Alligators in the Trees

by Cynthia Hamilton

  She wadded up the badly worn garment and threw it on the floor of her cramped coat closet, certain in her over-heated condition she wouldn’t need it for a long time to come, preferably never. She was sick to death of freezing four months out of the year. As far as she was concerned, this “global warming” environmentalists warned of couldn’t come soon enough.

  She kicked off her shoes and opened her only two windows, the small one over her kitchen sink and the somewhat larger one in her bedroom, conjuring up a cross-breeze that set her various piles of notebooks fluttering.

  She unbuttoned her shirt as she walked to her fridge and stood there with her top open, luxuriating in the refreshing wafts of cold air as she hunted for something to drink. All she had was a can of V-8, opened too long ago to still be any good, and a couple cans of grapefruit juice, leftovers from some crackpot diet. Her mouth puckered just looking at it. She settled instead for a half-empty bottle of flat seltzer water and poured it into a glass filled with ice.

  As she cooled down, her mood improved, and after a few minutes of sprawling across her tattered futon, she got up and began to put her groceries away. Her cooking expertise didn’t go much further than spaghetti or grilled cheese sandwiches, so her grocery shopping didn’t require much time or imagination. If she was feeling especially flush, she might pick up a T-bone steak or a couple pork chops, though they never tasted all that great when she cooked them.

  Occasionally she went out, but the places she could afford were all too reminiscent of places where she’d worked, and not very appealing. Once in a while she would get nostalgic for the boyfriends she’d had over the years who were fond of cooking, but as soon as the images of their tempting specialties popped into her head, so did the memories of why exactly those various chefs weren’t in her kitchen anymore.

  She had just put the last box of macaroni and cheese in her cupboard when she heard a knock at her door. Wishfully thinking she’d find old Mildred Saunders, Priscilla opened the door without bothering to look through her peephole. Instead of finding her diminutive neighbor bearing freshly baked goodies—one of the few perks of living in that building—she found the not so welcome sight of Brawny, her second-to-last boyfriend.

  Appropriately nicknamed, Brawny was six-foot-something, depending on how he was slouched, weighing in at two hundred forty pounds, all of it solid muscle, including what rested between his ears. Curled against his forearm and bicep was a brown paper bag, undoubtedly containing a six-pack of whatever beer happened to be on sale at the gas-station-slash-mini-mart where he was employed as a tow-truck operator.

  “How ya doin’, Sammy?” he asked. Priscilla, hands on her hips, said nothing. “Just got off work an’ thought I’d stop by,” he offered amiably, again with no reply from Priscilla. He regarded her rather petulantly for a moment before she relented and let him in.

  “I’m not exactly in your neighborhood anymore, Brawn,” Priscilla said as she closed the door behind him, “so how did I get so lucky?”

  “C’mon, Sammy. Can’t a guy stop by and see his ex without having a reason?” Brawny replied, feigning injured feelings.

  “I’m not just your ex—I’m your ex twice removed. I would’ve thought I’d fallen off the roster by now.”

  She sat down on her futon and did nothing to make her guest feel at home. After an awkward moment, Brawny pantomimed with a backward wave of his thumb his desire to stash his beer in her fridge. Priscilla acknowledged his request with the merest nod of her head, which he took as a yes. He returned a minute later with a beer in each hand, extending one to his hostess before taking a seat on Priscilla’s only semi-comfortable chair.

  She took the can and eyed it skeptically, as if she wasn’t sure what to do with it. She noticed that Brawny had made the uncommonly gallant gesture of opening it for her. Instead of taking a sip, she lifted her hair and held it to her neck. She caught Brawny smiling at her in a shy, almost coy way that really irritated her. She gave him a hard look and he wisely lowered his gaze to his beer.

  “So, what is it?” she asked, knowing Brawny too well to believe he had made this social call on a whim. He started to protest, but thought better of it.

  “Aw, it was just one of those days at work,” he said dismissively.

