by Joe Meno
I pushed open the door a little more and stepped inside. “Junior?” I whispered.
Big ol’ Junior was curled up in a fleshy ball behind the door. There was a wad of snot hanging from his nose. His eyes were puffy and red and full of tears. He looked like a lost little kid.
“Jesus, pal, what’s the matter?” I asked.
There, carved into the wood floor by Junior’s big white hands, was a single darkly lettered word.
Perfidy.
Junior heaved himself to his feet. He gave me a big hug, nearly lifting me up off the red carpet floor.
“You made it. You made it OK.”
“Sure I did, pal. What’s the matter with you?”
“Strange things have been happening, ol’ pal. Strange things.” His round face got all serious and grave. “Been hearing things in my closet all week.”
“Things in your closet?” I smiled.
“Then I heard Toreador got paroled and I thought he’d catch up with you and put a bullet in your back before you ever made it here.”
“Paroled … but … I thought he had been transferred … I thought he was gone.”
“Guy Gladly told me last week. He said it was good as a done deal.”
“Maybe he still thinks I’m in the joint.”
“Sure, sure, pal, you’re probably right. You know I’m just out of sorts when it comes to those kind of things. Sure.”
Junior gave me another monstrous hug.
“It’s good to see you, pal. I’m sure we’ve got a mighty bit to talk about.” He grinned.
“This landlady is crazy, huh?” I asked.
“She’s the one giving me all them nightmares at night. All her dead animals all over the place. Got me thinking there’s ghosts hiding in my bureau and under my bunk.”
“Guess I’ll take a look at my room then.”
“She said you could have the one next door.”
I stepped out into the dark hallway and slid the key into the doorknob. The door creaked open a little as I stepped inside. The Virgin Mary frowned right at me, holding her lips together in the saddest smile I’d ever seen.
“What is that?” I mumbled.
There was a huge painting of the Virgin hanging along the wall. She stood in sweet white and blue robes, with her hands clasped above her red sacred heart, as the flames of perdition burned around her, surrounding her in a red-orange glow. Her skin seemed so pale and soft. It really was the saddest, most real looking painting I had ever seen. It was lit by the light from the streetlamps outside. From the draft along the thin wood walls, its canvas flickered like she was taking a little breath.
“What is this?” I asked.
Junior flicked the light on.
There was a long parade of the dead running from that lost little room. The room itself was really some kind of storage closet, about five-by-eight. There were crickets and pale-winged moths scattered everywhere, all over the walls and ceiling, these crickets, hundreds of them, chirping. There were about thirty thin cigar boxes—Te Amo, Royale, Havana Maduro—all different-colored boxes lying on a little white bed. Caskets. Caskets for the dead. All these boxes were filled with tiny dead animals, all white and browned skeletons rattling in their empty tombs. There were all kinds of other unfortunates left in several little piles along the floor. All kinds of other little birds and squirrels and chipmunks and even a tiny tabby kitten lay still and dead and in the open without proper burial arrangements. This room was a kind of warm, stuffy nightmare, some sort of shrine to little dead things everywhere.
“My god,” I muttered, closing one of the yellow cigar boxes. “Jesus, what is all this?”
“St. Francis has been busy lately, I guess,” Junior mumbled. His eyes widened a little like he was walking in a dream.
“But where the hell did she get all these dead things?”
“I think she’s been going around the neighborhood late at night and doin’ them in herself. There’s no way there’s this many a dead animal lying around town.”
I kind of smiled as Junior grabbed a stack of tiny cardboard caskets. He slung them under his arm as all the bugs scattered and flew about. He dropped a few to the ground. Thin yellow skeletons full of gray hair and feathers spilled on out, disappearing into the darkness under the bed.
“Sorry ’bout that.” Junior said. He gently pushed the remains all into one box and shoved it under his arm. “We can go bring these downstairs.” He nodded, dragging the dead out.
It was all right. It was a place to sleep. Just for a few months. Maybe even a few weeks. At least I had good company. I thought about Junior and smiled. I didn’t feel like such a hood around him. Maybe that’s why people have friends at all. Not because they like them so much but because they don’t make them feel so much worse.
The both of us took a seat on my bed when we were done relocating the deceased.
“Me, I’m kind of wondering how the ladies in town are looking since I’ve been gone,” I said.
“They’re all pretty as can be.” Junior grinned.
“You make it with any yet?” I asked.
“Not just yet.”
“Know any we can call on at least?”
“I know this one place. It’s not too far away. Guy Gladly told me where it is. I can spot you some money if you need it.”
“Just until I start getting paid.”
“That’s a square deal to me. Ol’ Guy said these girls were all clean and pretty. Don’t mind if a feller was a con or not, just as long as he has some manners about the whole thing.”
“That sounds fine to me.” I smiled. “We’re probably the best-behaved convicts the state of Illinois has ever released.”
The dark in this motel room was perfumed and sweet.
The windows were open. The purple drapes were slapping against the sill, slap-slap-slap, taking a real beating. I took a seat on the red heart-shaped bed. It rocked a little with my own weight. I unscrewed the metal cap from the cheap bottle of wine and took a slug. My heart was pounding right in my throat. I felt fit to burst.
