Also the ground, and the dirty laundry, dust, crumbs. I stare at them and try not to stare at Andrea who paces my room and implores me to come out of the closet. Where I sit naked, knees drawn up under my chin. Arms wrapped around, more worried to cover my gut than the cock lolling out and stiffening as Andrea tromps in her knee high boots.
White is the color of both her knees and her gritted teeth as I ignore her. Pearly white.
She is asking me to go over to the parish prison and pick up her estranged husband, Spike, who is being released on whatever his latest conviction was for. Drugs, possession or sale, B & E, DUI, something. No matter. She just doesn’t think it is a seemly place for a woman of her caliber to be seen alone.
Whatever. Doesn’t matter. I am sick of this place. Ready to get out. Find something else as the term ends. This is the ass end of a week of disappointment anyway. Job prospects seem stale for the summer as are the romantic prospects if I stay around this town.
Earlier, a USPS mix up righted in the hallway with the Goth chick next store had ended with her wondering aloud why nice guys were always so damned ugly. That was how this week was going. And now here I am rocking back and forth and sucking cheap rum from a bottle.
Goddamn Andrea and her spare key. How many times had she wondered similar things aloud over the years?
I spot a MiniDV tape on the rug at the breach of the half shut closet door. I’d picked it up in the quad earlier. As any wanna-be cinéma vérité director guy, I’ve got a deck and a small monitor shoved out of the way into the back of the closet. I snatch up the tape and cram it into the VTR deck and fast forward the dials through it. It’s a demo reel for some wanna-be avant garde comedian guy.
I have to hand it to the guy; he goes door to door, often with a hand puppet of a realistic overweight cat. Realistic in that it looks real, really real. After a few minutes, I am still not sure it isn’t an actual dead cat. No one laughs. There doesn’t seem to be any jokes. Just door to door with that dammed dead cat. Picking up dead birds with its puppet mouth, or rubbing its puppet ass on folks as he makes purring sounds. Still, I have to hand it to him; he goes door to door to door forcing his act on the unsuspecting. He’s trying. Trying something.
Fuck, I realize. He’s dropping these tapes around campus on purpose, isn’t he? He knows only an aspiring director in the broadcasting department is likely to have a MiniDV player on hand. God damn it if he hasn’t just inspired me a bit. I shove the door open, blinded a little.
“Prison, you say?”
She nods, looking up. She’s sitting on the bed pretending to read rather obligatory lecture notes on Tartovsky.
“Sounds, dangerous.”
She shakes her head but is soon sobbing into the sheaf of notes.
“I’ll do it.”
I grab at my trousers but for now just for a pack of smokes.
While Andrea stares blasé in the corner, I crawl out and throw my pants back on, followed by a couple of shirts as she attempts conversation.
“Why they letting him out? Early ain’t it? Surely not good behavior.”
“A little early,” she muses, a bit offended, “Spike is a good boy when he wants to be.”
I chuckle.
“Also the hurricane. Supposed to be a direct hit. They push out anyone they can now, minimize what they are doing later. Understaffed and by generator power.”
“Fair enough.”
“You just have to swing by the front and he ought to be waiting. Take my Tercel if you want, rather than risk your rickety old Impala out in the country side.”
“You’re not coming?”
She shakes her head.
“Fine. My car will be fine. It’s my rickety old self I worry about in the outer parish.”
Now that she’s reminded me about the impending storm, I ought to swing by the liquor store and pick up a case of something anyway.
I drop the smoke on the edge of the dresser to slip on my Converse. “No worries. You’re waiting here?”
She nods. Scooching back from the edge of the bed, folding in her legs and whisking some books and blankets near her.
“Fine.” I pinch back up the smoke and flick the ash into a nearby cereal bowl. I take a last swig of rum which I leave on the shelf by the door as I take up the keys.
I breeze out, down two flights and unto the street. Oppressive Louisiana humidity. The 1973 black Impala is two blocks away, and blocked front and back. After five minutes inching back and forth, sweating alcohol from my temples, I ease the thing into traffic and point it out of town.
