Wild Penance

by Sandi Ault

  “Yeah, you’ll never be able to play the wounded bear card again after this, I’m warning you.”

  She laughed. “It was the only way I could get you to do it. You know I’m right.”

  “True. Listen, Bennie, I…”

  “What?”

  Inside the Gecko, the band began checking their instruments through the sound system, and the noise blasted out the open front door of the club, the bass booming, a saxophone honking, cymbals crashing-nothing coordinated-each of them producing clamor at once. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the cacophony. “I… if I’ve ever hurt you or offended you, I want to ask for your forgiveness.”

  Bennie squinted at me, as if she was trying to see me better. She had to shout over the din. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about forgiveness,” I shouted back.

  Bennie shook her head and put a finger in her ear and twisted it. “Look, kiddo, it sounds like they’re ready to start. You better go get into your outfit.”

  The lights on the stage changed from red to blue to yellow, and spots came on and went off as the technician tested his lighting sets. A dozen young women bustled around with cosmetic bags and hat-boxes. A woman named Wynetta was in charge, and she wielded a clipboard to prove it. She wore enormous, red-rimmed glasses with a beaded chain on them. “Who are you?” She looked at me, then at the clipboard in her hand, as if the answer might be there.

  “I’m Jamaica. Bennie asked me to fill in for the girl who-”

  “I see,” she said, pulling her glasses down slightly with one hand and scanning me up and down over the tops of them. “Were you going to get your hair done this afternoon before the show tonight?”

  “My hair?”

  She shook her head back and forth. “Well, you can’t go on like that. Do you have an appointment to get it styled today?”

  “No. This is how I wear my hair.”

  She raised her chin up now and looked down through the big lenses at me, her lips pushed out in a disapproving pucker. “Well, this is not how we wear our hair in this fashion show. We’ll have a wig backstage for you tonight. Did you bring some heels?”

  I gave a little snort. “I don’t wear heels.”

  She widened her eyes. “You don’t wear heels?”

  “No.”

  Just then, Bennie-who had been watching from the sidelines-interceded. “Jamaica has probably got some cute cowgirl boots. That would be more her style. You have some cowgirl boots, don’t you, kiddo?”

  “You want me to wear western boots with a nightgown or pajamas?”

  Wynetta laughed out loud. “Pajamas? You’ll find the ensemble you’re wearing over on that rack.” She pointed a pen. “You’re number six.”

  There were only a few garment bags left. I found the one with a tag with the number six on it and took it off the rack.

  “Come on, Jamaica,” Bennie said. “I’ll show you which dressing room you’re in.”

  In the dressing room, a whole lot more undressing was going on than what the name indicated. There were twelve models in the show, and half were assigned to each of the club’s two large backstage rooms. I worked my way down the aisle, meeting a few of the other gals as I went, and found myself a spot at the long counter in front of the aging mirror. I laid the garment bag on the counter and unzipped it. Inside, I found a black leather bustier that laced up over a wide opening in the front and a tiny V-shaped item made of black see-through lace with some strategically placed bits of the same leather as the bustier was made from. “Bennie!” I yelled.

  She came running. “Now, Jamaica, it’s only for this one day. Just rehearsal now and for an hour or so tonight.”

  “You expect me to wear this?” I held up the thong. There wasn’t enough fabric in the thing to blanket a butterfly.

  “Just put it on. Let’s see how you look.”

  “I thought I would be wearing a nightgown. Or shorty pajamas. I didn’t agree to trounce around with my behind exposed in a roomful of people!”

  Right then, the band struck up a rocking rhythm out front, and Ailsa Ten’s distinctive bass drove the beat. The music was so loud that the mirror on the wall vibrated. The girls in the dressing room began to swing their hips and snap their fingers. Knowing there was no way we could continue our conversation over the band’s high-decibel din, Bennie looked at me with a pleading expression and mouthed the words Remember the bear.

