On Sunday morning I was outside Jessie’s building at 8am sharp. The sun was shining down on me from a clear blue sky, no wind to speak of at all. It was going to be a perfect autumn morning.
Jessie came out of the building looking even brighter than the morning sunshine, her short bobbed hair was tied back in a cute little pony, exposing that sensuous neck of hers. She had on a pair of white framed sunglasses, a wide necked pink T-shirt and white shorts with white tennis shoes and thick pink socks pushed down to her ankles (the way we wore them in those days). She looked gorgeous and the scratch mark from her fight with Sally had all but vanished. My facial bruising was still pretty visible, but with my own dark sunglasses and baseball cap casting a deep shadow over my face I felt presentable enough. At least the swelling around my face had mostly reduced.
“Well now, don’t you look fabulous.” I said, giving her my coolest cool dude look, cigarette drooping from the corner of my mouth, eyes poking through the top of my sunglasses like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.
“You’re looking pretty hot yourself, Mr Peterson.” She shot back at me, taking the smoke from my lips and giving me a gentle kiss as she folded her free hand into mine.
“I missed you last night.” I said, truthfully. “For some reason I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She smiled and gave me back my cigarette after taking a drag. We started walking, hand in hand along the frontline. In the parking lot beachgoers were unloading umbrellas, cooler boxes and folding chairs from their cars, everything needed to set up their encampments on the sand. Children were dashing around excitedly, waving buckets and spades. It was going to be a glorious Sunday on the beach.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Let’s go to the amusements.” she said. “I wanna play some games.”
The amusement park was on the northern part of the frontline about a kilometre from our block. It was in front of all the hotels and was our city’s main tourist attraction. They had all sorts of rides, including a roller coaster and other contraptions that were designed to make you feel like puking.
“As long as we don’t have to ride on that swing boat thing I’m OK with it.” I said, remembering the last time I went on that particular ride. It was a curved boat with bench seats and it would swing to and fro, reaching an arc of what felt like almost 270 degrees when you were sitting in the back row. I had gone on it with some friends when it first came out and it terrified me.
“Are you chicken?” she said, grinning. “Now we have to ride it!”
“No. Frikking. Ways.” I said. “I’ll happily be called a chicken before I get on that thing again. Besides, my Doctor said after concussion I can’t do anything like that. It’s against the law.”
“What law?”
“The law of not freaking out Danny.”
She laughed and we crossed the road, taking the seaside path north, the same route we had walked back on the night that we’d had the first incident at Harlequins.
“How is your head doing?” she asked.
“Feels fine, but I do sense some heaviness if I roll my eyes.”
“Best you don’t roll your eyes at me then.”
“I’d never do that. I saw what you did to that bouncer. And to Micky. Hell, I’d sooner get on the bloody swinging boat before I got on your wrong side.” I said.
“You’re a sharp study.” she quipped, laughing.
This was going to be a special relationship, for sure. We were on our very first real date.
At the amusement park I got a whole bag of tokens to put in the machines and we walked around looking for a suitable game to play together. We eventually settled on a two player driving game. I found out that she was pretty good at it, eclipsing my scores on every round. She had a giggle that was infectious and I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than her little nuances. She made me feel different inside. I eventually gave up trying to drive the silly little digital car around its maze and just watched the side of her face as she played the game, marvelling at her beauty. I noticed little freckles on the nape of her neck, soft downy hair near the base of her ears, the slender perfectly shaped fingernails she had.
All I wanted to do was kiss her deeply, the way lovers kiss, but the stitches in my lip were a problem. I caressed her neck and she stopped playing, looking at me instead of the screen. She smiled and leaned closer, her beautiful face filling my field of view, hazel eyes shining brightly, locking with mine. Her lips parted slightly as they moved closer to mine, landing the gentlest of kisses perfectly on my mouth. Her hand was on my shoulder now, drawing me nearer and deeper into her presence. At that moment time stood still for me. This was her. This was the girl. My forever girl.
She smiled and said “Looks like you’ve killed my car, Danny Peterson. Sneaky move, dude. But I still beat your score. Look.” she pointed at the scoreline on the screen.
“Some losses we’re happy to take.” I replied.
We walked around the arcade for a few hours, our hands seldom not linked. We played air hockey and I wasted half the bag of tokens trying to win her a fluffy toy from one of those crane rig machines (definitely rigged!) before we decided to head outside and get some lunch.
There was a burger restaurant just outside the amusement park and next to the aquarium, overlooking the crowded sidewalk. We walked in, our hands still entwined and sat down across from each other in a booth that faced the ocean. We could see people walking along the promenade below us, enjoying the Sunday sunshine. Everything was right in my world in that moment.
An Indian waiter came to our booth and placed menus on the table, asking us if we wanted something to drink before ordering food. I couldn’t take my eyes off Jessie, both our hands still connected across the table. She looked up at the waiter and said she would have a Coke, then she looked at me and said “ I think they serve beer here, Dan. You want a beer? Are you allowed to have beer after a concussion?”
“I’m already quite drunk just looking at you.” I said, sounding super corny.
