Babylon and Other Stories

by Alix Ohlin

  “You know what else?”

  “What else, Manny?”

  “My cousin? He's only got one leg.”

  “Poor guy,” Kelly said. “How'd he lose it?”

  Manny looked at her over the catalog. “Motorcycle accident.”

  “Oh.”

  “It's not the whole leg that's gone, it's actually cut off at the knee. The left one.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “Well, it's not the whole leg.”

  When she came back from taking the order of the only occupied table, Manny still hadn't gone back to the catalog.

  “So, that doesn't interest you at all?”

  “What doesn't?”

  “The leg.”

  “What do you mean, interest me?”

  Manny shrugged and studied a page of light fixtures, chrome and colored plastic descending from some invisible ceiling. “He says girls love the leg, that's all.”

  “Great,” said Kelly. “Then he doesn't need me to talk to, does he?”

  Manny's cousin's name was Lone. At first she thought she'd misheard, and that his name was Lorne, like Lorne Green, but no, it was Lone. A nickname, Manny explained, that referred to his one intact leg. He came into the bar around nine-thirty, while Manny was in the back. By now there were a few more customers, including a guy who'd never been in before and who therefore thought the name Edgewater Bar & Grill implied that food was being served. Which it kind of did. But Manny had just added the “& Grill” to the sign a couple of years ago because he thought it sounded better.

  “You can't even make me a sandwich?” the guy said. “Some fries?”

  “I think we have some chips by the register,” Kelly told him. “Do you want regular or barbecue?”

  “If I wanted some goddamn chips I'd go to a goddamn store.”

  “Feel free,” Kelly said.

  “Hey, why don't you just leave her alone,” said a voice behind her.

  Turning around she saw a man walk up close, very close, to the guy's table and jab a finger at his face. He was thick-armed and barrel-chested, definitely a weight lifter, wearing a black Metallica T-shirt. Below, his body turned slim at the hips, and then there were his legs. He was wearing jeans, and the leg that wasn't whole was wearing jeans too, with only a hollowness below the knee, an airy, smooth sort of quality in the fabric, to signal what was missing.

  “You must be Lone.”

  “And you must be Manny,” he said, and smiled. “Just kidding.”

  “What's this, a reunion?” said the guy who wanted food.

  “Shut up,” Lone said.

  “I'm handling this,” Kelly told him.

  “Not very well,” the other guy said.

  “That's enough,” Lone said, turning to hit him, hard, in the face.

  The guy howled, clutched his cheekbone, swore, promised to call the police, swore again, and left. Conversation at the other tables resumed.

  “That really wasn't necessary,” Kelly said, wiping down the table.

  “He was a jerk.”

  “A jerk who hadn't paid yet.”

  “Lone, my man!” Manny shouted, coming out from the back, and they exchanged an elaborate handclasp. Kelly could see a family resemblance: both were stout and thick-chested, although Lone's chest had a lot more definition than Manny's, and both had bushy dark eyebrows and stubble-shadowed chins.

  “Lone, Kelly, Kelly, Lone.”

  “We just met,” Kelly said.

  “Great,” Manny said, clasping his hands together as if he couldn't stand that the handshaking was now over. “Let's sit down. Kelly, could you get Lone a beer?”

  “Sure.”

  When she came back, they were sitting at her old table by the window, looking at the lights of the neighborhood reflected over the water, red from a traffic light punctuating the paler yellows.

  “So, how's Aunt Linda?” said Manny. “Thanks, Kel. Come, sit down and join us.”

  “I don't know. She's okay, I guess.”

  “Yeah? How's Mark?”

  “He's on drugs.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, it's too bad,” said Lone, scratching his neck and looking around the bar. “So, Kelly, tell me about yourself.”

  “Not much to tell, I don't think.”

  “Manny tells me you're, what, studying commerce?”

  “I was. I'm not in school right now, though.”

  Lone shook his head and looked concerned. “Shouldn't quit school, Kelly. You miss a lot of opportunities. For example. I'm looking, maybe, for like a business partner? I'm thinking of opening a bar just like this one right here.”

