Babylon Rolling

by Amanda Boyden

  Tonight, Prancie will leave their home at eleven and make her way across the street carrying nothing more than her handbag. She will bring no offerings of food. She will be the person she is and see if she is welcomed. This afternoon when she delivered the barbequed miniature sausages in sauce that Thirsty requested, Shane said he would keep a fire burning for her, so Prancie must believe that at least one person in the establishment will be kind.

  Prancie considers a number of shawls. She determines the golden yellow one provides the necessary flair required for the season. With the air of a person deserving of an entrance, Prancie flings the end of the pashmina across her shoulder and descends the stairs, Joe be damned.

  The sight from her very own front door prohibits Prancie from leaving the house. She is nervous. Where is her fortitude? Without self-reliance, Philomenia, you will go only where a leaf floats. Listen to me.

  Suddenly Prancie does not care about her personal credo pertaining to alcohol in the slightest respect. She will find some fortitude in a bottle of cognac. She steps over the creaking floorboards and into the parlor. She removes the key to the cabinet from its hiding place and turns the lock. Inside she finds what might usually be found in any fully appointed Southern home, a number of pistols and a goodly amount of alcohol, along with photocopies of deeds, trusts, and the rest.

  Prancie settles on a bottle of Hennessy. Its color and shape both call to her. She knows that a snifter is required, withdraws one from the shelf, and removes the corked top from the bottle. Decidedly, Prancie thinks as she pours, her life has made a number of turns these last months. She will continue forward on her new path. If such a principle as justice exists in this world, she will receive hers.

  It is not, as they say, smooth. The liquor moves from the top of her palate and straight into her sinuses. She stifles a cough. Prancie remembers Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and Cary Grant. They seemed always to have a snifter of something in hand, functioning perfectly well while drinking alcohol. She thinks of her own Joe. She is stronger than he. Prancie swallows a goodly amount in three gulps, what she imagines to be approximately a quarter cup.

  She quietly rinses the snifter in the kitchen sink, dries it with a cotton towel, and returns it to its original place. She does not expect Joe to notice. She does, however, need to sit awhile and consider the results of the Hennessy.

  Or quite possibly, she should do no such thing. Likely, while Joe sleeps, Prancie should leave the house.

  After rechecking her reflection in the entryway mirror, Prancie departs.

  The Tokyo Rose glows like a Parisian bistro across the street as Prancie steps off her porch. In no way does it prove to be a quiet place as she approaches, but she welcomes a bit of noise. As she closes in on her beckoning oasis, she sees that a large man on a barstool sits outside the open door. He must be what they call a doorman. Prancie straightens her spine, presents her assets, and approaches.

  The very large man’s thighs hang partially over the edges of his stool. It would likely be an uncomfortable position for him. “Hello,” Prancie says.

  “ID,” the large man says.

  “Sorry?”

  “ID.”

  “I am not sure, pardon, I—”

  The man squints his small eyes at Prancie and only then seems able to see her for the first time. He flings his bald head at the mayhem inside. Prancie assumes she has been allowed admittance. “Would you care for a water or a cold drink?” she asks the man before passing.

  “Ma’am?” He raises his eyebrows as though she has spoken Chinese.

  “Would you like a beverage from inside?”

  “I’m cool, thanks.”

  “Not a problem,” Prancie has learned to say.

  Inside, young people slither between one another and crush against the bar. Many hold bills in front of them or over their heads, attempting to obtain drinks. Still many others already drink from large plastic cups, certainly full of copious amounts of alcoholic beverages, Carnival punches and whatnot.

  Prancie feels quite light despite the close crowd and the distinct heat. She removes her pashmina immediately, folding it carefully over her forearm. She feels a touch like a matador, or a senorita.

  Thirsty, behind the bar with two other workers, likely cannot even see her. One of his employees pushes his dripping finger on a few buttons of a stereo system, and a new song begins. The throngs of young people respond to it almost immediately, many of the young women beginning to dance in a distinct manner.

  Prancie looks surreptitiously around the room for Shane. It is very dark.

