A SCRAPING ECHOES THROUGH THE PARK AS A STOOPED
figure in a frayed tuxedo drags something past the bench where Reba sleeps. A whoosh of fear and her eyes open. Billy has not found me. I am in the city, I am alone, as vulnerable as a deer being chased by coydogs. As vulnerable as…she completes the thought…as a girl alone in the city. In her pocket is a ten-dollar bill and a handful of change.
The dawn’s silvery orange paints the buildings, cars, the worn asphalt and the street signs, even the few people propelling their way through the frigid air. The glowing street lamps hang in there, but it’s a new day and it can’t be stopped.
The ad on the pay phone promises
CALL ANYWHERE
for twenty-five cents a minute. She picks up the receiver. She dials. The phone in the farmhouse rings. Once. Twice. It’ll be better if Billy yells at me on the phone. Gets it out of his system. Before it can ring a third time, Reba hangs up. If I don’t want to talk to Billy, why am I calling him? There’ll be plenty of time to take my knocks.
The ache in her belly charges the lightness in her heart. Shouldn’t I savor this moment, not spoil it? Just pretend that Billy said it would be OK to spend a day on my own in the city? So here it is. The day. Hungry. Food.
A poster on the plate glass window of the McDonald’s advertises a ninety-nine-cent egg-and-sausage breakfast. Reba goes in. In the restroom she scours her face. Someone has pasted a sticker onto the mirror and someone else has scraped it off, leaving a white circle in the corner. Someone else has scratched their initials into the glass. No paper towels, only hot air. It takes eight punches for Reba to dry her face.
A large woman in a blond wig prances into the restroom, stops and stares at Reba. Reba thinks, I’ll fight you, sister, if I have to. But the woman looks away and Reba finds a stall two doors down, while the woman clacks around the washbasins. She’s obviously waiting for me to come out so she can stare at me some more. Magic Marker lettering is scrawled on the enameled divider, so twisted Reba can’t decipher it. This must be what it’s like to be in a foreign country. When Reba emerges, the woman is gone.
Juggling a slippery plastic tray, Reba finds a seat along a wall. Including the city tax, breakfast has set Reba back two bucks. It’s good to get something warm into my gut, even if I have to eat it alone. Take-out coffee is better than no coffee. Any minute now, Dallas or Billy will walk in. I know it. I can feel it.
As Reba shoves her pile of crumpled napkins and cardboard into the trash bin, a cherubic man calls out to her. “Excuse me? Miss? Miss?”
“Are you talking to me?”
“Yes. I, uh, I’m sorry. Paul Yorkin. I was wondering what agency you’re with?” He’s short and bald and his teeth aren’t so great. His smile looks forced. Kind of like the Lucky Charms guy. What is he? A leprechaun.
Reba says, “Agency?”
“Elite, right? They’re supposed to be sending over all the new girls, but I haven’t seen you yet. What’s your name?” He squints slightly and his smile grows.
“I think you have me mixed up with someone else.” This guy thinks I’m one of those limousine prostitutes.
“No I don’t. I’ve seen your stuff. I know I have. For bebe, no…Aldo? You’re on the billboard in SoHo.”
“Uh, my stuff? No.” Through the plate glass, the world out on the street is accelerating.
“Uh…
Mademoiselle,
last month, the piece on hand-knit sweaters. And, um, the Macy’s print ad last week, right?”
“I don’t think so.” She towers over him and he’s forced to look up to meet her eyes. He seems overheated in his bow tie and suit jacket, pulling a white handkerchief from his pocket to swab his wide brow. He’s only slightly overweight, but his head is very round and he makes Reba think of an overgrown baby.
“You saw Gisele’s layout in
Vogue Paris
this month? You saw it, I know you did. Mine. Prada campaign, mine. So listen, please have your agency, who are you with, Monique? Have her give me a call? Or maybe if you’re in the neighborhood, you could drop off your book?”
“I think you’ve mistaken me for somebody else.”
