by Ronald Malfi
“Emma,” he said, and let her name linger in the air, floating and dying between them in the gray, lightless atmosphere of the hotel room. It was her own name, fired back out at her in an attempt to buffer and halt anything further she might wish to strike him with. And, truly, anything she might say would now be a strike at him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t hear it.
“I’m frightened,” she said. “You asked that when you came in and I didn’t give you an answer. But yes, Nick, I’m frightened. I’m scared to death. And it has nothing to do with the goddamn lights being out.”
“Well,” he said. What else was there to say? He picked up his coffee again and carried it—somewhere, anywhere, he suddenly needed to not be in this room, but there was nowhere else left to go. So he carried the coffee across the room and sat on the far end of the bed, his back facing her. He set the coffee down on the nightstand and, in his apprehension, picked up the Holy Bible from the nightstand, which was the only thing within his reach. He thumped it twice against his left thigh and wondered just what the hell he was doing. Or was going to do.
“What, Nick? Tell me. Tell me what you need me to do,” Emma said from behind him. “Tell me, Nick. Tell me what it is you need me to do. I’m frightened and I feel helpless because you won’t let me do anything.”
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.”
“Nicky—”
“Don’t you blame this on me.”
“I’m not blaming you…”
“Don’t you do it.”
“It’s me,” she said. “It’s me, all of it. I’ll take it all, Nicky. Okay? I’ll take all of it.”
“I don’t need you to be the martyr here, either,” he said.
“Oh, Jesus Christ…”
“Stop it. And stop calling me Nicky.”
“What do you want from me?”
“What I want,” he said, “is for you to stop asking me that. Goddamn it, there is nothing I want from you except to be left alone, for God’s sake. Can you do that? Just for a little while, so I can pause and think? Okay? Do you think you could try? Please? Please?”
In practically a whisper, Emma said, “I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do anymore…”
“It is,” he insisted. “Trust me. It is the most right thing in the world at the moment.”
“I love you, Nicky.”
“Goddamn it, Emma.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I love you, Nick. I love you, Lieutenant D’Nofrio. I just want you to know that.”
He closed his eyes and set the hotel Bible down on the bed. Before leaving the room, he pulled his pants back on and went over to the writing desk and grabbed the bottle of Red Truck by the neck.
—Chapter V—
The backup generators kicked on just as night approached. Nick was up on the ladder, ushering a stroke of green paint in a horizontal line across the bottom half of the mural when, above his head, the light fizzed, popped, and came on. A muffled early evening cheer could be heard from both the lobby and the adjoining ground-floor restaurants. Nick, who had been painting mostly in the dark since after lunch (except for the flashlight given to him by the concierge that he’d propped in place on one of the ladder’s steps, affixed by a length of packaging string), sighed and climbed down the ladder. He wiped his hands on an old rag that smelled of turpentine then picked up the bottle of Red Truck, which was half empty now. He took a drink from the bottle then packed up the rest of his equipment. At one point during the afternoon, the young bellhop had returned (reeking of marijuana) and set Nick’s trunk on another dolly for him. There were plenty of dollies, the bellhop explained, and it made sense just to leave the trunk on this one so Nick could easily roll it back and forth from the lobby to the storage closet and back again at his own discretion. Nick thanked him and, this time, insisted the kid accept a five-dollar tip.
Nick rolled the dolly and the trunk into the storage closet and locked the door. Carrying the wine, he went to the bank of elevators at the other end of the corridor and rode up to the sixth floor. Emma was not in the room.
He set the wine on the nightstand next to the Holy Bible and a couple of colored leaflets then disappeared into the bathroom to take a long, hot shower. The scent of Emma’s body, fresh and undeniably female, still lingered in the bathroom air. He turned the water as hot as it would go, filling the bathroom with steam in an attempt to sweat Emma’s female scent from the air.
He stood naked before the mirror over the sink. His body still looked tight and to be in good shape. His calves were well-defined, his chest broad and masculine and sprouting a vague T of hair at the upper portion of his chest. His waist was narrow and pale—much paler than the rest of him, which was mostly tanned and naturally dark—and his shoulders came out like twin hubs, strong, tanned, and only vaguely pimpled. His arms were not big or overly muscular, but they were certainly good, healthy-looking arms…except, of course, for his right arm, beginning just at the elbow and tracing down the length of his arm to the wrist of his right hand, his palm, and the front and back of his hand. His fingers, too. Tracing down. It wasn’t the arm that was so bad and the arm itself never bothered him. Cosmetics meant nothing to him. There was a deep, puckered, raw-looking tract of pink skin running from the crook of his elbow down to the center of his palm where it dispersed in an eruption of jagged, pink tributaries, the discolored flesh startlingly in evidence, nearly obscene, against the dark pitch of his natural flesh-tone. The scar was not very wide, but it was long and it was visible. But that was all, and the arm itself was not necessarily bad. The hand, though, was not pretty and was not—and never would be—the same. It was not good.
