Lights Out

by Douglas Clegg

  The bruising and scarring became a distant memory.

  The dreams of the boy hurt by others no longer happened, according to Kyle.

  The side business of T-shirts took off. Within two years, a buyer approached Jason and Amy about buying the whole operation from them.

  Amy felt the offered price was too good not to sell.

  Before the sale, they’d take one last trip down to the shirt factory, give a big fat bonus to the overseer and the office workers, and then a great “goodbye” bonus to every single worker on the floor.

  It was a big day at the factory, which had grown into three large buildings.

  Amy oohed and ahhed over the operation. Jason marveled at the ambitious production schedule; the blocks of apartments for the workers; the canteen; the offices. The overseer and his secretary took them to the little area where their shirts were manufactured.

  The line workers remained busy, down on the floor, a humming hive moving in and around a variety of machines. There were several older women, some middle-aged, at least one expectant mother among them. The men were younger, some of them in their teens.

  Jason was surprised to see children there, too, running errands, sewing, cutting fabric, rolling it out.

  He knew this was the standard of the country, and even children needed to bring money home to their poor families. He didn’t love seeing it and mentioned it to the overseer.

  “Only fifteen and up in my factory,” the overseer said with pride. “The laws here allow for much, much younger. Children need work, just like anyone else, but some of these boys come from families with nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s a pleasure to find some kind of work for their children.”

  “They look too young.” When Jason said this, he felt Amy’s elbow in his side.

  “We’re short, young-looking people,” the overseer’s secretary said. “Not tall and strong like you people.”

  All of this did little to reassure Jason. He and Amy exchanged glances.

  They went around to the happy and grateful employees, many of whom wept when they were handed cash.

  The boys — they seemed not much older than Kyle — came up, grinning, thanking, speaking the few words of English they knew. The girls at the machines kept their eyes downcast, but thanked both of them for the money.

  One little boy — could he have been fourteen? He was Kyle’s height, but much thinner. He ran up and hugged them both, speaking bad English, thanking them but not daring to look up at their faces.

  Jason felt an unexpected tug at his heart. He gave the boy double the amount.

  The boy wore one of their T-shirts, the one that Kyle had loved back when he was allowed to wear it.

  As the boy turned to run back to his station, Jason saw the crisscross bloodstain marks along his back where the shirt had been torn. He remembered seeing a long strip of thick cowhide hanging above the door of the overseer’s office. When Amy had mentioned it, the secretary remarked that it was hers “so I can whip the boss into shape when he gets lazy,” and they all had a good, polite laugh at this.

  “You gave him too much,” the overseer said, mentioning the boy by name as he ran off among the aisles of machinery. “He’s a daydreamer. Never fast enough, never on top of his work. I don’t know why I keep some of them on.”

  “You have a big heart,” his secretary said.

  Jason recognized the name of the boy.

  Jason felt lost for the rest of the tour through the factory. He could not look Amy in the eye, nor did he manage much in the way of conversation with the others.

  He canceled dinner but nodded when Amy said she wanted to go as a final thank you to the overseer and his secretary. She was sorry he felt ill.

  Jason went to lie down in their hotel room.

  Amy returned from dinner, very excited, and woke him at midnight.

  “Oh my god, Jason, you wouldn’t believe it. I think we can make a killing with high-end sheets and pillowcases. We all crunched numbers tonight. They showed me some printouts regarding the competition. He can bring it in under budget. He told me that our business made him rich enough to keep expanding product lines and now…”

  She kept talking about the millions they could make and maybe even attach it to a celebrity and market it through some big box stores to appeal to middle-class people who wanted great bedding.

  He felt as if he were gasping for air with every word she spoke.

  He ran his fingers along bruises at his throat, and felt the skin of his back rise slightly to meet the edge of the whip.

  The American

  Quested's, a cafe in the Fire District, looked out on a triangle of park lined with sculptures and trees.

  The barman brought him an espresso, tinged with lemon; the American stared at the small cup for a minute as if deciding whether or not to order something else instead.

  “I tried to kill myself tonight,” he announced to the couples at a nearby table. He sipped his drink, and glanced out into the night, not caring if they listened. “I smoked every cigarette I could find. Drank everything. I swam in the filthy river and then went to a brothel where the whores were shapeless and ancient.”

  “Now, that’s the way to do it,” one woman said. “Good for you. Bon voyage.”

  “Then you come to a dark little cafe like the rest of us,” someone else said. “More coriamandra, good sir. This time, two shots. I feel lucky tonight.”

  The barman stood by, a small white towel on his arm. “We’re closing in a half hour.”

  “Why’s that?” the tourist from Scotland asked.

  “I have a life, that’s why,” the barman said.

  “It’s a lovely night,” a man said, and then began singing, lightly, a beautiful Italian song in a reedy voice.

  The leaves of the trees waved slightly, then, the breeze died.

  The American began laughing.