She smiled and tilted her head slightly. “Aw, you’re so sweet. But what do you want to drink? Really?”
“Ah, ok, Dan strikes out. I’ll just have a Coke too, thanks.” I said to the waiter, who was looking slightly bemused. I was still wearing my sunglasses indoors to avoid freaking people out with my facial bruises. He turned on his heels, coins jangling in the pocket of his white waiter’s coat.
“Nice that they serve beer here on a Sunday.” I said. “In the army we’d have to travel to the next town to get a beer on a Sunday and then they’d look at you like you’d asked for explosives and a detonator.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Conservative Afrikaner values, I guess. They’d all be in church on a Sunday and expected that everyone else should be too.”
“What’s your take on church?” she asked. “I’ve never been to church.”
“My parents never went to church either, so the first time I got a taste of it was when I went to the army.”
“What’s it like?”
“Well, it’s different depending on what denomination you belong to. In Christianity there are so many different kinds of churches. The Catholics believe one thing and the Protestants believe another thing, but they all believe in the same God. It’s all very confusing, to be honest. I never really got to understand much of it.”
“But do you believe in God?”
“I do.” I said, “But it’s difficult for me to explain how. I’ve just always kind of known that this life isn’t all that there is. We will pass into another plane of existence when we die. I just know it.”
“Have you ever had any spiritual experiences that would cause you to reinforce that belief?”
“Nah, not really. You?” I asked.
“I dunno, I think I might have once when I was in high school, but it was just so weird, you know, like a vibe that came over me.”
She looked down at the table for a second, thinking about what she was going to say next, then she looked back at me, released my hands and steepled her fingers together under her chin.
“There was this girl in school who died while we were having a PE lesson. She just kind of collapsed and left this world. The teachers were trying to resuscitate her with mouth to mouth and all that, but she was gone. The other girls were all crying and freaking out, but I just felt this wonderful sense of calm, peace, you know. Everyone thought I was weird because I wasn’t crying. I was sad for her family, but I dunno, I just felt like it was all part of a bigger plan and that she was being comforted by something, or someone we couldn’t see.”
“Wow, that’s heavy.” I said. There was a pause before she spoke again.
“Ya, I suppose it was pretty heavy. Sorry for being a downer.”
Jessie dipped her head and I could tell that she thought maybe this was too deep a conversation to have on what was supposed to be a light hearted time together.
She reached for my hands across the table again, just as the waiter returned with our Cokes. Neither of us had looked at the menu yet and he stood there, his little red order notebook open, ready for us to provide instructions.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“Geez, sorry we haven’t decided. What do you feel like, Jess?” I asked, shortening her name affectionately for the first time.
“I’ll have a cheese burger and chips, please.” she said, looking up at the waiter.
“Me too.” I said.
He nodded, wrote the order onto his pad and spun off towards the kitchen again, leaving us to resume our heavy conversation.
“I have no doubt that there are things at play around us that we can’t see.” I said. “I also think that it’s important to talk about these things with other people and not have them feel like you are a kook, so please, don’t ever feel like I wouldn’t want to hear your thoughts on stuff like this.” I considered adding something funny but realised that it wouldn’t be appropriate given how she had opened up to me in this way.
“I feel comfortable talking to you, Dan.” she eventually said. “You seem to have a calm nature that is quite… reassuring.”
I smiled and squeezed her hands. She smiled back at me, her dimples and eyes alive with something I had never seen her show before.
Our conversation meandered back and forth. We spoke about high school stuff, I told her about my two years in the army and how I had surprised myself by going through the year long officer’s training course. She thought it was pretty important that I had shown that initiative and stuck with it. I wondered what she would say if she saw me in my officer’s uniform.
The burgers arrived in woven grass baskets, serviettes tucked under a sheet of wax wrap that the food was placed on.
“I didn’t think this through properly.” I said, realising that opening my mouth wide enough to munch down on a burger wasn’t possible with my lip stitches. “I’m going to have to eat it with a knife and fork. Don’t laugh!”
Jessie let out a robust snort and put both hands to her mouth.
“Oh you poor thing!” She said, trying not to laugh.
“Gotta say, it’s not my finest bit of planning.”
This really cracked her up for some reason. I looked at the burger intently and pretending to speak into a walkie talkie said “Ok lads, we need to break down the enemy into smaller bits. Divide and conquer!” This put her on her side in the booth, laughing like she’d been watching the funniest skit ever. At least I knew that if I couldn’t win her over with my physicality I had at least a good chance with humour.
Sitting across from her, watching her eat a burger was one of the warmest moments of my life. I was in awe of her beauty. She had a way of looking at me that made me feel like I was the only man in the world. Nothing else mattered right then. Not the pain of my injuries, not the dull ache in my head, not even the thought of going back to work.
After we’d eaten I paid for lunch and we started a slow walk back south, hand in hand, heart in heart. We were about halfway back to my place when I felt her tense up.
“Whats wrong?” I asked.
“Just keep walking.” she said quietly. “Micky is sitting over there on the grass with that bitch from Harlequins.”
