That animal’s worth money, he said.
It’ll live, I said.
But it’s broken. Damaged. I expect to be compensated.
You set that dog to kill me.
What’s in your bag?
Nothing.
The bag itself is something.
The bag itself is mine.
You’ll leave here in better shape than my dog if you give it to me.
He let out some slack on the whip.
I didn’t mean to hurt him, I said.
He cocked his arm.
That’s odd, he said. I thought you did.
I thought he’d hit me, but he only called to the dog while it whimpered and crawled towards him. He set down his whip, grabbed the dog’s neck and pointed at its bloody mouth.
You see, he said. You knocked away the animal’s bite.
And this, he said. He took the dog’s paw between his fingers and pressed until it screamed.
You caught him on the foot, he said. Broken. He’s no good for travel now. What would you have me do with a lame dog?
Who put those scars on its back? I asked.
Awful brazen, son, he said. But brazen won’t save you. He slapped the dog’s rump, shooed it back into the scrub.
I’ll take my goods, he said.
I started to run, but he snaked my ankle. I landed hard on my side and the whip slashed my cheek. I tucked my knees to my chest while he wailed on my back. Then I lay on the tracks wishing for the train.
I pushed myself up, saw the man was gone and my bag wasn’t. He hadn’t taken the bottle. I climbed the embankment and headed for the town. The windows in the buildings were black now. My back was burning and I could tell from the way my face ached that I needed to clean the wound. I hopped from one sidewalk to the other, then peered into the bar. Stepping in from the unlit street my eyes saw purple and then they cleared and I made out a room of faces, all of them looking like my old man on a good day before the liquor turned him sour.
Shit, kid, the bartender said. You want a doctor?
All I want is water, I said.
He picked up a pitcher and poured me a glass, then spilled some water onto a clean rag and passed the rag to me. I held the damp cloth against my cheek.
Who did that to you, son? a man asked.
I didn’t answer.
Somebody did it to you.
I walked to the bar, dragging my foot to cover my limp.
Was it your old man? the bartender asked. He had rotted-out teeth and a scar where part of an ear was gone. I took the water and drank it.
My old man ran off, I said.
After he did that to you?
I did it to myself, I said.
Why?
I didn’t say anything. I sat on a stool at the bar with my back to the room. Some of them thought I was lying to protect my old man, and some of them thought I was lying for reasons they didn’t know.
That’s the singer, one of them said. That’s the kid whose father was tight onstage.
Was your old man tight? the bartender asked. Did he cut you when he was tight?
He didn’t cut me.
Someone said, I wish my kid would lie like that for me.
I’m hungry, I said.
We have sandwiches, the bartender said. But you’ll have to pay for food.
I can sing for it, I said.
The bartender smiled.
You sure you feel up to it?
I nodded. He pointed to a piano buried under empty glasses along the far wall.
You play, Nick.
Nick can’t see straight.
I’m fine, Nick said.
He’s fine, someone else said.
I need more water, I said.
The bartender emptied his pitcher into my glass.
And a quarter a song, I said.
The crowd behind me started to laugh.
Hey, someone said. I’m starting to think whoever cut him got the worse end of things.
Shut your mouth, the bartender said. Here’s your first quarter, son.
I buried it in my sock. Nick sat and played through a few scales. The notes sounded like a thin stick knocking against an empty tin. People applauded and hollered like I was taking the stage. The bartender passed around a bottle. Nick started up an old ballad about a covered wagon and a gold mine and the folks who died along the way. It was slow with the notes all close together. A few bars in, my cheek opened. I tried to rush the words, but Nick was already behind. When I finished, the men threw pennies at my feet. Some of them threw dimes.
You’re bleeding pretty bad there, Nick said.
I touched my cheek. Blood came off thick on my fingers.
I need to wash.
Show the kid the jon, the big one said.
This way, son. The bartender stepped out from behind the bar and led me down a small hallway. He pushed open a door, stood watching.
I have to do more than wash, I said.
I slid the lock in place, then started the water. There was a small, boat-style window cut into the pine wall. It opened inward, with a metal chain running from the frame to the wall so that the window could only open so far. I tried to pull the chain loose from the wall but the nail had been hammered deep into the wood. I looked for something to pry the nail free, but the bathroom was just a toilet and a sink and cracked tile on the floor. Outside, the bartender coughed to let me to know he was still there. I splashed some water in the sink and turned the faucet off and on. I cursed my father for pawning his knife—a hunter’s knife with an ivory handle and a thick blade that came to a fine point.
I flipped through some pennies looking for a flattened edge. There was a dime mixed in and I thought it might be thin enough to wedge between the nail and wood. I tried to scrape shavings from the pine around the nail’s head but I couldn’t push through the shellac. I bent my knees and straightened my back against the wall, trying for a better look at the window’s frame. The wood there was untreated and some of it had been eaten through by bugs. It gave a little when I dug in with the dime, but I had to keep my arms at an angle and the dime slipped from my fingers and bounced against the tiles. The bartender knocked on the door and asked if I was all right. I said I’d be fine, but my stomach was sick. He said something else I didn’t hear. I pressed my palms flat against the window’s frame, pushed until my elbows locked and the chain came free.
