Property of / the Drowning Season / Fortune's Daughter / at Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  “All right,” I said. “All right, then, trust me.”

  “I need money.”

  That was the secret? “Who doesn’t?” I said.

  “But I need it now.” Starry leaned forward across the barroom table and her voice was low and hoarse. “I need it now because the fucker didn’t show. I need it now because the goddamn john didn’t show, because he probably saw McKay’s Chevy parked in front of the Angel, and some of them get scared away when they find out I’m with the Orphans.”

  I stared at Starry.

  “I said the fucker didn’t show and I need the money now,” she whispered.

  “All right,” I said. “All right, just shut up, because I don’t want to know, do you hear?”

  I reached into my pocket for the money McKay had given me and handed her a ten. “Is this enough?” I said. “Because otherwise McKay will wonder where the money’s gone.” Starry nodded. “Take it,” I said, “but don’t tell me anything.”

  “If you don’t want to know,” said Starry, “I can’t blame you. To tell you the truth,” she placed the money in her shirt pocket, “I don’t want to know either. Most of the time I pretend I don’t. Except when I need money, then I can’t help but know.”

  “What you do is your business,” I said. Now that she had the money, I wanted Starry to leave so that I could be alone and not have to listen to her talk on.

  “Just tell me,” said Starry. “Why are you giving me the money?”

  “Maybe I want you to owe me. Maybe I want to have something on you.”

  “Bullshit. If you wanted me to owe you, you’d want to know everything about me.”

  “I want you on my side,” I said, and it was true. I now had a side, and I wanted Starry on it.

  “Against Kind.”

  “And against the Dolphin,” I said.

  “No good,” Starry said. “Against Kind, but not against the Dolphin. The Dolphin knows all.” Starry gulped the last of her drink and with the ten dollars in her shirt pocket her hands were now steadier.

  “I don’t care,” I said. I thought of the tattoos that gleamed in the night, of the refusal of his eye to meet mine, of his mysterious hold on McKay. “I’m against him,” I said.

  “Good luck but count me out.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’m on your side,” said Starry. “And I’ll give you some advice. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t become one of the Property,” Starry whispered.

  “I won’t,” I told her. “I never intended to be Property.”

  “And don’t fall in love with McKay.”

  I was silent.

  “You already are,” she whispered across that blue barroom table.

  “I already am,” I said.

  “Then you’re already one of the Property,” said Starry.

  “No,” I said.

  Starry stood and edged her way out of the booth. “About the Dolphin,” she said, “if you want to know why I can’t go against him, just think who I might be going to meet with this ten dollars in my hand.” She smiled a very soft smile, and I thought I had never seen her look younger.

  “It will be a long time,” I said, as Starry began to walk away, “before you see the words ‘Property Of’ on my back.”

  I sat alone in the booth now, in the last booth of that bar.

  “Girl,” Starry said to me as she threw her leather jacket around her, “the words are already written there.”

  The door of the Tin Angel slammed behind her and I was alone, without McKay, without Starry. I could think of nothing to do but order another drink. Then I left the table to place some dimes in the jukebox. I stood before the lights, the colors, the rows of printed song titles, and I watched the arm rise and then fall on the black discs. I watched the colors and thought: it is not so very despicable to belong.

  Oh, yes, yes, I know: cities have been pillaged, countries ruined. Yes, I know the position of Property is always on its back. But still, it is not so very despicable to belong. I admit belonging, being owned is always sad. You think that is a peculiar word to apply to tragedy? You think “sad” is an inadequate word for a historical force? But I do not speak of the property of capitalism, the historical sort that is discussed at the cocktail parties of the world. The Property I speak of is the self. The self that does not belong, is not owned by itself but by others. By another.

  This Property is the self which is sold because its position is on its back, because it is starving, dying of thirst, it is suffering the torments of plague, civil war, and sadness. And when the self is dying of thirst, it is not unusual for a canteen to be accepted in trade. Particularly when what is sold has never belonged to itself.

