by Matthew Crow
I looked to the floor. Eve fell silent. I opened my mouth but could not bring myself to respond. Her hand stretched beneath my chin and lifted my face up, up towards the lights, towards her smile.
“That was magic, my dear,” she said with a nod. Then, turning to Eve, “Darling, we’ve dug us a diamond!”
After that it was easy. Being watched alters you for the better, in this instance at least. If anything the glinting eyes act as guidance, the sounds direct you into places you didn’t think you could go. I move to their noises like a lover and I like it Jonah, I like it a lot. If anything I resent the choreography, the allocated timeslot. My saddest moments become those when the track dips and my time is over and I am left to glide my way to the back of the stage, oiled dollars slipping between garter and thigh as the hollers mount and die behind me.
Miss Jemima spends most of the evening backstage preparing us girls and offering her own applause as we finish our sets. “Perfect, darling, just perfect,” she swoons, kissing us again as glittered girls brush past to meet their hungry audience. “You’re a master already, must be in your blood.”
“That and bourbon, Jemima darling” I say, stepping out of my stilettos and wrapping a gown around my frame.
She laughs and goes to check on the development of Chastity, whose bruise requires a more elaborate blusher than Miss Jemima would usually allow.
The rumour mill, which seemed to propel The Iguana Den, must have caught Prudence in its mechanisms, as on my seventh day of employment she disappeared and was never seen again. My initial inquiries as to her whereabouts were met first with shifty indifference, though before long were stopped short with an urgency which I grew to realise stemmed from fear. I managed to console myself with the fact that her departure must have been the result of the same dirt road which led such a sweet girl into a life of glitter and oils for the paying pleasure of those who truly know better. Such roads rarely alter their course, I was told. And with that the discussion ended.
“I don’t get how she could just disappear,” I said to Miss Jemima one evening as she pulled my corset strings tighter and tighter, my breath stolen with each passing inch.
“Best you don’t, darling. The world moves in mysterious ways. Ours more than most. Now don’t you be troubling yourself, let me do the worrying – those boys want to see a lot of things out there, but concern isn’t one of them.”
So this is how I became Miss Jemima’s star attraction. Before long there were more elaborate routines. Longer set pieces when I begged for extra time. Eve and I were occasionally brought onto stage as a double act. Two halves of a whole, slipping in and out of one another like Russian dolls. This gets the boys the most excited. It also proves the biggest challenge when it comes to Eve keeping a straight face. For all her talent beneath the spotlight on many an evening she would be scolded by Miss Jemima for her blooming smirk or her shaking shoulders as she ineffectively concealed a fit of giggles. I felt the same, though new girl nerves kept all traces of amusement hidden beneath an iciness, which I allowed to soften as I became more accomplished.
The first night Eve danced alone I was sat at the bar watching. A bottle of champagne and a crystal flute appeared and a shadow grew over and around me. “Hello,” I said as Kingpin stepped to the seat in front of me.
“A welcome gift,” he said, in a voice as deep and rich as the scent that seeped from his suit.
“Thank you kindly,” I said, pouring myself a glass. “Won’t you join me for a drink?”
He looked to the bottle. “I have business needs taking care of. Just wanted to welcome you to the club. I have an interest in all that goes on here.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I like to meet the new arrivals one on one. Instinct’s a valuable tool in my industry. Some of the girls, they traipse in trouble like dog shit and it’s up to me to clean it up. You won’t cause me such anguish, I can only hope.”
“Not if I can help it. Why don’t you sit down?”
“I’m a busy man.”
“Powerful too, or so I’m told.”
He smiles and straightens his back and seems to grow an extra inch. Across the bar, Peter leant against his carer for the night, a crutch held him steady beneath his one arm and carried the weight where his right leg used to be, from which I could only assume that repayment was an ongoing narrative.
“You don’t want to believe everything you hear. Some things though, some things are worth bearing in mind.”
“Well,” I say eventually, my mouth damp and my nerves whetted by the first flute of champagne. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
He took my hand and kissed it once. “And you,” he said. And with that he was gone. All that remained was the chill that clung to my skin like old bathwater for the remainder of the evening.
And so this became my life. Days at the coffee shop, nights at The Iguana Den. Nothing but passing strangers that had disappeared before I so much as caught a second glance. Eve quickly became my only constant, as well as you, of course. That said, with all the sudden activity I allowed my letters to become more vague and varied, through shame, and also through sheer exhaustion. I don’t remember sleep featuring too heavily in the months that led me to this grim motel existence. For my deceit and carelessness all I can do is apologise.
And, now, to beg. I fear for you almost as much as I fear for myself Jonah. More, perhaps. Were something dreadful to happen to me - for the horrors of the past few weeks to reach their gory conclusion - I would be as upset as one could be about their own death. Were I forced to live a life without you... well, I’m not entirely sure I could cope. The argument could go, I suppose, that due to the nature of our relationship whether you’re outside or inside those barred walls makes little difference. And at first this may have been true (if anything, and this is a longstanding secret which I hope you won’t judge me on, I somewhat relished knowing what a vital force I was in your existence during those formative months of our exchanges. That I was, through circumstance alone, as fundamental to you as you were to me) but now your liberation gives me as much joy as the words you send me. That you have become more yourself over the past few months pleases me in ways I can’t put into words, and so shall spare you any such attempts.
