Only Pretty Damned

by Niall Howell

  Without noticing, I halted in the doorway, but Wally was quick to remedy that. He gave me a hard shove, sending me stumbling into the room. “Come on, Toby,” he said, “you move any slower, you’re gonna go backwards in time.” And, boy, what I wouldn’t have given to do just that.

  Dot closed the door behind her and brought the glasses and scotch over to the nightstand. She poured two generous drinks and handed one to me. She was about to take a sip from the other glass, but then Wally said, “You forget about the paying customer, dolly?” so she handed the glass over to him and took a long pull straight from the bottle herself. I followed her lead and knocked mine back in one gulp, feeling it right away.

  “The money now, please,” Dot said. Wally handed it over and she counted it quickly, then placed it on the dresser. “Now, you stay over there in the corner and try not to make a mess,” she said to Wally without looking at him. When I’d first laid eyes on Dot, I put her at around my age, twenty-one. But the way she conducted herself and the way she seemed to have each step in this bizarre scenario all mapped out as if it were nothing more than a familiar routine told me that she wasn’t all that new to the world’s oldest profession. “You give me any trouble and I’ll holler. One holler and Marty will storm up here and punch you so hard your eyes will shoot out the back of your head.” Wally nodded, indicating that he understood, and then backed into the corner. I looked away from him when he started unbuttoning his pants. Despite everything, I felt bad for the guy.

  I noticed Dot undressing, and so I started undressing too, and that got me feeling bad for the both of us, too. Christ, what a sad room.

  Once everything was off, the lights were killed, and she and I got to it pretty quick. I didn’t get much out of it, and, given the circumstances of it all, who could blame me?

  I finished with a whimper, and Dot pretended to finish with a groan. I don’t know if or when Wally finished, but there were certain unmistakable sounds coming from the darkness throughout the whole ordeal, so I know he was keeping busy. Dot rolled off of me almost instantly. She dressed hurriedly in the dark like she’d done it three hundred times before. I heard the sound of her hand sliding across the surface of the dresser, collecting her pay, and that followed with the creak of a door opening. “Take a few minutes, but don’t get it in your heads that this is a hotel,” she told us before she left.

  We took her up on that few minutes, Wally and I, lying in the dark, letting our pulses find their footing as we digested the experience. Neither of us spoke, but I think Wally had enjoyed himself. The softest bursts of laughter detonated in his corner and drifted over to me. It was faint, that laughter, so faint and ghostly that I had to concentrate to hear it at all, but it was definitely there. It was odd for Wally, who was normally so loud and boisterous, to be laughing like that—all clandestine. And there were a couple times, only a couple, that the laughter became so muddled it sounded a bit like weeping.

  Or maybe it was the other way around.

  GLORIA IS SITTING ACROSS FROM ME, FIDGETING WITH HER dress and looking at the floor. I believed her when she first said she was sorry, so the other five or six times have just been for good measure. The problem is I don’t know what to say to ‘sorry.’ I don’t know what to say, so I stay zipped. I don’t like seeing her sweat like this, being crushed under the silence growing around us, looking more and more anxious by the second, but no words come to me, and I can’t say what I don’t have.

  “Do you want me to leave?” she whispers, shifting her eyes up to me but keeping her head hung.

  “No,” I respond. “No, I don’t think I want you to leave.”

  “All right, then. I won’t leave.”

  I get up, kneel down, and grab the bourbon that’s under my bed. “You want a drink?”

  “I-I don’t think I should. Not when I still have to perform.”

  “I’m not asking you to pound half the bottle,” I kid, getting half a smile from her. She reaches for the bottle, takes the shyest of sips, then hands it back to me. “Well, if I don’t have to worry about performing later…” I raise the bottle in a toast and take a deep swig.

  “Should you be drinking anything? I mean, after getting knocked around like that?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know, Gloria. That’s a good question. But I’m betting that’s not the most pressing question you’ve got on your mind, is it?”

  Her cheeks redden. Eyes back to the floor.

