What's the Front Hole Called

I think McKnight and his girlfriends were always going to be a problem eventually.

I had thought it myself before because of the kind of women McKnight dated. He was looking for someone who could bulldoze him before suffocating him under their boobs. Then, he'd get confused why they thought they could tell him what to do.

I also thought it because every time I mentioned a new girlfriend to Williams, she would grimace and cover her face briefly.

Of course my opinion of it was that McKnight and I were perfectly capable of getting ourselves into trouble and we did not need the help of his latest infatuation.

So, in a way, I was expecting Chelsea's arrival.

There was no last name given.

He introduced us standing in the hall outside of my door.

I leaned on the door jam and folded my arms across my chest.

"You're kidding. You're joking," I said.

"Jimmy's told me a lot about you," Chelsea said happily, popping her gum. She had a blonde perm. She was wearing a kind of crushed velvet velour mini skirt and a tube top. Her skin had a shimmer to it, like some kind of body glitter, and a chemical smell like spun sugar burned in a cotton candy machine. I could see her belly button was pierced because her midriff was bare.

"I would love to know what he's said. You wanna come in and talk about it? I assume we're not going to the show anymore," I said.

She looked confused. She frowned at me with her painted lips. "Why would you say something like that?"

I did not think I should be the one to explain to her you should not wear high heels and mini skirts to a punk show. Firstly, it is a punk show, and one may do as they wish. Secondly, even after a few years, I thought I was new to the scene and this wasn't the kind of call I should be making.

I stepped back and she flounced in. Her oversized purse thumped against her bare thigh.

"Can I use your bathroom?" she asked, walking towards it anyway.

I had a small flat.

I gestured to the bathroom door as she was slamming it. "Be my guest," I said, looking at McKnight for an explanation.

We'd been working together for nearly three years by that point. I knew McKnight very well. His telepathy didn't bother me. It was times like this I was even sort of glad he could read my mind.

He had the sense to look a little guilty. He popped his weight on his high top trainers while stepping in, his skinny arm flung back behind him to close the door. He shoved the other hand back through his casual dark hair. There was something about his teen heart throb face that always sort of annoyed me.

I didn't go to high school; I was home schooled at the kitchen nook on my parents' ranch. But, I knew, whatever people did to short pretty boys in public high school, they had definitely done that to McKnight.

Oh, he'd said he wanted me to meet Chelsea. We had made plans to go to this show months ago. It had seemed reasonable to me when he mentioned bringing her.

Now I knew it was not reasonable. It was not that she would not enjoy the Wrigleyville Bar Crawl or a music show at the Cubby. To me, her egregious crime was not being Gifted.

"Don't say anything," McKnight warned under his breath.

"As I live and breathe in my own home, McKnight, you brought one of them here," I said, choosing to be dramatic. I rolled my eyes and then I shook my hands out a few times, making the couch slide and McKnight trip in the high tops. "Let me just get all the telekinesis out of my system."

"Eat a bag of dicks."

Chelsea came out of the bathroom and McKnight and I both started coughing from the hair spray. I had been in the bathrooms of enough venues before that heavy hairspray and cocaine was not the worst thing ever, but I felt grim about this anyway.

"She doesn't know you're a telepathetic. I just think that's. Well, it's false pretense isn't it? Have you told her, you know, anything about the real you?" I asked when we'd left her at a table to go get drinks.

We were early. There were people up on the stage moving equipment around and there was a milling crowd. The venue had tables around the perimeter of the floor. The bar was starting to fill up. There was canned music playing over the speaker system in the rafters for now.

"This is the real me," McKnight shot back, holding his arms out about it. "I'm introducing ya'll, ain't I? Reckon that means I'm bein' all real about it. She ain't allowed to know about the Gift shit. I can't do much for that, can I?"

"I think it's fucked up and you know it so I guess that's all I had to say. Well, and what did she think about me?"

McKnight groaned and rolled his dark eyes. "You figure the sun comes up to hear you crow. She reckons you're full of yourself, like everyone else does!"

"Damnit."

I was drinking. McKnight was drinking. Chelsea was drinking too. But, this was one of those McKnight dates I was forced on. I was not pounding shots. I was not daring McKnight to knock me out or giggling about broken windows drunk. I had no intention of it.