When I first wrote to you I had taken so many sharp turns in my life that I was as lost as a person can be. Every relationship seemed to turn to dust, each new town, each minor job seemed to blend into the same beige stretch as the one before until all I could do was sit and cry.
So I packed up. I took a ride out and I rented the most inconspicuous space I could find in the form of the trailer I came to hold so dear. On the way I stopped at a gas station to fill up. Inside I bought a packet of cigarettes, a bumper packet of aspirin, and a quart of vodka as well as the local rag as to not arouse suspicion (my theory being that only a person very much intent on living would seek knowledge of the day’s events... though in hindsight how long their vim would last on processing said events is anyone’s guess).
I am not telling you this to garner sympathy, nor to massage your ego. It is simply the truth. Even at the time I felt it no great tragedy. I’d had my fun with life, you see, enjoyed it in my own small way. I had left no worthy mark, experienced neither searing bliss nor crushing agony. I was prepared to discard it the way a child might a toy it has outgrown; with minimal fuss, simply moving on to whatever came next.
And so with my ammunition and a few dollars, I happened upon my trailer, which I moved into within the hour. I sat neatly, fussing over cushions and polishing scuffs in the tabletops until they gleamed. Then, feeling frugal, I decided to at least get my money’s worth from the last newspaper along with a cool glass of vodka before embarking upon my final binge.
So I opened the paper and sipped at the petrol fumes of the cheap vodka. A small child had been reacquainted with his dog after two years of pining. A car dealership was entering receivership and two warehouses had been burnt to the ground in the run up, le
ading policemen to suspect foul play. Two robberies, three births and the death of an old athlete who hadn’t made that much of an impression whilst in his prime were tacked together in the central section amidst notices for flower arranging courses and pets for sale.
And then there was you.
Or, to be precise, the advert for the pen-pal scheme.
So I started writing. I wrote and I wrote until I’d exhausted each scrap of paper I could find in my purse. My pen ran dry. Do you remember how messy my writing was towards the end? How my final paragraph was on the waxed innards of a candy wrapper? This is why. It was all I had. I walked to the front desk and asked them to post my letter and, returning home, drained the vodka and awoke nearly twenty-four hours later.
I still have the aspirin, incidentally, they’re collected with the rest of you.
So this is it, Jonah. I still can’t tell you why I wrote. Perhaps subconsciously I had hoped that in the inevitable interim between posting and receiving any sort of response I might re-evaluate my flippancy towards my own mortality. Perhaps you simply caught me at my weakest. Perhaps I just wanted to speak with someone whose life had been lived, wrongly yes, but undoubtedly on their own terms. I doubt it though. All I can say is that for some reason I wrote, and for some reason you answered. You, Jonah, only you. And since then everything seems to make perfect sense.
Please don’t meet those men, Jonah. For me.
Back at the cafe Ida was far from blind to my now constant lethargy.
“Girl, you’re burning that candle at every end and then some. You aint no whippersnapper no more, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“I’m doing just fine. Tired is all.”
“Hmmm... ”
The situation was little helped by Eve’s presence. “Say, Ida, you got yourself a gentleman friend at present?”
“No, miss. I have not. I am married to the Lord and find it taxing enough,” she’d say, burying herself deep in tasks which required minimum effort at the best of times.
“Must get awfully lonely at nights though, what with the many wives the Lord has to tend to,” Eve would persist, pouring avalanches of sugar into the coffee I’d sneak her for free.
“I can bear a lot in this life young miss, but blasphemy is where I draw the line,” Ida would say, growing redder and redder.
“Oh Ida I didn’t mean to cause offense, to you or the good Lord. I was just thinking out loud.”
“Loud’s right. Thinking I’m not so sure of.”
Eve would desist momentarily as she wiped her grin with a napkin, “Ida, what does the Lord think of dancing girls?”
At this Ida would mutter a testament passage and remove herself to scrape the fryers or count change, jobs she usually resented with all of her heart yet seemed to favour over Eve’s flippant manner.
“She loves it though!” Eve would protest on the days I became uncomfortable with Ida’s growing unease. “Bet it’s the most fun she’s had in years.”
“It’s her way and that’s that. Just because it’s different to you doesn’t make it wrong. Just let her be. Show the lady some respect, she was here before either of us.”
“Poor bastard,” Eve said, swivelling on her seat to steal a glimpse at the sparse clientele. “Before us, this town was nothing but dust and shadows. We make it what it is, Verity, and high time we got some credit if you ask me.”
It was on the hottest day of the year that I saw J for the second time. It had been the quietest, too. Even after lunch Ida had cashed up barely a hundred dollars, and most of that was in tips.
“Well I’ll be, you’re as easy to pin down as the blue rose,” he said as I made my way to the patch of counter he had claimed as his own.
“Good to see you again. And dapper as always. Why on earth aren’t you betrothed to a smart city girl I’ll never know.”
