by Renee James
The two residents pay no attention to me. The elevator arrives before the doorman gets back inside. I push the button for the thirtieth floor like I belong here. At the thirtieth floor, I get off and turn left with businesslike authority, just another resident hustling through my day.
After the elevator door closes, I take a minute to get my bearings. I think his apartment is 3023. I couldn’t see what number the doorman punched to page him, and my recollection of my night here is hazy. It might be 3023, or I may have just conjured it up. No matter. I just have to be close. I find 3023 and knock on the door next to it. No answer. I go down another door and knock softly, just loud enough to be heard in that unit, and not next door.
Three doors later, a young woman answers, holding a sleeping infant in her arms. She is petite, late teens maybe, blond, light complexion, pleasant looking. She suppresses surprise at finding someone of my size and gender orientation at her door.
“Yes?” She smiles. It’s a pleasant and curious greeting.
“Good morning,” I say, forcing a brave smile. “I’m afraid I locked myself out of Mark’s place and I left my keys in there. He told me you have his backup key. I think it was you, he said.” I do my best to act flustered and sincere, like Mark’s bimbo of the night.
The young woman flushes a little. “I’m just au pair,” she says. “I don’t know about key.” Her English has a pleasant accent, northern European, Norwegian maybe, or Swedish.
“Oh, drat!” It’s important that I appear to be a flustered and upset woman, and not a campy drag queen, so I don’t swear, but I put myself on the verge of tears. “What am I going to do about my car?”
Before she can respond, I have a second, horror-stricken thought. “Car? Oh, Lord, I can’t even get in my apartment. And I don’t know when I’ll see Mark again. You know how he is, right?” I give her a confidential smile.
To my surprise, she blushes and smiles back and nods, yes.
Mark’s experimentation with sexual conquest has not been limited to transsexuals.
I fret for a moment, hoping she’ll invite me in. She doesn’t, but she seems to sympathize with my plight.
“Well, I best leave him a note so he can let me know when to pick up my keys.” I rummage in my purse for a moment, then look at the au pair. “Wouldn’t you know, I don’t have paper or pen. Will you help me out?”
“Of course,” she says. She invites me in and has me sit at a small table in the kitchen while she rounds up paper and pen. She puts them in front of me, then sits at the table, humming to the infant.
“How old?” I gesture to the child and share my best mom smile.
“Seven months.” She coddles the baby when she says it. I can see how much she loves her charge.
“So dear,” I say. The au pair smiles like a new mom and nods her head in agreement. We talk in hushed voices about babies and mom stuff for a few minutes, me talking about my niece, Roberta, the au pair about the infant in her arms and her sister’s newborn at home in Stockholm.
When we have some rapport going, I change the subject. “Do you know Mark very well?”
The au pair blushes. I brace myself for a confession, but it doesn’t come. “Not me,” she says, struggling with the language a little. “What people say I hear.” Her blush deepens. So maybe she’s just on Mark’s to-do list.
“What do people say?” I ask.
The au pair raises one hand to a “stop” signal and shakes her head from side to side. “Not for me to say,” she says.
“Please,” I plead. “We just met. He seems like a wonderful guy, but I don’t want to get my heart broken again. Can I trust him?”
“He has many girlfriends.” The au pair says it like an apology.
I wait for her to expound, but she doesn’t. “Is he good to them?” I ask.
She thinks for a moment. “Maybe not always. Sometimes loud voices.”
“Oh my!” I try to act a little scared. “Does he hit them?”
She shrugs her shoulders. She doesn’t know. She’s getting squeamish about my questions.
“Has anyone had to call the police?”
“Once, I think.” The baby fusses a little, waving its arms. The au pair glances from the baby to me. “Time for baby,” she says. She wants me gone so she can get back to her duties.
