Six Shooter

My name is Erik Armstrong. Her name was Natasha Alvarez.

It was a long story, but it certainly had its romantic points. She was the first girl I ever fell for. We became friends, me secretly having a crush on her so strong it could take grease off a driveway. I asked her out. She said no; there were some obstacles. We kept trying, and overcame them. We went out for two years, and didn’t so much break up as just stop dating.

Of course, there were some elements of our relationship that that I can’t help laughing at, in hindsight. The obstacle I mentioned was Natasha’s self-proclaimed homosexuality. After six months of behavior on my part that was inappropriate at worst and pathetic at best, she gave me a kiss one night and told me she was willing to give boys a try. I don’t know how I managed to pull that off—I’ve never heard of someone actually changing sexual orientation (well, except in the movies), especially not for someone as lackluster as me.

Anyway, we were officially boyfriend/girlfriend by the end of senior year. We did the long distance thing until Christmas of sophomore year. I would tell you about the ending, but there’s really not much to tell—there was no crying, no anger, no yelling. We both agreed to be friends, and that was the end of it.

Sadly, the whole “friends” thing never really panned out. Tash’s grandma went senile around about that time, so her family moved across town to a house with an in-law suite. Rather than head out with them, Tash moved to an apartment near campus in Cincinnati, putting most of the state of Ohio between her and me. I’d made that trip for a girlfriend, but neither of us expected me to make it for “just friends.”

Tash didn’t come home that summer—I suppose she didn’t really have a home left to come back to—so we lost touch.

In hindsight, our loss of contact makes me a little sad. I hardly minded at the time; I had a new girl, a trim 19-year-old named Michelle who had been something less than crestfallen when I’d come back from Christmas Break and told her Natasha and I had split. Funny thing, that. I couldn’t get a girl to look at me during high school, but I was single for barely a month in my first two years of college.

As for Michelle, she was energetic, creative, and positively fetching. She was a year younger than me, but having a freshman girlfriend was in vogue with my circle of friends at the time—Michelle’s best friend was dating my roommate, and we had many a pleasurable evening on pseudo-double-dates around campus (and one real double-date, to the Chinese restaurant in town). As fun as those times were, Michelle and I both knew that our relationship wasn’t built to last. She had just dumped a guy in November, and we were a couple by late January. Both of us were comfortable with one another, and neither of us wanted to be single just then, so we rebounded into each other’s arms. I can say that loved Natasha once; though I cared deeply for Michelle (and still do), I never really loved her, and I believe the feelings were mutual.

My sophomore year ended. I went back to Ohio and she went back to New Jersey, and we called it quits. The summer between sophomore and junior year was the first time since high school I’d been completely unattached. Truth told, I kind of enjoyed it. Being single is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

That summer went along more or less uneventfully. You know—stupid guy stuff. There was booze and girls—a couple of the guys had turned 21, so now alcohol was even easier to obtain—but I only had a few glasses of the former and just the occasional sip of the latter. I never laid eyes on any, but I understand there was a small amount of cocaine and a slightly larger amount of ecstasy being passed around—square that I am, I wasn’t particularly upset about being denied the opportunity to partake.

Then, in late August, a week before the summer finally burnt itself out, a routine trip to the mall brought the summer’s carefree ease to a screeching halt.

My buddy Kurtis was a mall crawler. I went with him when I had nothing better to do. This time it was my turn to drive. The old hatchback escort (with the rear hatch scavenged from a Tracer. The car was affectionately referred to as “The Eracer.”) had met with a rather spectacular death some time ago, when a crack in the engine block had spread until the block was practically in two pieces. Now I was driving an eight-year-old Taurus with decidedly less character than my previous vehicle. Anyway, I had to stop for gas on my way home.

“Sheesh. $2.57 for Regular.” I grumbled. Unlike the late Eracer, the Contour’s air conditioner was still functional—the August heat hit me like a fist as I exited the vehicle. Kurtis wisely decided to wait in the car.

I pumped my gas, only to discover that I had forgotten to swipe my card before pumping, meaning I couldn’t pay at the pump. This meant I had to go inside to pay. I’ve always hated the hassle of paying inside, and the heat of the day hadn’t made me any more favorably disposed to wasting more time. When I got inside, there was a line. Great. At least the place was air conditioned.

Being the twenty-year-old male that I was, my eyes wandered to the plastic-wrapped porno mags behind the cashier. I don’t think anyone was looking at my face, so the security camera was the only one to see my eyes nearly bulge out of my skull.

