by Patti Abbott
Some years earlier, he’d taken a writing class where one of the assignments was to observe a stranger for an entire day. He found himself resorting to this ploy as the trip wore on. It alleviated the need for consulting the guidebooks and he liked the feeling he was at least tangentially attached. If he was careful, choosing someone near his own age, someone who seemed well-prepared for the trip, an attractive stranger, things usually went well. He grew to like the unexpected element in it too, usually seeing things he wouldn’t have found on his own.
In Sevilla, he followed an academic type around the city for hours. The fellow had mapped out all the flea markets and antique stores in the city, and he purchased film memorabilia at several spots. They stopped at a coin exchange, several public gardens, and a few alcazars. They had lunch at a surprisingly good hosteria, separately, of course, but both ordering fish soup and red wine. Once or twice, the man looked at him quizzically, but something always distracted him before he fully remembered seeing Martin earlier. Martin imagined the man might be a film historian and wondered if he’d noticed his resemblance to Belmondo in that brief glance.
In Granada, a young couple led him through the Albacin, an area he’d never have walked in on his own. The couple—Mary and Garth, (he heard them call each other that)—came from Devon (they told a vendor) and he almost started a conversation. They seemed friendly enough. But should they spurn him, he’d have to give them up, spoiling the day. He managed to snap a surreptitious picture of the two.
“Mary and Garth.” he pictured labeling the snapshot in some future album. At three o’clock, the two went off to the Alhambra. He was brought up short at the gate when he didn’t have the required timed ticket. He went back to the hostel and napped. When he awoke, it was dark and he traipsed the streets hoping to run into Mary and Garth or another friendly face. Instead he got into a minor skirmish with a Spanish sailor in a bar. Back home, this sort of thing never, or almost never, happened.
The nights were worse. He could tolerate eating dinner by himself—most of the places he was able to afford had many single diners— but the meal was usually over quickly. Too quickly. Funny how waiters assumed if you were eating alone you wanted a fast meal. The idiots actually pointed out dishes on the menu that could be prepared hastily, jabbing their stubby fingers at pictures of dishes he’d never order—often grabbing the menu away before he’d even read it, insisting he place an order when they brought his drink. Sometimes he ordered the meal course by course, holding onto the table as long as possible. Martin never brought a book along, thinking it would make him appear even more pitiful.
Afterwards, he drank in the little bars near his hostel for hours, nursing whatever beer or wine he could afford. If the place was cheap enough or if he was tired, he often got quite drunk, stumbling home only at closing time. These nights of too much drinking produced little blips in his memory. Once he awoke to find himself in bed with another boy. Both had clothes on, but it was still upsetting and he sneaked away, wondering if he should find a clinic and have himself tested. Waking up to find a masculine face on the pillow had been like looking into a mirror. He had beat back a desire to kiss the full lips, and then a desire to hold a pillow over the placid face.
Finished with Spain, he took the train to Italy where the prices shot up immediately. Now and then, when it seemed reasonably safe, he ducked out of a restaurant without paying his bill or lifted small items from shops—nothing too expensive, just toothpaste or razor blades or a bottle of wine. On a train between Rome and Florence, he heisted an unattended backpack as he departed the train. Inside he found fifty euros in a change purse and a number of useful items. He didn’t enjoy taking things and had only done when pressed. But he was good at it for some reason. It was probably his demeanor or perhaps his face, which looked untroubled no matter how his heart raced.
In Venice, he had a brief romance. A blonde picked him up on a water bus by dropping a bag on his foot. As he picked it up, she began to speak, not even pretending the dropped bag was an accident. Her name was Magdalena, she told him, and she was Swedish. She was taking a language course in Bologna and wandering around Italy on the long weekends. She wasn’t exactly pretty— her nose was too long, her mouth too small and she bore the remnants of acne—but she had booked a nice room in a two-star hotel in the Dorsoduro district. The room looked out onto a four-star restaurant below.
