A Set Of Wheels

by Robert Thurston

  Silent prayer? I say, finally stirring from my paralysis.

  Mr. Anton is a very religious man, Maria says.

  There it was, a suggestion of accent. She almost said wery, the sound of the first consonant wavered slightly between V and W.

  Well, let’s go, Link says, springing off his bed as if one of its special features is to launch its inhabitant.

  Not yet, Victor says, irritated. I want to see the end of the program. It’s almost over.

  Mr. Anton don’t like anybody be late, Maria says. Her words sound more like a command than advice.

  I won’t be late. It’s almost to the end. You three go, I’ll be right behind you in the other elevator.

  Maria considers this for a moment.

  Okay, she says. (It comes so close to sounding like hokay that I wonder if there is such a linguistic event as a half-aspirated H.) Mr. Anton is sometimes forgiving on first days, but I strongly suggest getting your ass down there on time. That’s as much as I can do for you skinnybitch.

  She says skinnybitch as one word. The sound of authority leaves her voice as quickly as it had entered. The enchanting smile returns.

  She walks over to my bed, stands by it.

  We would appreciate your presence, too, she says.

  Oh. Sure. Yeah. Sorry.

  I stand up, try to do a few clandestine muscle stretches to revive my inert skin and bones.

  You’re a nice-looking fellow, she says to me. Link almost lets out a whoop of laughter, he is so amused by her attention to me. I resent that. I mean, I’m no Victor, masquerading my sex. Of course l can appeal to Maria. My God, she can put more suggestion of passion into her one-eyed sexy look than most women can with full operative power.

  She takes my arm to lead me out of the room. She pats Victor on the top of his wig, says:

  See you damn quick, skinnybitch.

  Link, with mock courtesy, clears way for the two of us to pass. Well, shit on him then. Maria manages to bounce her hip off mine with almost every step. I enjoy the sensation. Hell, if we’re all going to get wiped out when Anton finds out about Victor, I might as well have some fun in the interim.

  — 3 —

  Anton’s come over to the meeting directly from work apparently. He wears coveralls that look freshly pressed. Not a sign of grease or dirt anywhere on them. Large buttons so polished-up they look like an even row of enormous sequins.

  The room is fiercely air-conditioned. I’ll probably wind up with at least a cold. My throat already feels scratchy. This is a really bizarre place, this Ramada cathouse. Doesn’t look or feel like any bordello I ever imagined. There should be garish colors all over the rooms, maybe cloth on the walls, sequins and gewgaws. There should be a heavy, even overpowering, odor of perfume mixed with the musky drifting emanations of warm and sensuous bodies. There should be jazzy music from a skinny piano player, a whorehouse professor. There shouldn’t be all this pristine cleanliness, this whiteness, these mundane chattering ladies in tasteful, even expensive, but dull and plainly patterned garments. There shouldn’t be the oily cold smell of the too-efficient air conditioning.

  Maria starts the assembly with what I suppose is her version of a pep talk:

  Okay. Quiet down there. Alice, save your mouth for better duties. Okay. Short comments today, then some introductions. Okay. Moves. Listen up, Alice. You move like an elephant on the way to the graveyard. Moves’re important in this business.

  Walks, for instance. Walk with style, sexiness. Remember for most of these guys you’re the only things near to beauty they can see when they come off the road nights, heaven help them. Get the right look, so you’re light in the middle of their darkness. Extra dividends that way. Get the moves right and the looks right. Too much hip swinging in your approach across the encounter-room to a client, too much sordid eyeplay caused by too much of that silly makeup you ladies continue using like it was an endangered commodity, and you lose the effect and therefore the dough. Grace, that’s the word, ladies. The right look in the eyes, the right flow to the hair, the right thoughts in your head. Think of that, ladies, thoughts. Think clean, that’s what they like. At least down here. Upstairs it’s another story and I leave that part to your own individual instincts and styles. But down here we like sweetness, the pretense of purity, got it? It’s all in the head, most of this business is in the head, ladies.