I scribble a legitimate note asking Mark to call me, adding my phone number, thinking lots of people who are just learning to speak English read it pretty well. I want to make it look good for the au pair. I finish up and get ready to leave, thanking her for her help, and saying that I’ll just slide the note under his door.
I don’t, of course. As soon as the au pair closes her door, I head for the elevator. When I get to the lobby, the doorman looks at me quizzically. I don’t want to have a conversation with him, so I go straight to the exit door without slowing down. He opens the door for me. “Didn’t work out,” I say, as I sweep past him into the sunshine of a cloudless October morning. Home free, unscathed, with lots to think about.
Roberta is so glad to see me, she drops all preadolescent pretenses about being cool and envelopes me in a public hug, right in front of the brat pack and the teacher and everyone.
“I wanted to come back to your place two days ago, Aunt Bobbi,” she says, as we make our way to the El station. “Mom said no.”
I explain about the safety issues at my place, then change the subject. We have some time to kill before we go to the airport. I suggest a snack since there won’t be edible food in the waiting area at the International Terminal. Roberta buys in and we find a café in downtown Oak Park.
“I get why you call Grandma and Grandpa the Hitlers,” Roberta says after we order. She says it nonchalantly as if we were talking about the weather. I try not to show the shock I feel when I hear her repeat my words.
“When did I call them the Hitlers?” I ask. I’ve always been so discreet about keeping my dislike for Betsy’s parents from Roberta.
“Lots of times, when you’re talking to Aunt Cecelia on the phone.” She is taking the wrapping off a straw for her soft drink, completely unaware of how embarrassed I am.
“I shouldn’t have said those things,” I confess.
“But you did.” Now Roberta looks me straight in the eye, a little smile on her face. Now she knows I’m embarrassed and she’s enjoying it.
“But I did,” I echo. “I shouldn’t have said those things,” I say again. “They’re cruel and hurtful.”
Roberta bobs her head up and down and sips from her soda.
I’m still struggling with the consequences of my loose tongue. “Do you know who Hitler was?” I ask.
Roberta is leafing through a book from school, but she nods her head up and down. “He started a war and he murdered Jews and gypsies,” she says.
“How did you find that out?” I ask. Surely they aren’t teaching this in the fifth grade.
“I asked Grandpa Hitler,” she says. There is a smirk on her face, and as my jaw drops open in shock, she can’t contain her laughter anymore.
“You should see your face, Aunt Bobbi,” she says. She shakes with laughter.
“Tell me you didn’t call him Grandpa Hitler,” I say.
“Of course not.” She laughs. “Even a first-grader would know better than that.”
Roberta finishes her soup and sandwich while I remind her not to mention the Grandma and Grandpa Hitler thing to her mother. How if she mentions that to her mom, I’ll probably get a black eye out of the deal, not that I don’t deserve one.
Roberta alternately snickers and laughs, reveling in her power to embarrass Aunt Bobbi in a fun way. Eventually, I get over my discomfiture and assert what’s left of my adult control.
Betsy emerges from the security area with dark circles of fatigue under her eyes, her hair limp, her movement filled with weariness. It’s a long flight and a seven-hour time difference, but I’m sure what’s weighing on her most is the loss of a romance that seemed so promising.
S
ome of her pent-up anxiety is expended as she kisses and hugs Roberta, a little more in our sisterly buss and tight hug. But she’s still frustrated and crabby.
“Please tell me you have a limo waiting,” she says, as we head out of the terminal.
“It’s rush hour,” I say. “It would take forever to drive to Oak Park from here.”
She groans.
“The Blue Line is faster.”
She groans again.
“I’ll handle the luggage.”
She shakes her head and picks up her flight bag. I grab the big suitcase. Roberta gets her purse. We have to take the airport tram to Terminal 2 to get to the Blue Line station. The tram is standing-room-only. I can feel Betsy’s fatigue and grumpiness as she is jostled by other passengers, all trying to grab the same pole. One couple is especially rude, nearly knocking her off balance.
