Genevieve

by Eric Jerome Dickey

“Small town. People talk. I understand.”

  Grandpa Fred. Viagra. Some toothless woman with equal handicaps. Coughing his way into Nirvana. His four long teeth. Those nubs waggling.

  There are some things I do not want to imagine.

  I say, “Grandpa Fred.”

  “Yessir.”

  I whisper, “The gub’ment.”

  He whispers back, “Right, right.”

  I sit back and again I almost smile.

  Again I whisper, “When I get back to California, I’ll see what I can do.”

  That is a kind lie from my mouth to his ears.

  We hang up.

  Before I can stand, the phone rings again.

  She says, “May I speak with Sister?”

  “I’m alone, Kenya.”

  She takes a breath. I imagine her posture changing. Close my eyes and see her hips. Her tongue ring. Her wild hair. My wife’s scent covers me but it is her sister I taste.

  She asks, “Where is the truck?”

  “Kenya, you okay?”

  “Where is the truck?”

  “Where is your friend?”

  “He’s in my room. Where did you move the truck?”

  In her room. The man she did sexy things for. The man she fed mangos and gave slippery sex in an incense-filled room. Kissing. Sucking. Fucking. Coming. He’s in her room.

  Silence. Jealousy. And relief that she’s okay.

  I tell her.

  She says, “Thanks for looking out.”

  Then there is a pause, both of us measuring, unsure.

  I am the first to speak. “Where are you?”

  “In the lobby.”

  I ask, “You haven’t seen Genevieve?”

  “Not my day to watch LaKeisha.”

  Again my eyes go to the ashes. The empty wine glass. I walk to the front of our suite. The damp towel is still across the front, but moved back from the opening of the door. Forty-five-degree angle.

  Worry moves up my spine.

  Kenya asks, “What do you want to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This evening isn’t turning out the way I had hoped it would. Was hoping you could get away. I wanted to be sexy for you. Dance for you. Sexy and sweet or naughty and sexy.”

  I close my eyes and groan, insides rolling like a ball of confusion.

  She asks, “Could you get another room on a different floor? We could sneak away.”

  “Don’t know.” I make excuses. “Deuce is here. Genevieve, I don’t know where she is.”

  She sighs. She knows what that sweet sound does to me. That sound is my Viagra. I don’t want to but I start to tingle. I am drained yet the sun starts to rise on my desire.

  She says, “I’m horny for you. If I don’t see you again, think I’ll always be horny for you.”

  I say, “Better stop doing that.”

  “Why?”

  I joke, “What you have might make me want to leave my wife.”

  “And what you have makes me want to be your wife.”

  Silence.

  I stare up at the ceiling, at the smoke detector that hangs by its wire. Then at wallpaper. Pristine on the outside. Soul in need of wide-ranging renovation. That is how I feel inside.

  She says, “Relax, I know that can’t happen.”

  “No, it can’t.”

  “Maybe I’ll change my name and get all pretentious like Holly Golightly.”

  “Don’t call her that.”

  “LaKeisha. That sound better? It should. That’s who she is. Maybe one day I’ll look into three-minute dating. Or even better, maybe I’ll lose my Southern accent and get a degree in Stedmanization. Fly out to California and come back with an educated man on a leash.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Bastard. You ain’t about shit. Motherfucker. I should tell LaKeisha right now.”

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “You threatening me?”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “You fucked me and now you’re threatening me?”

  Silence.

  She says, “I’m out. Need to get the truck.”

  “How are you getting to Odenville?”

  Silence.

  She backs down, clears her throat. “Haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “You have money?”

  “You don’t have to pay me off.”

  “Kenya, a lot of your family is in jail for everything from murder to… stealing frogs.”

  “As if you care.”

  “I do. About you, I do. You have a gun in your purse. A truck with God knows what’s inside. Deuce chasing you in a thunderstorm. If it’s money, then I’ll give you what you need.”

  Silence.

  “No, I don’t have any money. Deuce… my cards… you know my situation.”

  “And you know mine.”

  Silence as I think.

  She says, “Don’t believe you’re trying to pay me off.”

  “Helping you out. Not paying you off. Just trying to keep you out of jail.”

  Then she makes that sound.

  I ask, “Are you crying?”

  “What if I was?”

  I say, “I’m coming down.”

  She pauses. “That might not be a good idea.”

  “You’re right.”

  “We see each other and… might not be a good idea.”

  We hold the phone.