  So Starry wears an emblem on her back which states that she is owned, she belongs, she is Property. And then she sells what really is no longer hers—her self. And did you want a revolution from the Property of the Orphans? Property cannot even speak to Property. A revolution when the enemy is each other, themselves, herself? Sharp eyes staring knives into even colder eyes; arms draped over the shoulders of owners. The hiss when the word “sister” is spoken. A revolution when the enemy is unknown?

  Everyone agrees, of course, that it is best to belong to oneself. When this is not possible, when there is no water, when there is only hiking through the desert with small particles of sand clinging to the desert garments, there is not much choice but to sell the self in the hope that the canteen will be passed and water will finally touch the lips and the throat. Also the tongue.

  There is nothing disgusting or immoral about this transaction; there is nothing despicable in selling the self under these desert conditions. There are no political or economic references I wish to make at this point. I was not Property, I was not one of them. I could not find fault with the bargaining for tequila and survival. I had nothing to do with them, or with the effects of selling the self; that action which seems to cause temporary blindness and permanent sadness, and which seems to break the heart.

  The door of the Angel had slammed behind her, and the words were on her back. I could not remember what buttons I’d pushed, what songs I’d selected on the jukebox. And it really didn’t matter; I only needed a lyric, some tune, any melody to force Starry and the Property from my mind. Starry’s words—lies or truth; I did not want to know. I didn’t want to know why she met the Dolphin tonight with ten dollars, my ten dollars, ready in her hand. And I realized, standing there before the jukebox, that I did not even know what McKay had stolen from the gas station, what rattled in the barrels, what was stored in the stolen boxes, where he was with Kind right now, why I cared. I did not need to, I did not want to know.

  I erased every doubt and each suspicion with music and the thought of making love with McKay. I erased the words “Property Of.”

  Not me. No—not me.

  I left the Tin Angel and began to walk down the Avenue. I heard McKay’s Chevy pull up alongside me before I saw it.

  “Get in,” he said, and maybe I didn’t hear him, because I kept on walking.

  “Get in,” said McKay, and maybe I heard him, because I opened the door of the Chevy, and sat. We drove without words past the City Line, past St. Anne’s, we drove until McKay parked the Chevy in the asphalt parking lot of an auto repair shop.

  McKay carried the stolen boxes inside. Then he opened the passenger door, and I followed him through the deserted shop and up one flight of stairs.

  “My place,” McKay said, and he opened the wooden door.

  I looked around at the small kitchen, the bed, the color TV and the stereo system, the small wooden table, and the engine that lay upon newspapers in the center of the floor.

  “This place was Cantinni’s,” he said. “Ah, it’s sort of a mess, see, Cantinni didn’t exactly keep the place spotless.”

  “That was four years ago,” I said.

  McKay shrugged. “Time flies,” he said.

  I walked to the bed. A mattres
s, some pillows, a quilt. And I wondered if Kind had slept in this bed. How many others had loved McKay on this mattress? What was it Cantinni and Wanda had whispered, what words had they spoken, and did they sleep here, together, on this bed, and did they sleep here, together, on the evening before Cantinni’s Corvette went into a curve it never came out of?

  “This could use some sheets,” I said.

  And Starry. Had Starry ever slept here? Probably. Perhaps there was nothing between Starry and McKay, but she had probably slept here. I realized that I didn’t mind the thought of Starry and McKay together on this bed. Not because I knew now, whether I wanted to or not, how many men Starry had been with, or that a bed, a mattress, could mean as little as ten dollars to her—but because I knew that for Starry sex with McKay would be like making love to all of the Orphans at one time. I might have been jealous of whispers to one man, but not to several.

  “Don’t get no ideas about Kind,” said McKay. “She’s nothing to me, you know.”

  I didn’t know, but it did not seem to matter anymore.

  “How can you sleep on a bed without sheets?” I said.

  “Buy some,” said McKay.

  “It’s not my apartment,” I said. Not that I had any other. Once I had come onto the Avenue there was no other home, only a house, an apartment where family had become strangers once strangers had become family. Only faces watching boot heels walk away toward the Avenue. Duties that would never be met, photograph albums covered with dust and websand unopened. Strangers.