It’s good to have some wind in the hair for a few minutes.
The prison sprawls low across several acres of converted prime farmland. Dry, uplands being a commodity this part of town. The concrete walls are not impressive, enough to stop anyone access the prison by car save at the gate, and are vastly overshadowed by the tangle of steel and rivets making up the prison. If anything, it looks like a giant physical plant for a sugar mill. Bleak, confusing.
I approach the gate, waving my license “Hi. I’m here to—”
The pike immediately goes up and I am ushered thru. Easier in then out, I suppose, is the prison motto.
The parking lot is mostly empty, and Spike is not standing around waiting for me as Andrea had insisted. I pull the Chevy in a random space and head toward the only door I see.
Beyond is a cramped but empty lobby. I approach the window and tell a huffy man in a tie that I am here to pick up Spike.
“Uh-huh,” he puffs. A buzz of a door unlocking, “Step thru here and wait.”
I do. It is a bigger space. Feels like a gym with a low ceiling. Someone jams a box with Spike’s name on it at me. His stuff. I sit at a cafeteria style table. And wait. But not long.
“Heeeeey, Frankie, brother,” I soon hear sneered across the room. It’s Spike.
Orange. That’s the color of his spiky hair. And of his prison jumpsuit. Tiger orange.
He crosses over as I stand we shake. I had him his box. “My shit? Cool.” He says as an alarm trips.
“What’s that? “ I ask.
“Who knows? Lock down, probably. Or an escape.” Now the lights are surging on and off as well. “No, it’s worse. Maybe it’s a riot? All the animals in the zoo get antsy when there’s a storm brewing.”
“I see.”
“Anyways, in the confusion we can just walk outta here.”
“Yea, right.”
A pack of guards rush through from the lobby back towards the bowels of the prison. Spike catches the lobby door before it swings shut. “See?”
The lobby is empty. “Well, what’s next?” I ask. “There’s no one to process you.”
“Let’s just go. I’ve got my stuff.”
“But you’re an escapee if you go before being officially released.”
“Nah, I’m just saving them some time.” A few more guards pass through. “See? They’re too busy for us.”
I follow him out to the parking garage. He heads to an impound lot, where I can see his pick up, and think “Dammit, Andrea. He didn’t even need a ride after all.”
Spike calls back over his shoulder. “Thanks for coming, see you back in town.”
I get back to my car and circle the lot. The owners of the other few cars there are all also leaving. I am hesitant of the front gate but see no other exit.
I don’t see where Spike has gone but presumably he has to bust outta the impound, and then the front gate as well. And with his luck or charm, God knows he’ll get thru. He doesn’t care.
Fuck it. Neither do I. Seeing no other exit but whence I came, I queue up. Soon enough I am back at the gate. I waive my ID again. “Hi, I was just—”
And I am flagged just as easily back out again.
Left to make the eight mile drive back into town pondering the mini-adventure.
I head back to my small apartment.
I’ve been sulking here for the past month. As my college gig ends I have been packing, cutting off ties, and tying lose ends. Aside from Andrea, who insists on intimate companionship, but only at her own convenience. This relationship is hers alone to sever. I have told her many times, I would go. Soon. And she would not see or hear from me again. She waves this off. Everyone loves her. I do. Everyone will be there when she needs them. I can’t. But she doesn’t believe it.
Other than Andrea, cutting myself from the world these past weeks has given me a modicum of happiness.
In the past week in fact, I have barely gotten out at all. I get up. Make a dead eyed march thru campus to my office. 8-9 hours. Dead eyed march back to my room.
Once back, I am not sure what for. Eat? Who cares? Drink. Yes, definitely but we always make sure there is enough so I empty my books and papers and sling my shoulder bag back on. I go out. Make a dead eyed march thru the strip to the liquor store. Buy a gallon of whatever. Dead eyed march back to my room.
Sometimes folks would stop me. I’m not an unknown quantity after years here both on the campus and the Strip. But what do they offer. What does anything offer? I tell them as much. Stop for a drink? Got one. Have a bite? No. Don’t eat.