The old telephone rang.
Rrrring.
I let it go.
Rrrring.
Be quiet, telephone.
Rrrring.
“Hello?”
The black phone fit right beside my ear. There was someone’s red lipstick on the mouthpiece.
There was no one on the line.
“Hello?” I whispered again. “Anyone there?”
“The Savior’s already on his way.”
“What?”
“The Lord told me to call you tonight and let you know He’s on his way. Prepare your soul! Repent and rise from your wicked state!”
The plastic handset turned cold in my hand.
“Who is this?” I asked. Then the line went dead. I put the phone back in its cradle and took a long swig from the ol’ apple wine. Maybe this was a dumb idea after all. This crazy Toreador was out on the streets. Maybe he was already following me. And the police. I didn’t need to run into them ever again. Maybe it was all poorly planned. My hands were aching and sore. I stared at my pants, then gave in and unbuckled them and undid the zipper quick.
A fragrance of cold rose petals and copper. Like flowers in your bloody throat.
I turned and faced the open door. A pretty girl was just standing there smoking. Cool and pale and tall and blond. All the blood left my mouth and drew down to my thighs.
“The door was open.” She smiled. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”
“I was … just having a kind of daydream,” I mumbled.
“Too many dreams during the day will keep you awake at night.” This lady shut the door and locked it twice.
“Don’t think I ever heard that one.”
“You paid the man in the lobby, right?”
I nodded.
This pale lady slipped off her black shoes. One, two. Beautiful. There were her bare feet on the red carpet floor. Bare digits. Bare toes. I kept looking at the
shimmer and shine of her red-painted nails. My god, I felt ready to burst. The soft white skin just below the firm knob of the ankle moved as she moved. “Come to me, sweetie,” she whispered.
This lady pulled her white sweater over her head and sat down on the bed.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Ms. Bunny.” She smiled. Ms. Bunny; I grinned. The thin black brassiere on her chest looked like a special invitation to a dream. Hello, it said. Come cling to me.
This lady stood and wrapped her arms around my head. Then we began to kiss. All I could feel was her mouth. All I could breathe was her lips. It was heaven. A heavenly kind of prostitutional kiss.
“You from town?” Ms. Bunny asked, as I buried my face in her chest.
“Yep.”
We began to kiss again.
“You done time in the pen?”
“Yep.”
Those lips were stuck right outside my teeth as she began to talk once more.
“My brother’s up in Joliet right now for five-to-ten.”
“Huh.”
I fought to unsnap her brassiere. I was not much in a conversational mood. I began kissing her long white arm, inch by magnificent inch.
“My brother stole a car and some hi-fi stereos,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
This pale lady looked at me and blushed, then gave a little nod. Her short blond hair shifted over her face.
“Sorry, sometimes I tend to talk too much.”
“It’s OK. I don’t mind. Reminds me of every other girl I’ve ever been with.”
“All of your girlfriends been chatty, huh?”
“Yep. I don’t mind. Makes me feel like I’ve known you then.”
Ms. Bunny took off her black panties and switched off the light. In the dark her legs were crossed together tight like long slender headlight beams. Then I could see her bare thighs moving apart. There was a flash of her bare skin as she slipped beneath the cool white sheets. I took off my pants and laid beside her, then began breathing heavy in her ear.
“You ever make it with a professional before?” Ms. Bunny asked.
“Just once.” I kissed her neck. “When I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen? That’s awful young.”
“My uncle came into town on my birthday and took me to a motel like this.”
“Were you nervous?” she asked.
“A little, I guess.”
“Did they treat you OK?”
“Sure. Didn’t last that long, though. Felt like they should have given me half of what we paid back, but that lady said the sexiest thing I ever heard a woman say.”
“What was that?”
I sat up in the bed and stared through the dark at her smooth round face.
“Why you wanna know?” I asked.
“Tricks of the trade and all that.” This lady, Ms. Bunny, ran her hand up and down my chest.
“You really wanna know, huh?” I asked.
“I sure do.”
“Well, this lady just laid on her bed all naked and just looked at me and said … ‘Take me.’”
“‘Take me’?” Ms. Bunny gave a real sweet high-pitched giggle. “That was it?”
“That was it.” I frowned.
“That’s all she said?” Her blue eyes were wide with disbelief. “Doesn’t sound that sexy now, I guess.”
This lady began kissing my neck, still laughing. I could feel her body moving underneath my chest. Her skin was smooth and supple and soft. Her legs were long and thin and held me to her tight. She dug into her purse for a condom and fit it on me in place. Then we began making it, kissing each other long and soft. Then she fit her hand into my hand and held her lips right beside my ear and made a whisper like a little song.
“Take me.”
I pressed my hands against the inside of her thighs and felt my way in and started doing my thing, holding my mouth right outside her ear as she put on a real floor show, moaning and cheering me on, until I was done and shivered hard and fell asleep quick like a baby in her long white arms.
There, in between those smooth white sheets, I had myself an awful dream that ran loose through my poor old skull.
