The Enemy

A girl who scares herself into finding love in the wrong place...or person. Spiritual misguidance in this example.

  My eyes opened up to peer at her friend, Penelope Guid, and groaned softly. 

  The girl’s face was twisted into disbelieving disappointment, with good reason. This was the fourth time she found her best friend with one leg practically in a gutter and her head screwed the other way. I had hoped I wouldn’t be seen in this state by anyone that knew her; it looked like that dream failed to come true.

  “Hey, Penny,” I sighed, sitting up onto the underdeveloped, cracked pavement. A sharp prick on the inside of her knee almost stopped her, and she wondered how she cut herself this time. 

  The other girl stared. I tried again. “This isn’t what it--”

  “Please,” Penny cut in, her hand up. “I’m not blind you know. It looks exactly what it is.” 

I didn’t respond. What could I have said? She was right, I was recovering from a hangover the size of Kilimanjaro, its beat fisting against my skull. God, it really hurt, worse than last time even, and I thought I was going to kill someone then.  The neon city lights and passing cars, coupled with some kind of aggressive truck driver didn’t help at all.

  I didn’t bother to nod. “Yeah, I know.” She let out her hand to help, and I took it gratefully and with caution. I knew she’d come out with some kind of “I told you so” speech, as my usual accomplice wasn’t there, yet again, to help me get home. The memory of last night had me gritting my teeth, exacerbating the tambourines in my head and pressing my tongue�"wait, what the hell was so damn fuzzy�"agent the roof of my mouth. “I didn’t think I had so much.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” she snorted ungracefully. “I really thought you’d stay away from them this time, but no! I had to hear this from our landlord, that my roommate and friend was parked outside the building, and that the next time it happened we’d be evicted with notice!” 

  I winced at the last, very high note, as her voice grew louder with each word. “Okay, I’m sorry. I swear--”

  “Don’t swear with cognac on your breath!” she finally screeched. A blow of a car horn had me finally standing up. 

  “Okay, okay I got it! There won’t be a next time! Just stop yelling!”

  “That’s what you said the last--”

  “And this time I’m serious.”

  “Seriously inebriated!”

  “I get it!”

  We stood at each other’s chests, breathing heavily, in the cold fall air. For a moment I distracted myself from her with the sounds of the turned and turning leaves against the cement, almost sandpaper. Abrasive. In my peripheral vision, the leaves whirled around into a small, invisible hurricane and ascended almost to Penny’s great height.  It chilled me more than the end of summer could; but just as soon as it risen, the “eye” collapsed and every leaf returned to terra, or concrete. 

Penny melted, her eyes softening and her arms decrossed. She tossed her head in mild exasperation and shook it, gesturing, her voice much softer. “You want some coffee for that head?”

  This time I nodded, but only slightly. I didn’t want to feel my tongue. We walked to the door to our lobby with her holding me up, into the elevator where we stood in silence again. I was grateful for it though, I could get better prepared while I tried to think of my reason why. I could feel her rearing back up for another onslaught. It was just like Penny-to give you comfort food and then to just pass you the most surprising offense. 

  She let me go and went into the kitchen, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors very near impatiently. I just dumped myself into the Ikea sofa we bought together two years ago, and grabbed the blanket with my own impatience. I didn’t realize I was slipping until she nudged my arm sharply, something she knew would annoy me enough out of any reverie. 

  I jerked. “What?”

  “You owe me a damned good explanation, even if I don’t want to hear it,” she growled, passing me the black coffee--if it wasn’t piping, she would’ve shoved it�"and sitting onto the table, vexed. “So?”

  I closed my eyes and sipped demurely. Christ on hop sticks, thank you for café!

  “Conin--”

  “I knew it!” She screamed, getting up again. “It always has to do with that lowlife!”

  “Will you sit the hell down, drama mama?” I said stridently, gulping the elixir down straight. “You wanted to know.”

  She glared at me, but sat and crossed her legs and knotting her hands. When I didn’t continue, her thumbs jumped up with her shoulders. 

  “Conin and I visited the bar down in Aspen Ave. and 7th St. last night,” I started, taking another sip. Already the drink unfuddled my brain enough to really think about the night before. “He came up here while you were out. Really I was about to close the door on him, after the last time…before this last time anyway. He stopped me though, form closing the door with his hand, and you know how strong he can be. He said he wanted to talk to me about his reason, about why he did…what he did.

  “ ‘Oh come on, Mimi, I gotta talk to you!’

  “ ‘No damn way, not this time!’ I yelled back at him, fidgeting with my scarf. By the way, did you see it anywhere?”