He held it up now and looked at it, holding it far enough away from his face to not truly see everything about it. The last two fingers were misshapen. The soft and tender flesh of his palm was a corrupt and inhospitable terrain, marred by jagged flecks of poorly-healed flesh and bisected by the crooked, railroad track scar that originated at his elbow. Likewise, the back of his hand was ridged with scars, like large ball bearings stitched together just beneath the surface of his skin. He ran his good hand over the back of his ruined hand, fingering the disarrangement and discord of fleshy mounds and bumps and scars. It did nothing for him to feel the skin; he did not necessarily care what it looked or felt like. But making a fist forced him to care, as it took all his effort to bring those twisted and gnarled fingers around and to press them in and together and against the ruined flesh of his palm. Similarly, it was with much difficulty that he was able to bring his thumb around and to close it over his fingers. A fist: something that should have been so goddamn simple…and here he was, learning how to do it all over again. He felt helpless and like a child. And the painting—or, more specifically, the difficulty of painting—was only one aspect. There were many others, each a silent but stealthy reminder, a blow to his character and his pride. Specifically, he could not lift what he was once able to lift; he could not open what he was once able to open; he could not hit as he had once been able to hit. He could not make love to his wife the way he used to, either, and he recalled one time in particular, hovering above her, sliding his ruined hand beneath her and pressing his deformed fingers against the small of her back, attempting to raise her up off the bed but finding it impossible, and how she relaxed and eased herself down on his hand and his arm, and the white-hot agony that had exploded and raced, inferno-like, all through him, causing him to cry out once, sharply, painfully, before he even knew he was doing so, like a goddamn child. He had never been more aware of the injury, and had never been more aware of the pieces of metal and the half dozen twists of steel screws that were in his arm and in his hand keeping it all together. Most of all, he had never been more aware of his vulnerability.
But he did not want to think about that now. He did not want to think about Emma, and being with Emma in that way. Not right now…
Steam filled the bathroom, clouding over the reflection of his body in the mirror and creating fresh blo
ssoms of condensed fog on the glass. He felt the water and made it cooler before stepping beneath the stream and forcing himself to forget everything around him for the time being.
Later, back in the room, wet and toweling off, Nick peeled back the shade over the windows and glanced out into the night. Suddenly, and for whatever reason, he felt trapped, unable to free himself and leave the room, leave the hotel, leave the island. It was an island, after all; perhaps to leave would be impossible. And it would not just be leaving—it would be escaping. Could he escape? Perhaps to get away from the hotel and the island and everything he now—and so recently—associated with the hotel and the island would be tantamount to an innocent’s escape from a nightmare and nearly as futile and useless as a pillager’s salting of the Sahara.
He dressed with little enthusiasm. Looking around, he noticed that the keys to the Impala were not on the nightstand where he usually left them. There was nothing there except the Bible, a folded leaflet, and a rectangular handbill, glossy and colorful. With graffito treble staffs and the bellbottom S of a hand-drawn saxophone, the handbill advertised an establishment called the Club Potemkin, which professed itself to be the island’s premiere venue for live blues and jazz. And tonight’s feature musician, he saw, was none other than Goat-Man Claxton and His Aged Trio. Nick let the handbill flutter to the floor. He reached out and picked up the leaflet. Unfolding it, Nick saw that it was on hotel stationary. It read in large, damning black letters:
LIMBO!
How low can you go?
Contest tonight in the Riviera Room!
He looked away and found himself helpless, unfortunate, staring at the empty bed jarringly empty, which had been recently attended to by housekeeping. He looked at the pillow and looked at the vague dimple in its center. Had she been sleeping on that pillow just moments ago? Had she perhaps reentered the hotel room while he was in the shower, crawled atop the bed to rest and, no doubt, to think…and then slipped quietly back out once she heard the shower shut off? His wife?
I have got to stop doing this to myself, he thought.
A half hour later, Nick found himself hunting out a stool at the restaurant bar. The bar and the restaurant itself were not very crowded as the storm had just begun to let up. The more adventurous guests had donned thick, waterproof coats and hats, having grown determined following two days of boredom and inactivity to champion the waning storm. Nick did not mind the silence. He selected a stool at the bar, uninterested in sitting very close to any of the other patrons.
“Well,” Roger said, sliding down the bar. “Looks like we survived the worst of it.”
“I guess that’s lucky for some of us,” Nick said.
“It’s always sad, no matter how many times it happens a season, when the bar empties out and the guests go back out into the island.”
“They’ll always be back, though,” Nick said. “Eventually.”
“Scotch and water?”
“Thanks.”
“Just so you know, Mr. Granger left an open bar tab for you with me. I’m supposed to put all your drinks on it.”
“Damn it,” Nick said. “Don’t do that.”
“Mr. Granger insisted, Nick.”
“I won’t drink if he’s picking up the tab.”
“He’s a stubborn old bastard,” Roger said.
“Sure, he told me so himself. But don’t make me walk half a mile to find another bar, man.”
“Fair enough,” Roger said. “Just, when you see him, don’t let on that I said anything.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Roger disappeared and returned two minutes later with a short, wide glass of scotch chocked with ice.
“Thanks, Roger.”
“No problem. You want a menu?”
“No,” he said. “Not hungry.”