  “Maybe that’s the best way to go about all this,” I say to her. “Maybe you ask me some questions—whatever’s on your mind—and, if I can, I answer. No anger, no hostility, just one person asking another some questions.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” she says.

  “I know that. But I want to. I can’t take back whatever you heard me and Rowland discussing. If I send you out of here without saying another word, well, whatever questions you have will only grow. They’ll grow and they’ll grow, and before you know it, you’ll have a bunch of new questions—your questions will have questions of their own—so I think it’s best if we address whatever is on your mind right here and right now, don’t you?”

  “I…I guess so, Toby. I mean, if that’s what you want, I’ll ask you some questions.”

  I assure her, “That’s what I want.”

  Gloria sits up in her chair and crosses her arms. Her gaze ricochets around the ceiling. She’s wondering where to start. “Okay,” she says to me after a moment, “I know you told Rowland you lost your temper with Andrew because he called you a dodger, but why’d that tick you off so much? You weren’t a dodger, were you?”

  That’s as good a starting point as any. “I wasn’t a dodger,” I say. “I didn’t fight in the war, I didn’t enlist, but that doesn’t mean I was consciously avoiding it. In late ’42, Genevieve’s old man got real sick. He and her mother used to perform here—The Fly De Lis, they were called—but when they threw in the towel, they moved back up to Quebec. So Genevieve and I, we went up there because he was in a bad way and Genevieve’s mother was so worried about him that it was taking a noticeable toll on her health. About a month after we got there, the old guy croaks. Her and her mother were really torn up about it, as anyone would be, so we stayed for a few weeks after the funeral, just to make sure her mother didn’t go and drink a bottle of bleach or something. A few weeks went by, and it looked like we were clear to go. I’m not saying the old lady had finished grieving and moved on, but she was a hell of a lot better than she had been, and besides, we needed to get back to the show. On what was supposed to be our last morning in Quebec, I went and got us two tickets on the night train to Baltimore, where we’d meet up with the circus and get back to our act. I walked back to Genevieve’s mother’s house, ready to start packing, but when I arrived, no one was there. There was a note waiting for me, though, written by Genevieve, telling me her and her mother were at the hospital. Wouldn’t you know it, the old lady went and had herself a heart attack. She was dead by the time I got to the hospital. So, Genevieve got stuck with another funeral to organize and, on top of that, she had to figure out the family estate—the selling of their house and all that shit—which tacked even more time onto our stay. By the time everything was sorted, Rowland’s World Class Circus had made their way up to Canada. Me and Genevieve met up with everyone in Ottawa, then we did the Canadian circuit—the same order we still do it in today, which, you know, takes some time. So, no, I didn’t get drafted, because I was in Canada for so long during the draft. When we finally got back on this side of the border, there was still a draft, but no one came knocking, and I didn’t go out of my way to enlist. Genevieve had been through so much and she needed me there. The draft missed me, that’s all there is to it.”

  “And you got so angry at Andrew because—”

  “Because not only did that bastard accuse me of being a certain disgraceful something I’m not, but the reason I was in Canada at all is because I was with Genevieve—who’s now his Genevieve! I missed
the draft because I was doing the respectable thing, making sure she didn’t have to face all that garbage alone.”

  Gloria nods, indicating that my answer is a reasonable one. “I see.”

  “I’m glad you do. Next question.”

  “Oh. Um, I-I guess I was wondering, when you told Rowland that if Andrew had just killed you, then Rowland would save a lot of money—or something to that effect—what did you mean?”

  She’s pushing into meatier territory now. I take another sip to buy myself a few seconds, then clear my throat. “What I meant was, even though I’m not a headliner anymore, Rowland still takes care of me. He knows what I’m worth, and as stupid as the guy can be, he still knows talent when he sees it. That’s all that was.” It’s close enough to the truth, and close enough is good enough for me right now.

  “Oh. All right. I figured that. I only wondered if there was more to it, since, well, I know you and Rowland meet in his digs pretty often—it must be once a month—and—”

  “And, like I told you before, we talk business. We talk about the show, what’s working, what’s not. He consults me about certain…things.”

