together, united in body and spirit, until that asshole tried to cut her face and we took care of him. If we hadn’t had the kind of past we did, we’d probably have been allowed a plea of self-defence – we were attacked and provoked. But what happened will mark us forever.
I’m having a cigarette and some woman starts chatting me up, when luckily Penny arrives out of nowhere. I don’t know why I say luckily – maybe because this woman’s putting me off. Maybe because I enjoy talking to Penny, even if she’s not much to look at. Maybe because when you look in her eyes, you think, She’s twenty-two all right, but she definitely hasn’t visited all the bases yet. I don’t know much about her but I’m rarely wrong about such things. And also, she’s strong. She always looks me straight in the eye, and I can tell I make her uncomfortable sometimes, but only when her throat flushes red. I don’t do it on purpose, you know – I’m just like that. I live on bread and beer and not beating about the bush.
We make a pact: I walk her home and she pays me. Not much, but cash is cash. It’s relaxing being with Penny, actually. My mind stops racing when I’m around her. Usually I’m a mile a minute, running, acting, thinking, thinking, thinking about the past – digging up all the memories I’ve tried so hard to bury over the years. My head always feels like it’s being bombarded by amphetamines, even though I never take that shit. When I’m around Penny though, I stop thinking about it all. She’s like one of those cartoons for kids who are lucky enough not to have a mother who’s a prostitute, like mine was. Me, I never got to watch that kind of cartoon.
In any case, I’m planning to offer her a bonus in exchange for my fee. If she trusts me, I’ll give her some lessons in self-defence. She’s not going to be able to count on me forever. I’ll be gone in a couple of months, and that maniac could still be out there. A few strategic moves, some tips on where to hit harder . . . I never had to teach Francisca a thing; she was already wise to everything she needed to know.
The judges are idiots to think we’re more dangerous together than alone. At twelve, Francisca set fire to her stepfather’s house after whacking him with a baseball bat. At fifteen, I plunged a pair of scissors into the back of my mother’s lover.
7
She ran into him on the way back home from the library. He was on the way out. They met at the door of the building, just as she was putting her key in the lock. The smell of his body hit her first. He was wearing old trackpants and a white shirt glued to his skin with sweat. Penny’s tongue nearly hit the floor. She needed to get a grip, erase the fantasies that flooded her mind whenever she saw him, and take control of the atoms bouncing and squealing within her, stunned at so much abundance. She swallowed hard, pretending not to notice the six-pack bulging under his T-shirt, or the veins pumping along his wrists.
‘Hey,’ he said, and Penny composed herself, afraid he wanted to back out of their agreement or raise his fee.
‘I can’t give you more than fifty dollars,’ she murmured, staring down at the key in her hand and her nails. ‘It’s a lot of money for me already, you know.’
‘I’m not asking for more money. I wanna give you a gift.’
‘A gift? What kind of gift?’ she asked, blushing.
Marcus laughed mockingly and shook his head. ‘You say I’m the one with a one-track mind, but I just know you’re always thinking about it too! Well, it’s not the gift you’re hoping for.’
‘I’m not hoping for anything.’
‘Sorry, but you’re not the greatest actress, little lady. You definitely want me, even if you won’t admit it. You’ve wanted me a long time now, but it’s simply not gonna happen. We. Will. Not. Fuck. Is that clear enough?’
‘Maybe if you say it a little louder, they’ll be able to hear you down the block. I wouldn’t want them to feel excluded.’
‘They wouldn’t hear me even if I screamed right in their ear. The youngest person around here is seventy years old. Anyway, I thought I’d teach you some self-defence moves.’