McKnight and I would usually push up against the stage. I liked being slightly to the side so I could help any crowd surfers down and keep a modest eye on the mosh pit and people against the front barriers. I would jump in if someone needed help. I was tall and had come from working on a cow ranch.

Well, I also liked showing off. I would not miss out on an opportunity to be the hero!

McKnight liked being in the mosh pit getting bruised up and screaming. Maybe he was getting his revenge for being born so short. People often glanced him and underestimated him. I knew how hard McKnight could hit back.

I did not think Chelsea would prefer either of these vantage points.

Actually, as the music started up and the crowd and smoke thickened around us, I could see Chelsea start to realize she was out of place.

It was annoying. It was something about McKnight that could irritate me sometimes as well. How is it that someone is capable of reading every single thought you ever had, but they still can't foresee things that will upset you?

I went to check on her halfway through the set. McKnight was still in the crowd somewhere.

I sat down across from her. She was spinning a half empty beer bottle against the table top. The music pounded around us. People shoved passed and in front of the stage and bright flashing lights, the mass of writhing beating angry energy undulated and waved.The walls were dark and exposed and wires seem to hang and flick with the smoke. It was a loud, tight space.

"Hey, Chelsea. You okay?" I asked. I had to shout.

"Fine. Where's Jimmy?"

"Not sure. Probably in the middle of that," I said, nodding my head.

She shrugged and picked at her nails now. She had a long manicure. She tucked herself against a painted cinder block wall marked with sharpie graffiti.

"You want another drink?" I said, using my telekinesis to Reach the ashtray towards me.

I watched her eyes flick and narrow.

I shot my hand out to grab the glass with my fingers. My knee hit the underside of the table painfully. The beer bottles and napkin dispenser rattled from the shock.

"Fuck, sorry," I said. I felt a little embarrassed. Of course, blatant public display of our Gifts was not allowed. My Agency would reprimand me and my agent, in particular, would concoct some gruesome punishment or other. I didn't want to sit outside of Patel's office on what some had dubbed the principal bench. I definitely didn't want to get ankle monitors again.

Well, to be honest with you, I had enjoyed mail delivery. Being confined to office work and just delivering mail to departments in my Agency building had been fun. I had smoke breaks and paid lunch. There was a lot less running for our lives or getting shot at.

I found my cigarettes in McKnight's bag and offered her one. She shook her head.

I shrugged and lit my cigarette up.

"Not a big drinker. You want the rest?" she offered her beer.

I took it and swung it back quickly.

"Well, maybe you should have just told him you weren't into this," I said, gesturing with one hand. I blew the smoke away, half fanning it from her with my hand.

Chelsea glanced up. "It's our second date. I didn't know what this was to be into it or not."

I nodded. It felt like she was snapping at me and I was not sure why. It made me determined for some reason to win her over.

"Well the first must have been spectacular since he invited you out to do his favorite thing and meet me."

"We got on the Blue Line for Clark and Lake and his pager went off last date so I guess this is going better. Wasn't really hard to do."

"Yeah, well, the pager sucks," I said and now I knew what had happened.

We had made these plans months ago. McKnight wanted to see this band. He'd gone out with this girl. The date had gotten messed up. His next available date was the day of this show. He had mashed this together.

He was an idiot.

But, we did have a job that kept us traveling frequently. I understood in a way. McKnight had a lot of things to do. Hell, I had a hard time even hanging out with Williams with our schedules and lives and work and other friends in the way.

"So he wasn't lying? Work related?"

"What? Yeah. Of course. Why would he lie? What'd he tell you?" I said, feeling some concern I think. We could not tell her about our Gifts, but beyond that, I would not have called McKnight much of a liar. He was typically pretty honest and straight forward. If he lied about something, I would assume he had a good reason.

"Nothing much. You guys work together and find missing objects. Your agent is horrible. He got you shot once. You've been all over the country," Chelsea folded her arms against the sticky table top and leaned forward towards me. Her blonde hair foamed around her in tight blonde corkscrew curls.

I laughed. "He admitted he got me shot? Well fuck. He totally did. He knew that damn dog knew German too."

"How would he know that?"

