Tenderloin

by LD Marr

  That must be the same man who took Chloe! I thought. I need to go in there too, but they’ll never let me in dressed like this. Should I wait here until he comes out again? That could be hours. But what if he takes another teen? I have to know.

  The stone step I sat on was hard and cold, but except for my butt, the rest of me was warm in many layers of old clothes. I looked around for a better spot.

  Behind me, a squat bush cast a shadow on one side of the concrete stairway. I waited till the street was empty. Then I got up and went down the stairs. I sat down on the ground in the shadow of the bush.

  I breathed in, and the acidic smell of urine burnt my nose. I had the urge to get back up, but the strange mental fog came back in and took over. My thoughts grew fuzzy, and my eyes focused on doorway across the street.

  Time passed without my awareness. People passed. In the time that I waited, a few people even went up the stairs right next to me. But I didn’t pay any attention to them.

  “Ugh! That smell!” someone said from the top of the stairs. “Look, there’s another homeless person next to our stairway. When will the government do something about them?”

  “It’s not illegal,” said someone else. “And you know there are shelters, but the young people who run away won’t go to them.”

  “That stupid club across the street draws them here,” said the first voice in a disgusted tone.

  “We could always move,” said the second.

  “Yeah, right,” said the other voice. “Like I would give up my rent-controlled apartment?”

  I heard them, but I ignored them both. Something fell through the air and dropped to the ground in front of me, but I ignored that too. I sat unmoving, unthinking, eyes focused only on the door across the street.

  The door to the club opened and closed, letting people in and out, but not the tall, bulky man. More time passed.

  After what might have been hours later, the man came out. A younger man was with him—a tall, lanky teenager. Red spiky hair glimmered in the dimness above his dark clothes. They walked down the street together, back toward the Bowery station.

  I waited till they’d crossed the corner both ways. Then I got up and followed, still at a distance.

  As I expected, the two males went down the stairs into the Bowery subway station. I waited at the top of the stairs.

  Should I go down there? I wondered.

  At two in the morning, the street was almost deserted. The subway would probably be empty, except for those two and me if I went in.

  But something tugged at me, and I couldn’t resist. I pulled the drawstrings of my coat’s hood tight around my face and creeped down the stairs. I turned at the bottom and looked around. The subway was empty. The two people I’d been following were already gone, but I hadn’t heard any trains come in.

  I looked down at the narrow edges of the concrete that surrounded the stairway. One set of red footprints led away from the foot of the stairs, around to the doorway under them.

  I stared at the thin lines that barely suggested the doorway. There was no handle on the door.

  How does it open? I wondered.

  This time, I didn’t get an answer to my question. Frustrated, I walked away and waited for the next train home. The sense that time was moving fast was gone, and I endured an uncomfortable wait alone in the cold, creepy station.

  Chapter 11

  Finally, my train pulled in, and I got on. I sat on a thin-cushioned seat and stared at the clean stainless steel walls of the empty car. A complete contrast to the shoddy conditions of the Bowery station.

  What should I do now? I asked myself in frustration. Another person is in danger. I need to tell the police but not from my cellphone. Maybe a phone booth?

  The train stopped and opened its doors at all the other stations on the way to my station in Brooklyn, but no one got on. About a half an hour later, I reached my stop, the Utica Avenue station, and got off the train.

  The broad, curving street was almost empty, but a few people walked along at a far distance from me. I looked in the direction of my apartment, several enormous blocks away.

  Large apartment buildings converted from mansions built in the early twentieth century stretched along the side of the curved street. Across the street hulked the enormous dilapidated building that used to be the Brooklyn Public Library. Past the library, overgrown plants swayed in the wind and cast dark shadows in the vast space of the abandoned Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

  Now I was only interested in the phone booths spaced at far but regular intervals along my side of the street. Almost no one ever used the phones because everyone had cellphones, but the government kept the ancient phones working and free to use for emergencies.

