City of Rose

by Rob Hart

  “What the fuck is that?” I ask.

  “My vegan nachos, hot shot,” Tommi says. “Give ’em a try.”

  “They’re glowing.”

  “It’s vegan cheese.”

  “Tommi. Food should not glow.”

  “C’mon, I need the opinion of a carnivore. It’s organic. It’s made out of nut butters.”

  “I am not putting nut butters in my mouth.”

  “It’s almonds and cashews, you goon. Just try it.”

  She pushes the plate toward me and I pick up a nacho, take a tentative bite. It tastes like salted liquid Styrofoam, so I tell her that, and she says, “Can’t be that bad.”

  She picks up a nacho drenched in glowing nut butter fake cheese, chews it for a bit, and slides the plate across the bar and into the garbage pail.

  “Back to the drawing board,” she says.

  Sergio comes out of the back in his starch white chef’s coat that’s probably a size small and still a bit big on him. His bushy brown hair is stuffed into a hairnet. He has a hopeful look on his face, but he sees the looks on our faces and his shoulders drop.

  The crowd picks up some more and Tommi’s a blur, slinging out drinks. A line forms at the bar. This is a weird social law in Portland that I broke when I first got to town. People line up for the bar like it’s the bus or the deli counter. If you walk right up to the bar and order a drink, you don’t get yelled at because everyone here is so passive, but you definitely get a lot of dirty looks.

  With Tommi locked down I play utility, clearing empty glasses into the sink, checking to make sure the bathrooms are stocked, keeping an eye on the girls to make sure they’re covered. I get into a nice groove. Concentrate on the work. Take a little mental vacation from the nonsense that’s plaguing me.

  When things slow down a bit, I take it as an opportunity to wave my pack of cigarettes at Tommi. She nods and I duck out front and ring up Bombay, hope he picks up this time. He gets me on the third ring, asks, “What up?”

  “I need to get some background on a guy. Specifically his parentage.” I run through the bullet points of the story, give him Dirk’s full name.

  “So is this how it’s going to be?” Bombay asks. “You’re going to travel the country, take jobs from people, keep me on retainer as your Watson?”

  “Right. Except Sherlock gave Watson room and board, at least. I’m not even paying you. All I can do it treat you to my delightful personality.”

  “Very funny. You are so very funny.”

  “Look, man, I’m just trying to help someone who needs a hand.”

  “I get it. And hey, I do have some good news.”

  “Proceed.”

  “How do I put this? That friend you were asking me to locate for you? I can’t remember his specific address but I do have some zip codes that are in Portland… so I would take that as a good signal.”

  Bombay does this sometimes. Gets nervous about talking on the phone about stuff like this, so he rambles and speaks in quasi-code. I take it from this that he traced Dirk’s cell and while he can’t pinpoint the exact location, he knows that it’s within city limits.

  That’s good. That’s very good.

  “If it changes, I’ll let you know right away,” he says, verifying my guess.

  “Thanks.”

  We end the call and I toss my smoke into a puddle at the curb and head back inside. Carnage is on stage dancing to what I think is Tool, and Candy Cane is giving some guy a private dance in the corner, her negligée a little satin pool on the floor.

  No touching keeps the temperature down.

  Most of the time.

  The guy getting the dance—flop-sided haircut, scarecrow limbs, short-sleeved plaid shirt buttoned all the way to the top button—keeps reaching up to put his hand on Candy Cane’s thigh. She keeps swatting his hand away. I stalk over and lean down to him, tell him to sit on his hands and if he reaches out one more time I’m going to break them off. His eyes go wide and he jams them between his jeans and the vinyl seat. Candy Cane winks at me. I smile back at her, try real hard to keep my eyes from wandering down to her bare breasts, do a not so great job at it.

  Tommi calls to me from the bar, asks me to head down to the basement to get the new microbrew that she can’t remember the name of but it has a picture of a pig in a rocking chair on the case. I head into the kitchen, pull up the corrugated trap door, and climb down the narrow ladder. The kitchen is tiny and Sergio can’t move around much with the door open, so I swing it closed and when that happens the music cuts off and I’m alone in the quiet of the brick-lined basement.

