This War Paint

Butch


I had no idea. Not an inkling or a thought or a single notion that Jane had been going through something like this. Of course I knew about the tattoo, I had known from the start, that picture from Mariah’s stored in the glove compartment of my car. But walking into her kitchen with the whisper of her body in front of mine, I had been beyond shocked. I hadn’t been prepared for anything like that.

What I had been prepared for were the cold, cruel eyes and the way her parents would put themselves in front of their daughter like a human shield and the complete disgust evident in their every word. I was Butch, here, meeting the parents of the girl Fraser loved. To them I was him, anyway, but skimming my hand over Jane’s back, I was all myself.

So while I had been ready for a torrent of hate I’d instead been given a placid, kind woman sitting in her kitchen like she didn’t have a care in the world. And she was just an aged version of Jane. She had her perfect nose and what was left of her red hair and blue, blue eyes which only took me in once Jane had cooed to her a few times. They struck me dumb, those eyes, because instantly I saw some gleam of recognition alight them.

Here we go, I’d thought, here comes that torrent.

But instead I’d been given a hand.

I took it robotically and felt something close to relief crash over me. In fact, I don’t think I had been that thankful in my life when the recognition that this woman didn’t have an idea of who I was sank in. The entire facade of Butch dropped like a weight, leaving a raw and naked Fraser who’d only wanted to hug this woman in delight. Jane hadn’t truly experienced the prejudice this town had against me first hand, oh sure she knew of it, knew that this is what had me fired, but she hadn’t heard the strangers yelling or the way their looks would turn deadly as soon as they’d seen me. I worried she wouldn’t be able to handle that side of my life. Nobody like her should be exposed to so much hate.

I took Jane’s hand in mine, even when she made to move away. I held tight. Even as she tried a little harder to break free, I sank my fingers in between hers and locked us together. She looked up at me and smiled something bitter, something beautiful.

“I should go,” she whispered into the gloom, her face in half shadow from the sunset streaming in from the window. “Someone might have seen me come here.”

We had since left her house to cross the short distance to where I was staying. I’d made my goodbyes, reluctant to leave what little semblance of Fraser Jane’s mother had seen, to return to what everyone else wanted. And now we stood, half in darkness, staring at each other as I tried to get my hand to let go.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“I...” she sighed and rested her head on my shoulder, giving me a slice more of her to remember tonight. “I can’t leave Mom alone too long. Dad won’t be home for a while, his shifts sometimes last all night.”

“Where’s your sister?” I asked, selfishly wanting to keep her caged up in me, tasting her until, finally, I could lick my lips and still remember her exactly as she was.

“Out,” she groaned. “With James probably.”

I was silent, the house was silent, as I listened to her calming breaths. I could feel them too, washing over my skin, making my tendons and limbs ache with the need to tighten my hold. But she had to go. I understood now that her mother was more than a parent to her; she was a liability, and one which she wouldn’t abandon for the world.

I liked the woman. She was the only person in this town I had found who would carry a conversation with me without judgment or agendas or expectations. We could speak of the weather and it would be nothing, which, for some reason, meant a lot more than nothing to me. Even Jane knew Butch, even Max knew Butch, but Mrs Hathaway didn’t see any of him – just a stranger who she thought she’d met many years ago. I preferred that.

So I unfurled myself from her, releasing what I would, one day I promised, not ever have to let go. Even though the sinking notion, the bright reality, was glaring me right in the face I refused to give up my love for her. I knew now without a doubt that she would stay here in this backwards town as long as her mother was here while the thought of staying here just one day past graduation killed me. Oh I’d have a lot of things to mull over tonight in between a stranger’s bed sheets with all the curtains pulled in case a nosey neighbour saw a light on.

“Goodnight,” she murmured to me gently, pressing a quick warm kiss to my cheek. Before I had the chance to stop it, my hand was right there, palming her kiss as if to try to stop it from floating away.

“Sweet dreams,” I replied roughly, my throat tight with a thousand other words I wanted to say.

She smiled softly and crept out of the front door, shutting it behind her so quietly I could almost fool myself into thinking she was still here. With me. God, I fucking loved her so much it hurt sometimes. I loved her something fierce and dominating and needing. It needed her to love us back too.

