away virtual hugs on the Internet like fliers. Punching was my only excuse for body contact, hence the numerous guy friends. Hugs and cuddles weren’t anywhere near the top of my list. Hence the lack of girlfriends and serious boyfriends. And now Kris was rubbing it in, literally with the creepy hand trick, and figuratively with the “Love Song For No One” stunt.

 

          I looked straight at Kris and heaved an inward sigh. “Sorry.” I’d clamed my lips together and stretched them to their limits; my version of a smile. Then I gave her a hug myself, just to convince her that her roommate wasn’t some sort of a schizophrenic sociopath with body contact issues. Hey, my father said I was only neurotic; that’s a long way from “schizophrenic sociopath with body contact issues.” The hug was most nauseating, but I held my breath the whole time, so it wasn’t too bad. Over Kris’s shoulder, I saw Pracha pick her bags up and then pucker his lips at me. I rolled my eyes at him. Then he started smacking them and giving me these weird, disgusting looks. If that’s his version of lust, that’s my version of indigestion. Gahd. I narrowed my eyes at him and slowly folded my thumb, pointer, ring fingers and my pinky. Pracha’s expression turned sour and he hurriedly left the room with an “I’m going ahead, Kris.”

 

          “Kris? Are you sure about this guy?” I muttered to the back of her head. I still wasn’t breathing and was getting a little bit lightheaded, too, but I just had to ask.

 

          “Oh, of course!” Kris cocked her head slightly in my direction and I couldn’t suppress a grimace as the hairs at the back of my neck suddenly stood. Neck-to-neck. Glory of glories. “You know that he’s the only one that hasn’t cheated on me ever since I got here.”

 

          “Uh-huh…” I didn’t really know how to properly react. For the past year, Kris had already been four relationships, the last three of which ending in tragic breakups and lot’s of emotional breakdowns in the middle of the night, which meant that if Kris didn’t get to sleep because she was crying all night, we, the roommates, didn’t get to sleep either because we’d be up all night with her either comforting her, trying to make her stop crying so we could go back to sleep or pretending to be asleep so we didn’t have to comfort her, try to make her stop crying so we could go back to sleep. So I really didn’t want to start again and relive all those horrendous, sleepless nights, and the dreary mornings after where we good roommates had to drag our own legs around school because we’ve also been turned into zombies even though we really didn’t have anything to do with Kris and her boys. I suddenly had this idea that maybe Apple wasn’t staying at the flat that summer because she couldn’t stand any more of the whiny, middle-of-the-frigging-night pissing and moaning.

 

          “Okay. So you sure you’re gonna be okay here? Are you absolutely sure?” Kris finally pulled back, her hands on my shoulders. “Absolutely?”

 

          She probably thinks she’s cute when she does that, ‘abssssoluteleeeee?’ I suppressed an eye-rolling from surfacing. “Yeah, I’m absolutely sure, Kris. Now, hurry up and go; I think you’ve kept your driver waiting as inhumanly long as possible already.” I smiled to conceal the sarcasm and followed her to the door.

 

          Kris laughed at that, but I could see that she didn’t really have any idea of how long ‘inhumanly possible’ was. Maybe she didn’t think there actually was such a thing. God. “Oh,” she suddenly said as she closed the door behind her, “I borrowed your new Elmore Leonard book. I have to show my parents that I’m actually reading, you see, and that one had the most colorful cover by far from the rest of your collection – ”

 

          “What?!” I stared after her in amazement and disbelief as she slowly walked down the hall backwards. Did she just say what I think she did?  “Kris, I’m only half – “

 

          “Oh, sheesh! You could always finish it when I get back in the opening of the semester.” She winked at me mischievously. “And you could always buy another book or something, you being a nerd an all, you know.” Oh great. First I was a savage. Now I’m a nerd. Kaching! Kaching! I could almost hear the points being rung up and stamped on her forehead. Kris’s cellphone conveniently rang to break the tension and save her neck from a lot of chopping and slitting. “And, anyway, it’s already down there with Prach, who’s calling me already. Byyyyye! See you in two months!” For one moment there, I was just willing to forget the entire tallying system and just grab her by the neck bang her head on Doc’s glass doors.

 

Gah.

 

I waited for the anger to melt away while leaning on the door frame, listening to the fading sound of Kris the stupid, stupid flat-chested fool for my roommate’s footsteps. A few minutes later, they didn’t quite sound like fading footfalls anymore; it actually sounded like two sets of footsteps this time. Then I heard faint voices. Men, definitely. Joking. Most probably drunk. I scoffed. At least they have lives. I still wondered, though, what a couple of guys were doing in the building at midnight, too late to be a bum in bed, and too early to be leaving the bars for home.