  I wasn’t the only one with a backside in plain sight. During a lull in the music, Wynetta instructed us all to line up by number and I counted five of us with derrieres on display. Of course, the other seven made up for what wasn’t exposed in the back by having more flesh uncovered in front. The other girls wore elaborate jewelry, strappy stiletto heels, scarves, tiaras, and other accessories, as if they were all dressed for the prom. I noticed the tan line where I wore my watch, how naked my bare feet looked without polish on the toenails like the other girls had.

  Ernie, the sound and lights technician, came by and made notes on his own clipboard, determining what color lighting to use based on the color of our lingerie. When he got to me, he said, “Okay, number six. You’re blonde wearing black.” He looked me over. “Is that a tattoo?”

  “What?”

  “On your… uh… you know, back… there.”

  Wynetta hurried over and gave a big gasp. “Is that a bruise?”

  I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. “Probably,” I said. “Is it on the right side?”

  Ernie didn’t speak, but with wide eyes, he nodded yes.

  “My horse threw me-”

  “This just won’t do!” Wynetta threw up her hands. “You’ll have to put some makeup on that tonight to cover that up.”

  “I’d rather put some clothes on it to cover it up,” I said.

  Wynetta gave me a seething look. “These lingerie ensembles,” she said, pronouncing each word with a brief pause afterward for emphasis, “were provided by a prominent designer from his Dallas showroom. We do not have time to get another outfit for you before the show tonight.” She looked down at my bare feet. “You’ll be wearing boots, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have makeup?”

  “A little.”

  “Never mind. We’ll find some. And we’ll see if we can get you a rope or something to carry at the hip.”

  We ran through the program twice, Wynetta referring to each of us by number instead of by name. She coached us to place one foot exactly in front of the other when we walked, and to take long strides, thereby emphasizing the swinging of our hips. This was actually much harder than I ever could have imagined, and I had to concentrate intently to time my steps so that I made it to the points on the stage on cue.

  “Number Six with the bruise!” she shouted as I tried my first stroll across the stage. “Do you think you could try walking on the balls of your feet, just so we can imagine what it would look like if you weren’t barefoot like a peasant?”

  One at a time, we entered stage left, walked to downstage center, posed, turned around and paused for the back view, then turned front again and waited for a cue in the music. Then we walked to center stage, posed again front, turned and posed back, and then front again. After all that, we sauntered across to stage right and exited into the wings. Six of us then crossed behind the curtain to stage left again and waited. When Number Twelve had completed her solo routine, we all entered together, half from each side, doing a brief ensemble routine, during which Ailsa Ten and the Decade performed a smoking version of Bob Marley’s “One Love.”

  After a time-perhaps because of the infectious beat of the music, but surely also because every other girl in the show was equally exposed and the only man in the club was Ernie-I forgot about my bare backside and focused instead on not tripping, not starting too soon or taking too long, and on doing my best to get through it.

  “Number Six with the bruise,” Wynetta scolded me on my sec
ond time out, “stick out your chest and suck in your stomach!” The band stopped playing.

  “I can’t move if I do that,” I countered.

  In unison, all the other models’ heads turned and looked at me, as if I had just admitted I was a demon.

  “This bustier thing is so tight, it’s got my breasts pushed up to my chin,” I griped.

  The room was quiet. Wynetta pulled her glasses down and looked at me over the rims.

  I stuck out my chest, feeling like the laces on the front of my top might burst.

  Wynetta yelled, “Ernie, will you open the front door again and leave it that way? All this lingerie is going to smell like grease if we don’t get some air in this place!” Then she looked at Ailsa Ten. “Well, go on!”

  The band started playing.

  When the rehearsal was finished, I was glad to get back into my jeans. I was on my way to the open door at the front of the club when Ernie stopped me. “You can leave through that door now, but use the stage door when you come in tonight.”

  “There’s a stage door?”

  Wynetta saw us talking and hurried over.