  “Really,” Kelly said.

  “Yes, really,” he said with exaggerated seriousness. His eyes were dark and small and bright. “I really am. And I'm going to need someone to, you know, keep my books.”

  “I bet you'd like her to keep your books,” said Manny. “Since when are you opening up a bar?”

  “It's an idea I have.”

  “I can't believe it. You never mentioned that till just now.”

  “I appreciate the suggestion,” Kelly said, “but I don't think I want to move to Kitchener.”

  “Smart girl. See, Lone, I told you she had a good head on her shoulders.”

  “Is that what you told him?” Kelly said.

  Marie-Claire said, “Cool.”

  She turned it over in her hands, the foot in one hand, the open, fluted top of the leg in the other. She'd come over as soon as she saw Luz sticking her own foot into the plastic leg, as if it were a boot. Luz had discovered it wasn't hollow all the way down when she looked up and saw Marie-Claire towering over her. That was the thing about Marie-Claire. She might be a stoner but she wasn't out of it. She grabbed the leg right away.

  Luz put her shoe back on. “Is it from a store?”

  “A store?”

  “Like the models that wear the clothes in the windows.”

  “What? Oh, a mannequin? No way, Luz, this is, like, a prosthetic.” She ran her fingers down the leg's shin, gently, as if it were a real leg and might be tender. She touched the foot, which had no individual toes or anything, just one big curve, more shoe than foot. There was a strap at the top of the leg, with a little buckle.

  “What's that?”

  “It's for people that are missing a leg. They can strap this one on.”

  “And walk on it?”

  “I guess so,” Marie-Claire said. “Maybe.” She stood up and rested one knee on top of the plastic leg, then tied the strap around the back of her knee and stretched her arms out, balancing. Her hands flashed in the sun. Marie-Claire wore a lot of rings.

  “How do I look?” she said. Her hair was dyed black and stuck up above her head, and she was wearing three or four necklaces. She looked exotic and strange, like someone whose costume had tribal meanings, a picture on the front of National Geographic.

  “It's backwards,” Luz said. The foot on the plastic leg was sticking out behind Marie-Claire, in a ballerina's pose.

  “Shit.” She undid the leg and bent down to rearrange the strap, her face close to Luz's. She smelled like pot and sunblock. Marie-Claire was beautiful, a fact that seemed to horrify her, and she did everything she could to camouflage the situation. The rings around her eyes were thick and black, as if drawn with a Magic Marker, and her ears were pierced with safety pins. Her clothes were ragged and baggy and everything that wasn't black was olive green. She was regimented, like her own personal army. But whenever she got close Luz could see her smooth, light skin, the freckles on her small, upturned nose, the rosiness on her cheeks, her green eyes and her long eyelashes. All that was there, no matter what Marie-Claire put on top of it.

  Marie-Claire stood up again. The foot was straight now, poking out next to her black running shoe like a faceless animal. She took a step with it and lost her balance right away, hopping around and coming back to face Luz, laughing.

  “I want to try it,” Luz said.

  “It's going to be way
too big,” Marie-Claire said, but she took it off and buckled the strap around Luz's knee. Because she was too short to stand up straight with the leg on, she stuck it out in front of her, at an angle, like a tent pole. When that didn't work she picked up the leg and moved it to the back and started hopping along, dragging the leg behind her as if it were broken. Marie-Claire burst out laughing.

  Luz tilted her head, raised her shoulders, and did a monster voice. “I am your servant, master,” she croaked, dragging a little circle around Marie-Claire. “I will follow your orders.”

  “Oh my God, that's so funny,” said Marie-Claire. She was wheezing. Luz was laughing, too, and they both had tears in their eyes. The mom with the stroller was looking over in their direction.

  “I am your monster,” Luz said. “I will live in your basement.”

  Marie-Claire shrugged. “Too bad, I already live in the basement.”

