by Bobby Byrd
“Hey, get me a little plate, okay, like a coffee plate, you know, like for under a cup of coffee.”
He ran back to the kitchen, pulled a saucer out of the dishwasher, ran back to the dining room.
She opened her hand. The little plastic baggie was stuck to her palm. She peeled it off, struggled with the tiny seal, finally opened it, and carefully poured the two crystals onto the plate.
“Give me the foil.”
He handed her the box.
She reached for her purse, which she had set on the chair next to the one she was sitting in. Pulled out the switchblade.
He jumped back.
She giggled. “Hey, man, don’t worry. I’m just gonna break this shit up, man. What’d you think? I was gonna slice you up, man? C’mon, man. You’re silly, silly, real silly.” She stared at him, pressed the button, and the blade switched open. She broke one of the crystals in two—clink.
“Fuck the foil,” she said, and went back into her purse for her pack of cigarettes. She pushed the little piece of crystal that looked like rock salt into the tip of the cigarette. Lit up. Her eyes rolled back into her head. They were solid white for a while, almost pearlescent, almost beautiful.
“Take a hit,” she said. “Let me load it for you. Here. Look …”
“No, not really. Don’t do that. Thanks. You do it all.”
She pressed hard on the second piece to break it up into smaller bits, the blade flat on it this time, and when she did so, a few grains spilled off the plate onto the floor.
“Oh my God! What did I do? How much fell?” She pushed off the table and fell immediately to her hands and knees, touching the ground as if blind. Then she looked up at him suddenly, crazed, and asked, “Is somebody back there? Are the cops back there?”
Damnit, she’s wigging out, he thought. “No, there’s nobody back there. Promise.”
“Let’s go see.”
“Okay.” He took her to the back of the house, past the bathroom. Pulled her into both bedrooms. Showed her the closets. Pulled up the dust ruffle from around each bed. Made her look underneath. “See, no one’s in here. I promise. No one’s in here.”
“What about outside? They’re waiting outside, aren’t they, the police?”
“No,” he said loudly, almost yelling, exasperated. “Come and see for yourself.” He pulled the curtain aside, yanked up the blind. Nothing there. She saw. Just a backyard. Plain backyard. Not even a dog.
Then she looked at him, dazed, stoned, and slurred, “I thought your house was bigger, you know, being a banker and all.”
She turned away from him and started walking, slowly, headed back to the dining room, almost as if she were floating, sat down at the table, but in the chair opposite the one she’d been sitting in.
“So I can look back there,” she said, pointing to the back of the house. “Wanna make sure no one’s back there. You sure no one’s back there?”
He stared at her. Started hating her.
She smoked the rest of the crank. With every hit, her eyes rolled back into her head. Smoked it all except for two crystals still on the saucer.
He started wondering if she’d been casing the house, acting wasted, paranoid, looking for vulnerable places, entries, windows her gun-toting friend could break in through in the middle of the night, kill him. For what? he thought, my TV, my VCR, my computer, my DVD player, my poor, dead mother’s silver? He thought Johnny Boy might even be on his way over already, right now. He trembled, barely, but visibly now, visibly, at least to him—angry, truly afraid for his life. She puffed away.
“Positive,” he said. “You saw yourself. No one’s back there.”
He was now beginning to think that she was going to overdose. She’d smoked so much. It seemed too much. He’d never done it, but he knew what speed could do to a person. He’d seen the movies. Seen the special report on Nightline, “The Meth Crisis.” He imagined her heart pumping faster and faster, harder and harder, then stopping. Just like that. He closed his eyes. Should I call an ambulance? What’ll I do if she ODs? How do I explain it to the police? Jesus, help me, he thought.
“Haven’t you smoked enough of that stuff?”
She looked at him, one eye closed. “What? You pay for this shit?” Then she giggled, remembering that he had. “Just kidding, amigo, just kidding. Sit down with me.” Stoned. Wasted. Gone. Here. Come. “Sit right here, my sweet papaya. Close to me.” She patted her hand on the seat of the chair next to hers, then pulled another cigarette from her purse, pushed the last two pieces of rock into the tip.