My fury rises. I step between Betsy and the inconsiderate jerk who bumped her off the handhold and use my six-foot frame to shoulder the man two steps to the right, clearing enough space for Betsy and me to share the pole and for Roberta to stand between us.
“Excuse you!” the man’s wife exclaims, her face red, her eyes blazing.
I start to say something obscene, then choke it back. I need to be more ladylike, or at least more civilized. Cecelia is right about that. I’ve accomplished what needs to be done here. I look away, ignoring the woman.
But not Betsy. “No,” she says. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”
I can’t hide my mirth. I haven’t heard Betsy swear in years, and I’ve never heard her drop the F-bomb in Roberta’s presence. Roberta is regarding her mother with a mixture of wonderment and mischief. I know she will remind Betsy of this moment at some point in the not-too-distant future, probably the way she laid Grandma and Grandpa Hitler on me.
At least the rude couple has been properly silenced.
22
BETSY IS BARELY coherent from fatigue by the time we finish dinner. I do the cleanup, then kiss them both goodnight and head for the Blue Line.
The El platform is bathed in creepy darkness and silence. There’s only one other person waiting for the downtown train. At least, only one I can see. The platform lights cast dark shadows, some deep enough to shelter a goon waiting to strong-arm a passenger or beat a transwoman bloody. I feel a sense of evil lurking all around me. It’s pure paranoia. But I’ve learned to pay attention to it. I switch the Mace from my purse to my coat pocket and keep my hand on it, just in case.
The minutes drag. Another person takes a position on the platform. He stands near the other man and stares up the tracks, looking for the train. A third man comes onto the platform. He stops about twenty feet from me, checks for the train, checks out the two men, checks me out again. He moves toward me. He’s staring, his head cocked like he’s curious about something. My nerve endings tingle. I flip the cap off the Mace and feel for the mouth of the spray nozzle so I can position it for instant use. The advancing man looks to be five-ten or so, heavy build, wearing workingman’s clothes—jeans, flannel shirt, blue flight jacket, boots. I’m taller than he is, but he’s heavier and stronger, and for all my bravado, if he knows what he’s doing, he could demolish me in a few seconds. All my self-defense work is about getting in the first shot on an opponent who underestimates me, or finding a moment in between being taken down and dying when the opponent leaves himself open for a disabling shot.
He stops a few feet from me, openly staring. He has the slack-jawed face of a fool, and the heavy brows of a natural born thug. He may be trying to determine if I’m a woman or a man. Or he might be deciding whether to beat me bloody here, or haul me somewhere else to do it, or just give me a friendly shove onto the third rail and watch me fry.
He’s still staring when the train comes in. He’s trying to intimidate me, and it’s working. When the train slows to its pre-stop crawl, I can see the car that will stop in front of Nightmare Man and me is empty. A death place. I bolt past him and run toward the other two men and board their car with them. I glance at Nightmare Man as I enter. He’s standing at the threshold of his car, watching me. I board and find a seat in the back corner of the car where no one can sneak up behind me. There are a half-dozen or so other passengers. If he comes back through the train, I’ll see him enter the car and I will be ready for him with my Mace can locked and loaded.
The train lurches out of the station and accelerates, the noise of the wheels and the rushing air wiping out all other sounds. Nightmare Man flings open the door to my car and shoulders his way in like a lord entering his own personal castle. We’re at opposite ends of the car, but there are so few passengers it’s easy for him to see me. He starts toward me, that same scary expression on his face, a blend of vacuous stupidity and bad intentions.
I resist the urge to hyperventilate. I stand, ready to make good on the promise I made myself after I was raped: I will make my next assailant pay for his pleasure with as much of his own flesh as I can shred from his skeleton. As Nightmare Man swaggers to me, I pull out the Mace and ready it for use. I’ll spray his face and when he covers up, I’ll try to plant one spike heel in his testicles.
