The Butterfly Tattoo

by M. D. Thomas

  Elle didn’t try to figure it out. “You grow a conscience?”

  Harvey stood and looked down at her as he pulled on his coat. She felt a small sense of satisfaction when she shifted positions and his eyes roamed her body for a moment before returning to her face. “The only way we get in trouble is if you blab to someone about it.”

  “I won’t,” she said. Guilt or not—and she would never admit there was any—she wasn’t going to risk her job bartending at the Hill, not after so many years of shit work hostessing and waiting tables.

  “Good,” Harvey said.

  Quiet Keitel said hush hush hush no gush gush gush…

  He turned to leave, but stopped in the bedroom door to look back, his eyes on hers. “Keep away from the coke, okay? That shit’ll ruin you.”

  He left without waiting for a response and a moment later she heard the apartment door open and close. Still naked, she got out of bed and padded after him. Harvey had turned the doorknob’s button lock, unaware it was broken. The deadbeat super had been putting off fixing it ever since she’d moved in. She threw the deadbolt and peaked through the blinds at the landing outside the apartment, but Harvey was already gone.

  Hollow and confused, Elle went to the kitchen and grabbed the bourbon.

  Five

  HARVEY

  He needed to sober up.

  Driving wasn’t the issue—he wasn’t that drunk anymore, and if he got pulled over all he’d have to do was flash his badge—but he needed to clear his head and get his thoughts in order.

  She could ruin everything…

  Elle Rey didn’t know much about him, none of them ever did, but she knew enough. Maybe she wouldn’t remember what happened—coke did funny things to people’s memories sometimes—but he wouldn’t bet a nickel on the chance.

  He turned into a 7-Eleven about a mile from Elle’s apartment, parked in the lefthand corner so that the smashed rear fender wouldn’t be as obvious to anyone on a late-night beer run. He was miles from the accident scene, but if a detective had been assigned to the case there’d be a BOLO out for damaged cars. The guy in the ditch shouldn’t have been able to see them, but still. Some of the detectives were damn smart.

  You feel that sucking at your soul, Harvey? That’s what the bottom feels like…

  Harvey went inside the 7-Eleven and the clerk looked him over, dismissed him as a harmless, thirty-something white guy. He went to the restroom, a dismal cave that was little more than a glorified broom closet, and peed as he read the missives scrawled on the wall above the urinal.

  Bebe luvs Trayvon…

  Jazz D Sucks Big Cock…

  Julianna is a tranny hore…

  That last gem was inked beneath a cartoonish picture of the presumed man-lady, the head crowned by a nimbus of hair that made him think of Elle. After sex he’d enjoyed feeling her sweaty skin against his, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the accident, about how much power she had over him, and that the only way he could make sure she never got him in trouble was if he killed her. But he’d already crossed one moral divide in his profession and had no desire to cross another. Besides, she’d probably go coke crazy in the next month or two and wind up in the gutter anyway.

  Harvey zipped up, flushed the toilet with his foot, and went to the sink. He looked drunk, but not memorably so. He splashed his face with cold water and discovered there were no paper towels, used his coat sleeves to dry off.

  Harvey left the restroom, skirted a couple arguing about pizza versus chicken wings, and walked to the coffee station where he filled a large paper cup with Colombian and half a packet of Splenda. He didn’t drink coffee often, but when he did, he liked it strong and bitter.

  He sipped the coffee on his way to the register. It was hot, but not scalding, and would go a long way toward sobering him up. Even more important, it would help keep him awake during the long drive ahead.

  Before he left the 7-Eleven, Harvey turned off his phone so there wouldn’t be a record of the trip. His car—a Jeep Cherokee that’d seen better days—didn’t have a GPS.