  What could only be described as a titter of amusement goes through the ranks of casually dressed un-made-up unhappy-looking ladies. I’m not sure which possibility for double entendre is causing it.

  Okay, you laugh, okay. You think most of the business is in the body. I tell you no! It’s in what your head projects, ladies, what your head projects. The rosiness in your cheeks, that comes from healthy happy thoughts. The smoothness of the brow, from not bitching in your head about the amount of money you’re clearing. The softness of your appearance, the serenity of your moves, the eloquence of your entire presentation, that’s what the fellas come here for. Remember smiles, be conscious of color in yourself and what you select to wear. Like, that purple velvet with the blue pumps last night was tacky, Alice, tack-ee. The thing is, ladies, illusion. You must look as if all of your days have been filled with good thoughts, good acts, a good sense of how to treat a client. Keep your mind in line and it’ll link up with what’s below. No, I don’t mean below there, ladies. I mean your heart, dear ones, your heart. If you have the proper attitude toward yourself and your business and your clients, then innocence and love will emerge from your heart. And don’t you forget it!

  The stare that Maria now spreads around the room draws absolute quiet. There’s so much dignity and even beauty in the way she looks now that, if there’s ever a committee to collect money for half-blindness, Maria should be its poster girl.

  Her part of the assembly done, she turns the podium over to Anton, who immediately launches into a talk about profits and how there are never enough. Maria walks down a side aisle slowly. Watching. Inspecting. Checking out discrepancies in dress, making sure there’s no more horsing around from Alice. Anton’s voice is so monotonous I stop listening to it. I look around the room, which obviously used to be the Inn’s lobby. I notice the remnants of what used to be a pseudo-nautical decor. Anchors and ropes, miniature jibs and mainsails, and stuff like that. At each of three entranceways to the room, a brawny man stands. Every time I notice one of these guys my heart drops to my inner soles. Link thinks we can get out of this with our heads on straight? Exactly the kind of thinking one would expect from a man whose own head is on so crooked.

  At a curt nod from Maria, the woman sitting next to me abruptly stands and leaves her seat. Maria replaces her, nudges up beside me, places a stubby-fingered hand on my thigh. I’m sitting on her blind side, so I don’t have to react. Good, I wouldn’t know how to react if I had to, not just at this moment. In some ways I don’t mind her attention. I’ve been so celibate since Cora (and I was so close to ascetic before her that I’m not sure if celibacy isn’t my norm) that the strain of denial is beginning to tell on me. And Maria is certainly tempting. She is the living example of the kind of demeanor and behavior she was suggesting to her charges during her pep talk. The body beneath her turtleneck and levi’s combines the kind of curvy fleshiness that makes you wonder where you should first grab her, with a girlish demureness that implies she should first give permission where you can grab. Her round cheerful face framed by waves of curly light-brown hair fascinates me, in spite of her blind eye. Or perhaps because of it. The eye adds a kind of sinister contrast that, for some reason, appeals more than repels. Oh, yes, she is surely tempting. Still, I doubt she’s the best one to fool with in this organization. I have a feeling that, if I crossed her, I might as well lie right down and pull a tombstone over my body for a blanket. That dangerous tone’s always there in her voice, whether she’s giving an order, making a lecture, or telling me how nice I look. I stare down at her hand on my thigh. I watch her chubby fingertips stroking me like she’s
petting an animal, and I am suddenly afraid. I want out of this place.

  Anton’s voice rises sharply in volume. There’s perhaps a touch of anger in it. Not having been listening to him, I look up, half-expecting to find out he’s just been accusing me of some awesome sin. But no, his eyes are glued to the back of the room, where almost everyone else in the audience except me and Maria are now looking, too. I turn around. Of course. Should have known. For a pleasant moment or two I had forgotten him. For a pleasant moment or two he had vanished into limbo. Victor now stands arrogantly in the rear doorway, looking as if he doesn’t give a damn whether or not he enters any further. I sure hope he enjoyed his TV program.

  Come in, young lady, Anton says. I was just getting to the point, young lady, where I’d introduce you and your friends. I’m sorry you missed the earlier part of the assembly. Come in and sit among us.

