Leaving Allison

by Sedgwick, Grady

  Krystal digs in her purse for a hairbrush. “Kansas,” she says. “I hopped a bus three weeks ago and didn’t tell nobody I was leaving.”

  We tap our plastic glasses together. “Good job,” I say. “That’s how everyone should leave, without dragging others into it.”

  Sitting on top of the bureau beside the television, she brushes her hair while swinging her feet above the carpet. “Know what?” she says. “You and me are the same way— Ugh, I just now realized something. If I tell you, you promise not to kill me?”

  “I promise.”

  “Swear not to?”

  “I swear.”

  “O, man, I’m such an ignoramus. I forgot your name.” She comes over and sits beside me on the bed. “Wait up, give me a hint. Does it rhyme?”

  “It’s Mitch.”

  Hiding her face with both hands, she falls backwards across my legs. “Retard! I’m such a retard.” She rises up to sit cross-legged. “Mitch and Krystal,” she says. “That’s how I can remember it, by saying them together.” She adjusts her towel over her breasts. “Wanna see a trick?”

  “Are you going to suck a cigarette up your nose?”

  “No, not that one. I can do that one for you later. She pulls my boxers down. “Pretend you’re a customer and pretend you don’t wanna wear a condom.”

  “I am a customer.”

  “I know, just pretend.”

  Krystal places a condom inside her mouth and mumbles, “What I do is trick my trick. See what I’m doing? I’m drooping my hair over your thing so you can’t see what I’m doing, but I want you to see. Can you see?”

  “I can see.”

  My semi-erection is in her mouth, her head moving up and down.

  She says, “Check it out, man! That’s called blowin’ on a condom.”

  The condom is bunched up on top, hardly even on. “Hey, that’s pretty good. Who taught you how to do that?”

  “My stepfather. He made me practice on him.”

  “Your stepfather?” I reach over to the bedside table and hand Krystal her wine. “I’m sorry that happened to you, really sorry.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “We don’t have to do this,” I tell her. “I’ll still pay you.”

  “No, you’re nice to me,” she says.

  So we end up having sex, for five or ten minutes. When we finish, she tells me I was awesome. I wasn’t. I didn’t last long, hardly touch her and never even kissed her.

  Standing in the shower, I realize how wrong that was, how cold. She deserved better.

  “Are you in there?” Krystal calls out.

  “Right here,” I say, my body lathered in soap. She comes in and sticks her head through the shower curtain.

  “Did you like it?”

  “You’re the best,” I tell her.

  “Do you want me to wash your back?”

  “No thanks.”

  While I’m drying off, Krystal sits on the edge of the bed scratching a mosquito bite on her arm. She wants to talk. I’m too tired to talk. “Come sit by me,” she says. “If you want, you can have a free one.”

  “Not now, Krystal. I’m drained.”

  “You want me to leave?” she asks.

  “It’s not that, I’m just worn out.”

  She gets up to put on her clothes. “If you want,” she says, “I could stay and we could do it again later, when you’re not tired.”

  I give her sixty dollars and stand beside the door, a towel wrapped around my waist. She comes over and gives me a hug, squeezing tight. “Mitch, I lied to you about my name. It’s Sera. Sera, is my real name. I wasn’t going to tell nobody in Las Vegas but I wanted you to know the truth.”

  “Sera is a great name.”

  “Know what? It may sound like bragging, but I can add, subtract, and multiply everything in my head without using a calculator.”

  . . .

  It’s quiet without Sera. I stretch out on the bed and try to sleep. It doesn’t happen. I start reading White Nights by Dostoyevsky. Thirsty, I get up and drink water from the bathroom faucet. Now, instead of fatigued, I’m wired, on edge. Sitting on the bed, I stare down at my feet. Cigarette burns are scattered on the carpet. Sleep is definitely not going to happen. If I had my running shoes, I’d run. I’d run like I did in Florida, just keep on going until something changes.

  Knowing what needs to be done, I get dressed, brush my teeth and slap Aqua Velva on my face. On the way to Donna’s bar, I check behind buildings and walk down alleys looking for her. Through the back door of Mr. Bing’s Restaurant, a Asian cook ladles soup from a large pot. Behind Mario’s Pizzeria, three waiters are laughing and passing a joint.

