by Dan Lopez
Cheeks flushed from the exertion, he corners your gaze. The desk is the only thing separating you, and you wonder if at the moment that’s for your protection or his. If you wanted to, you could flip it out of the way with ease. Seconds later he’d be pinned to the carpet beneath his own chair. It would be easy to twist his head until the neck muscles fail and the vertebrae snap. You could have him any way you wanted. You grin. The entire maneuver would take under a minute, and he would deserve it for his hubris.
Instead, you indulge his narcissism. Partly in deference to the space, partly because you don’t want a war of wills played out in the open—there are too many variables you can’t control—and partly because, despite yourself, you are curious to see what develops.
For a long while neither of you speaks. The residents lose interest and return to the television.
“I like what you do here, you know?” He pulls the chair over so that he’s next to you, looking out at the dilapidated shelter. “It’s important, and ’cause I’m a selfless guy I’d like to help you out.” He slides the blank forms over to you. “You’ve seen how I got these bitches eating out of the palm of my hand, right? They’ll do anything I want, and if I’m working for you that means they’ll do anything you want. I can be, like, your representative. A fucking lieutenant!”
Overhead, the fluorescent lights flicker. The power may go out at any moment.
“Why are you here?” you ask.
“Every hotel in town was booked,” he says drily. A moment later he recants, looks at you with what passes for sincerity. “Look, I need a place to crash. Just for the night.”
“What about your home?”
Shrugging, he picks at the wet fabric covering his knees. “Maybe there are people there I’d rather not see tonight.”
For a moment, the ordered surface of the desk distracts him, but then with a smirk he stretches back in his chair until his ribs arch toward the water-stained popcorn ceiling.
“Actually, I have a lot of money,” he says. “Does that bother you?”
When he crosses his hands behind his head, the thick cords of veins in his otherwise thin forearms bulge, one side distorting a tattoo of the Virgin Mary.
“No.”
“Liar. Everybody’s upset when a fine young Puerto Rican has money. It fucks with their ideas. I bet it fucks with your ideas, too.”
You pretend to make a note in the log.
“My pops was a famous fashion designer. When I turn eighteen I’m getting it all.”
“How old are you now?”
He clicks his tongue, waves a hand. “Girl, what does that matter?”
“It matters.”
“Seventeen”—the number a trifle detail he won’t be bothered with. “You can ask,” he says a moment later while pouting and stroking the faint stubble shading his jaw. “About my pops, I mean.”
Your face is stone. Perhaps you smirk.
“Don’t be shy, papi,” he says, flashing an impish grin.
You could cut that smirk off his face with ease. It would be the simplest thing in the world to grab a knife, flick your wrist and finish the job. No problem. Instead, you shuffle papers, jangle a drawer and feign indifference.
He says nothing. He waits, and in that waiting you recognize something special—a potential in the way he holds back, goading you to act.
It’s a tactic designed to unnerve you. You’ve used it yourself in the past, but tonight you have plenty of time and he’s young and impatient.
He eventually capitulates with a sigh. “Fine, I’ll just tell you. It’s Urbody Couture.”
He reaches across the desk for a pencil and brushes your arm. You flinch and a flicker of acknowledgment crosses his face.
“But you should know,” he continues, “that I’m only telling you because I think you’re cute. I like to keep that shit on the DL, otherwise these putas get ideas, know what I mean?”
Winking, he nibbles on the pencil’s eraser and lowers his shoulder, exposing his slender throat. “Don’t be embarrassed, papi. You’re hot. It’s not like I’m gonna bite... yet.”
Crack your knuckles.
“Besides, you would’ve never guessed anyway. It’s not really my style—Urbody Couture, I mean.” He struggles into his tank top, the wet fabric clinging to his torso like a second skin. “You like my style? Yeah, you do. That’s probably what attracted you in the first place. You white boys love this shit.”
He slowly traces the length of the pencil with a finger. When you don’t respond, he tosses the pencil down.