Last night I was almost tempted. I saw Dan. He flagged me into a bar as I passed. I like Dan and went in. he drew me into a booth with some other guys. Handed me a beer poured from the pitcher on their table. .
“Listen, thanks Dan. I was just saying hello. I’ve really got to go.” No girls. What’s the point? Dan’s cool, but If I hang on the Strip it’s to meet girls. I made hasty retreat taking the proffered beer. Which was in a plastic cup. I pushed through the crowd.
Girls. Indeed.
I stopped outside the patio of the bar, La Danse, where Andrea works. Here, I can lean against the lamppost, sip the beer and watch her work inside. I watched her giggle and lay out drinks for an audience hanging on her every word.
When she looked up and caught me watching I felt ashamed. I stood, chugged the beer and tossed the cup into a bin. Re-shouldered the bag and headed back to my room.
Now she is asleep in my bed when I return, lugging a case. Twelve liters of cheap vodka which I hope will last the duration of the storm and its aftermath. I drop the keys, take up the rum and drop to the floor in front of her. She struggles awake, yawns and tussles my hair.
“Frank?”
“Yea?”
“You did it?”
“Yea.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“He escaped.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure he made it. He had his truck.”
“Oh.” She looks fallen for a minute, shrinking back into the blankets. But quickly pops back out.
“Well, I am sure he will get in touch. Let’s go out, have some drinks. He’s probably at the bars already.”
“No.” I shrug and take a sip. “No thanks.”
“No?”
“Too depressed. A prison riot is enough adventure for one day.”
Meanwhile, she has headed to the bathroom to reapply her makeup in the mirror.
Red is the color of her lipstick, and the bloody spots in the toilet. A souvenir from a thousand nights drinking. Cherry red.
She doesn’t notice the blood thank god, but breezes back through grabbing me by the ear.
“You’re going. I’m going to get some food into you too.”
I groan and acquiesce. I grab my jacket off a nail. Not that it isn’t still sweltering hot outside, but in order to slide the firth of rum into the inner pocket. God damn I don’t plan on buying or waiting for any more drinks than I have to.
But loading me into the Tercel, she doesn’t take me to the Strip as I expected or hoped given the choices but downtown, to a classier place she and Spike had been hanging at. Inside a Japanese restaurant. She insists on buying me a dinner and I insist I won’t eat it.
As she drags me inside, we find The Japanese place now shares an atrium with a newly minted massage parlor. Spike is of course, there, cupping a hand so he can stare into the window of the parlor. “Have you seen this shit?” he beams by way of acknowledging us.
I shrug. “No.”
“‘Happiness Guaranteed.’ Believe that?”
I shrug. “No.”
“Me neither. But that’s what the sign says. We should try it, just so we can sue them.”
“Happiness guaranteed?” Andrea interjects, “Let’s buy Frank one.”
“One what?” I groan.
“One Happiness.” She insists, “Whatever that is. Come on.”
She drags me by the arm inside. Spike follows.
Inside, Andrea approaches the counter where an older Japanese woman in a kimono sits and of course says: “One Happiness please!”
“Oh, yes!” the woman beams, “You want the special? Happiness guaranteed?”
“Yes,” Andrea tugs me to the front, “For my friend, Frank, here.”
“Ah, Okay. I see. He’s a grumpy one.”
Andrea nods.
“Okay, let me tell you how it works.” She stands aside show we can take it all in as she speaks. With a wave of the arm she continues, “You see we have many, many masseuse…all professional.”
Indeed, there are tons of people buzzing about like a hive and at least two long lines of massage tables to which I cannot see an end.
“Very professional.” The woman continues, “All masseuse are arranged by expertise, by skill. You will start here at the beginning, with our newest girl. Iris.” She points to a fair skinned brunette, with pale eyes.
Blue is the color of her eyes and the flowers in a vase by the cash register. Cornflower blue. By which I mean she is beautiful.
“Iris has just been certified in Swedish massage and is very promising.” She continues. Iris blushes. “She can make your body feel very good, relieve a lot of tension, and also make you smile to think that a lovely girl has doted on you.”
