Badger

Chapter 4

Chapter 4I don’t know what I’d expected would happen. That we’d wind up sitting on the ledge until the sun rose over the Charles River, Badger and I locked in deep and meaningful conversation? Some outlier fuckup bond cementing us as soul mates? In the end, the T had stopped running, so I walked to Kendall Square and withdrew the last of my savings at an ATM, flagged a cab to take me home to Jamaica Plain.

I stayed up the rest of the night typing angry poetry with my left hand, and though it wasn’t very good — the sort of woeful laments I’d penned after any number of Tori Amos benders when I was fifteen — it felt better than a shot of Nyquil. Being awake still held more appeal than the promise of artificial sleep, which couldn’t be discounted.

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but he hadn’t been it. It was my fault he’d disappointed me, not his. What was I smoking, that I’d wondered if he might just be in the market for the love of a good woman?

Yet I wanted to know more. I could admit I was still hung up on the Badger, despite his being an asshole. Despite him assaulting me.

But no way in hell was I going after him again.

˚ ° ˚On Thursday evenings, I always tried to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

I was ten months sober — if you don’t count the cough syrup — which is still a dangerous stage to be in. I attended a group that met in the basement of an ugly concrete church downtown, because that was where the really down-and-out people went. People who’d done some really f****d-up s**t that made my eight-Vicodin-a-day habit look like cutesy-poo chocoholism.

I didn’t mind sharing with these people, because here, in this group, I was the Amanda — the youngest and most together-seeming person in the room. Once a week, down in that basement, I was the rainbow among toadstools.

I arrived on time and took a seat on a cold metal folding chair at one end of the horseshoe, exchanging nervous smiles with familiar faces. There were about twenty of us this evening. The basement was chilly and the pipes rattled now and then, but the cinderblock walls were painted periwinkle blue, and something about that reminded me of my grade school, of possibility and potential. I sat up straighter when I was down there, proud to report I’d done my homework.

The meeting got underway, and just as Jimmy the recovering h****n addict was admitting to a recent temptation on the heels of a chaotic breakup, the door swung in with a creak.

My heart stopped.

No one did much aside from look annoyed that someone had come in late, because it wasn’t the Badger — not officially. No striped hoodie, no yellow bike, no Glock. But I knew that face now, better than just about anyone could claim to.

His gaze grabbed mine, and there it was — that magnet-feeling I’d thought I invented, so strong I was surprised my chair didn’t start moving, scraping across the linoleum, dragging me to him. He kept that tension strung between us for each step and second it took him to walk to an empty seat on the other side of the circle and plunk down next to Deb the former speedballer.

His stare told me he was here for me.

Then again, he sure did seem the type to have a d**g problem. Could have been an innocent coincidence. Maybe that stare was telling me, Well, look who it f*****g is. Fancy meeting you here.

“So I get home and she’s gone, all her stuff and some of mine.” Jimmy sighed, agitated. “And I want to use so bad . . . Then God intervenes, you know? ’Cause who do I get a call from but Andy.” He nudged his sponsor, sitting beside him. “And he said he got some feeling, like we gotta talk, and I think to myself, Jimmy, he’s right, you gotta talk. You gotta talk bad. This is a sign.” He stopped and looked around, letting the rest of us know it was time to nod sagely and feel grateful for our sobriety.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” said Mandy, the meeting’s leader. She turned to me next. “Would you like to share?”

I’d gotten pretty okay at this the past few months, but the Badger wasn’t normally in the room. But fine, whatever. Let him hear. He’d shot me in the leg and suggested I find the balls to toss myself into the Charles River — he couldn’t humble me much worse than he already had.

I cleared my throat, toying with the strap of my purse. “Hi, my name is Adrian.” I waved limply as everyone except the Badger chanted, “Hi, Adrian.”

“I’m ten months sober from Vicodin,” I went on. “It’s been hard, because I’m trying to find a job, and that’s really frustrating because I have a record, and I’m not sure how I’ll pay my October rent. I also got hit by a car on Friday.” I held up my cast. “And Tylenol sort of sucks, you know?”

A few people laughed, several smiled and nodded knowingly, and I relaxed a little.

