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  “Your skin is so perfect.”

  I chuckle, “Thank you. Yours is pretty paintable, too.”

  “Are you a painter?”

  “No, but if I were, I’d start with your face.”

  She flickers, glances to the stroller and back to me. She has the strangest effect on me. “I have to go.”

  “Okay,” I frown, chewing my lip as I stare at the sidewalk. Never one for subtlety I decide to go for it. “Where’d you get that bruise?”

  Her jaw slackens. She reaches for the stroller’s handle, knuckles whitening. “What bruise?”

  “The one on your—”

  “I don’t have any bruises.”

  “Then why are you wearing a long-sleeved shirt on an eighty-degree day?”

  Stacy’s breath catches and she starts walking. “I have to go. You’re very strange. Don’t follow me again.” Her baby starts gurgling like she woke up. I never got a look at the child—didn’t seem right to take a peek while I was walking on eggshells.

  “See, that’s how to do it.”

  She looks over her shoulder, frowning.

  “Telling me off with that finality, that’s how you handle strangers.” Stammering, I add, “Not that I’m a stranger. You said I was. But I’m not. I’m a good guy. I’m just…quirky…to most people, that’s all. But you know what? Someday, to someone I won’t be. They’ll get it.”

  She blinks, shakes her head and keeps on her path. I sigh as I drag my hair back, look back to Allen who looks tiny from here. But God bless the guy for waiting for me.

  I jog back. “Hey.”

  “Tonk, can I tell you a secret?”

  “Sure. I’m always an open door. If you have anything you need to get off your chest, please come to me first.”

  He stares at me a beat. “You fascinate me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  We walk to the park, silent and lost in our own worlds. She impacted me upon first meeting. Doesn’t matter anyway, she’s taken. And has a child with the guy. Flirting with her was destined to lead nowhere.

  Let it go.

  Chapter 3

  TONK JR.

  Taking a seat at my local coffee shop I greet my sister, “Celia, listen, I have a question for you. One that’s up your alley.”

  There’s surprise in her voice as she asks, “Oh yeah? That’s great! I’d love to help. What’s going on?”

  Wincing at the heat as I sip, I hear a game playing in the background with Luke, Diesel, and Atlas shouting. “It’s mid-April, how are they watching a football game?”

  She flatly answers, “Recorded.”

  I can easily picture them on that old sofa, the brothers with their long, dark hair bouncing as they fly up, impassioned about the success of some strategic play. Diesel shouting from where he sits because he always stays put. “The elders on a mission? I don’t hear Dad’s voice, or Honey Badger’s or Jett’s.” Fuse is probably off with Melody, they sneak off for alone time early most nights.

  “Yeah. They left today.”

  “You sound mad at me.” Pausing I realize what’s wrong. “I’ve been out of touch with you guys, haven’t I?”

  She sighs, “I wasn’t going to say anything—”

  “I can tell, Ceels.”

  “—because I was just happy you finally fucking called. But yeah, you’ve been off the radar for months.”

  A couple in their mid-twenties is arguing at a corner table over something wrong in their relationship. Can’t help but be distracted by it since I’m constantly conducting a study of people.

  The argument is hushed but their body language says the relationship is over and it wasn’t her decision. His eyes are dead and he’s faced away except for his upper chest and an elbow that’s on the table between them. She’s leaned over the salt-and-pepper shakers. If the table weren’t between them she’d be on her knees begging for another chance.

  My goal is to be a family and marriage therapist so every cell inside of me is urging, go help them work it out.

  I pull my focus back to answer my sister, my voice becoming deeper since that visual is disturbing and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Yet.

  “This is been a real exploration of manhood for me, Celia. I was stifled at the plantation, you know that. This is enabling me to—”

  “I know. It’s just, even though we weren’t close, I was used to having you around. It’s weird to pass by your old room and know that you’re not in there with your nose stuffed in some book I’d never understand.” She pauses and adds with a laugh, “Or would want to understand. Anyway, forget it. I just miss you is all. So what did you call about?”