  A quarter-mile walk brought me to the nearest booth. I pushed on its graffiti-covered door. It stuck, and I shoved hard to get its grimy wheels moving on the track that bent its doors open. I stepped inside. A phoneless cord dangled from an ages-old black box.

  I left the booth and walked on to the next one. The phone in it was intact. I lifted it and held its round black plastic ends to my ear and mouth.

  Then I paused. I realized that I didn’t know the police tip number they showed on TV. So instead, I reached up to push the faded numbers on square silver buttons: 9, 1, and 1.

  An indistinct static buzz repeated in my ear.

  Will anyone answer? I wondered just as someone did.

  “Hello. 911,” said a bored voice. “What is your emergency?”

  “I just saw a teenager get kidnapped,” I said.

  “Really? Where? What happened?” the voice asked, sounding more interested.

  “In the Bowery subway station,” I said. “It was the kidnapper you’ve been looking for, but he’s changed his hair and skin color to brown. He took the other girl, Chloe, too. The one they’ve been showing on the news.”

  “Hmm,” said the 911 operator. “That sounds a bit confusing. I see you’re calling from a phone booth in Brooklyn. What is your name?”

  “I can’t tell you my name,” I said. “I’m just saying that you need to start looking for a brown-skinned man with black hair. He’s the same man as the blonde man in the video.”

  “Look, ma’am,” said the operator. “Do you really expect us to start looking for every brown-skinned man who takes a subway in the lower east side? Do you think the police department has the budget to pay for that? Do you have the money? Because we don’t. How do you know about this anyway, unless you’re somehow involved?”

  I felt nervous.

  They know where I am, and they think I’m crazy or else part of the kidnapping, I thought. Will they send a police car to this phone booth?

  “I’m sorry, I was just trying to help,” I said.

  I replaced the phone on its metal hook, left the booth, and took off running. Instead of heading for my apartment, I ran up a side street for a few blocks.

  Out of breath, I turned and walked in the direction of my street. Then turned again and walked back toward it on another side street. Back on Eastern Parkway, I stopped on the corner next to my building and looked down the street at the phone booth several large blocks away.

  All was quiet and empty. Still, I creeped though the shadows to reach my building’s side doorway.

  Chapter 12

  After fumbling to unlock its five locks, I shoved the door open to find Frank standing in front of me in the foyer.

  “Myrna!” he exclaimed as I walked in. “You stink!”

  Frank backed away from me.

  “You smell like piss!” he said.

  “What the hell?” I heard Rita shout from the couch in the living room. “Myrna, have you been using again? Busted!”

  “No. I haven’t been using,” I insisted. “I was sitting behind a bush, hiding. The smell must have got on me.”

  “Oh, not using, just crazy,” said Rita.

  “Myrna, what’s going on?” Frank asked me. “No. Tell me later after you get rid of those clothes
.”

  I noticed the pungent smell more myself now that I was inside the close, warm air of the apartment. I took off my old coat and sniffed it. Then I held it away from me.

  “It’s mostly on my coat,” I said.

  “Stop right there,” said Frank. “Don’t come in yet. I’ll get you a trash bag to put all your clothes in. You’ll have to throw them all out. It could be on everything, and you can’t wash away that smell or any disease that might be in human body fluid.”

  I didn’t mind throwing out all of these old, baggy clothes, but I felt uncomfortable.

  “Do you expect me to get naked here in the hallway?” I asked.

  “I’ll bring you some clothes to change into,” said Frank. “And we’ll give you privacy. Right Rita?”

  “Whatever,” said Rita.

  Frank rushed away to get the bag and clean clothes for me. I opened the door behind me and dropped my old second-hand coat outside in the hallway. I took off my boots and threw them out there too. Then Frank came back and handed me a giant-sized trash bag and my pajamas.

  “I’ll go into my room now,” he said.

  But first, he walked back into the living room and stood next to the couch.

