Dead Lines

by John Skipp; Craig Spector

  Or how ‘bout Roger, her latest disaster. Yeah, Roger was great. Handsome and fortyish and too hip to hurt; cut him and he’d probably bleed Ralph Lauren aftershave. Now they were an item, and soooo good for each other. He was doing a book on Central America, was going to take her along as his photographer. Maybe her big break. I remember her coming out of the office at checkout time, pulling me aside to tell me the great news…

  The great news ended rather abruptly at the Midtown Women’s Services clinic, at precisely the same microsecond that the urine test came back positive. That was six weeks ago, give or take a millenium.

  Well, he did pay for exactly his half of the costs, which was awfully decent of him. But he wasn’t there for her on the day it happened, with a smile or a hug or a hand to hold. I was. And he wasn’t there in the guilt-wracked weeks after, or ever again.

  I was.

  Yeah, Roger was slime, and Roger went the way of the wind. But even he wasn’t the worst. First, there was Martin.

  There was always Martin …

  The cab cut up Tenth Avenue like a shark through dark waters. Forty-second Street floated by; I blinked back fractured patterns of garish light and color that winked like beacons to hungerlust and loneliness, previews of coming attractions that would never hit town. The moron-parade marched on in my brain: an onslaught of compelling, charismatic bastards who, for all their disparate differences, had held one thing in common. Which I had not.

  LeeAnn.

  Lithe, lissome bane of my existence. An otherwise intelligent woman who wouldn’t take two ounces of the same shit on the job that she ate buckets of in her personal life. And who, for some equally unfathomable reason, liked her men either old and sensitive or young and macho. Old, macho men were chauvinistic pig-dog bastards.

  Young, sensitive men were wimps…

  I winced, biting back the thoughts, denying any possible truth. The cab turned onto 48th and crossed Ninth Avenue as the last of the Foster’s slid down my throat. I felt bilious, and I needed to take a leak. My mind was burnt crispy. My nerves were live wires.

  But as the cab slid up to the corner, I resolved that this time, this time it would be different. Tonight would mark the end of her love affair with the scum of the earth. I felt a queasy determination that I underscored with a toot of cocaine courage, an alkaloid surge of ersatz bravado. It’s my turn, dammit! I told myself. If it could be done, it would be done.

  It wasn’t until I paid the cabbie and hit the pavement that I started to get nervous.

  Maybe it was the way she sat, back framed in the grimy bay window, red and green neon backwashing her features like some DC Comics damsel in distress. Maybe it was the window itself, which hung dripping like a plate-glass gullet. The way it displayed her.

  Like bait…

  I felt it, alright. As I hunkered over and puddle-dodged ‘ toward the door, it was there: a small, wormy gut-rush, synching with the Bud and Stroh’s signs that blinked wanly behind the glass, vestige of some primal warning mechanism not entirely obliterated by the drugs. Saying No… No… No… No…

  It was enough to register. It was not enough to stop me. The place was a dump, alright, but I felt sure I’d seen worse. It was nestled in the middle of a block dominated by drug dealers, pimps, and pawnshops, with the occasional ratbag adult emporium tossed in for good measure. The sign above the awning read simply BAR, with a badly painted-over prefix that looked as though the name had changed hands so many times that they’d just given up. The grime on the big window was thick enough to carve my initials in. The street itself was mercifully void, thanks to the rain; a sole Chicano bum not too far from his teens sprawled by the doorway, oblivious to the pounding. He twitched and muttered sporadically.

  I fingered the folding knife thrust deep into the right-hand pocket of my jacket, the one that I’d habitually carried since being mugged last summer. It was long and thin and very sharp; stainless-steel casing, stainless-steel blade. I had never pulled it, never even used it, and often wondered if I carried it as a kind of a talisman more than a weapon. I hoped that I wouldn’t need it in either capacity tonight. The thought oh shit, LeeAnn, what are you into now? loomed forth. The only possible answer was directly ahead.

  The smell of bridges burning lay behind.