  Inhaling her kindness with a deep, surprised breath, I close my eyes. “I miss you, too. I need to do this. I know that. But I miss you, too.” We sit on the phone in silence until Atlas starts swearing at the screen and Celia and I laugh at his breaking the sentimental moment. “Listen, I saw this bruise hidden on a girls arm. She seemed guilty about it, ashamed, definitely secretive. If I discovered that she was being abused, let’s say. And it’s possible that she isn’t. She may have…I don’t know.” I rub my face to force my interest away from the couple once more. Their debate is escalating. “My instincts are telling me that something bad is happening to her.”

  I hear her open the refrigerator, the old hum so familiar I’d know it anywhere. “Look at you! You might be joining the Ciphers after all, huh?”

  A smirk tugs as I pick at my cup. “You know that’s never going to happen. Fighting is not in my blood like it is in yours.” I pause, realizing I just hit a nerve due to Celia’s history. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  With gravity her volume lowers. “I know what you meant.”

  “Why won’t you give me one more chance?”

  Under my breath I tell Ceels, “Hang on.”

  The boyfriend speaks quietly, hoping in vain to contain this before it gets worse.

  Because it’s now silent in the shop, I can hear him. We all can.

  “Luisa, I just don’t feel the way I used to anymore. Don’t make a scene. Let’s just have a nice amicable breakup.”

  She picks up the salt shaker, uncaps it, pours it over his head. “Go to hell, Charley.” Snatching her bag off the chair she swings it over her shoulder and shouts to the café, “What are you all looking at? You never had your heart broken?” Tears hover in her eyes suddenly. Running for the exit, she stumbles. The door won’t open fast enough, fingers fumbling on the handle. It’s a push-exit door she pulls.

  I leap to help her, my phone spinning on the table. Pushing the door open I gently whisper, “Just move on. Better is waiting.” She blinks at me, unleashing a fat teardrop down her right cheek as she hurries into the worst morning, sunlight mocking her.

  The now-ex-boyfriend is glaring at me, and I flick him a glance.

  Sliding onto my chair I grab my phone and ask, “You there?”

  “Tonk, you may be more Cipher than you think.”

  “You heard that?”

  “I’m trained in surveillance, of course I heard that. I also heard that she didn’t thank you.”

  “You know that’s never the point.”

  “I know,” she laughs, “I was just testing you.”

  A proud grin flashes across my face and I glance over to see if he’s still watching me.

  He is.

  Muscles-wise, he is larger than I am. But his face isn’t too attractive. I’m mixed ethnicity and not bad on the eyes, and I just got too close to his walking, breathing rejection letter. He wanted to be the last word in that signature. Not because of ego, but because somewhere in there he still cares. It will be some time before he’ll be okay with any man coming near Luisa.

  “I really want to know what you think I should do about this girl I saw.”

  “She’s not going to tell you that someone is beating her up, if that’s what’s happening. You have to do what we do. Spy, watch, learn. Get
close to her. Earn her trust if you have the chance. Get a better read on her situation. You need to be sure before you take any action, that’s how we were trained.” She sighs, “I’m hoping you paid enough attention that if you come face-to-face with an abusive boyfriend, you don’t get hurt. The scariest situations are domestic violence because emotions are higher when the heart is involved. Money is one thing, like what we’re dealing with, with all of these fucking human trafficking monsters. But domestic violence can be even worse. The girl could turn on you, to protect her man.”

  An avalanche of tourists pours in. Turning away from the noise, I tell Celia, “There’s a baby, too. She has a child. And the way she talked about the father, I think he might be the one.”

  “Watch yourself, little brother. If you need us, we’re there.”

  “Love you, Ceels.”

  “I love you, too.”

  The phone goes dead and I slide it into my slacks while walking my empty cup to the trashcan. A self-protective pull in my chest urges me to look at that guy.

