by Joe Meno
“Who?” I asked.
“That girl, Dahlia. My older sister hated her. Said she stole you away from her.”
“No, that’s not true. Ullele and me broke up a long time before. She started dating some guy from Colterville and she didn’t miss me at all after that.”
“No. She still has a torch for you. All my sisters do.”
Charlene’s eyelashes fluttered like a summer dream as she crossed her legs. “So did you marry that girl?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That was like a bad joke.”
The girl twitched her nose.
“Oh, dammit, I have to go.”
“You heading on some kind of trip?” I asked.
“Huh?” She looked down at her suitcase like it was the last thing she expected to find in her hand. She gave a little huff and shook her head.
“Where you headin’?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m going back to my parents’ home.”
She shot up out of her seat and started toward the front of the bus, then turned around and looked back at me. She gave a quiet smile and stared right at me, making the air around my head seem perfumed and sweet. Then her lips parted and the softest words ever spoken came unbuckled from behind her white teeth.
“Welcome home, Luce Lemay,” I heard her say and I felt like I was about to faint. Charlene shook her head and walked to the front as the bus rolled to a stop. The doors opened with a hush. She stepped off and out into the road before I could find a single word to speak. The bus took off again and I felt my tongue come undone from its knot.
“Hey … wait,” I kind of mumbled. I imagined her young lips firm against mine. I fell back into my seat like an invalid.
“Hey, that sure is a nice suit,” the crazy old man beside me said. I nodded. The bus rumbled along, stinking with all our sweat. “That sure is nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Where’d you get a nice suit like that?”
“I’m not sure.”
The suit I was wearing was red polyester, with a red collar, the only suit I owned, the one I had worn to trial, the one that had sat in a drawer somewhere in the Illinois Department of Corrections for three years. It was old and wrinkled and stank of a short stay of incarceration.
“So you want this gasoline or not?”
“Sure. All I got is three dollars,” I said.
“Fine, that’s fine.”
I dug into my suit pocket and handed him three bucks. At the next stop he hopped off the bus and slipped into the Five-Spot Bar on the corner. The bus pulled away just as the old man was probably ordering a strong bourbon in a dirty white glass.
The gas can beside me shook as the bus pulled away.
I leaned back in the seat and stared outside, then dug into the pocket of my suit and pulled out Junior Breen’s old letter.
To my good old pal,
How is life? I hope this letter finds you well and in good spirits. I hope everything is dandy as a peach.
Junior Breen was one of the few friends I had made in the pen. Junior had gotten out a few months ahead of me. He had gone to La Harpie and gotten a job at a service station there because the owner was an acquaintance of my old man and had a soft spot for cons. Junior got me a room at the old hotel where he was staying. He had been too afraid to go back to his own town. He didn’t want to face the things he had done in everyone’s shallow stare. He had a kind of face that let you know he was all alone. He was a square guy, but a little strange. I met Junior when he was sitting alone in the library, the only part of the pen that was always air-conditioned, a big behemoth of a man staring hard at one of the glossy concrete walls, mumbling words quietly to himself. His hair was short and brown. He had enormous pork-chop sideburns. His forehead sloped down over his two deep blue eyes. He was carving something with the end of a pen hard into a linoleum desk. From where I sat all I could read were the words old red organ. Then he got up all of a sudden and took a seat beside me and smiled, looking me hard in the face.
“Tell you what I miss the most.” He frowned. “Ice cream. There ain’t nothing like a good ice cream on a hot day like this.”
“That’s the truth.” I smiled. “I’d pay a year of my life right now for a visit to Dairy Queen.”
“Name’s Junior Breen,” he said. He offered me a big white hand. His fist seemed to envelop mine as he gave a hearty handshake.
“Luce Lemay,” I replied. “How long you in for?”
“Twenty-five years, no parole.” He frowned.
“How many you got left?”
“This is my last one.” He smiled.
“Boy, that’s swell. Where you hail from?” I asked.