I stayed staring at the front door for a little longer than I should have, caught up in the way I could smell her and taste her kiss on my cheek and feel the warmth of her wrapped up in me. If I moved, would I break that spell? Hell, I already knew it would break the moment I blinked and opened my damn eyes to see the door was really closed and it was getting late.

And I was dead tired.

So much had happened in 24 hours, so much drama, so many twists even I hadn’t anticipated. I had Max key that asshole’s car which, in itself, was one of my biggest triumphs, but I hadn’t expected to find Jane under a cafeteria table, bleeding and on the verge of tears. I certainly hadn’t thought I’d be meeting her mother who had dementia. Never in a million years did I imagine my girl had been going through something like that.

Trekking through the empty house, feeling thankful for the hundredth time that it wasn’t my stuffy car, I moved into the spare room with the sparse furnishings and single bed. I could tell it was a spare room; we’d had one in our house once. It had been where I would hide whenever I couldn’t tell whether the tremendous sounds coming from my parents were raised voices or disjointed tussles. For reasons I hadn’t understood then and was only beginning to get now, it was easier to pretend nothing mattered more than the toy figurines in my hands while I was somewhere that didn’t feel like home. In my room, surrounded by dinosaur posters and all my six-year-old dreams, it was harder to sleep at night, hearing them over and over again. Hearing my mother’s cries and my father’s bellows.

Blinking away the memories, I settled myself on the bed, stripping off my shirt and pants. There was Jane now. Her scent, her light, the feel of her still somewhere on me. God, I wanted her here with me now, if just to watch her watching me, to get that exhilarating thrill that she may be half as fascinated with me as I was with her.

But she wasn’t here. She was across the street, looking after her mother, no doubt helping her into bed and wishing her a sweet goodnight. I couldn’t be jealous or resentful of that – she was both lucky and cursed to have a mother like that. All the pain and torment she must have to sit through, all the times she was forgotten as if she was anything less than her own daughter. And yet she loved her, she was there for her, and Jane had spoken of her father enough for me to understand he was a good man. Her parents were decent people, the same couldn’t be said for mine.

Standing up with an instinct which had saved my ass many times on many sleepless nights, I moved to the window, catching sight of my bare upper torso in the bedside mirror. I didn’t dwell on the scar, not even the tattoos. I knew something wasn’t right with my universe. Could feel it in the very air, my body taught and alert and ready for a fight.

Twisting the blinds slightly so I could see out onto the main road, my eyes were first drawn to Jane’s house. All looked still and well, nothing out of place. The place was tiny, the baby in a neighbourhood of fancy buildings, but at least it looked safe. Homely. If I had the time and there wasn’t adrenaline coursing through my body, I may have spared a smile for the thought of her and me in something that homely one day. I didn’t have the luxury of time, however, and certainly not the room for good feelings in my strung-out mind.

It took me only a split second to find exactly what was making me so edgy. Hooded figures on the sidewalk were swarmed around the place I knew I had left my car, steel flashing silver in the lights from the streetlamps. I felt sick right then, nausea swarming what had been full of so much desire and love so little time ago. And I was charging down the stairs. I didn’t give a shit about neighbours or cops or being discovered for the entire time it took for me to sprint out the front door and down the cold pavement to these bastards. And sinking my fist into the nearest one, catching him off guard and scrambling the rest, I certainly didn’t give a shit that I was outnumbered 10-1.

The pricks didn’t stand and fight, like I had suspected they wouldn’t. I knew the type and I knew David Armstrong was behind it and I understood his pools of friends were just carbon copies of him. Weak, spineless fools who were all scared shitless of me. Oh sure, they were confident when I wasn’t around, hidden somewhere probably fast asleep, but when I was amidst them, wild eyed and nostrils flared, they ran.

Going to shout something horrendous, I just caught myself. There was a reason they had come and gone in such silence and there was perhaps another reason they had fled. Slap bang in the middle of suburban Florence, in a busy street of residential houses, Butch didn’t have a chance of slinking away unscathed. Suddenly the potential police records and long, interrogations seemed like too much. I was eighteen now, not some young idiot who thought that if his father could get away with beating on his wife and son then surely he could get away with shit too. I had my tenuous scholarship and my one way ticket out of here and Jane to add in too.

