by Неизвестный
“Who cares?”
“Gamoto! You’re an ungrateful doormat. I wouldn’t wipe my feet on your bristles.”
I tossed a grudging laugh at him; I couldn’t help it.
“If I leave I’m not coming back,” he warned.
I was as stubborn as he. “Good … get lost then.”
The pebble he threw missed my head by an inch and smashed a window. The spider unfolded its six remaining legs and made a lopsided escape.
I closed the door on Alex’s theatrics. I didn’t really expect him to leave. Oddly though, I missed him when he did.
The boat arrived back on the beach in an untidy scattering of small pieces and planks. Alex washed ashore somewhere else, up the coast. He’d left me the proceeds of his insurance policy. Guilt I suppose. I gave it to my mother. Also guilt. I haven’t heard from her since.
There was an enquiry, where I was called to account.
“Why was Mr. Lopodopolous out at sea in a storm in an unseaworthy vessel?”
Lopodopolous … had that been Alex’s name? It sounded more like one the spider grew up with.
“He said he was going home to Greece,” I offered.
“He was a fool.” The coroner frowned at me, as though it was my fault.
“Yes sir, he was,” I said humbly.
Ada Tenby gave me a hug but she didn’t say anything. She knew all about missing people. The picture of Annamarie smiled down at us from the piano, never changing. I began to wonder what she looked like with teeth.
My neighbor was a crazy old bat; she knitted socks for me. She said it kept my feet warm and her fingers supple. I took her shopping and other stuff, like doctor appointments.
By this time I’d become an artist and grown a long beard to go with my laid-back lifestyle. I wasn’t bad.
One day Mrs. Tenby came to my studio and I painted her portrait sitting in the armchair with her tiny gnarled feet in her late husband’s checked carpet slippers. She was knitting a red and white striped sock on four needles. The portrait was good. Ada had a sly look on her careworn face, so if I turned my back on her I had the feeling she was going to poke me between the shoulder blades with a knitting needle.
“You should enter it for the Portrait Prize,” she said, trying not to look proud.
“I might at that.”
Her head slanted to one side. “Do I really look that old?”
“You look fantastic, just like Angelina Jolie.”
She cackled when I grinned, and said, “God help her then.”
In return for sitting I gave her a portrait of Wolf she’d admired, one of my earlier works. She’d said Wolf reminded her of her late husband, and would scare the burglars away. I didn’t tell her that Wolf had deserted me in my time of need.
Discount and I lived behind Ada Tenby for years — and quite happily.
Okay, the house is getting a bit shabby, but like the agent told my father, “It’s nothing that a hammer and nails won’t fix. It’s the view you’re paying for. It can never be built out.”
A lick of paint from time to time disguises the worst, but you soon get used to living in shabby chic, and I didn’t notice it deteriorating into shabby shambles once the first proud flush of fresh paint wore off.
When I wasn’t working in my studio I sat with Discount on the front verandah enjoying the view and the peace and quiet. You could almost hear the termites munching though the stumps beneath us. My ambition was never to leave here.
Never say never!
Ada Tenby died, leaving her washing flapping on the clothes hoist. Thursday it was, supermarket day. When she didn’t answer my knock I peered through the window. She was still wearing her pink flannel nightgown, and had flopped sideways in her chair with her mouth hanging open, the photograph of Annamarie in her lap.
I called the doctor and the police. They arrived together, gazing at me suspiciously while they forced the door open.
“She’s dead,” the doctor pronounced knowledgeably. He was a man who called a spade a spade.
Mrs. Tenby’s grandson was informed; the one who did something important in the city and never had time to visit her. A funeral director took her away in a sober black limousine and the grandson came with a van to remove her effects, including the picture of Wolf. I imagined it hanging in his city office; dripping saliva on him.
Mrs. Tenby’s home was sold to a developer. It took one man with a machine two hours to reduce it to a pile of rusting tin, cancerous concrete and broken glass. I found the picture of Annemarie amongst the rubble, gave the frame a polish and set it on my windowsill as a tribute to the old lady.