“Anyway, I don’t give a shit about the brand. All I care about is making that coin.” He cocks his head and points at the log. “The pen goes from left to right. Write that shit down. I got a reputation to keep.”
“Of course,” you say.
“There. Isn’t that better? For a minute I thought I was going to have to get nasty with you.” He slaps you on the thigh as if you were old acquaintances. “See, I’m already doing a great job here. Gotta keep those records up to date, son!”
You smirk, and he seizes the opportunity to flip the chair around so that he’s face-to-face with you, spread-eagle. There’s a mutual attraction—an equilibrium—that you haven’t felt in a long time.
Trash the forms you handed him earlier.
“You can stay for one night.” You emphasize the point by holding a finger to his face.
He stretches out his tongue and grazes your knuckle. Then he grins. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Where do I sleep?”
“On the floor. With everyone else.”
WITH EYES CLOSED, CHERYL DRIFTS TOWARD THE CASCADE tumbling from three identical showerheads. She merges into the warm water, focusing on the bellows rhythm of her breathing. Heave in. Rush out. Visions of ocean-floor exploration flood her mind. She’s in a lead suit scuttling across the desolate bottom of some sea, her copper helmet tethered to the surface by only a thin breathing apparatus. She’s been down here alone a long time.
She tips her shoulders first one way, then the other, like a set of scales searching for an ideal balance. She’d like to blame her confession on the mental fogginess that followed a sleepless night, but that’s not the case. Upon seeing Steven and Thaddeus interacting again last night, she realized that in three years nothing had changed. All her efforts to triage the relationship had been fruitless. Subconsciously, she resolved then to tell Peter about the abortion. She wanted someone down here in the depths with her.
Blindly, she walks her hands across the mosaic shower tiles in search of her shampoo. Finding nothing along the back wall, she leaves the slick surface for the adjoining one covered in what feels like river stone. The rough humidity calms her, and for a moment she imagines herself in a tropical grotto. Locating the shampoo on a nearby ledge, she works a small amount of the cream into her scalp. She made the right decision telling Peter. He was shocked at first, but he’ll come around, and it feels good to finally share the burden of her secret. Already she feels a little less alone, and it’s thrilling that for the first time in decades she has a male confidant other than her husband.
When she finishes massaging her scalp, she walks forward into the stream to rinse. The effect is something like total immersion, and, with the force of instinct, she returns to Cocoa Beach, picturing herself as she was all those years ago, no longer young and naive, but not yet a brutal realist.
Treading water, she delights in the lithe silhouette of her arms beneath the waves. They slice through the swells like a ballerina skipping across the stage, the ease of youth in her movements. Unlike now. Now, when she grabs her arms, she finds them corded with muscle from a lifetime of household chores. The skin feels as coarse as a loofah, and it droops from too much sun.
She turns away from the water and reaches for the facial scrub with her left hand, so that she’ll be able to squeeze a dollop into the palm of her right hand in the most efficient way possible. There was a time, too, she thinks, when she settled upon the best way t
o go about washing her face, when the newness of even this routine was fresh, when it was done as an academic exercise, a good habit. Something adults did to hold off the inevitable. There was a time when her beauty shone brilliantly without the aid of creams and masks, before she was remaindered to the utilitarian stacks of aging women.
With a sigh, she leans against the sage tile and scrubs her face.
She wasn’t as thin at Cocoa Beach as she is now. Those were her seesaw years. But even when she was heavier there was an underlying vitality to her body, as if the extra weight were a nap her body was taking, one from which she would awaken refreshed. Now, that’s changed. Her body feels sluggish. It’s slept too long. It’s given up.
Stretching into the stream once more, she closes her eyes and focuses on the pitter of water as it strikes her skin and ricochets against the shower door before spiraling toward the drain. The rising steam brings a flush to her cheeks and for a moment erases everything. It obscures the mirror above the vanity, but she pictures the past without problem, feeling things as they were: her breasts firmer, her thighs smoother—everything vulnerable with youth. Her hands travel down.
