Enter, Night

by Michael Rowe

  Don, who was sitting on the floor stroking Fleur’s hair, suddenly looked up. He glared at Jordan. Then he turned to Mack. “Why don’t you just give the place away for free, for fuck’s sake?”

  “What’s your problem?” Mack said mildly. “He don’t got a sleeping bag. We got an extra one. What’s the issue?” Fleur leaned her head back on Don’s chest. She closed her eyes and sighed as though this were a conversation she’d heard before, and it bored her.

  Don said, “How old is this fucking kid?” He pivoted his head and glared at Jordan. “Seriously how old are you?

  “I’m seventeen,” Jordan said. He smiled tentatively. Don’s sudden aggression had momentarily driven away any thoughts of the intrinsic creepiness of sleeping in a dead man’s sleeping bag. “But it’s OK. I have money for the rent. I brought it from home.” He patted his jacket pocket. “Right here.”

  Don said again, “For fuck’s sake. Do we need a kid here? Are we that fucking broke?”

  “Jesus, what’s your problem? He’s fine. In case you haven’t noticed,” Mack said, looking pointedly at Fleur’s swollen belly, “we need some bread right about now.”

  Jordan said, “Hey, if this isn’t going to work out, you guys—I mean, I don’t want to get in the way, you know what I mean?” His voice cracked. He sounded like a kid now, even to himself.

  Fleur giggled and, for the first time, gave Jordan her full attention. She smiled widely. “Relax, man. It’s beautiful. Don, relax, baby. It’s cool. The kid’s all right. Aren’t you, kid?”

  “Yeah, sure. I mean, yes. I’m all right.”

  She laughed. “You’re cute, kid. What was your name again?”

  “Jordan. Jordan Lefebvre.”

  “Nice.”

  Don flushed a deep red. The cords on his neck suddenly stood out in sharp relief. He scowled and looked away while Jordan and Mack shook hands awkwardly.

  “Welcome, man,” Mack said. “Don’t worry about the sleeping bag. We washed it. It’s clean.”

  That afternoon, Jordan had returned to the hotel on Jarvis. He’d packed his rucksack and put his guitar back in its case. He paid the bill, and checked out. He sniffed the sleeves of his flannel shirt, catching a whiff of roach spray. His nose wrinkled in distaste.

  As he set out across downtown towards the apartment, Jordan had allowed himself to believe, for the first time since he’d arrived in the city, that he might have some sort of future here, free of his father’s shadow. The July sunlight had been hot and bright. Jordan felt sweat gathering under his armpits and along the line of his back. He stopped and shrugged off the strap of his guitar, placing it gently on the sidewalk. He took his flannel shirt off and tied it around his waist. Yes, better. Jordan squinted, shielding his eyes with his left hand. He scanned the still-unfamiliar cityscape and assessed the quickest route to his new apartment and the beginning of what he believed was to be his real life.

  He’d found a job washing dishes and occasionally busing tables at a restaurant on King Street that paid him just enough to cover his rent and keep from starving. His roommates, by and large, ignored him, though Fleur and Mack seemed to like him, which made him feel like an adult. Occasionally Fleur brought him a cup of herbal tea when she was making some for herself.

  He sometimes caught her staring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. Once, when she’d been looking, he’d turned to smile at her. She’d smiled back, but it wasn’t the sort of smile she used when Don and Mack were present. It seemed somehow private, somehow inviting, though Jordan would have been at a loss to identify exactly what sort of invitation was being extended.

  On one of those occasions, he’d become aware of Don standing in the doorway. Don looked from Fleur to Jordan, and then back again. His eyes had been cold as two chips of black ice. Jordan had felt a territorial menace coming off Don in waves. Unlike Mack, who was always amiable, even if he seemed perpetually stoned, Don had never relaxed around Jordan. And he watched Fleur the way a wary dog watches a piece of meat—covetously and on guard for challenges to his primacy.

  In the three months that he’d lived with them, Fleur’s belly had grown round and full. Jordan occasionally wondered what it would be like to be born in this apartment, not knowing which of the two men was your father.

  He’d asked Fleur once, when they were alone, if she knew. She smiled at him and pressed her index finger against her lips.