  She expectantly waved at me to finish. I rolled my eyes.

  “ ‘I’m not done, babe.’

  “ ‘Well, I am! Just get out of here!’

  

  “ ‘Not ‘til you hear this! This is almost enough to get me begging!’

  “ ‘What the hell does that mean?’ 

  He finally just yelled at me to open the door before the greatest thing became waste, so I did curiously. He leaped�"no he skipped--into the room lie I was his Lou, or something like that. I couldn’t stop from smiling at him, you know how he can get sometimes. That big body of his doesn’t stop him from dancing on his feet. It always made me feel surrounded. 

  

  “ ‘What is it now?’ I teased, despite the long face he had. He shrugged in that give-a-damn-way of his.

  “ ‘Anabelle kicked me out, and this time it’s for good.’

  “I didn’t know what to think about that. I guess it was kind of like stepping on gold after finding only pyrite. I never told you, but Conin was dating this Anabelle while we got together, but everyone they were friend with knew they were about to have a break up soon. For Anabelle, three years with Conin nearly drove her insane--or at least that’s what I heard. I hoped that Conin would just hurry it along, but he insisted that he was waiting for the right time, saying that ‘Ana’ was fragile and had to be dealt with gently, but that was four months after we met. 

  “Anyway, this news was a dollop of ambrosia to me, both as painful new blood in parched veins and electrifying as an adventure. Conin himself was an adventure, a wakeup call from a sleepy dream. With Conin it was always like that. I found my self wanting Pluto closer and closer to me. He makes me want things that aren’t humanely possible, so we sit go places no one else has ever gone before and we think and do things that are only in fantasies. But really, that’s not the issue here. 

  “ ‘What did you do?’ 

  “ ‘Now wait a second! Why is it me always doing something? That’s unfair.’

  “I just looked at him, and mockingly tapped my feet against the floor. He conceded.

  “ ‘All right, beautiful, you got me there. Truth is…she kinda, sorta…well…’ He beseechingly shrugged with his hands in his tight pockets. My blood went colder in the heated room, but I insisted.

  “ ‘I’m a big girl now, Conin. I can handle it.’ After all, I got involved. He nodded with a square in his shoulders.

  “ ‘She kinda found out about…us…last night…’

“I shrugged. ‘So?’

“He blinked at me, but recovered quickly. ‘I just needed to walk a bit, to clear my head. I remember coming here to do just that sometimes.’ Before I could stop him from going in detail, he pushed forward, probably seeing my anxiety.

  “ ‘You’ve always been a great listener Mira, always.’

  “I stopped and decided to listen without interruptions. He never called me Mira, not ever since the day we met. I always found it the only annoying thing about him. I crossed my arms and after I closed the door, I sat into the chair you are sitting in now, while he sat in the sofa across from me. It was full frontal Conin then and his big, black lamb eyes stared into me, like they always did. That always made me feel so good around him; no one ever seems to be able to look at another person without looking down immediately, but Conin always used his eyes to say to someone ‘I love you’, or ‘I don’t mess with you’. I love him for it…or at least I love his eyes for that. 

  “He rubbed his hands together and leaned his elbows onto his knees so he was even closer to me. ‘I was always going to end things with Ana, babe…things just went…unswimmingly. I’ve always made it up to you.’

  “I shook my head at that. ‘No, you really didn’t. Jewels and shiny little metal stuff don’t give you a reprieve.’

  “ ‘But I’m not talking about jewelry, Mira.

  “ ‘Then what did you possibly ever give me that wasn’t jewelry or your time? Because, really I think I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime.’

  “He didn’t seem hurt by my barb, another thing I loved about him. My petty little digs and stings just bounced off of him like kids on gallons of Kool Aid. Nothing ever really bothered him and it was hard to piss him off. He just said, in the softest voice I had ever heard him speak in or capable of:

  “ ‘I never let you go. And I’m never going to, not now.’

  “We sat in the silence as I stewed over that. There I had a thought, so sudden and hard I almost twitched in shock: I never allowed myself to hope for what he was offering. 

  “When we met, he was onto his latest victim…” 

  She snorted again, and I raised my brow, thinking she’d swallow a booger before long. “Bed partner in Instinct, a club you and I go to every chance we got�"you were there when we met him…what did you say again?”

  She tilted her head like a peacock. “I think I said, ‘He could use serious reality check.’ ”

  I smiled at her in memory. “Oh yeah, because he was trying to pick up Emily while Sam was right there. Didn’t I tell you that they were so over?”

  “How was I supposed to know she got pregnant by his best friend? The girl doesn’t know me from Eve…or maybe that’s the point?”