  “Rita, let’s go,” said Frank.

  “No. I can’t get up now. I’m watching my show,” she said.

  Rita turned and looked at me.

  “Go ahead and get dressed,” she said. “I won’t look.”

  I still felt uncomfortable.

  “If you don’t go in your room, I’ll come over there and bring my pee clothes with me,” I said.

  “I can’t believe how pushy you are, Myrna,” said Rita. “I didn’t know you were that kind of person. Anyway, stay over there. I’m going.”

  She got up from the couch. Frank waited for her to head for her room. Then he followed behind her. After Rita closed her door, he turned back to me.

  “Knock on my door when you’re done,” he said. “I’ll take your stuff out to the dumpster.”

  “Enabler!” I heard Rita yell from inside her room.

  ⌛

  A half an hour later, I sat in my pajamas on the couch next to Frank. A towel wrapped around my damp hair kept it from dripping down my back. Rita sat on his other side.

  “That shower took too long! You used too much hot water,” she accused me without turning her face away from the TV. “Who’s going to pay for that?”

  “Turn the TV off, Rita,” said Frank. “We need to talk.”

  “Right. Just waste more of my time,” Rita complained, but she grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned it off.

  “Anyway, Rita,” said Frank. “You run the hot water till it goes cold every time you take a shower, but we always pay equal shares of the bill.”

  “Oh, now you’re getting down on me, when she’s the one who’s messing up? Are you trying to get the focus off the craziness of what’s going on with Myrna? Why are you doing that Frank?” Rita’s voice rose. “You know as well as I do that even if she’s not taking drugs, something’s wrong with this picture. We need to tell Gorg, so he can do something about it. Myrna shouldn’t be living here with recovered people if she’s not recovered. She needs to go back to one of the halfway houses for people who still have problems.”

  I sat silent through Rita’s rant. I hated confrontation and usually didn’t argue back with people. But this was important. People’s lives were in danger.

  I have to find out what’s going on. I don’t have time to deal with Gorg and possibly have to move somewhere else, I thought.

  I leaned forward around Frank and stared at Rita, who was still looking straight ahead at the now blank TV screen.

  “Rita, look at me,” I said. “If you talk to Gorg about me, I’ll tell him what you’ve been doing too. Do you understand?”

  She turned and stared at me with big eyes and a wide-open mouth.

  “I can’t believe you’re threatening me, Myrna!” she said. “Anyway, I haven’t done anything. I’m not using or drinking. You’re the one who’s doing crazy stuff, not me. Right Frank?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Frank leaning back into the couch with eyes opened wide behind his thick glasses. His head turned back and forth to look at the two of us, but he didn’t answer Rita’s question.

  I answered it for him. “I know you’re drinking, Rita. You’ve been out late lots of nights for more than a year. You’re probably doing drugs too.”

  “Yeah, I go out after work, but I’m not taking drugs. How the hell would you know that?” Rita demanded.

  I was suddenly certain of it, but I couldn’t explain how I knew. So I gave Rita a logical-sounding answer instead.

  “I work at a drug clinic. Do you think I don’t recognize the signs?” I said. “Anyway, I don’t have any problem with taking a drug and alcohol test. We can both get one if that’s what you want.”

  Rita leaned back on the couch and sniffed.

  “Fine! You get your way, as usual,” she said. “I won’t tell Gorg since you’re willing to betray me. I knew you were stuck up, and you think you’re superior, but I didn’t know till now how sociopathic you are. You’ve gone crazy, but Frank will just keep enabling you, won’t you Frank?”

  “Huh?” said Frank.

  He sat stiff with arms crossed defensively over his thin chest. He crossed his legs too.

  “You’re enabling her because you’ve got a thing for her. You’re hot for her and just waiting for her to get the hots for you too. But she never will. That’s why you secretly sleep with me but pretend we don’t have anything going on, isn’t it Frank?” Rita accused him.