  He drove to the Beltway and took the northbound entrance ramp, got onto I-66 a few minutes later, and headed west. There were a number of body shops Harvey could take the jeep to, especially in Baltimore, but he wanted to avoid the obvious. The detective working the hit and run would look for repairs done a day or two after the accident, and probably wouldn’t look any farther than the local chop shops. But if they were diligent they might look at Baltimore or Richmond, and when they did they’d check with the detectives there and they’d hear all about the dirtiest places in town.

  So he settled on Morgantown, West Virginia. He could’ve gone north into Pennsylvania, maybe to Harrisburg, but the idea of driving west across the Appalachians in the dark brought back pleasant childhood memories of a fishing trip with his grandfather. Besides, if he went somewhere too close he’d end up having to kill a lot of time waiting for the body shops to open.

  Harvey drove into Morgantown just after six. He’d taken his time, driving just under the speed limit and stopping every hour or so to stretch his legs. It was a good trip. The miles had ticked by and the more he thought about Elle the more certain he was she’d never say a word—she was too invested in her own skin.

  She won’t squeal and the couple will be fine after a short stay in the hospital. All you have to do is take care of the Jeep and it’ll be like this night never happened…

  The biggest thing Morgantown had going for it was West Virginia University, so it wasn’t hard to find a diner. Harvey took a booth in the back of the first one he found—where he could see everyone coming and going—ordered a big breakfast, and then unfolded the paper he’d bought outside the entrance.

  An hour and a half later the waitress, an older white lady with more gray in her hair than black, and the weathered face and gravelly voice of a lifetime smoker, topped off his coffee cup for the third time. “Anything else I can get for you, honey?”

  Harvey nodded as he finished the last bite of his western omelette, dialed up the alter-ego he thought of as Harv. “You know any good body shops around here? I swiped a tree going home last night and need to get some work done, but I haven’t lived here long enough to know where I should go.”

  The waitress put her free hand on her hip and gave him a knowing smirk. “Few too many beers, huh?”

  Harvey gave her his best aw-shucks grin and shrugged. “Wasn’t me. The tree just jumped out of nowhere.”

  The waitress chuckled at the expected joke. “Whitmore’s over on Cary street is a good one. I’ve had some work done there before. Priced fair and they’re quick.”

  “Sounds perfect. Thanks.”

  “No problem, hon. You need anything else before I bring the check?”

  “Just some directions.”

  Whitmore’s had just opened when he arrived, and a few of the employees were still loitering outside of the building drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. They ignored him as he entered the office, a small square of a room with a scuffed linoleum floor and brown walls decorated with old pictures of race cars and girls in swimsuits. The receptionist was a beefy girl who looked like she should be in class at the local high school instead of stationed behind the cluttered desk.

  “Good morning, sir,” she said with only a quick glance up from her computer. “How can I help you today?”

  Harvey leaned his elbows on the counter. “I’ve got a Jeep Cherokee with a damaged rear-end I need fixed and I need it done this morning.”

  The receptionist looked away from the computer, one thick, caterpillar-like eyebrow raised. “You realize this isn’t a fast-food restaurant, right? It takes time to get parts around here. Time to paint ‘em.”

  “I know it,” Harvey said, still channeling Harv. “You see, the problem is my wife. If she finds out I dented up her car, she’s gonna rain fire down on my head. It’s a pretty common make, so I think you can get whatever parts you need quick. And I’ll pay for it in cash,
no insurance claim.”

  The girl rolled her eyes and sighed. “Well, let me go talk to Daddy and see what he has to say.”

  Harvey and Daddy stood looking at the smashed rear panel of the Cherokee a few minutes later. Daddy was at least six and a half feet and looked like he weighed three hundred pounds, the faded blue coveralls he wore large enough to make a good-sized tarp. His hair was thin, his eyebrows almost non-existent, and Harvey wondered what Mommy might look like.

  “Got in a bit of trouble last night, huh?” Daddy asked, his hands in his coverall pockets.

  The damage wasn’t that bad considering what’d happened. “It’s only trouble if I can’t get it fixed right away.”

