Patty let Monk pick her up and carry her into the bedroom. He sat her on the edge of the bed, and gently removed pieces of broken glass from the soles of her feet, her calf, and her left thigh. Before he picked up the tweezers, though, he helped her into an oversize NYU sweatshirt and a pair of underpants. There was no modesty in play, she knew. That ship had sailed a long time ago. No, this was Monk being Monk.
He also put a pot of water on the tiny two-burner stove and fished tea bags out of the belly of the big broken ceramic Buddha on the bureau. The head was designed to lift off and the body was hollow, but the head had been broken years ago. Now Buddha was fat and headless and full of good teas.
Monk squatted down beside the bed, refusing the offer of a chair. Patty watched him as he worked. The tweezers hurt but not because he was clumsy. He wasn’t. Monk, for all his size, was very gentle. Those big, knuckly, scarred hands were deft and clever and they moved with practiced efficiency. She didn’t even know her feet were full of glass splinters until he told her.
“Sorry if this hurts,” he said.
Patty just shook her head. The splinters weren’t what hurt. She slid her right hand under the edge of a pillow, watching Monk’s eyes to see if he noticed. If he did, he didn’t say anything.
Her room was small and cramped. It was decorated with no coherence or theme. Pictures were elegantly framed or thumbtacked or taped, and hung with no thought to contrasting or complementary colors. A twin bed and two mismatched dressers. No built-in closets because the apartment was a barely converted commercial space. There were still some boxes in the basement, left over from long-ago tenants—a BDSM sex toy repackager and then a small independent printer who made homophobic religious tracts. The last tenant had been a barber shop, and the swivel chairs were still upstairs, though down here were stacks of hairstyle posters being eaten slowly by roaches. She hated going down there because it was musty, dark, and there were too many roaches. The only time she had been down there was to oversee the installation of a sturdy double-deadbolt lock. Patty did not want anyone breaking in. Intruders had done enough damage to her family.
Monk’s face was set into a frown of concern and he winced as if each splinter were being pulled out of his own skin. The iPad was still playing; neither of them had bothered to turn it off, though for some reason it wasn’t following the alphabet anymore. The Alan Parsons Project was singing a sad sweet song about being old and wise. For some reason the songs were on shuffle now. She wasn’t sure how that happened, and it bothered her, but not enough to say something.
“This is going to be a patch job,” he said, “but you’re going to need an actual doctor. Couple of those are going to need stitches. I’ll take you over to the ER soon as I’m done.”
“No,” she said. “Please, I don’t want to go there.”
“Not a debate, Patty,” said Monk. He dried off her legs and feet with a towel, opened a package of Band-Aids, and began tearing them open.
“I can do that,” she said, but he kept working.
It took sixteen bandages total. Five big ones and eleven smaller ones. Then he rocked back on his heels, arms hanging over his knees, hands loose. He wore a pair of ancient blue jeans and a white Ramones T-shirt. Someone who didn’t know him would think he was, at best, a roadie for a band or at worst, a bouncer from a truck stop strip joint. He was neither, but his official job wasn’t much of a step up from the latter. He was a bounty hunter who specialized in bail skips, working that gig for a string of bondsmen in New York and Philadelphia.
Patty believed she was the only living person who knew Monk’s story. Or most of it, at least. She knew about the tattoos and scars on his body, and a good piece about the scars on his soul. Just like he knew her. Not all of her, but enough.
He stood up and fished a pair of sweats from a drawer and steadied her as she put them on. Then he stood there, looking at her with slightly raised eyebrows. Letting the bloody tweezers, the bandages, and the fractured morning ask the questions.
“I got drunk,” she said after nearly half a minute.
“Uh huh.”
“You going to lecture me?”
He tried on a smile. “Have I ever lectured you on the evils of either grape or grain?”
“No…”
“There you go,” said Monk.
The song ended and the Monkees began singing “Last Train to Clarksville.” They both turned their heads to look at the iPad. It wasn’t the kind of song she’d ever have downloaded.
