Chapter 23 — Muscle and Blood

Things moved quickly with Robin and me, perhaps a little too quickly. He asked me if he could come over and make me dinner then he’d always ask to stay for the night.

“I’ll just sleep on the couch,” he promised, but then he always seemed to wake up in my bed.

And he always carried a bible with him wherever he went. He told me stories about his life and that when he was young his parents kicked him out of the house and he got into parties and drugs, until, he would say, “Jesus Christ came into my life.”

My dad had no problem with Robin and me living together. At least he never told me he did. I know that Betty didn’t seem to mind, seeing that he was a body builder and all. Besides, he promised my dad he would do all of the cleaning and laundry when I was away at the station or in one of my classes. Not to mention he’d always be there so I didn’t have to go out walking alone. Of course, at the time, he wasn’t working, but every now and then he’d do some odd jobs and make a few bucks so it wouldn’t be like he was mooching off me.

So we stayed there in Anaheim for a while until the shit hit the fan with Pastor Phil. He had a problem with me working at Gay Radio.

“You do realize that homosexuality is a sin,” he would tell me, then let me know that if I really wanted to be “set free” I would leave the station.

But there were other sins going on right under his nose that he didn’t seem to have much of a problem with. There was drinking and drugs and under-age girls having sex right there in the houses he rented. Of course most of the people who lived there were really trying to follow the Lord, but it wasn’t too long before the city of Anaheim “had their fill” of Pastor Phil. The following year, the group dispersed with branches springing up all the way from El Cajon to Visalia. I also was growing tired of living in Anaheim and so one day I called up my dad and told him that I wanted to move.

“Shit, Pam, you must think I’m a real estate agent or something!”

“No, but you do love me!” I said in a voice that I always used when I was trying to charm him.

“All right then. Where is it that you want to live?” He finally conceded.

“Brea sounds nice.”

“It’s also expensive!” he said, sounding more like a conservator and less like a father.

“You will if you love me,” I pleaded.

“All right then. I’ll find you something in Brea. Geesh!” He let out a breath then he hung up the phone.

And soon, before the end of the summer, Robin and I were living in Brea.

In many ways, Brea reminded me of Yorba Linda, only much more developed. From State College to Brea Blvd. then from Lambert to Imperial Highway it was shopping malls, restaurants, and movie theaters—in other words Irvine without all the yuppies. We lived right in the middle of everything in the Town and Country apartment complex. Across the street was Bobby McGee’s, where I used to go dancing and the 24 Hour Fitness where we went to work out every day. The day after we moved in, I paid for both of our memberships and Robin spent most of his time over there when I was at school or working at the radio station. When I got home, he’d have dinner waiting for me, some kind of Mexican dish that his mother would make, it wasn’t that great, but I ate it with him and then we’d both take a shower—usually together—watch some TV then go to bed. For my birthday that year, he bought me a ring—some little number he got from a parking lot vendor—it wasn’t that much, but it showed me he cared.

“Someday I’m going to ask you to marry me,” he promised as he slid the gilded brass band down on my finger, “then it will be all diamonds and gold.”

But within a few weeks, the gold started coming off on my finger leaving behind a dull green halo, then the bloom started coming off of the rose altogether. For one, he didn’t like me working so much. And since he didn’t drive, my agent Jeff had to come out each day and give me a ride to the station, and that soon began to rile him up.

“But Jeff’s engaged to be married!” I told him.

“Yeah, but he’s still a guy,” he reminded me.

“So what are you saying? All guys are cheaters?”

He said nothing, just stormed out of the room.

“I’ll be at the gym,” he said as the door closed behind him.

He also didn’t like me working at Gay Radio either. After all, “How do I know they’re gay and wouldn’t just ‘ungay’ themselves if the moment arose.”

“Seriously, that’s the most stupid fucking thing I ever heard in my life!” I said as I threw up my hands and walked out the door.

Then I started noticing some of my things turning up missing. Like some of the jewelry my mother had left me and a few of the signed CDs I got when there was a promotion at KROQ. But every time I’d confront him, he’d just deny it.

“You must have misplaced them,” he’d tell me. “And besides, I’m a Christian. Doesn’t the bible tell us not to steal?”

“It also tells us not to have sex before marriage, but that doesn’t seem to bother you much.”

“Well, we’re gonna be married someday,” he’d assure me, “so, in the eyes of God you’re technically already my wife.”

Then there was the time I got to the station and both Chris and Harry noticed the bruises on both of my arms. I didn’t tell him that the night before Robin grabbed me and held me down when I wanted to go outside for a walk. I could tell that evening that he had been drinking and was probably on something as well.

“Girlfriend, you need to get out of there!” Chris warned me. “Things are never going to get any better.”

“But he says that he loves me,” I told him.

“Love doesn’t leave these kinds of marks!” Harry said lifting up both of my arms.

The following week it all hit the fan. Not only were more of my CDs missing, but a birthstone necklace and few gold bracelets. When he got back from one of his workouts, I confronted him when he walked in through the door.

“So what are you doing with all of my shit?” I demanded.