"He heard the owner. I'm not sure we've been all over. Mostly the southeast. Not much west," I shrugged. "Well, work is all, boring."

We could not talk about our work because she was not Gifted. Patel rarely gave us westward assignments because I had a... reaction when she said she was sending us to New Mexico.

We did not go to New Mexico. On the brightside, it did not count as a failed Recon. If she had told me it did, I would have gone, even if I were screaming the entire time.

"Aren't you from out west?"

"Sure am," I said. I twitched inside. My stomach clenched. I felt dizzy. My palms felt hot and prickly like my back.

I took a breath.

I had a visceral response to the southwest still.

It had been five years since I'd turned eighteen and run away with my letter to serve our Council, but I kept waiting for my father to show up. I thought he could just appear and drag me by the hair, if I were lucky that's what he chose to drag me by, back to the ranch and the desert and the flat brown mountains and the quiet empty nights so loud they burned and thrummed.

I tried to shake my head to clear it. No one wants to hear about your shitty abusive childhood, especially people who love and miss their parents as new young adults thrust in a brand new world. McKnight and Williams didn't understand it was okay to hate your parents. I was not sure if Chelsea understood or not, but it is not first interaction fodder.

"I'll tell you what he said about you if you tell me what he said about me," I offered. I did smile at her. I didn't have McKnight's Orthodontist approved grin. He was the heart throb, not me. Sometimes, he would point out how I only have one dimple.

It was not really forced, my smiling at her. I was only moving forward. Forward motion is probably the best way of encapsulating my life motto.

She smiled back. "I don't know. I don't want Jimmy to be mad."

"Well, I don't give a fuck if he's mad or not. I was joking, though! Don't betray your boyfriend," I smoked and flicked the cigarette against the glass ashtray.

Chelsea held her hand out so I passed her the cigarette.

I watched her smoke. She had a curved nose, narrow jaw, make up poured over her eyes. Her face was very symmetrical and delicate. Her hair was big. She was slim and small except for her big teased hair and her chest. I was not surprised. McKnight had a type. He liked short, waify women that still managed ample chest and butt.

Chelsea was tiny. Her hair was the biggest part of her. I leaned back in the chair with my arm across the back of the one next to me. I was trying to figure out a common thread we could follow. I was not catching any obvious similarities.

I thought we were very different.

I was not small. As I've said, I am tall for a human and I worked out regularly with Connely and he came from being a college pro linebacker. Whatever judgment there was available to decide a nice chest would have very different criteria between myself and Chelsea.

She had blue eyes. I have hazel. She was blonde. My hair is dark. She was dressed in her mini skirt and heels with her nice nails. I had a Pegboy shirt under a flight jacket and yellow laces in my Doc Martens.

Whatever passed for a nice chest would have very different criteria between us. Whether or not I looked nice in a skirt I thought debatable.

I knew this was McKnight's type. I knew I was not McKnight's type. He was a straight man, firstly, so I was fucked anyway.

Or not, as it were.

We'd fought our first year working together because he thought I was just another tall, athletic jack ass who'd try to pass respect over his head. Life must be easy for me! My jeans were intact. People looked at me when they spoke to me.

"He said you're awesome and he was very excited for us to meet," Chelsea said, passing my cigarette back to me and blowing smoke. She still had to yell over the constant vibrating swipe of drums and bass guitars humming and pounding.

I frowned at that.

McKnight had not told me anything about Chelsea. He had told me he would bring her tonight so we may meet. He had not said he was excited for us to meet. I thought this was because he was not excited, as he had expressed the sentiment before with women he was seeing.

"Same," I said, looking across the table at her. This time, my smile was forced. I'm not sure she noticed. "Very excited for us to meet. Well, he just gets worried because I'm kind of a nerd to be honest with you. I never know what to say so I over compensate and say stupid things really confidently and just die of embarrassment on the inside because I know it makes me seem... you know... what's the word... well, all... you know, all conceited but..."

"Full of yourself?"

I smiled again and snapped my fingers briefly before pointing at her. "That's the one. Well, hey, you want to go dance? I'll keep people from knocking you over."

"You can dance to this?" Chelsea asked frowning and craning her head back. She looked up at the speakers and wrought iron wrapped in wires and lights and swirling smoke from the fog machines or cigarettes.