  Some of the lyrics of the song playing become clear, but as Prancie deciphers them, she grows uncertain as to the accuracy of her hearing. She believes she hears an African American singing, “Is that your ass or

  your mama have reindeer …” The young women farther into the barroom begin not to dance so much as to pump their behinds up and down. Certainly Prancie is not understanding the lyrics clearly. What do female bottoms and reindeer have to do with one another? Prancie tries for a minute but cannot find a common denominator. She very much wants to find Shane and make this outing worthwhile.

  The young people encroach and jostle. Prancie decides to move in the general direction of the dear and delightful Shane and his usual perch. She will figure a way to accidentally touch his bare chest once more. Oh, what an escapade that was! How much fun to be able to purposefully play with another adult! Prancie should pat her own shoulder for taking the walk across the street at such a time tonight. She will find Shane and enjoy her visit here, the very place that in years past has filled so many a journal. This month the Tokyo Rose has also taken up numerous journals, but now for different reasons.

  Prancie makes very little headway towards Shane’s regular seat. The young people shove quite relentlessly on those who do not shove back.

  The bar is dark as ink and musky, and, at the moment, quite luscious. Prancie’s entire front feels warm, as though heat has begun to radiate from her stomach and out towards her skin. She lays her hand against her sternum. The music seems suddenly louder as now both the young women and the men become more active in their dancing. Prancie hears the distinct lyrics above the din, “shake your tailfeather.” That! That is what the young people are doing, shaking their tailfeathers!

  She pushes through now, confident in her ability to find Shane and to procure a drink from Thirsty. Prancie does not even see the small half circle of coeds gathered densely around the bar. She sees no more than the modicum of breathing room beyond them. Only when she bursts through does she realize the others are cordoning off the region for a purpose.

  From behind, she sees two men sitting at the bar. But something is amiss. Neither wears any clothing.

  Has she entered the dream state in a public place? Such an occurrence would be unfortunate. She has no knowledge of her behavior when she goes to that place. She has no memories. She must leave.

  Prancie looks quickly to the front door and the circled young people around her. They seem highly animated, the young women’s makeup suddenly garish and bright, even in the low light.

  Prancie clutches her pashmina to her chest now. Why are naked men sitting at the bar? Why does nobody acknowledge this fact?

  Something makes her glance again at the men, at their freckled backs and moderately fuzzy buttocks. Why, how should they come to be here like this? Prancie feels she is suddenly part of the attention as the others assemble around her now as well as the two men. She looks to the bartenders. Thirsty is clothed and very busy. Carnival season taxes all bartenders without question. Thirsty, Thurman, seems very real. She waves hello to him, but he does not see her.

  And then one of the naked men does the unconscionable. He spins on his own barstool, stands, and exposes himself to the rest of the room. The music continues, and Prancie is certain the moths that flap across her vision during emotional moments have followed her across the street to this terrible place.

  “We can even
do it slow, we can even do it slow, take it where … just take that ass to the floor. “

  The coeds scream and hoot. Prancie sees only a penis that does not resemble Joe’s in almost any way.

  “Grab it!” a young man says to Prancie. He pushes her towards the man. She stumbles in her heels. Women shriek gleefully.

  Suddenly, Prancie collides with a naked chest. She knows this chest.

  So much laughter. Laughter fills her ears.

  Prancie lifts her head from the bare chest to look at the face of the dream place’s naked man.

  Shane Geautreaux stares back.

  From the vinyl barstool beside the one from which Shane has risen, Ed Flank stands. In so doing, he produces an audible fleshy sound as his buttocks come away from the cushion. He is the second naked man.

  Prancie cannot establish the veracity of the situation in the slightest.

  “I like them thick with their mind right …”

  The chest, the chest she knows. Prancie rights her twisted feet and fumbles with her pashmina. So much noise erupts from the young people around her, she cannot hear her own thoughts. She corrects her posture.

  This world cannot be real. In front of her stand, in slim order, a naked Shane Geautreaux and a naked Ed Flank. Each wears a single strand of plastic beads around his neck.