He sat down.
She caressed the inside of his thigh, made her way up to his crotch. Smiled sweetly. Lit up.
“Oh, sweet little jewel,” she said.
“Why are you so quiet?” she asked him, coming out of her stupor, as she had done a few times during the ride to get her home, enough to let him know where to take her. Back to the same neighborhood they’d been the night before. He thought about dropping her off at a bus stop, dumping her. It would’ve been easy enough, she seemed so lifeless, wasted. But he couldn’t do it. He’d take her home even if it meant going back to that part of town. He’d take her home. Get rid of her. Anything to get rid of her.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” he answered. No interest in talking with her, angry, really angry now that the sun was out, now that it was light, now that he felt safe.
“Hey, don’t worry. I know lots of guys who can’t get it up sometimes. No big deal. Get some Viagra,” she said to him rather lucidly, giggling. This made him even angrier.
He pulled down the visor—the strong, early morning, South Texas sun blinding him. He could barely see where he was going. Even now, still a little drunk. In shock. Still nervous. Edgy. Knew he wouldn’t be all right until she was out of the truck. Away from him. His life. His home.
She nodded off again.
“Hey, wake up,” he said to her a few blocks later, shaking her rather severely, a little too hard. “You have to tell me where we’re going. Wake up. Don’t fall asleep.”
She opened her eyes slightly, dazed. “Where are we? Oh, yeah, up there. I see. Up there. Take a left on Zarzamora. Just up there. Yeah, right up there. Up there,” she repeated, pointing in no particular direction. “Yeah, one more block. Right here. Turn. Right there. Yeah, just right there on the left. Yeah, drop me off right there. That’s my momma’s house. She’s dead now. Dead. She left it to me. The house, that house, the white one with the red roof. Que pretty, right? Yeah, that one. Right here.”
She leaned over, tried to kiss him. He turned away. She laughed, got out slowly, slammed the door shut.
THE DEAD MAN’S WIFE
BY BOBBY BYRD
El Paso
Alex opened his eyes. The sunlight was creeping from around the heavy motel curtains. He shut his eyes and opened them again. Same thing. He was on the edge of a king-sized bed. He was naked and uncovered. Curled up like a dead baby. He could feel her warmth pushing up against him. He stuck a thumb in his eye and rubbed. Six hours before, the two of them had begun their postorgasm journey on the other side of the bed next to the night table, she asleep in his sweaty arms. But during the night they had migrated eight feet, him inching away from her, her tracking his warmth. A long nighttime journey.
As if, Alex thought, she was stalking me in her sleep.
But he didn’t feel happy with himself. He wasn’t even satisfied, whatever that meant. Maybe Alex considered satisfaction some form of forgiveness. Some form of hope.
He pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees. He cradled his head in his hands like it was a foreign thing—an egg in the wrong nest. Or the bloody head of Danton harvested from the basket behind the guillotine. Poor Danton. Robespierre was such an asshole. These were his strange thoughts. He stood up in the semidarkness and walked the narrow path to the bathroom. He grabbed his black boxer shorts. He didn’t shut the door. He used his left hand to pee. The right hand scratched his chest.<
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Twice during the night he had gotten up to pee, and each time upon his return the woman had pulled him back again in her arms. Alex had drunk a lot of beer. They had gone to sleep around two and now it was seven or eight. So getting up twice to pee wasn’t bad.
There were two plastic liters of water next to the sink. He took one and went to the table and sat down next to the window. The table was round with two uncomfortable chairs. Mexican chairs were always uncomfortable. He peeked around the curtain and looked at the morning. The desert sunlight made him shut his eyes. A few women walked with their children toward a church that must have been hiding behind storefronts—pottery, bathroom fixtures, tile, a bar named Café Soul. The street was filthy with Saturday-night garbage. There was a drunk asleep on the ragged grass in the median. Cars came and went in the freedom that Sunday morning brings. He was the dead man again. He wished he were north of the river. He wished he were home on his front porch drinking coffee.