“Hi, Iris.” I force an embarrassed smile and a small wave as I am lead to her table.
“She can make Frank happy?” Andrea asks.
“She has ten minutes,” the Asian counter woman continues.
“Oh!” Andrea is crestfallen a minute at what she perceives as an over sell.
“If Iris cannot do it. Your Frank moves on, table number two,” the woman continues, as Andrea nods, back on board, “Jeanne there practices shiatsu and reflexive points, and then Mary at Table Three is aromatherapy and deep tissue massage…and so on, until our job is done.”
“Happiness guaranteed?” Andrea and I ask together.
“Happiness guaranteed,” the Asian nods, “Even for the most grumpy client.”
“How do you know?” Andrea asks.
“Oh come now! We know. We can tell.”
“A woman’s intuition.” Andrea nods. She is sold.
“Well, let’s just say that it is ‘A masseuse’s intuition,’ as some of our best technichians are men, after all. Regardless, we are always honest and fair with our assessment.”
“Perfect. Put it on my card.” Andrea passages a bank card. “Frank, we’ll be at the sushi bar.”
“Some aren’t women!?” I pipe up. “Andrea! Maybe I would like that dinner you promised instead?”
“Does it matter?” Andrea asks.
“No worries, Mr. Man,” grins our hostess, putting my hand in Iris’, “You’re not too hard a case. The first row are all women. They’ll have you smiling ear to ear. You won’t need to get farther than that.”
“But—”
“Now go, Mr. Grumpy! Make him happy, Iris.”
“Will do, boss.” Iris chirps.
“No pressure, Iris.” I frown. “I hate this.”
“Give it a chance,” she smiles leading me unto her table.
I cannot see the end of the first row, but see that its snakes back this way. All the way back to the counter where it wraps back again, over a coy pond with small wooden foot bridge and through some glass doors. “Some major, secret body work must be required if you get that far,” I nod at the bridge.
“Just relax and enjoy.” She nods and lays me back, discovering the rum bottle in my jacket. She says nothing. But clears her throat.
“Oh, sorry. I should take my jacket off.” I do, and Iris takes it and hangs it on a coat rack in the lobby. Then she gets to work.
Iris is lovely. She grinds my back and shoulders among other things for ten minutes. It is true; it is nice just to chat, laugh (she giggles, really) with a beautiful young woman as she works over my body. At length there is a bell.
“Time's up,” she bites her lip.
“Iris, that was nice. Thank you. Really. What next? Andrea paid right?”
“You go to the next table, Frank,” she sighs a bit, “I didn’t do it.”
“No! I feel better. Really, it was nice.”
“Nice, yes. But you are not happy.”
“Oh.” I am crushed a bit. She is right. Some chit chat and touching. That touching remove decades now of corrosion, loneness, mistrust. A mockery of intimacy. As I think, Jeanne from Table Two comes upon me from behind and leads me to her table. She’s even more physical and more engaging but, then there’s Mary at Three and Joanne at Four.
I move farther down and down the line. I’ve lost count of the tables and the names. All these massages and massage therapists blur together, all brunettes with fair skin. Which is to say they are beautiful. One after the other, I struggle to recall each as the end of the row looms. There was Iris, right? She was the “-est” of them. Cutest, funniest, youngest, flirtiest, bluest eyes whitest teeth, freckliest.
Have hours gone by?
There is a trend perhaps, from Iris, down the line. They become more skillful as promised. I will admit. Though it is not so easy to judge. For example, how to you compare reiki techniques (through which I find it difficult to keep a straight face) early on my table to table journey to more serious hot stone application (through which I find it hard not to flinch).
The girls become older, as I go too. Becoming women really. Ok makes sense. I guess that comes with experience. All still beautiful nonetheless. More motherly, earthly. More physical, less squeamish perhaps. Less judgmental. Not so careful not to accidentally rub up against you.
Might I say more blondish hair and brownish eyes as I go? April, the girl working me over now is downright mousy-haired and May waiting at the next table, dirty blonde. June, even further down has seductive doe-eyes.