“Colterville. Home of the best Dairy Queen I’ve ever known.”
“Colterville? They do have the best Dairy Queen in the state. I’m from La Harpie myself. Never had a ice cream store in our town. We used to have to drive over to your Colterville if we wanted something cool to eat.”
“Don’t know what I’d do myself.” Junior frowned. “I’d consider moving, I guess.”
“Man, I’ll tell you, when I was about eighteen or so I was in love with this girl that worked at that Dairy Queen in your town. She was something. Luanne Wurley, that was her name. You know her? She was something. A real sight. With her little cutoff jeans and ponytail and vanilla shake, she had everything. Used to sneak dilly-bars to me for free.”
Junior kept smiling and let go of my hand. “That sure sounds nice.”
“Give a year of my life for a kiss from a girl like that,” I said.
“I’d give a year just for the ice cream.”
I took to him right away. He was a big man, about twenty years older than me, somewhere around forty-five. He was in for murder of the first degree. He had strangled a fourteen-year-old girl when he was only seventeen himself and left the body out on a plank of wood and sent it down a river. Junior told the jury he thought he was doing the girl a favor. They sent him away for twenty-five years without the hope of an early parole. They thought Junior was something like a mental defective. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t slow, he’d just have these spells where he’d climb into his bunk and sit and stare at the wall for hours. He wasn’t dangerous or anything. In fact, he seemed downright scared most of the time. He knew he had done an awful thing and you could almost hear it there, burning in his heart late at night, poor old lug. Junior was a big man. He weighed close to 280. Big and burly but tender as a pup. He was the kind of big guy other cons used in order to make themselves look brave or tough.
“Hey there, fat boy.” A con named Toreador grinned. He was in for three counts of theft and one for aggravated assault. He had robbed a carful of old-folks and stolen all their cash and clothes. The cops had picked Toreador up wearing one of the old men’s flowered shirts. “How’s breakfast, fat-ass? You get enough?”
Junior shoved another spoonful of oatmeal in his big round mouth. Toreador took a seat beside him and put his arm around the bigger man’s shoulder. Toreador wasn’t that big himself, he was thin and wiry, but his face looked mean as hell, long and greasy, his skin brown and full of pockmarks. “How come you eat so much, fat boy?”
Junior just gave a shrug with his shoulders and tried to finish his grub.
“You like to look so fat? Have big fat titties for yourself?” “Why don’t you leave him alone?” I said. I held my fork in my hand. I could see the thick blue vein where Toreador’s blood ran up to his evil head.
“I was talking to fat-ass, if you don’t mind?” Toreador turned back and leaned in close to Junior. “So you like to be fat? A big boy like you could be a real wild fuck for a lonely con. I oughta sell you as my bitch.”
“Just leave him alone,” I said again.
“Hey, I said I wasn’t talking to you, OK? If you want to get your ass beat, then keep on interrupting.”
Junior’s big face was caked with sweat. He was trembling like a big baby. He couldn’t move. His wide forehead dribbled perspiration ar
ound his tiny doughy eyes. Some spit was bubbling along his mouth. Some snot was flagging in his nose.
“Is he your bitch?” Toreador smiled. “You like those fatboy titties, don’t you? You like fucking that lard-ass, huh?”
“The only cocksucker at this table is you,” I said.
“La Santa Angel de la Guarda,” Toreador whistled. “You sure have a mouth for such a pretty thing. Make your move, go ahead, pretty thing. Show me what a tough girl you are. Go ahead. Make your move.”
I gritted my teeth together hard and flung my metal tray across the table straight into Toreador’s chest. Grits and meal flew all over his prison-issued white T-shirt and dirty blue pants. Before I could make another move, he was already at my throat. He had his long thin fingers gripping me tight, choking me hard, banging my face against the cold metal table. Crack I could hear the skin along my nose tear open. Then my jawbone. Crrrrrrrack. He began screaming and just kept smashing my face against the table’s end. I could hear some correctional officers hollering.
