I listen to his footsteps going down the hall, my eyes fixed on the faint outline of a phone in Mike’s front pocket. Knowing I’m only going to have one shot at this, I wait until I actually hear the backdoor open before making my move. I can barely lift my arms and my hands are so clumsy that they feel like oven mitts, but after a minute or so of struggle, I manage to pull out the phone.
There’s a muffled gunshot down in the basement, followed by Shortie’s giggle. The pit bull lets out a tentative growl.
“Good doggy.”
I use my teeth to help flip the phone open, and then use my knuckle to dial.
Nine…
One…
Shit. I hear the creak of the backdoor and footsteps coming quickly down the hall again.
I fumble with the phone and manage to jam it in the pocket of my hoodie just before Esteban walks in.
He spots it anyway.
“I knew I forgot something.” He pulls the phone out of my hoodie and checks the numbers on the screen. “Ninety-one! Oh… you were so close, amigo.” He laughs.
“Fuck you.” I try to spit, but it just dribbles down my chin.
Despite the fact that it was barely audible, for some reason this final Fuck you seems to get to him. He bends forward as if he’s gonna hit me, but stops short at the last second. The smile returns, and instead of smacking me, he laughs.
“You know, I’m going to tell you a little secret.” He bends forward to whisper in my ear. “I believe you, amigo. You’re not working for the Tijuanans. You’re just some piece-of-shit junkie who broke into the wrong house, no?”
Esteban stands back up and waits for my response, but I don’t give him one.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” He laughs again, then pulls out the pencil again and gives it a slow twirl. “So now we get to play our little game just for pleasure, no?”
He pockets both the pencil and the phone, and then blows me a kiss before leaving.
Once Esteban’s gone, everything just drains out of me.
I look down at Mike. His right eye is still all fucked up and looking the wrong way, but his left is staring at me. Almost pleading.
“Sorry, man. I tried.”
Figuring I might as well speed things up, I make a feeble attempt to pull the IV out of my neck, but my arms are so heavy I can’t seem to raise them above my shoulder anymore.
The pit bull growls again at my movements, and I start to wonder if there’s any way I can provoke him-hell, even getting mauled by a pit bull has to be better than that fucking pencil.
“Hey, dog. Fuck you,” I try to yell, but it comes out more like a whisper.
The pit bull promptly trots over and starts licking my face.
Goddamnit.
Out in the hall, I hear what must be Connie’s body being dragged out, and then the backdoor slam shut. There’s another giggle from Shortie outside in the driveway, and after a minute or so, the truck drives off.
The pit bull curls up next to me on the carpet, and I begin to feel lightheaded. There’s something oddly comforting about just giving up, and the pain actually recedes a bit. For some reason I think about my stepmother, and how before she got cancer she used to try and grow radishes in that vacant lot next to the gas station…
Just as I start to nod again, I hear a snorting noise and glance back down at Mike.
His one good eye is still pleading.
“What?”
His eye starts to move. First looking at me, and then down at his jeans. He keeps doing it. Over and over.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
And then I hear it. A faint ringtone coming from Mike’s other front pocket.
BABY, I’M HERE BY MONICA DRAKE
Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital
Rebar’s first day out of the big loony bin on the hill, just checked into transitional housing, I agreed to meet him at the Marathon Taverna. I should’ve said no. Bad plan. But I went along with it. Over the phone, he said, “I need to get out, see people. Get back in the swing.”
I said, “The only people you’ll see at the Marathon are drunks. Maybe your dad if we stay late.”
He said, “I need to see you, Vanessa.”
And I gave in.
Before that, he’d wanted to meet up at my place. Problem was, my place was his. He owned the house. If I let him in, he’d never leave. He’d pick through my things looking for his things, any sign of him and me together, like playing husband and wife or some other sorry story. His was one of the last shacks set between warehouses in deep Northwest. Rebar’d said I could use it until he got out-out of jail, out of detox, out of the Mental Motel that was part of his sentence. Sounded like a long enough list, I hadn’t expected him back anytime soon. He’s not known for good behavior.
I took a bus down Twenty-first and walked along Burn-side. Overhead it was a gray sky. My raincoat flapped against the wind like a dying bird, slapped my knee with each step. Traffic lined the street thick as a parking lot. More cars jammed the McDonald’s. Across the way, somebody’d built a high-rise condo. The whole town was turning into a city of glass pillars.
A guy in a pickup held back at a green light. He let me cross Eighteenth. When I got to the other side I smiled and waved thanks, wiggled my fingers in the air. The man smiled too. Looking my way, he stepped on the gas and T-boned an idling Smart Car wedged in the intersection. There was the crunch of metal, a broken headlight, something swimming-pool blue that skidded over the macadam. I pretended not to notice because the thing is, that man had been sweet. I didn’t want him to feel bad about his driving problem.
Inside the Marathon, I found a table and peeled off my coat, put down my pocketbook. The tavern air was murky, thick with sweat, beer, and smoke, but warmer than outside. And it was dark. Instant night, in the middle of day. Scattered popcorn on the carpet was the glow of stars. I looked for the North Star, some guiding light in that mess, like an explorer let loose on a new world. Rebar, now sober, crazy, and adjusting to antipsychotics, he was a new world. A new planet. I had no idea how to handle him.
Taki, the Greek who ran the place, dropped his rag. He said, “Ah, Vanessa, my beauty. What can I do for you?” He wiped his hands on his pants.
He always said my beauty. It didn’t mean much, but I liked it, and liked him for it. I said, “I’ll have a beer and Snappy Tom’s, if you got it.” In that bar, beer meant Budweiser. There was nothing else.
Taki said, “You’re alone?”
I said, “Not alone. With you.” My hair was thick and hung heavy over one eye. I shook it out of the way, but it fell back again. One of these days I’d get a real haircut.
Taki brought the drink to my table. “If I wasn’t working, I’d take you someplace better than this. I’d take you to Greece. You been there?”
I hadn’t been anywhere. I’d walked the same city blocks long as I could remember. An old guy at the bar rapped his glass against the wood. Taki had to get back. Other than people like me and Rebar, who went there for cheap drink, it was geezers who inhabited the Marathon Tavern. Men who lived in single rooms for rent upstairs. When I found the place, I’d lived down the street in the Tudor Arms apartments with a guy named Ray.
The door opened to let in a big slice of midday sun, traffic, and exhaust. It was Rebar, his shadow joining the dark with the rest of us. He saw my red beer. “Shaking off a hangover, Angel?”
I said, “Wish I had a hangover angel. Somebody to come rub the aches away.” This time it wasn’t a hangover I wanted to shake, but a life of mistakes, wrong men, places like this dive I found myself in all over again.