Calf

by Andrea Kleine

  It was historical, all right; it was old. It had long blue-gray velvet curtains covered in dust. There was no need for the curtains because no natural light reached into the lobby. The stately striped wallpaper was fading into yellow and the furniture had obviously been acquired from a restaurant’s going-out-of-business sale: green vinyl bar chairs and overly lacquered tables made of short stocky wood. There was no cafe, no bar, just beer lights nailed to the walls and a murk of smoke lingering along with skinny black girls in shorts whose skin stuck to the seat cushions.

  The place was a dump. No one would bother him here.

  Jeffrey checked in and the clerk slid him a key with a wooden number 7 attached by a gold chain. Lucky.

  His room was narrow and dark. He thought about asking for the Booth room, but he didn’t want to call attention to himself. Plus, they probably didn’t rent it out. It was probably sectioned off by a rope and you had to be a museum worker to go in there, or some sicko senator with a thing for cheap call girls dressed up as Mary Todd Lincoln. Jeffrey wondered how much the clerk got under the table for arranging that sort of thing.

  Jeffrey lay down on the bed and picked at the white nubbed blanket. Pigeons cooed outside his window. Jeffrey thought it was ironic that Booth was an actor and now an actor was president. He fell asleep.

  When he woke up it was after noon. He needed to eat. He didn’t want to go out, but there was no room service.

  Jeffrey stepped out of his room into the blue-gray carpeted hallway. Everything in the National was the color of smoke.

  Two black kids were standing at the end of the hall. One of them had a wine-colored umbrella, the kind with a button you press and it automatically extends out and opens up. The kid was using it as a gun, firing on the other kid who was trying to grab it away from him. When the kids saw Jeffrey they quieted down and started whispering to each other huddled against the last door at the end of the hall.

  Jeffrey locked his door and headed to the elevator. When he reached out to press the button, an umbrella appeared out of nowhere and slammed down against his forearm.

  “Chicken!” one of the boys said excitedly, the white parts of his eyes lighting up. “Chicken! You chicken!” he said again and then quickly withdrew his umbrella and ran down the hall to his friend.

  Jeffrey was stunned. He was afraid of this boy. This boy saw right through Jeffrey. Jeffrey had a gun in his pocket, but he was a chicken. Jeffrey was chickening out. Jeffrey knew this, but the boy was broadcasting it, telling the whole world what it already knew: that Jeffrey was too powerless to ever accomplish anything, that he was too scared to demand anything of this world, that he desperately wanted to be seen, but was too timid to speak. Jeffrey was so saddled with truth, he could not perform a dare.

  The elevator door suddenly dinged and opened. Jeffrey automatically stepped in as the boy ran back down the hall, this time shouting, “I’m not afraid of you, chicken!”

  The boy lost the race with the elevator door. It closed in his face as he was laughing.

  When the elevator arrived on the first floor, Jeffrey half expected to see the boy again, but there was no one except the clerk and an old black man sitting on one of the vinyl chairs with a brown paper bag on his lap.

  After a quick Burger King meal, where he could at least have things his way, Jeffrey set out for Amber’s hotel. The neighborhood cleaned up as he went.

  He waited across the street from the hotel and tried to see who was in the lobby. It was hard to make out, but he thought he saw a female desk clerk. A good sign; Jeffrey didn’t know her. He didn’t see any of the fat fucks hanging out either. Jeffrey slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and felt the cool hard surface of his gun. He pressed it against his body and crossed the street.

  The lobby was brightly lit and all the surfaces shiny and polished. It felt more akin to an airport than the dusty, dim, decrepit National. Jeffrey walked up to the desk, hand steady in his pocket. His finger wasn’t on the trigger, he was just resting his hand there. Just resting his hand in his pocket. Just in case. The girl clerk had her head bent down and didn’t see him. Jeffrey was tempted to ring the tin bell for service, but she looked up before he had the chance. She squinted at him and then launched into her automatic friendly routine. They probably taught her that in hospitality school—how to be bubbly and bright when you really don’t want to.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Smile.

  “Yes, I was staying here about a week ago, and I think there might be some mail or messages for me.”

