by Billie Letts
“I see. You a real . . . what you say, humantarium.”
“Afraid not. I did it for the money. Thirty-five dollars. See, my brother and I are saving for our apartment.”
They had reached the last rooms at the end of the hall, just before one of the outside entrances. Lutie would be working the rooms on one side of the hall, Urbana on the other.
“Let me ask you a question, Urbana. When Raul brought me to that room, did he . . . did we . . .”
“So you accuse him of what?” Urbana said, her voice rising with anger. “Fuck you while you pass out? You listen to me, little rat, my brother good man. He no take advantage of a cheap drunk like you. Do I know? Yes. I was with him when he carry you into room, put you on the bed. So now I know you take my money and you accuse Raul of—”
“No, Urbana. No! I’m not accusing him. Honest. I just needed to ask because—”
Urbana, turning her back on Lutie, knocked on a door and called, “Room service,” the process the girls went through sixteen times each day.
Lutie did the same at a door directly across from Urbana’s room. Receiving no response, she used her key to open it, wedged her doorstop beneath the door, grabbed sheets and pillowcases from the cart, and went inside.
She didn’t see the naked man hiding inside the darkened bathroom, didn’t hear him remove her doorstop or close the door. But when she heard the lock turn, she walked to the end of the bed to see who was there, a pillow in one hand, the pillowcase she was changing in the other.
She tried to scream, but he was fast. She got out no more than a surprised yelp before he yanked the pillow from her hand, pressed it against her face, and shoved her back onto the bed, his body on top of hers.
She was screaming, but no sound escaped the pillow as he clamped it ever tighter over her face. Soon, she was fighting for breath.
As he yanked up the skirt of her jumper and tore off her underpants, she grabbed a hunk of his hair and pulled, but his hair was greasy, preventing her from keeping her grip.
He was inside her within seconds, his body slick with sweat as he lunged again and again. She felt as if he were splitting her in two.
She tried to concentrate on what Urbana had told her about Pavel: “You always leaves the door open when you cleaning. If it close, we know he’s inside and we come in to bring fresh towel.”
And now she knew Urbana was working right across the hall, knew she must notice that Lutie’s door was closed. Surely she would use her key, come in and help her.
But the door never opened even though she heard the wheels of Urbana’s cart as it moved on to the next room.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUTIE NEVER RETURNED to the Desert Palms, even though she had a few days’ pay coming. After the rape, she’d recovered her own clothes from the girls’ dressing room, then showered, scrubbing herself raw, shampooing her hair until the bottle ran dry.
Finished, though still feeling putrid, but believing she was as clean as she’d ever be, she’d set fire to her uniform in the bathtub. She’d waited until it was fully aflame, dark smoke billowing, then walked unhurriedly out of the building seconds after the fire alarm sounded, setting off the sprinkler system in the halls, the lobby, the office, and all the rooms.
She’d spoken to no one when she left, even the few, which included Urbana, who’d run for the exits.
She’d surprised Fate, who was still in the library following his whore’s bath, reading before he started his day in the streets. She’d told him she’d been let go at the motel, saying little in answer to his questions, simply explaining that business had dropped off and since she was the last hired, she was the first fired.
She’d spent the day alone while Fate was taking care of his business of collecting golf balls and cans. Sitting in the shade of a tree on the library lawn—never nodding off, though she was more tired than she’d been in her entire life, never shedding a tear despite the feeling of intolerable anger and unbearable sadness—she’d stared soundlessly at a scene only she could see.
That evening when she and Fate went to the shelter for supper, she ate nothing, but the look and smell of the food sent her running for the bathroom twice to throw up.
She’d worked only two hours of her shift at Denny’s that night, telling the manager she was too sick to stay, then she’d driven the car back to the library parking spot without a word to Fate.
He’d known, of course, that beyond losing her job at the motel, something else had gone terribly wrong for her, but he hadn’t asked. He knew her so well, knew she would tell him when she was ready. Not before.
Now, only days later, Lutie was working her full eight hours at Denny’s, but she was only going through the motions. Her personality had changed—her real smile had faded, replaced by one that was wooden and forced; her quick, funny comebacks to her favorite teasing customers were no longer quick or funny, leaving her conversation flat, lacking spirit. She felt, without caring, that she was old, worn out, hollow, and used up. She knew, at just fifteen, that she was damaged. Beyond redemption.
Without the benefit of the washers and dryers she’d used at the motel, her clothes and Fate’s were dirty and wrinkled, but she didn’t seem to notice or care when she wore a blouse with yesterday’s ketchup or a pair of pants with dried splatters of grease down the legs.
Her new personality and appearance soon resulted in fewer tips at the restaurant. And with the loss of her income from the Palms, the savings she and Fate had worked so hard to put together began to suffer.
She went to sell blood again, but her weight had fallen to one hundred and eight, two pounds below the hundred and ten limit, so she was turned away. She tried panhandling once more, this time an older couple walking the Strip, but she couldn’t manage a convincing performance and came away empty-handed and embarrassed.