  “How come?” Luz asked in her regular voice. “Do your parents make you live there because you smoke pot?”

  “Um, kind of. How do you know about pot?”

  “From school,” said Luz, moving away from the water's edge. If she didn't keep hopping she'd lose her balance. “And from my dad. And from you.”

  “God, your dad is such the aging hippie,” Marie-Claire muttered.

  “No he's not, he's a teacher.”

  “Right,” said Marie-Claire, motioning her back. “Come here, you better take that thing off. It's like time to go.” She bent down and undid the buckle.

  “I want to take it home,” Luz said to the top of Marie-Claire's head.

  “And do what?”

  “Keep it. I found it, it's mine.”

  “Okay, whatever. We'll see what your dad says. Let's go. Here, take my hand for when we cross the street.”

  “I'm not a baby, Marie-Claire,” said Luz. She grasped the foot and held the leg out. “You can hold my leg, though.”

  They crossed Lakeshore together, a leg's length between them.

  At eleven-thirty, Manny gave Kelly the rest of the night off.

  “Gee, thanks,” she said.

  “Just don't say I never did anything for you.”

  “You never did anything for me, Manny.”

  “Oh, ouch. Okay, get out of here.”

  She was turning the key in the ignition when Lone came out of the bar, walked over to the car—with a slight but definite limp— and knocked on her window. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “I didn't think you were leaving so soon,” he said, leaning down, his hands on the car.

  “Manny let me go home early.”

  “Oh. Time off for good behavior.” He smiled, then shyly looked down at his legs.

  Kelly looked there, too. “Something like that,” she said.

  “I was wondering if you maybe wanted to go get a drink.”

  “Where? Here?”

  “Oh, that's right. You do work at a bar.” One hand came up and slapped Lone on the forehead, seemingly of its own volition. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and said, “Here. Someplace else. Whatever.”

  Kelly sighed and shifted the car into reverse. “You know, I'm really tired, but thanks anyway.”

  Lone put his hand on the side of the open window, inside the car, a gesture that aggravated her. If she backed away, at what point would he let go?

  “Come on,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why should I? And why do you care? Because Manny told you about me?”

  “If you mean he told me about your vow thing, well, yes,” Lone said forthrightly. “I think it's interesting. I want to know why somebody would do something like that. Therefore I am interested in you. Therefore I am asking you to have a drink with me. Is that a good enough reason?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  He insisted on driving, so they left her car at the Edge. His van was outfitted with equipment that met his special needs. This was what he called it, special needs, in a tone that sounded partly confessional and partly bragging. When he started the van, Metallica flared briefly from the tapedeck, disappearing suddenly when he switched it off.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  Kelly rolled down the window and felt the wind. She could smell the water, salty and close. It was nice, actually, not to be going home right away, to avoid the certainty of her apartment and her bed and a magazine to read until she fell asleep. If she missed anything about dating, she thought, it might be this: a moment of precarious silence in a stranger's car, nighttime air, hands in your lap, waiting for the night to settle into itself. This was the moment before things got defined, before you had to decide what would happen, who you'd be, what you'd do. She took a deep breath and watched the telephone poles flip by.

  “This okay?” Lone said, pulling over.

  They were out by the docks in Ste. Anne's, at a bar that was what Manny wanted the Edgewater to be. Upscale. Nicer decor, fancier people, waitresses in black skirts serving mixed drinks. A terrace was strung with colored lights, and voices rippled in waves of rhythm and laughter. Words stood out in small, quick bursts like names being called.

  “Fine,” she said.

  As they approached the entrance, Lone jumped ahead of her, awkwardly, and opened the door.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He pulled out her chair for her, too. Once they'd settled their drinks, he said, “So why'd you quit school? You know that's no good.”

  “Did you finish school?”

  “No,” he said. “That's how I know.”

  “What do you do, anyway?”

  He looked at her. His skin under the stubble was dotted with small craters. He was wearing an earring, she noticed, a thin, small gold band that looked like it was pinching the bottom of his ear.

