by Nace Phlaux
I left him to clean himself up and came into a warehouse busy emptying itself out. Where that used to be groupings of drunks heading back to the tavern, the new order didn’t seem to talk to each other much, seemingly more interested in their phones. I caught Lohmann on his way out, confirming the old number we had for the warehouse’s ticketing system was still in use, and called in a complaint about a broken bathroom door.
Somebody had to keep the place running smoothly, right?
Manny 9
From: Emmanuel Quinn ([email protected])
To: Rolando Ortiz ([email protected])
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 08:26 AM
Subject: Re: not cool
> So I ain’t Christy’s putita or her lap dog. The money you seen me with lately’s
> been from dealing Missy’s supply. My boy was spinning at Trilogy
> Friday night, and I wasn’t even paying attention to what I was selling until
> a marecon come up to me going “tf is this?” Piss pills. My whole stock’s
> been replaced with piss pills.
> Lasix or Lasors or some ish like that. And nobody’s got any ish with me lately
> but you. So I gotta assume you broke in my car and f’d up my supply. If you
> still got em on you, I want them back. If you trashed em all, I expect my
> money. Not messing around here, mareconcito.
>
> -Ro
What kinda fool you think you talking to? Didn’t break into your car. Didn’t touch no pills. Didn’t do jack and/or squat with your stuff. Mama didn’t raise no moron messing with pills—mine, yours, or nobody’s. The fact you doing that? Done. Said it before and saying it again. Done. Done with it all.
This why you talking up all the kids? Why they all suddenly love them their Ro? How many people you hooking up around here with that sin?
Cut the grass and the snakes come out. SMH
Thanks,
Manny Quinn
Assoc. Mgr – Physician Validation
t: +1 (215) 680-3747
41 University Dr.
Newtown, PA 18940
www.episync.biz
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Candy 6
1526 Marsha
Yardley, PA 19067
February 15, 2013
Dear Dorothea,
After everything that’s happened since my last letter, Dottie, I think you may be my only friend left, even though I haven’t heard from you since Thanksgiving. Not trying to guilt trip you, hon, but just saying. You could let me know you’re still alive now and then. But even if you don’t give me a ring or send any cards, at least be a dear and keep me in your prayers. I’m trying to build a better future for myself, but you gotta make a mess to clean house. Lay a foundation with cut stones, right?
First, I got into a fight with Helyne. We drove to another night at the Station Cafe, and the flurries started shortly after we arrived. Preston asked everyone to twist their chairs toward the windows, and he played melancholic instrumentals as everyone watched the snow fall. For a moment, it was a touching moment, allowing us a chance to meditate with our warm cocoas and coffees in our hands. Well, until the light at the corner where the cafe stood turned, causing cars to stop right where we were all staring. That inspired Freedomme to point at the driver of an SUV and say, “Homegirl rockin’ that ‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ look.”
The episode quickly turned into everyone in the tight coffee shop criticizing everyone stopping at the light. A second guitarist joined Preston, soloing melodies over his rhythms as we made fun of the passersby. Eventually, the girl who’d come weeks ago with her friends suggested she’d like to share her poetry, and as soon as she detailed how much she loved female genitalia in iambic pentameter, the cafe filtered out into the street.
Once we were outside, Helyne caught me blankly staring off into the train station’s parking lot and asked how I was doing. “I just keep wondering, hon. A couple months back, you said you’d look into Danny’s drug use, and you told me everything was all right. Now his own father’s telling me Dan’s smoking the pot, which only makes me question my trust in you.”
That wound up being the start of a screaming match. The cafe regulars stood back and watched as Helyne criticized my ability to control any of my men. I may have pointed out how she always smelled like the fish from the restaurant. Eventually, I told her she’d need to find another ride home and stormed off. By the time I reached home, she’d called Dommy and told him what happened, and I walked in to him shouting, “What the h*** did you do, Ma?”
The noise drew the attention of the house, and as Dommy was yelling, “What’s this about you stirring s*** with Hel, Ma?”, Jer walked into the room and yelled at him to watch his language. “Maybe you should watch your wife, Dad.” The slap across Dommy’s face silenced the rest of the house. His red face turned to the linoleum, and he apologized before running upstairs to his bedroom. Jer waved off the twins and asked how I was doing, and for a moment, I forgot where and when I was, like we were two normal human beings having a normal conversation instead of what we were: two former lovers tied by broken vows and a group of young men looking to us for support.
I told him I was fine, but my mind raced at the repercussions of what I’d just done. Helyne had been my confidant for the better of a couple months there, especially when it came to Jerry and the cheating. But I just couldn’t take her lying to me about my son, his health, and his drug abuse. It’s a slippery slope, as I recall you know all too well, Dottie. I can hear you now asking me, “If she fibbed about that, what else do you think she fibbed about?” At least she didn’t know what I’d been doing with the Facebook profiles. The worst she could say to anyone is I suspected my husband of cheating. Every woman does, right? It is what it is.