Something I forgot to mention about Natasha was that she was drop-dead gorgeous. Deep brown eyes, long, dark hair, perfect skin, and a figure to die for. In high school, my friends had disagreed, saying that, while she was by no means ugly, she wasn’t as beautiful as I made her out to be (truth told, even I thought she probably should have had braces when she was a kid. Not that I’d tell her that). Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought that she could be a cover girl. She was grinning off the cover of some bottom-shelf rag I’d never heard of, with a blonde cheerleader type behind her. The arms were the only thing covering that wonderful skin of hers. The headline read “Girls of Sin-cinnati.”

My initial reaction was surprise. When I got to the register, I paid for my gas and a copy of the rag. I’d never bought a dirty magazine before—I was afraid of what the other people in the store would think, and besides, a girlfriend or at the very least an Internet connection could be had for free. I suppose this was a good time to break that taboo, since didn’t give two shits about what anyone thought of me just then. This was important, dammit!

Now that I think about it, Kurtis must have been a bit surprised when I came out of the gas station pawing frantically through a dirty magazine, getting more and more upset with each page.

*

I knocked three times on Anthony’s door. He opened it and I shoved the magazine in his face.

“Uh, hi, Erik.” he said, taken aback. Anthony Thompson had been my friend since eight grade, and my best friend since tenth. I could think of nowhere better to go after showing Kurtis the magazine cover and dropping him off (I’d also checked out the full pictorial, and there was no doubt in my mind that this was Natasha. I wasn’t about to show that much to Kurtis). I’d also tried calling Tash, but her number had been disconnected.

“The brunette looks familiar to you?” I asked. It had been long enough now that the surprise had worn off. Some grotesque hybrid of jealousy and rage had risen up to replace it.

Anthony took the magazine and examined it. “Holy hell, that’s not—“

“Sure as hell looks like her!” I said, practically yelling.

“Hey, easy now.” said Anthony. Come on in, we’ll talk about this.”

Anthony was an oddball if ever there was one. In high school, he’d been one of the kids teachers hate—brainpower to spare for any task he might attempt, but not enough of an attention span to actually finish anything. At this point in his life, he had shoulder-length black hair, a goatee of the same color, and a tendency to wear black bowling shirts and a fedora. Apparently, he’d started playing in a ska band at college, hence the look.

We sat at his cluttered kitchen table—Anthony and his mom were the tiny bungalow’s only inhabitants, and his mom worked a fifty-hour week. She wouldn’t be home for hours. Anthony had the rag on the table in front of him.

“You cut me off, Erik. Yeah, she looks like Natasha,” he said, pointing to the brunette, “but she looks familiar, too.” He pointed to the blonde.

“Now that you mention it, she does.” I had been so worked up about Natasha, I hadn’t given the other girl a second thought. “Shit, where is she from?”

“Well, if we both recognize her, we must both have seen her. And the only time I remember meeting any of her friends from Cincy was when you and I picked up her up that one time.” said Anthony.

Of course! Natasha’s friend Tracy dropped her off in the city on her way through. I was going to pick her up from there, but I’d had a break failure the day before, landing my car in the shop. Anthony had come to the rescue and driven me out and brought her back. Tracy had waited to make sure Tash made the transfer without incident, and Anthony and I had been briefly introduced before we went our separate ways.

Upon this realization, I slammed my fist into the table hard enough that an empty cup on the other end fell over and rolled off the edge, bouncing on the faded linoleum.

“What?” asked Anthony.

“Look—“ my voice cracked and I started over. “Look at the pictorial.”

Anthony leafed through the rag until he found it. He survey the first few pictures. They were enough.

“Erik, there are some things you need to remember. These were taken after you two broke up. It’s not like she cheated on you. And she was completely open about her…preferences.”

“Anthony.” I said, the will of God Himself the only thing keeping my voice steady. “Imagine how you would feel if Cathleen did a photo shoot of some guy fucking her brains out. This is worse.”

Anthony said nothing. He and Cathleen Schafer had dated through most of high school. They went through periods of “on” and “get the hell out of my life, you controlling bitch!” and were currently in a stage of the latter.

“Okay, point taken. So, your ex-girlfriend is featured in a pictorial of her having lesbian sex with one of her ‘friends.’ [Anthony made the quotation marks clear when he said the word.] Now, what are you going to do?”

“I tried calling her already. Her cell number’s changed. I can’t Instant Message her—she told me awhile ago that her apartment doesn’t have an Internet connection. But she gave me her street address awhile ago. So, I’m going to Cincinnati.”

Anthony sighed. “I thought you might say that. When?”

“Tomorrow.” It was a Thursday; I’d leave after work the next day.

“I’m going with you.”

I glared at him. “Why?”

“Because you don’t want to go alone, but you’re too polite to ask me to come. Besides, there’s nothing more important keeping me here.”

“Thanks, man.” I said.

