“Get in,” he told the girl, holding the passenger door, and she ducked under his arm and got herself inside double quick.
Once he’d gotten behind the wheel and put the car in gear and eased it past the apartment building—lights on, upstairs and down—Jack glanced over at her. It was a confusion to his eyes to see her there, in the space that was always Chloe’s. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had another woman in his car. “How bad is your arm?”
“It’s no big deal.” She was wearing another of her long, hobbling skirts; she’d pulled it down as far as she could over her drawn-up knees, as if she might indeed be cold. He couldn’t see her injured arm; she had it tucked away inside her denim shirt. When they reached the corner of Clark she said, “You can let me out here.”
“Why here?”
“Because I don’t want to bleed all over your car.”
“If that arm was about to fall off, you’d still say it was no big deal, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s not falling off, okay?” She made a show of being exasperated, of sighing. It made her seem even younger, a kid acting uppity with a parent, but at least she was back to her usual smart-mouth self.
With one hand Jack rummaged behind him and came up with an old towel.“Wrap this around it, apply some pressure.” Because he didn’t want her to jump out of the car, he kept moving, turning south on Clark. “How about I take you to an emergency room.”
“I don’t like hospitals.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It quit bleeding, see? Or it almost quit. If you want to take me anyplace, you can take me home. Turn here.”
She directed him south on Western Avenue, then on toward Hum-boldt Park, through neighborhoods where there was less and less good news, more and more beaten-down blocks of four flats and houses that might have been said to have seen better days, if those earlier days had been more hopeful in the first place. It wasn’t one of the worst parts of the city, those were reserved for people like his students, but it was a good three or four notches down from where he lived. It was the kind of neighborhood Chloe wanted people to envision when she complained. He tried to think about Chloe but his mind veered away from her. There was a space of emptiness where she’d been, like the broken emptiness of the door.
He said, “What were you trying to do with that stunt anyway, were you drunk or high, what?”
“I bet you think that explains stuff. Being fucked up.”
It unnerved him to realize that Chloe had said almost the same thing, that he seemed unable to escape her, or the rest of the bastard night. Everything had followed him here.
He hadn’t answered back before, but he did now: “Yeah, I do. It makes people do things they’re sorry for later.”
“Well I’m not sorry.”
He kept speaking in the same heavy, censorious tone, as if it was the only voice left to him. “I hope you enjoyed your little tantrum. I just want to point out, once more for the record, that the guy’s really not worth it.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t have to do this to yourself. There are other guys out there. Ones who won’t treat you like absolute shit.”
She turned to look at him then. Streetlights slid over her face in a series of rapid white bars. She was going to say something about Chloe, he was sure of it, but no, she couldn’t possibly know what had happened …
“Fuck you.”
“Nice.” It was a relief to him to be talking to her in this way, he was accustomed to it.
“Why do you care, huh? What do you know about me, nothing, there’s all different ways of being fucked up. I wanted to break something, I wanted to pick up a rock and throw it, so I did. Maybe you’re not that way but I am. Here. Turn here. I feel things I don’t want to feel, so what, just leave me alone.”
She had burst out with this string of words and now she came to the end of them, or maybe she didn’t trust herself to keep speaking without losing control. There was a small fabric bag around her neck, a kind of homemade purse, and with her good hand she began to rummage around for her keys. Jack thought they were not really angry with each other. He might be only another sort of rock she wanted to throw. She was right, he didn’t know her, as he no longer knew Chloe, or his own heart, or what miserable confusion had led him to this place. The street Ivory directed him to was occupied on one side by some sort of industrial concern, Lownes and Co., a nondescript name that told you nothing, a long, windowless sheet-metal building surrounded by cyclone fencing topped off with four canted rows of barbed wire, as if something precious was inside. There were a couple of tanker trucks parked in a lot behind the gates, and some vents and ductwork that might have held compressor or exhaust fans. Who knew what they made there, paint or industrial adhesives or ball bearings, some aspect of human enterprise with its own structures and economies and history that he would know nothing of, as he knew nothing of the world itself.
Ivory was leaning forward. “See that light? You can let me off there.”
Jack pulled over. There was a narrow two-story building of some oddly painted brick, the paint the exact color of dried mud in a hot climate, a slit of a window or two in the expanse of ugly wall, so that it gave the impression of a fortress or a jail.
“You want your towel back? Because I can leave it here, or I can wash it and get it back to you.”
“Let me see that arm.”
She said no, but she didn’t make any move to leave the car. Some exhaustion she’d been too stubborn to give in to until now. Jack cut the engine, got out, went around to her side and opened her door. He expected some further back talk or protest from her but she was quiet. When he peeled the towel away from her arm, when he got himself to look past the shock of the gaudy blood staining the towel and her shirt and even the skirt where she’d held the arm, he saw some long scratches, already beginning to mound up with welts, and one deeper, oozing wound where the glass had gouged her. Blood was still leaking from it in a slow, puddling stream.
“I think there might be some glass in it still.” She sounded matter-of-fact, or maybe that too was fatigue.