  And then, that afternoon, after three months of silence, he’d called his mother in Lake Hepburn to tell her he was OK. He called from a payphone in the early afternoon when he knew his father was at work. She finally picked up after six or seven rings. When she came on the line, Jordan knew there was something terribly, terribly wrong. Her voice was small, and her words sounded like she was speaking them through a mouthful of meat.

  “I’m fine, Jordan. Are you all right, honey? I’ve been so worried.”

  “Mom, what’s going on? What’s happening?” Jordan squeezed his eyes together against the images that rose in his mind: his mother’s careworn face bruised purple and swollen, her body crisscrossed with belt marks. Broken glass, broken doors, holes in the walls. I should never have left, he thought. I should have tried to take her with me, at the very least. On her end, he heard his mother begin to sob and he damned himself with guilt. I should have known that if I left, he’d start hitting her instead of me.

  “Mom, I’m coming home. Right now. I’ll be there by tomorrow.”

  “Jordie, listen to me. I want you to stay where you are. Don’t come home. I don’t know what he’ll do. He was real mad when you left.”

  “Can you go stay at Aunt Lee’s?”

  “I’ll be all right. Please don’t come back here, at least not now. I’m all right, I promise.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can, Mom. I’m coming home soon. Then, I’m going to kill him.”

  Jordan had walked back to the apartment in the rain. When he arrived, Fleur was sitting at the kitchen table writing in her journal. She raised her head and pushed her long hair out of her eyes. When she saw that he’d been crying, she stood up, her face softening into an expression of concern.

  “Hey baby, what’s the matter?”

  The simple kindness of her question had threatened what little self control Jordan had still been able to exert.

  “Ah. Nothing. Rough day. Lost my job,” he lied. “I don’t think this is for me after all. I should never have left Hepburn.”

  She stood up and reached out her arms. He allowed himself to be enfolded, welcoming the tenderness. Then, Fleur was kissing him and unbuttoning his shirt. He kissed her back, at first with a virgin’s tentativeness and then with an entirely unfamiliar, instinctive aggression. He smelled patchouli and Halo shampoo as he pressed himself against her awkwardly, feeling the rise of her belly wedging them apart.

  “Are you sure we should—”

  Fleur slipped her tongue into this mouth, cutting him off. She ran one hand through his hair, still damp from the rain. She slipped the other down the front of his jeans, taking his cock—which felt harder to Jordan than it had ever been—between her fingers and squeezing it with an exquisite, expert skill. She undid the button and pulled his jeans and his boxer shorts down across his naked hips. He pushed them the rest of the way down till they were tangled at his feet and kicked them away, naked, for the first time, in the presence of a woman. If his nakedness shamed him at all, it was transitory. Jordan had three thoughts simultaneously. The first, that he was going to get laid—seriously and thoroughly laid— for the first time in his life. The second was that the first woman he was ever going to fuck was pregnant with another man’s child. The third, that he didn’t give a good god damn because he was going to get laid— seriously and thoroughly laid—for the first time in his life.

  A fourth thought—that this was as dangerous as anything he’d ever done in his life, knowing that Don could come home at any moment— came and went in another wave of lust.

  When Fleur shr
ugged off the bathrobe she wore, Jordan saw she was completely nude. Her belly arched gently outwards from a body that was more slender than he would have expected, freed of the smocks and baggy shirts she’d worn during the time he lived there. Jordan marvelled at the pale curves of her body, the swollen breasts and the soft delta between her legs, almost hidden by the press of her belly. When she knelt down and took his cock in her mouth, he thrilled at the unfamiliar sensation of her mouth and tongue on a part of his body that only he had ever touched.

  She’s beautiful, Jordan thought, surprised. He realized that he had expected her body to look grotesque and distended in its fecund state, but he’d never seen anything as desirable in all of his seventeen years. He put his hands on her upper arms and awkwardly raised her to her feet, leaning forward to kiss her. The feeling of his cock against her flesh made him light headed. He reached out tentatively and touched her breasts. She moaned softly in response and arched her back, offering herself further. Her nipples were moist with fluid lactate that tasted sweet against his tongue.