It’s like watching a play, she told him the first night, half-hanging out the window to better listen to the chatter. Looking over her shoulder, he noticed the expensive clothing of the patrons, the carelessly tossed purses, the unattended cash register by the door.
For three days, they took in the sites of Venice, finding romantic spots to have dinner, listening to free music in an assortment of churches, getting lost at least a dozen times. Magdalena found his inability to navigate a single square amusing.
So droll, she said laughing. When she complained about the noise from the restaurant on the third night, Martin, more than a little drunk, filled the wastebasket in the bathroom with cold water and dumped it out the window before she could stop him. The owner came tramping up the steps and after shouting at them, in Italian, of course, tossed them out. Martin flagged down a water taxi and took off while Magdalena was arguing over the bill. Three days of nonstop conversation was enough and, as it turned out, she wasn’t really very good in bed.
In Dubrovnik the next week, he got directions from a Greek student at his hostel to a little spot called Buza. The Greek had been there the night before to watch the sun set over the Adriatic.
Easy place to pick up women, he promised Martin, fingering his money belt. You don’t even have to buy them a meal because they only serve drinks.
Climbing the Spanish steps later, Martin turned left at the Jesuit Church and crossed the square diagonally, nearly tripping over one, and then another, of the marmalade cats drowsing on the cool stones. Where next, he wondered? The street was deserted. Shuttered windows looked blankly down on him. He was headed toward the sea when he spotted a handmade sign announcing cold drinks. Buza. It meant Hole in the Wall, the Greek had said. It cascades down the hill in a series of terraces. And so it did. He felt slightly vertiginous as he stood in the doorway, or rather the hole in the wall.
The bar was crowded but he regained his footing and quickly spotted a dark-haired woman with very red lips sitting next to a Japanese fellow on the second level terrace. He chose a table on the level below them, nursed a watery local beer, and eavesdropped. They spoke in English, but a bit haltingly, as if it were a second language. The Japanese fellow disappeared after a bit but the woman remained behind. At dusk, he felt something strike his head. When he glanced up, she motioned to the vacated chair next to her. They shared a bottle of red wine—Plavac, she told him—and the sunset. She didn’t talk much though her English was fine when she did. Another hour passed, along with another bottle of wine. Her suggestion that he come see her “very nice room at the Imperial Hotel” seemed like a good one. She paid for the bill as if that question had been settled earlier.
They stumbled along the slick streets amidst a light rain. That much, he later recalled perfectly. Once or twice, she grabbed his hand, brushing it against her thigh or her breast. She wore a gingery scent he’d never smelled before and her breath was hot on his neck. When the limb of a tree brushed across his face, he screamed. She muffled her laugh with the back of her hand.
He awoke the next morning to find the woman dead, her throat slashed ear to ear. The blood had already soaked the linen, the mattress cover, and the mattress itself. It had run down her left arm and onto the carpet, a very good Bergamo rug that was ruined. He could smell the blood and wondered why the cloying odor hadn’t awakened him.
Her naked body wasn’t as perfect as it had seemed the night before. There was slackness in her breasts and abdomen. Her pubic hair was scant, making her seem old or ill. And her lips were, quite naturally, drained of that vivid red that first attracted him. The s
ilvery lines etching her belly made him think she probably had a child once.
He couldn’t say whether they had made love or not. He didn’t know whether she had called for room service or if they had watched Sky News on the flat screen TV on the wall. It seemed probable they’d drunk more wine, but from the empty feeling in his stomach, unlikely they’d eaten more than the small dish of almonds at Buza. He didn’t know the nationality of the woman or why she was in Croatia. He couldn’t remember the clerk at the front desk downstairs or whether the elevator was self-service. These would all have been useful things to know.