 

“Just your frikkin’ imagination running amok, Andie…” I rubbed the bridge of my nose and said to myself as I put on all the bolts on the door and turned back to the computer.

 

*       *       *       *

 

“So, what’s the diagnosis, Doc? Anything broken? Jaw? Tooth? Pride?” Lij had been slowly inching towards where Anna Torres and Orli were and was now peering at his friend’s wound, right beside the dentist.

 

The one eye opened again to reveal the lustrous brown orb hidden beneath it. “Lij, you’re an unbelievable bugger, really.” Then the eye rolled in Anna’s direction. “Excuse my French.” The one eye closed again.

 

“It’s – it’s all right… Maybe just the pride.” Anna smiled hesitantly, suddenly feeling a bit flustered with the slowly diminishing distance between her, the immobile but still seemingly dangerous young man on her chair, and the boy with the brilliant blue eyes. “It isn’t my forte, really, but no, no broken jaw or anything more serious than that. Just this nasty cut on the cheek.”

 

“Ya hear that, Bloom?” Lij not-so-gently prodded his friend. Orli’s eyelashes fluttered in response, but his eyes stayed closed. “I have bad news and I have good new for you,” Lij continued. “The bad news is you’re actually cut up pretty bad – ”

 

“Wha – Ow!“ Both of Orli’s eyes flew open this time and he howled as his hand bumped into the doctor’s, which was still dressing his wound, and accidentally made the Anna’s hand press harder. “Oh, bloody – “ He cut himself off as quickly as his outburst and grinned sheepishly at the startled dentist. “Excuse – “

 

“Your French, yes.” It was Lij, deliberately stepping up this time and facing the doctor. “Look, Doc – “

 

“Anna.”

 

“Anna. Yes, Anna. Before you make any rushed conclusions, let me just get this straight: we are not gay. My friend here might be just unusually vain for a man, but we aren’t anything close to being gay, all right?”

 

The dentist could only nod in amusement and confusion. Orli seemed to have detected that and said, “Lij, not only are you an unbelievable bugger, but you’re also an unbelievably paranoid bugger.” He twisted in his seat a bit to look directly at the now definitely flustered dentist. “I bet that that totally absurd idea didn’t even enter Anna’s mind for even just one second, didn’t it, Anna?”

 

“No – NO! Of course not!” Nervous, witch’s-cackle laughter. Oh, shit. I’m starting to sound like a witch in front of two drop-dead gorgeous young men. I’m losing my composure… I’m losing my mind… “Of course, not…” She kept saying it over and over and both boys were now exchanging suspicious looks. Say something else, you goddamn idiot! She abruptly turned to Lij. “You look familiar.”

 

That one caught the young man off-guard and his wide eyes got a little bit wider and panicky. “I –uh– get that a lot. I – we – we’re… models. Print models. So you’ve probably seen us in some magazines and stuff.” Lij became more relaxed and put one hand on his hip and cocked his head a bit to the right. The sight stopped Anna in the middle of a gulp. Oh, dear. Oh dear oh dear. Hot, hot, hot.

 

“Which also explains the unusual vanity.” The dentist looked down to find the other young man winking at her. Oh dear oh dear oh dear… what else have I been missing, dear Lord? “You’ll have to forgive my friend here again, though. He’s just a little… touchy, about those things.” Another wink. Oh dear Lord, I can’t believe I passed on exchanging bodily fluids with guys like these because I was away, studying the chemical composition of Novocain in Neverneverland. “So, are we done yet, Doc?”

 

Adding fuel to the fire, Lij chimed in, “Oh, don’t be rude, Orli.” He then also turned to Anna and looked at her squarely with his hypnotizing baby blues. “We can wait.” He gave her a small smile and voila, Abby Anne Torres was done for. Damn you, Pierre Fauchard! To hell with being the father of modern dentistry! I want the father of my children now!  Of course, both boys noticed the dentist’s increasingly panicky state. Lij, over her shoulder, threw Orlando a glance that said, It’s happening! The latter threw one back at his friend that clearly said, Of course, it’s happening! We weren’t built to look like this for nothing! The only person excluded in the silent exchange was the poor dentist, who’d already started having cold sweats, and whose heart had already begun palpitating. Fortunately, she had already finished dressing Orli’s wound. Orli then immediately stood to his full height of nearly six feet, almost towering the trembling doctor.