What was that? the bartender asked.
I’m gonna puke, I said. I made noises like I was about to be sick and for a while I believed I was.
I went to the sink. The basin had cracked and the crack had filled with grime. There wasn’t any soap. I lowered my head, let the water flood my cheek. The basin turned red. I shut off the faucet, plugged the cut with toilet paper.
Open the door, kid, the bartender said.
I need to cool off, I said. I crammed the words full of my breath.
The toilet water was yellow from the last man to piss in it. I tugged on the chain. I pulled hard and the water started to swirl and while it did I threw my bag out the window and then stepped on the rim with my good foot and pushed myself up and through.
4
I made my way toward the station, leaning against the buildings when my ankle gave. I kept looking back, but if someone were after me they’d have found me by now, hopping and limping and sweating like I was. I felt bugs landing and pushing off on my face. I slapped myself up and down but didn’t kill a thing.
At the end of the street, I saw the hotel and the station behind it. No one was gathered out front. They hadn’t found the bodies. If I’d wanted to, I could have walked up the stairs and into the room. I could have slept on the cot with my father and the whore lying quiet beside me.
Even with the dimes and the last quarter I didn’t have more than two dollars and some cents. I folded the coins in the bill and clamped the bill in my fist. The depot was empty except for an old man standing in a wooden booth with metal bars for a window. A chalkboard outside listed t
he stops the train would make and the miles to each one. The old man didn’t look at me when I walked up. I thought either he was blind or asleep.
I don’t have enough money, I said.
Then I don’t have enough tickets, he said.
But I do have something, I said. I pulled out the whiskey and set it on the counter.
Sober twenty years, he said.
You could sell it.
Got a job.
There was a scratched-up shotgun leaning against the wall behind him. The light bulb hung an inch from his scalp.
I’ve got two dollars, I said. Where can I go for two dollars?
Anywhere you can walk, he said. He laughed, like someone else had told the joke.
I’ll work, I said. I’ll carry people’s suitcases. I’ll stay in the back with the baggage.
You sound like a young man in trouble. I feel for you, he said. But I can’t help you.
He was half-smiling like he’d gone back to thinking about whatever had been on his mind before I cut in. I walked outside and stood in the dark. I crouched, spit into the ground, scrubbed the wet dirt over my hands. I ran my fingers through my hair, across my shirt, down the uncut side of my face.
I sat on the ground outside the station door. I tried sitting like I had no life left in me. I slouched against the wall, but the wood was rough on my scabs. I slumped forward, felt my skin spread until the cuts opened back up. I took off my shoe and set it in front of me with the mouth pointed up. I rested my head in my hands, one palm cupped over my cut cheek. I sat that way for a long while. Nobody came. My eyes started to shut.
I woke to heels grinding down on the gravel. I lifted my shoe and, without thinking I would, started to sing. I sang the first song I’d learned, a nursery rhyme my father danced to in an act that had me dressed like a school boy with a bow tie and collar and pants that ended just below my knees. In the act, my father was walking me to school and I was singing the reasons I didn’t need to go. It started as a duet, with me singing the things I knew already and him answering with the things I didn’t. I know my abc’s. But what about your d’s through z’s? After a while he gave up answering and just danced.
I sang both our parts, slower and sadder than we had on stage. I hung my chin low and raised the shoe over my head. People were hurrying to meet the train, but some of them stopped. There was a man who’d strapped his bags to a dolly but the wheels caught in the gravel and the bags fell over. He righted them and pulled them farther and it happened again. He sat on his fallen bags and listened. He was only resting but I didn’t care because when he got up he stuffed a dollar in my shoe.
A pregnant woman with skinny arms dropped in fifty cents and the man with her dropped in another quarter. A group of show folk carrying instruments applauded and took up a collection. By the time I heard the train coming I had enough for a ticket and a sandwich too.
I rubbed the dirt from my face and ran into the station and slid the fare under the metal bars. The old man didn’t seem to remember me. He counted the money as slow as he could, then slapped his hands together and tore off my ticket. I walked out onto the platform with the people who’d paid my way.
The conductor blew the train’s whistle but I didn’t step back. A man in a bell-top hat greeted people and took their tickets. I stood close enough to the show folk that he might think I was with them. They filled his palm, then mounted the steps with their instruments strapped to their backs.
You by yourself, son? he asked.
He shut his fist. His hair was black above his lip and gray where it curled from under his hat.
I’m sixteen, I said.
Who did that to you? he asked. He asked it quick like it wasn’t worth saying he didn’t believe me, then stepped off the train and looked up and down the platform.
I got separated from my father, I said.
Separated how? he asked.
I didn’t say anything.
Tell me what happened, he said.
I have family in Chicago, I said.