  Priscilla’s breathy snort indicated she knew where this was headed. “Don’t tell me—was it an especially gory pile up on the GW Bridge, or maybe a motorist driving the wrong direction through the Holland Tunnel?” she asked. The acid sting of Priscilla’s question left Brawny unfazed. Either he had become inured to Priscilla’s sarcasm, or he was too preoccupied by his own thoughts to notice it. In any event, he sat hunched over his beer, staring into space.

  “It was one of the worst ones I seen yet, Sammy,” he said, his eyes glazing over. He plowed on, oblivious to Priscilla’s growing discomfort. “It was out on the Jersey Pike. I had just gotten back in the cab when I got the call. It turns out I’m within a mile of the accident. It was just my luck I got there before the ambulance or the State Troopers.

  “As soon as I come up on it, I get this sinking feeling. For one thing, the car looks like half a car, like it had been cut in half right down the middle. But it ain’t. The other half is smashed clear inside, like someone was tryin’ to turn it inside out. As I pull up to it, I see a semi up ahead with its hazards flashing, which explained what happened to the car. But then the other thing I notice right away is that it had been a brand-spankin’ new vehicle—doesn’t even have plates yet, just the paper tags from the dealer—Wendell Imports.”

  As Brawny spoke, Priscilla could see him fall into the same predictable pattern that had finally driven her over the edge. She cocked her beer and drank it a third of the way down in one swallow.

  “And then I see an arm dangling out the smashed-in side in a way that weren’t natural.”

  “Brawny—”

  “I pull up in front of the white Jetta, and I see in the rearview what was left of the windshield—”

  “Brawny, stop.”

  “—dark stuff running down behind the deflated airbags, the whole thing is sprayed with blood—red everywhere.” Priscilla stood, her agitation making her heart pound. Brawny was visibly shaking now, his mouth quivering with emotion. “I’m not going to make a move till EMS gets there, but I can’t take my eyes off the mirror.”

  “Okay, I get the picture. Now the best thing to do is put it out of your mind,” Priscilla said, her voice suddenly calm and instructive.

  “But Sammy, I can’t. It took for-fuckin’-ever for the paramedics to show up, and I’m sittin’ there and I see something movin’. I get out—I had to—and I go to the not smashed-in side, and pressed up against the cracked window was this girl’s face. ‘Help me,’ she says. I can’t really hear her, ’cause now the sirens are wailing, but I can read her lips. I yank on the door as hard as I can, but the damn thing is sealed shut. I want to break away the glass and try to open it from the inside, but I was afraid of hurting her more. Hold on, I tell her—the ambulance is right here.”

  “Brawny, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “But then her eyes closed. I could feel in the pit of my stomach she was gone. I hung around praying to myself as they pried open the good side with the Jaws of Life. They peeled her out and, shit, the other one—what was left of him. It was a boy, the one who’d been driving. They were kids, Sammy—couldn’t be more than eighteen, the pair of them. Probably high school sweethearts out for a spin in his graduation present.” Brawny’s features crumbled with the onslaught of tears.

  Priscilla sank resignedly down on the arm of the chair and let her hand rest tentatively on his back. Brawny covered his face and gave himself up to a full-fledged breakdown. Priscilla bit her lip, angry that she had allowed Brawny to suck her into his recurring melodramas, but still feeling too much compassion to tell him to hit the road.

  If there was another woman in his life—and she had never known of a time when there wasn’t—then it should be his cu
rrent babe’s responsibility to pick up the pieces of this shattered giant and put him back together. It was no longer her job. She’d been relieved of that duty when she gave up the relative pleasures of having him as the steady man in her life. She realized how ironic it was that she should think of the word ‘steady’ in association with this overly-susceptible hulk, a man who had the outwardly appearance of immense strength, yet was so vulnerable on the inside, he often felt other’s troubles more painfully than his own.

  If Brawny hadn’t been in such a state, she would have laughed out loud. What was it about her that made her a magnet for the downtrodden, the morose and the cursed? Why had her life been filled with a non-stop parade of unfortunate souls who were doomed to a life of continual disappointments and calamities?

