by John Kenyon
“Donny?”
It was Shelley. This surprised him, and then he thought of how convenient it was that she showed up just as he was nearly to the top.
“Donny? You up there?”
“Come on up, Miss September,” Donny said. There was a gap between what he said and her distant giggle.
Donny raised the trunk on end. It rested precariously on half a step; two tiny coasters hung over the step’s lip. He waited for her to come up. He could hear her talking and assumed she was on the phone until he heard a voice, a man’s voice, answer her. When at last they appeared on the second floor landing below him, he recognized the man as a guy from one of their education classes.
“There you are,” Shelley said.
“Here I am,” Donny said. “Hello, Frank.”
“Donny.”
If ever there was a logical counterpart for Shelley, it was Frank Delgato. Tall, handsome, the antithesis to Donny, who was actually a couple of inches shorter than Shelley and a lot less structured than Frank. “It’s got to be the money,” Donny thought. He smiled down at the two approaching people.
“Let me get that for you, buddy,” Frank said. He stepped around the trunk and caught the leather handle. He tugged up. Donny put his hands down on the top of the trunk.
“You have to be careful with it,” Donny said. “It’s almost a hundred years old. The leather is brittle, especially on the handle. I think it ripped a couple of times as I pulled it up.”
“You got that thing all the way up here on your own?” Shelley looked up at him from the lower steps. The light from the octagonal window behind him was muted but to Donny it felt more like she was looking up at Frank and smirking.
“Well, I had thought you’d be here to help me,” Donny said.
“We’re here now, bud,” Frank said. “Why don’t you take the bottom and I’ll carry it from the lid.”
Donny looked up at Frank. “The lid latch is on so the top compartment won’t flip open.”
“You got it, bud.” Frank gave him a wink, although he felt it was directed more to Shelley.
He hated that Frank kept calling him bud or buddy. They weren’t anything like that. They even sat across the room from one another.
The rest of the climb went a lot easier. When they got to his landing, Shelley used her key to open his double oak doors. She reached up and undid the latch to the second one and pushed both of them open. Stepping in was like stepping back in time. The heavy, grooved, dark wood trim and wainscoting carried layers of history upon it. The oval throw rugs he bought at a flea market warmed the hardwood floors. The only things out of place were the vertical blinds over the screenless windows looking down on the Lodge Freeway. In many ways, it was similar to the home he’d grown up in.
They carried the trunk in and laid it near a bank of bay windows on what Donny considered to be the trunk’s back or bottom. This would keep the drawers on the inside from sliding open into the empty wardrobe compartment. Donny knelt down next to it and checked the latches and the single hinged lock.
“That thing was pretty heavy, buddy,” Frank said. “What have you got in it? A body?”
Donny gave Frank a wise-ass grin. “Not yet,” he said.
“It’s so dark in here,” Shelley said. She moved through the room as if she owned it, dropping her keys on the round wooden table in the middle of the great room. She pulled down on the blind cords. Light flooded into the room in long shafts. She cranked open the first of the three tall windows so the glass frame swung out behind the house. The roar of the traffic way below droned like faraway bees. Shelley leaned forward, her tank top revealing more than it should have as a breeze blew her hair back off her shoulders.
“Nice view,” Frank said.
Donny looked up from behind the trunk. Shelley leaned one hand on the grooved paneling running parallel to the window she looked out. She smiled and pulled her hair back behind her ear.
“Yeah, well, the Lodge wasn’t there when the house was built,” Donny said. “I’m sure the original owner had a pleasanter view of Detroit.”
“I ain’t talking about Detroit,” Frank said.
Shelley tucked some of her long blonde strands behind her ear. She kept her focus on something outside the window and down below running along the Lodge. Maybe she hadn’t heard Frank’s overtly flirtatious remarks. Maybe she had. Either way, she didn’t play off it. Except what was that thing she did with her hair just then? Hadn’t it been little things like Donny’s mom playing with her hair when his uncle popped in that had set his dad off on one of his rants against her when the uncle left?
“I’m thirsty, Donny,” she said. She turned around to face both men. “You got any beer here?”
Donny shook his head, more to clear it than to indicate his lack of hosting skills.
“Now isn’t that ironical,” Frank said.
“You mean ironic?” Donny asked.
“I mean it’s funny how the prince of the liquor king don’t have any beer here.”
“Yeah, there’s a twist,” Donny said. He sat down on the closed trunk.
Shelley dug a hand into her jeans pocket. They were tight on her and she had to work her hand a bit to get it out. She handed Frank a fold of crushed bills. “Run down to the corner and get some, Frankie.”
“You want me to run down to the corner in the Cass Corridor and get some beer?”
“You’re a big guy,” Donny said. It was all he said, but he thought, “Man up, big guy.” There was a brief stare-down, the unspoken tug-of-war between a couple of dudes who both want to pull the girl in his direction, before Frankie finally left.
Shelley sat down on the trunk next to Donny, who stood up instantly.
“Is there something wrong, babe?” she asked.
“Why did you bring him here?”
“Frank?”
Donny bobbed his head and held out his hands as if asking, “Who else?”