“Well, that’s a very big mistake. How tall are you?” The man’s eyes are the kindest she has ever seen. His face glows with sincerity. He’s either the nicest man in the world or a con man.
“I don’t know!”
“You’re at least five eleven.”
“Don’t remind me. My family’s a freak show.”
His eyes glitter with delight. “Listen. Here’s my card. I’d love to snap a few pictures. Bring in a stylist, the whole bit. Would you be up for that?”
“You mean for cash money?” She scans the card. It says “Paul Yorkin—Paris—Milan—London—New York” and a phone number. No addresses. Just a phone number.
“Money? Uh, no, no money. But I’ll make a trade with you. I’ll let you keep a few photos for yourself. If you like them, you can get them reprinted. Who knows? I’m just…it’s unbelievable that no one’s shot you yet. Are you new to New York?”
“Not really.”
“I see. Uh-huh. All right. Well. Look. Uh…what are you doing right now? I don’t want to lose track of you.”
“Why?” I believe him even though I shouldn’t.
“Well. I figure no time is better than the present. My studio’s just around the corner. Very convenient.”
“You can’t take my picture right now, I’ve been up all night. I’m a mess.”
“If this is you as a mess, I can’t wait to see you when you’re in good shape. I mean, you look terrific. Really, really terrific. And I love this cotton thing you have on. What is it? Diesel?”
“I don’t know what it is. My brother makes me wear it.”
“Listen, we don’t have to make this into a major production. Just, uh, come by, wash your face, brush your hair, great hair by the way, and we’ll just snap off a couple of rolls. Uh…it’s totally cool. My assistant Adam will be there by ten and it’s just a few blocks away. I mean, unless you have somewhere you’re going. I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”
“Uh…Rena. R-E-N-A.”
“Rena. Great name. Terrific name. Rena.”
“Where is this place?”
“Literally around the corner. I shoot for everyone,
Vogue, Cosmo,
lots of editorial.”
“Cosmo?”
“I had five pages last month. The furry hats.”
“You took those pictures?”
“Of course! I wouldn’t be caught dead in this friggin’ place, but I had a big argument with those jerks at Coffee Shop two days ago and they banned me.”
“Banned you?”
“They won’t serve me until I apologize to the girl behind the counter and I refuse to, so there you have it, McDonald’s coffee in the morning. Listen, I have to get to the studio, so what do you say? Come on up, it won’t take long, I have people coming in at twelve so we can only grab a few shots.” He wipes his brow again and smiles. Reba thinks,
Cosmo
. Furry hats. Cool.
BILLY STUDIES THE LIFE CYCLE OF THE PINHEAD BUBBLES
rising through the amber to sudden death. Fucking whores. It’s because I went to the whores again, because I screwed around. I knew that sooner or later something bad was gonna come of it. If this had happened when Dad was alive, I would have gotten the strap. But Dad is gone and now she’s my responsibility. Damn.
Six hours ago Billy was orbiting the park, nursing a half-pint of Mr. Boston Peach Brandy. He figured to roll up from behind Reba and scare the shit out of her. But that hadn’t happened. Instead he found himself negotiating a neighborhood of narrow lanes lined with cars parked bumper to bumper. Rusty fire escapes cantilevered off the facades of the brick walk-ups. Dark people stood in doorways next to trash cans with their lids chained together.
Under the bright shadow of a yellow and red awning, two nut-brown men tracked Billy as he got out of the van. He stepped past them into the bodega. One man flicked a cigarette into the gutter. The other chuckled.
Inside, the place was dense with sagging shelves of canned black beans, Kitty Litter, rolls of toilet paper, bottles of Mr. Clean and Odd Job. On the floor topless cardboard boxes lay loaded with plantains, sweet potatoes and shriveled green peppers. In the far corner stood another Latino playing a video blackjack machine, his right foot resting on a case of Malta. Sawdust had been strewn on the floor and the sharp scent of pine cleaner filled the air. A skinny cat with a scabby ear strolled by.