  This was the same question she had posed to herself countless times, and she had long ago figured out the answer. It was her fate to have her life populated with habitual losers. And when she was up to admitting it, she acknowledged that being surrounded by Darwinian failures qualified her as a loser herself.

  Priscilla patted Brawny on the back and got up to fetch some tissues. He blubbered away unselfconsciously until she tapped him on the shoulder and thrust the box of tissues at him. She sat down on the old trunk that served as her coffee table and waited while Brawny mopped his face and blew his nose, a great honking noise that she hadn’t missed in the least.

  “Feel better?” she asked when he was finished. Brawny sniffed twice and nodded. He picked up his beer and drained it.

  “Would you mind getting me another one, Sammy?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. Priscilla held her tongue and took the outstretched can from him while he made a great show of regaining his composure.

  One more and then he’s out of here, Priscilla told herself as she grabbed a fresh beer for both of them. She set the can on the trunk in front of him and reseated herself on the futon, placing the new beer behind the unfinished one. She didn’t know why she had gotten a second beer for herself, when it was unlikely she’d finish the first. She saw Brawny had also noticed this detail, undoubtedly calculating how long he could string out his visit.

  Should have brought a twelve-pack, he thought regrettably, as he carefully rationed his intake.

  Priscilla sighed heavily and leaned back against her flattened pillows. She stared up at the ceiling for a couple of minutes, biding her time until she could be alone with her thoughts. She had long ago lost the energy for trying to urge Brawny into finding a less problematic line of work. The big knucklehead wasn’t cut out for much more than driving a tow truck. She had often suggested he get into construction—there was always a need for brute strength on building sites, regardless of mental aptitude.

  But as much as Brawny suffered from his occasional encounters with highway casualties, he seemed to see himself inextricably linked to his profession, as if it were his calling or something. She knew firsthand how completely he assumed his role of roadside hero, because that was how they met.

  She and a friend were quarrelling over missing a concert at Madison Square Garden thanks to the friend’s ancient Fiat, when Brawny’s massive truck pulled up in front of them and swiftly backed into position. Their grievances died on their tongues as Brawny purposefully jumped from the cab, and squatting down to their level, smiled confidently at them. Priscilla forgot all about the concert as they rode to the garage in Brawny’s cab, a cozy fit for the three of them. So cozy in fact, Priscilla didn’t hesitate when Brawny asked for her number.

  But that was ancient history, and some time before Priscilla figured out Brawny was yet another emotional defective. She realized now that she was a beacon for misfits, a safe refuge for those unqualified to navigate life’s twists and turns. Brawny had finally taught her to be wary of possible suitors, and Ryan—her last boyfriend—had underscored the lesson.

  Now, whenever anyone made advances, no matter how subtle, an alarm sounded in her brain warning her to run the other way. Phil, her lonely-hearted heavy tipper, was her latest example. The way he gawked at her gave her the willies. She didn’t know how a man who dressed as well as he did could have such bad luck. Nor did she have any idea what particular fate he was suffering. But she could tell by the intensity of his gaze it had to be terrible.

  Lost in contemplation, Priscilla forgot about her visitor until he reseated himself after grabbing another beer. Far from being perturbed, Brawny took Priscilla’s extended silence as a comforting sign. Priscilla, on the other hand, found herself annoyed all over again by the unwelcome sight of Brawny the Bawler perched companionably on her chair. She straightened up, took a quick swig of her warmish beer, and stood.

  “Well, thanks for stopping by, Brawn,” she said as a prelude to goodbye. Brawny, surprised by this sudden change of plans, stood up hesitantly.

  “I don’t need to leave yet, Sammy,” he said.

  “Yeah, you do. I need you to leave now,” she said, turning toward the door.

  “But Sammy…I was kind of hopin’ that me and you could, you know, kinda get reacquainted, so to speak,” Brawny said, taking Priscilla by the arm and turning her around to face him.

  “Take your hand off me, Brawny. Now,” she said, the glint in her eyes so hard, it startled even Brawny, who was no stranger to such looks.