The developers built Shangri-La Apartments. They stole the view my father had paid for – the sea, the sky, the flaming sunsets and the starlight.
Now I live in the ugly behind of the constantly circling shadow of Shangri-la Apartments.
The view might have changed, but it has its compensations. At night a wall of bedrooms and bathrooms are exposed to my view. I see them; women of every shape and size, doing what women do. They have become independent creatures, giving as good as they get. They’ve got the vote, cast off their shackles and have earned their freedom. It’s not easy being free – ask my mother if you ever run into her.
Ada Tenby didn’t win the Portrait Prize, but the offer I got for her was substantial. The buyer said she looked just like his granny. I painted another canvas, of a block of flats, the back wall removed and all the women being women. I called it, The Dolls’ House. It caused a bit of a stir in the art world, sold for a vast sum and got me a couple of commissions.
##
Today a young woman came to my door. The same developer wants my land for a taller apartment block. It’s a good offer, so they must want it really badly.
“Of course, it would be worth more if you had a bit of a view,” the woman says with a laugh. She has a cute smile and melting brown eyes, and I fall instantly in love. My artist’s eye replaces her two front teeth with empty pink gums. She was still cute. I hadn’t thought to ever see her again.
“I know you from somewhere,” she says, and I realize I’ve been waiting for her to come back all my life. I leave her to figure it out.
The property is worth much more than the offer, even without the view. They owe me for taking it in the first place.
I’m going to bargain hard. “Come back tonight with a better offer,” I tell her, hopeful, but off-hand in case I get knocked back. “Stay to dinner if you like.” And since I reckon a bit of romancing wouldn’t go astray, I add, “black tie.”
Her gaze travels over my beard and paint spattered T-shirt and she giggles. “Suave … real suave man, but way out of date.”
First I spruce Discount up, since he smells a bit rank. He complains so much that you would’ve thought I was trying to drown him.
“You’re being pathetic Discount. Stop yelping.”
I prepare myself for a bath and gaze at myself in the mirror. I started growing my beard when I was seventeen. Scruffy comes to mind. The beard drops to the floor, leaving my chin exposed. The vision startles me. So that’s what I look like! Sorting out some soul music, I light some candles on Annamarie’s behalf.
Annamarie stayed the night. She said she had a whopper of an offer, and although having dinner with me wasn’t part of the service, she was staying because she likes us. Her forehead crinkled up and she said, “Haven’t we met before and didn’t you once have a big black dog called Wolf? I kept a picture you drew of him, and imagined he was my dog after I left.”
So that’s where Wolf had gone, with Annamarie. I knew then that she was my soul mate. I told her about my sisters, and she advised me to keep in touch with them. “You’re their brother, they might need you one day.”
##
“What do you think?” I ask Discount a couple of weeks later, after the three of us devour a pile of spaghetti between us. “I think we’ve scraped the final dollar out of the development company. Shall we sign the acceptance form, then
take this woman and go and find our next Shangri-La?”
Discount sighs and considers it, his head to one side, his tail set to slow wag. Annamarie strokes his ear and when he thrusts his wet nose into her lap she laughs and calls him a dirty dog. Discount takes it as a compliment.
##
A month later and I take Discount Dog for our last walk here. A golden beach with fine sand awaits us on the other side of the road, a stretch of restless ocean blends into an endless sky and the sun dips down, sliding into the water without so much as a hiss.
For sale signs have sprouted. The high-rises are catching up with us. They’re just round the bend, relentlessly crushing the holiday shacks and pushing their store of childhood memories from the stumps.
The sky flames orange and red, then the fire fades to pink strewn with ashes. Night absorbs it. The new street lighting robs the stars of their glory and outshines the moon. Shangri-La wears a pink neon blush.
Discount Dog whines and places his head on my thigh.