“But I was good — when I got to the hospital I told them, ‘Don’t give me any narcotics.’ So life’s sort of shitty at the moment, but not as shitty as when I was using the pills, and at least I didn’t ask for a prescription. Um, thanks.”

“Thank you,” Mandy said, and moved on to the next person.

There were ten or more people between me and the Badger, and he stared at me for the entire fifteen minutes it took Mandy to reach his seat. It wasn’t a threatening look — not quite. But it was freaky-intense, and I didn’t like it one bit. I wondered if it was revenge for what he saw as my jerking him around on the bridge.

Finally, Mandy turned to the Badger. “Would you like to share?”

Though it wasn’t protocol, he stood, chair squeaking against the tile. “My name’s Ronaldo,” he said, and I’d never doubted someone’s name more thoroughly in my entire life.

“Hi, Ronaldo,” the circle chorused. Everyone but me.

“I used to be addicted to c***k, but now I’m not,” he said, speaking quickly and without much emotion. Not sarcastic — bored. “That’s it.” He sat, and Mandy thanked him.

I’d hated him a bit when he’d left me on that bridge, but right then I really hated him. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I’d grown fond and protective of my group, and I wanted to sock him in the nose for standing up and lying to them. I’m sure we addicts lie all the time to each other, but that was different. I think.

The final person shared, and Mandy told us to take five and grab a coffee or go up for a smoke before that evening’s speaker was due to start.

I really didn’t need a coffee — my blood was already boiling. Though the weird thing was, it felt good. I rarely let myself register intense emotions, and hating the Badger felt pretty amazing, almost like I was high. Inappropriate as that was, given the setting.

I shouldered my bag and got in line for the carafes, ignoring the Badger with all my might. I sensed him standing beside me as I stirred sugar into my coffee, tangible as a draft. I felt him behind me as I returned to my chair. I crossed my legs, having forgotten the welt on my thigh, and swore under my breath. The Badger sat next to me, leaning close, saying nothing.

After an excruciating minute’s silence, I cracked. “What?”

“Hiii, Adrian,” he mocked, a one-man NA circle. “Vicodin, huh?”

I raised my chin to glare at him. “So what? And like your name’s really Ronaldo. Like you were ever addicted to crack.”

He shrugged.

“Did you follow me down here?”

“Yup.”

Good God. How long had he tailed me? Had he simply spotted me coming out of Park Street Station, or was it more premeditated than that? Did this freak know where I lived? Too many questions, so I went with, “Why?”

“Why’d you pretend you were going to jump off a bridge?”

Sure, fine. We just wanted each other’s attention. “Well, congratulations,” I murmured. “You’re making me really uncomfortable. Are we even now?”

“We were even when I shot you. Now we’re just in the same room, having a coffee.”

I shook my head, flustered. His magnet was too close to mine. My needle spun madly, pointing nowhere.

His eyes were blue. Dark, lonely blue, like the Atlantic on a cloudy day. That night, with his trademarks gone, he could have been any guy in his late twenties, early thirties. Overdue for a shave, with short brown hair, spiky from the rain streaking the basement’s high half-windows. His T-shirt was still damp, dark along the shoulders.

The Badger set his coffee on the floor. “You got a pen?”

Leery, I dug in my purse and handed him a fine-tip Sharpie. I gasped as he grabbed my right forearm, tugging it across my body toward him. He pulled the cap off with his teeth and began writing on my cast.

“What are you doing?” I barely whispered it, though I ought to have made a scene. This room was one of few places where I might’ve felt able to, but I didn’t. And sure, in part because I wanted to know what he was writing. He finished and let my arm go. On my cast was scrawled an address in Somerville and a time — ten thirty.

He capped the pen. “If you want some of your questions answered. And bring cash.” He stood and tossed my Sharpie into my open purse, abandoned his coffee and headed for the door.

Once he’d disappeared, I stared at his black letters, no clue what to do. The meeting recommenced, and Tina shared a long story about getting sky-high and ruining her daughter’s wedding before finding a new sense of purpose rehabilitating greyhounds. I took in perhaps every fiftieth thought she shared, clapped with polite appreciation when she was done, shuffled out into the night amid a flurry of tired goodbyes.