I Swear I'll Make It Up to You by Mishka Shubaly Page A

cooking.
    Ernesto mimed drinking from a bottle and pointed at me. “Ery night. Ery day.”
    I smiled weakly at him, my stomach doing flip-flops at the mere thought of alcohol. I lifted the lid and dumped the chicken wings onto my cutting board. They were starting to go bad, and as the smell wafted up to me, my eyes zeroed in on the clumps of feathers and hair still clinging to them. I dashed for the bathroom, vomit already boiling up my throat and into my mouth, Ernesto’s laughter bouncing off the hard tile floor.
    Despite my rough mornings, I was well loved in the kitchen. Dave, my boss, paid me well—I made more than my mother—and my savings piled up. I became obsessed with self-sufficiency, dead set on paying my own way. When my father stopped paying child support for Tashina, I even sent money home to my mom, determined—at eighteen—to be the man he had failed to be.
    As I was finding my way, my nemesis, Ben White, had been losing his. He was abusive in class and menaced the kids in his dorm.It was an open secret that he hit women. Still, he hadn’t provided the school with the single overt transgression that would merit expulsion. When he shoved his way through a crowd of women staging a political protest on his way to the dining hall, the school didn’t waste any time. He was escorted from campus that very day. He built a nest in the crawl space at his girlfriend’s house in town and nourished his decline, constantly high on cough syrup he’d shoplifted, barely coherent, hardly eating, vomiting blood, increasingly erratic, increasingly violent.
    We were drinking at my house one night. My roommate asked if it was cool if she invited Ben’s girlfriend over. She was a genial Florida party girl who could be counted on to knock over every single drink within reach but was still impossible not to like.
    â€œAh . . . yeah, that’s fine, just tell her not to bring Ben with her.”
    A moment after my roommate made the call, the phone rang again. That would be Ben.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œHi, Mishka.”
    â€œHi, Ben.”
    â€œCan I come over?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause we’re not friends.”
    â€œI’m coming over.”
    â€œDon’t come over.”
    â€œI’m coming over.”
    The line went dead.
    When the bell rang, my friend Kevin followed me down the stairs. I saw Ben’s girlfriend outside by herself: bullet dodged. I opened the door to let her in.
    Ben stood up from behind a hedge and tried to skirt past me into the house. Shit. I grabbed him from behind and got him in a full nelson. What now? Ben wouldn’t punch me or tackle me if I released him. He’d gouge out an eye, stab me, choke me to death.
    He had gotten so thin that he slipped my hold. I shoved him away and scrambled for the open door. As Kevin kicked the door shut, Ben lunged after me. The glass pane in the door shattered.
    I turned the lock and slid the bolt into place. Kevin and I braced the bottom of the door with our feet, holding ourselves clear of the broken window.
    Ben slowly pushed through the broken glass till his head and shoulders were inside with us. He stared at me, his eyes flat and dead.
    â€œI’m going to kill you,” he said.
    Without breaking my gaze, he rolled his torso around inside the jagged window frame. Blood instantly darkened his T-shirt, and wet folds of it slid down his arms.
    â€œKevin,” I said, “go upstairs and call the police.”
    The cops showed up shortly after Ben left, and they grudgingly took my report. After they had gone, my gathered friends laid into me. What the hell did I think I was doing? We hated cops. Cops weren’t going to do anything. This would only anger Ben enough for him to actually kill me. I didn’t disagree, but I couldn’t sit back and do nothing.
    Days later, Ben was gone, having fled back to Florida. Had calling the cops worked? No,