 

“I guess we’re done, then.” He flashed what he and thousands of other girls all over the world thought was his sexiest grin at Anna. “How much do we – “

 

“Oh no! NO! You don’t need to – uh – “ Anna frantically searched for the right words to come. Goddamit, Anna Torres! You have a goddamn doctorate and that’s all you could manage? More than two decades of schooling, but they never did prepare you for moments like these, huh? “I – I’m not charging! I’m not – I’m not charging. Just – uh – just make sure you change the dressing regularly… here, take these.” Anna clumsily shoved the roll of gauze she used on Orli and an extra roll into his hands when she suddenly had this vision of her with the two topless, luscious young men at the beach. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear… Am I sweating?

 

          Come on… come on… we’re getting out of here without charge! Come on… Lij was concentrating on Orlando trying to charm their way out of this sticky situation without paying anything. How could I even forget something like my wallet in the first place? He berated himself again. When he first heard about the foreign-looking fellow sleeping on the sidewalk, he was so sure that it was Orlando that he immediately rushed out the club and found out that he wasn’t mistaken. The problem only arose while they were already halfway up the spiraling staircase to the dentist’s, when he remembered leaving his wallet at the bar. No way were they going back down the stairs, walking back to the club, and then killing themselves all over again by going up the stairs for the second time, so they opted to utilize some little tricks people eventually pick up through charm school. Oh, come on, Orli! You’re not doing anything! Smiles aren’t going to get us out of here scot-free. He then decided to perform the coup de grace himself. “Oh, Anna,” he started, putting his hand lightly on the dentist’s shoulder, “how about the tape?”

 

          Anna’s reaction was fast, but evidently, Lij’s was faster still, because the next thing she noticed was that her hands, which held a roll of tape, were in Lij’s hands as he slowly bent down to kiss them. “Thank you. So much. For everything.” Anna Torres nearly died. “We’ll be going now.” When both young men turned and walked to the door, she didn’t follow right away. She had to steady herself first for a few moments before following them to the door; now she knew what people meant when they said that their knees turned into jelly.

 

*       *       *       *

 

          Nope, not done yet with The Godfather. I was actually at the semi-romantic parts then with Robert de Niro as the young family man, Vito Corleone, when I remembered Orli again. I put the movie on pause, minimized its window, and for a minute or so, just sat there, looking at my desktop wallpaper, one of the promotional posters for his upcoming film, Troy. It was a solo shot of him shooting with a bow. Whatever he’s shooting, it’s already gone straight through me, that’s for sure. I sighed and smiled at my own pathetic version of a Friday night of fun. Well, whatever, I rolled my eyes at myself, stop whining about your poor, poor, sad life. You know you’re actually having fun doing this, anyway, so stop whining. It’s not really your fault that you weren’t built to stand parties and discos and stuff like that. I was reminded of the discotheque girls from across the hall and I walked over to the front door to peer into the peephole, in hopes of seeing one of them home early, a good specimen to practice my biting sarcasm with. I saw nothing, of course, but I didn’t go back to my seat right away. Instead, I just positioned my forehead on a particular flat surface of the door – the usual part.

 

          In Stephen King’s novel “It,” a group of kids in this small Maine town called Derry defeated this evil that was killing children with this magical ritual called “The Ritual of the Chüd.” In the ritual, one person had to bite down on the monster’s tongue and allow the monster to bite down on his, too. Then they start “telling jokes,” trying to dispirit each other. The first one who “laughs” and let’s go of the grip loses, and if you were a kid and you lost, the monster got to eat you. A rather strange and disgusting ritual, really, but also a fine scheme to keep all the evils in one’s head at bay. And so, in the middle of high school I think, I devised my own ritual and called it “The Ritual of the Thud.” Pretty self-explanatory, if you ask me.