  Donna may not even know where Sera is. Someone could be beating her, raping her, and Donna wouldn’t even know it. On Fremont Street, a narrow current of brown water flows along the gutter carrying off bits of trash, an empty beer can.

  “If you’re talking about Krystal? She ain’t my kid,” Donna says while pouring a draft.

  “You were supposed to be watching out for her.”

  “Why you got it so bad for that runaway?”

  “I don’t have it bad for anyone.”

  Donna tongues her missing tooth. “All I know is you was the last one who seen her.”

  I order a bloody Mary and a bag of potato chips. Sitting in a red vinyl booth near the pool table, I ease down and prop my feet on the other side. She would have stayed; she wanted to stay. I finish my chips, and after a while, finish the bloody Mary. It would be easy to lay my head on this table and fall asleep. Instead, I get up and go to the bar. “Do you have something to write on?”

  Donna is leaning over a three-compartment sink washing glasses. Her shirt is undone, breasts hanging loose from her chest. “What?” she says.

  “That’s okay, forget it.” I go through the narrow hallway and enter the women’s restroom. I search the wall for Krystal’s autograph, and below it write—Mitch and Sera.

  She may have returned to the laundromat, so I cross the street and glance along the side of the building, then walk around to the back. Warm air is blowing from a row of vents along the outside wall. A security light shines on a white delivery van. In a shadow, I sit on an empty bucket and plan my next move . . . What I wish I could do is call my father. Not for an explanation, but rather to apologize to him, tell him I should have done more. We all should have done more.

  Halfway down the next block of Fremont Street is a flashing neon sign for Big Frank’s twenty-four hour adult video arcade. Since there isn’t anywhere else to go, I step inside. Big Frank is perched on a tall stool behind a glass counter filled with dusty sex toys and x-rated videos. The place smells like rotting jellyfish on a muggy beach. In the back room, it’s dark. Cigarette smoke hovers near a low black ceiling. A stooped-over, crippled man wheels his metal mop bucket past a fat fairy waiting for a hook-up. I slip into a private booth, feed four quarters into a video machine and unzip my pants.

  Wearing a black evening gown, a lady opens the door of her mansion for a pizza delivery guy. I’m getting into the video, jacking-off as the lady removes her dress, her large tits pointing at me. Someone knocks on the separator wall interrupting my fantasy. It’s probably the fat fairy in the next booth. He sticks his fat finger through the glory hole, wiggles it and whispers, “Put it in here, so I can give you pleasure.” I am pissed, more than pissed, and want to smash his face in. The guy won’t stop wiggling his finger. “Put it in here, pleeez.” I maneuver to get a better position, then ram his finger with my knee. Crack!

  He screams as I exit the booth, shooting past the front counter zipping my pants. “Fuck off, Big Frank.”

  Two black guys are offering loose joints on the corner, two for five. I turn to see if Big Frank is coming after me, then eye the blacks. They’re wearing baggy warm-ups and thick gold chains. I want someone to mouth off to me—I’m looking for a fight.

  One of the black guys gives me a look and asks if I have a problem. This is so perfe
ct, exactly what I want. The poor guy has no idea how much fun I’m going to have kickin’ his ass. Big Frank and the fat queer are watching from the doorway. The queer has his broken finger pressed under his arm, using his elbow to point at me. His voice squeaks, “That’s him, right there!”

  The small guy to my right starts talking shit, like I knew he would, giving me a legitimate excuse to get the ball rolling. I aim my punch at his chin, a left-hook that will surely be lights-out for this loser, but my momentum propels me off the sidewalk into the gutter. My foot slides in water, my punch hits only air, and as I’m falling, my knee cap smashes against the curb. Dammit! The pain vibrates through my leg, screeching through bone. I roll onto my back hugging my knee.

  The drug dealers walk off laughing. Big Frank and the fat queer are laughing too, mocking me from the doorway, throwing air punches while falling over each other. I stay on the curb, rubbing my knee, rocking back and forth to ease the pain. The queer walks over to me. I tense up expecting him to kick my ribs. Instead, he bends down, his puffy face directly in front of mine, and says, “You’re all wet, looo-sur!”

