I’m laying on my bed.  It's a nice bed.  It's a single bed, so there's not enough room to miss anyone.  I keep rubbing my finger back and forth across my mustache.  I like the way it feels.  There's something about the way it feels.

 

    It feels, you know, sort of comforting.

 

    I’m laying on my side.  I always lay on my side.  Sometimes I'd turn my back on Koa, because she'd be watching T.V. and I'd need to get to sleep and even if I closed my eyes, the glow of the T.V. screen bothered me.  So I'd be laying on my side and she'd be laying on her side and we'd be back to back and she would move in on me, pressing her cheeks against mine, her back against mine and I'd wonder why she would do that.

 

    It's not as if she loved me.

 

    She didn't have those feelings.

 

    She said so.

 

    She said...


    ...She was hurting.  The bruises on her body were visible from the beating the man of her dreams had given her.  He locked her in a back bedroom and went after her with a lead pipe.  He might have killed her except she saw the bedroom window and thought of jumping through it and then she was jumping through it, just like people jump through windows on T.V.  But this wasn't T.V.  This was real life and this was a real bedroom and that was a real door she tried to pull open, but her real lover had somehow managed to lock it.

 

    How had he managed to lock it, anyway?

 

    She didn't know.

 

    She didn't care.

 

    Her real lover had a real pipe in his hands and he was wielding it, swinging it, striking her with it.  He struck her in the arm and bolts of pain ripped through her shoulder and what was he doing this for, anyhow?  What had she done?

 

    He swung again and struck her in the belly.  She doubled over, out of breath and he struck her on the back.  She landed flat on the floor, desperately sucking in big gulps of air.  There use to be an abundance of air and all of a sudden it wasn't there, anymore.  She began to cry out for God, but He didn't seem to be around either and then she thought about the window.  Somewhere on the other side of all this pain, there had to be a window.

 

    He struck her on the side and hit her so hard it sent her rolling across the floor and she thought even more about the window.

 

    Was it open?

 

    Was it closed?

 

    Did it matter?  He was going to kill her.  Did it really matter

 whether the window was open or closed?
 

   It didn't matter.
 

   It just didn't matter.
 

   She lifted herself up on her hands and feet and as if to egg her on, he swung the pipe at her ****.  It connected.  It launched her.  It directed her right towards the window and she got up, running, leaping.
 

   She leapt for her life.
 

   She leapt for her future.
 

   Her arms waved wildly out in front of her face as she went crashing through the window.  She might have killed herself if it hadn't been a first floor apartment.  She heard the glass shatter, splatter onto the concrete below and she hit the ground hard.  Something in her right ankle seemed to give, but it wasn't enough to stop her.  She ran bare foot along a snow-covered  street in East New York and never looked back.  She never looked forward.  She only looked at her bloodied feet, barely visible through the veil of tears drowning her eyes.

            *        *        *        *

    I'm home.  I'm not in the home I'm in now, but in my real home.  I'm in Brooklyn and I'm sleeping.  I'm sleeping, but I'm not sleeping for long because the phone is ringing and anyone whose ever been sleeping when the phone is ringing, knows sleep and a ringing phone just don't mix.
 

   I'm pissed.
 

   I look at the digital clock on the other side of the bedroom.  It's three in the morning and I'm really pissed.  I lift the receiver off the hook thinking it's the nut job that sold me on the whole idea of love and marriage and scream something obscene into the phone.  She's very big on calling me all hours of the night and listening to me say hello three, or four times, before hanging up.
 

   "Koa calling collect from New York.  Will you accept the charges?"
 

   "Operator?"
 

   I'm beginning to wonder if maybe this isn't one of those terribly realistic dreams.
 

   "You have a collect call from Koa!"  The woman repeats.  "Will you accept the charges?"
 

   "Koa?"
 

   "Go ahead, Ma'am."
 

   "Benji?"  She says and I think she's crying.  "Help me."
 

   "Where are you?"  I ask already climbing out of bed, but she doesn't answer me right away.  It's hard to say anything when you're crying.
 

   "Koa!  Where are you?  Tell me where you are!"
 

   "I'm in East New York."
 

   I see a neighborhood of burned out buildings and drug infested streets.  Crack rules.  Check America at the borders.  You're in a third world country, now.
 

   "Do you know where the Burger King is on Pitkin Avenue?"  I ask.
 

   "Yeah," she says and it's almost a whisper.
 

   "Go there.  I'll be there just as soon as I can."
 

   Koa hangs up the phone.  I dress as quickly as I can and slide in behind the wheel of my car in half the time.  In 20 minutes I'm in the snow-covered  parking lot of a Burger King and Koa is nowhere to be found.
 

   "She'll be here," I tell myself and tune into LIR.  I keep staring at the sparkle of snow swirling beneath a streetlight.  Every now and again, the wind kicks up causing a mini white out.  It's the worst night of the year and the front doors of the Burger King are closed.  Robbers take note: Drive Through Only.  I wonder about the homeless, the growing horde of refugee's wandering through the streets like an ancient tribe of nomads, seeking food and shelter from the storm.  Most of them take to the subways where a band of Transit Cops beat them back up to the streets.  I turn the heat up another notch and try not to think about Koa.
 