  There’s a feeling of pulsating bass but that might be my heartbeat.

  The basement is so small it’s not worth keeping too much down here, but we do have a Shanghai tunnel that spits out a steady stream of cool air, so the beer, at least, lives by the gaping black maw of it.

  One day, fueled by boredom, I’m going to take a flashlight down here and explore a bit. I’ve always been curious. These things are all over the place. They’re not actually Shanghai tunnels—no one got captured and sold off to China in them. But there is a system of tunnels connecting businesses to the waterfront, so that in olden times, goods could be delivered from the ships

  I find two cases of the pig-in-the-rocking-chair beer—Rockingham, ha ha—and haul them up the ladder and into the kitchen, which is not easy because my knee still hurts. At least the cut on my forehead is on my hairline so it’s hard to spot, and with the lighting in here, no one seems to notice my face is all bruised up. That, or they’re ignoring it.

  Sergio takes the cases of beer as I swing them up onto the kitchen floor. When I get up to the bar, things have emptied out a little, and Tommi is chatting with a few of the regulars, so I head out for another smoke. After a few drags the door swings open and Tommi comes out. “That’s a filthy fucking habit.”

  “I’ve done worse.”

  “Did I hear right? Some assholes tried to bring a baby in here?”

  “Yup.”

  Tommi laughs. “Not even the first time that’s happened. This fucking town, man. I love it but it’s not always easy. Anyway. Got an interesting phone call just now. Wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  “What was it this time?”

  She pauses. “What do you mean ‘this time’?”

  “Fuck. I’m sorry. Some asshole called early this morning and said something about your dyke ass. I told him to come down here and something something beatdown. I don’t remember. I should have told you. What happened?”

  “Some heavy-breathing fuck, said some untoward shit about the girls and what he was going to do to them if we didn’t pack up and go.”

  “This is weird.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tommi says. “I called a couple of other clubs where I know people. No one’s getting harassed. No one’s getting threats. Wish you had told me, but still. Why us?”

  “Could be some dickbag with too much free time and a couple of screws loose. Want to put me on the phone with him next time he calls? I can actually try to be scary this time.”

  Tommi raises her arms so they’re close to her body and flexes. Hard lumps of muscle show through her tattooed forearms. “I’m pretty scary myself. He should be more scared of me than you.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  She laughs. “Tough guy, huh. That’s funny, you being such a delicate flower.” She lifts the corner of her shirt and shows me a white patch of skin on her side marred by a pink, mottled scar. “Knife wound from a bar fight. I don’t fuck around, Ashley.”

  I consider telling her about the gunshot scar on my leg, figure that’s best to keep to myself. Anyway, I’d end up having to take down my pants to prove I have it.

  But the name thing, I can’t let go.

  “You know John Wayne’s real name was Marion, right?” I ask.

  “And he changed it.”

  “Real man sticks with the name his parents gave him.”

  Tommi nods
at this, satisfied with my comeback. “One of the patrons said there’s piss on the floor of the men’s bathroom. Mind getting in there to mop it up?”

  “We need targets in the urinals or something.”

  She laughs, pats me on the shoulder as she walks past. “Better piss than blood.”

  Work finished, Burnside Bridge crossed, I stop into a market to get some beer, the white glowing buzz of it standing out like a beacon in the darkness.

  Time to break another one of my self-imposed rules. I haven’t been keeping alcohol in the house. But today is one of those days where I could really use a drink.

  It’s not like I’m pulling from a bottle of the hard stuff. Beer is barely a step above water. I need a six-pack to even feel a tingle, and by then I’m too frustrated to drink any more because I need to pee every ten minutes.

  So this is barely breaking the rule. It’s a technicality, if anything.

  I’m still an okay person.

  The beer case is an explosion of colors. Lots of artful labels, nothing that I recognize. I wander from one end to the other until I find a six of tall Guinness cans. That’ll work.