  “I see,” she says, then after a lengthy, pondering pause, “Have you mentioned me to him at all, Toby? My dancing, that is. I like being a spec girl, but the longer I do it, the more I start to think I might be destined for something bigger.” And there you have it, the most transparently veiled ulterior motive.

  “I’ll keep on him, Gloria. Don’t good things come to those who wait?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve only ever done the waiting part, so I’ll have to keep you posted.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “you keep me posted all right.”

  Before she leaves, she assures me that she’ll come by after tonight’s show so we can try Scrabble. “I’ll even see if I can buy a few beers off Sal,” she says. “He sent someone to town with a huge order earlier today.”

  “That sounds good.” I light a cigarette and ease back into bed. “Break a leg tonight.”

  “It won’t be the same without you,” she says. “Get some rest now.”

  I nod and assure her I’ll do just that, and she blows me a kiss and leaves.

  I don’t know how much she knows, but I know she knows too much.

  What I told her about the draft is all true. I’ve got no worries there. But I’m certain she suspects there’s something more than I’m telling her going on between me and Rowland. If I can trust anyone else in this place, it’s Gloria. She’s on the level, no doubt about that, but I don’t feel I can tell her everything, especially not about my money. The line I fed her about Rowland knowing what I’m worth probably has her thinking I’m just getting paid more than all the lower-tiers around here, which isn’t too fishy, but I’m worried she’s got more on her mind than she’s letting on.

  The area above my right eye seems to have swollen further. I touch it with my fingers. It’s so puffy, it feels like something that should pop. I poke it and pain forks out in every direction. I’m tempted to pull the bandage on my cheek aside and take a peek, but I send that thought packing. Let yourself heal, I tell myself. If the starving Christ could resist the Devil’s mountain of bread, surely the suffering Toby can resist a look at the nasty gash on his cheek. Perspective is everything.

  Still, all the pain that had sulked away to accommodate the shock of finding and the stress of dealing with Gloria in my trailer is beginning to find its way back to me. My head and face took the cake, but the pain I’d first noticed in my lower back is starting to branch out across my entire body; it appears I’d received a full working over.

  Over the course of two cigarettes, I knock back enough bourbon to get me good and woozy. And the second woozy happens, I plant my head on my pillow and let sleep flood in. I dream about the Vampire Master and her depthless gaze.

  GLORIA OFFERS THE VELVET POUCH TO ME. "TAKE SEVEN. And no peeking. What you get is what you get.”

  I dip my hand in and palm a few tiles, then mix the contents of the pouch with my fingers and grab a couple more.

  “Hurry up!”

  “I want to get a good variety,” I tell her.

  Once I’ve got my seven, I place them on my wooden tile rack. NUPKOLC. Now what the hell am I supposed to do with NUPKOLC?

  It’s warm, despite the sinking sun. Warm and muggy. I’ve got my electric fan going, but I need to keep the windows open so the air can circulate, which I’m not too happy about since noise from outside tends to hitch a ride in on the air’s coattails. A syrupy flow of laughs, shouts, chatter, music, motors sputtering to life, and God knows what else passes through my trailer, in one window and out the other, steady and endless. I peek outside and see the garbage joint—the stand where we sell souvenirs and balloons on sticks and shit like that—is being swarmed by locals. We usually clean up pretty good at the garbage joint, but the crowd there now is larger than normal. I look closer and I’m just able to make out Genevieve and Andrew standing near the little shack, signing autographs for an onslaught of eager children. Their signing is briefly interrupted when the two stars stop to pose for a photograph by a man in a garish yellow hat who I assume works for the local newspaper. The night is only in its early stage of darkness, but the explosion that comes from that rag-man’s flashbulb is so bright it’s like glimpsing a supernova, a flash so bold it splashes the whole scene in light for a slice of a slice of a second.

  I take solace in Genevieve and Andrew’s temporary blindness and then sit back down and return my focus to NUPKOLC. Across from me, Gloria is staring intently at her own tiles. She rearranges them, takes a sip of her beer, pauses, and then rearranges her tiles again.