“We’ll be running out of land soon,” Annamarie had said.
Not in my lifetime.
The wind begins to blow.
Behind me, light and music edits the night. Ahead of us our own Shangri-La waits. We just have to follow the wind to find it.
A Streetcar Named Death by Greg Herren
Greg Herren is the author of twenty novels, including the award-winning Sleeping Angel and Murder in the Rue Chartres, called by the New Orleans Times-Picayune “the most honest piece of writing about post-Katrina New Orleans.” His most recent novel, Timothy, was published in the fall of 2012. He writes three different mystery series: the Chanse MacLeod mysteries, the Scotty Bradley adventures, and the Paige Tourneur Missing Husband series. The Paige series is exclusively for e-books (the most recent, Dead Housewives of New Orleans, was released in May 2013.) He divides his time between writing, editing for Bold Strokes Books, and working as an HIV educator/researcher.
Thematically, the notion of people unexpectedly popping up from the past has always interested me — the Paige series I am currently writing is all about her long-buried past coming back to haunt her present. “I never thought I’d see you again” actually inspired me to write about a premise that’s been nagging at the back of my mind for quite some time — what if the victim of a crime suddenly runs into one of the perpetrators, now released from prison? How would the victim react emotionally, and how would the victim deal with the fallout, the PTSD, and knowing that someone who violated you so terribly has paid their debt to society, and there’s nothing else you can do about it? My mind also tends to turn to the dark … and thus came “A Streetcar Named Death.”
There was a crowd of people, like always, grouped around the corner of Canal and Carondelet.
Barry Monteith sighed and crossed Canal to the neutral ground. It was a miserably hot August afternoon, and his socks were already soaked through with sweat. He mopped the wetness off his forehead, and tried not to go to the bad place. It was hard — without the crutch of a cigarette or a Xanax or a drink to ease the stress balling up between his shoulder blades or the pinpoint of pain forming behind his right eye. He pulled his iPhone out of the pocket of his slacks and found a playlist of calming, soothing mellow music and hit shuffle. But even the silky voice of Gladys Knight didn’t seem to help much as he crossed from the neutral ground to the far side of Canal and joined the crowd of sweaty people gazing down the street hoping to catch sight of a streetcar coming.
He leaned against the brick wall of the Foot Locker and closed his eyes, wishing death on the incompetent mechanic who still hadn’t found out what was wrong with his car. If a streetcar doesn’t come along in five minutes I’ll try flagging down a cab, he decided, wondering if there was enough time to run across to the Walgreen’s and buy some aspirin. Breathe in and out, nice and slow and deep, listen to Gladys sing, and think happy thoughts. The car will be fixed tonight and I’ll be able to pick it up on my way to work in the morning and everything’s going to be just fine.
He opened his eyes and smiled. There was a streetcar stopped at the light at Common Street just a block away. See? When you think positive thoughts, good things happen.
Wordlessly the crowd started forming a line. He joined the queue, and in a few minutes paid his dollar twenty-five and made his way to the back of the streetcar. He always sat in the back, because it was easier to get out the back door at his stop. He closed his eyes, enjoying the cool breeze coming in through the window as the streetcar clanged and went around the corner onto Canal. He leaned his head against the window and looked around at his fellow passengers. The car was crowded, but no one had sat on the small wooden bench next to him — and there were several other empty spots. His eyes met those of a young black man with dreadlocks wearing the filthy white smock and black-and-white checked pants native to kitchen workers. The young man shrugged slightly and closed his own eyes, slumping further down on his own bench.
Barry felt better. Gladys Knight switched over to an old Olivia Newton-John song that had been a hit when he was in junior high school a million years ago. He smiled to himself. Junior high school had been hell when he’d been living through it, but all these years later the memories didn’t sting anymore, didn’t have any power over him.
Everything, he reflected, becomes less painful over time.