“Your wife meeting you?”
“She’s…I don’t know…”
“Well,” Roger said, suddenly intentionally busying himself with a dishtowel that he’d swiped up off the countertop, “let me know if you change your mind and want something to eat.”
“You’re a pusher.”
“I’m trying to make a living.”
“Sure,” Nick said. “As a pusher.”
“Can I ask you something? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“What is it?”
“What happened with you and Granger’s son?”
Something deep within him stiffened. He was abruptly face-to-face with young Myles Granger: he could see every crease in the boy’s face, every pore and pock and drying scab on his face. Unshaven…but there was not much to shave. His eyes were dead blue…and there was something of…perhaps a hint of vague accusation in them, as well.
“You really save the kid’s life?” Roger went on.
“We were in the same platoon over in Iraq. We broke off into teams and were ambushed marching into Fallujah. Our entire squad was killed. Except for Myles Granger and me. Myles, though…he was hit pretty badly. I could tell just by looking at him that there was maybe a chance he might live but that he’d lose his legs. He didn’t want to lose his legs. He screamed about his legs.” Almost reflectively, he said, “He screamed over and over about his legs.” Nick tasted his drink, and said, “He died two days later in triage.”
Roger pressed his lips together and shook his head. It was a universal reaction—what more could one do?
“He was the only guy I saw still moving around in the dirt when the smoke cleared and I could see anything at all. I made my way to him and grabbed him and carried him down an alleyway. He was screaming and wanted me to kill him, to put my gun to his head and kill him. He said he knew he was going to die and he just wanted it to hurry up, so why couldn’t I put my gun to his head and bring it to him as quickly as possible? He was trailing blood in the sand, in the dirt, and I remember the way it looked, falling there. As I carried him, my footsteps kicked fresh sand over the stains of his blood, and it was covered up so quickly, it was as if there was no blood at all, and nothing of the sort even existed.” He heard himself snort. “Funny, the stuff you remember…”
“Christ…” It seemed all Roger was capable of saying. Either that or it seemed the only appropriate thing to say. “Christ, man…”
“The attack came from a nearby mosque. They hit us hard and fast.”
“Yeah?”
“Sometime later, an F-16 came in and razed the mosque.”
“Everyone was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Everyone but you and Myles Granger,” Roger said, and it was not a question.
“Yes,” Nick answered anyway.
“Is that how you hurt your hand?”
“Sort of. A wall fell on it.”
“How did you get out?”
“Out,” Nick nearly muttered. “Out. We got out. It’s—we got—we just got out.”
“I can’t imagine,” said Roger.
“We just got out,” Nick went on, almost not hearing the bartender.
Thankfully, Roger had no more questions. Nick did not think he could answer any more, anyway. Yes, he and Myles Granger had been in the same platoon . . . he had been platoon leader, first lieutenant, and he had walked them straight into the ambush. The shelling had started from the windows of the mosque. It shook the ground and many men rolled in the muddy ditch between the road and the giant stone wall. Some were all right. The wall was very large and looked strong but would not provide full protection against the shelling. Further ahead, pressed low in the dirt, he could see Myles Granger with his head down and his hands laced together at the back of his helmet. He looked very dark and small pressed into the dirt. He did not move. No one moved for a long while. At the time of the ambush, Nick found himself thinking of the men that had gone down ahead of them during their campaign from Ramadi and into the city, ambushed by soldiers pressed against the flanks of the high road, and he found he could not take his eyes away from Myles Granger. Even when a rocket-propelled grena
de exploded just several yards to his left, he could not take his eyes away from the boy. Later, much later, there would be questions about who had actually instigated the shooting, and accusations that their squad had been the aggressor, had perhaps opened fire on the mosque first. Nick, who found no rationale in such thinking (what were the odds that they would have happened to open fire on a mosque which just happened to be rife with armed Muslim insurgents? He should play the lottery and find himself so lucky), had paid the accusations no mind. Anyway, nothing ever came of it. Nothing, he understood, had come of any of it. He used to think wars killed only the bad, but that quickly proved to be a child’s presumption. Then, after a time, he believed that wars killed both the good and the bad alike. But that proved wrong, too. How could he have been so ignorant? Now, he understood, there existed no good and no bad, and that they were all just lost and broken and weak and, perhaps most importantly, they were all uninformed. He, too, had been uninformed. No one ever becomes informed, he told himself. When you fight, you have no impression of the fighting. Nothing is sustained in you. You are broken and unable to be mended… which lessens the impression of debilitation and heightens the constant ailment of who you were for that brief period in your life, and how it never truly occurred to you that you would ever be there. War—who would ever be there? Who ever imagines themselves dying like a dog without purpose?
It was an uncontrollable fix, sanctioned by the propriety of youth and youth’s willingness to forfeit. Youth always forfeited, Nick had come to understand. It was akin to those fumbling, constipated groanings associated with adolescent sexual encounters: existing because there was a need for it to exist and, even if you did not understand it—not completely, anyway—some feral, ingrained part of you knew it to be true, and knew it to be a part of what it meant to be human. Or was that all too much? No…he did not think it was too much at all…