One morning, when she was sitting in a park she’d recently discovered, a disheveled middle-aged woman and a young girl parked their grocery cart and squeezed in on the bench beside her.
“Pretty day,” the woman said. “I’m Fiona, and this is my daughter, Pammy. She’s deaf, but she can sign and she’s pretty good at reading lips if you talk slow.”
“Hi,” Lutie said.
She would have known they were homeless even without seeing their belongings heaped into the cart. She would have known because of their eyes—hopeless and defeated. Even the girl, who couldn’t have been as old as Fate, had eyes with the look of the lost, the forgotten.
“Want some pizza?” Fiona asked. “We have pepperoni. I think it has extra cheese, too.” She reached into the grocery cart and took from the top a package of greasy newspaper, peeling back the stained pages to reveal an almost whole pizza. She held the paper out to Lutie, an offering. “Help yourself.”
“No, thanks. I just ate.”
“You go to St. Vincent’s for lunch?”
Lutie shook her head, then was struck by the knowledge that this woman, this stranger with everything she owned stuffed into a rusted grocery cart, had recognized her as homeless, too. She realized that her own eyes had taken on the look of desperation that belonged to people who had no shelter, no job, no money. People without hope.
Fiona broke off a piece of pizza for her daughter, then one for herself. “We usually go to St. Vincent’s, except for those days when we have a hankering for pizza. If we time it right, we’re among the first waiting at the Dumpster behind Mama Roma’s at one-thirty when they start clearing out their lunch buffet. Right around one-thirty. You oughta try it.”
“Yeah.”
Fiona wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then said, “So, honey, how long you been on the street?”
Fate, alone while Lutie was working her shift at Denny’s, wondered if he’d ever be comfortable with night sounds. Sirens, barking dogs, falling tree twigs, breaking glass, a crying child, fighting cats. And tonight, the sound of distant laughter woke him.
He didn’t know what time it was; the clock in the dash of
the old Pontiac hadn’t worked in years. But he could tell from the color of the night sky that dawn wasn’t far away. Knowing Lutie’s shift was about to end, knowing she’d soon be back to the car, eased his tension, letting him doze off again.
Minutes later, the car was jarred by a concussive blow accompanied by an explosive sound.
Yanked from sleep, he jerked himself upright to find three boys, older teens, staring at him through the windows. Two were standing beside the back door; the other one was on the hood of the car.
“What do you want?” Fate asked, his voice giving weight to his fear.
“Sucker act like he don’t know what we want,” said the teen nearest the door, causing his cohorts to laugh.
They were black or Hispanic. Fate couldn’t tell for sure on the darkened parking lot despite the light poles ringing the property. They were all dressed pretty much the same: baggy jeans, black T-shirts covered by red jackets, and bandannas on their heads. The one on the hood threw him a sign, prompting the others to do the same—keeping their index fingers and pinkies straight while curling the other fingers and thumbs into their palms.
“Get your skinny white ass out here.”
“No.”
“No? Did he say ‘no’ or did I just imagine that?”
“I think the punk said ‘no.’”
“I don’t have any money, if that’s what you want.”
“Sure you do. Only question is, how much and where’s it at?”
“You think my sister and I would be living in this car if we had money?” Fate was trying to sound tough, but for a skinny eleven-year-old, “tough” was hard to pull off.
“You don’t come out, we gonna bring you out, and you’re not gonna like what happen to you then.”
All pretense of “tough” drained from his voice, Fate said, “Please don’t.”
The boy on the hood jumped up and down again, making the same explosive sound that had awakened Fate.
He was so startled by the noise, he yelled, “Stop that!”— appropriate under other circumstances, perhaps, but certainly not this one. Three boys—almost men—threatening a scared child who was in no position to issue orders, a child about to wet his pants.
“He want you to stop, Carp. Can’t really blame him, nice vehicle like this.”
“Hell, we couldn’t get twenty dollars for this heap of metal even if Zee Dee high on ugly dust. Now, we played with this white boy long enough.”
As one boy forced opened the back door, Fate slid to the other side of the car, just as the door on that side opened. When hands grabbed him by the back of his neck, he struggled with his feet and fists to stay in the car but was no match for the force of the boy, who dragged him out and stuck a gun in his face.
“Now, you little bastard, empty them pockets. And don’t give me no shit. Say one word, it’ll be your last.”
“Okay,” Fate said as he pulled change from one pocket, then reached for the other, which was empty.
Then something happened so fast that Fate wouldn’t be able to recall all of it until later.
“Cops!” yelled the boy on the hood as he jumped off the car and ran toward the tree line.
The boy with the gun tucked it into the waist of his jeans, then headed toward an office building in the distance. The third ran toward the Strip as a police car with sirens blasting and lights flashing pulled into the library parking lot.
The policeman in the passenger seat jumped out and went after the boy with the gun, while his partner pulled out to follow the one running toward the Strip.
Within thirty seconds, all the noise and action had moved on, leaving Fate alone, his heart pounding, sweat spilling into his eyes.
He could think of only two scenarios: The police would come back to question him, or the gang would return and kill him. He wasn’t crazy about either outcome, so he did what most eleven-year-olds would do. He hid.