  I don’t want to fight him, but I’m getting the feeling he’s itching to show me who’s the bigger man. I never align myself with that primal impulse.

  Can I really say never?

  No, it’s more accurate to state that I fight it. My family doesn’t know it’s a choice I’ve made because it doesn’t feel good to be angry. I’ve always been the scholastic type, introverted, practically hermit-like.

  But as with any man, there is a beast waking up at the idea that I’m about to be pummeled. Back home, the Ciphers let their dogs loose as a lifestyle, and for a living, to save people. But to me it just never felt right to fight.

  I feel we shouldn’t need to anymore. There are so many ways to communicate, why not use those? And we’ve more access to information than every before. Why not educate ourselves and overcome our differences in other ways that are more effective? Everybody’s got something unique to offer, but people forget that. There’s absolutely nothing better about that person or this person or that person or this person and that goes on and on and on. No one is on a tier except for the classism we subjugate ourselves to as a society. We do that. We also accept that.

  I realized right before I left the plantation to come up north and go to real school for once in my life, that I have the ability and the inclination to help people. Like that doe-eyed, pillowy-armed, beauty I saw again yesterday afternoon. I said hello and she smiled, yet kept walking, head hung and body posture determined to be anything else but visible.

  It’s a conundrum.

  What should I do?

  Take a stand or take a knee.

  As the bright sun hits my face I’m so in my head over these thoughts that I’ve forgotten I need to watch my back.

  “Hey fuckhead!”

  It also doesn’t occur to me to stop walking.

  “Hey fuckhead!” he repeats, angrier.

  I turn my head, pause, and frown. “Yes?”

  “You think you’re some kind of chivalrous asshole, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think chivalrous and asshole make sense together in a sentence. Unless you’re talking about two different people and I am only one.”

  His head jogs back on his neck. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No,” I answer honestly, shifting to face him. “It would never occur to me to poke fun at someone who has been through what you just have.”

  He’s confused even more and sputters, “What the fuck??!”

  The expletive is anger unreleased with nowhere to go. Once our blood is pumping it takes a powerful person to change course. The synapses in our brains have become altered. The caveman inside believes he must protect his home. Actions must be quick. Thinking, a luxury. But thinking is exactly why we have survived.

  I maintain a soothing tone. “When you are breaking up with someone, it’s almost as painful as being broken up with. I commend you for doing it in person, and I understand your feelings are pretty raw. To make matters worse, I helped her when it was you who normally would’ve assisted, but how can you help somebody get over you? You can’t. You’d just fan hope’s cruel flame. Any other day prior to this and it would’ve been your hand to open that door. That gave me the appearance of a threat. I assure you I am not. I helped merely because she was embarrassed and hurting, and I have a sister. It occurred to me that if my sister had been hurting and fumbling in public, and someone hadn’t rushed forward to assist her, well… I don’t even like to imagine it. Your girlfriend clearly loves you. She’s about to have an enormously strenuous time getting over you. And that probably will leave you sleepless. I’m sorry for your loss. Both of you.”

  He blinks with an expression staring back that I have seen countless times while living among heathens with hearts of gold. I inspire confusion in most people. And there’s nothing I can do about that because this is who I am.

  But he heard me. I spoke not to his head but to his heart. It’s altered his voice’s texture. “I just didn’t think she was the one.” Glancing to the sidewalk he winces. “I love her, but I don’t love her enough.” Like it’s been haunting him, he rubs his face as he stares into a memory. “I was at a club with my buddies and there was this girl. I didn’t do anything.” He locks eyes with me, searching. “But I wanted to. I was this close, man. It scared me. I don’t want to be that guy. She deserves better.” Taking a step away from me he glances to a brownstone building next to us, where an old man sits like he was born on that stoop, a nub of a cigarette dangling from his lips. “I heard you say that to her, and it fucking pissed me off. I want to be a better man.”

