Jonah Man

by Christopher Narozny

  You can’t legislate fucking, she said. If you could, I wouldn’t be in business.

  I guess you wouldn’t.

  All right, she said. Your turn. What about me?

  I couldn’t tell you.

  I think you could. We have things in common.

  Like?

  You’re a widower and I’m a widow. Neither of us has the stomach for what most people would call real work.

  True, Jonson said.

  But I’ve been where you are and even then I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t stall. I wouldn’t know how to.

  Is that what I’m doing?

  She must have been one hell of a woman.

  Jonson nodded.

  But either way, he said, I never wanted much.

  An invaluable trait in a man of qualities.

  His son woke him for the first time in a long while; Jonson sat, drew the cot close to the crib, started the crib rocking. He patted the boy’s backside, found it dry.

  He lay back down, shut his eyes but couldn’t sleep. Switching on the light, he pulled his wife’s photo, the only photo he’d kept, from between two books. It showed her in profile, standing on the porch of a newly restored farmhouse. She had a dancer’s body, lean, with a young girl’s flesh still padding her face. The picture had been taken on the last day of their country vacation. There had been corn out front and out back, near ripe, the stench of fertilizer floating in from a larger farm to the south.

  We’re trying on a new life, Ginny said.

  It smells like cow patty.

  They sat on a swing on the wrap around porch, watching the sun decline, Jonson with his feet on the railing, Ginny lying with her head on his lap, wearing the striped shirt he sometimes wore onstage.

  Look at that, Jonson said, letting his feet drop.

  What?

  Hawk, he said.

  Where?

  Right there.

  Where?

  Right in front of us, he said. Coasting with its wings out.

  She stood, shielded her eyes.

  Beautiful, she said.

  You can’t see it. I know you can’t.

  I need you to tend bar, the Madame said.

  Max been fired?

  He’s coming with me. We’ll be gone overnight.

  All right, Jonson said. I can pour liquor as good as anybody.

  I’ve marked the bottles, she said, so keep the money right. The girls will look after themselves.

  Yes ma’am. Going anywhere in particular?

  Family visit.

  If I need to reach you?

  You won’t.

  Jonson looked at her. It was as if she wanted him to know that she was lying, that there was no family trip. She was peeking his curiosity, planting a seed.

  When do I start?

  Now.

  Jonson spoke little, drank what the patrons left behind. He studied them without pretending not to. They had money; they wore ascot ties, handspun lisle socks. An octogenarian wrapped in a carmine scarf sat sipping from a kir, trembling slightly. A fiddlebacked father counseled his obese son over a carafe of lemon vodka. Jonson imagined Cynthia beneath their bloated hands, their flab, their breath.

  It was late when he closed. He cracked a window against the smoke, locked the French doors from the inside, sat with a near-empty bottle of calvados and another of scotch. He dropped the cadavers in the bin, uncapped a fresh gallon of bourbon, drank it a quarter down while he polished the zinc and mopped the floor. The mix of liquors turned the sconce lights candent, sent the pulse of his footsteps caroming up his spine.

  Downstairs, he found Cynthia lying on his cot, reading. She sat up, swung her feet to the floor.

  I’ve been thinking, she said, looking over at the crib. You could take my room. I wouldn’t mind it down here.

  He been complaining about me? Jonson said, sitting beside her.

  Of course not.

  Listen, Jonson said. Why you?

  What?

  Why you? You’re pretty enough.

  I don’t understand.

  Why’d she stick you with the baby? You buck in bed?

  No.

  Did something happen? The money must be better upstairs. Don’t you like fucking?

  It’s not that.

  Show me.

  Show you what?

  Show me you like fucking.

  I can’t.

  Why not?

  I can’t.

  She was standing, open-mouthed, rubbing her hands over her arms, tamping down goose flesh. Jonson moved toward her. She stutter-stepped through a half-circle, began to run.

  All right, then, Jonson called, dropping sideways onto the cot.

  He pulled the lamp’s plug, lay scrolling through the Madame’s girls, able to conjure their names but not their faces, their costumes but not their bodies.

  VI

  The Madame returned as the bar was opening, asked Jonson for a glass of ice and a bottle of gin.

  Ice?

  A special occasion.

  So the trip was good?

  No small talk.

  All right.

  It was a great fucking trip. Every bit of it. How’d we do here?

  Fine.

  Let me see.

  He reached under the bar and pulled out a lidless shoebox packed with rolls of cash, one roll per denomination.

  Looks about right.

  That all?

  I’m too damn happy to count.

  She slid the box toward her, took out a thick roll of ones, handed it to Jonson.

  A down payment on your loyalty.

  I won’t say no.

  Of course you won’t.

  Max came in, looking frayed, beat down, his belt running outside the loops, scratches on his neck showing through a full day’s growth.

  What happened to you? Jonson asked.

  Nothing.

  Looks like something.

  I said it’s nothing.

  He plays too rough with my nephews, the Madame said. He forgets he’s not a child, that somewhere in the world he has a son of his own.

  That ain’t right, Max said.

  To Jonson he said, Get out from behind my bar.