But each shakes her head at me as the bell rings. A chance grope and half-chub are not enough to raise my spirits. Not deep down. I smile, exhilarated by sudden blood flow to new areas. But they see the deadness still. Behind the eyes.
I am panicking a little as the end of the row looms.
Now Augusta works me over hard. Her table is at the end. They told me I’d never get this far. Beyond Augusta table is a short expanse of hardwood, open to the dining room of the sushi place. Now I can see through to where Andrea waits. Occasionally looking at her watch in disgust. I consider making a run for it. Augusta senses it too. Kneads me harder. “Oops sorry” she says for the nth time accidentally bumping my penis in hopes to get a rise from me, so to speak. It’s cheap but it works. She bodily climbs on top me ostensibly to work my shoulder but meanwhile grinding her crotch into mine. Sure, I am hard. But it’s a sad, dirty erection about to explode. It’s mechanical. There is no joy in it.
The bell rings. Well, no. It’s a gong this time.
“Times up.” Augusta admits sliding off seconds before I come. “Sorry, its closing time. You good?”
“Thanks,” I force a smile.
“Who am I kidding?” She shakes her head, now she is embarrassed, that is not the success she is working towards. That was desperation. “You are a tough one.”
“Sorry, I tried. I really enjoyed that.”
“I know you did. I could feel it.”
Now we are both embarrassed. “So what happens next?”
“Come back tomorrow, I guess,” she shrugs. “This hasn't happened before. No one on the 'Happiness Guaranteed' package ever got as far as me. Ever as far as April-May, really.”
“Will it work?”
“It will. We’ll get to you.”
“I don’t want to go over the bridge.”
“The third row? No way you get that far. “
“What’s that far, after the brunettes and blondes? Men?”
“Eventually. European. Big time pros from over there.”
“That’s over the bridge.”
“That’ll be approaching the coy pond. Maybe past a little. I don’t know what’s way in the back.”
I gulp. “That’s where you keep the old ladies with strapons?”
“You don’t want to come back do you?”
“Um.”
“At this point. It’s a point of honor, for us. Please just go home and relax and loosen up.”
I slink out, back down the long row of masseuses, each giving me something of an encouraging smile. A walk of shame. I trudge out.
At least my jacket is still on the peg in the lobby, rum bottle intact.
Andrea meets me in the atrium. Spike has ditched her to score some crack cocaine as is usual. But never mind that she insists. She wants a full report, which I give.
“I am not going back,” I tell her in conclusion, “I will pay you back for the waste. But if a beautiful women touching and rubbing me and grinding their muffs into me doesn’t make me happy, it’s damn sure no jerky German jock is going to massage me to happiness.”
“No you must!” she insists, “They know what they are doing! You deserve this.”
“Maybe, if I could start again. With Iris. Table One. I’ll start in a better state of mind. I’ll try harder! It’s too much pressure now!” I jam my fists into my eyes.
“Okay, okay, Frank. We’ll see. Let’s go over to La Danse maybe. Forget this.”
“The Strip? I don’t know. I’m gonna go have a smoke.”
“Okay, I’ll call Spike.”
“Whatever.” I leave and head to the side alley to smoke and get back to the rum at long last. I don’t know why she hangs onto Spike; they divorced years back. He’s crazy. Well, they are both crazy. But he’s a felon and an addict and worse probably. But they hang together inseparable. Using me as glue. A miserable go between. Friends with Spike because of Andrea. Friend s with Andrea because I cannot be more so long as there is Spike.
As for now, Spike is not going to answer. By now his cell phone is tuned off. And he is getting high with a bunch of prostitutes and has forgotten Andrea. He’ll show up at her door or mine with a sack of bagels and a hangdog apology for abandoning her and a thank you to me for taking care of her yet again.
So much platonic bliss to go round.