  “What’s the joke?” said the woman who had congratulated him on his last night on earth.

  “I want to obliterate myself. Somehow.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I am one of the great unloved.”

  “You can’t be more than twenty-three. You can find love next year.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works. I think it begins at birth and goes from there. Then, one day you just recognize it. You’re outside the joke that others get. You’re not in on what they seem to connect with.”

  “You’re just inexperienced,” she said. Then, turning to her friend, a dark Italian man, she whispered a few words in Italian. He whispered back. She said to the American, “Come sit with us. Would you like a cigarette?”

  In a minute or two, he was with them. He was introduced around to the friends at the table: the Italian gentleman who was much older, and a young couple from Bristol who were only in Rome for a week. One of the Scottish tourists at the next table began whispering to one of the others as if he knew something about the American.

  The woman said, “You look familiar to me.”

  “I'm here a lot, sometimes. I come late at night. I suppose I drink too much,” the American said.

  The woman looked at the older Italian man and smiled. “We like Quested's. So many people come here who speak English. My Italian is still a little rough, but I'm getting better, aren't I, Dario?”

  The Italian nodded, “Yes. Every day you mispronounce a new word in my language.”

  “Oh,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. She offered a sorrowful smile to the American. “I'm sorry you're not feeling yourself tonight. But that's what drinking's for.”

  “Have you ever burned for anyone?” the American asked. “Burned? I have. I do.”

  “Someone must’ve broke your heart,” the woman said. “Here in Rome?”

  “A whore,” the American said.

  “If it really was a whore, you might be smart not to give your heart where you put your wallet,” the Italian said. “But I suspect you exaggerate.”

  “Well, not really a
whore. But a whore in spirit.”

  “All of us should be whores in spirit,” the Italian said.

  “Darling,” the woman said, placing her hand on the Italian’s wrist. “Give him a little space to grieve for his lost love. Don’t all men call women whores when they’ve been thrown over?”

  “It was a man, not a woman,” the American said.

  “Aha,” the woman said. “That explains it. Men are all whores. No exaggeration there.”

  “I’m not a whore.”

  “Of course you’re not. Darling, go get us another drink. The barman’s too surly.”

  After the Italian had left the table to get more drinks, the woman — who seemed to the American like every British woman he’d met — leaned over and whispered, “You’re gay, then. What’s that like?”

  The American grinned. “Here we go.”

  “No, I mean, what’s it like to feel the way we — women — always feel, but to have the same instincts as any man?”

  The woman of the other couple at the table laughed. “It’s true. It must be terrible.”

  “It’s exactly the same,” the American said. “Nobody feels differently. We’re all looking for love, and we’re all messed up at the same time. Some people are meant to be loved. I am not.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Everyone is meant to be loved. Is this about your mother?”

  “What?”

  “Well, in my experience, men get screwed up by their mothers because mummy wanted a perfect little husband in the perfect little son. It’s incestuous. I see it all the time. Especially with you American boys.”

  “My mother died when I was three, so I suspect that’s not the issue.”

  “That destroys my theory,” the woman said. “Do you really want to kill yourself? I mean, honestly, kill yourself?”

  He thought a moment, but did not answer. He leaned back, looking up at the branches of the trees. “It’s impossible to see the stars through these trees.”

  “No it’s not. I see them.”

  “I can’t.”

  The Italian returned with a round tray of small glasses filled with greenish-brown liquid.

  “Here we are,” the woman said. “Do you like absinthe?”

  “Absinthe-lootly.”

  No one laughed.

  He added, “I like everything that’s bad for me.”

  “Maybe that applies to the men you pick. Tell me about this recent love.”

  “Recent one? My only love.”

  “Wait. You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not,” the American said. “Before him, I hadn’t been with a man.”

  “With a woman before?”

  “A few times. In my teens.”

  “But this was your first real love. That explains a lot,” the woman said. “First loves are dreadful unless you’re the one who dumps him. So this was just your learning experience.”

  “No. He was the only one, until he had me do things. But that was for him. It’s over. My life.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” the woman said. “Here, drink. You’ll feel better. You'll burn away those feelings with a few brain cells tonight.”

  The Italian began speaking in his native language to the barman who stood by. “He wants to close up,” the Italian said. “He has a sick child at home.”

  “Just a drink left,” the woman said. She raised her glass and sipped. “Do you feel it yet?”

  “I feel too much,” the American said.

  “No, the absinthe. They say it’s terrific for destroying the brain.”

  “And hallucinating,” the man said, who was part of the other couple at the table.

  “I need a hallucination to do what I need to do,” the American said. “Here’s the thing.” He took a few sips. “Here’s the thing. He told me he loved me. He made me do things that I wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

  “Like?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Aha,” the woman said. “Sexual things.”

  “That. And other things. He had me…do things. With others. He says it’s what will bind us. I was stupid. I don’t know who I am sometimes.” He drank down the glass of absinthe too quickly. “I must be a terrible person. I’ve done things that I never thought I’d do. I’ve humiliated myself. I’ve crossed boundaries I thought I would never cross. For him.”