One look at my car, though and I was fucking ready to throw it all away.

They’d broken in with their silent crow bars, they’d taken my last and only possessions, they’d stolen my gearshift and steering wheel and keyed the entire outside with meaningless, hateful scribbles. What had been my home for two years was now nothing more than a heap of trash. The rage inside me was too much. Too strong. I was glad for their sakes that they had managed to get away. Right then I would have happily taken their crow bars and set them into their faces and bodies as they had my car. My home.

All over again I was sixteen years old, shaking some dealer’s clammy hand and taking the keys to what would become my salvation. No more would I have to just put up with my father or retaliate and keep one eye open all night in case he came in for round two. Now I could tell him to kiss my ass, take his fucking house and shove it. I could be as independent as I wanted, I could follow my Mom part way to wherever she was by leaving.

Here it all came crashing down, it all came to an end.

And I got David’s message loud and clear. Stay away from her, stay away from me and don’t even think of touching my baby again. But he’d gone too far with this. To him, his car was replaceable and fixable and a mode of transport. To me, it was all I had to show for myself, and I didn’t have the money to get the materials to fix it. To me, it was the last bit of what I had once been. And now it was dead.

With shaking hands and still seeing red, I leaned into the open doorway trying to ignore the way the door now hung loose. Come morning it would be reported by the neighbours, a report would be filed about damaged property and it would be scrapped. I had to salvage what was left. Peering around I amended my thoughts, I had to salvage what little was left intact.

Through the darkness, my hand found the busted glove compartment and the wreckage of its inside. No photograph. Of course they had taken it, or torn it up or laughed at how delusional Butch was. Thinking he had a chance with Jane Hathaway when everyone knew she belonged to David. Everything else was gone too, pieces of the blanket I had slept under so many times lying everywhere.

I should go back to bed. I should go back inside before someone saw me and put two and two together. Just the thought, though, of David’s hands holding that picture of Jane, smiling because he had something else over me, laughing because his cronies had completed their tasks, was enough to have me lashing out. I thumped the steel of what was once my car. I pounded the metal until my hands bled and I wasn’t sure if I was crying or shouting.

Either way, I was drawing too much attention to myself. I had to be gone and I had to be gone now. Porch lights were turning on and blinds were being pulled back. Taking a quick, painful glance over at Jane’s house, I turned and ran down the street. I couldn’t face being confined in four walls just yet. I couldn’t sleep when I had so much anger thrumming through me.

The image of David with Jane’s photograph would stay with me until morning. And, come morning Jane would be wondering why my car was in ruins in front of her house and then why I wasn’t waiting for Helen’s boyfriend to take us to school and finally why David Armstrong had a picture of her tattoo. A secret of hers he had no right to know.

If it wasn’t for her, I would have given up and headed straight for the local coach centre, waiting until the next coach to anywhere came. But if I left Jane would be alone with that wolf breathing down her neck, another thing to hold over her pretty head. I loved her too much to leave her like that, not with her mother and her scared eyes and now Armstrong.

Ploughing through the deserted, dark streets of Florence, I walked until the sun came up and I realised I was still too angry to go to school. I didn’t want to risk killing that piece of shit in broad daylight in the middle of calculus. I was holding on to my scholarship, my sanity, by a thin piece of thread and I couldn’t risk that.

When I doubled back to Jane’s street I found my car had already been towed and everybody had already left for school. It’s just one day, I repeated to myself like a mantra, she’ll be okay for just one day. Hating the idea of leaving her totally unprotected after everything Armstrong had done and shown he was capable of, I sent Max a text on my breaking mobile.

‘Look after her today for me, please. I have a bad feeling he’ll try something and I can’t make it in. If he steps out of line just once call me and I’ll be there.’

A few minutes later, I got a reply which gave me enough confidence to wander into the house I was sleeping in, head upstairs and drop on the bed like a stone, only just realising my clothes were still on the floor and I was still half naked. Too angry to focus and too tired to care, I closed my eyes, remembering Max’s words and hoping that they were true.

‘She’ll be safe with us Fraser.’