A Perfect Blindness

by W. Lance Hunt

  “The future.”

  We tap glasses and drain them. I send my glass spinning in small circles on the table.

  “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand,” he says.

  We climb down the steep stairs that split the dance floor from the bar, and as the music fades behind me, I feel that ice-water sensation cascading through my chest and into my belly. The move is real. Happening. Everything’s different now.

  Chapter 12

  Sweet Home Chicago

  —Jonathan—

  Chicago explodes from the earth in front of us.

  As Scott drives us over the crest of the raw steel bridge, I gaze at the city pouring over the plains, the tallest buildings’ peaks shrouded in clouds. Lake Michigan stretches out like an ocean to the north, disappearing into the horizon. Like a vast tapestry spread before the city, miles upon miles of houses march in neat squares along streets. As far as I can see, these homes pour over the prairie. The sun pokes through the clouds in a bright splash far to the west.

  All this risen from a fire—a second city built upon the ashes of a first. The perfect place to start anew.

  “Home,” I whisper. Oh, Amy, I hope this is worth it.

  I take in all the big buildings to put her out of my mind while we make the rest of the drive.

  After we reach the building, I find a pay phone to call Tanya. She’s not going to be here. Nor is Randal. She’s sending AnnMarie instead, and didn’t say why, and the abrupt way she cut off the call leaves me feeling ill at ease.

  Once I hang up the bulky, black handset of the pay phone, I go around the corner of the Coyote Building and stop to take in the six corners of North, Damen, and Milwaukee Avenues. Across North Avenue, three swarthy middle-aged men wearing baseball caps, T-shirts, and jeans talk in front of an abandoned three-story building with graffiti scrawled all over it. Next door, a small store displays window signs for abarrotes, plátanos, manzanas, and productos Goya. A bald guy, wearing a lip-beard and black leather vest, walks out of its door carrying a white plastic bag. A woman in a long black dress appears behind him and shoves her hand in his back pocket. They both have pallid, effete complexions.

  Crossing back under the ‘L’ tracks, I pull up next to Scott, who’s leaning against the truck a half block west of North Avenue across the street from an abandoned Russian bathhouse covered in an all-tile facade.

  “Tanya said AnnMarie will be by with the keys,” I say.

  “What about her—or Randal?”

  “Don’t know. Didn’t say. Busy?” I ask, hoping that’s the reason.

  “Or she’s sending AnnMarie to do her dirty work,” Scott says. “To tell us we can’t have the loft now. That there’s some problem. Or turns out she needs it for a nursery.”

  “No. Come on,” I say, feeling a prickling of fear. “No. She’s not going to do that.”

  “She’s been a … I don’t know. A bit weird since she got knocked up.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ve known her for … Nah. No.”

  “So when’s AnnMarie going to get here? We’ll find out.”

  “Couple of minutes. She works at the Myopic—that coffeehouse-bookstore deal. ’Round the corner on Milwaukee.” I dip my head toward the avenue I think is Milwaukee.

  “Yeah, Jonathan,” Scott says, nodding. “We’re here.” He’s looking at me the same way he did in the rearview mirror when Rick Astley was playing and he mouthed the lyrics about how he was never gonna let me down.

  I step back from him and search the avenues for AnnMarie.

  “Oh, that’s her,” I say, relieved, pointing to her rounding the far right corner.

  As she approaches, the details of her face begin emerging: cat-eye glasses; smooth, pale skin; a softly round jaw—all this framed by a dark brown bob. In the breeze, AnnMarie’s dress plays on her legs.

  “So,” he asks once she’s arrived, “what’s up with Tanya? Not like her to miss out on a huge gift being given.”

  “Well,” AnnMarie says, looking down. “I don’t know what to say.”

  My breath catches.

  “Hormones,” she says, shrugging. “Roller coaster right now. Never know who she’ll be.”

  “Yeah,” I say, giving up a nervous laugh.

  Then, she tilts her head, trying to get a better look at me. “Should I ask?” She points at her lip.