But he wasn’t. He had come across last night because it was the time of the month to get fucked. It was his ritual. The third Thursday of every month, nine p.m. Six months after his wife died, he started coming across. First, it was every few months. But after a while he made it a monthly ritual. A ceremony of my confusion, he called it. He knew two cab drivers. He was their friend. Or, more aptly, their “business acquaintance.” He had met them through a friend of a friend. He wanted to be safe on the other side. And he had been hearing about the women disappearing. They were raped and killed and dumped in the desert or in vacant lots. No one was ever arrested. Sometimes the police didn’t even find out who the woman was and where she came from. Nobody seemed to care. The victims were forgotten. Alex didn’t want to think about those women. He wanted to come across and conduct his personal ceremony. He wanted to resolve this thing he called confusion in his body. So, thanks to the friend of the friend, he had searched out the two cab drivers. One was named Tony and the other was named Pete, and they were partners. Together they owned a beat-up green cab. A Plymouth four-door. Tony or Pete, one or the other, would be sitting in the No. 107 cab when Alex walked across the bridge. They would smile at each other and shake hands. Alex would get in the front seat and they’d go shopping. Alex was a two-hundred-dollar man, so Tony or Pete would take him to a two-hundred-dollar club and together they would choose a two-hundred-dollar whore and Tony or Pete would negotiate while Alex listened and then Tony or Pete would take Alex and his two-hundred-dollar whore to the Best Western on the Avenida de las Americas. The whole night would cost Alex maybe four hundred dollars. It was in his monthly budget. It was part of his life.
The two-hundred-dollar whore on the bed was Arcia, and she was feeling around in the dark for the man she had stalked in her sleep. She groaned. The man was no longer there. She didn’t understand that the man was dead and that the dead man was sitting on a chair looking at her. She was naked and lying on her belly like she was swimming. She pushed herself high enough up to look around, her eyes blinking. She saw Alex and sighed, then fell facedown into the sheets again. Alex watched her turn over to look at him but he wasn’t thinking about her.
He was thinking about a night ten years before. Maybe it was fifteen years before. He didn’t care which. His wife was still alive, and they were holding hands. They were driving home on the old road between Las Cruces and El Paso. They had been to a dance party. They never went to dance parties. But this had been a special occasion. Some sort of fundraiser with an old-time C&W band. They had promised themselves that they would dance, and they had wandered around the floor with their stiff-legged waltz and clumsy two-step like they were driving bumper cars. The band had a very fat guy yodeling funky old songs. The fat man sat on the stool and sang with a wonderful tenor voice. The flaps under his chin trembled. The whole night the fat man never got up to pee. Alex and his wife loved the fat guy. On the way home they laughed and made up stories about the fat guy who had sung “Danny Boy” like he was Pavarotti. Alex had wanted to cry.
His wife said: “Let’s take the old road. The freeway puts me to sleep.” She usually wanted to get straight home.
“Sure,” Alex said.
It was a beautiful black night with stars flickering. The old road was a two-lane blacktop that followed along the banks of the Rio Grande and swung back and forth through little farming towns. They came to the place where the road enters a huge pecan grove that stretches for miles. It was early summer, so the trees were fully clothed with leaves. The starry sky disappeared and they were driving through a cool and damp cavern. Alex slowed down to forty and rolled down his window. His wife did the same thing. They were quiet.
Halfway through the grove Alex pulled the car over to the gravelly shoulder and drove until he found a dirt road that ducked even deeper into the canopy of trees. He turned into the road. He turned off his headlights, but kept the parking lights on.
She said, “What are you doing?”
“I need to pee,” he said.
“You and the fat guy,” she said.
They laughed together, and he said: “Yeah, me and the fat guy.”
He was quiet for a few seconds while he navigated the darkness. The road was mostly dry, but the groves where the trees stood were wet from irrigation a few days before.
He said: “Besides, it looks like a good place to pee.” Alex was the kind of guy who took pride in pissing outdoors.