It seemed improbable that he did this thing, yet not impossible. Two empty wine bottles sat on the windowsill. Had they drunk them too? Once or twice before, he had drunk too much alcohol and done some not very nice things. Lately, small pieces of days had gone missing, and he slept either too deeply or not at all; he doubted that he dreamed. He didn’t know what weapon he could have used to do this though. His pocketknife was back in the States. There was nothing in the room to slash a throat. Even her razor was electric.
Perhaps she killed herself, but where was the weapon? Or maybe the Japanese fellow had a key to her room. Certainly they seemed familiar with each other the night before. Had she let someone into the room after he passed out? Had someone followed them home and broken in while they slept? But perhaps he had done this. He might have thrown the knife or letter opener or scissors out the window. He might have tossed the weapon into the soiled sheet bin down the hallway.
After examining himself in the mirror, he left by the service entrance and took the #6 bus back to his hostel. He removed all of his clothing, finding no trace of blood but discarding them anyway. Forensic science, being what it was, they might have methods to find blood invisible to the naked eye. He let hot water and strong soap wash over him until he felt purged.
Later, a new Polish guy in the room vacated by the Greek asked him if he wanted to go to a party that night at the university and he agreed, wondering if at last he was acquiring some appeal. He didn’t drink more than a beer or two at the party—American imports this time—and steered clear of women. He took a bus to Sarajevo the next day—Dubrovnik having been spoiled for him.
ESCAPES
I hadn’t seen Daddy in more than ten years, but I knew who it was before he started up our walk. His dark hair was pushed behind his ears, and he shuffled, like those stiff new pants might be chafing his thighs.
Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill saw fit to provide him those pants, a blue shirt, and a tan jacket. Nothing like the rock tee shirts and faded jeans I remembered. He looked like my brother, Gordie, might in a few years—long as no one took a knife to Gordie’s left cheek or the ear lobe behind it. And if my brother didn’t get himself inked with a hawk on his forearm or with birds in flight circling his neck.
“Know who I am?” Daddy stuck his shoulder between the door and the frame.
Even if I hadn’t known him, I could easily make out his name printed in a red Sharpie on the inside of his shirt collar. It stood out stiffly from his scrawny neck. Those prison laundries must be fond of starch. My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth, so I stood there mute.
“Louellen, right?”
Despite what I knew about him—and most of it was bad—I felt proud hearing my name on his tongue. I’d missed some things comin’ up without a daddy—even if that daddy had to be Rex Knight. Maybe he’d changed. Got reformed like the brochures in the kiosks at Miami said.
The door slapped shut and Daddy jumped, probably having forgotten the ways of that door in ten years. “Louellen, all grown up!” His eyes traveled up and down. “Sure don’t resemble your mama none. Who came up with that name anyway? Louellen?”
“It’s my grandmas’ names. That’s what Mom told me.” Why didn’t he remember such a thing?
His eyes lit up when I mentioned my mother. “Star, home?” he asked, looking around.
I shook my head.
He sniffed. “Still making that stuffed cabbage?”
It was Brussels sprouts, but he didn’t seem like the kind of man to take contradiction well.
“Well, I got plenty of that cabbage patch menu where I been. Hey, I know that chair,” he said, pointing. “Practically had a rope tied ‘cross it once.”
Gran’s house was empty now, windows boarded up, a shutter or two blowed off. No one was buying houses in northern Indiana. “Died two years ago.”
“Louise died? No shit!”
His voice creaked and I tried to steady my hands.
“She’s in the cemetery back of the Assembly of God church.” Gran’s second husband got himself saved and bought them a plot there. Gave us a place to go on holidays. Gordon wanted Mom to scatter her ashes, but she said Gran didn’t like the out-of-doors much except for her porch.
“Remember how she wore those nets so her hair wouldn’t waft around. How d’ya think she’d feel about blowin’ around forever?” Gordie had no answer for that one.
“Mind if I sit down? Must’ve been a five-mile walk from the terminal,” Daddy said.
He lifted up his shoes one at a time and I could see they were covered with dust. I was starting to get worried he meant to stay. Daddy did some things in his time and my mother didn’t forget a one of them.