Now, a bunch of staff, sushi cooks, masseuses, waitresses, etc. are emerging from the side door into the alley as the place closes shop for the night. Iris has pulled on a coat and is unlocking a bike chained to a drain pipe. She spots me at the mouth of the alley as she walks the bike out. “Uh-hum,” she smiles at the bottle, grabs it from me and takes a surprising pull on it.
“Saved me some. Good.” She thrusts it back at me. “Thanks, Grump.”
“Hey, thanks for, you know. Trying.” I don’t know what to say. I jab my smoke at the wall. “You know, in there.” Now she grabs that and takes a drag.
“Wish I could have done better.”
“You were great. I am just a wreck.”
“You’re fine.” After an awkward silence, she continues, “You always get drug around by those other two?”
“Yea. A lot. I keep them from killing each other.”
“I see. That’s nice of you.” She takes the bottle for another sip, and then gets on her bike.
“Okay. Thanks again. Have a good night.”
“Yea. You too, Grump.” She looks to a hesitant direction, and then back, “Listen, some of us are going over to the Strip for a bit. If you want to join.”
“Yea. Okay. Well, we were considering it too. La Danse.”
“Okay. See you.” She peddles off down the street.
I collect Andrea at the front door. Surprise. She’s called Spike several times and it goes right to voice mail. We decide to walk to the Strip, a few blocks. We walk down the street hand in hand. But upon reaching the club, she is no longer down with it. We argue a bit. Is there any benefit to having her as my bestie if she cannot help warm up a girl like Iris for me? What good does she do? Another time, she says! Perhaps but Andrea is tired and I need to help her get home safely. Ugh.
We walk back to her car parked down the other end of the street. She hugs me now. Apologizing for what must seem a one-way street. But of course she tries to help. The massage.
Bah, the massage.
Anyway, some luck now as she finds the rum bottle in my jacket and realizes that I shouldn’t be driving. Now that I’ve navigated her rape free through the city, she’ll manage herself home, and I manage myself back to the club to bump into Iris. Whose skeptical of Andrea anyway, so it may be for the best.
None too soon, I am pushing my way through La Danse. Music blares. Bodies convulse on the dance floor. At length I push through to the bar and after a minute of fruitlessly trying to flag a bartender, Iris and I spot each other across the bar and she waves me over. I fight my way again through the seas of people to her and a group of friends.
“Glad, you came!” she throws arms about me. “Took a bit, we’re about to leave!”
“Oh.”
“Here drink this and take this and come with me.” She thrusts a shot into one hand, a capsule in the other, and given the third instruction, I do not argue. I pop the pill and wash it down with what turns out to be tequila. Her friends head to the door, she drags me along by the arm. Outside they are collecting their bicycles.
As we enter the relatively silent street, I realize Iris is yelling at me—
“—so listen we are going back to my place. You can come if you want!”
“Okay. Yes, please.What did you give me?”
“Tequila.”
“Yea, I got that.”
“Ecstasy.”
“Okay.”
“Any other concerns?”
“I don’t have a bike.”
“Stand on my pegs and hold on. It’s not far.”
“Sure.” I say although I have no idea how that is physically going to work.
“It’s mostly downhill.” She insists, “Grab me.”
The mix of pills and booze are getting to me. She says it will work. So it will. I grab her and we wing down a hill. Everything flashes by neon. Flashes. She glows pink. I am green. Her friends zoom past, blinking every other color.
We laugh as we zoom. I clutch her. We must have crashed 100 times I imagine but I have no memory of it as we turn, screeching into a small apartment complex.
“Jesus, Frank. You’re a trip. Who said you can’t have fun?” she gushes as we sputter and fall in the front lawn. We untangle and head to the door. Half up the stairs. “My husband is going to love you!”
“Husband?” I ask. We’ve reached the threshold, she turns.
“Yea. Problem with that?”
“No I just thought—”
“Thought what? Did I lead you on?”
“Well, it’s just that…you have been very friendly, and—”
“An friendly is wrong?”
“No it’s not that…I am just—”
“What?”
“Tired.”
“Tired of what?”
“Everything. And miserable,” I head down the steps back to the sidewalk, “Tired and miserable and I want to be alone.”