  “That. Yeah,” I say, grimacing. “Long story. Boring.”

  “Women’s bathroom,” Scott says. “Jeans down around his ankles.”

  “Shouldn’t we be getting inside?” I ask, turning to the old factory building that holds our new home.

  “Yes, we should,” AnnMarie says, reaching into her purse and pulling out a set of keys, jingling it in front of me. “Here. Do the honors?”

  “Thanks.” I snatch the key she holds up, step to the door, and slide it home.

  Sorry, Amy. That … everything.

  Pushing open the glass door, I step into the dusty entrance; the sound of my steps echoes off the enameled ceiling and walls of lime-sherbet tiles. Boards cover the entrance to the first floor to the right; the stairwell, with troughs worn into the steps, ascends to the left.

  “How do you get to the freight elevator again?” Scott asks.

  “It’s around back,” she says. “In the alley.”

  “Now, there’s something that needs to be done from the inside, right?” he asks.

  “Loading dock needs unlocking,” she says. “Randal showed me.”

  “I’ll get the truck,” he says. “See you out back.”

  AnnMarie and I climb the stairs. Dust and grime cover everything, including the walls. After three flights, we step onto the fourth-floor landing. Here a large gunmetal-gray door of reinforced steel waits. I feel Amy still accusing me of leaving.

  Get out of my head, Amy. Different lives now.

  I shove the key into the lock, twist it, push down on the latch, and put my shoulder to the door. It scrapes loudly open, stirring up a small cloud of dust from the floor.

  Early-afternoon sunlight filters through banks of filth-streaked windows along the north wall, creating twilight in the thirty-five hundred square feet of open space as it spreads over the entire top floor of the abandoned factory in front of me. The walls are raw brick in various earth tones, and wide yellow warning stripes slash the cold, gray concrete floor. A row of six evenly placed concrete pillars, three feet thick, runs lengthwise down the center of the deep rectangular space. Mustiness hangs thick in the air.

  “What the hell did they make here, again?” I ask, running a finger along the frame of the door. The black smudge feels gritty.

  “Pencils.”

  “Better than bullets.”

  “Here,” she says. “Let me run down and unlock the loading dock. Take care of the elevator up here. Make sure the inside gate is all the way down and the outside doors are closed.” She trots off to the back corner of the loft and pulls open a door.

  For a moment, I hear faint steps going down stairs.

  I find a bank of switches and sweep them all up with my forearm. From the semidarkness of the twenty-foot-high ceiling, four of the many half-hidden industrial lamps stretching down from the ceiling burst on in a spotty grid.

  Screws and chains sprouting from all sorts of odd places, peeling paint, holes, grime-clouded windows, ever more dust, rust, and piles of who knows what suddenly appear.

  Shoulda left them off.

  Alone in this gaping, filthy space, I feel a panicked dread that coming here was a mammoth mistake.

  “What the hell did I get myself into?” I ask, hoping, somehow, Amy can hear and tell me it’ll be okay.

  It’s silent.

  Then pounding comes from the elevator.

  I run over and pull up on the strap, opening the black jaw-like doors.

&nbs
p; “Hey,” I call down the shaft.

  “Can’t get this damned thing to work,” Scott yells up.

  “Hey up there!” AnnMarie calls up. “Make sure the inside gate’s all the way closed. Then close the outside doors all the way or we can’t move.”

  I give the inside gate a yank down, and something clicks, and then I close the outer doors. I hear a low rumbling sound begin. A feeble light from the shaft grows stronger. Finally I see Scott’s head rising into the small window in the top door, and when his face comes to a stop, I pull open the doors.

  “Love that,” he says. He steps into the loft. “Damn. This is a helluva mess. Worse than I remember. Filthy. But fine. We knew that, right? So we’re good. No complaints get back to Tanya.”

  “None heard here,” AnnMarie says.

  He gives her a thumbs-up. “Now, bathroom? I’ve got to piss like a racehorse.”