  I carry it to the counter and the guy working it, his Grizzly Adams beard reaching down to his navel, looks at my choice and asks, “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean am I sure?”

  “We have a great selection.”

  “Cool. I’ll get this though.”

  “I could recommend some really good microbrews. And our IPAs are really big right now. We have a double IPA that’s amazing.”

  “Dude. Sell me this beer.”

  He sighs, pulls a small red Solo cup out from underneath the counter, takes a bottle of beer with no label, cracks the top, and pours a little into the cup. He slides it toward me.

  “Try this,” he says. “We make it here.”

  The smile on his face is big and broad, like he’s letting me in on a secret of the universe.

  Whatever. Free beer. I throw it back and it’s so bitter it kicks my taste buds in the balls. I twist up my face and consider clawing at my tongue to get that lingering horribleness off, and somehow he completely misinterprets my reaction.

  “Isn’t that awesome?” he asks. “That’s a sixty-eight IBU. That’s like nuclear hops.”

  “I hate you,” I tell him, trying not to gag. “Sell me the Guinness.”

  He rolls his eyes. “If you insist.”

  “Yeah, motherfucker, I do insist.”

  He runs the transaction through, takes my money, and even though I’ve got my hand out he puts the change down on the counter, turning away from me like I’ve insulted his mother.

  It’s overcast so I can’t see the stars. Not that I could see them if it wasn’t overcast. I figured New York had the market cornered on light pollution.

  If it was daytime, from up here on the roof, I would be able to see Mount Hood off in the distance, the rest of the city unrolling toward it like a blanket. That view would be nice. Right now all I can see is yellow-tinted night sky.

  I light a cigarette, already getting a bit of a headache because I haven’t smoked this many cigarettes in a row in months. The pack is nearly empty and I only bought it this afternoon.

  Bad habits.

  I flip through the wad of bills in my pocket, the sum of what the dancers tipped out to me and what Tommi pulled from the register. A nice little haul for a night of work that was busy, but not so busy as to beat me into the ground. I stick the wad back in my pocket, alternate between the smoke and a beer.

  I wish you were here, Chell.

  For a hundred reasons. A million. But right now, at this moment, it’s because I’m getting to that place where I need someone to slap some sense into me. You were always very good at that.

  Remember that time Good Kelli got attacked on the subway? She was coming home from work, right after rush hour, and that guy groped her on the platform. She fought him off, and when she went to report it she learned that this guy was a serial predator. She was the fifth woman he’d gone after. One of the girls he’d smacked up pretty bad, before someone came along and chased him off.

  Kelli caught a blurry cell phone picture of the guy. The police put it out to the tabloids but it didn’t help. Not enough of his face was showing. He was tall, wiry, scrubby beard, pale, sunglasses, hoodie. Could have been anyone.

  Then he attacked a sixth girl. This one he nearly raped in a dark corner of the Prospect Avenue stop in Brooklyn.

  The day I saw that, I got onto the R train. I rode it back and forth, from Forest Hills to Bay Ridge, the picture of him from that day’s Post folded up in my back pocket. I was scanning faces, hopping between cars, looking for something familiar. The plan was to do it for a few hours each day until I caught him and did what I do best: Make him stop the bad thing he was doing.

  It ended up I rode the train for nearly three days straight. I barely slept. Every now and then I’d get off to find a bathroom or something to eat. A few times I used bathrooms in subway stations, and I learned what rock bottom looks like. Sometimes I’d catch a quick nap between stops. Otherwise, it was sitting and waiting.

  On the third day I was borderline delirious. That kind of tired where you feel like you’re in a wind tunnel and you’ll laugh at nothing, your internal circuitry on the fritz.

  I was nodding off as the doors opened at Prince Street and I looked up and you were there, a brown paper bag clutched in your hand.

  You were wearing plaid pants and a black T-shirt. That hair, red somewhere between the fire truck and the blaze it was rushing to put out. Those poison dart legs, and the smoke that billowed around the iris of your eye. A birthmark, you called it.