  She says, “Come have your way with me.”

  “Lord knows I would love to get inside you and stay until you gave me an eviction notice.”

  “Well, I’m the landlord. I say you can move in and out and in and out…”

  My wedding ring whispers my wife’s name.

  Still I hear her voice, imagine her smell, her tongue ring, her vagina, and I rise.

  The gates are open and I see the Trojan horse, the undoer of a nation.

  The destroyer of a civilization.

  My fucking Gotterdammerung in three-inch heels and six-thousand-dollar breasts.

  I wonder if hell will be like this room. Bleak, a smoke detector dangling over my head.

  She says, “They have at least seven conference rooms. All of them can’t be occupied.”

  I need Genevieve to walk in that door right now. Need her to kick the door down and save me. If she cannot come through that door then I want to hear her voice in the background, want to hear her walking up behind Kenya, want her voice to break this witch’s spell. But Genevieve does not. I close my eyes and I pray that she does. My prayer goes unanswered.

  My voice is but a whisper, “I need to shower.”

  And hers the whisper of girls. “Hurry.”

  She hangs up.

  I take out Kenya’s zed card. Stare at her gray eyes.

  Hurry.

  I imagine being with Kenya again. I close my eyes and see her naked, her head on my chest, her skin hot, set afire by too many orgasms to count. I imagine my tongue tasting like her secrets.

  I scrub away the scent of my wife. Put on jeans and a long-sleeve retro shirt. My reflection is overdressed. My reflection is too obvious. I take the shirt off, put on a T-shirt.

  As soon as I step outside my door, three rooms down, Kenya’s door opens. I prepare to see her face, her hand reaching out for me, long brown legs in high heels and lace.

  Deuce steps into the hallway. Black leather pants. Biker boots. Jean jacket.

  He sees me and walks on. I am nothing. We both end up at the elevator, waiting.

  Deuce grunts. “Kenya says you do AIDS research.”

  “I do.”

  “You experiment on people.”

  “No. Mice and rats.”

  “Really? How do rats and mice get the virus?

  “We inject them.”

  “Inject? Oh, so you fuck them in the ass?”

  I don’t smile. Neither does he.

  “Sounds horrible, doing Mickey Mouse like that.”

  The elevator refuses to come.

  He asks, �
��What made you go into AIDS research?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “How personal is personal?”

  “Personal enough.”

  He motions at my T-shirt. It’s blue with white letters. PV=nRT.

  He says, “Thought that spelled pervert at first.”

  “Not too good at spelling, are you?”

  He nods. “You got me that time.”

  “It’s an equation. Thermodynamics. Ideal Gas Law.”

  “Gas? Like a nice fart?”

  He laughs a little. I don’t. My palms, damp as rivers.

  I say, “Kenya says you’re a writer and an actor.”

  He chuckles.

  I say, “You’re not?”

  “I’m an investor.”

  “What kind of investments?”

  “Movies.”

  “Movies?”

  “Adult films. Porn.”

  My blood coagulates. My head aches.

  I ask, “What made you get into porn?”

  “Pussy.” He smirks. “Sweet pussy.”

  I open and close my hands.

  “While I’m fucking amazons you’re probably jacking off to something on Amazon.com.”

  He laughs at me and looks away.

  In his mind he is Thor. And Harley-Davidson is his iron horse. He is a man women revere, a creature with more athletic prowess than intellectual proficiency. And I am nothing more than a court jester. He is right. He seduces amazons while I spend my nights surfing Amazon.com, waiting for my wife to feel wifely.

  Something inside me goes wrong. Terribly wrong.

  The elevator door opens.

  Only there is no elevator.

  Only an open shaft descending down into seven stories of blackness.

  Without hesitation I push Deuce.

  His arms make huge grasping circles as he spins and turns and tries to get his balance, wobbles in his biker boots, reaches for the door frame, grabs its edge, still wobbling.

  He grabs my T-shirt, the intelligent one he ridicules.

  He grabs it by its sleeve.

  The sleeve rips.

  His eyes meet mine. He is no longer smirking. No longer mocking.

  But I am smirking. I am mocking.

  If I save him, he will kill me. That truth is in his eyes.

  Without hesitation I kick him in his gut, leave him without air, unable to scream.

  He falls to his death.

  The elevator doors close like the period at the end of a sentence.