  “Yeah, around back,” Ernie said. “It’s unlocked.”

  Wynetta grabbed me by the shoulders and drew back her head, examining my face. “Your complexion is fair, I’d say ivory tan. We’ll go a shade lighter for your bottom, a number three pancake to cover that bruise. That is all.” She released me. “And don’t forget your number,” she called behind her as she started to walk away.

  “Six with a bruise,” I muttered under my breath. I turned and went out the open door.

  But she must have thought I said something else. “You go on sixth!” She yelled it after me, loud enough that anyone in the parking lot could have heard, even maybe the people in the cars passing by on the highway.

  “I got it.” I turned to give her a thumbs-up.

  “You forgot it?” she bellowed. “How can you forget so quickly? You go on sixth!”

  I held up six fingers and tried to smile through gritted teeth. This woman was driving me nuts! I spun around and smacked my left shoulder into something large and yielding. I gasped, startled, and looked up into the sunken eyes and battle-scarred face of Manny, the dishwasher. His two big hands grabbed me by the upper arms as we collided, and he held on to me for what felt like several moments, then set me back from him as one might a disobedient child. I was so shocked by the unexpected run-in that my heart was pounding, and I noticed I wasn’t breathing.

  “You better watch where you’re going, señorita,” he said. “Somebody could get hurt real bad.” He released my arms and maneuvered around me. I watched as he went into the club and crossed the room toward the counter in the back, heading for the kitchen.

  15

  Mrs. Suazo

  The Suazo residence might have been a nice place at one time, but it cried out with the pain of neglect as we drove up the dirt drive. The adobe face on the house was cracked and water had seeped in, causing some of the bricks to melt. In previous summers, vines had grown up the wall on the north side, and now their skeletons looked like bony fingers clutching at the structure as if to pull it back into the earth. A pack of lean and sickly dogs ran up to boast territorial rights to the property, their barks turning to pleas for attention and squeals of complaint about their sordid lives as we walked among them toward the door of the house.

  A large picture window had fogged up between its panes of glass-the compressed gas barrier that had promised good insulation now almost totally obscuring any view. Over the window hung a faded sheet, and the fabric moved at one side and then swung back into place. A place beside the front step had been repeatedly used to empty the cat litter, and the acrid ammonia smell of cat urine was the only welcome besides that of the dogs.

  Kerry opened a listing aluminum storm door with no glass in the bottom and banged on the peeling wood door. He removed his hat and began shuffling his hands around the outside of the brim, turning the hat just slightly with each new hand grip. I looked at him in profile and felt a warm flood of attraction. The door opened.

  A rake-thin, middle-aged Anglo woman peered timidly around the edge. Her coarse gray-brown hair tried to escape from a sad bun at the back of her neck. Her face was blotchy and red against the pale white of her neck and shoulders. The one eye we could see was swollen and moist, as if she had been crying.

  “Mrs. Suazo?” I asked.

  “He ain’t home,” she said, matter-of-factly, anticipating my next question.

  “Do you know where we might find your husband?” Kerry said in a gentle voice.

  “He’s probably somewhere drunk.” She clutched a tissue to her nose as her eyes watered over with tears.

  “Where does he do his drinking, ma’am?” Kerry pressed.

  “If it’s not with someone else’s wife, it’s usually at that biker joint down in Española.” Her voice cracked with anger and frustration as she cried. “I just don’t care anymore, and I’m not protecting him.” The door fell open a little wider now, and we could see that one eye was bruised and blue, the side of her face swollen. She might have been pretty at one time, but the years since her youth had not been kind or easy ones. There was a delicacy to her features, as if she once had been becomingly childlike, perhaps even baby faced. I could imagine that her slight frame had seemed willowy or sprightly then, instead of empty and used up, as it did now.

  “What has happened here, Mrs. Suazo?” I asked.