Five feet away, he reads my body language and stops. Predators don’t like a fight. He stares at me for a moment, like he’s making a decision. Then he turns and lumbers back to the other car.
Fifteen minutes later I get off the Blue Line at Jackson and take a glance around. A dozen or so people get off. It’s a popular stop, even at this hour, delivering people to the Loop and depositing people like me where they can quickly transfer to the Red Line. Several men who resemble Nightmare Man from a distance get off cars in front of mine. The coats are all tan or blue; I can’t see the pants or footwear. I wait for the crowd to clear. No one seems to be looking for me, so I make my way to the underground Pedway that leads to the Red Line platform.
The Pedway is deathly quiet and eerie. It’s like an urban cave: well-lit, wide, warm. During the day, it’s filled with pedestrians hustling to and fro, but this late at night, it’s deserted. For a moment, I hear muffled voices up ahead, indistinct echoes, just loud enough to make the place feel haunted. Ordinarily, I pass through this place without a second thought, but the encounter with Nightmare Man, and the presence of a stalker in my life, has me rattled.
I walk briskly, scanning ahead for hoods waiting in ambush. My heels click like thunder against the hard floor. The sounds reverberate from the walls like a beacon to lurking thugs that there’s a single woman in the tunnel, just waiting to be brutalized. If Nightmare Man jumps me here, he can beat me to death and leave without being seen. He might even be able to get in a quick rape, though that would be much riskier.
I hear a voice behind me, a short, loud bark, male, the words indistinct. I kick off my heels, pick them up, and run like a woman possessed.
The Red Line station comes into view. I’m panting like an Olympic sprinter. I risk looking behind me. Nothing. I stop, take a deep breath, put my heels on, and head for the platform. The air is moist and stale and blends odors of fumes and bodies and the metallic stink of the trains. Twenty feet from the entry, a burly man in a blue coat and jeans looms at the threshold, staring at me like a predator eyeing a meal. He walks in my direction. My pulse skyrockets. I pull out the Mace and get ready to use it.
When we’re a few steps apart, it’s obvious he’s coming directly at me. His face is dark and indistinct under a hood. I can see his lips moving. I can’t see his eyes, but I can feel them burning with something evil. He’s saying something, but it’s gibberish. I’ve been warned that this is a technique used to divert the intended victim’s attention away from their own safety. I’m supposed to focus on trying to understand him so he can surprise me. When he’s a step away, I whip the can of Mace in his face and scream, “Back off!”
He yelps like a frightened child and his eyes widen with fear. He takes two steps back, holding his arms in a gesture of supplication. He has several days’ beard growth and his clothe
s look slept in. He’s not Nightmare Man. He’s a panhandler working indoors on a chilly night. A man living his own nightmare.
“No offense, sir,” he says.
He’s not mis-gendering me to be cruel. His bloodshot eyes and swaying balance suggest a drinking man, well on his way to oblivion. I must look to him like an Amazon woman from hell.
“None taken,” I say. I re-cap the Mace and fish a couple of bills from my purse. “Have a nice night,” I say as I hand the cash to him.
He bobs his head in gratitude, mute, still stiff with fear. I hope I didn’t cause him to soil himself.
My heartbeat returns to normal when I board the Red Line train, but I’m still on edge. I scan the train car constantly to see if other passengers are targeting me. When I get off the train, I wait for the platform to clear before I go down to the street, then I wait again, peering in every direction for a possible enemy, someone loitering or pretending to wait for a bus, someone walking too slow, looking around too much. Nothing.
I walk home with the hairs on the back of my neck prickling every step of the way. I feel as though a sniper in a window somewhere has my head in his sights, and I view every recessed doorway, every shadowy tree and bush, every ominous alley opening as a possible ambush spot for a stalker who’s ready to finish me off.
My walk home is marked only by an overactive imagination. Still, the last time I ignored my instincts I paid for it in nightmares that will last a lifetime.