 

          So there I was. Friday night, all alone in a flat fit for four, seriously contemplating on banging my head against the door again to make the weird feeling creeping over me go away. That was, if Doc doesn’t hear it from her place and come down here knocking and lecturing again. I didn’t really know that anybody could actually hear me doing my little ritual. Or maybe it just didn’t occur to me, even once, during those times that sound travels through air and well, that there is air everywhere. I turned around to check what time it was. The alarm clock sitting on top of the computer’s CPU said one o’clock. The Doc’s probably asleep by now anyway. The wallpaper caught my eye again, but this time, there was no more ugly, numb feeling creeping over my heart or anything like that. This time it was just one big blow. Like somebody just happened to pass by and step on it all of a sudden. I sighed. I still couldn’t take my eyes off him, though. Handsome as sin. Darn it. It was only when my screensaver came up that I was able to look away. That was when I turned back to the door and propped my head back in its previous position there. The weird pain now felt like it was weaving something around my chest and that somebody was pulling at the other end of the string, ruining the weaving and tickling me at the same time. I remembered the song Kris was singing along with just then and started to make my own version. I was hopeless, too, in the first place, so I thought I was qualified to modify it a little bit. Then I sang it while I started banging my head on the door again.

 

          “I could have met you in a sandbox…” Thud. “I could have punched you on the sidewalk…” Thud. “Could I have missed my chance…” Thud. Thud. “And watched you walk away?” Thud thud thud. Thud.

 

*       *       *       *

 

          “That was a pretty good job, man, for somebody who was unconscious half the time.”

 

          I turned my head to look at Lij. “I wasn’t faking it half the time that I was awake either. That one single blow hurt surprisingly, okay?” I was leaning onto him and he had his free arm around my back again. The other hand carried the gauze and the rest of the thingamabobs we scared the poor doctor half to death to get for free. For some unknown (but I’m sure, absurd) reason, Lij had left his wallet at the stupid club he was hanging out in and it wasn’t really a long way back, but the stairs… well, the stairs were a different story. We didn’t want to go back anyway, so we decided to just charm the pants off the dentist. And I guess that worked, because we were then making our way out of the clinic with Anna the dentist actually holding the door open for us, bidding us goodbye… after she spaced out for, like, five minutes back in the clinic.

 

          Lij laughed out loud when we’d already put quite some distance between the clinic and us. “I told you we could do it.”

 

          “I told you that there was no way we couldn’t.”

 

          “I’m very proud, don’t worry,” Lij grinned at me, “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone yet who’d made a total stranger turn into a goddamn cottontail in just a matter of minutes… drunk.”

 

          “You do know that I’d take a swing at you, you bugger,” I smiled at him wryly. “If only you weren’t keeping me upright.” Lij was right about the ‘drunk’ part, though. My head still had a major case of lead yolk poisoning, there was still a mini-Battle at Helm’s Deep being waged inside it, and now, in addition, I had this queer pounding in my head whose frequency seemed directly proportional to my urge of throwing up. And it was coming it really fast then. “Lij?”

 

          “Yeah, man?”

 

          “Can we just pick your wallet up tomorrow? I just want to get to someplace where I could just puke shamelessly, okay?”

 

          “Okay, man, whatever you say,” Lij still sounded enthusiastic. On the other hand, I felt like shit. He continued, “Gotta tell you something, though, man. I’ve got some good news and some bad news…” I listened to his joke, though only half-heartedly. He had no idea how much my head was aching. It was aching so much this time that if I was really quiet, I could hear the blood being pumped in my brain. I could hear it now: Thud… Thud… Thud thud… Thud thud thud... Thud… Funny though, how it sort of disappeared the moment we reached the third floor.

 

*       *       *       *

 

          Doctor Abby Anne Torres held on tightly to the glass door that she had, only a few seconds ago, held open for two of the most amazing-looking fellows she’d ever met in her lifetime. And I thought they’d all already become movie stars or something! She shook her head and laughed silently at one of Lij’s cracks when Orli asked him about the good news/bad news bit again.

 

          “Well, Orli, my man… have good news and … hear first? Oh, so… news is you’ll have to carry a stupid scar…rest of your life.” She heard what she thought was Orli groaning. And then Lij continued, “…the good news is that… who it is because … his ring on your face!” More laughter. It eventually faded away, but Anna couldn’t stop thinking: I think I’ve just had enough loonies for tonight. First I handle a bright young girl, so full of potential, who thinks she can make her problems go away by banging it out of her head. Then there’s this gorgeous young man who prefers to drink himself into a stupor rather than facing his own problems – A familiar sound made her pause in the middle of her thoughts. Andie, she sighed and shook her head. The disturbing thumping sounds only stopped when she fully closed her front door and made her way back to her makeshift bedroom in the back. People today, she thought, are such crazy, messed up kinks. They probably belong together, too.

 

I could have met you in a sandbox,
I could have passed you on the sidewalk
Could I have missed my chance
And watched you walk away?