  I rolled my eyes and huffed. “Doesn’t matter, back to last night.” I took another part of the elixir of South American beans and contently sighed. 

  “Anyway, what he said was very sweet, like cinnamon and it brought me back to what he called the ‘halcyon days’. I started to think about the very best day of my life--the time we went sneaked pass security to get to a hockey game in New Jersey when we were out of cash for the entire week. Even though we got caught by more security eventually, he still took me to Mikey’s to get stinking drunk; you know he was trying to get me off my prissy mode.”

  “I happen to like your prissy self just fine,” she snorted with gusto. I wrinkled my nose.

  “Really, Penny I’m trying to tell you the story you asked for, and stop with the pig impression, I’m thinking of Old McDonald and his farm.” 

  She waved me off, uncharacteristically unperturbed. “What did you do then? Let me guess, you two started to fu--”

  “Okay! That is more than enough!”

  

  She shrugged.

  “And for your information, we didn’t…have that, sex or whatever. We just continued to talk, but I wasn’t exactly trying to kick him out anymore. I was missing everything about him, Penny, you wouldn’t believe it. I saw his face everywhere and once I actually mistook my grandad for him when we played poker when he told me ‘I got you on the blind side’. I never got that by the way…

  “Finally, I just asked him if he was thinking of staying with us�"don’t worry, I told him you’d never allow it�"” I said as she profusely started shaking her head and turning puce. “I just put it out there.  He shrugged and shook his head at me, that smile still in place. I hardly noticed it in comparison to his eyes though. They still resembled that of an unnatural, intelligent lamb’s. 

  “ ‘This world is big enough for the both of us, Mira,’ he said, unconcerned. ‘I’m sure I’d get another place at a motel or hotel somewhere near you.’

  “ ‘Why near me?’ I breathed; it hurt to breathe. A pause.

  “ ‘I want to see where we can finally go from here, babe, if that’s still okay?’

“I stared at him in disbelief. After everything he put me through, the tribulations of his disapproving family, his crazy, now ex-girlfriend, mercurial rages and our rollercoastal misadventures he seemed to expect me to just turn him away without an inkling of how I felt about him Didn’t he know what he was to me? We weren’t passing ships, I tied my anchor around him for the long haul so he wouldn’t go anywhere without me, and he dared to sit there for me to just…head out to a horizon I saw in him? God, I thought he must’ve ben out of his goddamn mind.

  “ ‘Damn it, Conin, of course I want to get back to the way things were, you know that.’

  “ ‘Actually, no I didn’t, but I hoped so!’ He was absolutely beaming--like he won some great prize--slapped his knees and held out his arms. It was a welcome home for me. I didn’t need to pretend I was okay with my life then in his fortress. His smile was sunny, and I had to look away sometimes when it got too heated for words--”

  “And then you two got busy in the sheets,” she huffed out through her nose. “At least tell me t wasn’t in my bed this time.” Heat traveled under my face like moles. 

  “For God sake, Penny…”

  

   “Okay, okay I swear on my new Prada I won’t interrupt again.”

  “Any bag or shoes would be so knocked off that kids in Asia wouldn’t be caught dead in the factory they made them in!”

She hissed at me, clawing the air between us. “Back to the story, ye b***h!”

  I couldn’t stop the little laugh at her antics. I knew what she was doing by upping her theater works, and this was why we were such great friends-beside the fact we’ve been in diaper when we met. “Oh, go to hell.”

  “Yeah, so we did do the dirty. That isn’t the point, though. While you were out of town we went as far west as we could go towards Cali in his Prius, but we stopped at Illinois when I realized I didn’t pay our rent before we left�"which I did, so don’t get all huffy. We got to beam at the stars above us instead of spending the night at a motel and we met a lot of interesting people. We went to the Field of Natural History Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Wrigley field for a baseball game! I never been so free of the blear eyes since the last year of high school, right after Mr. Leon moved away. I never felt so in the moment…I was number one.

  “One time, we were buying some stuff at this little gas station and deli market for the next few days in Ohio on Montgomery Way, when this high-out-of-his-mind kid walked into the place with a small pistol in his hand. Everyone but the cashier guy and Conin fell to the floor to get out of his way, while he waved the gun at his face, screaming.

  “ ‘Give me some cash, man, I gotta get some cash! I gotta get out of here! F**k this, just give me the damn register if you gotta!’

  “ ‘Okay, okay, let me just�"will you just put the gun down?!’

  “ ‘Don’t tell me what to do with my gun, fucktard!’ his voice broke, like he was going to butt it into the guy’s skull. 