  Anton’s voice is calm, forgiving. I wonder what he has just said to cause the entire audience to turn around and gape at Victor. Victor shrugs indifferently. Anton again tells him to enter, this time with more authority in his voice. Victor enters all right, but he might as well have exited. He’s showing everybody he doesn’t give a damn. Damn it, Vicki, neither do they. He takes a vacant seat in the last row, a further hint of antagonism in the way he settles. Anton makes the introductions with some formality, asks the three of us to stand up. Link, I notice, is trying to look pleasant, bland, at least as pleasant as he can with that face and the simian curvings of his body. I try out a just-folks smile that doesn’t seem to offend. Victor looks around like this outfit’s too bourgeois for one of his/her accomplishments. I can see a lot of the young ladies are not exactly taking to their new business associate.

  Anton clears his throat dramatically and says it’s time for prayer. Everybody’s head looks down at their laps in neck-jerk unison. I follow suit. I’m not exactly comfortable looking at my lap, where Maria’s investigative fingers are now surveying a wider area.

  We never know enough of God, Anton says suddenly. No, no. God beckons to us with His flirtatious fingers, and we draw back, knowing how befouled we have made our souls with our reckless actions. But God, He doesn’t give up easily. When He sees our reluctance at the old pearly gates, He comes closer, asking us, darling, what do you require? What can I do for you? That’s His way, ladies. And gentlemen. We may say we should not be allowed His great mercy. But you know what God says?

  I could sense a congregation of bowed heads shaking no.

  Well, people, He says of course darling you are welcome in My house. Your sins were your human destiny and they are forgiven with a mere snap of My heavenly fingers. What do I care about human sins? I can imagine greater than that, darling. You’re just a raindrop on the pond, an atom on the slide. And what do you say then, young ladies? You say, are you talking about me, Lord? Me, the sinner? Me, the whore? Me, the broad who ain’t done an honest day’s work for the church since I begun turning tricks? Me, who couldn’t think of anything during Mr. Anton’s period of silent prayer? Lord, I can’t be a part of any heaven of yours. I’d bring down the values of the neighborhood. Then, you know what?

  Around us, everyone said, no, what?

  God, He’ll throw back his massive head and laugh so hard you’ll suddenly know where thunder’s been coming from all these years. And what He’ll say then, what He’ll say—is look, darling, Who do you think made the mess you got yourself in? Who do you think made the world that brought you down from day to day? Who do you think gets His biggest kicks outta forgiving sin? And you’ll say, because you’ll be just as stupid in heaven as you been down here, you’ll say, you’ll say, you’ll say—Who? And He’ll say, he’ll say, why, Me, o’ course. Old Lord o’ Hosts and all that Stuff. Every little inch of you is My creation and you got to commit some pretty big sins, some smasheroos, to get yourself assigned elsewhere than inside the old pearly gates. And you’ll spring backward, young ladies, ’cause you know you’re undeserving of such wondrous mercy. And you’ll say, no, Lord, I may be Your creation but I’m the reject model. I can’t come in there. No, no, Lord.

  The congregation: No, no, Lord!

  And the Lord’ll say, darling, you’ve been missing the point consistently. The fault is Mine for toying with My models so. I mean, darling, why do you think I sent My beloved son your way if not to test your powers of sinning? The ball is in My alley and you can stop fretting about your worthiness. Come on in. And, young ladies, you pause at the doorway, and look around, and sigh, and with your tendencies toward easy emotions probably you’ll cry a little, and then you’ll know. You can serve the Lord, and you will. You can serve him just the way you serve old Mr. Anton. Duty is duty wherever you find it. And the Lord, whose hospitality is my hope to copy, He’ll say come to My arms and I’ll give you the kind of loving embrace you so missed on earth, no matter how many times you sought it, no matter how many rushed embraces you experienced. And you’ll go to Him and Love will finally be yours. This Ramada Inn is a step along the way to your salvation, honeys, a roadside waystation smack on the expressway to heaven, and you can believe in Him, honeys, in just the way you believe your checks’ll be in your mail slots every Thursday. Amen. Now, this time put some real effort in your own silent prayers.