  He allowed himself to be led to the bedroom she shared with Mack and Don. Fleur lay down on the bed. Jordan spread her legs with his knees and pressed himself between her legs.

  “No,” she whispered, as he started to grind. “Slow down. Not like that.” She climbed on top of him and gently lowered herself on him. Jordan gasped as he slipped inside her. “Like this. Slow. Yes, slow down. Good. Yeah.”

  “I love you,” he blurted out, realizing, even as he said it, how ridiculous he sounded. But at that moment, he was telling the truth. He loved her. He’d never loved anyone so much in his life. He laid his hands over her belly.

  “Hush,” Fleur said. “Don’t talk. Just fuck me.”

  “This is my first—I mean, I never—” Jordan wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to her or warning her, but it was suddenly very important that she know he was a virgin.

  Fleur whispered in his ear, “Oh baby, I know. That’s all right.” She put her hands on his ass and guided him into her. “Like this. Now, just go with it.”

  When he came, Jordan cried out, a sound from deep in the back of his throat, one that sounded foreign even to him. He felt himself dissolving, as though everything from his waist down had become insubstantial. He shouted again, this time as his body shook with erotic aftershock.

  He was drenched in sweat. Rivulets of it ran from his hair into his eyes, making them sting. He was suddenly terribly thirsty.

  “I need a glass of water,” he said, inclining his head towards Fleur. “Do you want one?”

  “Yeah, please.” Her voice sounded very small. She gathered the sheets and blanket around her body and rolled away from him, staring at the wall.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. You’d better get dressed. Don will be coming home soon.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Jordan looked at her again. “Are you sure you’re OK? You don’t sound it. I mean, you wanted to, right?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to. Hurry up, now. Get our water, and get dressed.”

  Jordan was halfway back across the kitchen floor with two glasses of water, still naked, when he heard the sound of a key in the lock. He looked back over his shoulder into the bedroom. Fleur was sitting upright on the bed, her mouth a perfect oval of terror.

  The door swung open and Don stepped across the threshold. Jordan smelled the whiskey even before Don looked up and saw him standing there, frozen in place. Don took in Jordan’s nakedness, the two glasses of water, and Fleur on the bed with the covers gathered around her.

  “What the fuck? You whore! And with this fucking kid?” He whirled to face Jordan. “You little piece of shit, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  Don drew his arm back and slapped Jordan across the face. Jordan’s vision went white, and the two glasses of water shattered on the floor. When Jordan stumbled backwards, pain singing through his head, Don punched him, knocking him to the floor. Jordan felt the broken glass cut into his palms as he tried to stand. Don clenched his fists and turned, stumbling, towards the bedroom.

  Fleur screamed. “Don, it didn’t mean anything! Don’t hit me! The baby! Don’t hurt the baby!”

  Don leaned down so his face was inches from Fleur’s. “Who’s fucking baby is it, you whore? Is it mine? Is it even Mack’s? How many other guys have you been fucking while we’ve been out busting our asses trying to keep a roof over your head? You slut!”

  Jordan stood up. His nose was bleeding and his left eye and bottom lip were swelling shut. “Leave her alone,” he said thickly. “Get away from her, you asshole.” Don turned towards Jordan, his face contorted with rage. A line of snot ran from Don’s left nostril. Jordan was again assailed by the familiar smack of sour whiskey on his breath.

  “What did you say, you little—”

  Jordan hit Don as hard as he could with his closed fist. It was a perfect punch, an instinctive punch, the sort of punch he’d seen his father throw back home. It took them both by surprise. Don fell backwards and crashed into the bedroom closet. To Jordan, the splintering sound of the cheap plywood slats as they snapped beneath Don’s weight was deeply satisfying. He grabbed Don by the hair and pulled him to his feet. Then he hit him again, and again.

  He hit him the way he’d always wanted to hit his father—not only for what he’d done to Jordan, but for what he’d done to Jordan’s mother.

  He beat Don until his face was a pulpy mash of red, and until he thought he felt the bones of his face about to yield.