   One hour and ten minutes later, Koa crosses the front of the parking lot and climbs into my car.
 

   "Hi Ben," she begins like she always begins when we first see one another.  No smile.  No hug.  No kiss.  Just a plain old "hi Ben."
 

   She looks like hell.  Her cheeks are red and her teeth are chattering.  Her feet are bloodied and bare.  She has on a pair of pleated jeans and a big, bulky sweater.
 

   I stare at her for a moment and then move over so I can put my arms around her.  She starts to cry.  It's the first time in the 15 years I've  known her, I've seen her cry.
 

   Her nose is running.  She buries her face into my shoulder and keeps wiping her nose on my jacket.  We sit like this for a while.  She says nothing and I don't ask.  She is Koa, and she is shivering but at least she’s still alive.

                *        *        *

    By 5:30 in the morning, Koa is in the shower and I'm sitting at my desk, sipping on a hot cup of tea.  I pick up the phone, call my Command and beg off a few days.  I work for the NYPD and by the time I'm off the phone, Koa is sitting on the edge of my bed, clad in my short blue robe and smoking a Newport.  Her right ankle is blown up and purple.  Both shins are black and blue and there's a large, ugly bruise on the inside of her right thigh.
 

   "I don't like the look of that ankle.  We're going to have to get you to a doctor."
 

   "No Doctor," she says crushing out one cigarette and firing up another.
 

   I light one up myself.  I inhale deeply and think about all the times I've tried to quit.  I think about Jennifer.  We were both smoking when we first started to see one another and then one morning, Jennifer announced it was time for us to quit.  One of us did.
 

   "He went crazy," Koa finally says.  "I don't even know what brought it on.  He locked me in a back bedroom and came after me with a lead pipe."
 

   She laughs, but it is not with humor.
 

   I lift my teacup and she reaches for it, taking it away from me.  She drinks and I stare at the signs of her abuse.  We take so much physical and verbal abuse and we take it all in the name of love.  If it's abuse, how can it be love?
 

   "I went out a window," she says and I sense the part of her that can't believe it.
 

   She reaches for her pack of Newport and I reach for the back of her hand.
 

   "Enough.  If it were any cloudier in here, I'd be passing out umbrella's."
 

   Again, Koa laughs and it's that same empty, hollow laugh.
 

   "Please don't call my sisters."
 

   "I won't," I tell her but I do.  I don't right away, but I do.
 

   Koa climbs off the edge of the bed and walks up to the closet.  She trades my short blue robe for a thin, white shirt and I'm surprised that she changes in front of me.  
 

   "Are you going to sit up?"  She asks.
 

   "No."
 

   I'm tired.  I strip down to my shorts and crawl into bed with her.  It isn't the first time we've shared a bed together, although this time it seems different than the other times.  This time, Koa curls up in my arms and presses her body close to mine, a hurt and wounded child waiting for me to take the pain away.
 

   I wait for sleep.
 

   It finds Koa in no time at all.
 

   It finds me, some time later.
 

   It doesn't last. It's Nine O'clock in the morning and the phone is singing, again.  I lift the receiver off the hook and it's Jennifer.
 

   "Hi," she's says rather quickly.
 

   I'm surprised she says anything at all.  Usually she listens to me say hello a couple of times, or, just waits for me to hang up.
 

   This time, she doesn't give me much of a chance to say anything at all.
 

   "How come you're not at work?"
 

   I can't believe I'm hearing this.  We ended things in early September.  It's now the end of January and still it goes on.
 

   "Because," I tell her and I can feel the anger rising in my soul.  "It was 5:30 this morning when my lover and I finally wore each other out.  But now that we're  up again-"
 

   She slams down the phone.
 

   I put the receiver back on the hook.
 

   "Jennifer?" Koa asks.  She's laying on her back and her eyes are closed, as if she were pretending to be asleep.
 

   "Yeah."
 

   "I don't know, Ben.  The girl must really love you.  I think-"
 

   I put two fingers on her lips and it silences her.
 

   "Hitler loved Germany and I don't see where that did anybody any good."
 

   Koa shakes her head from side to side.  She is grinning and the phone is ringing, again.
 

   "Aren't you going to answer it?"
 

   "No."
 

   I reach for the phone and turn off the ringer.
 

   "I'm just going to go back to sleep."
 

   Koa Rivera Rodriguez was born on the same day as Jennifer Ellen Hirsh.  As a matter of record, they were born twenty minutes apart in the very same Brooklyn Jewish Memorial Hospital.  Their moms probably shared the same delivery room and their fathers probably passed out cigars to one another.  I was all of six months old and not yet toilet trained.  I didn't know either one of them but came to know each of them; both of them, the only two people I know with the same date of birth.
 

   The similarity, however, stopped in the corridors of that hospital, after they were both wheeled out onto Brooklyn streets where the only other thing they would ever have in common would be me.
 

   But, I don't see them anymore.  They don't know where I am.  At least I don't think they know where I am.  If they do know where I am then I don't know that they know where I am and I wouldn't  want  them to know where I am, anyway.
 

   I do visit them, though.  Sometimes, when I'm alone in my room, laying on my side and rubbing my moustache,  I visit them.
 

   I like visiting them.
 

   I find it sort of -
 

   comforting.