After I finished writing you my last letter, I messaged Jer from the Violet account, and he responded with, “Hey, was just going to msg you. How u?” A sneer snuck out on my face as I asked myself how to play the situation. I didn’t want to, couldn’t, just run through the paces as we had been for the past week. The energy wasn’t there to be sexy, and he didn’t seem to respond to my flirting. The rage inside had my face burning red, so I decided to go honest like I did at the Super Bowl.
“Not good. Husband issues. Maybe it’s men in general.”
“Nothing you two can’t handle together, I’m sure.”
“Don’t know. How do you and Candy do it?” I clicked my tongue at myself. It was a sheer brilliant move on my part, I thought. The Typing... icon went haywire for a while, long enough that I finished the bottle of wine and crack open Jer’s beers. Never a flavor I ever was into, but it helped pass the time. Not to mention kept me from sobriety, which was not something I wanted to face that night.
“We get by,” is all he had to say about that. Shortly after, he followed up with, “You have your kids just like we do. You gotta keep up appearances. Gotta keep em thinking there’s a strong front even when everything’s burning down around you. And sometimes the burned bridges get repaired and that front isn’t a front anymore. But as long as you present yourself like that, the kids don’t know. They think everything’s healthy and go about their days.”
“But what about yourself? Maybe it sounds selfish, but aren’t I allowed to be happy? Aren’t you? How long do you have to suffer through a failing marriage? How badly does it have to fail before you bail?”
“Is your husband abusive? Does he hurt you or the kids? You’ve never mentioned anything like that. What’re you looking for? Fulfillment? If they’re doing good and nobody’s going hungry, then that’s all the fulfillment I need. All the purpose. Drive. Whatever you want to call it. Maybe you need a hobby. Boredom leads to terrible things sometimes. Idle hands yada yada.”
“What about cheating? As long as the kids don’t know about that... Some physical attention. Someone to think you’re hand
some/beautiful again. Someone to hold you, grasping tight because they aren’t certain whether you’ll leave at a moment’s notice or stick around for the rest of their life.”
“Beware the taste of something new.”
Something about that sounded really familiar, as if it came from a movie or TV show we’d watched together, but I couldn’t put my finger on the source. I finally shook it off, literally gesturing back and forth, which wound up teaching me just how much I’d had to drink so far. Eager to get off the phone, I just came straight to the point. And don’t you judge me, Dottie. You know how I can get a little salty after a few drinks. But I said flat out to him, “Do you want me or not, Jerry?” After some time passed without a word, not even the Typing... icon, the little dot next to his name turned off, signaling he’d gone offline.
No messages came through over the weekend, and I found myself dodging my husband for days. Once the open mic disaster occurred, I had to add my oldest son to the shortlist as well. Dommy stayed out of the house as much as he could, and thankfully he’s smart enough to keep Helyne far from the house. But every time he came back home, he’d slam the door like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. Jer spaced out in front of the television all weekend, and I didn’t have the heart to force everyone to church Sunday morning. It seemed easier to stay home than to answer why my husband hadn’t joined us. I promised to arrive early the following week and go to confession. He buried himself in his work for the rest of the week, telling me through the family grapevine to let him fend for himself when it came to dinner.
Valentine’s Day passed by without a word or gift exchanged between me and Jerry. Dom disappeared for the night, so the twins and I had a quick dinner together. I cleaned up after the meal, drank my wine, and read my book as if it was any other Thursday. The only difference is that I actively avoided turning on the television. Any holiday-specific programming would’ve left me a wreck.
By the time I’d walked into work this morning, the headache that’d been building for three days didn’t meet with Liz’s date details well. Somewhere in the middle of a sentence—mind you, this was hour three of her monologue—I interrupted her with, “Do you dress like that to your dates?” She was dressed as she was nearly every day I’d worked with her. Black dress with little splashes of color, almost like big jimmies on dark fudge, with sheer black leggings, a pair of Mary Janes, and a white cardigan.
The problem was the tattoos. The dress showed off most of her chest, and the sheer cloth barely hid the dark lines on her legs. A diamond centered on her chest was surrounded by a pair of roses and vines. A crown rose from the top of it, and thorns entwined and dug down into her cleavage. Her left forearm had a clock, or maybe a bomb, surrounded by black birds, and her right calf had a fading tribal pattern with a name in the middle of it that, without close inspection, appeared to say “Myke.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, in that slow almost growling monotone her deep voice always bordered on.
“Those tattoos and your outfits. They come on a little strong, darling. Don’t you want your men to be a little surprised when they get you undressed?”
“I’m proud of my ink, and s***, look at it. It’s everywhere. Guys don’t tend to like being surprised this much. Gotta lay it all out there, and they can decide to proceed further. But are you trying to slut-shame me, dude? ‘Cause that s***’s not cool.”
“I’m just saying, maybe your presentation is—”
“Is the woman who spends her hours chatting under a fake name to her cheating husband trying to school me on how to bag a man?”
“No, I—”
“F*** you, Candice.” She then turned around, sticking her ear buds in and starting up a Pandora station. We didn’t talk for the rest of the shift, subconsciously sinking into a groove where we alternated going out for a cigarette so we wouldn’t be anywhere near each other in the small loading dock designated as the smoking area.