Shelley ran a hand up and down one of her sleeveless arms. “He called and asked what I was doing today.”
“He called you?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he call you often?”
Shelley shrugged. Her bared shoulders rose up in a shaft of sunlight and dropped. For a moment, her tan glowed. “I guess.”
“What do you mean you guess?”
“I mean we talk a lot about stuff in class.”
“He doesn’t give two shits about stuff in class, Shelley. All he cares about is you.”
“At least somebody does.”
She might as well have slapped him. The words hit him like fireworks to the face. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” Shelley stopped. “It means I don’t know what you want from me.”
“What I want from you?”
“I sit down, you stand up and walk away.”
He threw out a hand towards the trunk. “I didn’t think the trunk could take both of our weights.”
“Okay, but what about after we’ve been in bed?”
“What about it?”
“Why don’t you ever hold me? Why don’t we talk? Is it me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how you just lay there, staring at the ceiling.”
“You roll over and go to sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping, Donny,” Shelley said. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I’m waiting for you to snuggle me but you don’t even touch me.” Her eyes came up to meet his. “What’s the matter? Do I make you feel bad? Do I make you feel dirty?”
Donny fell to his knees. He put his hands on her knees, slid them up her legs. “No. Of course not.”
“You don’t think I’m good enough for you, do you?”
“Just the opposite,” he thought. Instead, he shook his head this time meaning no.
“Then what is it?”
“Sometimes I can’t understand why a woman as beautiful as you wants to be with a man as lousy as me.”
&nbs
p; “You’re not lousy.”
“I look at guys like Frank and I think, ‘Why isn’t she with someone like him?’ Why are you with me? Is it the money I got from my dad? There isn’t a lot. There’s enough, but not tons.”
“It’s not the money.”
“Then what is it about me? What do you see in me?”
Shelley stood up. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back on the narrow strip of wall next to the open window. “You make me smile. You make me laugh. That’s more important to me than anything Frank has given me.”
Donny’s heart turned to ice. “What has Frank given you?”
Shelley shifted uncomfortably. “What do you mean?” She looked back out the window and sucked her lower lip under her top lip.
“You said ‘more than anything Frank has given me.’ What did he give you?”
“Nothing.”
Donny got up from his trunk. “Did you hook up with him?”
“Even if I did, it was before you.”
“But you slept with him.”
“And you haven’t slept with anyone else before me?”
“No.” His answer hung like a lazy curve ball. “Have you slept with him since?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you bring him here?”
“I told you. I knew you were moving stuff in here today and I thought he could help.”
“So you thought it would be a good idea to bring a guy you once had relations with to help a guy you’re having relations with now?”
“I didn’t think it would be that big a deal.” Shelley took a step away from him. “We both know Frank from class.”
“You’re right about one thing, Shelley,” Donny said. He caught her arm. “You didn’t think.” He tugged on her arm but she pulled it free. She caught her heel on the edge of the trunk and lost her balance. As improbable as it seemed, the force of his yank and the angle at which she stumbled backwards sent her out the open window.
Donny leaned out even as brakes squealed below. He never saw her lying there on the concrete because the flatbed truck screeching to a halt covered her.
He heard knocking. Donny looked at the two closed doors. He assumed it was Frank returning with the beer; but, then again, maybe it was one of the ghosts who lived below him. Maybe someone had heard the argument, saw Shelley falling past his or her own back windows. Whoever it was would want answers. Donny wasn’t good at answers. He’d barely been able to give any about his own father’s mysterious death.
The knocking became pounding.
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his keys. There was a small gold one he clutched as he once again dropped to his knees. The knocking continued. He undid the hinge lock and then quickly undid the snap latches. He raised the lid of the trunk. It would be tighter now that he was an adult, but he could still squeeze himself inside if he removed the tub-sized lower drawer. He pulled the green paisley case out of its housing and squeezed his knees down into the space. He leaned forward and reached behind him, catching the same green paisley-decorated drape of the wardrobe and pulled the lid down on top of him.
He remembered there was no way to lock the trunk from the inside, but he didn’t really need it to lock to do its job. All he needed the trunk to do was to fly him away like it had when he was a kid, when his dad drank and his mom yelled, when his world shook at its core.
“Fly away, trunk, fly away,” Donny said. The pounding on the door of his apartment became the pounding of his heart. “Fly me away.”
He closed his eyes and waited but like his life, the trunk never got off the ground.
Coal Black
By Eric Beetner
As a father of two preschoolers I have been tempted before this anthology to take some of those fairy tale princesses out and bash their heads in just from the sheer repetition of the stories I’ve had to read over and over at countless bedtimes. When it came down to picking a Grimm tale to adapt, I searched through dozens of obscure and truly bizarre stories. I came back to one of those tales firmly etched on my brain, and one most everyone has some relationship with—Cinderella. Something about that outsider looking in struck me as very noir. And who’s to say even fairy tales have to end all happily ever after?
They called him Coal Black because, as Yancy put it, “You the darkest nigga I ever seen.” Yancy came in just this side of shoe polish himself so when he called C.B. dark, you know he meant it.
