Okay. I’m back.
I will say this in my defense: I could tell they were talking about me. All day. Even if you can’t understand the language, a not-so-subtle point and whisper is easy to decipher. At first, I kept trying to be positive about it, but that went downhill pretty fast.
Maybe they think I’m cute? Maybe they want to know what my shirt says? Maybe they want to know what I’m saying? Maybe there’s something on my face? Maybe I’m boring. Or just a bit uncultured? Maybe they think my dick is laughably small. I bet she’s telling her friend how much I suck at oral sex. They’re laughing at me. I know they are.
I didn’t think—because I’d been trying so hard not to think—that they might be whispering to each other about you. About me. About me and you. And why not? It makes sense, right? You had a million and one blog followers all over the world. Some of your writings had gone viral. The Mixtape book was in Reykjavik, and Frankie had recognized it. The damn court case made headlines worldwide. Why wouldn’t we be known in Canada and France, too?
Queers, gender rebels, feminists, activists, artists. I was reminded of you at every turn, but I kept pushing you out of the picture.
Have fun. Let go. As if I can just turn a key, press a button, and an elevator will shoot me above all this.
This part of the story is harder to tell.
I was a little drunk, but I remember what happened pretty clearly. Frankie and the brunette got out of the pool first. They put their clothes on and went into the changing room for a short while. I saw them grab the cans of paint out of my backpack, so I figured they were just tagging the place (and, technically, they were). I stayed in the water, floating next to the peacock girl. We’d found the spot where the hot springs trickle in, so we were warm and cozy, buzzed. She kept trying to float on her back, and even though I’d already proven myself a lousy lover, she didn’t seem to mind me watching her. And when I swam over to help her, placing my hands under her back and holding her up so she didn’t sink, she smiled up at me.
We were in that dusky late-night Icelandic sun, warm and drunk. I was holding her, that rainbow feather tattoo resting in the palms of my hands. Just me and a nameless French girl, her perfect breasts like little mountain peaks rising out of the water. Light as a feather, stiff as a . . . ha. You fill in the blanks. I don’t know. I guess it’s important for me to say that I was having a good time right then. I liked that she let me hold her. Keep her afloat. If someone were to ask me what I thought of her, I’d have to say she was a nice girl. Even now.
“Miles!” Frankie’s voice echoed out through the valley. “Come look at this!” She was standing at the doorway of that filthy changing room, waving me toward her. The peacock girl skimmed away from me, and I got up out of the water, pulling my boxers on (thankfully, my boner had retreated at that point). I paused at the doorway to pull your boots on so I didn’t have to step in all that ick, but Frankie grabbed my arm and pulled me inside before I could even take them down from the hook.
“Frankie! Jesus! This floor is gross!” The sensation of sticky brown goo seeping between my toes really brought out my not-so-masculine side.
“Just come here. We want to show you this.”
I took two more steps inside. They lured me. That’d be the correct word for this.
I saw your name first. That was what stood out. On the side wall, under one of the windows, someone had used the can of Barbie/lipstick/labia pink to write C’est pour Vivian.
I didn’t need Google Translate to tell me I was screwed.
Frankie hit me with a brick. I think it came from the wall of the pool. White, rectangular cement. I found it later on the floor.
My head rang like a bell. One moment I was standing, and the next I was in the muck, getting the crap kicked out of me. Ribs. Stomach. Junk. Both of them kept on kicking me, and my head was so fucked that I couldn’t really do anything but curl into a ball and try to protect my more sensitive parts.
I’ve never actually been in a fight before. That’s not to say that people didn’t bully me. They definitely did. And I’m not proud of it, but I could be a real cruel kid to anybody that gave me shit about being fat or having two moms. I found ways to exact my revenge that left darker bruises than my fists ever could. Anyway, I can tell you that these two girls understand both methods. They kicked my ass and destroyed (what was left of) my soul.
I could hear the peacock girl in the doorway, pleading for the other two to stop. At least, that’s what I’ve chosen to believe she was saying. I really don’t know. Maybe she was goading them on. But I have decided that she stopped them and maybe even saved my life. They quit kicking and ran off. Left me in the mud and ick.
But not before grabbing my backpack (the one with all my freshly laundered clothes). My jeans (with my wallet and phone in the pockets).
And your oxblood Doc Martens (the only thing of yours I’d brought on this trip). I can still see them dangling from Frankie’s fingertips as she ran. That’s what hurt more than anything. More than a brick to the head or a kick in the balls.
One more piece of you slipping away.
Battle wounds are as follows: one black eye, two stomped testicles, several bruised ribs, and one gnarly-looking gash on my temple that probably needs stitches and will probably leave a scar. Do you think I will look sexy with a scar? I can pull that shit off, right?
I wonder. Did they attack me because I didn’t save you from trying to commit suicide? Or is it because I dropped out of the court case? Don’t get me wrong. I deserve it either way. I failed you. Twice. Someone shoulda kicked my ass a long time ago. Hell, I’m not even mad. I get it. I just need to know if more bad karma is coming my way.
Though, now that I think about it, I did have a little bit of luck. Help came in the form of a robot. No, make that TWO robots. Óskar is as much a clever little machine as the artificial intelligence in my cell phone AND twice as useful.
Anyway, I’d say I probably lay on that disgusting floor for at least half an hour. I threw up, ’cause that’s what you do when someone smacks you with a brick, then kicks you in the balls. I’m not going to go on too much about that, though. I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me. It was bad, but I never lost consciousness. At least, I don’t think I did. And I got up eventually. I got up.