“Sure,” she said.
He stopped the car and turned off the lights and the engine. He opened his door and got out and went searching for a good tree to lean against. He found one that seemed perfect to him. In the dark night it had a thick fleshy trunk and a bowl of dark leaves where the pecans and the stars hid themselves. While he listened to the sound of the pee falling into the dirt, he looked around. There was not much to see, just more darkness and the apparitions of rows and rows of pecan trees going about their business growing pecans. He felt like he was in a church. He was zipping back up when he heard her door open and shut.
She said: “Where are you?”
“Right here,” he said.
Both of them were almost whispering. He could hardly see her. Her face and neck and the half-moon of her shoulders were riding above her black dress. They met halfway between the car and the perfect tree. They wrapped their arms around each other.
She asked him: “Was it nice?”
“Very nice.”
She said: “I took my shoes off. The ground is wonderful. Here, let me take off yours.”
And she kneeled down in the mud and pulled off one shoe and sock and then the other shoe and sock. He put his hand on her head for balance. Yes, she was right—the muddy earth felt wonderful to his feet. She stood up and kissed him. He loved the taste of her lipstick. They walked down the corridor between two rows of trees. They held hands, they kissed each other, they stopped, and he felt her breasts. She had already taken off her bra and panties. She must have left them in the car. Standing up against the rough bark of a pecan tree, they made love in the pecan grove.
The drive home was quiet. They each had their own thoughts. As they turned up their street for the last few blocks before home, she reached over and grabbed his hand. She asked him: “When a man has an orgasm, where does that man go? It’s like he’s dead and somebody else takes his place. Sooner or later the dead man reappears, and he says hello to me. I see the dead man, and I’m glad he’s come home.”
That seemed like so long ago, and now Arcia, who was a young girl, probably younger than his very own daughter, was asking him: “¿Prenda las luces?”
“Por supuesto.” And he asked her, “¿Como amaneciste?” His Spanish was formal and clumsy.
“Bien, bien,” she said.
He reached over and flicked on the light on the table. It was a sixty-watt bulb, but it sprayed off enough light so that her nakedness embarrassed her. She reached up and covered her breasts with her small hands. But then she realized that her crotch with its finely trimmed tuft of hair was also un
covered. She sat up with a start and thrashed around for the sheets. She found them and pulled them up to her chin.
Alex smiled at her confusion. She was like a little girl. She was a little girl. He said: “¿Cuantos años tienes?”
“None of tu beezness!” she said.
“¿Veinte? ¿Dieciocho?”
“Bah! None of tu beezness!” She pulled the sheets over her head.
“¿Tienes hijos?”
“No, no, no, no!” She threw a pillow at him and he ducked, laughing.
She was laughing now too. She said: “¡Cierra tus ojos!”
He grinned at his bashful prostitute and pretended to shut his eyes. But he didn’t. He watched her jump out of bed and scurry around picking up articles of clothing and her purse. Her blouse was on a chair, her bra and black skirt were on the floor, her panties and stockings and shoes were under the bed. Everything was black. She had to get down on her hands and knees to look under the bed. Her buttocks bobbed up and down. He had enjoyed Arcia. They had talked for a while afterward. She told him not to ask her if she was in school. She said that all gringos asked her if she was in school. So they talked about her family. About her mother who worked as a maid on the other side. She didn’t know her father. He went away to Gringolandia and he never came back. Then she had gone to sleep. Or maybe it was he who had fallen asleep. He couldn’t remember.
After she had collected her possessions, she disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the bathtub filling up. He heard the toilet flush. He listened to her bathing herself. She was singing a song in Spanish. She was a little girl. She was his two-hundred-dollar whore. He pulled the drawstring on the curtains, and the sunlight poured into the room. He felt old and mean.
Once, after they had made love, this time in their bedroom, his wife had said to him: “I want to see the face of God.” She had a warm washcloth in her hand and she was cleaning their crotches—first his, then hers. Back and forth. Her green eyes were ecstatic.