  Nearly every head in the car turned. You had that kind of effect on people.

  You sat down next to me, that smell of cigarettes and lavender flooding me, and you handed me the bag. It was a pile of chicken fajitas wrapped in aluminum foil from the Chinese Mexican place near my apartment. One of my favorite things to eat in the whole wide world.

  This is a little silly, you said.

  I ate two of the fajitas before I answered, Good timing. I was hungry.

  Good timing? I’ve been looking for you for two hours.

  How did you find me?

  Lunette saw you yesterday. We put it together, what you were doing.

  Someone’s got to do it.

  Why does that someone need to be you?

  What else am I going to do with my time?

  Sleep? Act like a normal human? Take up French?

  Pause for another fajita. He hurt Kelli. Kelli is my friend. He hurt other people. That’s not the kind of thing I can abide.

  This isn’t about you abiding anything. You’re going to stumble across this guy? One freak in a city full of them? You’re looking for a needle in a stack of needles. Understand the full scope of this analogy—the only person you’re going to hurt is yourself because you are digging through a pile of needles.

  Okay.

  Do you get what I mean, about the needles?

  Fajita. Yes.

  Does it make sense?

  Yes.

  So will you let me take you home so you can sleep and eat like a normal human?

  Fajita. Okay. Yes. You’re right.

  And you smiled.

  That smile could punch through steel.

  I wonder how long I would have kept riding that train. It would have been another day or two at least before I smelled bad enough the cops would have assumed I was homeless and tried to boot me to a shelter. And intellectually, I knew what I was doing was ridiculous. But I couldn’t bring myself to get off, because I felt like if I did, someone else was going to get hurt.

  Like whatever moment I chose to leave, I’d be going up one stairwell and he’d be coming down another. And it wouldn’t really be my fault, but it would feel that way.

  I remember trying to explain this to you on the walk back to my apartment. It didn’t sound so eloquent, because by that point I was having
trouble stringing more than six words together at a clip.

  But you got the gist.

  After I was done you said, Ashley, you’ve got a big heart and I respect you for that. But you can’t save everyone who needs it. All you’ll do is kill yourself trying.

  Which is true, in the end.

  I couldn’t save you.

  Does that mean I should stop trying?

  The cops did catch the guy, eventually. He attacked three more women between the time I stopped looking and they picked him up.

  I climb back through the window, into the apartment. Open up my laptop and turn on some Ella Fitzgerald. A little something to fit the mood. I stare at the map on the wall for a bit. I’ve got enough money, maybe, once this thing with Crystal is done, to get the hell out of town and set up somewhere else.

  So, where to?

  New York, LA, and Austin are all out. Houston and Dallas, too. Anything in the Bible Belt, obviously. I’ve heard people say nice things about Ann Arbor in Michigan. Detroit would be interesting. Cost of living would be low, at least.

  I look at the insert for Alaska. That could be cool. Someplace remote. I don’t mind the cold. Maybe I can get far enough north to where it’s dark most of the time. And there would be fewer people to annoy the shit out of me.

  Throughout all of this, Ella Fitzgerald is singing “I Want to Stay Here.”

  Godfuckingdammit, Ella.

  Portland. It’s a goofy town filled with goofy people who try to bring goofy babies intro strip clubs.

  And Crystal.

  I poke at the stack of community college brochures next to me. The ones I picked up on a lark and convinced myself I was going to read. Even if I don’t stay in town, which I’m not planning on, at least maybe they’ll inspire something. I should give some kind of thought to making something of my life, other than cleaning up piss and scaring kids trying to cop a feel.

  The brochures have too many words. I toss them back onto the counter.

  Climb outside for another smoke. It feels nice to be outside. I’m happy I found an apartment where outside the window is the wide expanse of a roof. That feeling of the breeze, the alchemy of the cigarettes and the alcohol, those together are like a wormhole furrowed through my brain.