  “Don’t you know?” said McKay, as he sat on the edge of the mattress. “Don’t you know yet?” He held me and nothing else seemed to matter, not even Kind. “That you ain’t going nowhere?”

  It was true. I had no appointments, no promises to keep. I had already been gone for a long time; first my eyes staring out of the window, then my feet, always walking away. I had lived on the Avenue even before I knew its streets.

  “You ain’t going nowhere,” he said again.

  McKay and I made love on that bed without sheets. I ignored the indentations upon the mattress left by other thighs, other hips and breasts. I ignored them all in that bed with McKay. In the morning, after McKay had left the apartment to pick up my suitcase, and then after he had reheated the coffee and left once more to meet the Orphans, I lay in that bed, the quilt wrapped around me. I drank coffee and I traced the line of my hip upon the soft mattress fabric. I closed my eyes, so that I could not see, and I traced the line the mattress had left upon my skin. I kept my eyes closed for a while, I drank the coffee before it was cold. And then I went shopping for sheets.

  2

  Through the plate glass of Monty’s candy store I could see Gina sweeping candy wrappers off the floor. Irene sat at the far end of the counter, sipping a soda and playing a hand of rummy with Monty. I stood outside, in the cold, and carried my package close to me. I did not want Irene or Gina to smile at my purchase; I did not want Monty to wink or shake his head as he saw the sheets I carried. When I had tired of holding the brown paper package tight against my chest, when I had tired of standing and peering through the glass of the window, I began to walk back down the Avenue toward McKay’s place.

  In the darkening apartment I unpacked my suitcase and placed my clothes on hangers in the closet. When I turned on the color TV I saw that the serial number had been filed off. I rearranged my clothes and found a shelf in the bathroom for my make-up. I stored the empty suitcase under the bed. As it grew darker still, I closed the venetian blinds, dusted them, and switched on the stereo. Then I took a shower, changed my clothes, and watched the clock.

  When McKay walked through the door it appeared that I was watching TV, listening to the radio, and reading Sports Illustrated. Actually, I was doing none of the above; I was merely waiting for McKay.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” I said.

  He didn’t answer. He threw his leather jacket on the bed, took a can of Budweiser from the refrigerator, and sat down in front of the TV.

  “Did you hear me?” I said.

  “I’m ignoring you,” said McKay.

  “Go to hell,” I said. I switched off the stereo, then stood before the TV, directly in McKay’s line of vision, and then shut the life from the screen.

  “You see, girl,” said McKay, “if I don’t ignore you after waiting for the Dolphin to show for two hours, if I don’t ignore you now, you’ll be regretting it.”

  “I thought you’d be back before this, that’s all,” I said.

  “Well, I wasn’t,” he drawled. He drank from the can of beer.

  “I wanted to go out somewhere,” I said.

  “I gotta wait for the Dolphin.”

  “Leave a message for him at Monty’s.”

  “I have no money.”

  “You just had more than a hundred dollars.”

  “I mean, I have no money to go out.”

  Now McKay was silent, and I began rearranging the clothes in the closet as McKay stared at the blank TV screen. I smoked a cigarette and looked at the clock. McKay rose to get another beer, and as he passed the bed he accidentally knocked the brown paper bag off the mattress.

  “What’s this?” McKay said. I was silent as he leaned over to retrieve the package and then as he opened the bag and took from it the two sheets and pillowcases I had bought.

  McKay walked to me as I sat in a wooden chair, looking out the window and smoking a cigarette.

  “It’s crazy to fight like this,” he said. “It’s too soon to fight.” He held the sheets in his hand, and I nodded, though I did not face him.

  “Blue,” McKay said. “I like blue. How’d you know that? How’d you know I liked blue?”

  I turned to him, and McKay knelt so that his head was level with mine. I touched his dark hair and then whispered as I felt his arms around me. “Only a few hours,” I said. “I don’t expect you to see me if you don’t want to. But tonight,” I whispered, “can’t we go out? I’ll stay and watch TV every other night. But not tonight.”