*

I took a half day on Friday. Anthony and I were on the road by one. My uncle had lived in Cincinnati twenty years earlier. I’d asked him long the ride was, and been told to expect four hours.

Anthony made small talk on the way up, trying to calm me down. Most of it wasn’t worth repeating here. About two hours in, he said something that nearly made me swerve into the next lane.

“So…Cathleen and I have been talking again.” he said.

“Mm-hm.” I kept my eyes on the road. This was far from a unique occurrence.

“She, uh. She’s pregnant.” Right about then is when I nearly swerved.

“Holy shit, man! Is it yours?”

“I…I don’t know. She says there was some other guy she slept with right after we broke up. She’s not sure which of us is the father.”

“Damn it, Anthony! I thought you were smarter than that!”

Apparently it wasn’t the answer he’d expected. “Hey, she told me she was on the pill! How was I supposed to know?”

“You’re supposed to bag it up, man. Every time, pill or not. It keeps shit like this from happening.”

Anthony was silent for almost a minute. My eyes were on the road, but I could almost hear the wheels in his head turning. When he finally did speak, it was in a soft voice, barely above a whisper.

“I think I get it now.” he said.

“Get what?” I knew damn well, and even if my words didn’t say so, my tone did.

“Why we’re on this odyssey. Why you’re so worked up.”

I sighed. “Why’s that?”

“She was your first. The one who helped you ditch the Big V.”

There was a time when such a blatant inquiry into my sex life would have made me not just uncomfortable but flat out angry. Coming from Anthony, someone who knew better, it hurt even more. But he was mad. I knew that if I let the situation elevate any further, nothing good could come of it. I managed to keep my head.

“That doesn’t matter either way. You know me, how jealous I can get. We’d be on this trip whether I fucked her in every hole she’s got or if I’d never even touched her.”

“Then why are we doing this?” Anthony pressed. “Why is this so important that you feel a need to spend eight hours on the road just to talk to her?”

“Honor.” I said.

“Yeah. Honor. I knew that much. But whose honor is it, hers or yours?”

I didn’t answer.

*

Natasha’s apartment building was typical off-campus housing—adequate, but by no means extravagant. She lived on the third floor; my watch read 5:12 when I rang the doorbell. The rag was rolled up in my back pocket, tucked under my shirt. Anthony stood behind me, looking very ska in his fedora. After a moment, the door opened.

“Erik?” said a familiar voice. Natasha was there, wearing shorts and a big sweatshirt. The sweatshirt struck me as strange—the building wasn’t air-conditioned, and it had to be nearly ninety degrees in the room.

“Hey, Natasha. I tried calling ahead, but your number didn’t work.” I said.

“Yeah…I had to cancel service to make ends meet. Poor college student, you know. Uh, come in, both of you.”

Anthony tipped his hat in greeting, and went inside. There was a common room and two doors in the wall—a bedroom and bathroom, I presumed. The place was a mess, but it wasn’t as if she’d had advance notice to tidy up. Anthony and I sat on a futon and she pulled up a chair around a cluttered coffee table in the common room. As we passed the kitchenette, I noticed a greeting card on the refrigerator that simply read “1 Year!”

“So, Erik, Anthony.” she said. “What bring you here?”

There was a moment of silence as Anthony and I each waited to see if the other would speak first. When he didn’t, I assumed he wanted me to.

“Well, I was wondering how you were holding up down here, and I couldn’t reach you by phone or IM, so I said, what the hell, why not go for a visit?”

She looked (understandably) confused. “I’m fine, Erik.”

“Yeah, I figured as much. See, I got a little worried when I saw this.”

What I’d meant to do was to toss the rag onto the coffee table so it faced her. I pulled it off, but the table was so cluttered that I knocked a clamshell sunglasses case off the table. It landed at Anthony’s feet. Natasha looked down, her eyes frantic.

“I’ll get that.” Anthony said, quietly picking up the case.

“See,” I said, “it looks like maybe things aren’t going so—“ I started to say.

“Uh, Erik.” said Anthony. I glared at him and immediately saw what demanded my attention.

The case, meant for sunglasses, was currently the abode of two syringes. One was empty.

I stared incredulously at the dope, then at Natasha. Her eyes were welling up with tears. That sight always wrecked me.

A about a million miles behind me, I heard a key slide into a lock and the front door come open.

“Hey, babe.” a female voice said, sounding distracted. There was the sound of some plastic bags being set down, then a moment’s hesitation. “Natasha, who are these guys?”

I didn’t need to turn around to guess the color of her hair.

*

Looking back on that moment, I suppose my actions were more or less justified. I just can’t believe it was me who did it. Dramatic confrontation is really more of Anthony’s thing.