  Prancie raises her hand to her mouth. She feels, vaguely, like a silent film actress beneath all the noise. She is frozen.

  The laughter deafens her. It mutes her. It excises her.

  Shane reaches his bare arm out in her direction, and Ed covers himself.

  It is undone. It is all undone.

  Sobbing, Philomenia closes her front door. The plain strangeness of their act, their, their exposure … What could they have been thinking? She is humiliated beyond measure. Philomenia’s breath hitches as she steps out of her shoes and crumples on the parlor’s chaise. Why? For what purpose? Why, why?

  She wets the upholstery with tears until she can produce no more. Only then does she realize that an acquaintance beyond Ed, Shane, and Thurman could have seen her collapsing toward a nude male in a public arena. Her reputation could be ruined for eternity. The rumors. The destruction. She can just hear Sharon Harris asking about Carnival season with that look on her face. The woman would ask as casually as chatting about the weather. Philomenia begins to cry once again.

  Philomenia regains her faculties and does not know where she lies. She feels constrained in clothing. She blinks in the dark until the reality of her own parlor solidifies. Why would she be here? And then the memory of earlier events rushes into her. They slam into her breastbone with such a force she feels physically injured.

  A black silhouette of a figure stands in the doorway. Philomenia stares. What is happening?

  “Philomenia,” a voice whispers.

  Has someone arrived to take her? She does not move, a hare sniffing upwind.

  “Philomenia.” She knows the voice. It belongs to her husband. He turns on the chandelier. She sees it needs a cleaning.

  “Joe,” she says, sitting upright, attempting to untwist her skirt, the zipper of which has made its way nearly around to the front.

  “I’ve come to an important realization tonight,” he says.

  She runs her hands over her hair. She can feel the puffiness of her eyes without needing to see them in a mirror. “What is that?” She stands, then bends to retrieve her pashmina from the floor beside the chaise.

  “Stand up.”

  Please, she thinks, let me be. Tonight is not the night. She stands again but cannot muster the reserves to square her shoulders properly. “Yes?”

  “I want a divorce.”

  “Dudes! Well done!”

  Ed and Shane have enjoyed the attention of young college people for hours now. The episode with Philomenia couldn’t have been choreographed better.

  A young drunk guy, likely underage considering his enthusiasm, has fastened his hand on Ed’s shoulder, now in its T shirt again. “That was the, like, the best! No fucking joke. You two.” The guy shakes his head and whips his index finger back and forth between Ed and Shane. “You two are my heroes, dudes.” He takes a gulp from his cup. Whatever’s in there, it’s left a fuchsia, curling mustache of a stain on his upper lip.

  Ed’s superhero cape has come unstuck from the crack of his ass, and he feels fine. He leans in towards Shane and says to his new friend, “Do her face again.”

  Shane laughs before going stony. He widens his eyes, then blinks theatrically, raising his ungraceful hand to his throat. His open mouth makes no noise that Ed can detect. Ed laughs crazily, drunk. Shane is one of the best mimics Ed’s seen in years.

  Shane cracks up again. “You’d think the woman had never seen a—aw, hell, who are we foolin’? We knew she wasn’t going to take the naked drink lightly.” Ed’s new friend lifts his glass, his eyes going almost sad. “We just didn’t know it’d be the two of us.”

  Ed has had so many free pints on other guys in the bar, along with two young women, that he’s lost count. And he finds himself feeling more welcomed than he has since he moved here. No man should be only a husband and father. There’s room for an in-between person, a, well, just a man. Ed can be a man and not feel guilty about it.

  A terribly pretty young woman talked to him half an hour ago about the happening. She still stands with her friends, her head showing now and again through the weaving crowd. She has the biggest beads of all of them. As they made small talk, she glanced at his ring finger. After a good ten minutes, she took a matchbook from the napkin holder on the bar and a pen from her purse. She gave Ed her number. She gave him her number!

  Damn if Ariel shouldn’t be a fly on the wall in here. Damn. Should he have another pint? “Shane.” Ed clunks his glass against Shane’s. “What time is it? Time for another drink?”