  Dear God, I pray, if You do exist in that strangely perverse way Anton describes, get me the hell out of this, make Victor behave, and get my wheels fixed.

  I look up cautiously. The way the muscles in those necks I can see are strained, I gather that a lot of the ladies are putting some effort into their silent prayers. Even Maria’s hand lies still for a change. Anton’s head is bowed but I can sense he’s glancing around from under the edge of his brow. I look down again and wait for the end of the silent prayer period. Anton clears his throat, everybody looks up, Anton gives final announcements for the day, walks up the aisle, and the meeting is over. As I stand up, Maria says:

  Look, I got some business to attend to, but check with you later. Hang loose, honey, and I do mean hang.

  She smiles prettily, even demurely (an aftereffect of the sermon, perhaps), and strides quickly up the aisle. As she walks, she’s giving orders to her charges, who listen attentively. None of the ladies go near Victor. He’s now lounging against a wall. I don’t think he realizes that one of Anton’s goons is eyeing him steadily, for who knows what purpose. Sex or violence, those are the sure choices. A tap on my shoulder. Link, smiling, his head as unbalanced-looking as ever.

  Maria likes you, right? he says.

  I’m afraid so.

  Don’t be afraid. May work to our advantage.

  Nothing’ll work to our advantage unless Victor starts acting like a normal human being.

  Which normal?

  What?

  Which normal? Ours? Theirs? Anybody’s? Let him be. You make him think he’s got to act a certain way, you can be sure he won’t. Look, I’m going to check a few things out. You learn what you can from Maria. I’ll tell Victor to maintain a cool profile if he can. Sometimes he listens to me. Sometimes.

  With an awkward twist of his left hand, a wave perhaps, Link walks off. I wish I could have his confidence, but I guess I might as well follow his instructions. Learn what I can from Maria, before I pack it in forever.

  I wonder how one goes about maintaining a cool profile.

  — 4 —

  It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered such an agreeable blend of know-how and awkwardness, Maria says as she sits up in bed and works a cigarette out of the pack she’d so meticulously placed on the bedside table before climbing into bed with me. She lights the cigarette and takes a deep drag. Looking sideways at me out of her good eye, she says:

  A long while.

  I’m not sure what you mean.

  Maybe you shouldn’t hear.

  Okay. Whatever.

  What makes you so cooperative?

  I lose out a lot.

  She furls her brow, absentmindedly runs a finger along the line of the scar on her breast.
I wish she had not refused to tell where the scar came from. Probably from an operation, though. The line of it is too straight and too neat to be the aftermath of an attack, unless the slasher was particularly methodical.

  What I meant, she says, is that you’re, let’s say, a bit deficient in technique. And that’s no crime. Everybody and his brother knows all about technique, it seems, these days. Like they’ve been practicing nothing else since the cradle, reading all the manuals, like that. I don’t take on many clients any more because—well, that’s another story. I like your fumbling techniques. They’re preferable to the kind of coldhearted efficiency most of you road-guys usually take pride in.

  But you said something about know-how, too.

  Maria smiles. I really like that smile.

  Know-how, yes. Affection. Warmth. I can tell you’ve been in love. Right?

  Well…

  You don’t have to tell me. I envy the lady, envy you. You—

  Don’t bother envying us. We split long ago.

  Well, you had something , right?

  Sure, I guess.

  Don’t guess so much. You had something. Something good. Don’t regret it. I think I wouldn’t mind being the lady you loved. She must’ve been something.

  She was, I suppose.

  I guess, I suppose. You have to be more definite, Lee.

  All this talk about love, Maria—sure I loved Cora but—

  Cora, that’s her name. I had an aunt named Cora.

  But Cora didn’t love me, I’m sure. I think she never loved me. And that was that. She wanted the split, nothing I could do.

  Nothing?

  Nothing.

  If there was nothing you could do, might mean you didn’t love her as much as you thought.

  But—

  Or else you just don’t know what to do with the love you got in you. I’m getting maudlin, curse of the seasoned whore. Not good for business.