  Daddy examined him and sucked at his teeth. “Well, it happens to the best of us I suppose.”

  “Can you fix it this morning or not?”

  Daddy pursed his lips and rocked back on his heels. “Janise said you mentioned cash?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well… I suppose in that case we can get it done. It’s gonna cost you though.”

  Harvey thought about all the bills he’d have to pay late because of the repair. “It’ll cost a lot more if my wife sees what happened.”

  Daddy chuckled.

  Six

  SARAH

  In the beginning each day was filled with contradiction. Every time she looked at her Lee, every time she left the hospital room and came back, she was filled with hope that he would wake, that in the next moment his eyes would flutter open, would fill with life. Hope in every heartbeat, every breath. At the same time she was sure he would never come back to her, that she’d be left with nothing but the husk of his body for the rest of her life.

  Days passed, Lee’s condition didn’t change when the coma-inducing drugs were stopped, and contradiction faded. The endotracheal tube remained in Lee’s mouth, still connected to the ventilator, but the temporary nasogastric tube was removed and a permanent gastrostomy tube inserted directly into Lee’s stomach. Dr. Takeda assured her Lee could still regain consciousness, that he wasn’t brain dead, but it was a struggle to make herself believe when all she had to go by was the quiet boy that lay before her day in and day out, his only movements involuntary muscle spasms that had at first fooled her into believing he was regaining consciousness.

  So she did what she could. She kept Lee clean. She moved him constantly so he wouldn’t get bed sores. She flexed his arms and legs, even his fingers, to prevent permanent shortening of his muscles and joints. And, of course, she read him the daily baseball stats. But mostly she sat in a chair next to the bed and knit socks, sweaters, and scarves, the working of the smooth bamboo needles enough to pass the time, but not enough to suppress the bad thoughts that were overtaking the good. She felt the way she had in the pond when she was a kid, when she was desperate for a way out, for an escape, when any option, no matter how terrible, was better than doing nothing at all…

  The bit of summer vacation before the family’s annual Fourth of July picnic was wonderful, capped by Sarah’s ninth birthday the day before—a quiet celebration led by her father that nevertheless pleased her. Every day had been sunny and warm, a blur of running through the grass in the fields with her brother Adam, of picking flowers, of climbing trees, of catching fireflies. Time outside was time away from her mother, and that had been fine, too.

  The day of the picnic started out well enough. She and Adam hid in the bushes at the end of the long driveway and surprised their arriving aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents by jumping onto the side of the road and waving American flags they’d saved from last year’s picnic. They ran alongside the slow-rolling cars, shouting back and forth through the open windows, escorted them to the house where everybody spilled out of the cars and hugged them before they lugged the food they’d brought inside. Once everyone had arrived, they'd run off with their cousins to play.

  Sarah’s mood started to sour when her father yelled at the kids that it was time to eat. Adam and their cousins sprinted toward the house, shouting and yelling about how many hotdogs and hamburgers and ears of corn they’d eat, but Sarah took her time, all too aware that the hours she’d spent playing were hours her mother had been drinking. Sarah walked behind the house to the patch of flat lawn overlooking the pond down the hill, where three picnic tables had been set in a long line. Her mother sat at one end, and as soon as Sarah saw her mother’s glassy green eyes, she knew the rest of the day would go badly. She wished she could just avoid the meal, but of course that wasn’t allowed—everyone ate together.

  Her mother—sun dark, thin and ropy, her thick blond hair long and straight and gathered at the nape of her neck by a leather band—led the gathering with the raucous air of a gleeful drunk. She’d joked and jeered, gesticulated, brought smiles to faces young and old, like an ancient queen presiding over a feast.