She shudders, briefly hesitates—has her shower gone on too long already? Will Peter wonder what’s keeping her? Perhaps, but she doesn’t care. She’s spent enough of her life accommodating others. This shower is her time. She steals a languorous touch. Risking a gasp, she opens her mouth. Despite her resolve to be accountable to no one but herself, she feels guilty not thinking of Thaddeus. But in a way she does think of him. Not the Thaddeus who’s out there in the real world indulging whatever fancies race by (he’s never struggled to prioritize his own needs over the needs of others), but, rather, the idea of him. And ideas, she reminds herself, can take many forms.
She pictures a younger version of Thaddeus, the one from that long-ago trip, but suffused with something foreign, something palpably dangerous that could survive anywhere and that thrives on adversity. Someone like what she imagines Peter was like when he met Steven—resplendent in political tattoos, inured to the world and vaccinated against its violence with sophomoric certitude. That sneer. The younger her and that sneer, what a pair they make!
How would he touch her, this portmanteau of a man? Thaddeus always starts with the shoulder blade, so she turns that part of her body through the warm spray streaming from the three nozzles and smiles. No doubt she would say something flirtatious and hopelessly conventional. A girl could get used to this, perhaps. And he would sneer, hearing everything he needed to know about her in just that one line. He would grab her hair, forcing her to catch her breath. You have no idea, he would say if he said anything at all, and she would giggle. They are both so young and impatient; he wouldn’t linger on her shoulder. He would steal down as quickly as possible, skipping her breasts entirely because she would offer them too readily, and, instead, he would sink his fingers into the warm folds of her vagina, his knuckles lost in a tangle of wet hairs.
The water turns cold, catching her by surprise.
“Dammit,” she mutters, adjusting the knob. But it’s no use. The hot water’s gone, and, anyway, she’s probably been in the shower for too long. It’s time to step out, to wrap a towel around her body, and to dress.
She returns downstairs to find Peter leafing through the newspaper.
“Good shower?” he asks.
“Mm-hmm.” She nods. “Ready to go?”
“Sure,” he says, dropping the paper into the recycling. “Let’s get out of here. It’s too hot.”
He leads the way to the car.
Her eyes take a moment adjusting to the dimness of the garage, seeing it the same paradoxical way one hears a piercing silence or burns one’s skin against ice. It’s disorienting at first. So many objects pile against one another that distinguishing one shadowy space from the next proves difficult, but one by one the outlines reveal themselves. Peter’s Mercedes, for instance, dark blue with a worn bumper, sits in the middle of the space clearly enough, and she takes the large rectangle emerging from the far wall to be a system of shelves no doubt housing the mass accumulation of suburban life: things like a hedge trimmer for yard work and a giant inflatable snowman for the holidays. A dank, mossy autumn bouquet, like soggy pine nettles and roasted mulch, fills the air. Maybe there’s landscaping work to be done and this is where supplies are kept. In their early years, she and Thaddeus always had a home improvement project on the weekend docket.
“I’m grabbing a soda,” Peter says, indicating a refrigerator. “Do you want something?”
The objects come quickly now—water heater, tire iron, bucket, fishing tackle—as her eyes acclimate to the low light, then Peter opens the garage door and brightness spills across the gray space like a firework. She sees a playhouse and a tyke bike, a garden hose and a spare, pool floats and a basketball hoop, a drum kit, a Ping-Pong table, a carton of magazines, a whiteout of plastic grocery sacks. There’s so much stuff in here that it threatens to consume Peter’s car.
“I got water, soda, and juice,” he says.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
She nods.
He closes the refrigerator and bounds over to the Mercedes, opening the passenger-side door for her. “If you’re still up for it, I’d like to swing by the gallery.”
“Wherever you want to go. I just need to get out of the house.”