  Sit and have a drink with us, the Madame said.

  It’s almost time to open.

  I say when it’s time to open. Now drink.

  I ain’t thirsty.

  You’re not anything. Sit your ass down and drink.

  To Jonson she said, Whiskey. In a pint glass.

  No, Max said, standing.

  Do you always have to spoil every goddamned thing? she said. Sit or get the fuck out and don’t come back.

  Jonson set a glass on the bar; the Madame pulled a capsule from her brazier, split it open and emptied the contents into the whiskey.

  Drink, she told Max again. I need you relaxed. And quiet.

  I am relaxed.

  Bullshit. I won’t listen to any more of your goddamn whining.

  OK, he said. You’re right.

  Show me.

  She stood, lifted the glass. Max clasped his hands behind his back and opened his mouth.

  That’s right, she said, resting the lip of the glass against his teeth, tilting it up.

  Jonson, she said. You’ve got the bar one more night.

  He was up and dressed when Cynthia came for his son.

  I’m sorry, he said. For what I remember.

  It’s all right.

  You like eggs?

  Sometimes.

  This one of those times?

  It could be.

  He led her to the kitchen, sat her at the head of a narrow table and lowered his son into a high chair. The day’s milk was standing at the back door. Jonson searched the cabinets, the ice box, toured the scullery, gathering an assortment of fruit, a hunk of marbled cheese, a half dozen eggs, a sack of pearl onions, a wire basket filled with green and red peppers. He peeled a kiwi, a banana, a tangerine, broke them up and arranged them in a ceramic bowl.

 
; Finger food, he said.

  You know your way around a kitchen.

  I had practice.

  The omelets filled their plates, browned peppers and onions jutting up through patches of singed egg white. Cynthia cut bits from the edges, fed them to Jonson’s son.

  You’re going to give him gas.

  He likes it, she said. Better than cereal.

  She took a bite herself. The boy grabbed at her sleeve, tugged her arm back.

  See?

  Don’t let him bully you.

  This is nice, Cynthia said. You did this for your wife?

  It’s just breakfast.

  It’s nice.

  He sat looking at her, trying to forget the thing he knew about her. She was just a woman, a little older than a girl, eating breakfast, wearing a modest autumn dress, a full-moon locket dangling from a lanyard around her neck.

  What’s inside? Jonson asked, pointing.

  The locket?

  She slid the lanyard over her head, set the locket on the table and sprung the lid, revealing an intaglio print of an old woman in profile.

  Who’s this? Jonson asked.

  I think she’s my grandmother.

  You think?

  I’ve had it since my mother died. Since before I can remember.

  Jonson set the locket on his palm and lifted it closer. The woman appeared bone-dry and unblinking, a fossil baked in a desert landscape.

  I talk to her sometimes, Cynthia said. Or else she talks to me. She gives me advice. Comforts me. She tells me the world is different than it seems.

  She looks like the type to know, Jonson said.

  Cynthia lifted a cloth napkin, wiped food from around the baby’s mouth.

  He won’t have that problem, she said.

  What problem?

  He’ll have you to talk to, she said. He won’t need to make anyone up.

  Sometimes fake people are better, Jonson said.

  She studied her plate as though searching out a wayward crumb.

  That sounds smart, she said. But it isn’t.

  Jonson smiled.

  I guess you owe me.

  Men make me up, she said. They call me by different names. Women they knew or wish they knew. They tell me how to act. Not all of them, but some.

  Jonson began clearing the table, collecting fruit rinds, wiping rings from beneath their cups.

  Why do you think they do that? she asked.

  He stood over her.

  You mean would I do that?

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  Cause of my wife?

  She nodded again. Jonson couldn’t decide if she meant to rile him, or if there was something she really wanted to know.

  I tried, he said. And I failed. I guess I don’t have the imagination.

  She rose to help him with the dishes.

  That’s good, she said.

  The only patrons had moved upstairs; Max was leaning across the bar, talking to one of the girls, stroking her shoulder. Jonson and the Madame took a small table in the far corner.

  I wish he would exercise something like discretion, she said, eyeing her nephew. I wouldn’t care if it was insincere.

  You worry about him?

  There’s no bottom too deep for him to find.

  But you keep him around.

  He serves his purpose.

  What about Cynthia?

  What about her?

  You worry about her?

  That girl is brilliant. If she were a man, or if she had people...

  You have money. You could be her people.

  The Madame smiled.

  Maybe Max isn’t the only one I have to watch for.

  It ain’t that.

  What then?

  I think you know. That’s why you’ve got her watching my kid.

  You mean she isn’t built for this?

  Something like that.

  When I found Cynthia she was cowering in an alley, wearing a kitchen apron and nothing else. Bleeding from I won’t say where. She didn’t know what had happened. She couldn’t remember her name. I’d say I am her people.

  You found her, or someone brought her to you?

  Is there a difference? She’s smart. I know for a fact there are clients who pay her just to talk.

  She remind you of you at your age?

  No. For me everything was simple. I liked fucking better than sewing.

  Sure, but fucking only got you so far.

  You haven’t known her as long as I have. She’s progressing.