“You can hang with friends. Nothing wrong with that”
“I’ll be no less alone,” I call from the yard now, “Rather not the eyes on me as well. Happy lovers’ eyes. Good night.”
I am back on the road. Colors are gone now. No more flashes. Things spin instead. Not sure where I am I trudge uphill back towards downtown. Sweat pours. Hopefully the strain will sober me a little to find my way home.
I awake sometime the next day. Throbbing head ache, half-dressed on my bathroom floor with little memory of how I had gotten there. I remember the painful flapping of my feet in thin sneakers endless block after block. Rednecks in pickups hurling bottles at me as they passed. Pissing in bushes when I cannot take it any longer. Fumbling with my apartment key, flying through the door when it suddenly gave way.
I stagger up using the sink as help, splash my face. I make sure the door is locked and collapse into bed. Outside I can hear wind and rain whipping. Oh, yea. The storm.
Cool.
There is no where I need to be and no thing I have to do until the hurricane is over.
Thunder seems to roll in closer and closer, it continues to growl, punctuated by louder and louder claps. “If it’s the end of the world, they’ll send a text or something right?” I try to focus on the cell phone on the nightstand. Pass out.
When I wake, the bulk of the storm is over, but the wind still howls. The power is out and my cell phone is dead. I doubt I can estimate within 12 hours what time it is. Suffice it to say as I throw on a jacket and grab a bottle, the sky outside is violet. Periwinkle. The same color as the city near dawn or dusk. It could be either night or day.
I walk and survey the damage, shivering in the wind. Lots of destruction, empty lots where I distinctly remember there being a bungalow or shotgun before, but now there are some scattered brick pillars and splintered weatherboard. Trees downed everywhere of course and dead utility lines too. No sign of any dead dying or wounded folks so my inspection is mostly academic. Perhaps everyone evacuated. Or perhaps they’ve long since hauled the bodies away and the wind and rain has washed away the blood and limbs. I’m bored.
The square is empty so I sit on a park bench and suck lazily from the bottle, thinking of Andrea and Spike and trying not to think about Iris. My only temptation is to return to the massage parlor and make an ass out of myself. I jump astride the nearest mounted confederate statue and peer down the street.
Is anything open?
Does it matter?
Why am I a third wheel?
Have I nothing to offer?
The low pressure vacuum and the ozone in the air have me goddamn near insane right now. I plop back down on the bench, pull a knit cap out of my pocket and jam it on. Lean back, hand in pockets. I could just sleep here. May be we are in the eye of this storm. The next half of the donut will whisk me away like it has most of the awnings on Jefferson Street.
Where to? The underpass to see how Jerry and the other hobos fared the storm? Back to the Strip to see which of the clubs was either bravely opening or closing depending on what time it was? The massage parlor to cash in my chit?
Drinking more now. I think I will do all three and so fix on dragging myself through town. The winds are really kicking up as I pass the parlor/sushi place. I slump heavily on the front window cupping hands over eyes and trying to peer inside. Can’t see much but a flicker of some candles inside and some muttering inside which I do not understand.
I turn to go, take a sip when lightening blasts a lamppost just in front of me. Everything is blue for a moment. The color of ozone. The color of Andrea’s Tercel. The color of Iris’ scrub suit. Electric blue.
I stumble blinded as a group of sushi chefs and masseuse clamor out and grab me.
“Don’t touch me!” I try to scream. A comical yelp is best I can muster.”
“Get inside! It’s dangerous!”|
“Get your fucking hand off!”
“Please!”
“Leave me!”
“Inside!”
“Fuck!”
I struggle against them, more come out.
“Frank! Come inside.” A calming, English voice. I stop struggling.
“Iris?”
“Yea, Frank, let’s get in,” she tugs my sleeve. I bat her away.
“You too, get your hands off.” No one stops me now, I push through the small crowd and march off proudest I can. Duck down the first side street and head home. Storm’s kicking up now—
—I find myself, per usual, next I know, my bathroom floor. Go to bed, sleep, idiot.
