Then he’d sauntered out of the kitchen, disappearing around the wall only to return within moments with a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter in his hand. He came direct to me, tagged my wineglass, handed it to me then took my other hand. Gently, he tugged me off my stool and moved toward the doors to the balcony, not going down the steps to the sunken portion but guiding me around the edge.
Even in bare feet and just a tee in the mid-March Colorado chilly air, he walked out, taking me with him. He let me go to shake out a cigarette and light it with flicks and twists of his Zippo. I was not a smoker but, call me crazy, I’d always thought Zippos were cool. Then he dropped the pack and the lighter on the wrought iron table, wrapped his fingers around my elbow and positioned me at the balcony railing.
Then I held my breath as he positioned himself behind me and wrapped an arm around my chest, pulling me back into his front side.
Then he lifted his cigarette and took a drag. I lifted my wine and took a sip.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” I advised after I swallowed.
“Heard that before,” he muttered.
“I bet you have,” I muttered back.
“It bother you?” he asked and I thought about this.
Even though I was a lifelong non-smoker, it didn’t. It was whacked but it reminded me of home. My Dad smoked. So did my aunt. I was used to the smell. As far as my Dad was concerned, it made me nostalgic. As far as my aunt was concerned, it was just the way it was. It was home. Both of them that I had growing up.
“No,” I answered softly but honestly. “It reminds me of home.”
“Your folks smoke?”
“Yeah, my Dad. Then my aunt. She was a chimney. Pack and a half a day.”
I felt his body tense and he asked, “Your aunt?”
“She raised me after my parents died.”
He was silent a moment, the tenseness increasing then his arm loosened around my chest only for his hand to shift me. He shifted too, resting a hip against the railing then his arm around my waist pulled me close to his front, almost touching, as he looked down at me.
“Your folks passed?” he asked quietly, his eyes intent but his face back to blank.
“Yeah, when I was in second grade.”
His eyes slightly narrowed. “Both of them?”
“Carjacking.”
No blankness then. A flash lit his eyes and I heard him draw in a sharp breath.
Then he whispered, “What the f**k?”
“They worked together. No…” I shook my head. “They went to work together. They worked in buildings across from each other so they drove in together. They drove me to school, dropped me off then drove into work together. Witnesses said they were sitting at a red light and some guy with a gun opened Dad’s door. He shot him three times, yanked him out to the street, got in and took off with Mom in the car. Fifteen miles from there, they found my Mom, also shot, in the road. Dad survived the trip to the hospital but died in surgery. Mom took a bullet to the temple. She was gone before he shoved her out of the car.”
His arm left me, his eyes did not, then his hand came to the side of my neck and slid up into my hair as he muttered, “Jesus, f**k, baby.”
I shook my head. “Knight, it’s okay. I know it sounds dramatic but it isn’t. Shit happens all the time to a lot of people. Obviously, they had no idea that they were going to die at the same time so they didn’t make arrangements for what to do with me. My aunt, Mom’s sister, got me and control of their estate, such as it was, and life insurance policies. My uncle, Dad’s brother, lives in Alaska. He went through the motions of trying to get me to take care of me but he worked on a pipeline, wasn’t married and lived in a barracks with a bunch of other guys. Judges didn’t go for that. And my grandmother, Mom’s Mom, was already sick so she was out. She left my grandfather and he went back to Russia because apparently he was a jerk but also he missed home but he didn’t miss his daughters and had nothing to do with them after he left. Dad wasn’t close to his parents. They’d already raised two sons and weren’t hot on having a seven year old to raise so they didn’t try for custody. Still, they were relatively cool and still are, though they live in Arizona now. So my aunt raised me and she, um… smoked. And also, uh… she drank a lot of vodka.”
Knight’s eyes kept mine captive and he asked, “Drank? She gone too?”
“No, she’s very alive. Apparently, if you become one of Satan’s Minions, as a reward, he makes you immune to cancer, heart and liver disease.”
At “Satan’s Minions”, I felt his fingers flex tightly against my scalp but he waited until I was done speaking when he asked, “She didn’t do right by you?”
As an answer, I explained, “I had a job at Arby’s and moved in with three girls, paid rent, slept on a couch for eight months until one of them moved out and I did this two days after I turned eighteen. I still went to high school until I graduated but at eighteen I was g… o… n… e… gone.”
“She didn’t do right by you,” he murmured then twisted his neck and I watched him take a drag from his cigarette and exhale an angry stream of smoke. Then he contemplated the Front Range with an expression on his face that made him look like he was plotting to annihilate it.
“Years ago, Knight,” I said quietly and his eyes again tipped down to me.