"Sure. We can dance to anything. Hey, if you want, we can do the kind of dancing that will make McKnight jealous and flying back-"

"McKnight?"

"Oh, well, sorry, Jimmy. Jimmy, I mean. We just use the last names," I said, putting my cigarette out in the ashtray. Then, I stood, and held my hand out for her.

"Last names? Is your last name Saller? What's your first name?"

"Yes," I said, wrapping our fingers together and pulling the human up against me. Her face was level with my sternum.

I pulled her towards the writhing mess around the stage. I could protect her. I wouldn't let her get punched or knocked over. Of course I wouldn't! McKnight liked her! He liked pretty slim women. He liked nice boobs. He was also sort of stupid, in that he'd invited this poor girl out and she was not having fun and it should be him here, not me.

And, then, we did get McKnight's attention and he was not impressed. I had not thought he would be.

McKnight had dragged me into the bathroom so we could talk. He'd kicked open one of the stalls in the mens room. He locked the door behind us.

"The shit are you thinkin' you-"

"You're being hella lame, man! You're a fucking loser! Well, See my thoughts then! Read it, I am not interested in her! I was being nice for you!" I snapped right back at him, tripping over the toilet. My hip banged the heavy toilet paper dispenser, ringing the metal. I was breathing tight and angry. "You're such a fucking asshole, you think I'd do something like that? What is your fucking damage? No, you really think I would!"

"No! I ain't reckon you'd go on and try fuckin' my girlfriend, it was everything else you was thinkin'!" McKnight yelled back at me and then I turned to face him.

I do not remember entirely what happened between leaving the table to dance with her and getting tossed into a bathroom stall.

I only know I was yelling at McKnight. He was insulting my honor! I was furious with him and yelling back and then I was confused. I was not sure what I was thinking five minutes ago. The lights kept flashing and I shook my head, trying to make sense of any of the writing on the bathroom stall around us.

I was already blacking out in skips. It was going to get worse. I could tell it was getting worse and not better. I thought perhaps it was difficult to tell how much I had drank because of McKnight's pregaming.

Then, I wondered, had we pregamed? We always did. Didn't we? Had I ever had a problem?

I could not use my Reach, my Gift of telekinesis. I had to use my hands physically against the sticky, wet tile of the bathroom. I felt confused for a moment by my inebriation. I did drink in excess often but I also knew my limits.

Now I was...

The walls were covered in sharpie marker and pen. The tile ended about chest level and slick peeling paint began. Beneath us was poured cement subfloor. The stall was slapped together out of plywood and aluminum with thick cracks between each side panel. The paint chipped. The bass and drums made the entire bathroom shake around us.

There was only one working light. The sink was flooded and chipped and rusted. The mirror was cracked and covered in stickers and writing. There was a black light that caught hi-lite style markers. People kept banging in and out of the bathroom, circling the smell of smoke and piss.

I stuck both my arms out. I put a hand against each wall to keep myself up and I yanked against the back of McKnight's shirt with my Reach. It made him trip himself and knock back against the door again. The lock bulged, the screws sighing, and the aluminum composite of the door shuddered at McKnight's weight smacking into it.

"Ow! Eat a bag of dicks!" McKnight yelped at me and shoved back in again, throwing his palms against my chest. I kept my fingers against the wall and stall edge and I kept my boots braced on the wet cement floor. I pressed my mouth at him.

"You first! Well I was just trying to entertain her for you I don't even-"

"Shut up, you always hate all my girlfriends! I'm tryin' and you just gotta go be an arrogant asshole like you wanna sabotage me- "

"So? Me sabotage? Me! You sabotage your damn self and you know it, don't drag me into your fuckin mess! I'm not a punching bag and you can cut your shit! I know you think I'm a dick but I wouldn't let anyone just sit there bored and miserable-"

"I ain't gotta think you're a dick, I know damn well you are!"

I rolled my eyes while he stood there, heaving breath and spit flying, angry enough with me and himself he was vibrating with it.

He had a temper. I had something worse. I could feel the claw of my anger like the sharpness of my desert. I could have broken his expensive straight teeth.

Instead I was just grinding my own teeth together. I needed to pull myself in. My Reach tucked. It made both of us trip and I ignored that.