The streetcar lurched to a stop, and he looked out onto the sidewalk. There were maybe three or four people lining up to board — so he wouldn’t have the seat to himself for much longer. He looked up to the front of the car as the first person climbed up the steps and paid. He turned to walk down the aisle, and Barry’s blood froze.
It can’t be, he thought as he stared with his mouth open and his right hand coming up to his throat. I must be seeing things, it can’t be him.
But it was him.
It had to be.
He looked older — with a shock Barry remembered it had been over eight years — and he was leaner, more muscular than he had been when he was just seventeen. But the face — there was no mistaking that face. The square jaw, the wide-set green eyes, the thick pouty lips, the prominent cheekbones — it was him. It couldn’t be anyone else. Barry could remember thinking, somehow, through the burning bitter hatred, what a shame it was that such beauty was going to be wasted.
The green eyes looked around the interior of the car, lighting on Barry for just a moment before moving on without any sign of recognition. He was wearing a black T-shirt with WHO DAT written across the front in gold print and glitter, over drooping jeans rolled up into cuffs at the ankles. There was a strange tattoo on his left inner forearm, and he slid into an aisle seat several rows in front of Barry.
Deep breaths, Barry, he reminded himself as his heart pounded in his ears and his stomach churned up burning acid, stay calm. It might not be him, he thought over and over again as he worked his iPhone out of his pants pocket. Olivia Newton-John had given way to Roberta Flack, but he hit the button on the bottom of the phone and pressed the SAFARI icon. The little wheel spun around and around as the streetcar started moving again. A heavy-set black woman slipped down into the seat with him and grunted a hello. He didn’t acknowledge her presence, just kept staring at the screen on his phone, willing it to finish loading before he lost his patience and his temper and threw the fucking thing out the open window.
It finally did load, and he pulled up Google, typing with trembling fingers the name Ricky Livaudais, having to back up to correct typos several times before he finally got it correct and touched the search button.
A list of links came up when the streetcar stopped at Poydras Street, and more people got on board, standing in the aisles since there was no place to sit.
None of them were the Ricky Livaudais he was looking for — the one sitting several rows in front of him on the streetcar.
Roberta Flack was now Carly Simon, and with a sudden jerk the streetcar started moving again.
He’s out, Barry thought as the streetcar r
olled down St. Charles, past Gallier Hall and restaurants, corner groceries with big signs advertising po’boys and Lotto tickets in their windows. He’s out and he’s alive and he’s back in New Orleans. Why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t anyone tell me?
He swallowed, his eyes burning a hole in the back of the head just a few yards away from him. There was a sunburst tattoo on the back of Ricky’s neck, right where it met his shoulders. The bottom rays of the sun disappeared inside of the collar of the T-shirt.
It’s been over eight years, he reminded himself. No one probably even gave me a second thought. The world keeps turning, life keeps moving, and no one remembers anything. Maybe they thought it was better I didn’t know. Maybe they figured Ricky Livaudais could come back here and I’d never know. What were the odds against us winding up on the same streetcar?
The streetcar swung around the statue of General Lee on top of its massive marble column and stopped just outside of Lee Circle. Several people got out of their seats and climbed down out of the streetcar before it started moving again, including the black woman who’d sat next to him and the Goth-looking girl who’d been sitting with Ricky.
Barry realized with a start that he was neither angry nor afraid.
In eight years, he’d never once thought about how he’d react if he came face to face with any of them again. They were in jail, convicted and sent away — and when he’d walked out of the courtroom after their sentencing, he’d put them out of his mind like they’d ceased to exist.
But now, staring at the back of Ricky’s head, he felt — nothing, really, just an odd sort of curiosity.
I’m probably just numb from the shock.
The streetcar came to a stop at Melpomene. The light was red, and Ricky stood, walking to the front of the car. Before he realized what he was doing, Barry got up and went to the back door. The green light was on above it as he stepped down, but he waited until he saw Ricky step down onto the pavement before he pushed it open and got off the streetcar two stops too soon.