I went outside, and of course it was still fucking daylight. Or maybe the sun had set and risen again. Who the hell knows around here? I wandered for a little bit, unsure of what to do next. I found my Tourist T-shirt still next to the pool—they hadn’t grabbed that when they stole my pants. I was so dirty that I didn’t want to put it on, though. So, I got back in the pool and washed all the mud and goo off myself and my underwear. Carefully washed my head wound. Hopefully the water was clean enough. The blood had clotted, but when I rinsed, it started bleeding again. So, I ended up applying my warm, dry shirt to the gash on my head. Bloodied up my T-shirt. Fitting, really. You ARE a tourist, Miles. Bewildered and gullible.
The French girls had left their cooler (too heavy for them to lug in their grand escape, I suppose). I drank the last beer. Are you supposed to drink when you have a head wound? Eh, probably not. There were also two containers of skyr inside, which I gobbled up without a spoon. Just tilted my head back and chugged them down. Then I immediately went into survival mode, thinking, Wait! Shouldn’t I have rationed that food? Because I was a pretty long way away from civilization. I remembered seeing a few houses scattered along the countryside, but the nearest one . . . How far of a walk is a twenty-minute drive? Fuck.
I knew my best bet was to get to a road. Start walking, or hope a kind stranger was willing to pick up a wet, bloody, half-naked hitchhiker who stank of muck and Viking booze. So I headed uphill, away from the pool. And probably three hundred feet out, I found my cell phone. It must have fallen out of my pants pocket when one of the French girls ran away. Great news, right? Except that the screen was cracked and blank. And I’d left it on airplane mode. Great. Fucking. News.
I tried everything I knew about resetting cell phones, but the display was toast. The phone still worked—I could feel that “haptic feedback” vibration whenever I touched the screen. I could even get it unlocked, because I knew where the keys would be. But I couldn’t really call anywhere. Who would I even call? I guess I could have called Mamochka, but then she’d have cried and panicked, and I’d have cried and panicked, and where would that have gotten us? Plus, like I said, my phone was on airplane mode. Emergencies only—to keep me from accruing ridiculous international roaming charges.
And there I was. An actual goddamn emergency. *Cue “No Phone” by Cake.* But then I thought, Siri! Siri doesn’t need buttons. Siri will save me! Puuuush. Dingding! Then . . . nothing. No computer voice asking me what the hell I wanted. Yep. Siri needs internet to work, too.
So, I sat there and figured out how to turn off airplane mode without looking at the screen. I know that doesn’t sound like a grand ordeal, but it was, trust me. Like, maybe . . . a forty-five-minute ordeal? Lots of complicated steps, but eventually I heard that dingding and said, “Call Hotel Skógur in Reykjavik, Iceland,” and Siri said, “Calling Hotel Skógur.” And I nearly wept with joy.
A guy picked up, and I immediately thought he was Óskar, but he told me Óskar was off for the weekend. Then I just sort of launched into “Look, I’m fucking lost and I really don’t care how much this is going to cost me I just need someone to come pick me up, oh and can you please bring some pants?” He asked where I was, and I was like, “Uh . . . Iceland’s oldest swimming pool?” He goes, “Selojakjmodnonajondkull” or whatever, and I was like, “. . . Yeah, that’s probably it.” He said he’d send someone, and I said I’d be waiting by the road.
So, I finished the rest of the walk up the hill. It took me, like, thirty minutes because, well, my balls hurt, okay? I figured whoever was coming to pick me up was coming from Reykjavik and so they’d be at least another hour, so I wasn’t paying much attention when an enormous white Jeep with huge tires pulled up alongside me.
“Hello, handsome. How much for a blowjob?” The driver smirked at me, and I saw my own pitiful reflection in his mirrored aviators. Shivering and bruised. Pathetic. No wonder some strange asshole wanted to mess with me. Any other day I would have cursed this dude’s mother and started listing off a few inanimate objects with which he could fornicate, but I was beat. Physically and mentally. So, when he slid out of the Jeep and walked toward me, I actually flinched.
Then I realized how little he was. And how blond. Óskar. Minus the man-bun. His hair was down, loose around his shoulders, and he was dressed sort of . . . I don’t know, grungy? T-shirt and jeans, baggy cardigan. Very Kurt Cobain. My mushy brain couldn’t make sense of him out of uniform and out of context. Plus, did he just make a joke?
“How did you get here so fast?”
“I was nearby,” he said, looking me all over. I don’t think he’d noticed how beat up I was until then. I felt very small and very naked. “Do you need to see a doctor?”
I shook my head and drew my arms up around my shoulders. Óskar was kind of the last person I wanted to see because I still thought he might be a smug little shit that my mommy had elected to babysit for me. And I was still a little mad that he’d mocked me in front of Shannon for rarely leaving the hotel.
But at the same time, he was looking very much like my knight in shining sport utility vehicle.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Can you please take me back to Rey—to the hotel?” I got a little flustered, thinking he might laugh and leave me on the side of the road if I managed to pronounce his precious capital city incorrectly.
He turned and motioned for me to follow him back to his giant monster truck. We got in, and he reached into the back seat and handed me a neatly folded square of fabric. It was a pair of black and white plaid pajama pants. I pulled them on without a word, and he smirked at me some more while he started up the engine.
“The hotel called me to pick you up because I was nearby, but this is a little inconvenient. I will see to it that you have a bed tonight, but I cannot take you back to Reykjavik until tomorrow afternoon. I have some business to attend to. I promise not to ask you any questions if you will do the same for me.” Big, blue-eyed-cat blink.
And thus began my very weird night with Óskar. Which I will tell you about. Later.
For now, we sleep.