Torture to Her Soul

  I cut my eyes at her. "See what?"

  "Your passport."

  I hesitate, but figure there's no harm in letting her look. Anything she'd learn from it are just things I'd tell her if she asked, anyway. I hold it out, and she takes it, setting her espresso down.

  I continue to sip my drink.

  She flips the passport open and immediately bursts into laughter, the sound washing through me, easing some of the tension in my muscles. I know exactly what she's laughing at before she even says anything. "Michele? Your middle name is Michele?"

  She pronounces it like most Americans, feminine and soft, her laughter escalating as she repeats it again and again. Michele.

  "It's not Mah-shell," I say, correcting her. How many times did I say these words growing up? "It's Me-kale-ah. It's the Italian form of Michael."

  "Are you Italian?"

  "Clearly."

  "No, I mean, are you a citizen like my, uh... Johnny? I figure you have to be, with a name like yours, but you have an American passport, so…"

  "Oh, no," I say. "New Yorker, born and bred."

  "So your parents just like, uh… traditional names?" she asks, tripping over the word traditional as she fights to keep her humor at bay. "Names like Michele?"

  She laughs again, louder this time, as she intentionally mispronounces my middle name. Reaching over, I grab the passport to snatch it back but she grips it tightly, fighting for control. "No, wait, I'm not done."

  Yanking from my grasp, she shifts her body so it's out of my reach. Shaking my head, I relax back into the chair, giving up. I don't have it in me to be annoyed, or angry, even as she snickers to herself. It takes a brave soul to mock me. She knows who I am, and what I'm capable of, but she's not afraid of my reaction.

  Deep down, she's not afraid of me.

  She's forgetting again, I think. Forgetting she's supposed to hate me. Forgetting what sort of monster I can be.

  I can't be upset in the slightest over that.

  It makes me smile, even if it's at my own expense.

  "No, really, why the hardcore Italian name?"

  "You'd have to ask my parents," I say. "I had nothing to do with it."

  "What are their names?"

  "My father's name is Giuseppe."

  "And your mother?"

  I hesitate, knowing she's going to laugh again, but I can feel her gaze as she awaits my response. I finish my espresso in silence as the dealer who always handles my car steps out into the lobby, his gaze scanning the area before settling on me.

  "It's Michelle," I say, pronouncing it the feminine way. "Her name is Michelle."

  Standing up, I throw my cup in the trash when Karissa snorts with laughter, just like I knew she would. My name might be the Italian equivalent of Michael, entirely masculine, but it's undeniable—I was named after my mother. She laughs long and hard as I step toward her, carefully leaning down, my hands on the arms of her chair on both sides of her. She looks at me, a hitch in her laughter as she inhales sharply.

  I inch toward her, slowly, my expression dead serious.

  "Laugh it up," I say, staring her in the eyes, the tip of my nose brushing hers as I move toward her ear, whispering, "we'll see how funny you find my name the next time I make you scream it."

  Her eyes widen, her amusement quickly fading, a flush creeping up on her cheeks. I pull away from her, turning to the dealer. He grins at me—another fake, forced smile that I always get around this place, as he holds out some paperwork, including the bill, and my spare key.

  "I ordered a replacement key, but it won't be in for a week or so," he says. "The one you have here will still work fine. I remotely deactivated the key that was stolen, so it can no longer start the car. It can, however, unlock the doors and the trunk, but in that case the alarm will sound, and nothing short of you cutting it off with your key will stop it. We can make an appointment to have the manual locks changed, if you'd like."

  "I'll think about it," I say, nodding as I turn from him. "Thanks."

  I start back toward Karissa when the dealer calls out to me. "Uh, Mr. Vitale, about the damage. The, uh… bullet holes."

  Karissa's eyes drift to me when he says that. I turn away from her again to look at the man. "What about them?"