  “Hmm. We usually don’t accept mail for guests after they’ve checked out unless they have a reservation to return. We usually forward everything along to your home address.”

  “Could you please check for me? I think some things may have been lost or held up.”

  “Sure. I’d be happy to.”

  Jeffrey gave her his name and she disappeared through a door behind the desk. He glanced up at the shelf of key nooks. The top row only had two slots. Penthouse suites A and B. There were no keys. She was probably here right now.

  Jeffrey’s heart started beating erratically and he decided to do something rash. He dashed over to the stairwell before the girl came out of the office.

  He quickly bounded up two flights of stairs, entered the hallway, and waited for the elevator. He rode to the last floor before PH and found the stairwell. Jeffrey didn’t know why he had never thought of this earlier. He ran up the last set of steps and pulled on the PH door, half expecting it to be locked, half expecting he would have to kick it down or blast off the doorknob.

  It opened easily into his arms.

  Jeffrey released the door and let it drift shut. He sat down on the stairs and dug around in his breast pocket. He came up with a stubby pencil and a Trailways ticket envelope. There wasn’t much space to write except around the edges.

  Amber,

  I made it. I’m here. Want me, I’m yours. Believe in us. We’ll be so happy together. Romeo and Juliet. I’ll take the poison from your delicious lips. Kiss of death and the bad actors who try and take over the castle will die and we will live happily ever after in our perfect heaven. Imagine.

  —J

  He looked through the little rectangular window. No one was in the PH corridor. He still didn’t know which room was hers, so he opted to leave the note on the floor halfway between penthouses A and B, and, just so she wouldn’t miss it, he took the John Lennon button off of his lapel and pinned it to the envelope.

  Jeffrey took the stairs back down to the first floor. When he got to the lobby he walked up to the reception desk as though nothing he had done was out of the ordinary.

  This time the girl squinted and didn’t smile. Bad girl. Go to hospitality detention.

  Jeffrey excused himself for disappearing and said he had needed to use the facilities. The girl clerk told him there wasn’t any mail. Jeffrey was a little confused. He should’ve received some mail from Amber. It should be waiting for him. The clerk apologized, politely and professionally, probably trying to make up for not smiling. Jeffrey felt lucky and he decided to press it.

  “Actually, could you connect me to Miss Carrol?” Jeffrey asked, picking up the in-house phone.

  “I’m sorry, who?”

  “Miss Carrol. Penthouse suite.”

  “You mean the actress with the film crew?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, they all moved on a few days ago. They’ve checked out.”

  Jeffrey wasn’t quite sure whether or not to believe her. He had been gone less than a week. It took longer than a week to make a movie. There must be a secret code he had to give the clerk so she would know he wasn’t some crazy fan. That was probably the routine for security purposes. But Jeffrey didn’t have the secret code. He could whip out his gun and force the girl clerk to talk, but he was caught off guard. He didn’t have time to think the scenario through. The gun hung heavy and awkwardly in his pocket, and he felt unable to touch it without drawing attenti
on to himself.

  “Could I write a message for her and you could forward it along?”

  “Sir, we really—”

  “I don’t want her address, you can just include it with her regular mail.”

  “Sir, it’s not our policy to—”

  “It’s very important. It’s very important that she get this as soon as possible.”

  “Sir, if it was that important, you would probably already have Miss Carrol’s address.”

  Jeffrey was shocked. This wasn’t hospitable at all. He took the hotel pen he was holding and walked out.

  Amber had his heart and she had left with no forwarding address. There was no way for him to protect her. He had to find her. She couldn’t have gone far. She had a movie to make. She couldn’t have gone far. Jeffrey could find her.