She slides into the bucket seat, the cool, soft leather groaning beneath her. Compared to the garage, the Mercedes is austere, with not so much as a stray wrapper in sight. Its age, however, shows in the details: the dash faded from the Florida sun, and a gouge on the tan glove box has been there long enough to turn gray. Still, for an older car there’s very little in the way of dust or crumbs. Peter must vacuum the inside on a regular basis. Her lips part and her eyes widen, picturing him in paint-stained shorts and an old T-shirt, rag in hand, taking great care to detail the car. She’s in danger of turning his fastidiousness into a fetish, but she allows the indulgence. It’s refreshing to spend time with a man without having to be his warden.
She runs her finger along the gash. What caused that? A number of scenarios come to mind, but she settles on one involving a pocket knife wielded in frustration years ago, perhaps after some political demonstration.
“Gives the car some character, huh?” he says.
“What? Oh, yes.” At some point he dropped into the seat beside her.
“We’ve grown up together,” he says, stroking the wheel with affection. “Steven thinks I need a new car. It makes sense. With Gertie around, both cars should probably have air bags, ABS, and all those other safety features, but I don’t know. Everything is so new around here. I think it’s nice to carry a little history around—store it up for a rainy day—don’t you agree?”
“I think people have been raising kids for millions of years without antilock brakes.”
Her quip elicits a laugh and they share a knowing smile, as if to say, Aren’t all these concessions one makes for family and children the slightest bit ridiculous? She has the inclination to place a hand on his forearm, but she misses the moment. His fingers fly up. They pull the seat belt across his torso and then flit to the ignition. He flicks his wrist and the car starts with a powerful shudder before settling into an irregular diesel purr. “I bought this used when I was sixteen and spent years fixing her up,” he says. “She still runs great.” He drops his hand to the gearbox. The car jolts before settling into reverse. “So, we’ll just swing by the gallery, then we can go somewhere else.”
“Sounds fine,” she says. “I’m up for anything.”
The glare is so bright in those first moments as they leave the garage that she fails to notice anything odd, but as Peter slowly backs the Mercedes down the sun-bleached driveway it hits her. Something is missing.
“Where’s Thaddeus’s car?”
PART TWO
The Road to Disney World
YOU HIDE BEHIND THE WALL THAT SEPARATES THE
model unit’s master bathroom from the bedroom. Shirtless and breathing hard, your brow breaks out in a cold sweat and your knuckles ache. He’s on the other side of this wall in the shower and he thinks you’re in the kitchen preparing breakfast. You will be in a moment, but right now you inhabit the shadows, spying on him through the sliver of space between the bathroom door and the jamb. Seven short strides separate you. How easy it would be to walk in there, grab his slender throat and squeeze. A simple matter of applying pressure no more difficult than cracking an egg or popping bubble wrap.
“Yo, I been wanting to ask. Not that I’m not appreciative or nothing,” he shouts, his reedy timbre reverberating against the ceramic stall. “But why you been letting me stay here?”
Immediately he ducks beneath the shower, not waiting for a reply. His lips look their pinkest and his hair its darkest as the water rushes over his face, diverting around his nose.
You observe how he washes: how he scrubs the thick patches of matted hair forming the points of a triangle slung between his armpits and stretching down to the severe apex of his sex; how he scrubs the crusted tangle of your dried semen from his scant leg hair; how he gargles with the mouthwash you’ve placed beside the spigot. He spits it out onto his feet, and it looks like he’s standing in a puddle of urine until he lifts his heel from the drain and it slides away. He attends to the grit and lubricant caught beneath his fingernails. You’ve left a series of body scrubs, soaps, and hair care products on the ledge, and these come next. Over the past six months you’ve learned his routine. His actions have a deliberate purpose, and you observe as, step by step, he trades the insidious stink of sweat and discount cigarettes for an eau of something—something refreshing, something revitalizing with an oatmeal base and notes of lavender.