  “He’s gone clear around the bend this time, and I can’t even tell you what it is. It ain’t this”-she pointed to her black eye-“he’s done this plenty of times, usually when he’s drunk, which is most of the time. This time it’s different. There’s something going on.” She used the tissue to blow her nose, making loud honking sounds.

  Kerry and I exchanged glances while she did this, and then waited until she was finished.

  “What makes you say there’s something going on, Mrs. Suazo?” I asked.

  She looked past us into the yard, as if she were speaking to the trees. “He says he’s really struck it rich, that this time, he’s really hit pay dirt. He has, too. I looked in his pocket when he was asleep. He had him two rolls of twenties in there-each one was as big around as my arm!” She held up a thin, bony wrist. “I don’t know where he got that, and I have a feeling I don’t want to know. I should have never come out here with him! I shouldn’t never have left my family! I have had nothing but trouble since the day I met him, and it just keeps getting worse. My family ain’t even speaking to me now, on account of he’s ripped them off, too, just like everyone from here to Santa Fe. I don’t have a friend in this world thanks to him. I can’t even go home!” She began sobbing now in earnest.

  I looked at Kerry. It was awkward here-her tucked half behind the door, us standing on the portal. Uninvited, and without any jurisdiction, we were tentatively holding the ground between inside and out by virtue of the aluminum storm door resting against Kerry’s left shoulder.

  “Mrs. Suazo,” I tendered, “could we come in for a minute?”

  “There ain’t no need of you to come in here, and I’m ashamed of the way we live anyway. I already done told you everything. I don’t know where he got the money. That there is the most money I ever saw him carry, and I know he didn’t get it from selling no wood. I should have never left east Texas. I had a good job at the oil refinery there. I can’t even find work here, except as a maid during the ski season, and that’s been terrible this year on account of the snow not coming until late. And then, he leaves me here without no car about half the time. I can’t keep a job like that. Even when I do make money, he takes it all and drinks it all up. I just don’t have nothing. He makes sure I don’t have nothing. That way, I can’t leave.”

  “Is there someone we can call, or would you like us to take you someplace? There’s a shelter in Taos,” I said, my voice as tender as I could make it.

  “No. I don’t want to be with nobody, I don’t want to ta
lk to nobody, and I don’t want no help from nobody. I’m sorry to complain like I did.”

  I pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “If you change your mind, just call me.”

  She took the card gingerly and pulled it in to her chest.

  Kerry looked at me. He raised his eyebrows and held them there for a moment, his forehead wrinkling, his face asking me What now? He turned to the woman. “Mrs. Suazo, is there somewhere we might find your husband? Besides that bar in Española? Maybe someplace he hangs out here in Taos?”

  “He ain’t here. That’s all I know. And when he has money, he ain’t hardly never here. And when he don’t have money, he ain’t worth being around, because his mood’s so foul.” A little anger was creeping into her voice, and she was sounding less pathetic now, and more resigned.

  “Mrs. Suazo.” Kerry spoke very gently. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

  “I’d tell you to run over him,” she said, her voice growing increasingly bitter, “but he ain’t got no life insurance, and I’d just have to pay for someone to bury him.” She snickered at her own black humor. “No, I reckon I’ve got myself into a real mess, and can’t no one help me but myself. Thank you, though. Thanks a lot.” She pushed the door shut softly, and I had a feeling that more doors than that one had just closed for Mrs. Santiago Suazo.

  16

  A Man of Many Talents

  “Mind if we stop by my place real quick-just so I can pick up something?” Kerry asked. “It’s right up ahead, won’t take us out of our way.” We had taken his truck when we left the BLM to pay our little social call at the Suazo residence.

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Thanks. I’m going into Santa Fe this afternoon, and there’s something I need to get first. I’ll make it fast.”

  “When do you sleep anyway?” I asked, feeling tired.

  “Working nights like this? Usually right after a shift. But I have an errand to run. I’ll grab some shut-eye when I get back. I’m off all weekend. I can make it up by sleeping late tomorrow morning.”