They’ll have to come for you, he said.
But you don’t understand, I said.
And I don’t have time to.
He stepped back onto the train.
But I have a ticket, I said.
Doesn’t matter, he said.
What do you mean?
Nothing’s going to happen on my train.
It won’t, I said. I promise.
If you could keep your promises you wouldn’t look like that, he said.
He leaned out of the door and gestured as if he were chopping wood.
Please, I said.
The train started moving, slow, as though it might stall under the added weight. I watched it stutter past, watched the gears drawing circles and the faces looking at me through the windows. The last face I saw was pressed against the glass and at first I thought the flattened features belonged to the man with the whip but then they were gone and I couldn’t be sure.
I turned back toward the depot. The lights were out. The old man was gone and so was my money.
5
If you were expecting someone younger, I must say I was expecting someone older. Just what is your age?
Fifteen, I said.
I might have believed thirteen, she said. No matter. Please, sit.
We sat with a tray of food between us—bowls of olives, a plate of cheese, a pitcher of tea. Her apartment was a single room with a stove in one corner and a bed in the other. She’d arranged vases of flowers on the table, the window sills, the floor, the stove. I set the bag on the tray.
She smiled.
It’s a cruel world, she said. You know what is inside that bag?
Yes ma’am.
You have lovely manners.
She raised a fist to her mouth, tried to hold down a cough that in the end came rushing up, long and loud and deep. Her eyes watered. She reached for a handkerchief.
I am dying, she said. My doctor tells me that, in the months to come, I will forget things. Things I’ve always known. I will hallucinate. I’ll lose control of my functions. I’ll be in constant agony from head to toe. I haven’t lived a perfect life, but I believe I merit a better end.
She opened the bag, pulled out a vial.
Have you tried it? she asked.
No ma’am.
Are you lying?
No ma’am.
I’m told it can produce a kind of euphoria. A calm settles in. After a while, you simply go blank. Would you agree that this sounds like a better exit than the one my doctor described?
Yes, ma’am. I would.
Good, she said. I was worried that I might frighten you—that you might try to talk me out of it. Tell me, where are your parents?
My father’s at the hotel.
And your mother?
She’s dead.
Did you know her?
No.
A pity. Tell me, as my final wish, will you make me one promise?
All right.
Promise me that when you’re old enough, you’ll strive for something good. What you’re doing now is beneath you, but you’re not to blame. As soon as you can, you must hold yourself to a higher standard. Will you make me that promise?
Yes ma’am.
Wonderful. Now, I would like for you to stay with me while I make the preparations.
I watched her draw the shades, paint her eyes and cheeks, dab her neck with perfume. She took an envelope from a drawer in her dresser, leaned it against a vase on the table. She filled a tall glass with expensive-looking liquor, drank it a quarter down, then filled it again with what was in the vials. She set the glass on her nightstand.
You see, she said, that I am not frightened either?
Yes.
It is good for you to see that. Now, will you kindly start the phonograph on your way out?
The needle stuck a bit. I picked it up and set it down farther along. The music was all piano, the notes running high and low. I heard her choke behind me. I looked ba
ck. The glass was empty. She was lying with her hands folded over her stomach. Her lace dress matched the bedspread.
6
I hobbled along the backs of the buildings until I found a fire escape that was built like a staircase instead of a ladder. I sat on the bottom step with my leg stretched forward and started backward up the stairs, pressing down on my palms to lift my weight onto the step behind me. The wood was rough like it had warped after a long rain. Splinters dug into my skin.
The roof was covered with gravel. Someone had stacked broken furniture and crates of empty bottles and old newspapers along the edge closest to the street. Mixed in amongst the trash was a rocking chair with the backing busted out and a half-shredded blanket draped across the arms. I set down my bag and crawled over the gravel, careful not to wake whoever was sleeping beneath me.
I spread the blanket open, then took the whiskey out of my bag and used the bag as a pillow. I lay on my side because I couldn’t lay on my back. There wasn’t a sound anywhere. No bugs, no birds, no breeze or music, no traffic starting and stopping on the street below me.
I lay there for a long while with nothing to do but think. I could have thumbed down a truck and been a hundred miles to New York by now. I could have dared the manager to cut me, then stood there until he gave me money to go away. I could have fought off the man with the whip the way I’d fought off his dog. I could have asked the musicians at the station to hire me on.
I reached for the bottle, uncapped it and took a long swallow. I took one more, then shut my eyes.
I dreamt my father was alive. The whore was alive too, only she wasn’t a whore, just a woman who lived with us in a large house with wood floors and lots of windows. I had a fever so high it hurt to open my eyes. There were blankets over me and a wet cloth on my forehead. The woman sat beside me where I lay on the couch, shushing me, smiling down at me, telling me to be quiet and rest, only I wasn’t talking.
It’s OK, she said. We’ll sort it out when you’re well.
I wanted to ask, Sort what out? but my tongue was swollen and I couldn’t get the words around it. My father came up behind her.
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