  "Would you like us to fix it?" he asks. "There's no interior damage, of course, since it's an S-Guard… and thank God for that, right? But the body shop can take care of the cosmetic damage."

  "Maybe some other time."

  I head over to the main desk and pay the bill, pulling the cash straight from my pocket, mourning the loss of my wallet, before heading back to Karissa. Wordlessly, I motion for her to follow me, and the two of us head out of the dealership to where my car's parked near the garage service doors. I open the passenger side for her, and she pauses, regarding me warily. I can see the curiosity in her eyes, and I have all the answers in the world, but she never asks the right questions.

  Without commenting, she slips into the passenger side, letting me shut the door. I climb behind the wheel and start the car, merging into Manhattan traffic right away.

  She sits in the cool leather seat, still holding onto my passport. She opens it again as I drive, scanning through the pages, a contemplative look on her face. "No Italy."

  "Excuse me?"

  She holds up the passport. "There are no stamps from Italy in here."

  "Oh, yeah, they never bother to stamp it."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know." I've never given it much thought, always grateful to be waved straight through whenever I've landed in Rome. "Why does it matter?"

  "Because you told me you've been to Italy."

  I turn to her as I pull up at a red light, surprised by her accusatory tone. "I have."

  She looks torn as to whether or not to believe me, and I realize then why it matters so much. She's still looking for a reason to doubt me, looking for justification to hate me, grasping any smidgen of skepticism that comes along to try to convince herself that she shouldn't love me.

  She doesn't want to love me.

  I don't blame her.

  But the fact remains that she does.

  She loves me.

  And she probably hates that fact more than she hates me most days.

  I look away from her when the light turns green. She seems to, for the moment, decide to believe what I'm saying. She glances back at the passport, scanning over the few stamps I've collected before closing it.

  She tosses it in the center console and slouches in her seat, shifting her body so she can lean against the door and stare out the window. "Do your parents still live in New York?"

  "Yes."

  "Here in the city?"

  "Yes."

  "And you don't see them?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  I sigh as I pull up at yet another red light. Traffic is heavy today. It's going to take a while to get back to Brooklyn at this rate. I'm exhausted, and nauseated, and my body is really starting to ache.

  I cut my eyes at her, seeing her inquisitive look. "You sure you're not writing a book about my life?"

  She rolls her eyes. "I'm just trying to figure out who you are."

  "You know who I am."

  "No, I don't." Her voice has a hard edge to it, a slight hint of anger that makes my skin prickle. "You're like a caricature to me, Naz… you're an outline of a man, a vague sketch of a person, and I'm just trying to fill in the rest of the picture, add some color between all these black lines, and I don't know how to do that, how to figure out who you really are, without prying it out of you."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Everything," she says. "I want to know everything about you. And I know you told me the answers might not be pretty, but I don't care. If we're going to have any chance in hell of doing whatever it is we're doing, of actually building something together, I'm going to have to understand what makes the answers so ugly in the first place."

  I consider that for a moment,
sitting in silence as I stare through the windshield at the bright red light, waiting for it to change. Once it turns green, I make an unexpected turn, cutting in front of other cars, ignoring the blare of their horns, as I hook a left down a nearby street.

  It veers us away from Brooklyn when I take yet another left, setting us back in the direction we just came.

  "Are you hungry?" I ask, glancing at Karissa.

  She stares at me with disbelief. I can see the fury brewing in her eyes, anger at being disregarded, at having her questions ignored. Any walls I busted down are already being reconstructed, her guard going back up, her armor coming on.

  I'm grateful for it, for the moment.

  She's probably going to need it.

  "You haven't eaten yet today," I say when she doesn't answer.

  "Yeah, well, you haven't eaten in like a week."

  She's exaggerating, but that doesn't matter, considering I have no intention of eating today, either.

  "You must be hungry," I say. "Let's get you something."

  She merely shakes her head as she looks back away. I don't talk anymore as I drive north through Manhattan. I sneak glances at the other side of the car whenever traffic stops us, seeing her expression hardening, the anger still there, growing along with her confusion.