  After a minute I gradually stand up and limp across the street to a liquor store. The glass door is locked, so I bang on it, signaling to the Indian man to let me in. “I’m not a goddam criminal,” I yell. He points to a walk-up window, where I buy a sixteen-ounce Tall Boy.

  Heading down Fremont, the motels have retro neon signs, payphones and prostitutes. Limping on my sore knee, I avoid eye contact with the people walking toward me and tilt my head back to down some beer. A vintage clothing store is still open, and after hiding my beer behind the bushes, I go inside. Two teenage girls are riffling through a rack of shirts, holding them up to each other, laughing. I find a restroom in the back and survey the damage. My pants are wet on one side, my shirt dirty from lying on the sidewalk. After finger combing my hair, I go outside to retrieve my beer and almost fall into the bushes.

  Resuming my journey, ignoring my aching knee, I try to fake a normal walk. A skinny black whore is heading towards me, proudly strutting her stuff. “You like what yous’ gawkin’ at?” she says.

  Damn, she’s bald, or almost bald. I ask how much.

  “Pends on how much you gets.”

  In a British accent I say, “Perhaps a slow comfortable screw with cherry hugs and chocolate kisses.”

  “A WHAT?”

  “Maybe something light and jazzy would be appropriate for these troubled times of ours.”

  She skews her coconut head, sizing me up before lighting a cigarette stub. “What-cha call yo-self?”

  “The world recognizes me as the great Miles Davis.”

  She cocks a hand on her hip. “I know yous not Miles Davis, but we can play. Gotta room, Mistah Davis?”

  I take a sip from my beer. “Unfortunately, my current state of affairs finds me without shelter or sanctuary. However ma’am, given the appropriate boudoir of intimacy, I’m prepared to allow what is known in less polite company as a sucking of the baculum.”

  The prostitute takes me behind a trash dumpster next to a Hurricane fence. Her name is Ebony. She demands twenty dollars.

  “The subject of money absolutely bores me to death,” I say and give her twenty from my wallet before unzipping my pants. “Now, for proper introductions: It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Ebony. As mentioned earlier, my name is Miles Davis and this is my horn.”

  . . .

  At six a.m., I grope my way to the bathroom still drunk, my knee stiff, refusing to bend. It taste like somebody shit in my mouth, so I brush my teeth and splash water on my face. In the bedside table, I find a book of matches, return to the bathroom and sit on the tub. When I can’t think of anyone to call, I strike a match and hold it under my wrist. The hairs singe, curl and disappear. It doesn’t hurt though, not enough anyway—not as much as I want—so I strike three matches and hold them together. This time I feel it, and keep it there, the flame, under my wrist. Pain races circles up my arm, radiating, expanding.

  “What’s going on in there! What is all this screaming about?”

  The motel manager, the lady with charcoal eyebrows, is inside my room banging on the bathroom door. I hadn’t realized that I’d been screaming. “Either you come out or I’m coming in.” She opens the door and sees me curled up on the tile floor holding my wrist. The air stinks like melting plastic. She nudges my ribs with her gold slipper. “What is wrong with you? Get up!”

  “It’s all right,” I tell her. “Burned my wrist is all.”

  “Mister, I don’t care for it one bit. You need to leave, now!”

  I grab the sink for support, stand up and lift my duffel bag across my shoulder.

  Walking down random streets, looking for somewhere to go, I enter a building called the Ministry of Christ. They have rows of white tables and folding chairs, homeless people eating breakfast. A volunteer brings me a plate of bacon and eggs along with a small cup of orange juice. I finish eating, wipe the table with a napkin and ask the lady in charge if she has anything for my burn.”

  “What burn?” she asks.

  I turn my wrist over. The woman cradles my hand and leads me into her office.

  “This is an ugly burn so early in the morning. How did it happen?”

  “Early in the morning?”

  “Yes, it’s early in the morning,” she says.

  “An unfortunate accident.” I tell her.

  She spreads lotion on my wrist and wraps it with gauze and tape, but she won’t let go. She’s squeezing my wrist. I have to pull my arm away from her. “What the hell?”