I wake when the power comes back on. I drink some water and charge my phone enough to see its Sunday afternoonish.
With nothing more to do, I snag an open bottle and go for another walk. Folks are slowly emerging post-storm. In the Strip they are knocking plywood off windows, dragging furniture back unto the bar patios, restringing awnings. I stop at my usual post outside La Danse where I can watch Andrea muck about with a bucket and mop inside. At length I get the creep sense of someone up behind me, and nervously cap the bottle lest it be a policeman.
“You again.” A girl’s voice bemoans. Hand on shoulder. I turn for Iris.
“Yea. You again too.” I reach for pleasantries, “So you survived the storm?”
“Yea. So, you are not freaking out anymore?”
“Give it a sec.” she withdraws the hand, I feel bad. “Sorry about that. That massage parlor freaks me the fuck out. I doubt I’ll be back to finish.”
“We’ll, I wouldn’t worry. They are not too fond of you now either.”
“Whatever.” I take a hit and offer the bottle.
She waves it away, “So when you are not with that girl, you mostly what? Hang out on the street peeping on her? What’s with you? Were you trying to peep on me at the parlor yesterday?”
“Mostly I work. Or drink. I only occasionally peep on her. No I wasn’t peeping on you, succubus. I was just wondering what goes on behind the scene at your creepy little sanitarium.”
“Fuck you, Frank.” Iris hisses a bit too loud as I strike a nerve. Inside Andrea looks our way, smiles and waves us in. “Come on, we might as well go in now.”
“Bah,” I say but follow.
Inside Andrea is glad to have customers she can attend to and leave the cleaning be for a bit. As soon as she gets a chance, Iris asks Andrea what she’s already prodded me about. Our relationship. And Andrea is all too eager to spill the embarrassing details about how we met at the university and became best friends and how that is so great because there is no room for more with Spike in her life. They are separated but there is still love there. She cannot love another. Etc. Etc.
“But you love Frank.” Iris demands as Andrea finishes the tale.
“Oh, of course. As a friend. He is always there. He loves me too.”
“But Frank wants to fuck you.”
“No! Do you, Frank?”
I hold my tongue. Watch the TV above the bar as if I care about the sports scores.
“Of course he does. He’s a guy. Just now he was out mooning on the street watching you.”
“But Spike is my love. My husband. I will fuck him, if he fixes things. If he gets on the wagon.”
“Honey, honestly, do you hear yourself? Spike, is gone. And Frank is putting the hours in. And you, Frank.” She turns to me, now pretending to flip through channels on the TV remote, “You, Frank, should just demand it.”
“Huh?”
“Dominate her. She needs dominated. She needs a dose of reality. And you on the other hand, you need to take control of something. Anything. It’s perfect. Take her home. Tell her ‘Spike is gone now. Suck my dick. Or I’ll fucking paddle your ass.’ Then do it. Tie her down and spank her. You’ll both thank me.”
“Hah! Whattaya think, Andrea?” I smirk nervously. “Give it a try?”
“No,” she shakes her head sadly and picks up her spray and rags. So much for this turn of events.
“Well that, as they say, is that.” I slide off the stool. “Goodnight ladies. If you need me I will be in the nearest gutter.”
I trudge home, taking a longish route, fooling myself that Iris or Andrea might care enough to follow. If I pretend I outfoxed them, I won’t have to acknowledge, they just didn’t care. My route takes me past the cathedral, where a short cut through the cemetery suits my mood. Resting on a table top grave to catch my breath. I hear some weak peeping and track it to a sparrow which in the dying sunlight, I spot wedged into a nearby storm grate.
Peeps turn to weak squawks as I pop it out. There is no delicate way. To my surprise it survives the ordeal. It lies on its side in the grass. Drenched. Beak opening and closing with shallow breaths. Wing hanging like a broken umbrella.
It reminds me of me.
Brown. The color of a little bird and of the cloud over my head. Shit brown.
I delicately take him up in my knit cap, patting him dry as much I dare. I’ll gingerly get him home, make him a nest of laundry and warm him under my desk lamp.
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