  “You’ll get sick if you go at it like that,” the woman said. “Sip. That stuff’ll give you the biggest headache of your life by dawn. And dawn is coming up soon enough.”

  The Italian took his glass and set it down in front of the American. “For you.”

  The American glanced up at the Italian. He picked up the glass and took a sip. He kept his nose near the glass, as if smelling something delicious. He watched the Italian as he drank.

  “This is a fine drink.”

  “It’s terrible for you. This is really the way to kill yourself,” the Italian said. “If you’re going to do it. This, or pastries.”

  “Yes.” The American looked at the glass, and swirled the green liquid around in it. “How beautiful.”

  “This man of yours sounds terrible,” the woman said. “Just awful.”

  “He sounds unusual, that’s true,” the Italian said. “But why do these things? Why do what he asks?”

  “I love him. I loved him. I still do.”

  “Love means hurting yourself?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Did you enjoy any of this wickedness?” the woman asked.

  “Enjoy?”

  “Well, it sounds like a dirty movie. There must be some fun to it. You were asked to do things you wouldn't ordinarily do. You must like the authority of it. Being told what to do. And doing it.”

  “I suppose I do like it. And I hate that I like it.”

  He drank the rest of the Italian’s absinthe.

  “You’ve just lost some brain cells,” the woman said. “Well, as terrible as that love affair sounds, there are others in the world for you. You’re just starting out. There may be dozens of men you’ll love before you find that elusive right one.”

  “I can’t do that,” the American said. “There’s only one man for me. I am not going to live that life, from one to another. I’ve known people who did that. It is awful. It turns love into a machine.”

  “But what did this man do to you?” she asked. “He didn't care for you. He used you. No matter how you would like that to be, that’s not love. That, my friend, is a machine of some kind. That love of yours.” A slight laugh. “It may be fun. It may be a good memory for when you’re old and gray and want to think of misspent youth. But it’s not love.”

  “You don’t understand,” the American said. “Love is about giving yourself up. Body and soul.”

  “Is it? I thought it was an action. I love Dario,” she leaned into the Italian and gave him a squeeze. “But by love, I mean, I do things with him, for him, we have fun, we think about life together. But if he asked me to do something I couldn't do, I’d draw a line.”

  “Would you?” the Italian began laughing. “Well, I guess I know the limits of our love life now.”

  “Ha ha,” she said.

  “No, truly,” the Italian said, kissing the top of the woman's scalp and watching the American. “I would draw no line for you. If you wished me to sleep with others, I'd do as you wished.”

  She swatted at the Italian. “Oh, you. This young man is serious.” She leaned across the table and touched the top of the American's hand. “Love is when you trust each other. Like good friends. Best friends.”

  “I don’t think that’s love. That’s complacency,” the American said. “Love is a lot more extreme. It’s everything or nothing. I'm not sure trust is part of it.”

  “That’s because you’re young.”

  “You’re not old. How old are you?”

  “Nearly thirty.”

  “I bet at twenty you felt differently.”

  “Perhaps I did. But you grow up.” T
hen, seeing the stricken look on his face, she added, “I think sometimes in life, to learn about love, you have to break at first. You can't have those illusions you have when you're a child. And you will break, first, before you find out what love is. You break, and are hurt. As you are now. But then, you mend and grow stronger and you come to realize what love is and what it isn't. And you avoid what looks like love, but is really just some wild animal that has no love in its soul.”

  “I want to burn from love,” the American said.

  The woman took a sip from her glass, and then lit up a cigarette. “This is such a serious topic. We should talk of lighter things.”

  “All right,” the American said. “How about the war?”

  “Oh, no, let’s go back to your sex life.”

  The American, his eyes glazing a bit from the drink, looked at his glass as if he could see the past in it. “He had me sleep with soldiers, several at a time. Then, with the wife of a friend.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes. Then, one night, a man of seventy. He had me steal from people. Just to see if I would obey him.”

  The woman inhaled deep from her cigarette. “You’re taking the piss now. This sounds made up.”

  “It’s not,” the American said. “I did it for him. I’d do anything for him.”

  “Well,” the woman said, glancing at the others. “Then you need to separate from this person forever. You need to go get some help.”

  “Did he make you kill anyone?” the Italian asked.

  The American didn’t answer.

  The woman and the Italian glanced at each other. The other couple began to talk about going home for the evening, back to their flat that was a quarter mile away.

  After they left, the Italian said, “I think you’re troubled. I think this love you talk of is very disturbing for you. Perhaps you just need to sleep.”

  “Who can sleep?” the woman asked. “I can’t. Not until I put myself out with these.” She lifted her glass, then noticed that the American’s was empty. “More? Look, Tina’s left some in her glass. Have it.” She passed the glass over to the American.