There was my stop.
I opened my eyes and slipped the letter back inside my suit coat. The gas can in the seat beside me rattled with a little song.
I pulled my things together and rose to my feet.
I left the gas can on the seat beside me and crept past the empty benches toward the front of the bus.
The door made a little hush as I stepped out. I was sure of it now. Nothing in that long lonely night seemed like it would ever change. I fumbled through my suit and walked straight into the dark.
honeymoon veil
An angel of lust spoke coldly:
“Lonely tonight?”
Even in a small town like La Harpie there were ladies of the night. Bus and train stations were where they flourished, I guess. They’d pick up men stopping in town for the night or husbands who had just seen off their wives. This girl was desperate, wide-toothed, pale, with a long jagged scar, waiting all alone.
“Bet a lonely ol’ jailbird like you wouldn’t mind a little company for the night.”
I just kept on walking, trying not to breathe in her perfume. Because then it would be over. Then the rest of my seventeen bucks in singles would be spent in lust and I’d be without food or a room. Morning would come and I’d see her sore face, without any of the thousand layers of makeup, then she’d tell me it was time to go and I’d feel worse off than if I had just spent the night alone.
“So how long were you in?” she asked.
“Almost three years.”
“And your girlfriend didn’t pick you up to welcome you home?”
“Don’t have a girl.”
“That’s a shame, good-looking boy like you.”
I just kept on walking. I didn’t want to stop. But this pale prostitute kept up with me like we had been walking together all our lives.
“’Cause, I’ll tell you, this town ain’t exactly kind to strangers. I’m just telling you as a little warning.”
“Thanks.”
The girl was maybe about seventeen. There was a long gray scar that hooked around from one eye to the corner of her lip. It looked like it had been carved deep by a straight razor. I could smell her sweat. I could smell her perfume, probably just some soap. I needed a woman.
I took a deep breath. I lit a cigarette and exhaled through my nose. The prostitute winked at me and patted me on the shoulder. I fingered a cigarette out of the pack and handed it to her.
“Do you wanna get a room then?” she asked. “We could do whatever you like.”
“Whatever I like?” I asked.
“Sure, baby, sure, whatever you like.”
“Could I go up to that hotel room and take off all your clothes?”
“Sure you could, sweetie. That’s usually part of the deal.”
“No, no, I mean, could I go up to that hotel room and undress you slow, so slow, piece by piece, right on down to your last little panty ho, then maybe wrap you up in a nice white towel and slip you into a warm little bath, a warm little soapy bubble bath, and wash your hair for you, then maybe soap up your back and your legs and your face and rinse you off clean, then dry you off nice and good and tie a soft white robe around your waist and kiss all your skin from your sweet little forehead down to your bare white toes? Then maybe tune the radio to a nice country station and wait for a sweet ballad by Tammy Wynette or Johnny Cash and kiss on you some more and more and maybe dance together without any of our clothes and then fall asleep together so tight they think we might have died right there? Could I do that? Could I do that for only seventeen dollars tonight?”
The prostitute’s face was all pale.
“You don’t want me dirtying up that kind of pretty dream.”
She flicked her cigarette into the dark, then turned down the street alone, biting her thin yellow hair. I watched as her shadow grew and then disappeared. I took a deep breath and turned around.
There were small green squares of lawn in front of each house and some gray trees that made a little shade. There were the railroad tracks that stretched out in the distance beside brown telephone poles, all of them curving along the horizon. It was a good dare to get someone dumb to walk along the train tracks right before a train passed by. Nobody I knew got hurt doing it, but it seemed kind of dumb anyway. There it was. La Harpie. A town. Not much to look at, I guess. There was something underneath it all, though. Something like blood or gold. Something small that might fit in your pocket. Like lung cancer or a lucky dime.
I walked a block to the St. Francis Hotel, where Junior Breen had a room. It was red brick with a black metal fence. Three floors and a patch of lawn with dark black stains of mud.
