Troika

by Adam Pelzman

  GIRL, YOU SEE THINGS CLEAR

  It gets to be a regular thing with Julian. He comes down every month or two, doesn’t give me notice, just shows up at the club five minutes before nine. He sits down near the stage, gives me that nice smile of his. Sometimes he comes in a little early and there’s time to go over and give him a dance, pretend he’s just another customer, which is something that gives me a little thrill. Pretending I don’t know him.

  One night, he shows up when I’m dancing for another guy, a cute guy who comes by now and then. And I don’t get close to getting off with this guy like I did with Julian in the Champagne Room that night, but this one sort of turns me on, nice-smelling, makes me laugh and always gives me a big tip. This one doesn’t even pretend he’s not married, wears a thick gold wedding band and there’s nothing wrong with that. Fact the opposite, I say. He’s right out there with it, tells me that his wife knows he comes to the club and she doesn’t mind, as long as he comes home to her at the end of the night. He says it even turns her on, so much that one night I had this glitter body spray all over my tits and he said rub those babies on my face, get that glitter all over ’cause it’s gonna drive my wife wild. So that’s what I did, glitter all over his lips and cheeks, and you should have seen him when the strobes went off and his face lit up like a disco ball!

  So Julian comes in and sees me dancing with the glitter guy and damned if I don’t see a look on Julian’s face like he just caught his wife screwing around. Now, I’m not his woman and he’s not my man and there’s no way I can tell after all these months if he’s single or married. There’s no way he’s got any say in how I spend my time, make my money.

  After I finish up with glitter guy, I put my clothes back on and walk over to Julian. He’s got a bottle of water and he’s squeezing it so hard that it’s crushed and almost falling over, it’s so crooked. I say good to see you, baby, but he won’t even look up, just bites at a cuticle like he’s real stressed. So I put my hand on his thigh and try to give him a peck on the check, my playful little kiss, but he pulls away. And I’m thinking, well, here’s a side of this man I haven’t seen before.

  What’s wrong, baby? Nothing from him but silence. So I ask again, what’s wrong, baby? Still nothing. And now I’m getting a little pissed ’cause what the hell have I done wrong? I’m the one who has no idea when he comes, when he goes, just follow him back to the hotel after my shift and order burgers and watch TV and fuck him, which is real nice, and then I leave first thing in the morning. There’s no way to call him, don’t even have his number, don’t know his last name and I never did open the wallet, never asked for a single penny. I even offered to buy the burgers once, which I thought was real nice, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

  He finishes the water, which isn’t easy ’cause there’s lots caught in the bottom of the bottle, which is all crushed, so he has to keep turning it back and forth, spinning it around to get all the water out. Nothing’s wrong, and he holds my hand, says let’s head back to the hotel. Now, truth is I got a date, not a guy I met at the club, but a civilian. But I’d rather be with Julian, which tells you a lot about me and my shitty decisions, so I text the guy and tell him I got cramps and can’t make it. After I press the send button, I say to myself cramps? What are you doing telling a man you got cramps? It’s no wonder I don’t have a guy, I guess. But sometimes I do stuff without thinking things through, which a guy I used to love, the only one really—that’s what he told me is my best trait. Right after my ass.

  Now, we’re back at the hotel and Julian’s on the bed. He’s in a better mood for some reason, maybe ’cause he’s got me to himself, and he’s flipping through the menu like he’s never seen it before, like he doesn’t order the same damn thing every time. Let me guess, I ask, you having the burger and a club soda? And he looks at me and smiles and says matter of fact, I’m having the sesame crusted tuna with bok choy. I smile and say what the hell is bok choy? He pulls me close and says leafy greens, I think it’s some sort of Asian leafy green, you getting the burger? And I grab the menu, take a look and say if you’re gonna be radical tonight, then so am I. So get me the Cajun salmon with wild rice. And a ginger ale, with a sweet cherry this time.

