by Scott Blade
He said, “Sorry to disturb you, sir. We’ve been getting noise complaints from the neighbors.”
The guy leaned to his left and stared into the room. The lights were off, but the light from outside in the courtyard flooded enough of the room to light it up. He saw the bedding and clothes strewn across the floor, and then he saw Scarlet, who was naked but had covered her vital parts under a thin sheet.
The guard said, “Oh. So sorry to bother you, ma’am.”
He nodded at Scarlet, and then he returned his eyes to Widow’s face. The guy looked like not much scared him, but Widow’s rugged face and massive torso gave him pause. Widow saw it on his face. It was a natural reaction he got quite often. The first part of his life had been filled with this kind of profiling, and it was annoying, but he was used to it now, and instead of huffing and puffing and making a big deal out of it, he often resorted to being as kind as he could to strangers, while smiling. Smiling was key.
He shot the guy a big smile. All straight teeth. Widow had broken a lot of his bones on missions and in street fights, but he had always had good teeth. Never a cavity. His mother had been very insistent that he go to the dentist and take care of his teeth. She’d always said that women like a man with great teeth.
He said, “Well, we’re certainly sorry for the noise. I guarantee there’ll be no more noise tonight, and we check out in the morning. So no worries from now on.”
The guy stayed in the doorway for a bit longer than he should have, like he was trying to think of something else to say, but finally he said, “Good. You folks have a good night.” And then he turned and walked away.
Widow shut the door behind him.
Scarlet said, “We were so loud they called security on us!”
“Yeah. You make too much noise.”
Scarlet smiled and gestured for him to come over. She said, “Come back to bed. I have more noise to make.”
Widow said, “Drop the sheet.”
Scarlet dropped the sheet, and Widow’s eyes widened. She was amazing.
“Do you like what you see?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well, I don’t like what I see.”
“What? You don’t like me?”
She said, “Oh, I like you. I don’t like your pants on you.”
Widow’s smile turned to a smaller, crooked one. His mother used to say it made him look like a little devil when he was a boy. She knew when he was up to no good because of that smile.
He said, “Let me fix that.”
He unbuttoned his pants, unzipped them, pulled them off, and tossed them back to the pile of clothes and bedding. He stepped back to the bed, put one leg up and then the other, and crawled over to Scarlet.
She clawed her long fingers across his back. She whispered in his ear, “This time, I’ll be quieter. I don’t want us to get kicked out.”
She turned out to be lying, and Widow didn’t mind one bit.
THE NEXT MORNING, Widow stepped out of the room, fully clothed, and went looking for coffee. He didn’t lock the door behind him because he didn’t plan to be gone long.
He went to the front desk in the lobby, where he expected they offered free coffee like a lot of places do, but there was none. The girl behind the desk said their machine was broken. She said there was a Starbucks across the street. Widow smiled at her and said nothing else.
He left the hotel and crossed an intersection that was busy with cars carrying people headed to their jobs and their busy days. The street was called Sahara. Las Vegas was full of imaginative street names like Paradise and Sahara and Flamingo.
He went into the Starbucks and stood in a long line and waited for what seemed like forever for a simple pair of black coffees, which they didn’t offer. They asked him questions like What kind of roast? and What flavor? and What size? All of the answers were common to Widow. He said, “Coffee. Coffee. And regular.”
The barista behind the counter was younger than he was, maybe even high school age. She said, “What roast and flavor and size, sir?”
He thought he had answered those questions, but then she pointed at the menu board behind her. She said, “We’ve got different roasts for coffee. We’ve got a variety of flavors. And the sizes are short, tall, grande, and venti.”
Widow saw behind her on a back counter a display of the coffee cups and their sizes. The venti was some kind of huge portion, but he liked it. To Widow, there was no such thing as too big when it came to coffee, but he didn’t want to carry around a venti, and he needed to bring Scarlet a coffee too. That was the polite thing to do. He started to wonder if she even liked black coffee. She had a dancer’s body, and she was a female, and she was working in Las Vegas. She probably drank one of those lattes or teas or something.
The barista said, “Sir?”
Widow shrugged and said, “Just give me two coffees, black. Two tall sizes.”
“What about the flavor and roast?”
“You pick. Give me the most popular.”
She nodded and told him the price, which was ridiculous for coffee, but he gave her his debit card and paid for it.
He walked down to the designated waiting zone for coffee, which was full of people.
Being idle wasn’t something Widow enjoyed, but it was the price of a civilized society. We all wait for our turn.
While waiting, he started thinking. And a question popped into his head. He started to ask himself if Scarlet lived in Las Vegas, then why were they at a hotel?
But then he was interrupted by a guy who was younger than he was. He was wearing a button showing his support for the presidential candidate he was going to vote for, and his choice wasn’t a surprise to Widow. These days, the two parties’ supporters were about as obvious as a fire.
The guy was a young guy with a big forehead. Not that it was wide. It was big because his hairline was running away from his face. Widow smiled at the guy as he tugged lightly on Widow’s forearm, like he was trying to get his attention.