  ■

  The first thing that hit me was the stink, a palpable presence that grew exponentially as the door shut behind. The usual stale smoke/stale beer bouquet, yes. But something else, underneath: a vague, foul underpinning. Familiar. Like—

  Sewage, I realized. Great. My stomach rolled. I grimaced and took in the layout in an instant. The interior was long and low and dark, the furthest reaches of it enshrouded in greasy shadow some forty feet back. A psuedo-old-time finger-sign pointed down some steps near the back, one word emblazoned in large gold script.

  GENTLEMEN.

  The source, no doubt. This must be my night. My bladder begged to differ. It wouldn’t be long before I had to hit the hopper. It was no longer an idea I relished.

  I noted that the rest of the decor was strictly Early K-Mart: imitation-walnut paneling and formica as far as the eye could see. The bar itself was unique, hugging the wall to a point halfway down the far side. It was a large and graceless structure replete with tarnished brass hand and foot rails, and somehow managed to be constructed entirely of oak without being the tiniest bit attractive. Twin ceiling-mounted Zenith nineteen-inch TVs blasted cablevision mercilessly on either end.

  The Hooter Girl adorned the center.

  She looked like one of those paintings of the hydrocephalic sad-eyed children, pumped full of silicon and estrogen. The kind of black velvet sofa-sized monstrosities you see cranked out by the yard and offered up on abandoned gas-station aprons across America, right next to Elvis and jesus and the moose on the mountain. Big moon eyes and tits like basketballs. Pure class. The neon color scheme had faded over the passage of smoke-filled time, leaving her once-electric tan lines merely jaundiced.

  It might have been funny, under other circumstances. At the moment it was making me ill. That and every other sordid detail, from the fly-specked ceiling tiles to the screaming vids to the sodden regulars that lined the bar like crows on a barnyard fence. What the hell was I doing here, in this hole, at this hour?

  The answer crossed the lateral distance of the room and wrapped herself around me before I could mutter a word. We stood there for what seemed a very long time. I probably would have remained in that position forever, but for the eyes that had followed her course to me. They were hungry, angry, gimlet eyes.

  The hunger was for her.

  The anger was all mine.

  “Would you please tell me what the fuck is going on here?” I said under my breath. It came out a little more hysterical than I’d wished. Good start, chump. I thought. Don’t whine.

  “Thanks for coming,” she whispered into my armpit. I waited for more. It did not seem to be forthcoming, but she added a squeeze for emphasis. The warm flesh of her back shuddered beneath my touch, but for all the wrong reasons.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I asked, not entirely certain that I wanted to hear the answer.

  She nodded and snuffled just the tiniest bit, but she didn’t let go. It worried me. Very gently, I pried her arms from around my waist and started to say, “C’mon, Lee, what’s going on h—”

  I never finished. LeeAnn looked up.

  She had a black eye. Slit-swollen. Nasty. A tiny crescent-shaped cut had congealed just under her left eyebrow. She smiled gamely, chagrined. Her right eye crinkled with little smile-lines; the left remained fixed and droopy, like a bad impression of the Amazing Melting Woman.

  I don’t know why I was so surprised. Maybe I wasn’t. I’d seen it before. But I couldn’t bear to see it again: not now, not ever. My gaze flitted spastically to my shoes, the tubes, the goons at the bar. Anywhere but her face. Her face was dangerous. Her face made me dangerous. I stared in red-eyed rage as twin Rambos dispensed endless all-beef lessons in h
ow real men take care of business.

  But the goons at the bar weren’t watching that. They were watching us. They were watching me.

  They were smiling.

  It was too much. There was nowhere to turn with my anger but back to the source. The words that came were clipped and vicious, in a voice I barely recognized as my own. I didn’t like it. I couldn’t help it.

  “Who. Did. It.”