  We follow AnnMarie to the middle of the only windowless wall of the loft, where she pushes open a lone door marked “Women.” She flicks a switch, and one fluorescent bulb sputters to nervous light. A bank of ten lockers covers half the wall to our right. Across from them stand two grimy sinks. Beyond those are two stalls with half walls exposing crud-streaked toilet bases, and opposite them I see two showers marked out by a square lip of stone, their heads and fixtures sprouting from the walls, and gray water stains leading to grates in the floor. It smells of neglected public toilet: old urine, strong cleansers, and something even more vile but not quite recognizable.

  “I’ve been listening to your demo tape again,” she says.

  “Yeah?”

  “How fast can we get started?” she asks. “I’m jonesin’ to play.”

  “Need to get set up here,” I say. “Clean up. Beds. Gear. Couple or three days, maybe.”

  “You said we want another singer.”

  “A woman,” Scott says. “Backup with you. If she can run delays and routers, and knows Apple machines and sequencers, that would be a huge bonus.”

  “A singer-sequencer queen,” AnnMarie says. “When do you want to set up an audition?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “End of the week?”

  “Guys,” Scott says, opening a stall door. “Let’s do this outside in a minute. I need to piss here. But before you get too far. We’ve got to have our shit together so we can come across as professional. We don’t even have a phone.”

  He locks the door behind him, and the sound of gushing liquid striking water pushes us out the door.

  In the mottled light of the loft, the amount of work daunts me.

  “Damned lot of work,” I say.

  “I’ll be here. Ron will too.”

  “Where is he?”

  She shrugs and then looks around the space, nodding. “Yep. A very lot.”

  Scott shoves the bathroom door open, shaking his head.

  “Shoulda been you, Sammy,” he says. “Like we said.”

  “Sammy? Who’s he?” AnnMarie asks.

  Freezing midstep, Scott looks at AnnMarie, startled.

  “She,” I say. “Sammy’s that chick you grew up with, right?”

  “Sammy, yes. She. Samantha. That was her name. I knew her. Long time ago. When I was fifteen. She’s, um … dead now.”

  “Car crash,” I tell AnnMarie.

  “Yeah. It was,” he says. “But that was years ago.” He shakes his head, biting his lower lip. “Hey, more important for us here, now: that toilet reeks. So first thing: bleach and disinfectant. Gallons.”

  “It’s two o’clock,” she says.

  “We need industrial-sized brooms. Mops. Buckets. Soap,” I say. “Just to carve some space to put stuff in without sinking ass-deep into dirt. And whatever the hell else. Then get our crap up here. And return the truck in”—I glance at my watch—“three hours.”

  “There’s this giant hardware store over on Milwaukee,” she says. “We’ll grab supplies there.”

  “Got the credit card all fired up,” Scott says. “But here. Let’s get everything onto the loading dock. We’ll lock it up there. Then return the truck. Then run to the hardware store. Then we clean this dust bowl up. At least enough for a place to sleep tonight.”

  Well, Amy, maybe I can do this without you after all.

  Chapter 13

  Seventy-Five Dollars

  —Jonathan—

  Early the next morning, the flame from the Zippo illuminates my fingers. They’re caked with dust and lined with rivulets of sweat. My nails are black lines at my fingertips.

  Scott and I are sitting on the floor, leaning against a column in the middle of the loft with the soft pinks and oranges of dawn poking through the windows. In the middle of the floor, AnnMarie’s silhouette bulges from a mattress.

  I feel him tapping my arm with the bottle of vodka. I take the bottle and set it on the floor. I’ve had three slugs and can’t think of a fourth. He’s finished more than half of it alone and doesn’t slur a word. He never slurs no matter how much he drinks.

  “We did it,” he says. “We’re here. So have another swallow or three. Celebrate.”

  I shake my head, which makes me feel woozier.

  “Come on,” he says, leaning against me and holding the bottle up to my lips. “This is Chicago. With me. No time to be a lightweight.” His hand is on my forearm, and he’s looking intently at me again, as if he’ll whisper to me how “we both know what’s been going on,” but I’m too tired to move; my body refuses. So I turn my head away.