The forehead guy said, “Are you from Nevada?”
Widow lied, trying to avoid small talk, and said, “Nah, Texas.”
“Oh, great! Me too!”
Wonderful, Widow thought.
“I’m here for a political convention. Are you voting for Senator Sheridan?”
Widow was taken off guard, but not by the intrusive nature of the question. He was taken aback by the fact that the election was only a week away. He had lost track of the calendar months and hadn’t even realized it.
In order to avoid the conversation that was coming up, he said, “Yeah. He’ll make a good president.”
The forehead guy tilted his gaze. He said, “Sheridan isn’t running for president. He’s running for reelection for his Senate seat.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll vote for him.”
The guy looked completely dumbfounded, and he said, “Sir, you’re at least going to vote for our guy for president, too? Right?”
Widow said, “Oh yeah. I’ll vote this Sheridan guy for Senate, and I’ll vote for the current guy for reelection.”
Again the forehead guy looked dumbfounded and said, “He isn’t running. He’s a lame duck. You know the guy I’m talking about. You know.” The forehead guy pointed at a presidential button, which had the name on it.
Widow took a gander at it, recognized the name, but didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “Shoot. You got me. I guess I won’t be voting then.”
“You gotta vote. It’s your civic duty. The way to show your patriotism.”
Widow really hated waiting in line, and he hated smug people who couldn’t stand for him to have his own opinions. To Widow, the thing about political people was that they agreed to disagree with their counterparts, but only when they all agreed on voting. It was a civilian’s right to show their love of country. But Widow had served his country, and by anyone’s standard, he’d served two masters that belonged to that country. He’d done his duty.
Right then, he wanted to avoid this co
nversation. All he really wanted was his coffee and to get back to Scarlet. He said, “Look, I’m not really a political guy.”
Widow had just noticed that the guy was wearing a blazer over a white T-shirt. The shirt read something about “Team Sheridan.” Great, he thought. The guy was more than an ideological idiot—he worked for the campaign.
The forehead guy said, “Do you really like the current president?”
“I didn’t vote for him the last time. And I didn’t vote for him the first time.”
“So you’re on my team? You voted for my guys?”
“I didn’t say that.” And then Widow said something he wished he could have taken back almost immediately. He said, “I’ve never voted for president.”
The guy made a face that looked like a lot of the faces Widow had smashed with his fist—shocked and hurting.
“How can you not vote for president? This election is the most important one of our lifetime.”
Widow stayed quiet.
The forehead guy started to turn red, and it showed all over his forehead. He looked like a teapot about to blow. He said, “It’s people like you who allowed the president to get elected.” Then he paused a beat and said, “He’s not even one of us. You know?”
Widow wasn’t exactly sure what the guy was talking about. The president had been called out on a lot of things. Everything from his religion to his true birthplace to his being some kind of secret sleeper cell from a foreign country like in that old Sinatra movie The Manchurian Candidate.
Widow had heard it all, mostly in passing or from newspapers. He still liked to keep up with the news, old habit. But he rarely held an opinion on politicians. He’d known a few in his military career. On TV, they were almost always different than they were in person. He’d known some who were really corrupt, but at least the ones who were corrupt were smart enough to govern some of the time. He had also met some who were complete idiots. And he had known some who were genuinely good people, men and women. They had hard jobs, and often the ones who made people hate them because of ideology alone tended to be the best at governing because they made their jobs look so easy. It was like in the NFL, when out-of-shape guys sat at home and questioned the calls on the field and yelled at the quarterbacks, telling them where to throw. No one really knew how hard those guys worked until they walked a mile in their shoes.
The forehead guy said, “How could you allow that guy to get elected? Aren’t you a patriot?”
The guy was making it hard for Widow to not answer his question with a straight elbow strike to the face, but having self-control was a sign of true strength. It was a foundation of SEAL training. Don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself and don’t use violence against the weak when it’s completely unnecessary. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t use psychological warfare.
The guy must’ve been a little dumb in the common sense department because he kept talking even though Widow didn’t hide his displeasure. And the guy was as out of shape as the fat guys who screamed at the television while watching a football game.
“Don’t you want to support the right side? We’re going to build a wall. Don’t you want to stop them Mexicans from getting over here and killing our people? They do that, you know? Every day, an illegal Mexican comes across the border and murders an innocent American.”
Widow was about to comment on the president question, but now the guy was talking about building a wall. And that was news to him, but then again he had to be honest with himself; he had stopped reading newspapers a long time ago. Now he only read them when he found them left behind on buses and trains and at diners. But those days were sparse because people had stopped leaving them behind. Probably, because newspapers weren’t that cheap anymore. He had seen some more than five bucks.
Thinking back, Widow was certain that he’d heard talk of building a wall, but he dismissed it. He asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
The forehead guy huffed and puffed and said, “Are you kidding? Our candidate is gonna build a wall.”
Widow had a blank face.
“You know. On the border. Between Mexico and the US.”
“A wall? Like a real wall?”
“Yeah. It’ll be a hundred feet tall.”
