Butterfly (18 page)

kissed him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He withdrew from her and sat back in his seat. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of

his pocket and turned it around and around in his hands. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“It
is
a surprise, Danny. The best surprise I’ve ever had. Books are just so wonderful

and now here you are,
reading.
What are you learning in school, Danny?”

He looked at her, at the face bright with happiness and the smiling eyes, and he felt his

pride start to swell. “I’m learnin’ how to make somethin’ of myself, Rachel. Don’t think

I’m gonna be like this forever.” He started to speak rapidly; his knee went up and down.

The intensity that seemed to drive Danny day and night came close to the surface. Rachel

could feel his energy. “I’m going places, Rachel,” he said. “I’m tired of living among scum

and lowlifes. I’m going to carve me a big chunk of this world and make it mine. And a

man can’t get anywhere less’n he’s educated. So that’s what I been doing, going to school,

and
learning.”

He spoke with such determination, and there was such light burning in his eyes, that

Rachel was speechless. She had never seen him like this, had never felt such electricity.

Danny charged the cold night air with his passion; Rachel thought wildly that he could

set something on fire simply by touching it. And she was overwhelmed.

“This man here,” he said, holding up one of his books. “This man knows what power

is, Rachel. And he knows how to get it.”

She read the title.
The Prince,
by Machiavelli.

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Kathryn Harvey

“He lived hundreds of years ago, Rachel, but he knows. The man knows!” Danny

slapped the book between his hands. “He says that anybody who relies on luck is a fool,

because when his luck changes he’ll fail. I’m not gonna rely on luck, Rachel. I’m gonna

make
my way. The power is out there just waiting to be used. And power doesn’t fall to

ordinary men or stupid men. The power is out there waiting for someone like me to come

along and grab it.”

Danny fell silent, but his body, tense and charged, could not be still. He turned the

cigarette pack over and over in his hands. His foot tapped the floor. His head turned this

way and that, his eyes searching. He was thinking about the incident that had set him on

this new path.

It had happened just under a year ago, shortly after his return to Texas. He and

Bonner and a friend got drunk one night and decided to rob the poor box of a local

church. Actually, it had been the third kid’s idea, and Danny and Bonner had gone along.

On their way out of the church, the three nineteen-year-olds paused to pee on the steps,

and the police caught them. Danny and Bonner received sentences while the other boy

went free. They were sent to a work farm, while their friend beat the rap because he was

the son of the chief of police.

Power,
Danny had thought during those first terrible days on the road gang, before he

and Bonner managed to escape. That was what power did for you. You spoke and people

danced. You lifted a finger and people moved. You controlled the strings, you called the

shots.
Power, real power.
It was then, as he sweated under the hot Texas sun and beneath

the eye of one mean guard with a rifle, that Danny had made the decision that, someday,

he was going to be the one with that power.

He stared through the windshield now and listened once again to the words he had

read in Machiavelli’s book:
A man who strives after goodness in all that he does will come to

ruin; therefore a prince who will survive must learn to be other than good. The man who would

be prince must be unencumbered by morals and ethics; he must be part lion and part fox.

A smile crept slowly into his lips. He felt those words reach deep down inside him and

touch a place in his soul that had been hungering. All his restlessness and energy had been

waiting for the necessary direction. Now he had it. Danny knew where he was going.

“What do you want to be, Danny?” Rachel said. “What are you studying to be?”

He turned his lazy eyes to her. “Have you ever read this book?”

She shook her head. Rachel had never heard of Machiavelli; she had no idea what was

contained in that slender volume.

“Machiavelli says that a wise man follows the paths of great men and imitates them.

Alexander followed the example of Achilles, and Caesar imitated Alexander. Because they

knew that great men, through their deeds, beget great men.” Danny picked up another of

his dog-eared textbooks and showed it to her.
Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul.

He smiled and said, “This is what I’m studying to be, Rachel. I’m studying to be a

great man.”

Rachel was so happy she literally ran up the back steps and flew through the kitchen,

letting the door slam behind her.

BUTTERFLY

75

Danny was getting an education! All on his own, just like that, he had gone and

enrolled in night school. And he was
learning!

Rachel was breathless with joy. She could hardly contain it; she wanted to hug the

whole world. Danny had set her on fire with his passion, with his driving ambition. And

he had convinced her beyond all doubt that someday he was going to achieve his goal.

He was going to be somebody. And she was going to be right there at his side.

There was a party going on in Hazel’s parlor. The girls were celebrating the birthday of

one of their steady customers, and the liquor was flowing, the hi-fi blasting out music.

Rachel ran up the stairs, anxious to share her good news with Carmelita.

With the exception of Danny, who was really a boyfriend, Carmelita was Rachel’s first

real friend. Rachel had never before known anyone for a whole year, much less shared a

room with someone. A rare and special kind of intimacy, something Rachel had never

experienced, had grown between the two girls, binding them closer to each other than to

anyone else in Hazel’s house. They were such opposites, with Carmelita being so beauti-

ful but illiterate, that they fascinated each other. And they were close in age, but not the

exact same age, so that they could joke about it. When Rachel turned fifteen, the two of

them were fifteen together for a while, but then Carmelita turned sixteen and she teased

Rachel about being a child and Rachel called Carmelita an old woman. Next year Rachel

was going to turn sixteen and she planned on teasing her friend and saying that sixteen

wasn’t such a big deal after all, and then a few weeks later Carmelita would become sev-

enteen and the teasing would begin all over again.

But the most important bond between them was that they dreamed together.

And Rachel’s dream looked as if it were going to come true. Danny,
educated!
And so

full of ambition! Rachel wouldn’t be surprised if he owned his own gas station some day,

or maybe had a government job, like working in the post office! He’d make a regular

salary and they would buy a house and they could start having children, and it was going

to be so wonderful.