Liz hadn’t given me anything to do, either Carol Lee-related or actual Purple Heart work, so I didn’t know how to keep busy. I tried to recall the last time we’d actually done any Purple Heart work and came up with nothing, which made me wonder about our two-manned room. What were we doing? Did the company even know about it? And what were we even doing it for? I was staring at the screen wondering that when Richter messaged my Violet account, asking how his tiny dancer was doing.
“I’m thinking of leaving my job. Something weird’s going on, and I don’t want any part.”
“?”
“All we do is call and hunt for this woman named Carol Lee. No reason why. No real drive to do it either. I don’t think the managers know we’re doing it. Is it my coworker Liz? Is she looking for Carol? I’d think she’d have more answers about it if it was. But I don’t know who we’re answering to or why we do it. And I hate it. I don’t want to work here anymore. But where else would I go? I don’t think the temp agency would accept ‘it got weird’ as a valid excuse to leave. Maybe I should tell management what this girl’s doing and asking me to do.”
“How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?”
“What? I don’t want to go down any hole. I have enough going on in my life right now. Maybe I should just quit.”
“Let me look into it for you. Stay in a holding pattern until I get back to you, okay? Promise?”
“Fine.”
When I arrived home, I found everyone at the dining room table with Helyne where I’d normally be seated. Danny said, “Look, Ma! Helyne cooked dinner for us.” She apparently had cooked orzo-stuffed peppers, just enough for her, the boys, and Jer. “We thought maybe you’d gone on vacation again,” Helyne said with a smile. I’d forgotten she knew about that, and apparently she’d told everyone else. I went to the bedroom as they ate and locked the door, mortified and shaking.
I sat on the corner of the bed, crying into my hands and trying to go over everything I’d said to Helyne about the hotel. The fact I ran away from the family was bad enough, regardless of whether they noticed. They’re the ones who should’ve felt ashamed for not realizing their own wife and mother had been missing for days. But did I mention Richter? Despite all this starting from my suspicion of Jerry, would it end with him being suspicious of me? I did nothing wrong, though, right? I don’t think I ever told Helyne about that part of my so-called vacation, but isn’t that worse? Everyone could fill the blanks with their own terrible ideas.
The sounds of laughter and dishes clanking rose up the stairs, and eventually I could hear the kitchen sink turn on. The whole time, I kept thinking, “Geez, I can’t even get any wine for myself.” But as I stayed there, listening as the men dispersed throughout the house, a noise went off on my phone, and I checked it to find a message from Jerry to my Violet account that said, “After the day I had, I’m thinking about it.” I couldn’t stop a sob from escaping me once I read those words, but the ensuing rage and feeling of betrayal that followed helped me to ground myself again.
“There’s a little hole in the wall on Mill Creek Rd. called the Mill Creek Inn,” I replied. “You know it? Real dive. Everyone keeps their eyes on their glasses. No one’ll recognize us or have any questions. Think you can be there tonight?” It was the moment I’d been working toward, but with it right in front of me, I questioned everything, doubting my actions and goals. The devil on my shoulder added, “I’d really like to see you,” but his angel partner kept whispering, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Say you were just kidding. Say you’re not interested, Jer.”
No icon. No going offline that time. No, none of that. Just a simple, “I know it. I’ll be there in 30.”
Another sob clawed its way out of my throat just as Jer walked into the bedroom, grabbing his watch and wallet from the dresser. Our eyes met, and his looked completely apathetic. Like a complete stranger I didn’t know how to read. I asked where he was going, and he told me, “One of the kids from work broke down around the corner. Kind of new to the area and doesn’t have much in the way
of connections. I’m gonna see if there’s anything I can do with the car.” He checked himself out in the mirror, futzing with his hair a bit. “If all else fails, I’ll get him home and make sure he’s settled in.”
He left without looking at me. There were years there where he wouldn’t have left a room without telling me he loved me and blowing me a kiss. But I seemed to be the farthest thing from his mind as he marched to the trap I’d set up. As soon as I heard the car leave the driveway, I ran out and followed suit. When I got to the bar, I couldn’t pull in right next to him, but when I got out, I went over and sat on his hood, chainsmoking and staring at the door.
The minutes came and went, and I watched as smokers finished their sins and went inside. I almost expected to see Jer join them, seeing as how top was bottom and cats married dogs lately. As time went on, messages filtered to my Violet account, but I didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at them. I didn’t want him seeing any of them marked as Read. Eventually the vibrating in my pocket stopped, and I saw him leave the bar, slightly inebriated but very dejected. He didn’t even pay attention to his car until he was only a few feet away. When he finally saw me, he stopped, glaring at me wide-eyed.
“Who’re you looking for, Jer?” I just kept repeating that over and over. “Who’re you looking for?”
“What’s this about, babe? You set this up?” He grimaced at the crowd of smokers by the bar’s entrance and came back with, “Let’s not talk about this here.”
“And where’re we supposed to talk, you cheating a**?” Tears poured down my face, and my voice cracked as I shouted at him. “Home? Looks like Dommy’s whore has taken that from me already. Maybe she’ll have better luck keeping you all in check.”
“Of course home. The boys deserve an apology.”