  Jeffrey scudded down the street, away from the hotel. He bumped into someone with his shoulder and didn’t bother with an “excuse me.” He felt bad about it, but he had no time to be polite. He walked several blocks with his head down, looking at the sidewalk. He had no plan other than to find her and to find her quickly. He had to find her quickly. Time was not on his side, in fact, time was on the opposite team, taunting him, knowing that he was always the last one picked, always the last one up to bat, and always sure to strike out. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, time. Jeffrey weaved through office workers eating their bag lunches in Lafayette Park. He scanned the line of tourists waiting outside the White House gates. He thought about getting on a bus heading up Pennsylvania Avenue. On a bus he could cover more ground. But he wouldn’t be in control. He might not get a window seat. He might not be able to get off where he wanted. The bell might not work. Some pregnant woman might go into labor and the bus would have to make a detour to the hospital. Jeffrey would walk. He stayed on Pennsylvania Avenue and walked.

  Jeffrey started to sweat. He slowed down.

  The air was humid and thick. It was making him tired. He looked up at the sky and it was only then that he realized it was a gray day.

  Pennsylvania Avenue abruptly ended and Jeffrey was deposited onto M Street. He didn’t like being on a street named after a random letter of the alphabet. Streets should have names. Things with just letters were never anything good—KGB, CIA, SDS, MIA, IBM, you name it. Wisconsin came to his rescue. Jeffrey hung a right onto Wisconsin Avenue. He felt a little better. He didn’t see Amber or any movie crews. He kept walking.

  He walked a long while.

  He passed Garfield Street and thought, dead president, you get a side street. What a letdown. Give your life for your country and you get a fucking side street, or a faceless white tombstone in Arlington Cemetery identical to every other faceless white tombstone in Arlington Cemetery so no one can ever find you. That’s it. Sorry. Oh, and here’s a folded-up flag for your mom.

  When he arrived at the border of Wisconsin and Massachusetts he wavered slightly and stayed on Wisconsin. At the intersection of Wisconsin and Nebraska, Jeffrey stuck with Wisconsin. Wisconsin turned out to be a long avenue. He didn’t know how it earned its status as a major artery when it didn’t seem like a major state. It wasn’t New York or California or Texas. But for some reason Wisconsin was awarded a lot of traffic, an odd honor for a state specializing in cheese.

  It began to rain. Jeffrey didn’t know where he was or how far he had walked. He was wet, his search was foiled, he had nowhere to go. His tired legs arrived at a corner where a dinky local library stood across the street from a Sears department store, a little publicly funded David against the capitalist Goliath. The rain was beating on him. Jeffrey ducked into the library for cover.

  The turnstile creaked loudly as it propelled Jeffrey into the quiet sanctum of books. Jeffrey looked around, embarrassed, and wondered if anyone noticed the film of water covering his face and dripping off the end of his nose like snot. It wasn’t snot, but Jeffrey was disturbed that people might think it was. A handmade sign of puffy magic-marker letters spelled out INFORMATION beneath a cloudy layer of Scotch tape. Jeffrey walked up to the desk and asked for the men’s room.

  When Jeffrey opened the restroom door, he was so startled that his neck locked up like an Easter Island statue. A young girl was sitting on the toilet, her pants pushed down below her knees and the tiptoes of her sneakers touching the floor for balance. Jeffrey had bulldozed through the moment when she could’ve said, “Just a minute, please,” and all she had left at her disposal was to move a forearm protectively over her lap. He didn’t know how long he stood there staring at her, and she staring back at him. It was long enough for him to see that one of her sneakers was untied and the gray laces were lying flat on the floor getting wet. It was only when he realized he had blinked, and blinked a second time, that he looked away from the girl and quietly backed out.

  A few moments later, Jeffrey heard the toilet flush and the girl came out. He watched her as she disappeared between the stacks of books.

  In the bathroom, Jeffrey dried himself off with brown paper towels. He still felt the presence of the girl, as if this large beige closet were somehow hers, or as if he were a married businessman who had come home late one night and accidentally wandered into the wrong house, into the wrong bed, next to the wrong wife, and did not want to leave. Jeffrey stared at the white oval toilet seat and, against his better judgment, wanted to touch the surface.

  After rubbing more paper towels over his damp head, Jeffrey emerged from the bathroom, walked over to the magazine rack, and picked up an outdated copy of Time magazine. The magazine rack was by the exit. He would wait there for the girl. Read a magazine. Wait. The Time magazine headline beamed. “The Peril Grows,” it said. It was growing in Central America. He flipped open the crumpled pages to nowhere in particular.