Two men stood barricaded behind a scuffed sheet of bullet-proof plastic. One had a trimmed moustache and both wore fedoras. Behind them on a shelf, fitted in between the Pepto-Bismol and the pads of Lotto tickets, a small black-and-white TV spouted garbled Spanish.
For lack of anything better to do, Billy pulled Dallas’s note from his pocket. One man, the one without a moustache, turned to him.
“Si?”
“A girl come in here?”
“Girl?” On the TV screen a fat man was embracing a chesty bleached blonde.
“Yeah, like me. White. Tall, but skinny. Kind of pretty.”
The companion mumbled something that sounded to Billy like “Ag-wa.”
The man said, “No.” He eyed the scrap of paper in Billy’s hand. Billy felt his face flaring. “What you need,
papi
?” The man was relaxed, almost kindly.
“I just told you. Looking for a girl.” More staring. “Listen, you speak English?”
“No girl here,
papi
. See?” His eyes flickered and died.
The men who had been standing in front of the store joined in. The guy at the video blackjack game stopped playing. Billy thought, I’m too tired for this shit. My back hurts. Fuck them. He waited. One of the men from outside said, “What’s the problem?” But he wasn’t talking to Billy, he was asking the men behind the counter.
Billy measured his speech, as if spelling it all out to a mentally handicapped person. “The problem is, my sister, she went off on her own and I’m asking you,
have-you-seen-her
?”
“Your sister?”
“That’s right.”
“No, man, we haven’t seen your sister.” The man who spoke followed the English with a few words of something, maybe Spanish, and the others chuckled, eyes crinkling.
Billy stepped up to the man at the video poker machine. “How about you, Chief, you see a girl in here?”
“Que?”
“Aw, fuck you all.” Billy remembered he was wearing steel-tipped work boots. Kick that grin off your greasy brown mug.
The man from outside stopped smiling. “Hey, my friend, no swearing in here, you know?”
“Fuck you, too.”
“That’s not cool, man. You wan’ us to call the police?” Now they didn’t seem so smart-alecky. Now Billy wondered what he was doing in this smelly little grocery.
“I’m just asking for a little help.”
“And we told you, man, we have not seen your
puta
sister.” Someone snorted. Another chuckled. “That your truck out there,
flacco
? You should keep an eye on your truck.”
Ugly brown fuckers. Greaseballs. Nosepickers. Fuck you. I’ll come back here with my shotgun and take that grin off your ugly brown face. Billy left.
Outside, Billy pulled himself up behind the wheel and slammed the door. A shiver thrilled his spine, followed by a starburst of anger. I’m going to slap that bitch silly when I find her. He finished his bottle and threw it out the window as he drove away. Fuck ’em.
He drove around for another hour, ending up back at the farmer’s market. Fatigue coated him like a layer of grease. Outside the van, the city lay motionless, its clamor lowered to a surflike drone. Billy fell asleep behind the wheel. Around four
AM
he roused himself, started the van and drove.
As he passed the meat market, a transvestite called out like Billy was the last man on earth. He gunned the engine and slid out onto the highway. A city of whores and spics. Someone should incinerate the whole fucking mess. Shouldn’t even be down here in the first place. And where the fuck is Reba?
The sharp squirt of a police siren blanked Billy’s thoughts. There they were, in his rearview, right up on him, lights spinning, red-white-blue. More. Always more shit. Billy pulled over.
The cops hung out in their cruiser for ten minutes before one emerged and came up alongside the van. As the cop wrote out the ticket for running the light, Billy realized he was sober again, so he pushed it. “My sister, she’s missing.”
The cop glanced back at his partner, who was in the cruiser running the van’s plates. He pointed his flashlight into Billy’s eyes. “What sister?”
“My sister.”
“Why don’t we do this, sir: just step out of the vehicle, keep your hands in sight?”