J tipped his hat and glanced at the menu. “Don’t like pie,” he said eventually. “I could never devote myself to a girl who ate less than I did. I’ll take the bilberry and a coffee if it’s not too much to ask.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
We chatted aimlessly for a while, filling in the silences more than anything else. I pushed myself further and further towards the counter, pressing towards him - so desperate to touch - like a schoolgirl inching closer to the television set as her pinup strums his guitar. I wanted to know him inside out, I wanted him for myself. Part of this was his mystery, and what a mystery, Jonah! J gave himself away in scraps, in torn pages with missing dialogue. Even minus any ulterior motives I suspect this has always been his manner.
“I still don’t get what you’re doing about here, save making the most of our delicious facilities. This town aint exactly a thriving hotbed as I’m sure you’ve deduced.”
He wipes a thin stream of fruit syrup from the corner of his mouth and pushes his plate away from him, informing me that my services are required. I take the plate and leave it on the counter beneath me. The washing can wait. I am audience and performance all at once, and I plan on making every second count. “Something was taken from me. Something real special.”
“That’s established,” I say.
He pauses and checks his inner pocket for an item I cannot quite make out. He looks around and notices that the cafe is all but empty save the two of us. “My Daddy was a rich man. Only he got himself into some, shall we say, difficult situations. Situations that started with his heart and ended with his wallet.”
“Some mean old girl stole from your Daddy?” I asked, feigning concern. In my fantasy he was immune to matters as lowly as money or status. We were to be free and liberal, sustained by only nature and one another. I felt part of my dream evaporate as he went on, though not enough to break my infatuation entirely.
“You could say that. Whatever the case I intend to get back what’s mine.”
“And you think that girl’s here?” I ask, topping up his coffee whether he wants it or not.
“I followed a smell, led me right to this town.”
“How intriguing.”
After that his visits became more frequent. I’d spend half the time I should have spent sleeping readying myself for the shift at the coffee shop, determined to look my best and disguise any traces of fatigue caused by my questionable moonlighting. J seemed to have a sixth sense as to when we might be alone, and before long these interludes became the highlight of my days.
“Sunny side up, sugar?”
“You know me. God damn it Valerie,” he says after a long and pregnant pause. “I just want what’s mine. I got a family to feed,” one tear shrivels back into the reptilian slit where his eye should be. I tilt my head understandingly. “There was a time we could have ordered this whole damn state for breakfast and still had change for lunch.”
“It’s a funny waltz the Lord has us dancing,” I say as I pass a cloth over the crystallised sugar on the Formica at which he sits. “And that’s a lesson you only get to learn the hard way. The only thing you can know in this life is yourself. And even that’s on shaky ground.”
He smiles and it nearly kills him.
Unknown to me this is no longer an amiable encounter. There is darkness beneath those wet waffles and dry eggs. And in hindsight that really was a gun in his pocket. He was never that pleased to see me. One bullet has a name etched into its chrome base. But which one?
“... and she hit the ground running the second the cheque cleared. It’s enough to make a man sick... ” Every day the same conversation. Always different. But always the same. “ ... it’s not about the money. It’s my pride that’s hurt. I was raised a man of principle and I intend to die that way too... ”
Even at this stage in our relationship I have to stop myself from laughing.
“You know,” he says one afternoon, for reasons known only to him. “I remember when we were kids, and he’d take us out to the park, we were happy then. He was a real good Dad. Real good. But when he sold the company, that’s when he changed. When he start
ed taking in those cheap girls like dogs without collars... ”
This is a lie. He does not remember this. For whilst it may well have happened these are not the things you remember. These are photographs taken, around which you build a story. Edit. Redraft. Tint. These events drop from your memory like pennies in a handful of notes. The things you remember are those that change you, the encounters that leave scars. The man in Chicago who said I love you only when you had your back to him. The husband who went out for milk and cigarettes six years ago. The smell of your father’s cologne still clinging to your skin as the police car pulls onto the drive. These are the things that make you; that you remember and that are true. The rest is just fiction, or some variation of.
“Tell me something, Veronica,” he says one lazy day over a scant feast of dry toast and black coffee. A jukebox changes its track. I lean back on the cash register and flex the arches of my feet. “How come you always answer to a different name?”
“What’s that, honey?” I say, picking an imaginary ball of fluff from my apron.
“I must have been coming to this diner every day for two weeks now and you never once corrected me when I got your name wrong. I do it on purpose now, see if I can’t catch you out.”
“Because between eleven and four I’m whatever you want me to be, so long as it’s upright and behind this counter.”
He laughs to himself, standing up. “God damn Verity, you can’t know anyone in this life can you?”
“Amen to that, honey,” I say with a smile. A careful smile. Not too certain. Not too sad. A perfect smile. A novel of a smile.
“So,” he says, now heading to the exit. “That’s my story, what about yours?”
I do everything in my power to stop myself from blushing. “What’s that?”
“You know all about me.”
“I know what you tell me.”
“Clever girl. How about we go out one night, under less... commercial circumstances? We can get to know one another properly.”