  Jonson grinned.

  You kind of collect people, don’t you? he said.

  I cultivate loyalty.

  You’re sentimental.

  I believe in second chances. I’ll admit to feeling some attachment. I can reconcile that with business by promising myself I’ll never offer a third chance. It isn’t that I’m hard, it’s that I can’t allow myself to be soft. My limits are predetermined. If somebody crosses those limits, my response is automatic. I don’t allow myself to think about it.

  That ever been tested?

  Yes.

  And?

  If I told you, then I’d be thinking about it.

  I guess you would.

  She stood to leave, gestured toward the bar.

  Would you look at this? she said.

  Max was face down on the zinc, the bottle he’d been drinking from spinning empty on its side.

  A man his size ought to be able to drink a pond.

  I’m sorry, the girl said.

  Don’t be sorry, be useful. Jonson, see this animal to his room. I don’t care if you have to knock him out cold and drag him by the heels—there’s nothing in that head you could damage. I’m going to stay and have a chat with his girlfriend.

  Jonson lifted Max’s head, wiped blood from his lip with a bar rag, then raised him to his feet. Max offered no resistance, made an effort to support his own weight as Jonson steered him across the room.

  I ain’t a bad man, Max said.

  All right.

  I ain’t.

  Sure.

  Upstairs, he shied Max onto his bed, switched on the light and shut the door. Without knowing he would, he began to remove Max’s boots.

  You don’t care, Max said. I know you don’t.

  About what?

  Anything.

  Is this about those trips?

  I could stop her, Max said. Girls and liquor ought to be enough.

  Then stop her.

  Max coughed, spat a gout of bile onto the floor.

  You did what you were told, he said. Get out.

  Jonson snicked off the light.

  Be smart, Max, he said.

  Jonson took to wandering the upstairs halls, listening. The girls had distinct styles: some screamed as though being riven apart; some bawled commands; some let out slow, spiring moans. Jonson would linger, struggling to supply an image, hearing only pinchbeck affection, overwrought passion, all of it sounding like work. Lying on his cot in the early morning, he would try again, feel nothing.

  Once, when Max and the Madame were gone, he took the skeleton key from the bar, tried the Madame’s quarters, found them padlocked, moved upstairs to Max’s room. Shutting the door behind him, he flicked on the light, eyed the space: a pornographic novel on the nightstand, a bolo knife jutting from under the bed, hummocks of laundry ranging the floor. In the top drawer of the chifforobe, he found a single pair of socks tucked into a ball. He weighed them in his palm, reached his fingers through the tubing, removed a roll of cash wrapped around a chemist’s vial. Prodding the vial loose, he lifted it to the light, tilted it forward and back. The cyanic liquid changed hue, darkening as bits of silver dispersed. He uncorked a stopper, breathed in, found no odor. Routing through a pile of laundry, he pulled up a coarse handkerchief, tipped a clean edge into the vial. The liquid permeated a small circle of fabric, seemed to eat away the purple dye.

  Jonson sat on the unmade bed, working the stopper back into the vial, the vial into
the roll of cash.

  She ought to know better, he said aloud. You’re too damn dumb for secrets.

  VII

  The Madame returned from a trip alone.

  I need you to stable the horse, she told Jonson.

  Where’s Max?

  Fuck Max.

  I don’t know anything about…

  Learn.

  He found the buggy standing crooked on the concrete pathway outside, its bellows top folded down, the footboard scraping the brothel’s façade. He circled around, ran his fingers through the horse’s mane, slapped the animal’s neck.

  You been running good, he said.

  He walked the horse forward, lifted a match from his front pocket and lit the torches affixed to either side of the forebay door. Shaking the match out, he discovered pinlets of blood cutting sideways across his palm.

  You all right there? he asked, patting the horse’s muzzle, searching its neck for scrapes or abrasions, finding none.

  He picked the reins back up, found patches of still-moist blood spotting the driver’s ends, found more blood on and beneath the driver’s seat. He unfastened the trace chain, led the horse to its stall, then wiped down the buggy with a burlap rag. He buried the rag and reins in a pile of straw.

  Cynthia was waiting up. Jonson peered into the crib, stroked his son’s cheek.

  I’ll do it, Cynthia said.

  Do what?

  What you asked, she said. If you still want.

  I wasn’t really asking.

  Still.

  He sat beside her, bracing his legs to keep the cot from toppling.

  I’m not being mean, he said. I just ain’t ready.

  OK, she said.

  It’s the truth.

  You piece of shit, the Madame said, striking at his form beneath the blanket. Don’t you know to wipe a horse down?

  What?

  He’s dead.

  Who?

  The palomino. You left him lathered. You killed my best horse, you son of a bitch.

  Jonson stood, caught her wrists, shook the whip from her hand.

  Shut that kid up or I swear to god I’ll kill it. I swear to fucking god I will.

  Where’s Max?

  You killed my best horse.

  Fuck your horse. Where’s Max?

  Who?

  Max.

  What Max? There is no Max. Max is gone.

  She was sobbing, convulsing. Jonson backed away, waited for her to finish.