  Across the street, resting on a bench in front of a pawn shop, my wrist doesn’t hurt as much and my knee is back to normal. A limo cruises by with two chicks hanging out the sunroof. A wiry turtleneck guy in a Cadillac El Dorado pulls over to the curb. “Um, excuse me. Do you know what time it is?”

  Fags have been doing this my entire life, trying to pick me up, get in my pants. I stoop down at his passenger window and explain. “It was years ago when I was far from home—very young and very brave—yet nothing could be done about it. They entered my sanctuary, held me down, and chopped off the appendage.”

  “Bite me,” Mr. Turtleneck says, before grabbing his crotch.

  I start walking, cross a wide boulevard and enter a clean neighborhood with nice homes, Spanish tile roofs, green lawns and a modern church. Maybe there’s a priest inside, someone I could talk to, but I’m not going to tell anyone what happened.

  At the end of the block, I cut through a high school soccer field, dragging my duffel bag across the grass. Behind the school, a black man is shaking dust from a large floor mat. I go over and ask if he needs any help. The man is friendly and wants to know where I’m heading off to. “Maybe California,” I tell him, “if that’s what I decide. My name’s Mitch McAllister.”

  “Robert Boxie,” he says, offering a firm handshake before rolling up the floor mat. I help him carry the mat inside and spread it out near the school entrance.

  “I don’t mind hanging out for a while if it’s okay.”

  He notices the bandage on my wrist but doesn’t say anything. I follow him to a storage room. He puts me in charge of a large trashcan on rollers. It’s my job to roll it down the hallway, while he empties small wastebaskets from each classroom. We talk about baseball, and I find out he used to play in the Carolina League. “Pitcher, is what I played,” he says.

  “That’s cool, I was a pitcher. A long time ago.”

  Working our way through the school, I ask about his father, if he’s still alive.

  “My father,” he says, extending the key chain on his belt. “He died in World War II, a long time ago.”

  We get into a pretty decent rhythm emptying trash, stacking chairs. “Whose fault was it, the way he died?”

  Mr. Boxie tells me about his father serving in the Pacific theater. He was a cook on the USS Northampton. The Japanese exploded two torpedoes in her port side sinking her in the Solomon Islands
. “No,” he says, “I can’t say it was anyone’s fault.”

  . . .

  After an hour of walking, I stop at a Greyhound station to get a drink from their water fountain. Mr. Boxie had offered to have his wife cook lunch for us. I liked him and probably should have gone, but now, a whole new range of options open up, when a guy wearing a yellow Coconut Willie t-shirt offers me a bus ticket to Los Angeles. “Twenty bucks,” he says.

  I only have ten dollars left. Coconut Willie says he’ll take fifteen. He’s wearing a puka shell necklace and has a feather roach-clip hanging from his back pocket. I tell him to give me a minute, let me dig for more cash. Sitting on the floor beside the water fountain, I lay my duffel bag over my legs and start taking things out. “Do you know a girl named Krystal? She’s young, about seventeen with red hair.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Her real name is Sera.”

  “I’ll find someone else to buy it,” he tells me.

  “Okay, just a minute.” I hold up two Polo shirts. “Two shirts for your LA ticket?”

  Before walking off, he says, “It’s not going to work.”

  My empty duffel bag is laying across my lap, clothes spread out on the floor. An employee comes over and tells me, “You need to clean up this mess.”

  . . . . .

  Erica

  Jack McAllister is thirty-one: “You have to learn how to handle pressure,” he says, “so if you miss this fastball, you’re a rotten alligator with his brains blown out.”

  “Brains blown out with a shotgun!” Mitch hollers.

  Mrs. McAllister had told them that playing catch inside is off limits, but Jack is on his fourth scotch & water, and while his wife cooks supper in the kitchen, Jack and Mitch practice throwing fastballs in the den.

  Jack holds his hands out like a catcher’s mitt. “It’s the last pitch of the World Series! The crowd is yelling. The pressure is on. If Superstar Mitch McAllister throws a strike, the Astros win it all!”

  Mitch gets halfway through his windup and stops. “You want a fastball? I eats me spinach.”