“I have no idea,” she said, the faintness of a smile on her lips.
“Weird,” he agreed.
They listened to the song all the way through. It ended and then Primus began howling about Tommy the Cat.
“I’m okay,” said Patty, turning back to Monk and trying to sound confident. “Thanks for … well, for everything. But I’m good now. I’ll just clean up a bit and then take a nap. Open the shop late.”
Monk didn’t move.
“Really,” she insisted. “I’m fine.”
“Uh huh.”
“I just need some coffee and a muffin and I’m good.”
Nothing. He just looked at her.
“I have two customers who…” Her words trailed off. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Monk scratched his wrist and picked at a scab over a small knife cut. He cocked his head and peered up at her. “I’m kind of waiting for you to stop jerking me off here, Pats.”
“I’m not.”
“No? So, when were you planning to tell me about your hand?” He didn’t even glance at the pillow, where she’d hidden it again. “When were you going to tell me about what happened to Tuyet?”
She said, “Happened to who?”
The frown on Monk’s face deepened, the way a person’s does when he doesn’t get a joke or can’t follow an obscure conversational reference.
“Tuyet?” he repeated, making it a question.
Patty smiled. “Who?”
They stared at each other and the moment felt like it was being stretched too taut. The pain in Patty’s foot and leg suddenly flared as if the pieces of beer bottle were only now cutting into her. The room seemed strange. Stuffy. Close. Like the stagnant air of a basement.
“Tuyet,” Monk said again, leaning on the name. When Patty shook her head, a look of genuine concern wrinkled Monk’s face. “Did you hit your head when you fell? Fuck, let me check.” He started to rise, but Patty flinched back.
“No,” she said quickly. “I didn’t hit my head. Who’s this Tuyet? What’s the deal?”
Monk straightened slowly but did not approach her. He looked big and clumsy and confused. “On your hand,” he said. “Christ, Patty, she’s on your hand. She’s been on your hand for ten fucking years.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Are you trying to make a joke or something? I don’t have anything on my hand.”
He pointed to the pillow. “Then why are you hiding it?”
She refused to look. “I’m not hiding anything.”
Monk stared at her for a five count.
“Patty, what’s going on here? You’re starting to scare the shit out of me.”
“This is ridiculous,” she snapped and started to rise, but Monk shifted to block her. He did not touch her or physically restrain her. That wasn’t Monk at all. But he stood there. Looking at her. Looking past her face down to where her hand was still on the bed but no longer covered by the pillow. She did not want to look. Patty did not know why, but it was almost as if she could not look. As if the action of looking wasn’t …
Wasn’t what?
It isn’t allowed.
She heard her thought as clearly as if a clone of her had leaned in to whisper in her ear.
It isn’t allowed.
“You hid your hand, Patty,” said Monk. “I saw you do it. I saw you checking to see if I saw it. There’s something wrong with the tattoo of Tuyet.”
“Who is this fucking Tuyet you keep harping on about?” she snarled. Or tried to snarl. It came out weak and cracked and small.
It took a lot for Patty to raise her hand. It took much more for her to look at it. She could feel the simple action depleting her, like a knife draining an artery. She looked down at the back of her hand. She could hear Monk’s labored breathing. He sounded scared.
Patty knew she had a tattoo on the back of her hand. She remembered inking it there. Doing the work one-handed took time. Getting the details took time. It took patience. It required so much of her thought and feeling and art.
It took … love.
Love…?
She frowned at that thought. The frown became a wince as she looked at the tattoo. It was the same as when she was in the bathroom. A face—some girl—done in photo-realism style, and a crude and primitive one done over it.
“Patty,” said Monk gently, fearfully, “don’t you know who Tuyet is?”
She shook her head.
But her lips moved. Formed two words. They came out so small, so far away, as if the memory attached to that tattoo was moving away from her, fleeing down a long hall, running too fast to be caught.
“My … daughter…?”
That was all she got out before she screamed.