  It was more than wanting to go out with McKay. It was wanting to keep him away from the Dolphin.

  “Yes,” said McKay. “Yes,” he whispered.

  McKay telephoned Monty’s and left a message for the Dolphin with Gina. He said that he could be found at the Moonglow Drive-In.

  “Why did you tell her where we would be?” I said.

  “Hey, I been compromising,” said McKay. “What do you want, blood? When I got business, I got business. I told you that; don’t expect anything else.”

  So I followed McKay. Though I had seen the film at the Moonglow twice before, I followed McKay. He drove down the Avenue, he paid for us both, and with the cans of soda and beer rattling on the floor of the car, we parked in the last row of the almost-empty lot.

  McKay attached the speaker to the car window and I sat close to him. After the titles had shown across the screen and the film had begun, he turned away from my embrace and opened the Chevy door. Cold air fell upon us like a knife as McKay leaned his head out close to the frozen asphalt of the lot. He began to vomit.

  I ignored him. I pretended McKay had not opened the door of the Chevy, but he continued to make those retching noises as Peter Fonda spoke sweet love to Nancy Sinatra.

  “McKay,” I said. “What did you tell me about being sick in this car?”

  He stared at me with dark eyes. “You wanted to go out, well, now you’re out.” He whipped on his pink motorcycle goggles and opened one of the sodas. But sodas could not help now. I could see he was going to be sick again.

  “Go to the men’s room,” I said. I lit a cigarette and tried to pay attention to Nancy as she pleaded with Fonda not to ride off again to terrorize towns and villages up and down the California freeway. I had heard her speak these words twice before and so I could not concentrate when it seemed I knew the dialogue better than Nancy did. The cigarette lighter of the Chevy smoked with old marijuana and popped with seeds.

  McKay threw the car door ope
n and leaned out into the cold once more. His body heaved, and then the noises in his throat quieted and his shoulders stopped their shaking.

  “At last,” I said, and I blew a stream of smoke between us. I had no pity.

  “What you want?” said McKay.

  “Honey, I want you,” I said.

  “You got me,” said McKay.

  “You’d rather be with the Dolphin,” I said.

  “Enough.”

  “Why don’t you let me talk?” I said.

  “Talk,” said McKay.

  We were silent.

  “You never let me talk,” I said.

  “Christ,” said McKay, “you and your fucking attitudes.”

  “I only want you to hold me,” I said. I did not say I want you to forget about the Dolphin, the Orphans, and think only of me.

  McKay grabbed my arm. “Am I holding you now?” he said.

  “Shut up,” I said. “I hate men,” I told him.

  McKay turned from me to study the blue of the GTO parked next to us.

  “Why don’t we forget this movie and go find the Dolphin,” I said. “What’s an evening without him?”

  “I’ve had enough of your talk, and I’m sick of your attitudes,” said McKay. He turned the key in the starter, he wrenched the car into gear, he forgot the speaker in the window.

  “You forgot something,” I said calmly. He turned the wheel sharply and the Chevy hit the speaker’s metal pole. The pole sprang into the blue GTO. The speaker hung in the window no longer attached to its pole. We curled our lips and muttered to each other. Nancy spoke silently on the screen before us.

  He pulled the car back into the parking space; and there was a knock at the window. McKay rolled the glass down, the speaker crashed onto the asphalt of the lot, I stared at the center of a headless orange jacket.

  “Hey, man, you hit my car.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean, man, you hit my car!”

  McKay lazily leaned his head out the window and gave a slow whistle. “You’re right,” he said. “Tell you what, I’m gonna try not to do it again. Now I can’t promise anything, but I’m gonna try to see it don’t happen a second time.” Here was my man. I moved closer to him, placed my arm around his shoulders. We stared out the window together. The orange jacket disappeared, the GTO disappeared. I moved back to my side of the car. “Look,” McKay told me, “I don’t want no hassles. But if there’s a scratch on this car, I’m gonna kill you.”