  My eyes close.

  Sleep whelms me.

  • • • • •

  That evening, the loft is quiet and filled with the golden dusk light of my first day here.

  No one else is here, and I’m sitting at my keyboard in the center of the space. I switch on the keyboard. It wakes up; the green and red LCD lights blink. Taking a deep breath, I spread my fingers and slowly drop them to the keys, dabbling out a lazy scale.

  After a day of cleaning, I’m anxious to write something, to show off that I’m really here. I keep hearing a hook, but I’m so spent I can’t corner it on the keyboard. It annoys me like an itch I can’t reach.

  Scott opens the door.

  “So,” I ask, “how’d it go?”

  “Got it. Supposed to call them over the weekend for my schedule,” he says, throwing his bag on his mattress. “Dark in here.”

  “Those lightbulbs ain’t cheap. Credit card’s maxed out,” I say. “Like the phone. Stupid expensive in this town. We can’t get it until next week. As in Wednesday or Thursday. Of course, we have to call to find out which.”

  “That about makes sense—call with the phone you don’t have yet.” He pulls out his wallet and starts counting. “How much cash you’ve got?”

  “’Bout twenty bucks.”

  “You start tomorrow, right?”

  “At 11:00 a.m. Hate lunch shifts,” I say. “You know. For some reason I’d thought that after moving here, I wouldn’t have to wait tables anymore. At least Le Moloko looks better than Dominato’s.”

  “I’m famished,” he says. “I’ve got fifty-five. Let’s try that place on the corner—Friar’s Grill. Looks old-school grease pit—cheap.”

  “Seventy-five bucks. I can see it now: mac ’n’ cheese and ramen noodles. Like with Arcade Land.”

  “Not like with Arcade Land. This is Chicago,” he says. “Here there’s a real chance. Fresh start. No Sean or Marsha. And no Amy.”

  That stings; I wrap my arms around myself.

  “How much vodka’s left?”

  “Jesus, how can you think of that?” I ask, grimacing. “I still feel ill.”

  “You’re a lightweight. Where is it?”

  “Where you left it this morning.” I point at the column where I fell asleep the night before.

&nbs
p; He grabs the bottle and takes a large gulp. “Ahhh. Now I’m ready.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “We’re living in an abandoned pencil factory. In Spanish gangland. With a locker room for a bathroom, no kitchen, no phone, and no band. And we’ve got seventy-five dollars between us.”

  “We’re insane.”

  “Exactly. But insanity’s the only way to get where we’re going.”

  Chapter 14

  Music Whore

  —Scott—

  I roll over again. I’m tired and need to sleep. I spent two weeks busting ass cleaning and fixing the loft, and waiting tables, and then last night, I had to close. I got home around one and have to work lunch today, and then he keeps me up all night breaking in another Amy.

  Why did I think it’d be different here. That he’d … I don’t know.

  Whatever the hell time it is now, too early, I smell Jonathan’s cigarette. That means he’s up with Amy Number Two.

  To hell with sleeping in.

  Opening my eyes, I blink at the hazy light from the windows. I push myself up on my elbows and see him sitting in red boxer shorts at the card table in what we’re calling a kitchen—a few feet of wall between the front door and elevator.

  He waves.

  Throwing off my covers, I get up and walk to the table, adjusting the waistband on my boxers.

  “Gotta do something about the noise,” I say. “Need to sleep every once in a while, here, man.”

  “Noise?” he asks, sweeping hair behind his ears.

  “‘Amy, à la Chicago,’” I say. “Oh, oh, oh, ooooooh. Ooooooh.”

  “Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “I … That was … complete surprise. She is.”

  “You could’ve dragged the mattress to the other side of the loft. I mean, I had to close, and I’m beat, already lying here. Then I have to try to ignore you two?”

  “So,” he says, looking like a kid who got caught with his dad’s dirty magazines. “You heard?”

  “Couldn’t help it.”