  “You did the right thing when you could’ve done the wrong.”

  “But I almost—”

  “But you didn’t.”

  His muscles tighten as he nods. “Guess I shouldn’t focus on what I almost did.”

  “Doesn’t make sense to.”

  He dips his chin. “Yeah, I guess not. See you around.”

  I watch him walk up the tree-lined street for a good twenty seconds as I commit this to memory. I have a class I’m supposed to be at, but real life is the best training I could ask for. Professor Miller will forgive me my tardiness. I’m her best student. Plus, I made her cum pretty damn hard.

  “Hey kid.” I glance over to the old guy as he presses his ashes into the bottom step. “I wanna be you when I grow up.” He cackles his brains out, having the time of his life.

  Heading to class, I chuckle and shake my head, “And I want to be you when I grow up, sir.”

  Chapter 4

  TONK JR.

  “Tonk, just the roommate I’ve been looking for!” Daniel says while shoveling cereal in his mouth as I walk into a cloud that could get four people high. “Why is your rent check on the counter? I woke up and thought I was imagining things.”

  Setting my book bag on our small dining room table, I lift an eyebrow. “It’s May 1st. Put the pipe down for a while.”

  His laugh offers a fresh view of rainbow-colored, half-chewed Fruit Loops. “When was April? I mean, when did it end?”

  “Once a year since the beginning of—”

  “—Don’t mess with me, Tonk!”

  Laughing I tell him, “I’ve got some studying to do.”

  “It’s too sunny to do it on the fire escape, man.”

  “It’s never too sunny.” I snag my composition notebook from the coffee table, glance to his paused video game and head off.

  “I need some sex pointers, Tonk!”

  “You just have to want to learn. The rest is easy.” Pulling the old window up so I can squeeze under its chipped frame, I add with a grunt, “Men are too selfish, that’s the problem.”

  “I’m not selfish!”

  Holding it with a firm grip so it doesn’t slam onto my back, I ask, “What is your goal when you’re having sex?”

  Daniel looks at me like that’s the dumbest question he’s ever heard. “To cum!”

  “See what I mean? Selfish.” I duck
outside and stand up to stretch under a warm, bright sky with a view of green trees as far as my eye can see. We’re lucky to be facing Morningside Park. We could have had an apartment with skyscrapers all around us blocking out if it’s day or night.

  Coming from Louisiana, I’d have missed the wide open sky.

  I take a seat on a rickety wooden chair I found left on the sidewalk one day which I then carried up for this use, and for the millionth time over the course of the last weeks, Stacy appears in my mind. I haven’t been able to find her. We crossed paths on just two occasions and then she disappeared. There’s a gnawing sensation in my gut that won’t go away. It’s not just because I’m worried about her, and I am.

  Opening my notepad I scroll old notes of what I’ve been learning from real life, and begin to write today’s passage. I want to analyze what just happened, how I’d successfully stopped a fight outside my class, by talking it out over the misunderstanding of two friends who were screaming about which one liked some guy first.

  I’m writing so fast in cursive that my pen flies out of my hand and clatters through our rusty fire escape’s railing. I try to catch it but gravity is a worthy opponent. It flies to the sidewalk like it was dying to be free.

  The middle part in a female’s shiny hair is in my direct line of vision as I lean over and watch the stroller stop. Nimble fingers reach for my pen and lift it as her head rises with it. We lock eyes and my heart jumps.

  “Is this yours?”

  “It’s yours if you want it, Stacy.”

  She smiles, surprised to see me, too. “Do you always throw gifts at your recipients?”

  Leaning elbows on the fire escape I volley back, “Had to get your attention some way. You were about to pass by without saying hello.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “Weren’t looking hard enough.”

  One hand lands on her hip as she juts it, and she’s absolutely adorable. “I wasn't looking at all!”

  “I’m offended.” My eyebrows lift. “I wore this shirt just for you.”

  “You wore a simple blue buttonup shirt for me?”