She flew into the room she shared with Carmelita and was just about to blurt out her

good news when she saw that her friend wasn’t there.

Rachel looked around the small room, frowning slightly. She hadn’t seen Carmelita at

the party downstairs, and she couldn’t remember her saying she was going out tonight.

Maybe Manuel had come by unexpectedly….

Rachel was about to turn around and go back downstairs when she noticed a light

coming from under the bathroom door.

Most of the rooms in Hazel’s three-story Victorian house shared tiny bathrooms.

These had been installed for the benefit of the guests, not the girls. Rachel and Carmelita

were lucky—they had a corner bedroom and therefore had a small lavatory all to them-

selves. Rachel went up to the door and listened. She thought she heard running water but

couldn’t be sure because the music downstairs was booming up through the floor and

making the walls vibrate.

Rachel knocked. There was no answer.

Thinking that perhaps Carmelita was in the shower, she knocked louder.

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Kathryn Harvey

The crowd downstairs started singing. A few drunks whooped and hollered. Rachel

had to pound on the door to be heard over the racket. “Carmelita?” she called.

She listened. Then she stepped back and looked at the light streaming under the door.

A shadow moved in it. Which meant Carmelita wasn’t in the shower. Then why didn’t she

answer?

“Carmelita?” Rachel called out again, louder.

Pressing her ear to the door, Rachel tried to hear if her friend was okay. There was a

brief pause in the music down stairs, and on the other side of the bathroom door Rachel

heard the sound of glass shattering.

“Carmelita!” she shouted, suddenly alarmed.

She pounded the door, thought a moment, then tried the knob. Hazel had removed

all the locks from all the doors years ago; privacy was a precious commodity in this house.

Opening the door a few inches, Rachel called, “Carmelita? Are you all right?”

“Go away—”

“What’s wrong? Are you crying?”

“Just…go…”

Rachel opened the door all the way and looked in just in time to see her friend, bent

over the sink, leaning on it for support, bring a piece of broken glass down on her wrist.

“No!” Rachel said.

A thin ribbon of blood sprang up.

Rachel dashed forward. She grabbed her friend’s arm.

“Get out of here!” shouted Carmelita, pushing Rachel away. She switched the shard to

her other hand and started to slice her right wrist. Rachel reached for her again, slapped

the glass out of her grasp. “Don’t do it—”

Carmelita spun around and lashed out.
“Leave me alone!”

Rachel stared for a split second at her friend’s bruised and swollen face, then when

Carmelita snatched up the broken glass again and brought it down on her other wrist,

Rachel lunged at her.

They struggled. The bathroom was small; as the girls wrestled they banged against the

walls and sink. Rachel had hold of Carmelita by the wrists, trying to get her to drop the

piece of glass. A shattered liquor bottle lay underfoot, the shards sliced into Rachel’s shoes

and Carmelita’s slippers.
“Please,
” sobbed Carmelita. “Leave me alone—”

“I won’t let you do it!” Rachel’s hand slipped on Carmelita’s bloody arm. She lost her

grip for a moment and was pushed back against the wall. But when her friend scrambled

for a piece of broken bottle, Rachel grabbed her again and spun her around. They were

locked for an instant in an embrace, the two being of equal strength with neither able to

overcome the other. Then Carmelita suddenly went limp and began to weep.

Rachel led her to a bed and seized the first thing handy—the sash of her bathrobe—

and quickly bound it around the cut wrist. She had difficulty tying it securely, she was

shaking so badly. She was frightened and out of breath. “You didn’t cut too deep” was all

she could think to say. “I don’t think you got an artery—”

“Please leave me alone,” Carmelita sobbed. “I don’t want to live.

BUTTERFLY

77

Rachel jumped up, ran into the bathroom, kicked the pieces of glass out of the way,

and came back to the bed with two towels, one wet and one dry. Carmelita was lying

down with an arm flung across her face. She was weeping so bitterly that tears came to

Rachel’s eyes. Carefully washing first the injured arm, Rachel then sponged smeared

blood off Carmelita’s face and neck.

Rachel didn’t know what to say. She was too stunned, too shaken. Carmelita was wear-

ing only a slip. Rachel saw the fresh bruises, the places where she had been beaten.

“Who—” she finally said. “Who did this to you, Carmelita?”

With the weeping subsiding, Carmelite lifted her arm off her face and stared up at the

ceiling. “Manuel,” she said.

Rachel was shocked. “Manuel! But
why?”

“He found out I’ve been holding back some money. You know, the tips. Hazel told

him.”

“But that money’s yours, Carmelita! That’s extra. It’s like—like a gift from the cus-

tomers. Manuel has no right to that.”

“Yes, he does. I shouldn’t have held back. He’s good to me. He gives me money when-

ever I need it.”

Rachel gazed down at her friend in disbelief.
He’s good to you?

Carmelita rolled her head on the pillow. She looked at Rachel with lifeless eyes and

asked softly, “Why did you stop me?”

“What kind of a question is that? You’re my friend, Carmelita. My only friend. I

couldn’t let you do that to yourself.”

“I want to die,” the girl said, her chest starting to rise with sobs again. “I don’t want to

live like this anymore.”

Rachel tried to smile. “You have to live, Carmelita. You’re only sixteen.”

“I’m sixteen and a whore! I can’t even read or write! I’m worthless!” She turned over

and buried her face in the pillow.

Rachel remained seated on the edge of the bed while her friend wept anew. Then

Carmelita’s voice came from far away: “Please let me die. If you love me you’ll let me die.”