  Frank covered his face.

  “Do we really have to talk about this now?” he mumbled from behind his hands.

  “Yes, we’re sleeping together,” Rita said to me. “Did you know that?”

  I sat forward and looked at both of my roommates. I’d just heard some disturbing revelations, but for some reason, they didn’t seem that important.

  “Look Rita and Frank,” I said. “I care about both of you. I hope you know that. But I don’t need to know these things about your personal lives. Right now, I just need to try to stop my clients and other people from disappearing. And I need to get some sleep because tomorrow night, I have to go to the Tenderloin Club and find the kidnapper.”

  Frank took his hands off his face and looked at me.

  “No, Myrna. Please don’t do that,” he said.

  “See! See!” Rita shouted. “She’s totally lost it! She’s gone over the deep end!”

  I stood up and walked toward my room. Rita got up and followed me. She grabbed my arm before I reached the door to my bedroom.

  “Myrna, I’ve always wanted to go to that club. I’ll go with you. OK?” she said.

  “No, Rita,” I said. “You can’t go with me. They might not let you in, and then I won’t be able to get in either if I’m with you.”

  Rita’s face scrunched up.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked. “Are you saying I’m not cool enough to get in? But you are! You think you’re better than me!”

  “That’s not what I meant, Rita. It’s because you’re older. This is an underage club, remember?” I tried to explain without making Rita even more mad.

  “Now you’re saying I look old!” Rita shouted at me. “You’re not underage. You’re eighteen!”

  Frank got up from the couch and walked past us into his room. The door to his room shut behind him.

  I need to end this conversation, so I get some sleep, I thought.

  “Right, Rita. I’m eighteen,” I said. “But you’re twenty-seven. Some people my age still go to the Tenderloin. But no one your age goes unless they’re people with money looking to meet teenagers. Is that what you want to look like? And you’d have to pay to get in. It’s expensive. You’d have to pay for me too if I’m with you. Do you have the money for that? Because I don’t.”

  Somehow explaining the two types of patr
ons who frequented the club disturbed me. I’d never spent a lot of time thinking about this reality when I’d been going there. Now the stark realization hit me. The Tenderloin Club was a place where older wealthy people went to buy the bodies and time of younger people.

  That’s even more reason why I need to go there and find the man who took Chloe and the others, I told myself.

  “OK. Fine. I won’t go,” said Rita.

  I heaved a sigh of relief that she was backing down.

  “But I look young for my age. Everyone says so. I don’t look that much older than you. You’re just flattering yourself, Myrna. You’re just trying to make me pay for you to get into an expensive club, but I won’t. And I bet you won’t be able to get in free by yourself either. You’re too old now. I’ll have the last laugh when you come back all depressed because you got turned away!” said Rita.

  She turned and stomped into her room. The door slammed.

  Phew! I thought.

  Then I went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

  Chapter 13

  The next evening, it was time for me to get ready to go out to the Tenderloin Club. I closed my door, so that Rita wouldn’t see me getting dressed and get mad again. Then I pulled a box down from the shelf in my closet.

  I set the box down on my bed and opened it. I stared for a moment at folded up clothes, shoes, and trays of makeup that had been so valuable to me just a few years ago. I’d boxed it all away after I stopped using drugs and going to clubs. The sight of the things from my past momentarily froze me, and an unexpected jolt of mixed, confused feelings coursed though me.

  Loss? Regret? Shame? I didn’t know exactly what, but the obsession that had been driving me pushed through those feelings, and I began to unpack the box.

  In the past, it had been fun to take an hour or more to tease my hair, put on dramatic makeup, and dress in the coolest clothes, but now it felt like a chore.

  It’s like I was a different person back then, I realized. Why did all that seem so important to me?

  I didn’t know the answer to that question, and my thoughts turned to my plan for the night. I need to walk around and look for that guy, but I don’t want to stand out too much.