  After he calls room service, I rest my head on his chest and he puts his arm around my shoulder, strokes my face with his left hand. And I’m real happy, peaceful, ’cause I’m in a nice room with a guy who isn’t mean to me and I’m about to have Cajun salmon, and I never did have that before. And I look up at his hand as it passes my face, and from underneath I see his ring finger and right there on the bottom, on that little pad of flesh on the bottom, I see what looks like a shadow, a line, an indentation. And I gasp, not loud enough that he gets scared, but loud enough that he squeezes me tight, like he senses I’m off.

  I don’t know why I gasp ’cause look where I met him. Most guys in the club they’re either married or no way anyone’s ever gonna marry them. And more than that, Julian never promised me anything and I never promised him anything, so why I get a reaction I don’t know. I’m a realistic girl, that’s what my dad always told me. Girl, you see things clear, real clear, he used to tell me.

  But still, I feel a little something when I see that line on his finger or what looks like a line on his finger. His hand’s a few inches from my eyes and I squint ’cause of what I think I see. And, yup, it’s still there, a straight thin line, sort of gray, sort of red. So I reach out for his hand, turn it just a little so it hits the light, and when it hits the light, the line goes away, just goes from barely nothing to nothing at all. And I wonder if I’m seeing things, if my mind’s playing tricks on me. And I wonder if I should keep my mouth shut, not pry. Just like the wallet, leave it alone. But then this urge comes up, like a kid grabbing for a piece of candy or something shiny, and I can’t control myself, and I say Julian, are you, tell me straight up, ’cause I’m cool with it either way, are you . . .

  And he looks at me real nervous, a little cross-eyed, and it occurs to me that there’s something so pure about him, so much pain maybe, that I don’t have the courage to ask the question. I bring his hand back down to my shoulder, close my eyes real tight, and ask him, baby, are you gonna get dessert, ’cause if so, if you’re gonna get something sweet, then I want the chocolate pie. Whipped cream on top.

  THE SOFT PURR

  There was the death: it occurred at home, in the cold room that Julian and his mother shared in a dilapidated boardinghouse. During the six transcendent months after their escape from the orphanage, after the destruction of Krepuchkin, Maria worked at a fish market on the wharf. She walked right up to one of her old customers—a humble, sad man who ran the shop—and requested a job. The man looked to the back of the shop. He watched his obese wife toss fish heads into a bucket, a tuft of wiry hair sprouting from her chin. Understanding Maria’s implicit threat, he shrugged his shoulders, handed Maria a soiled smock and quietly returned to his work.

  Maria used to joke that she took to this job the way a fish took to water. She discovered great satisfaction in preparing the fish for sale: whitefish, salmon, perch, grayling, lenok, muksun, dogfish. She dressed them with the skilled hand of a surgeon, laying the fish out on beds of ice, decorating them with local flowers—yellow poppies, spring beauties, purple larkspurs—bringing a dash of color and sweet smells to the dismal market.

  To evade any authorities who might be searching for him, Julian enrolled at school under the assumed name Ivan Bezdomny, an inside joke from his mother’s favorite novel by Bulgakov. Bezdomny, the principal laughed when Julian showed up the first day. Homeless.

  During those six months, Julian and Maria would eat breakfast together every morning—usually dried fruit and cereal and a cup of black tea. Maria would walk her son to school in the morning, drop him off at the front gates, and place her hands on the boy’s cheeks—a ritual that memorialized their connection to each other but also evoked in them the terror of their separation.
At the end of the day, Maria would walk from the slimy wharf back to the school in the center of town and pick up Julian. Each day, she brought a small treat for him: a piece of candy, a marble, a colorful string. Julian, with a hunter’s eye, would wait outside the school, scanning the street, the distant wharf, the sea—nervously awaiting his mother’s arrival.

  Her body ravaged by disease from years of shared needles and degrading sex, Maria’s decline was fast and precipitous. First, there was a rapid wasting away of the flesh, as if the subcutaneous fat had been heated, liquefied, absorbed into her core. And then came the purple blotch across her chest—deep and royal like the ribbon on a general’s uniform. Finally, there was the coughing, so wet and so rough, with each spasm expelling a fine mist of blood.