“You’re serious? This Sheridan guy is gonna build a wall?”
“No, man, not Sheridan. He’s only a senator,” the forehead guy said.
He started to name the presidential candidate he was referring to, but Widow interrupted with another, “You’re serious? A wall?”
“Of course, man. How else will we keep the beaners out?”
“Beaners?”
“Yeah. The wetbacks.”
Widow nodded and said, “You think they’re a real problem, huh?”
“Of course, man. They’ve been crossing our borders for decades. Taking all of our jobs. Taking our women.”
“I see. Let me ask you something. Have you ever worked on a farm?”
“No, man. I’m in college.”
“When you get out of college, are you going to go to Nebraska and apply for a job shucking corn?”
The forehead guy shook his head.
“What about Indiana? You can get a job picking soybeans.”
He shook his head again.
“Ever been to North Dakota? It’s cold. You plan to work at a barley farm?”
The guy said nothing.
“What about oats? Oats are important.”
The guy shook his head again.
“You can go live on a farm in Wisconsin or Iowa and grow oats. Is that what you plan to do when you get out?”
“No way, man. I’m not interested in farming. Come on.”
“Those are the jobs you’re talking about. I’ve worked those kinds of jobs. They pay little to no money, and they’re hard.”
“Look, man, I got respect for that. But what’s that got to do with the beaners, man?”
“Those are hard jobs. And privileged white idiots like yourself aren’t going to work them. So don’t be talking about immigrants taking jobs when you don’t want them in the first place.” Then Widow stepped in closer to the guy. His towering stature forced the guy to look up at him. Widow said, “I served in the military for most of my life. I got a purple heart. Do you know what that is?”
The guy nodded and said, “Of course, man.”
“What does it mean?”
The guy started to shuffle back a little but soon realized that behind him was a display of coffee beans for sale, and he stayed put. He said, “It means you got injured.”
“Shot actually. I got shot. Three times. In the back.”
The guy stayed quiet.
Widow said, “They give you a purple heart when you’re lying in a hospital bed. But you know what?”
The guy swallowed hard and stared up at Widow. He shook his head and said, “No, what?”
“When you die, they give it to your widow,” he said, and he stared down with his best menacing look, taught to him in the SEALs. He had always had a way of giving a terrifying stare, but in the SEALs, they made him stand in front of a mirror and practice it over and over. Widow asked, “You got a wife?”
“No. No, man. I’m single.”
“So no one will be a widow for you? No one will miss you? If something were to happen to you? Something bad, I mean.”
“I guess not, man.”
Widow said, “You know, I’ve known more than one Hispanic soldier who got one of those purple hearts.” He stared down even harder at the forehead guy, and he said, “Only our commanders had to give it to their widows. Because they had left someone behind who gave a shit about them. Plenty of Hispanic guys have died so that you can have your dumbass opinions.”
The barista behind the waiting station side of the counter called out Widow’s two coffees.
Widow nodded and reached over without shifting his body and grabbed the coffees. In part to show the guy his long reach and his muscular arms, and in part to keep his e
yes locked with his opponent. Then he said, “You have a nice day enjoying your freedoms.”
As Widow was leaving the coffee shop, he heard the guy swallow hard and call out something like “Thanks for your service.”
WIDOW CARRIED the two dark roast coffees back to the hotel. He drank half of his on the way there. It wasn’t too bad. He liked the flavor and decided that fighting a battle against Starbucks was fruitless since they didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. He decided to memorize the flavor and roast for future expediency.
Widow continued to contemplate the question as to why they were at a hotel and not Scarlet’s place. He suspected he already knew the answer to this question. He hoped it was because she had an obnoxious roommate or her place was being fumigated or she lived with her parents, but somehow he doubted those reasons. He figured it was a live-in boyfriend. He didn’t suspect a husband because Scarlet hadn’t had a wedding ring on or a tan line from one, and she didn’t strike him as the marrying kind. But even so, he wasn’t naïve. He suspected a husband was just as likely an answer as a live-in boyfriend.
Widow never got his answer, however, at least not exactly. He was instead left with the mystery of Scarlet’s circumstances because when he returned to the hotel, her car was gone from the space it had been parked in for four days, and when he opened the door to their room, all that was left of her existence was the evidence that two people had had three nights of incredible sex there. But there was no evidence of Scarlet. No clothes. No shoes. No female items left behind. The only thing she had left for him was a trace of her perfume, which had been in the air for days, not that he minded it. It was a great scent.
He stood in the doorway and stared one last time at the room that would forever be stored in his memory banks, classified under the heading of unforgettable nights.
On the pillow on his side of the bed, the one that he had slept on three nights in a row, she had left him a note on a piece of paper she’d ripped from the notepad on the nightstand next to the bed. He could see her scribbles from the doorway, and he could see the note was short. Three lines, maybe. Maybe only two. He could see she had signed it not with a signature but with a kiss. A huge pair of red lips rested at the bottom half of the page like she had put on lipstick and gently bitten down, using only her lips, to leave the impression of a kiss.