“What shit?” he objected.

“Don’t play fucking dumb with me, Robin! I know that you’ve been stealing my shit then probably selling it to buy drugs!”

“But Pam,” he objected, “as a Christian…”

“Christian my ass!” I screamed cutting him off. “Take all your shit and get out of my house!”

He ended up not leaving that night but begged me to let him sleep on my patio until he asked his parents if he could move home. Then a few days later I came back home and found him in the living room watching TV.

“So when are you leaving?” I asked him. “Weren’t you supposed to talk to your parents?”

“Look, Pam, I’m sorry. You know that I love you,” He pleaded. “I promise I’ll change.”

“I hope that you do,” I calmly assured him, “but it won’t be while you’re living with me. I’m going out for a walk, and when I get back you had better be gone.”

I opened the door, took a right, and walked down the hall and pressed the “down” button on the elevator door. The next thing I knew I could see this ominous shadow approaching as the floor thundered under his feet. I hit the button again, and again, and again and again—nothing.

“Help! Help!” I banged on the door until two strong calloused hands started closing around my throat.

“How dare you! You fucking bitch!” he snarled; his face twisted into that of a monster straight out of one of those horror movies I watched with my dad when I was still little. “I should just kill you right now!”

Then he heard some sort of noise that caused him to briefly let go of my neck, then the large metal door slid open behind me and I fell back into its waiting arms and pressed number one. The door seemed to take forever to close as my heart felt like it would soon burst out of my chest. Slowly, I watched the narrowing crevice of light disappear closing off the flood of rage that began to wash up against it.

“Fuck!” I heard him screaming as he frantically beat on the walls, then I heard the slamming of a large metal door and the pounding of stairs, like Hannibal’s army descending the Alps. When the door finally opened, I ran outside and hurried out through the gate, breathing and gasping, screaming for somebody to help. The light outside made it hard to see so I held out my hands to feel my way along the edge of the building then braced myself for the stairs that I knew were just up ahead. Four, three, two, one… suddenly I was out on the sidewalk in front of the complex, when the space under one of my feet made me turn back around as I heard a car blasting its horn. I started running down Brea Blvd. through a sea of faces that sounded like soldiers but were dressed like men sweeping the ground before them in loafers and flip-flops, khaki pants and worn-out Chuck Taylors.

“Help! Help!” I cried to anyone or no one at all.

I got to a parking lot where I remembered stores were, a nail salon, and a dental office. I tried to get to one of the doors when I felt a pair of strong sweaty arms grabbing me from behind.

“Going somewhere?” He growled in a voice that was less of a man and more like a monster. I tried to scream but no sound came out. He clamped one of his hands over my mouth so I couldn’t scream anymore. I began to shake my head back and forth but the more that I moved, the tighter he held me. In a moment of terror, I finally bit him.

“You bitch!” he screamed. He threw me down on to the ground and stepped on one of my legs. Pain shot through my leg like a bolt of lightning then out through my body. But before I could scream, he twisted my arm behind my back, pinning me down to the ground. Then maybe he heard somebody coming, or maybe it was a vision from God, but I saw him look up for a second as his dark eyes briefly met mine. He let out a grunt that turned into a roar as he ripped off my fanny pack then ran out across Brea Blvd., horns blasting and tires screeching till he disappeared over the street. Then there were sirens wailing like banshees, men dressed in white, and a cold steel prick in one of my veins. At some time I may have passed out, because I woke up in the ER at Anaheim Memorial. The same place I ended up when I’d been shot. Only this time, it was a broken leg and a few fractured ribs concealed behind a bag of morphine that hung on a stand over my bed.

“What, what happened?” I said to a man dressed in blue who stood at the side of my bed.

“We got him,” he told me. “Nailed his ass.”

Then one of his partners who was standing behind him filled in all the rest of the details.

“Dumb ass ran right behind the Mortuary. We found him trying to bury your purse.”

“You mean my fanny pack,” I corrected.

“Yeah, whatever it was,” he said, then continued. “He got up and tried resisting arrest. That was when we tased the shit out of him. I mean really tased the shit out of him!”

“So where is he now?” I asked him.

The other cop, the first one, the older of the two, told me that he they took him to jail, before the younger one spoke up again.

“We let the guards know why he was in there,” He said, then he started to chuckle. “I’m sure that he’s having a real fun time.”

He continued to snicker to himself for a while, until the other cop finally shot him a look.

“You get well now, young lady,” The older one said then he paused for a second. “And next time make sure that you choose someone better.”

The day they released me was six years to the day when my mother had died. My father had Betty stay at my place to look after me while my leg healed up, then a few days later he knocked on the door.

“Daddy, what is it?” I asked when I answered.

“It’s David, he said. “He passed away last night in his sleep.”

The following week, after Thanksgiving, they laid him to rest beside my mom. Ever since my mother had died, I found out that he was drinking again and all that he talked about was how much he missed Ginny and how hard it was for him to go on without her.

“Well at least now they’re finally together.” I heard my dad say to one of his kids as if he ultimately came to the realization that David was the only man who had been able to do something he couldn’t.