  Julian sat by his mother’s bed. He held her hand. He cried until he realized that his pain, the expression of his pain, was torturing his mother, destroying what little remained of her fractured soul. He composed himself. He told his mother stories about Petrov and Volokh, how they had once stolen Krepuchkin’s watch and sold it in the market. Maria smiled. Julian told his mother that he was proud of her, that he had no regrets. He told her that she should have no regrets, that a life isn’t defined by mistakes, but by whether you recognize them, own them, fix them.

  “You fixed everything, Mom,” he said. “Everything.”

  Maria squeezed Julian’s hand. “I love you.”

  “No, Mom, no,” he pleaded, struggling to breathe.

  Maria held her index finger to her lips. “Two things you must do, son. Promise me.” Julian nodded. “First, you must go to Frankmann, the old Jew, the one who trades pelts. You know of him, with the office on the wharf. Right across from the butcher. He will make sure you get to the States. I spoke to him and everything is taken care of. He owes me.”

  Julian swallowed. “The United States?”

  “Yes, that is where I want you to be, to start fresh, away from the stigma. Away from my stigma.”

  “Okay.”

  “And second, you must promise me this. . . .” Julian’s mother paused.

  “Anything, Mom.”

  “You must promise me, Julian, that you will submit to no man. You are your father’s son. Sometimes predator, sometimes protector. Only you will know when to be one and when the other.” Julian recalled the fatal blow he delivered to Krepuchkin’s skull. He shuddered.

  Maria motioned her son to come close. She extended her lips, cracked and dry. Julian kissed his mother, smelled her bitter, infected breath. He pressed his ear to her chest and listened. There was a rattle from deep within, mechanical and slow. Then the rattle stopped, replaced by something that sounded like the soft purr of a sleeping cat, and finally, a rush of air through his mother’s lungs, out her mouth, her nose—a hissing through her eyes, her ears, the pores of her skin.

  The room was quiet. Julian looked around. He felt tiny, impotent, untethered. The immensity of his solitude threatened to overwhelm him. He again struggled to breathe. I submit to no man, he said. He reached for his mother’s hand. I submit to no man, I submit to no man. He repeated the mantra one hundred times, his resolve growing with each recitation. I submit to no man—a primal, rageful howl that caused the pedestrians on the street below to stop in their tracks and gaze in terror at the building above.

  PURGATORY

  Julian’s down for work again and comes by the club. I’m real perceptive, always picking up on the smallest things, and I can tell as soon as he sits down that there’s something wrong with him, something that’s different than before. He’s still put together all nice, but the man looks tired, frail, his shoulders slumped a bit. So I sit down on his lap, rub his thigh, wrap my arm around his neck, give him a peck on the cheek. What’s wrong, baby, you looking exhausted. And I’m not just saying it to make conversation, ’cause I really am concerned about the man. Julian looks at me, not straight on but out of the side of his eye, and then lowers his head and looks at the floor.

  Now, I’ve been doing this long enough to know when a man’s under pressure, when he’s all out of answers, and that’s when a man usually shuts down, goes deep inside and keeps the world at a safe distance. So I reach for his hand, his left hand, and squeeze real tight. And when I squeeze, he winces just a little bit, not ’cause I hurt him, but ’cause I’m doing just the opposite. A man feeling this bad about himself can’t stand any kindness, especially from a woman.

  But when I squeeze tight, I feel something cold in my palm, something thin and hard, and my heart pounds real fast. I open my hand and put my thumb and index finger around his wrist and lift it up to the strobe light. And there it is, blinking in the light, on-off, on-off, on-off, a platinum wedding band, clear and bright like a priest’s collar.

  I lean back and look at his face, focus from a different distance, like I’m trying to figure out if I made a mistake. Maybe I sat down on the wrong guy’s lap, but sure enough it’s Julian. He shrugs his shoulders, and I’m not sure if the shrug means you caught me or if it means damned if I know how this got here. I open my mouth, not sure what I’m gonna say or how I’m gonna say it, either real mad or real hurt or real professional. His hand is around my ribs, he’s holding real tight, and as I open my mouth to speak, he releases—and something about the way he lets go tells me that a break just occurred, that we’re not connected anymore. And I can feel myself floating away, up toward the ceiling like a balloon. And I swear I can see his eyes moving up too, following my flight.