The apprenticeship had been three years going. He’d come into the operation at the ripe old age of fifteen, nearly over-the-hill for starting a career in gang-banging or supermodeling. C.B. chose the career with more guns and less bulimia.
He fetched coffee, kept the Glocks clean and did a lot of driving where the rule was to keep his fucking mouth shut. Hauled a lot of weed and uncut coke to drop spots and brought girls back and forth from jobs. Damn girls never once showed any appreciation. C.B. couldn’t cop a hand job, let alone a blow from those whores. Too exhausted after a long night’s work. For driving them all over creation C.B. took home ten bucks, leaving the girls with $240, one-fifty of which went to Yancy and his partner, Jay.
Keep the ten bucks, thought C.B., show a little mercy to the jerk driving Miss Daisy around. Not like they couldn’t see the rise in his pants every damn time.
C.B. was constantly out to prove himself. He wanted his piece of the pie, to move on up to the East Side. He volunteered for jobs all the time. When a street dealer came up short of his monthlies, C.B. paid him a visit on his own and beat the boy toothless.
Yancy and Jay were unimpressed. They explained that if their street talent gets so black and blue they can’t work, that means more money off the table.
“Got to think long term, man,” Yancy scolded.
C.B. couldn’t look at the young dealer next time he came around, fucker sporting new gold teeth and smiling like C.B. did him a favor.
C.B. wasn’t looking to run the show, only wanted to be invited to the party. His knuckles longed to get bruised on bones, his finger pulsed with anticipation of squeezing off a round, his toes banged the inside of his boot clawing to dig into a gut or break a nose.
“Yo, man, got a job for you, C.B.,” Yancy said.
C.B. sat up, waved the joint smoke away and tried to look alert. Like a man who could be depended upon.
“Fuckin’ Asians are crowding us again. I need you to follow some dudes. Find out where they go. Motherfuckers been selling in our neighborhood. Cheap shit, too. Shit I wouldn’t let my dog smoke.”
“You want me to fuck ’em up? Make sure they don’t come around?”
Yancy made a face like C.B. just told him he’d like to fuck his own mother. “No, nigga. I want you to follow them. That’s it. You stay in the car and come tell me where they at. That’s all.”
“Damn it, Yancy, it’s my turn. I can do this.”
“You’ll get your shot, little man. I knew your daddy. I’m not sending you in to no place unless I’m sure you can get out. Shit takes time is all.”
“Man, all I got is time.”
C.B. grabbed his keys off the table, spun the ring around his finger once, contemplated saying more but thought better than to piss on Yancy like that. He left to do his chores instead.
Following the piece of shit Subaru for a half hour gave C.B. time to think. Mostly he stewed on forever being the wallflower, never asked to the big dance. He thought now might be a good time to jump ship to another operation, but anywhere he went he knew he’d be starting off on the ground floor. And shitting away what little cred he’d built with Yancy and Jay wasn’t worth it any more than making enemies of those two would be.
C.B. turned up the music and sighed, giving in to his fate as a servant boy for another night, probably another year.
When he brought back the address where the car with the two Asian dudes ended up, the boys were out. Instead C.B. found Yancy’s sister, Bobbi. She hung around her brother’s crib like a test of restraint, her skirts always t
oo short, her tits always pushed up beyond limits. If you knew Yancy at all, though, you knew not to go sniffing around his little sister. Her very presence made for an uncomfortable air in the room like Yancy’s ghost sat on your shoulder giving you the death stare.
“Hey, C.B.”
“Hey, Bobbi. You seen the boys?”
“No. Not for a while.” She sat on the couch and opened the can of soda she held. The sweet smell of marijuana hung in the room and Bobbi’s grin gave her away.
“Oh.” Too uncomfortable to make himself comfortable C.B. decided not to sit. When Yancy did come back he wasn’t about to be caught on the same piece of furniture as Bobbi.
“They runnin’ you ragged again? You look all chewed up.”
“Yeah, well.”
C.B. knew the effect Bobbi had on all the young brothers who came through. She seemed to use it for her amusement.
“Tell mama all about it.” Bobbi patted the couch, her slow stoned drawl sounding sexy as hell. C.B. didn’t take the bait.
There were no secrets between Bobbi and Yancy. C.B. could afford to decline her invite to the couch but keeping her out of business would have been rude. And rudeness was almost as bad as an ass-grab if Yancy heard about it.
C.B. explained his dilemma.
Bobbi repeated the bullet points of his story back to him. “So you got the address they want, but they won’t let you go on the run?”
“Yeah. Basically.”
“Sounds like you got something to bargain with.” C.B. tried to follow her logic. “They can’t get there without you, right?”
“I guess not.”
“So use that and make them let you in on it. Don’t give them the address unless they take you.”
Other than the obvious—poking a hornet’s nest where the hornets carried Glocks—he saw no downside to her plan. They might even admire his gumption. Of course, they might make a game out of how many of his ribs they could break with an aluminum baseball bat, but C.B. chose to see the glass half full.
“Thanks, Bobbi.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m just your little guardian angel over here.” She eyed the dark-skinned brother like she was ordering off a menu.
* * *
