It Takes You by Surprise

“Tick Tick” was forever about to explode and tonight he was going off like fireworks.

—You thought I still loved her? You thought that someday I might get back with her? Well, tonight I proved that ain’t never gonna happen! For real.

—What happened?

—That bitch you were jealous of?! Her brother who slapped you and knocked our baby on the ground?! Cuchifrito, I gave you a Valentine’s surprise you never gonna forget!

Irma’s eyes filled with tears. The TV got louder when it gave commercials. She didn’t say a word.

—You ain’t happy about that, baby? You just stand there and don’t say nothing?

—Is that I don’t know what to say.

—Well, how you like your Tick Tick now?

—Oh, I love you so much!

She rushed toward him and jumped. He caught her, no problem, as she threw her arms and legs around him. Giggling, she kissed him on the cheek and forehead and nose. Then she met his driving lips with hers. Her excitement was intense and almost instant. Everything was lips and tongues. Spit leaked out of the corner of her mouth and drooled down to her jaw. Her hands were on his neck and shoulder and she could feel his muscles tensed and hard, squeezing her against him. He was really excited. His hands even seemed to shake a little. She grinded into him. There was a bitter whiff of something burnt. Her moans came out like whimpers because she never stopped kissing him.

Then she hit the floor. The drop hurt her tailbone and forced a soft cry of pain from her. Free from his lips, she murmured:

—Ow, Tick Tick!

But he was far away.

—Nobody tells me what to do! You know that — right?

The Combat strip in the corner had a dusty Jolly Rancher wrapper on it.

—Nobody disses me or my family. You know that for real now — right?”

Under the radiator lay a matchbook with a lawyer’s ad on it and a black twist-off Cisco bottlecap: Takes you by surprise.

He pulled down her zipper and flipped her over. Her belt buckled clanked as it hit and then slid along the floor. Her elbows and forearms propped her up on the cool linoleum. She grunted.

—You know I don’t like it on the floor, Tick Tick!

His belt buckled jingled.

—Who loves you, Irma?

Her cheek rubbed against the dingy tile. Course grains of dirt felt rough to her skin, like sand. As a housekeeper, she was no good. Tick Tick took the waist of her panties in his fist; the elastic scraped her soft inner thigh. There came a quick, loud zip. The baby started crying in the other room.

Was it true what he said? Did he really get them back for what he did to her? How bad? Maybe she shouldn’t have told him that at Rikers, where he had nothing else to think about. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought.

Already there were quiet slaps of his body against her behind, getting faster. Her mind and heart flew to the baby for an instant and a pang for him coursed through her breasts. But her eyes began to cloud with colors and all the sounds of Mott Haven were drowned out.

—Who loves you, Irma?

She tried not to cry out but it hurt.

Were those people dead now?

Tick Tick kept on. She knew what he wanted to hear.

—Tick Tick!

A loose corner of a tile poked her cheek. She tried to keep her face away from it. Then the curls of her hair started getting snagged on it. What happens next? Cops? Rikers again? Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought.

—Who protects his wife and kid?

—Tick Tick! She would keep on saying it.

—Happy Valentine’s Day, Irma! Whaddaya say for your Valentine’s present?

The baby was screaming now but his voice seemed to echo over miles and miles.

—Thank you!

—Thank you — what?

—Thank you, Tick Tick!

—You’re welcome, he grunted. Cuchifrito! And thrust a couple of more slow times.

And as he pushed her away, Tick Tick heard the baby’s shrieks and for an instant a vision of that other apartment came to him: shouts and crying, gunshots and screams and the smell of sulfur and shit in someone’s pants, her eyes bugging out as he pulled her around the room by her hair, both her arms up trying to free herself, sucking in air like she had just been underwater, her tits going up and down like mad.

—Oh, my Gawd, Tick Tick, no!

But he made her watch as he shot each member of her family in the head. A bullet for every finger of the hand that slapped his wife. Then one for her. All the blood in her hair as she slumped down there with the others, bald patch in her misshapen head, arms like a clock saying five after nine. She lay with half her face flat on the floor, eyes still bugged out, big ass sticking up, legs spread wide. Just cold dry pussy now.

—The baby’s crying.

He stood looking down at Irma on all fours. Her panting and groans grew longer and slower. The TV was giving commercials again.

—You don’t hear that?! Vamos!

She stumbled into the other room, rubbing her cheek and then checking her fingers. Only a little blood. As she picked up the baby, she thought of how she had wanted Tick Tick for so long, even back when he was with her. Even more then. And she had gotten him. Now he was truly hers, if it was true what he said. She turned at the sound of running footsteps.

Pants and belt buckle still open, Tick Tick rushed into the bathroom. Through the half-open door, she heard his puke slosh into the toilet water. It was as bad as she thought.

Bio: John Kearns has a Masters Degree in Irish Literature from the Catholic University of America and lives in Manhattan, where he has had ten plays produced.  His novel, The World, was published in 2003 and his novel-in-progress, Worlds, was a finalist in the 2002 New Century Writers’ Awards.  His short-story collection, Dreams and Dull Realities, is now available on Amazon.com.  

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