The officer ran the beam of his eighteen-inch Maglite over the contents of the van. “Anything in there doesn’t belong in here you wanna tell me about? An unregistered firearm, for instance?” The other cop strolled over. The second cop rested his hand lightly on the butt of his gun. Maybe the computer had spit out something on the van. Billy thought, they are armed. You cannot run. Just answer the questions.
“You been drinking?” The second cop. Looks pissed off.
“I had a beer four hours ago. Listen, we come down here to work. She left a note and I can’t find her.” These guys are white, they’ll help me.
“Uh-huh. This address here on your license, this where you’re from?”
“Uh-huh. About three hours upstate.”
“Well, sir, you better get back up there before you get into any more trouble.” He handed Billy the license, registration and ticket. “Drive safely.”
“What about my sister?”
“After twenty-four hours you can call in a missing persons complaint, sir, but I wouldn’t hang too much on that. She’ll show up sooner or later. How old is she?”
“Twenty.”
“Uh-huh. Well, there you go.” The other cop smirked. Fucking cops. Cops and niggers and whores and spics. Fucking Sodom and Gomorrah. Fucking cesspool. Septic tank shithole full of steaming shit. Fuck you. Unstrap that Glock and I’ll kick your stinking ass. All of you. Creeps and bums. Creeps and bums.
At the kitchen table, Billy sips his beer as the world flows from the shadows and congeals. Down on the road, the intervals between the hum of the passing cars shortens. People heading for church. He takes the smallest sips now, fizzy white flashes popping along his visual periphery. Don’t fall asleep, Billy! Because Reba is going to call and damn soon. She’s probably not hurt. She always keeps the door of the van locked. No. She just strolled off, maybe to see a movie and then, idiot that she is, got lost on her way back.
This is the problem with women. They have all this good stuff, their prettiness, their warm boobs, their hair, their sweet soft hands. But they can’t think logically for shit. Persist in getting themselves in trouble. And they do it knowing full well that if the trouble gets bad enough, some guy will always come and save their ass.
Think I’m gonna save you. But what if I’m not there? Did you ever consider that? What if you got caught up in something you can’t get out of, and I’m not there to bail you out? The kitchen walls stand dumb, Felix the Cat ticktocks, Billy flips his empty into the bin and finds another. Bitches. Excuse me, but that’s what you are. Nothing but trouble. Pretending to be stupid and weak, so some dumbbell will want to protect you. But what if you go too far?
This is the problem. They walk around so sure of themselves and they don’t even know why. They don’t know why they have power, they just know they have it. Like that time she thought I’d gone off to work and she left her bedroom door open a crack while she changed. Standing there in her little bra and panties. Those long legs of hers and the curve of her backside. Got hard, despite myself.
Locked the door, but as soon as I finished the deed, the shame started to eat me up. Couldn’t believe what I’d done. Couldn’t believe what I’d thought. The worst, most perverted thoughts about doing it with my own sister. My own sister, naked, spread for me, begging me. Begging me. “Please don’t hurt me, Billy. It’s my first time!”
Sometimes, Billy couldn’t even look at her. But the more he tried to avoid watching his own sister, the more he had to. Found himself sneaking glances while she cooked for him, while she cleaned the house. And she only grew more beautiful. She blossomed, even if no one understood that she had, he did. And as she did, it got worse and worse. Leaving her undies around where he could find them. Prancing around the house in a bathing suit.
This is why I have to protect her, to keep her safe. This is penance for transgressing against her. If I can use all of my strength and mind and will to shelter her, then maybe eventually, my sin will fade. And above all, never show her any affection, because she might take it the wrong way. And even if she didn’t, the tiniest grain of love might develop and grow into something horrible. Don’t ever touch her. Don’t ever smile at her.
The old walls glow with the hue of morning. Billy lays his head down onto his thick forearms, turning his face so he can keep close watch on the beer bubbles. He waits for the phone to ring. He thinks, I should whip her. She deserves to be whipped. He shuts his eyes and sleeps.