  The girl walked up to the checkout desk with a pile of books followed by a really little kid in overalls. At the bottom of the pile, the librarian paused her methodical stamping of index cards. She pushed her glasses up her nose and tapped the book with her finger. The library lady was not relinquishing the last tattered paperback. “I’m sorry, but we have certain restrictions with this book,” the librarian said and continued on with some sort of official jargon. Jeffrey could tell the girl just wanted to let it go. Her eyes were shifting intermittently between the floor and her remaining pile of books. Jeffrey saw himself in the girl. She wasn’t a fighter. She wasn’t going to argue. If she couldn’t get what she wanted then she just wanted to be left alone.

  Being gallant was never part of Jeffrey’s character, but this girl wanted her damn book and she should have her damn book. He could shoot the library lady, grab the book, the girl, her brother, and get the hell out. Maybe grab the drawer of loose change where they kept everyone’s five-cents-a-day penance. They didn’t have a getaway car. They would have to hope for a bus.

  “Excuse me,” Jeffrey said, surprised to hear words come out of his mouth. The library lady looked up at him with her too-large face on her too-large head with hair curled too tightly from a perm. She looked like a clown. “Could I be of some assistance?” He meant to say “help.” “Could I be of some help?” But now that he said it, “assistance” sounded better.

  The library lady looked at him, looked back at the girl, and looked at him again as though she detected a family resemblance. “I would need you to sign for this book,” she said. Jeffrey hadn’t given a story for the librarian to buy, but she had apparently invented her own. Jeffrey leaned over and signed the index card. He slid it back to the library lady. He was still too nervous to look the girl in the eye and instead glanced down at the metal fasteners on the boy’s overalls. The book in question—it was called Forever and had an illustration of a gold locket on the cover—was stamped and shoved aside with the girl’s other selections and the three of them were free to go.

  Jeffrey followed the girl to the exit and held the glass door open for her. The girl paused on the sidewalk and looked at Jeffrey. Jeffrey was half expecting a “thank you” but then he remembered that he was
the one who had walked in on her in the bathroom and she could still hate him for that.

  “I’m sorry,” Jeffrey said, “about before.”

  The girl half shrugged and gave him a barely audible, “It’s okay.” Her brother was looking at his reflection in the library glass.

  Make it up to her, Jeffrey thought.

  “I’m really sorry,” Jeffrey said, repeating his last line to buy himself some time. “Could I . . . would you like to . . . I could take you out . . . if you want.” I’m a loser, Jeffrey thought. I can’t put two and two together. This is a kid. Think about what kids like.

  “We could go get ice cream if you want.”

  The girl squinted at him suspiciously, but the boy turned around and his formerly lethargic limbs came to life. He clasped his hands together and for a moment looked like a miniature little old man. The girl wasn’t so easily sold. She turned around and tugged on the hood of the boy’s jacket. “Let’s go,” she said and was met with a round of “Noooo,” from the boy. The boy went so far as to turn red and prepare to cry. The girl told him to shut up, but Jeffrey could tell she didn’t mean it. She was just embarrassed.

  “It’s really no problem. It’s my treat.”

  The girl paused at each intersection and reached for her brother’s hand. Cute, Jeffrey thought. She takes care of him. He tried to remember if his sister did that sort of thing when they were kids, but it must be different growing up in DC. Any foreign thug could run you over and claim diplomatic immunity. As they waited for the light to change, Jeffrey noticed the letters on the building across the street—Washington Psychiatric Institute. The windows were tinted brown and behind them were brown vertical blinds and no one was entering or exiting through the sunglassed front doors. Jeffrey glanced up at the building’s six stories and caught sight of a nurse passing by a window.

  At the Swensen’s ice cream parlor Please Wait to be Seated sign, the three of them were escorted to a booth in the back. The girl and boy ordered small matching sundaes called Mr. San Francisco, basically an upside-down ice cream cone with a little added fluff. Jeffrey thought they were being polite by ordering the cheapest sundae on the menu. Jeffrey ordered a milkshake because it seemed more adult.