  “I shivered, imagining brain matter all over the place, and cursed the cashier guy. No one needed to witness a freak killing for some drugs! I couldn’t even think straight, with Conin still standing, but against the aisle with fruit snacks and Pringles and the yelling I wished would just go away! Suddenly, I felt Conin move away from me, towards the front, and I grabbed the hem of his pants. ‘What the hell do you--?’

  “He shushed me quietly, so over the midst of the screaming boy no one could hear him. I remember his face as he did that, his lips puckered against his point finger in warning, sable eyes wide and the white rings sparkling, like we were in some kind of amusement park. Even his lips were curved towards his eyes while he warned me to shut up.

   “ ‘I got something.’

  “ ‘No! I can’t--’

  “ ‘Don’t try to stop me!’ And he crawled on all fours towards the front where the boy had stopped screaming and continued to shiver and scratch at his arms. I could see where Conin was going to strike out: the arm with the gun. I tried to think of a way to wake up from this, maybe pinching myself to make it all go away. But I had already pushed my drams into this amazing man I was terribly afraid to lose to a piece of metal from a druggie with nothing to lose for himself. I didn’t, couldn’t make a sound as Conin jumped.

  “There were screams all around except for Conin and me, when he did that. The pair wrestled like apes, but Conin was finally able to kick at the kid’s stomach and threw the gun in my direction�"I slid away from that thing like it was toxic. Away from me, he pulled back the kid’s hair with one hand while the other was at his throat, reining in the bucking and jerking. 

  “Conin became some twisted version of a knight in shining armor right in front of me�"and the rest of the shoppers around me, but right then my only concern was Conin and the druggie. Out of nowhere, I thought that maybe there was some kind of moral somewhere attached to that very struggle between them, instead of some atheistic notion, like “Things happen”. I don’t believe in a higher power watching over us, but what I was witnessing in that gas station was so out worldly that I was starting to close my eyes to just…sit in it�"the impossibility of it.

  “It was really then I realized the truth about Conin and me�"I became inebriated with him, on him, of him in every sense of the word. I let my love for him ravage me and consume me until I hardly recognized myself. I was wrapped around him like a slug’s mate. However I felt too tired to really get into why he made me feel tired and exhilarated simultaneously, and I didn’t care enough to really examine his feelings for me. It doesn’t really matter, Penny! Even if he was just using me, I have this opportunity to experience something I might never have again. 

  “Besides, I know he isn’t like that at all. Sometimes we just get too carried away. He treats me like I’m new heavy morsel, tempting him…I like that feeling, a lot.

  “When I opened my eyes, I found Conin the victor, holding the gun in his hand, with a look on his face so casually blithe--I hadn’t realized he had stepped close to me at all�"and leaning against the counter to the register, his back to the pallid, aghast cashier. He stood tall as an alder tree amongst baboons; we all didn’t know what to do with such a foreign thing, a magical being like him. He, however, knew exactly what he was supposed to do and didn’t care if we existed. He would’ve gone after the druggie without any other person here, maybe he felt that he had to stop the boy, that he was destined? 

  “But I’m getting off track with weird suppositions.

  “We left after the police arrived and gave in our statements, and got into his car. After we turned back from Illinois, we finally got home at the Juice Stop and ate breakfast. Aside from our time with the cops, he was smiling more from then on, his teeth flashing roguishly at me. I pursed my lips at him afterwards in the Prius when it was clear he wasn’t about to start the car soon. His hand grasped mine, interlocking his first two fingers under my palm and massaging it. I raised my brows, peering.

“He had the same look on his face when he had finally wrestled away the gun; carefree and almost indulgent. This ignite the small embers inside me, sparking my mouth open, but I kept my voice soft.

  “ ‘What the hell were you doing back there, Conin?’ I demanded, trying to pull my hand back. ‘Were you trying to get us all f*****g killed?! And when you got jumped--’

  “ ‘I had to do something, instead of sitting on that grungy floor looking up,’ he asserted. I stopped my wrestling.

  “ ‘Was it some kind of macho bullshit, or a hero complex?’ I strained through tight lips. ‘Were you trying to endanger you and people you don’t know to get some imaginary award for bravery? I call that stupidity.’ He had the nerve then, to roll his eyes, but stopped before full circulation. It was too late though. You and I both can agree I can get into a tight fit over things I find insane, and Conin back then had me thinking of calling the men in white coats.

  “When I finally stopped, while the whole time he had averted his main attentions off me to make me believe that he’d eventually cut in, but didn’t, he gazed at me instead of retorting. I flipped my hand. ‘What?’