This tiny blue baby carriage rolled right toward my head. Maybe it was coming to pick me right up and take me off to some other sad sort of dream. I couldn’t really tell.
I was thrown right out of that dream about a half hour later by the sounds of the walls shouting out loud.
“Get the hell out of here, you jackass!!” some lady screamed. “Go on, get the hell out!!”
I sat up in the bed and listened hard over Ms. Bunny’s wheezy breath.
“You crazy nut, go on, get out!!”
I pulled my pants up and unlocked the motel door. There was Junior, half naked, trying to button up his drawers, standing in the dark like he was ready to cry. The rest of his clothes were being thrown at him through the adjacent open motel room door. Junior looked up at me sadly and shook his head. This red-headed hooker in black negligee threw his big black shoe hard and hit him in his chest.
“Hey, what’s all this yelling about?” I asked.
“Your friend here is some sort of funny guy,” the red-haired hooker snarled. “Some sort of weirdo or something.”
“What? What the hell do you mean?”
“He asked me to tie the sheets around my head like a wedding veil.”
“What?” I mumbled.
“He asked me to tie the sheets on me like a wedding veil, like we were getting married.”
Junior just stared down at his big white bare feet, holding back his big silver tears.
“First he sits on the bed for half an hour without saying a goddamn thing. Then I get up to leave and he asks me to dress up in the sheets like a goddamn bride. Boy, your friend here has a real sorry sense of humor, I’ll tell you. What is he, a goddamn comedian or something?” She had her hands on her thin hips and was smoking a long brown cigarette like some sort of dragon.
“Just leave him alone.” I bent over to pick up one of his shoes. “You got your money, right? Just keep your damn mouth closed.” I patted Junior on the back and handed him his shirt.
We walked back in the dark all the way to the Old Lady St. Francis Hotel without saying a word. We marched up the big black stairs and down the dark red hall and outside our separate doors, and then Junior lifted his head and shrugged a little and turned to me.
“Sorry ’bout causing all that trouble. Guess that girl musta misheard me.”
“Ladies of her profession can sure be awful.” I smiled.
“I guess.” He let out a big sigh and shrugged his shoulders again. “Long as you had a good time, I don’t feel like it was much of a waste.”
“Well, if it makes you feel good, I had a fine time myself.”
“That’s good all right.”
“Good night then, pal.” I nodded.
“Good night.” Junior frowned.
I unlocked my door and began to step inside.
“Luce?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“Mind if I sleep on your floor tonight?” “What’s that?” I said.
“I got a full day of work tomorrow and I wanna be sure I can get some rest. I can’t sleep in my own room feeling low like this.” There was a tiny sparkle of hope in his big blue eyes.
“Guess if you don’t mind the floor,” I said.
“No, I don’t. Not at all.”
He unlocked his door and got his pillows and blanket and spread them out on my tiny floor. I got undressed and laid in bed and listened to him begin to fall asleep. I could hear him tossing and turning against the grain of the wood.
There was a thin white light that broke from between the floorboards and shone right through. There was a quiet moving sound like bare feet creeping over the thick wood. I sat up in bed and looked around. There was nothing there. The door was closed and locked. The Virgin Mary breathed slowly as the draft pushed against her soft canvas skin. I looked around again.
It sounded like someone small was keeping very still in that awful old room. Making enough noise just to let itself be heard. I laid back down in that bed and tried to keep my eyes shut and closed tight. There was something moving in that dark room, I was sure. It sounded like a baby carriage creaking along my spine.
“No angels, no angels in this here room,” I heard Junior whisper in his sleep. I leaned over my bed and stared at his face. His eyes were closed tight, his hands knitted as he gave a few more whimpers and finally fell into a lumbering sleep. It was a pleasant, sad kind of hummingbird little snore he whispered that made me feel right at home. It made me glad I was splitting that tiny room with some other con, hearing him fight through his nightmares and weighty guilt. It made me glad I wasn’t spending the night all by myself alone.
two birds and one broken wing
“A bird crawled beside my head in the middle of the night.”
Me, I was still asleep.
“A tiny bird.”
There was a tiny baby bird resting in Junior’s big white hand. He was sitting on my floor, holding that bird so gentle and tight. “Found it sleeping right beside my head.”
“Christ.” I frowned, wiping the sleep out of my eyes. “A bird was sleeping beside your head?”
“Sure was. Found it resting beside my ear.” He uncupped his big hands a little, showing the tiny bird. It made a little peep, nestling against Junior’s thumb. Its black eyes flickered open and closed as if it had just awakened from a sound little sleep.
“There are more of them boxes under the bed,” Junior mumbled. “There’s a whole nest under there.”
“Jesus.”
“Must’ve creeped on out,” Junior said.
“Must have.”
“Must have crawled on out and been living under the bed,” Junior stated.
“That’s what I’d guess, too.”
Junior rubbed his big white thumb along the bird’s soft black side.
“Can you tell what’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“Maybe a broken wing. That’s what I think anyway.”
“Guess you can give it to the Saint downstairs to take care of.” I frowned.
“Yeah, if I wanted it to end up tacked to the wall wearing a sweater.”
“Huh,” I said. “Maybe you can turn it loose.”