  Fleur screamed. “Oh my God, Don! Don!” She took a step towards Don, still clutching the sheets against her body. “Jesus, baby! Are you all right? Jesus!” She reached for him. He slapped her hand away.

  “Don’t fucking touch me.” He got to his feet and wiped the blood from his mouth. He pointed a finger at her. “I’m going for a walk. If this fucking kid isn’t gone when I get back, I will be. You and Mack can raise the baby on your own, whoever’s baby it is. And you,” he said, turning to Jordan, “go back to whatever shithole you came from. You don’t belong here.”

  Jordan heard the front door shut and the sound of Don’s feet on the stairs, then the fainter slam of the door to the street.

  “You need to get out of here,” Fleur said, staring past him to the door. Her face was ashen and there was an edge of hysteria in her voice. “He can’t leave me. He just can’t. You have to go.”

  “Go? Where?” Jordan screamed. “Where am I supposed to go?”

  Fleur was moaning now. “It’s his baby. I need him. You have to leave. Get dressed, for God’s sake, and get out of here.”

  “I thought you said it was everybody’s baby?” He reached for his jeans and pulled them on. “He’s going to hit you again, you know. You and this kid you’re about to have.”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry. Look, it was a mistake. It was nice, you’re a great guy, but . . . look, get dressed. You have to leave. He’ll be back in half an hour, I know him. If you’re here, he’ll leave me and the baby.”

  “What about Mack?”

  “What about Mack? It’s not his baby. He won’t be able to help me take care of it!”

  “What, you fuck me, then when I save you from that asshole, you throw me out? That was my first time, you crazy bitch! Jesus. Where am I supposed to go? I don’t know anyone else in this shitty fucking city. I don’t have any money, and I don’t have anyplace to go! What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know, go back home. Go back to your hometown. You said yourself it wasn’t working out here for you here. You said you lost your job, right? You can go back to that town you’re from. What’s it called? Lake Huron? You can go there, can’t you?”

  “I can’t even afford a bus ticket home,” Jordan said dully.

  Fleur spoke quickly. “There’s a hundred dollars in the bottom drawer.” She gestured frantically towards the dresser. “It’s inside the peanuts can, under my clothes. Go look. It’s under those sweaters.”

  It took Jordan
less than fifteen minutes to pack what little he’d brought to the city, and since he’d accomplished nothing, been nowhere, and done nothing, he had nothing to take back with him except what he’d brought. When Fleur left the room, Jordan lifted a half-full bottle of rye from the nightstand beside the bed that he hoped was Don’s and quickly tucked it into his bag.

  In the bathroom, he gingerly washed his face with cold water. He winced, marvelling at how quickly the wounds from Don’s fists had bloomed under his cheek and beneath his eye. The blood had stopped, but he looked rough as hell. There was a bottle of prescription painkillers on the upper shelf in the medicine cabinet. The prescription was made out to “Benson, Don,” he noted with grim pleasure as he put the bottle in his knapsack. Jordan would need it later, he was sure. His nose probably wasn’t broken, but Don had hit him pretty hard. It was starting to hurt like hell. He hoped Don felt worse than he did and that he’d go looking for these pills as soon as he came home from his round-the-block sulk.

  Piece of shit, Jordan thought. These people are crazy. Especially Fleur. Crazy bitch. They’re all crazy bitches. They marry men that hurt them and kick the ones who don’t hurt them out the door. And when the kid is born, he’ll be next. Just like I was.

  He heard her knocking on the bathroom door as he turned off the faucet and dried his face on the dirty towel hanging over the bathroom curtain.

  “Are you OK in there? Come on, Jordan, you’ve got to leave. He’ll be home any minute.” She was dressed in her smock again, and it looked like she’d run a comb through her hair. Her eyes were puffy from crying, but she was visibly calmer, more like the flower power “it’s all beautiful” freak chick he’d met three months ago.

  “One question,” he said in the doorway. “Why? Why me? Why now?”

  She shrugged. “I liked you. You’re cute. Don and Mack, you know . . . Well, we’re all going to be together once the baby is born, and I thought—”

  He cut her off. “He’s going to hurt you. And he’ll hurt the baby. He’s not going to stop.”