“So this is how it is, huh?” I yelled, rising to my feet. “You two girlfriends fuck each other real pretty so the boys at the porno mags will pony up enough cash for a fix! Is that it?”

“You fucking prick!” yelled Tracy, stalking towards me. “Who the fuck are you to come in here and tell us how to live?” She pulled back her hand to hit me, but Anthony grabbed her wrist.

“No violence tonight, Honey.” he said.

“My God! You fucking pricks are all the same!” she screamed, trying to pull free. “You only came up here because you found out your ex left you for another woman!”

“I came up here.” I said, lowering my voice. “because the girl I knew wouldn’t sink so low that she was exposing herself in a dirty magazine. I cam down here to see what the hell had happened. And I fucking found out!”

“Get the hell out.” said a small voice behind me. I realized it was Natasha, forcing back her tears. “I didn’t ask you to come here, and I sure as hell don’t need you to protect me. Now get the hell out.”

“Natasha, you’re in over your head.” I said.

“Fuck you, Erik.” she said softly, her voice trembling. “I chose this.” She was suddenly yelling. “I chose this! You don’t have to like it, but I chose this and it’s my fucking life!”

Two years we’d gone out, and I’d never heard her say “fuck” before. Maybe that’s what did it. I’d liked this girl for a good seven years, and I’ve never laid a had on her except when she wanted me to. I guess that’s why she didn’t see it coming. I reached over the coffee table and grabbed her left arm. Across the room, Tracy swore at me and started beating at Anthony, trying to get free. He grabbed her other wrist and crossed his legs just in time to block the knee she’d aimed at his groin. I pulled up Natasha’s sleeve and grabbed her wrist. She thumped me in the back her right arm, but I saw all I needed to on the left. I let her go.

“Fresh tracks.” I said, shaking my head. “Anthony! Let’s get out of here!”

Anthony pushed Tracy onto the couch.

“You fuckers! I’ll call the fucking cops, I swear!” she screamed.

I stopped at the door. “Natasha, I used to love you. But the girl I loved is dead. You murdered her.”

I slammed the door shut. I’m nothing if not dramatic.

*

On the drive home, I blasted the radio. I figured the day had had its share of sex and drugs, so it was only fair that Rock ‘n’ Roll should get some time. After an hour or so, the CD ended and Anthony spoke.

“You did the right thing.” he said.

“Yeah, I know. It just doesn’t feel like it.” I replied. “It feels like I stabbed the only girl I’ve ever loved straight in the back.”

“Well, yeah. You kinda did. But I think the monkey she had there ended up taking most of the blow.”

I switched the silent stereo to FM radio. “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” was playing. I switched the radio back off.

After we’d left Natasha’s (it appeared to be Tracy’s place, as well), we’d sat in the parking lot and dialed 911 from my cell phone. If I could have gotten her some other kind of intervention, I would have, but I didn’t posses the time or resources for anything else. We drove off after seeing a trio of cops enter the building.

The thing that bugged me most about the whole affair came after the initial shock, as I realized how long these events had been in the making. For starters, there was the “1 YEAR” card on the fridge—undoubtedly an anniversary card. Natasha had played me, and I had never caught on.

Well, it’s not like I was a saint in that department. After Michelle had dumped her previous boyfriend, she’d come to me looking for comfort. Don’t misunderstand me, there was no sex or anything, but I think things went far enough to count as cheating. Of course, knowing that Natasha was probably fucking the brains out of her cute little blonde that night made me feel a letter better about it in hindsight.

The big thing was how I had never seen any of this coming. The entire drive home, I was thinking to myself, You don’t start shooting up. It takes time to work up to heroin, let alone to getting to the point where you inject it.

I found out later that it had been a party during freshman orientation that had gotten her started. Somebody had offered her an Oxycontin, and she took it—she had no friends within a hundred miles, and just wanted to fit in. The following summer, she’d told me that she was working two jobs. Turns out it was an excuse—she just needed a way to explain why she was always too tired to want to do anything with me most nights. The truth was that she was snorting heroine by then; she did it at night, after her parents had gone to sleep.

Back in that car, I knew that whatever we’d had was gone forever. She’d probably hate me for the rest of her life. I gave a deep sigh.

“Man, when did life get so complicated?” I asked Anthony.

“Hell if I know.” he said.

*

I got home around midnight. I wasn’t physically tired, but I was emotionally drained from the events of the day. I climbed the stairs to my room and gave my Away Message a cursory glance before climbing into bed.

1 Message from EternallyCurious at 11:37 PM

Michell. I opened the window.

EternallyCurious: How was Cincinnati?
FireAt32: Complicated.
FireAt32 is away at 12:11 AM.