  LeeAnn shook her head. “Beer first,” she said. It was not a suggestion. “And we’d better sit down.” Then she pulled away, turned, and strode over to her place at the window end of the bar, next to the very pay phone she’d probably used to call me, and gathered up her things. She gestured to the bartender, a withered old troll in a baggy white shirt who looked as if he’d spent all his younger days on some Lower West Side dock, trundling the very same kegs he now presided over. He grunted imperceptibly, ash falling from the Lucky pinched in one corner of his lips, and began refilling her emptied pitcher with deft, wordless efficiency. She was back in control that fast. However tenuous, she was in charge. Of herself. Of me.

  I stood in stunned silence, the rage draining impotently out, as LeeAnn returned. She squeezed my arm lightly, imploringly, and then walked back toward the shadowed and empty booths. I was supposed to pay; it was understood. I watched her graceful trailing trek across the room. I watched her hips. I watched her ass.

  I wasn’t the only one watching.

  Two of the clientele, a pair of drunken dimwits interchangeable as Heckle and Jeckle leered at her in brief, neck-craning abandon. The third, a hairball with thick gold chains and too many teeth, managed a sidelong snickering appraisal before resuming his ogling of the washed-out and weary-looking blonde to his left.

  The blonde, meanwhile, was oblivious to it all: staring off into her drink as if it were a gateway to another world entirely. She was the Hooter Girl made flesh, and then stepped on. Not pleasant.

  I stepped up to the bar, stoned and shellshocked, drugs and wasted adrenaline making the seamy details painfully apparent. I fished out a crinkly ten-spot and stared blankly at the wooden expanse of the counter.- It was scarred and pitted, with initials and epigraphs and other vital pearls of wisdom. Ritual scarification. One stuck out like a message in a bottle: four words, carved deeper than all the rest.

  TO BE A MAN.

  To be a man. A bitter sneer engraved itself across my face. To be a man. I‘d heard enough of that shit to last me a lifetime. My old man had said it. My peer group had said it. The first caveman to bludgeon his object of desire and drag her home by the hair had grunted its equivalent.

  To be a man. You bet. If my mind had lips, it would have spat out the words. Somebody got nice and manly with LeeAnn tonight. It’s written all over her face…

  I looked up. The blonde was glancing at me with weak and wounded eyes. I could see every crack and sag in her features. Ten years ago or so she must have been a real looker, but that was ancient history now. That kicked-around look spilled off of her in waves: the way she hugged her vitals, as if waiting for the next blow to fall; the way she’d sort of sunken into her own caracass, as if the extra padding might help; the way her eyes kept darting to the back of the room.

  I stared, waiting for the pitcher to fill. And I wondered how the hell she could have let that happen to her.

  Then the men’s room door squealed open like a thing in pain.

  And up stomped the Mighty Asshole.

  The gnarled little man with the pitcher of beer was forgotten. So were the drunks and the hairball, the blonde, the dueling idiot boxes where Rambo played out his bloodless charade. Even LeeAnn slipped from my mind for one long, cold moment, as the entire spinning universe funneled down to the behemoth pounding up the cellar stairs.

  Big as life and twice as ugly, he swaggered toward the bar, fumbling absently with his fly. Arms like girders. Eyes like meatballs. Feet pounding the floorboards like an overblown Bluto in a Max Fleischer cartoon, sending shock waves up my legs from halfway across the room.

  The impulse to retreat must have come on a cellular level, because I had backed into a barstool before I even knew I was moving. Connecting with teetering solid matter jostled me back to the broader reality, and I cast a nervous glance over to LeeAnn. She was watching him, too.

  We were all watching him.

  It wasn’t just that he was tanked, or that he was built like one. Or even that he was bearing down on us like some angry moron-god. Rather, it was his presence: the sheer force and volume of his rage. It was as vivid as the glow around a candle’s flame, and black as the dead match that first fired it up.

  The Mighty Asshole thundered over to his seat next to the blonde. The terror in her eyes answered my previous question quite nicely: they were an item. Like hammer and anvil, they were made for each other. I shuddered involuntarily.

  Then the troll was back, pitcher and mugs clunking down onto the bar. He grinned at me, a toothless rictus, as

  I handed him the money. Looking into his eyes was like staring down an empty elevator shaft and never quite seeing the bottom. He smiled as he handed back my change, smiled as I hefted the goods, and kept right on smiling as I made my way back. The Asshole shot me a beady-eyed and territorial sneer as I hustled away.