  She wants so badly to ask where we're going, to demand I tell her where I'm taking her right now.

  The deli is in a faded brick building in Hell's Kitchen, wedged between a butcher shop and a little corner grocer, tucked in below a bunch of cluttered old apartments. Metal bars needlessly cover most of the tinted glass windows, a green awning running the length of the building above them, Italian Delicatessen written in block letters along the brick. The actual name of the place isn't on it anymore, hasn't been for decades although the spot it used to hang up top, front and center, is still discolored compared to the area around it.

  It doesn't matter, though, not really.

  Name or no name, the deli's iconic.

  People drive in from upstate for one of their sandwiches, for just a taste of their fresh mozzarella, for a pound of their smoked ham. They can move it to a fucking alley and sell it out of the back of a truck and people will still make the trip.

  Everyone thinks it's a sign of the owner's modesty, that he never gave a shit about recognition, that he never bothered to have the sign replaced after renovations years ago. The food's what matters, he tells people when they ask. Who cares what you call it as long as you come eat.

  But I know it's not humility. It's regret.

  He just doesn't care for the name anymore.

  I park the car in the closest spot I can find, just down the street, and feed some change into the meter when I get out. Karissa sits in the car while I do it, like she doesn't plan to come with me, but after a moment she gets out, her expression unchanged.

  "We don't have to be here if you don't want to be," I say. "I'll take you home right now."

  Part of me hopes she'll agree to that.

  I've endured enough shit this week to go through this on top of it.

  But no such luck.

  "No, we're already here," she says, waving all around her. She has no idea where here is. "We might as well stay."

  "If you're certain."

  "I am."

  I wish like hell I was.

  Pressing my hand to her back, I lead her down the street, slowing as I approach the familiar deli. My eyes studiously scan the outside, instinctively searching for anything that changed since I was last around, finding it just as I remember. I reach for the door, tugging it open, the obnoxious bell on top of it jingling as I motion for Karissa to go inside.

  It grates on my nerves.

  The inside is unassuming—checkered floor, a dozen wooden tables, dim lighting and tall, winding counters. Glass cases take up half the front beside the register, filled with meats and cheese, a cluttered handwritten menu board hanging above it all.

  A young guy tends to the lone register, helping those waiting in line, while a man steadily cuts meat a few feet to the side, his back to the customers. He's sturdy, six-feet of solid mass covered in leathery skin, his dark chaotic mess of hair flecked with quite a bit gray.

  He moves fluidly, despite his age.

  Cool.

  Confident.

  He owns the place.

  He whistles loudly as he works, like an oversize dwarf right out of Snow White, the off-key tune the only noise in the place above the chatter. There are no televisions, no music, no Wi-Fi.

  Just a man whistling Johnnie Ray's 'Just Walking in the Rain'.

  I haven't heard the song in ages…

  Karissa strolls through the deli, taking the place at the back of the line. I join her, wordlessly waiting, the sound of the casual whistling clawing at me. Every second that passes makes my knees weaker, my vision hazier, my head a throbbing mass of pain.

  I'm sweating.

  Aching.

  I shove my hands in my pockets.

  This was a bad idea.

  A fucking terrible idea.

  Neither of us talks during the wait. She reads the menu, scanning the dozens of options as we slowly, steadily move closer to the front.

  It only takes a few minutes.

  Everyone's cleared out ahead of us, only two or three waiting behind us. The guy working the register looks up. He can't be much older than Karissa, and he seems to only have eyes for her. He grins the kind of grin that says he'd like to take her to dinner then have her for dessert afterward, as he says enthusiastically, "what can I do you for?"

  I want to reach across the counter and grab him by the throat, rip his fucking voice box out for even talking to her.

  In another place, I might.

  At another time, I probably would.

  I would gut the boy for having the balls to even think about flirting with her.