“Mom’ll be home soon.”
He smoothed his hair back behind his ears and shrugged. “Probably banned my name.”
He got that right, but I didn’t let on. He laughed soundlessly then, his beard shaking stiffly.
“I ‘member you started a fight at someone’s birthday party once.” I felt like slapping my own face for bringin’ it up, but that’s how his showing up like that threw me off stride. Daddy had picked up a yellow-icing cake that day, preparing to heave it, when some bigger guy wrestled him to the ground. I still can see the birds pecking at that cake when we pulled out, tires squealing.
“Who cares about a lousy Betty Crocker cake?” Daddy had said as we sped away.
People have repeated his words on every occasion ever since. It was both an insult and a joke, Mom said.
“That could be a lot of times, hon,” Daddy said now, straightening up in the chair. “Brother home?”
“Bags groceries till six. Don’t want to be running into him. Hotheaded—like you.” Silence.
“Like you were,” I added a second later to be polite. “They call him Trig at school.
“On ‘count of his trigger temper?” Daddy guessed. He sat with his knees wide apart, hands on his knees.
I still couldn’t believe he was just ‘cross the room from me.
Or trigger finger, I thought but didn’t say. Gordon kept a shotgun under his bed. It’d hung over Gran’s fireplace once. I took her porcelain dogs and the summer bonnet that smelled like her. Or used to. It was seeping out now. Her smell, that is.
“I can handle a puny boy like Gordon,” Daddy said—like that was the only consideration. “Another fruity name your mother came up with. Ain’t a drinker, is he?”
I shook my head.
He stood up and walked over to the mantel where a picture of the three of us rested. “How old’s he now?”
“Sixteen.” I paused. “I was eighteen in June.”
Daddy was holding the picture up and I could see it needed dusting.
“I figured. You graduate?” He blew the dust willy-nilly and sneezed.
“Last spring. And I got myself a job now, Daddy. And a car. Mom’s boyfriend, gave me a sweet deal on a Ford Escape.” I figured Daddy might not know about Ford Escapes, not being sure when that model came out.
“That black job outside?”
I nodded again.
Daddy yawned and slammed the photo back down. “Look, maybe you can drive me to the motel out on the highway, Lou. Feeling kinda punk. Don’t guess your mother might let me camp here for the night. Homecoming and all?”
He nodded toward the sofa. I shook my head. Daddy must’ve forgotten Mom hated his guts. Gordon, or my
mother, or both of them together would blow his head clean off if they saw it resting on that flowered pillow. I was the only one with a soft spot for him.
I drove Daddy out to the By and Bye motel on the highway, watched him go into the office and come out a minute later waving a key, watched as he let himself into the room. Then I drove home, wondering why he’d come back here when he must know how most people felt about him. But where else could he go? He’d never been out of Indiana in his whole life, I bet.
It was hard not telling Mom about Daddy being back, but it was also nice— having that secret.
“You never could keep a secret,” Mom once told me. “You’re not the sort.”
This secret felt nice and warm in my belly. Someone needed to give Daddy a chance. Maybe it could be me.
Mom pulled in a few hours later. Her Escape was inky blue, but it looked as black as mine in most lights. Her boyfriend, Brad, sold it to her with only 15,000 miles on it. Now she topped me in mileage ‘cause I could walk down the road to Staples if I wanted.
“How could I not give a good deal to a woman named Star Knight,” Brad had said back then.
Mom had heard a lot of jokes about her name over the years, but she was love-struck then and giggled like she was hearing it for the first time.
She tramped into the house now. “Been cleaning, Louellen?” She yanked the rubber band out of her hair and shook it like a dog. Looked great right away—she had that kind of hair. Her gray eyes fixed on mine after surveying the room.
“Yeah, but I gotta get going now.”
“Didn’t have any guy in here?” She sniffed. “Smells like hair gell.”