  I crossed the room like the guest of honor at a firing squad. The screaming of my nerves eased up only marginally the farther away from the bar I drew. LeeAnn was already seated, tucked into one of the half-dozen claustrophobic, dimly lit booths that ringed the desolate rear of the room. I joined her, setting down the pitcher and mugs, peeling off my wet jacket and tossing it into a heap on the bench. The beer sat untouched on the table. I sighed, grabbed the pitcher, and filled both our mugs. LeeAnn watched. I handed her one, took a swig off my own, and waited.

  Nothing.

  “Well?” I said. It was meant to sound level and controlled, but it came out all wrong.

  LeeAnn looked away. “Finish your beer,” she said. She was serious. She was miserable.

  “What?”

  “Your beer.” She was adamant. “Finish it.”

  I glared at her exasperatedly, then tipped back the mug, drained it in two gulps, and banged it on the table. “There,” I said, “All gone. Happy?”

  “Very,” she said, refilling my mug. “Have another.”

  “What?! C’mon, LeeAnn, this is bullshit.”

  “Trust me, Dave. Drink up.”

  I stared at her for a moment longer, weighing the situation. I didn’t want any more beer. I really didn’t. In fact, the whole situation was beginning to grate on my nerves. My clothes were wet, the night was old, my bladder ached, and my patience was wearing thin. The words don’t play games with me, dammit flickered through my mind on their way to my mouth, i caught them just in time.

  But the anger remained. It was not lost on LeeAnn; she knew who it was for. Her whole body flinched back for a microsecond. The gesture was mostly surprise; but there

  was no getting around the fear, iris-black and widening, at its center. I’d seen fear in her eyes before, but I’d never been its cause.

  I felt like a total shit.

  “Jesus, kiddo,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” Now it was her turn to avert the eyes. I looked at the mug of beer before me. It wasn’t that much to ask. I wondered what the fuck was wrong with me.

  I drained the goddam mug.

  “Okay,” I said, deliberately, with as much aplomb as I could scrounge up. “The beer is drunk, and so am I. I’m sedated. I’m fine. I will not get angry.

  “So tell me: was it someone you know?”

  She nodded, still looking away. Her good eye glistened.

  “One of your lovers?”

  Another nod, with an accompanying tear; that one hurt. It wasn’t phrased to hurt. It couldn’t help itself.

  “Who?”

  No answer.

  “Who?”

  A small voice, barely there at all. “Martin.”

  For one terrible moment of silence,
the world went cold and dead.

  “Come again?” I said. Vacuum voice, through a throat constricted. I knew I’d heard it right, was terrified that I’d heard it right. My temples began to thud. The bile swilled in my guts.

  “Martin,” she said. Louder. Defiant.

  “The Martin?” I pressed. She shrank back again; inside my skull, there was thunder. “Scum-sucking douchebag Martin? Originator-of-this-whole-downhill-slide Martin? That Martin? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yes.” Less a word than a squeak. She was still shrinking back, her spine flush with the booth. Retreating, now. Into herself.

  “Are you serious?!”

  “YES!” She screeched, the tears flowing freely.

  “JESUS!!” I screamed, clapping my hands over my forehead. “You’re sick!” She winced. “How could you do that?!”

  But I already knew the answer. It was easy. She had help.

  Martin.

  The first, and the worst…

  LeeAnn had broken up with him about two years ago, right around when we first met. I’d only seen the guy once or twice, when he came by the office to meet her after work. He seemed alright enough; tall and good-looking in a yuppified way. Real confident. Real smooth. They seemed like the perfect couple, and I was crushed.

  But then I started hearing the horror stories: about how he constantly bullied and sniped at her, how the emotional abuse had begun to turn physical, and the physical act of love became brutal, supply on demand… until, when she finally grew sick of him and was no longer willing to offer herself, he went ahead and took her anyway…