It was impossible for them to not see us, since they were on a grassy bank above where we were walking.
“So what?” I said. You’re done with him, right?”
“Yes, but he is stilled pissed off about getting hit in the head with that glass. I heard that he wanted to press charges against me.”
“He wouldn’t dare.”
“You don’t know him that well, Danny. He’s got a mean streak in him and if he sees us together he might just do something stupid. He’s thick and twisted enough to try and hurt you some way to get back at me.”
“He’s not a threat to me.” I assured her.
“But he moves with some people who might be. One of the guys who was always around his flat was so dodgy, honestly, I think he might have even been involved with their father over in the UK.”
“Really?” I pondered this for a minute and thought about the ramifications. If Micky was vindictive enough to have somebody come after me, why was he sitting here with another girl we all knew had come between him and Jessie? Was he that soft in the head?
We walked past them and I heard him call out.
“Oi, Jessie. Need t’ has a word wit you”.
Jessie didn’t stop walking and didn’t let go of my hand either. But I did stop. In a split second I made a decision to nip this in the bud.
“I’m going to sort this out.” I said in as firm a voice as I could muster without scaring her. I was an officer in the military and I had seen some nasty shit go down in places where you had to be quick and decisive. If I didn’t deal with this now it would fester and get worse. I let go of Jessie’s hand and walked with purpose towards where Micky and Sally were sitting.
He started to stand up, but I said “Just sit where you are. I’m going to be the one talking and you’re going to be the one listening, Micky.”
I’m 6 feet tall and although not the heaviest guy around, my height can be intimidating to shorter people. Most of the time. This time it seemed to be working. I stood right above Micky and then crouched down to his level, one leg in front, one behind for extra stability, like I was surfing a wave. I took off my sunglasses so he could see the wild colours of my battle bruises squinting menacingly at him. I loomed in closer, grabbing his shoulder with my left hand. He tried to shrug it off, but my grip was too strong and his eyes widened as I drew closer to his face. If he knew anything about street fighting he’d have been able to knock me off my feet easily, but this was a tactic – to assess just how he would react to my aggression. If he remained passive I had him covered. If he was going to retaliate this would be his chance. He didn’t.
“Listen, you’re never going to be taking to Jessie again, Micky. Those days are over, okay? She’s done with you and you’re not ever going to fuck with me and get away with it again, hear?”
There was silence. I tightened my grip on his shoulder, pushing down firmly. Sally rose to her knees and I pointed my other hand in her direction, acknowledging her presence.
“Hey,” she said. “Leave him alone!”
“I see you there, Sally. Don’t get any ideas. This conversation is almost over. Sit your arse down before you make things worse and I am forced to hit this little man. I have more than enough reasons to.” She sat back down on the grass, her eyes wider than before and her glossy lips parted in dismay.
“Do you understand me, Micky? You don’t talk to Jessie, you don’t even look in her direction. If you do you and me are going to get close again, but you won’t like it because I don’t fight fair and you and your arsehole bouncer friends at Harlequins will get double what I owe you. I know it was you who got them to put me in the hospital last week. You won’t get as far as the hospital, bud, because you won’t see me coming when I come for you.”
“I just wanted to apologise to her. I don’t want any shite. Honest.” He looked up at me, his eyes looked frightened. He wasn’t expecting this confrontation and it was clear that he didn’t know what to do right then.
“Your apologies are not wanted, Micky. You don’t go anywhere near Jessie from now on. You don’t know what I used to do in the army, bud… and you don’t want to find out either. Trust me.”
“Are you threatening me now?” he said, trying to assert himself a little.
“You catch on quick. This ends here now, Micky? Don’t make it worse by trying to be a hot shot.”
He looked at me, then he looked at where Jessie was. She’d remained flat footed on the foot path where I left her. I could sense that I had won this ante. He was about to fold. He looked down at his feet.
“Alright, Dan. Don’t stress, mate, I’ll stay clear of Jessie.”
“Glad you understand. And I’m not your mate.”
I stood up and walked back to Jessie, my heart beating like a thousand drums.
Jessie had a look of disbelief on her face as I took her hand and led her away.
“My God, you’re shaking.” she said. “What did you say to him?”
“Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to be bothering you again. And I’m sorry if I seemed aggro, but these situations don’t resolve themselves. Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns.”
“Wow, I don’t know, Danny. I told you he’s troublesome. Oh God, I hope this isn’t going to make it all worse.” she said, her voice trembling a little.
“Hey, don’t cry, Jess.” I said, seeing her bottom lip begin to curl in anticipation of tears. “I just told him that if he wanted to talk to you he had to talk to me first, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. ‘kay?”
She didn’t look convinced, so I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to me. She put an arm around my waist and we walked like that all the way back to my flat.
My mind was still doing cartwheels over the confrontation with Micky. I’m not normally like that and I had never been aggressive to anyone in my life before. This was an anomaly but something in me untied itself in that moment. For so many years I had watched Micky McGee tramp all over the hearts of young ladies who fell for his charms. Now that Jessie was free of him there was no way I would ever let him back into her life again. No way.
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