  I stand there in shock, my mind telling me to hurry and take the stairs. My mind telling me to go back to my room before anyone else comes out in the hallway. My mind telling me to just start walking, to get away from this spot, to walk and find a way to make each step calmer than the one before. I don’t move. I stand there and burn three hundred thousand brain cells.

  I blink out of my trance when the elevator opens. Back to reality. Deuce gets on first, his biker boots thumping the marble floor.

  I look down at my T-shirt. It is perfect. I get on the elevator. The elevator door closes. We descend.

  We stand on opposite sides of that mirrored coffin, my envy aimed at the marble floor.

  I ask, “What did you say made you get into adult movies?”

  “Pussy. Just said that.”

  The elevator door opens.

  Kenya stands before us.

  Her lewd smile becoming a glare of disdain.

  Kenya turns and walks away, heads down the hallway toward the bar.

  Deuce takes his time and follows her toward the Grill.

  I follow Deuce.

  Only I do not see Deuce going after Kenya. Gravedigger and Delphinie, that is who I see, them in their final moments. Deuce’s pace tells the world that, despite his easy stride, his patience is wearing thin. He calls her name twice. Kenya doesn’t slow down or yield to his size or temperament. She walks, but does not run. Her purse shows the weight of her courage.

  “How much?” I ask Deuce. “You hear me? How much?”

  “For what?”

  “How much for you to go away and leave Kenya alone?”

  “You trying to buy yourself some six-thousand-dollar tits, Fart Man?”

  The bar is empty. Restaurant still closed for renovation. Deuce gets close and Kenya puts her hand in her purse. Then she takes her hand out and sits down.

  “I was nothing but good to you, Deuce.”

  “I think I was pretty good to you too, Kenya.”

  “You slept with that ugly shit.”

  “Well, that ugly shit just happens to be my wife.”

  “Your ex-wife.”

  “Okay, my ex-wife.”

  “You said it was over.”

  “I’m sorry, Kenya. She came by. We got to talking. Had a couple of beers. Shit happens. What more can I say? I’m here to apologize. I’m here because I care about you.”

  “You’re here because you think I have that stupid U-Haul.”

  “I care about you.”

  “You care about what’s in the U-Haul.”

  I stand there, no place to go.

  I say, “Kenya, I’ll buy the tapes from him.”

  “What tapes?”

  I look at her, then look at Deuce. He smiles.

  “Kenya, he said he was into porn.”

  She says, “He’s an actor. He ain’t worth shit, but he’s an actor.”

  “Pornography?” He gives me a look of mock outrage. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

  I feel so gullible.

  Then Kenya tells Deuce, “He’s a man with a dick better than yours.”

  That pauses us all. Outside, the winds blow in all directions.

  Kenya wipes her eyes. “I fucked him, Deuce. Fucked him good.”

  Deuce stops smiling.

  “Bet that hurt, didn’t it, Deuce?”

  He frowns.

  “I fucked him and he made me come like I never came before.”

  “Thought this was… you said he was a relative.”

  “I fucked him. And if you hadn’t gotten off that elevator, I was about to fuck him again.”

  He stands up. “Bitch.”

  “Bet you wish you had never turned off my charge cards now, huh?”

  “You ungrateful bitch.”

  Kenya stands up. “Call me out my name again.”

  He does, over and over.

  In the same room I witnessed four lovers engage in passion, almost the same spot I watched the European and Italian men give pleasure to the Indian and Spanish women, once again I become a voyeur. But things have changed. Then I saw pleasure, now I stand on the shores of pain, wave after wave of vulgarity crashing into me, washing away any foolish notions I had of me and Kenya.

  I should go. But I stay.

  Kenya and Deuce, I remain the voyeur, watch them argue, listen to them talk to each other in a disrespectful way that appalls me. Kenya. This is who she is, mask removed. Her anger so great, soul so vindictive, as if she reacts to what is given, then returns it tenfold. There is beauty, but that beauty is devoid of emotional maturity.

  Kenya snaps, “That ugly shit you fucked me over for.”

  “You fucked this pervert?”

  “What, you deaf and stupid?”

  “Bitch, that’s why I never stopped fucking my ex-wife.”

  “What?”

  “Now who’s looking stupid, huh?”

  “Motherfucker.”

  I look at Deuce and I no longer see him; I see me years from now, across the kitchen table from Kenya, her speaking to me in such a way that makes my blood boil, that causes rationality to flee, that causes me to say and possibly do things I will regret before the next sunrise. I see the type of person I do not want to become.