He found a spot behind a thick hedge that ran along the front of the library, where he worked to bend his body into the smallest shape he could, then pulled loose a couple of branches of greenery to give himself a vantage point so he could see the car.
All he could pray for was that Lutie would beat the police and gang to the car. And this time, God said yes.
When Fate saw her turn the corner heading toward the library, he left his hiding spot, yelling at her.
“Run, Lutie! Run! We have to get out of here fast.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“Come on! We’ve got to go. I’ll tell you why later.”
Hearing something new in his voice, something Lutie had never heard before, she started running. They reached the car at the same time.
“A gang tried to rob me, one of them stuck a gun in my face and . . .”
Lutie started the car.
“Then the police came and—”
“The police?! What’d you tell them, Fate? What’d you say about us?”
“They didn’t ask me anything, they just took off after those guys, but they’ll be back, Lutie. Trust me, the police will be back to ask us—”
Lutie had heard enough to know they had to get the hell away from the library. She gunned the car, squealing around corners, running stop signs, working her way into heavier traffic. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but she knew for sure she would never again let her little brother spend another night sleeping in a car all by himself. Never again.
“Where are we going, Lutie?”
“He actually pointed a gun in your face? A real gun?”
“Yeah.”
Lutie didn’t want him to know that she felt as though her heart were in her throat, didn’t want him to know how much she wanted to stop the car and cradle him in her arms.
“So, do you know where we’re going?” he asked again.
“No, dick-head. I don’t have a clue.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE MOTEL LUTIE moved them into was called the Gold Digger Inn, the cheapest place she could find: $19.95 per night or $10.00 for three hours. The Digger, as the locals called it, was most popular with long-distance truckers. They could park their rigs on the huge lot behind the motel for no charge, gamble in the Digger Casino, have a meal of all-you-can-eat pancakes any time of the day or night for ninety-nine cents, or take their plea-sure with the prostitutes who roamed the premises 24/7.
The girls and women plied their trade in the Digger for the johns willing to pay not only for their services, but also for the cost of a three-hour room, or they performed their work in the truck’s cab, usually on the sleeping berth behind the driver’s seat.
Lutie and Fate’s room held no surprises, but for the price, they hadn’t expected any. They had shelter. A door with two locks, a window air conditioner that actually worked, two beds—real beds with pillows and covers—clean towels, a toilet, a tub, and a TV. After the way they had been living, they no longer took such amenities for granted.
Unfortunately, there was almost always the noise of a bed headboard bouncing against the walls on either side of their room or the one above them. Occasionally, they were awakened by a crash of glass from the parking lot, and on their second night there, they heard three gunshots nearby.
The biggest disappointment of all, though, was that living at the Digger removed Fate from the Paradise school zone. But he didn’t say a word about his letdown. He knew Lutie was doing what she could to keep him safe at night while she was working at Denny’s. Besides, now that they were paying twenty dollars a night for the motel room, they couldn’t possibly put together the six or seven hundred dollars they figured they’d need to rent an apartment in the Paradise zone.
Fate spent the first week of living at the Digger trying to work his way into a job. The library where Lutie had parked Floy’s car had been within walking distance of the two golf courses where Fate had made money selling golf balls. But here, on the east side of the city, there were no golf clubs, public or private, so he had to depend on collecting cans, and the nearest
recycling station was miles away. As a result, Lutie drove him there every few days, the backseat and the trunk filled with boxes and plastic sacks of aluminum cans.
Sometimes, he actually lost money because of the driving distance and the rising cost of gas. But he didn’t mention that to Lutie. Truth is, they had talked only when necessary since the day she quit working at the Desert Palms. Sometimes she took two or three showers a day, and he occasionally heard her groaning in her sleep. Odd and sad behavior for her, but when he’d asked her to tell him what was wrong, he never got an answer.
In his walks looking for cans, he located three elementary schools within a mile or two of the Digger. And though he tried to avoid comparing them with the Paradise, his effort was useless.
One was a brick building constructed in 1940, according to a plaque near the door, but time had dealt with it harshly. Several trailers and one prefab formed a disjointed square at the back of the school. One of the trailer doors had been ripped from its hinges; Fate peeked inside just long enough to see that it was being used as a crack house during the summer recess.
Another, Martin Luther King Elementary, was a three-story concrete-block structure, but all the windows on the first floor were covered with bars. He wondered if the bars had been added to keep students in or to keep intruders out.
The third school was long and lean, one story decorated with graffiti. By looking through grimy windows, he located the library, a room about twice the size of his and Lutie’s room at the Digger. The shelves lining three walls were only half-filled with books. A world map pinned to a bulletin board had been torn in two, the floor was covered with stained carpet, and the chalkboard contained a message that said, “liberiuns wo’nt give head.”
Suddenly, the face of a black man appeared on the other side of the windowpane; a second later, the window flew up.
“Whatcha want here?” the man asked. “Whatcha lookin’ for?”
“Nothing, really. But I might be going to school here this year, so I was curious about the library. I like to read.”