  “Several breaths of moments passed before he belatedly mumurered, ‘I know you were worried, Mira. I do have to admit that it was probably really dumb to do, going against a junkie with a loaded gun…I guess I was just trying to look different to you after everything.’

  “ ‘What? What do you mean?’

  “ ‘I didn’t’ treat you right these past months, babe. I know that. Just wanted to be something other than the guy who disappointed you over and over.’

  “ ‘So you decided to scare me instead?’ I asked, tapping my nails against the dashboard. You thought you could bring me back from the dead? How much better is that?’

  “He breathed out sharply, and fell into the driver’s seat, pondering. His own fingers clenching and his jaw ticking. ‘I didn’t think that I’d get hurt actually, since it was only a kid high off his a*s. Besides, I didn’t think about how me being hurt would hurt you. I just thought you’d see me like as someone you could trust--’

  “ ‘I already trust you, Conin!’ I nearly yelled. ‘Why do you think I’m here in this car with you out in practically the middle of Hoketown, USA?!’

  “His eyes narrowed for a quick second and widened. I nodded with pursed lips. ‘Yeah, now you get it.’ I threw up my hands and scoffed, falling into my own seat. We sat together, again our hands together between us. My finger started to caress his pointer nail. He stayed in his own thoughts and I stayed in mine.

  “We were at the bar just a few days before you were due coming back, and I only remember a weird dream I had after I found a place to rest my head. I swear I have no idea how I got on that pavement, Penny. I just remember being in a dark shadow next to a Goth kid with a mesh shirt over a tank top. I’m not even sure it was a dram, but I seriously liked it, so I didn’t care. I sort of hoped it was a dream.

  “I was wearing some kind of light, floaty white dress with wide sleeves and my head was heavy with hair. I mean, it just went on for miles: curly and only partially brushed and it got everywhere. I could feel a hard ring thick against my temples and forehead and the back of my skull, keeping the top hair from getting too close to my face. I felt like I was rocking in a small boat lying in its small hull with something thick and soft underneath me--my ear listening to near silent water. I felt it, but I didn’t feel it, you know, like in that astral, dreamy way. My face was wet and itchy, so I reached up to it and found thin trails of past tears at my cheeks and under my eyelashes, and I got up too quickly. The nausea and vertigo was so real, and I almost swooned back to the bottom of the boat. Instead I pulled back my hand to inspect my dewy fingers, which I noticed had small tremors. How could I have felt the vertigo and not the shaking, I don’t know, but there’s no rules in Dreamland. 

  “I looked around me to see the long rippling of calm waters, some floating lily pads and reeds, and I heard the light croaking of frogs at the bank, tall willow and heather trees stretching their branches toward the water, blocking the sky and giving me little fairytale cover from the gentle moon. However, these things weren’t forefront in my mind. I had been immediately preoccupied by the feeling of loneliness so encompassing I couldn’t fully comprehend the lead of pressure in my chest. There was someone that was supposed to be there with me, who left me. I couldn’t remember who, or who they were to me exactly, but I just knew they were dear and beloved to me, and that they were supposed to stay. I ignored their shifting eyes for too long...

  “More tears choked me, into crying out unintelligible words, and it was my soul fleeing my war torn body.”

  

  I stopped to bring back the cup she gave me for a sip of the now-cold brew, though I quickly realized that I had already finished all of it, and that the banging “La Cucaracha” in my head had faded into a lesson learned…for next time. I carefully kept my eyes on the coffee table nonetheless, wondering why Penny hadn’t used this moment to ask anything. I thought I’d use this to trudge on with a final note. I shrugged.

  “When I woke up, you were there. Story end, fin, conclusion or whatever you’d like to call it.”

Her foot was tossing in circles during all of this, now still, ankles tense. “So you guys are back together then? After all he did, you just allowed him into your house, lie a good little piggy?” 

 I finally glanced up at her, glaring with taut lips. An expression of etched somberness on her made me hang my head and sigh. “I knew you wouldn’t get it. You know who you are, Penny. I don’t.” 

  Momentary silence.

  “I know what’s real, Mira,” she said in a tone so soft and penetrating, I looked up slack-jawed. She sighed in a breathy gust, and stood up, her hand out. 

  “You need a jump?” she asked, the disturbing note in her voice back to normal. A little weight off my shoulders showed me my apprehension: I thought my best friend would leave me for this one last tryst, and I knew that I was the luckiest girl in this plane.

  

Penny will be there when I lose myself and Conin will be there to transcend with me so I will be more than myself. I could already see the new me.