  The first word is about to come out of my mouth. I’m deciding between I and you, and I think I’m gonna go with I ’cause in some way this is more about me than it is about him. But just before the first word comes out, Schultz gets on the speaker and says in his deep voice that always makes me laugh ’cause he sounds like a game-show host, he says Perla to the main stage, let’s welcome the fabulous Perla to the main stage. That’s my cue to stop what I’m doing and get up and dance.

  Got to go, I say to Julian. I’m done in fifteen minutes and then we can talk about this. And I grab his wrist and hold his hand up to the light again and the ring is glowing and flickering in the strobe. Julian nods but still doesn’t say a damn thing, and the fact that he can’t seem to speak gets me angry. Fifteen minutes, I say, then the set’s over and we can go to the Champagne Room and talk. I push down on his shoulder and jump up off his lap.

  I climb the three steps to the main stage, which is nothing more than an elevated platform twenty feet long and maybe four feet wide with two poles and some little white Christmas lights around the base. I pull a few antibacterial wipes from a box on the corner of the stage and clean off the poles, ’cause God knows what kind of nasty stuff is on them. The times when I go on after Lopez, I wipe down the poles twice just to be sure ’cause that is one skanky bitch. I take a deep breath, which is what I do for anxiety and I say to myself here we go again. I take off my top and toss it to the floor, put my hand up high on the pole, wrap my lower leg around it and look over to Julian. But he’s not there. He’s gone.

  I wait for the music to start. I stand on the stage in silence, just the chatter of the locals at the bar and the girls flirting with different accents. South American Spanish, Russian, Gulf Coast. I’m cold up on the stage. A cloud of cigarette smoke drifts my way, a storm cloud that’s dark and thick, carried by a blast from the AC. As it reaches my face, I close my mouth and hold my breath, ’cause to inhale the smoke would mean to inhale this place, this life, to bring it deep inside me, mix it with my blood and my organs. To breathe in this smoke would be suicide. Please, please start the music, I say to myself, to Schultz, as the cloud consumes my head, hovers for a few seconds, surrounds me, and then, caught again by a draft, moves past me, past my face, and toward the bathrooms.

  I stand on the stage, exposed and naked and staring at the empty seat. I curse myself for being such a fool, and all along I thought he was the fool. Schultz comes on the speaker and he
says one minute, Perla, there’s trouble with the music, one minute. So here I stand, waiting for the music, waiting for my life to start again, frozen, caught in this purgatory, which is something I learned about in Catholic school. And sometimes I feel like it’s happening to me right here on earth, right here in this club. I’m stuck on this stage, right in the middle between heaven and hell.

  And just then, when my mind’s about to take me to a dangerous place, the music starts. Boom, boom. Then a pause. Boom, boom. Another pause. And I’m back.

  AREPAS AND SWEET CORN

  After I finish my shift, there’s two ways I can go. I can pack up my stuff, go home and have dinner with my mom, which is either gonna be chicken with rice and beans or shrimp with rice and beans. My mom’s name is Carla, and she’s forty-two, had me when she was real young and she’s just about the hottest mom a girl could ever have. She’s a great cook and sometimes for dinner she’ll make up some sweet plantains, which I love, hot and steamy and all gooey with a crust of caramelized brown sugar on top. The other thing I can do is go to the hotel and see Julian, get the story behind that ring. But I’m so damn mad, so hurt even though I’ve got no right to be, that I decide I’m gonna make a good decision for once in my life and go home, have a quiet night and see my mom.

  I stand in the parking lot and there’s a tiny space maybe six inches wide where I can stand up on the curb, up on my tiptoes, and from there I can see a clip of 95 through the buildings. It’s pouring rain and I get up on the curb, my purse flat against the top of my head, and I can see the freeway and the red lights glowing in the mist, the cars all backed up. There’s the flicker of emergency lights bouncing off the green sign, and the traffic looks like hell getting back to Miami.