  But in my state, the pesky little punk could probably take me out.

  Pathetic.

  Karissa returns his smile before glancing my way, expecting me to answer that question. I stare at the guy working, watching his expression change when he takes note of mine, and clear my throat when I turn to Karissa.

  I wipe the sweat from my brow. Here goes nothing. "Order whatever you'd like, sweetheart."

  The words aren't even entirely from my lips when silence falls over the deli, the meat slicer pausing mid-stroke, the whistling halting in the middle of a note. I can feel the abrupt shift in the air, coldness sweeping through, like the sun vanished behind some thick clouds, blanketing the world in the kind of shadows where men like me live.

  I shiver.

  I can feel eyes on me. I don't move from where I'm standing, merely shifting my gaze down the counter. Lips that whistled so exuberantly a second ago are now pressed into a thin line of contempt, like the man's forcing them together to keep from saying something.

  His back's no longer to me.

  I can only imagine what he's thinking. His eyes are harsh and critical, the recognition running deep but none of it is sentimental.

  Karissa obliviously starts ordering—an Italian sub special for her—before she addresses me. "Naz, what are you getting?"

  "Nothing," I say, staring at the man a moment longer before turning to the guy at the register. "Nothing for me, so just her Italian."

  He rings it up and I quickly pay, not waiting for my change. I just slap a twenty down on the counter before turning my back and shuffling away, slipping into the chair at an empty table in the middle of the deli. Karissa joins me, not saying anything, until her sub is ready and it's set in front of her on the table.

  Her gaze bounces between the food and me with confusion. "You didn't want anything?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" she asks, taking a bite of her sub, practically moaning as she chews. "Jesus, it's really good."

  I believe her.

  The food here always is.

  But I can't eat right now and certainly not at this place.

&nb
sp; "You know how you think I'm paranoid for believing people might try to poison me?"

  "I wouldn't really say you're paranoid," she says, "but yeah..."

  "Well if anyone were to ever actually do it, I'd put my money on him."

  I motion with my head toward the counter. Her eyes widen, her gaze shifting from me to her food again with a hint of panic. She suddenly looks sick.

  "Relax," I say, letting out a light laugh at her strong reaction. "Your food's fine. He wouldn't mess with it."

  "How do you know?"

  "He has no reason to," I say. "You haven't insulted him."

  "And you have?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  I stare at her, considering how to answer. "By existing, mostly."

  She nods and goes back to eating, as if she understands, when she doesn't. Not really. Not yet, anyway. But she will, just as soon as the man starts unraveling, the shock of my appearance wearing off and undoing his carefully constructed happy-go-lucky, whistle-while-you-work façade.

  Most people overlook men like me, or see us as a necessary evil, staying out of our way to keep from crossing our paths, but he's too strong willed, too wound tight with a misguided sense of righteousness, the stick up his ass hitting way too deep for him to just keep his mouth shut and mind his own business.

  Coming here was definitely a bad idea.

  I know better than to do it.

  But Karissa wants to know things… things just telling her won't make her understand. I can shout that the sky is blue all afternoon but until you look at it yourself, you'll never understand what shade. It could be deep royal blue or a faintly tinted white.

  And when it comes to this man's feelings toward me, it's as dark as midnight.

  The whistling never starts up again, but there's more noise now, things rattling and drawers banging. It reminds me of Karissa trying to cook in the kitchen.

  Karissa's food is nearly gone when I hear the voice ring through the deli, his words polite, but his tone is always brash, like just the sound of it can rub a person raw, grate the skin right from their body and expose them to the bone. This is nothing new—he greets customers every day, every chance he gets, making sure the food is good and they like being here.

  Our table is in the center of it all, but he does a wide circle around it, saving us for last. Karissa watches the man curiously as others smile whenever he smiles, laughing along with him. His humor can be infectious with the right crowd, but I'm not his target audience.