The streetlamps suddenly flickered on.
It was just beginning to get dark. Welcome home, Luce Lemay, on the worst night of your life. You lousy hayseed. I coughed a little, then opened the front gate with a squeak and walked up to the front door. I pressed the door buzzer that was hanging out by its yellow and red and blue wires.
Bzzzzzzzz.
Old Lady St. Francis answered the door. Lord. Her eye shad was a purple nightmare that ran all over her forehead.
Her breath poured through the screen door. She had a can of beer in one hand and a lit Marlboro in the other. She was a short, mean-faced woman with a poof of gray hair and huge flabby arms. After her husband shot her lover dead and then turned the gun on himself, she lost her mind. She thought she was St. Francis of Assisi. She laid the dead to rest right under her back porch.
“Do you have a room to let?” I asked.
“You know someone here?”
“Sure, sure. Junior Breen. He said I could find a room here.”
“He did, huh?”
“My name’s Luce Lemay. I talked to you before. I just got out.”
“Out? Out of where?”
“Pontiac. I’m on parole.”
“Another jailbird, huh?” she grunted. “You from town here?”
“Just outside of town, ma’am.”
“Hayseed, huh? Grew up on a farm?”
“Yes, ma’am. Hog farm.”
“Well, I thought you were here about the cat.”
“Nope.”
“Because it’s too late.”
“Too late? What’s wrong with the cat?” I asked.
“It’s dead.”
“Huh.” I let out a little sigh. “So do you have a room?”
“You heard me the first time.”
Old Lady St. Francis didn’t make a move. She just stood there and took a sip of beer, clinking her yellow teeth on the can.
“You gonna let me in?” I asked.
“Why? What the hell are ya up to? No-good bums coming in and out of the jailhouse … It’s a hundred fifty a month. How much you got now?”
“Seventeen bucks.” I frowned. I pulled the money out of my pocket and handed her the cash.
“That’ll do for the next few days. You getting a job or you all planning a heist?”
“I got a job lined up at
a service station, same as Junior.”
“Lucky enough someone pays that fathead at all. A fathead and a hayseed. I don’t see how that station will stay in business.”
“I dunno, ma’am.”
Her deep bloodshot eyes moved over my face. She took a swig from the silver can and unlocked the door.
“Junior’s in his room. You can have the one next to his. Third floor all the way down to your left.” She dug into her pocket and handed me a key. “Thieves and liars, the lot of you!”
I took my chances and walked inside. There was a huge wooden staircase that rose in the middle of the building up to the other floors. There in the lobby was a tiny white cat all laid out on an old white sheet, lying there dead on a glass table, surrounded by white candles, wearing a red crocheted dress, in some sort of funeral. It lay there on its back, its head dropped to one side. Its two tiny front paws were bent down like it was begging one last time. I stared at that cat for a minute, then walked right through that awful front room and up the stairs to the third floor.
There were old paintings of different saints being massacred or put to death. Saint Bartholemew with hot arrows in his throat. Joan of Arc tied to a fiery stake. There were tiny dead birds hanging all along the walls, all wearing pink crocheted sweaters.
I walked down to the end of the hall. There was the last door. I patted down my hair in the back. The door was painted black, open a little. I took a breath and knocked a few times, holding my brown bag of clothing. That’s all I had, a brown bag full of underwear, a few socks, some pants and some T-shirts, the red suit I had on. My whole life fit in a garbage bag. Already I had a plan, though. Get a room for a while, get a job, save up some money, buy a car, and head out to Hollywood. Maybe work at a gas station out there. Fall in love with a movie queen and spend the rest of my days by the pool.
Maybe just work at a service station. You know they have to have them. Tinseltown. I had no real idea why I wanted to go out there. Maybe it was just a dream I had overheard in prison or on that crowded bus while I was asleep.
I gave a gentle knock.
“For God’s sake, go away!” Junior hollered from behind the door. “Just leave me alone!”