  “C’mon, Sammy. There ain’t no harm in two old flames getting together for some brand new fireworks,” Brawny said boldly, though he had been prudent enough to let go of Priscilla’s arm first.

  “Take that theory to one of your other ex-girlfriends. Seeing you reduced to tears is hardly what I’d call an aphrodisiac,” Priscilla said, turning her back on him again, this time leaving him to stammer as she deposited his last beer in the brown paper bag and thrust it at him.

  “It ain’t fair to criticize me ’cause I happen to be in a dangerous line of work,” Brawny said defensively.

  Priscilla rolled her eyes. “We’ve been over this a thousand times, and frankly Brawny, you’re not my problem anymore. Let whoever’s sharing your bed now debate the compulsion/revulsion you have toward your job. I got tired of beating my head against that wall a long time ago.”

  “But I love my work—”

  “Go.”

  “You don’t—”

  “Get out. I don’t want to hear another word.”

  Brawny closed his mouth and opened the door. He walked out and stopped on the other side of the threshold. “You need me, Sammy, just as much as I need you. But you’re just afraid to admit it,” he said.

  Priscilla barked at his erroneous assumption. “If I ever need you, Brawny, I’ll be sure to let you know. But between now and when hell freezes over, you can rest assured I don’t really need anyone. And if I can manage to steer clear of men for the rest of my days, I’ll consider myself lucky,” she said.

  “I think you’ve got the wrong attitude,” Brawny said, sounding suddenly superior.

  “Oh, spare me,” Priscilla said as she closed the door in his face, locking all three bolts for emphasis.

  She was alone now, but the negative effects of Brawny’s visit lingered. It irritated her that he could barge in on her and drive her totally batty in under thirty minutes. It had to be God’s little reminder that she should never allow herself to be persuaded by sweet-talking men, however good looking. No matter what they promised, their own needs were their true agenda.

  Again, she was reminded of Phil, which increased her irritation. She didn’t want to think of Phil that way. Phil was too nice a guy to have to put up a barrier against. That made it a double affront to her. Why should she be put in the position of having to be the hard-ass in order to keep herself out of harm’s way?

  There ought to be some sort of mechanism to send signals from one person to another, advising which avenue to take before approaching. She would like to have a sign flashing on her forehead that said, “Sure, I like you, but keep your distance.” Then it would be possible to interact with someone like Phil without having to balance his dotin
g admiration with her hard-won skepticism.

  As it was, she had to face him every day knowing he was unaccountably gaga over her, a condition she was sure would change as soon as his luck did. That was another thing that irked her; she was a certain Phil’s dire straits were only temporary, so it wasn’t fair that he should think he was smitten with her, when that role was reserved for those who are truly jinxed.

  Priscilla sighed and went in search of her purse. She had been interrupted so soon after getting home, she hadn’t had the chance to perform her daily ritual of caching the day’s loot. She sat down on the chair recently vacated by Brawny and took out her green zippered pouch.

  She withdrew the wad of bills and counted, segregating Phil’s twenty from the rest. A whopping sixty-three dollars, plus the eighteen that she had spent at the market, was all she had to show for her eight-hour shift.

  She tucked the twenty-dollar bill into her pocket in order to stash it with the rest of Phil’s offerings. She then removed the two new drawings he had left for her and got up to put them with the others.

  She pulled down a box from the top of her closet that had once contained the only nice present Ryan had ever bought for her, a strapless cocktail dress from Macy’s, which she later learned he got off the final markdown rack. The zipper had long been broken, but the box had come in handy as a place to stash all the paper placemats Phil was fond of decorating for her.

  She opened the box hastily and stowed the new drawings inside, without hazarding a glance at the ever-growing collection. She didn’t understand why he felt compelled to make these daily drawings or why he purposefully left them as mementos for her, nor did she want to.

  It was obvious enough that Phil was going through a difficult time, her best guess being a divorce. The presence of his daughter at half of his breakfast pilgrimages had been hint number one. Had he not been on the outs with his wife, Priscilla seriously doubted she would allow their daughter, clad in a private school uniform, to frequent such a seedy dive.