  Sarah got her plate together, took just enough food that she could eat quickly but avoid getting called out for skimping, and then sat as far from her mother as possible, picking a seat next to her paternal Grandma Tate. Her mother noticed—Adam couldn’t do wrong, but when it came to Sarah, she noticed everything—but she said nothing, only finished off her beer and grabbed another from the huge cooler that her father had stocked that morning with Busch and bags of ice from the Giant over in Chambersburg. The trashcan next to the cooler was already filled with empty cans—when it came to beer on the Fourth, the whole Tate family partook with enthusiasm.

  Sarah kept her head down while she ate, only talked when someone spoke to her first. Still, when she tried to slip away from the table, she didn’t make it two feet before her mother’s voice filled the air.

  “Go get in your swimsuit, Sissy. Your brother and cousins will be wanting a dip in the pond to cool off after eating out here in the sun.”

  Adam and her cousins whooped in excitement, a couple of them already sprinting from the table to get into their suits.

  Don’t look at her, don’t say anything. It’ll just make it worse…

  So she nodded, tossed her empty plate in the nearest trashcan, and walked into the house with her back straight and stiff. She took as long as she dared to get changed, then left the house and walked past the table where most of the adults still sat—not her mother of course—on down the hill toward the pond.

  A dip in the pond was always part of the picnic. The kids went in first—giving the adults some alone time with their food and conversation until they were ready to change and amble down the hill themselves—but her mother always accompanied the kids to make sure none of the younger ones got in trouble.

  The pond—well over five acres according to her father—was oval-shaped, with a T-shaped pier on one narrow side that went far enough out into the water that an adult could jump in and not worry about touching the sludgy bottom. The end of the pier had enough space for a few lawn chairs and when Sarah got there, her mother was planted in one of them watching the kids already in the water. Anchored about two hundred feet from the end of the pier was a floating dock shaped like a square—the Tate kids always favored it, reveling in the little bit of freedom it gave them from the adults, who tended to stay close to the pier.

  When Sarah stopped a few feet from the end of the pier her mother looked up, a Busch in one hand and a Pall Mall cigarette in the other. Beads of condensation slid down the outside of the aluminum can.

  She furrowed her brow. “What took you so long?”

  “I had trouble finding my suit,” Sarah said as she looked at the worn, gray boards that were hot against the soles of her feet.

  “Sure you did,” her mother said as she took a gulp of beer. “You going to make it to the dock this year?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Just like you tried last year, no doubt. And the year before that.” Her mother gestured with her beer. “Look at Caitlyn. She’s only six and she made it out there without any floats.”

  Sarah's cheeks grew hot. Being shamed by her mother was nothing new, but
the comparison to her youngest cousin was embarrassing. Wanting only to be done with the inevitable, Sarah took a deep breath and walked to the ladder that hung off the end of the pier. Get in, make it as far as you can, and she’ll let it go…

  Sarah turned and—avoiding her mother’s gaze—started down the ladder.

  “Hey! Come on, Sarah!” Adam shouted, his voice carrying over the water. “Swim out here with us!”

  Sarah’s feet slipped into the dark, still water and despite its warmth, a chill passed through her. She wasn’t sure where her fear of the water originated—it’d just always been there. Adam understood, even though he was a natural swimmer. Don’t worry, Sarah, he’d said more than once, as he’d effortlessly tread water next to the pier, when you’re ready it’ll be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

  Easy for him to say, she thought as she continued down the ladder until the water covered her legs to mid-thigh, her face just above the decking. She tried not to shudder as she reached the end of the ladder—it was the point where she always started to get nervous.

  “Go on, Sissy. Stop screwing around and get in the goddamn water.”

  Sarah took one foot off the bottom rung of the ladder, then let it hang free. She knew how deep it was there, knew that the bottom was still far beyond reach. She lowered her torso and took her remaining foot off the ladder, but her breaths came faster and the water sliding over the bottom of her swimsuit made her stomach flutter with nausea.

  Just do it, stupid. Just go the rest of the way in, go out as far as you can and make her happy…

  Behind her, her brother and cousins shouted and laughed, some of them just playing, some of them encouraging her.