Jack pressed the towel back into place. “Hold this,” he directed. “Hold your arm up.” He was genuinely alarmed now that he’d seen the extent of the bleeding. She should get to a doctor, but he doubted his ability to manage her to such an extent. He said, “I want to look at that in better light.”
“Why? It’s gross.” But she got out of the car and hitched along ahead of him, to one side of the building and down a half flight of cement stairs, where she unlocked a door that opened into darkness.
Jack hung back until she’d turned on the light. “So this is where I live,” Ivory said, stepping aside to let him in. “So it sucks.”
They stood in a kitchen, a lamp dangling low over a small table. The lightbulb was covered with a Japanese paper globe, pale green with a pattern of painted bamboo. The rest of the room or rooms beyond were in deep shadow. Jack deliberately kept his eyes from them. He didn’t want to know anything else sad about her.
“Do you have bandages, antiseptic? Anything like that?”
He waited while she stepped out of the circle of light. He heard her footsteps, then rummaging noises, then she was back, dumping things in a heap on the table. Jack told her to sit. He found paper towels, ran water in the sink, and began swabbing away at the dried blood. The cut was meaty and inflamed, perhaps three inches long. One end was deeply incised. With the paper towel he prodded, then extracted a kernel of glass and two fine slivers. There was still a great deal of blood. The blood smell carved a path through his nostrils and into his brain, making him languid. There was another scent beneath that, her musky hair and skin. He had to remind himself that she was a child, she was angry and damaged and it was only through a long series of accidents that he was here at all.
The air in the room was warm and heavy, but the girl’s skin was cool to his touch. She was quiet and let him work. The forked vein at her wrist was
hardly perceptible, as if everything had already drained from it. Her upturned hand was slight and dangling. He looked down on the crown of her head and the haphazard tangle of her hair, which the light turned to pale green straw. He was having trouble catching his breath. The blood, the closeness of the room, the growing wound of his own life, the green, underwater light—he thought he might faint, or embarrass himself in some even worse fashion.
He washed the cut with liquid soap, then swabbed it with hydrogen peroxide and squeezed out a line of antiseptic cream. He was relieved to be able to do a workmanlike job of it. The girl watched him. He saw her eyes and their sparse, childlike lashes following his hands. He pressed a gauze pad in place and was glad to see that the bleeding had slowed. But it was difficult to tape it down and keep the pressure on. The tape was of the cheapest, paper kind, and it turned sweaty and useless as he fumbled with it. “Here,” the girl said, her voice just a breath above the silence. “Let me …”
She wrapped a layer of tape, then pulled a thin scarf from around her neck and laid it over that, indicating that he should use it as a bandage. He was clumsy here too, he was afraid of hurting her, getting the scarf too tight. Finally he managed it. They both stared down at the flimsy pink silk, waiting to see if it would hold the blood. She said, in the same low breath of a voice, “I think …”
She trailed off without finishing. “What?” Jack said, or tried to say. He had to clear his throat to get the rust and spit out of it, but before he could come up with words she was out of her chair, she was kneeling on the floor before him, her hands on his thighs, shoving him backward until he collided with the sink. Then she was reaching for his belt, unzipping him, his shock and alarm not keeping up with what was already Jesus Christ happening. He couldn’t speak. His hands tried to dislodge her but he was still afraid of hurting her, still thinking that way, and she already had him out of his clothes, her mouth was around him and in spite of himself he was growing big, he was letting it happen.
Her mouth worked him slowly at first, more tongue than anything else. He groaned and reached down to grip her head on both sides, making her move faster. For a time he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to come and then she found a steady, harder rhythm and everything changed and he was afraid he would come right away. The girl stopped for long enough to take a deep, ragged breath. His feeling ebbed and when she started in again he was able to hold off another minute more and then another and then it built again and there was no stopping it, oh crazy sad bad he was going to be sorry forever her hands and greedy wet mouth. He pushed hard into her and cried out and she swallowed him down.
He kept his eyes closed. His breath and blood and heart were still harsh and racing and a black fist of dread was squeezing the last bit of pleasure out of him. He was sore from her mouth, and sticky, and he fumbled to pull his clothes back together again.
When he did finally unseal his eyes, the girl was watching him from the other side of the table. The lamp on its cord was swinging, they must have bumped into it. The circle of green light wobbled. He felt seasick. He said, “Why did you do that?”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“I didn’t … God, what’s the matter with you?”
“It was like, thank you.”
He couldn’t read her face in the shifting light. “Thank you …”
“For the ride and all.”
“Jesus.”
“So now we’re even. It was okay, wasn’t it? I tried to do it right. I bet you don’t get it like that at home, do you?”
“That’s not … Don’t … ,” he began, but a wave of sickness rose up in him, he was desperate to breathe some cleaner air, he refused to hear any more. He turned and found the door with his hands, fumbled the lock and stepped outside.
Then he was in his car, driving through streets that were as dark and blind and secret and sad as anyone’s life, and in spite of everything he knew good and well that a part of him had wanted to throw a rock through glass.