  She’d rushed over here right when the show ended, so she’s still in costume. Peacock feathers, flesh to boot, and a Hollywood do only showing the slightest bit of distress after her performance. “How’s your head feeling?” she asks, still focusing on her tiles.

  “About the same as the rest of me: miserable. But I feel a bit better than I did a few hours ago. Time heals all wounds, doesn’t it?”

  “Right. And fingers crossed that in Andrew’s case, time wounds all heels.”

  I get a pretty good laugh out of that.

  “That’s a Marx line,” Gloria tells me.

  “Karl Marx?” I ask, surprised that she’s familiar.

  “Groucho,” she says. “I don’t think there’s a Karl, but they come from a pretty big family, so who knows.” She looks back down to her tile rack then back up to me. “I’ve always liked that line, though. It’s funny, but it’s clever too. I mean really clever, not like some Bob Hope gag about Democrats or pushy wives or any of that.”

  I nod. “Groucho can be pretty sharp.”

  “I think it has some truth to it,” she says, her head angled to one side and her eyes moving over her tiles like eyes do when the mind is working through something. “That’s why it’s clever, because it’s the truth. Or at least it’s the kind of thing you hope is the truth. That’s it. The best jokes—the ones that don’t just drift away after you’ve heard them—have a bit of truth to them, don’t you think so?”

  I raise my beer. “To time wounding all the damn heels.”

  “To time wounding all the damn heels,” she echoes with a laugh, clinking me to make the toast official. “Now let’s give this game a try before we’ve drunk so much that we can’t remember how to spell.”

  She starts the game placing SAINT in the middle of the board. I shuffle NUPKOLC around a few times, and I can’t come up with anything too flashy, so I add PUN above her S and get a pretty sad number of points penciled under my name.

  For a few moves, I can only put down short three-letter words, so I start to get a bit frustrated. At one point though, I put down QUASARS, which I thought would basically give me the most points you can give a guy in one go. But then Gloria bursts my bubble. First, she scolds me for not maximizing what she calls my point potential by putting my Q in a worthless spot. I tell her there was no other place
to put QUASARS, and she tells me I should have been more strategic and added to other words instead, giving me a bunch of examples of where I could have placed tiles if I wanted more than the eighteen points QUASARS got me. After that she takes three letters—U, I, and Z—and puts them under my Q, getting herself forty-four points because her word landed on a space where you get to double the amount you’d normally get.

  “You’re ruthless, Gloria!”

  “What? Did you want me to go easy on you?” she laughs.

  The first game ends quickly, and we decide to play a second game. Noticing the time, Gloria goes out to get us both some food before we start round two. We’ve both become a little tipsy, but there’s no beer left. While she’s out, I pour us a couple of bourbons. I also throw on the cowboy hat I got back in Dallas; I guess I’m in a goofy kind of mood.

  Gloria bursts out laughing when she walks in the door with our plates. I’ve got the hat pulled low over my face and I’m pointing two finger-guns at her. “Freeze, ma’am. Hand over the food and no one gets hurt,” I say in my best John Wayne voice, which is pretty much the worst John Wayne voice.

  “Oh, you’re terrible, Toby!” She passes me my plate and takes her seat, immediately noticing the bourbon waiting on her tray. “Well, thank you,” she says and takes a sip.

  “Well, thank you for retrieving our dinner,” I say.

  We make quick work of our meals, then get back to Scrabble. Scrabble and drinking, that is. We divide our attention between the two, but drinking soon starts to take more than its share, which it has a tendency to do, I’ve noticed. Our second game of Scrabble dissolves without a proper finish, but it’s pretty clear Gloria has me beat. I get up and light a few candles. Outside, full dark is closing in. Thick clouds like aggressive graphite rubbings draw across the sky, diminishing the moon’s relevance, leaving only its trampled halo untouched. The usual circle of boozing silhouettes mingles around the bonfire, their voices bleeding together into one monotonous murmur.