  “Not a lot,” he said. “You didn't answer my question.”

  “I don't really know. I couldn't get into it, I guess.”

  “Uh-huh. Was it the same thing with men?”

  “Not really.”

  “You don't talk much, do you?”

  “I just met you,” Kelly said.

  “True enough,” Lone said, then nodded and tipped his drink to his mouth. Ice rattled against his teeth. “That's a fact.” He smiled and looked at her again, just at her face, and it made her blush.

  She remembered this, now. The part of sex that wasn't about touching someone else but about being touched, feeling your own skin warm under a man's eyes and hands, alive to your own body, inside and out of it. She didn't know which was stranger, feeling somebody else's body for the first time or feeling how your own self could change.

  “You look pretty,” he said.

  Kelly rolled her eyes a tiny bit.

  Lone just smiled and shook his head. “Oh, you're a hard one,” he said, and laughed as if this were a quality that he in particular was well positioned to appreciate. “You are.”

  When they got home, Marie-Claire let Luz watch cartoons with a book balanced on her lap so that when her father came home she could pretend to have been reading it. The TV room was dark and cool, and the bright sunlight that filtered occasionally through the curtains seemed incongruous and strange. Luz sat with her legs out in front of her on the couch: her own legs next to her new leg, all three of them pointing at the TV. During the commercial breaks she would look at the plastic one and sometimes put her hand on it, as if to keep it from walking off. Marie-Claire wandered around the house for a while—what was she doing, Luz wondered, was she going through the tin box?—and then came back downstairs and stood in the door of the TV room, pretending she was watching Luz, not the TV, but after a while they were just watching cartoons on the couch together. When Marie-Claire fell asleep, Luz got up on her knees and edged closer to look at her face. It was weird how you could see flecks of her makeup stuck to her skin. Mascara was glopped onto her eyelashes, and there were streaks underneath where it had rubbed off, little eyelash flutters that looked like the marks of a
feather.

  Marie-Claire opened her eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?” she said.

  “Nothing,” Luz said, and scooted back to her side of the couch.

  When Luz's father came home from school he found them silent on the couch, Luz with Nancy Drew #114 and Marie-Claire with a copy of Steal This Book that she must've found upstairs. He put his backpack down in the hallway and came into the room. “Hello, young women,” he said. “And how are we all today? Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I hope.”

  “Fine,” said Marie-Claire. She put the book down on the coffee table. “The day was totally fine.”

  “Great, great,” said Luz's father. “You taking care of my baby, Marie-Claire? Luz, is Marie-Claire taking good care of you?”

  “Yeah,” said Luz.

  “Good,” he said. Then his eyebrows came together sharply in the center of his forehead. “What is that?”

  Luz cradled it protectively. “It's my leg,” she said.

  “Um. Marie-Claire?”

  She shrugged. “We found it by the lake. Luz wanted to bring it home.”

  “It's filthy,” Luz's father said.

  “You liked it too,” Luz pointed out to Marie-Claire.

  “Yeah, I did like it,” she admitted. “Actually, Mr. Howard, I'm thinking, you know, I might want to take it home with me.”

  “No!” said Luz.

  Marie-Claire ignored her and turned to her father, sitting up straighter on the couch. She spoke fast and low, imitation enthusiasm bubbling out from under shyness. “I've been doing this sculpture? I'm trying to work on, like, people? This'll be perfect, because I'm very into humans, and, like, artificial parts, because it's like society, you know?” Her black-rimmed eyes opened wide, then aimed down at the ground before she looked back up at him through her long, mascara-thick eyelashes.

  Luz thought, please. She knew this was all a lie. Marie-Claire didn't have any sculptures.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Luz's father said. “Why don't you take it home.”

  “How come she gets to have it and not me?”

  “Luz,” her father and Marie-Claire said at the same time.

  “Dad,” Luz said, “it's my leg.”

  “Another way of looking at this, Luz, is that I really don't want you to have that thing in the house anyway. It's too, I don't know, it's not a toy. It's not meant to be played with.”