Five
It was very early, not yet six. They had slept for only a few hours, and had already said some of what needed to be said. Chloe watched from the couch as Jack loaded bottles into a cardboard box. The three bottles still left of the good Shiraz. Half a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator. The last of the Galway Pipe port. Odds and ends of hard liquor, kept mostly for company. Remnant of a twelve-pack of Coors Light. Chloe stirred.
“I never drink beer.”
“Doesn’t matter. Clean break.”
“Whatever you feel you need to do. I completely understand.”
Chloe was wrapped in a quilt and only her head and bare feet were visible. Her skin was white and drawn. There were fine lines around her mouth and eyes, like cracks in porcelain. Overnight she looked ten years older. She was going to call in sick to work, but Jack was planning to teach his class. He didn’t want to be here with her.
He carried the box outside, through the back gate and into the alley, where he left it for some lucky waste hauler or homeless person. Eight hours ago he had been standing in this very spot with the girl, but that was one more thought he was unable to hold in his bruised mind.
He walked back inside and past Chloe without speaking. He only wanted a shower and a chance to get to Starbucks before his long bus ride. The bathroom mirror was not his friend. His eyes were so dry and grainy that it hurt to close them.
Chloe stood outside the bathroom door. He sensed her there. “What?”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I know.”
“Please open the door.”
“I have to get ready.”
“Please.”
Jack opened the door. Chloe was still wrapped in the quilt. “I didn’t mean any of it. I don’t even remember most of it.”
“Then how do you know you didn’t mean it?”
“Tell me you forgive me.”
“I want to. I will. But give me a little time.”
“Please, Jack. I can’t stand this.”
“Just let me take my shower, okay? And go to school and clear my head and get some sleep.”
He closed the door. But when he’d stripped off his clothes and was standing beneath the running water, letting it pour over him, turning him into a creature that was all skin and no thought, he heard the door open again. Chloe pulled back the shower curtain and stepped in behind him. He felt her arms around his waist, her head against his back. He stood without moving. Her hands dropped and began searching for him. He turned, dislodging her.
“No, Chloe.”
“God I’ve ruined everything.”
“No you haven’t. I just can’t right now.”
“You mean you don’t want to.”
He kissed the top of her head. Her eyelashes were wet from crying, and in her nakedness she was small and abject, like a disaster victim. He couldn’t bear to think about making love to her. He felt as if his body might never be entirely his own again. “It’ll be all right. We can talk later.”
“I’ll go to AA. A counselor. Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can fix things or I’ll just start screaming.”
“Why don’t you go back to bed. Everything seems worse when you’re this tired.”
“You won’t give me a break, will you? You’re going to keep dragging this out.”
“That’s not it at all.”
“Because you’re the kind of person who makes judgments. You’ve already judged me.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Just say it. You hope I won’t be here when you get back. Well maybe I won’t be.”
And then she was gone, stepping out of the shower and closing the bathroom door behind her. When Jack finished and went in to dress, she was lying in bed with her face turned toward the wall.
“Chloe?”
No answer. He knew she wasn’t asleep, but it seemed easiest to pretend that she was.
The plywood over the front door blocked most of the light from the street. It made the lo
bby seem smaller and meaner, the stage for some crabbed and diminished drama. The air that met him outside was gray with haze, the humidity already thickening. His head felt as if it was stuffed with flannel. He looked around furtively, he half-expected to see the girl lying in wait for Brezak, or even for himself, anything seemed possible, any wrong or crazy thing.
But she wasn’t there, thank God. He stood in line for his coffee and then stood in line for the bus and rode through the funky streets with the bus chugging its obscene exhaust and the bursts of radio noise that swam past them in traffic and the fat lady next to him shifting her weight from thigh to thigh and saying, Jesus, Jesus, but in a way that was conversational rather than vexed or prayerful. They traveled south on Ashland, crossing three expressways, under cement-damp viaducts or across overpasses that gave him dizzying views of roads tying themselves in concrete knots, and steady streams of cars. It was another hot day, or rather, the heat had never dissipated. Heat islands. That was what they called it when every brick and paved surface trapped and stored the air and the temperature kept building and old people too thrifty or timid to turn on air-conditioning or even open their windows were carried away in refrigerated coroners’ vans. He reminded himself to check on Mrs. Lacagnina.
After a time Jack was the only white person on the bus. He was used to this by now, he even recognized one or two of the passengers. His head drooped and his eyes closed. He slept a little as the bus rocked and wheezed and carried him down the north-south spine of the city. He dreamed all the lives around him, Jesus, Jesus, as strangers jostled and coughed and conversed, he dreamed that his own life was simply one among many, like the cells of a single body. The dream consoled him. He felt for the first time that his troubles were nothing extraordi-nary: they were only his allotted portion of the world’s troubles. When he opened his eyes and came to himself again, he was able to step into his day, his classroom, pick up his normal routine. He was still unhappy but his mind was more settled, and even as he called the roll and administered quizzes he was busy trying to work things through.
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