  Shane raises his bare wrist to his face. “Half past a hair.”

  “Yo, Pedro,” Ed yells. “What time it be?” Ed’s practicing his new local dialect. Or is it idiom? He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care. He’s trying to sound like a black thug. What time it is. What time it be. It’s one or the other, he thinks, or that’s how Ed hears it.

  “Two-thirty,” Pedro says without stopping his mixology. The guy’s a master. Ed’s going to tell him he needs to enter those contests on cable for the best bartender.

  “Two-thirty,” Ed repeats. The numbers don’t register, until all of a sudden they do. It’s two-thirty in the morning, and he’s got a matchbook in his pocket from a college woman. It’s two-thirty in the morning, and he has a family across the street. The one with the kids he gets to get up with in the morning. Damn. He’s screwed.

  “Shane, Shane,” Ed says, grabbing the man’s arm with both hands. In the action, Ed recognizes he’s truly drunk. “Shane, I gotta go. Thanks for the fun. See you tomorrow.”

  “Hasta luego,” Shane says. There’s a singer Shane reminds Ed of, kinda, but he can’t remember his name.

  “Yeah,” Ed says. “Loogie loogie.” They both laugh, and Ed gets out the door somehow.

  Fresh air hits him cold in the face. God, and Buddha, that feels good. Fresh air is a blessed thing. Everybody should give thanks for fresh air. Ariel might actually be asleep. She knows where he’s been. Been there all night.

  How is he going to face his neighbor in daylight? Ed takes a couple of steps down the sidewalk. He sees glistening slug paths, a roach. His body feels heavy. He’ll sleep. Philomenia, he supposes, might be a decent person underneath all the pretense. Shane seems to think so.

  Ed moves his hand to his back pocket for the matchbook. It makes him so damn happy. Ha ha, Ariel. He passes the Browns’ house, all tucked in for the night. He wants to be them. Or him. He wants to be Roy. They’re so good.

  Ed tries to keep his course straight on the sidewalk and realizes he can’t quite. He’s actually weaving and noticing he’s weaving. Wow. He looks down at his clumsy feet. They seem to belong to somebody else. He’s almost stagger
ing. Ed laughs.

  He looks up at the sound of some weird swishing. A black man in a huge hooded coat has appeared. He is just steps away from Ed, coming at him with one arm swinging, rubbing nylon against nylon, the other arm tucked across his chest and inside his coat. The part of Ed’s brain that’s working snaps to attention. Is he about to be mugged?

  Ed won’t change his path for the man. He will just walk straight ahead. He’s seen interviews about how bad black men can feel when whites cross the street at the mere sight of them.

  Ed’s feet don’t cooperate with his intentions though. The black man comes on, and Ed walks straight into him, slamming shoulder against shoulder.

  The hooded black man is very fast. He twists and ropes his free arm around Ed’s neck from behind. Before Ed has even thought to struggle, the man has a handgun smashed into Ed’s cheek.

  The man yanks on Ed’s neck, forcing him to arch his back, his knees to bend. He struggles to stay standing. “You fuckin’ with me, cock-sucker?” the black man says straight into Ed’s ear.

  Ed can only barely shake his head no against the gun. Jesus, Ella, Mom, Ariel, Miles, God, Buddha, please. Ella, Ella. Who will take care of her?

  “You fuckin’ with me, cracker? You think yo color save you?”

  “No,” Ed says. “I—I live here. There.” He attempts to point.

  The hooded black man doesn’t say anything. Ed racks his addled brain for the teachings when facing death. The metal of the gun is warmer than the air. Ed has the crystal-clear understanding that it has been warmed by body heat, close to the black man’s flesh beneath his coat. For all the studying, Ed has never lived more in the moment than now. He understands something essential.

  The black man lets go, and Ed staggers, then falls to the sidewalk. “You the motherfucker saved ol’ man Roy.”

  Ed looks up at an eclipse, the man’s hood blocking out the moon. “I lifted the grill,” Ed says. Ella, Ella, Miles, Ella.