She sighed as she sauntered over. She placed her elbows on the countertop and rested her head on her palms, letting the reality set in. Her eyes latched on to the five taps on the other counter. Each one of them bore an unimpressive, unappealing, gray plastic handle, grimy from age, with BEER written in thick permanent marker. I caught on and shuffled over, grabbing the two cleanest glasses from under the bar and slowly pulling us each a drink from tap number three. I tried to walk coolly back to her, but my foot caught the edge of a chipped tile, turning what little swagger I had in my strut into a shameful stumble. Still, I got back to the counter without spilling a drop, and delivered the glass to her waiting hand. She took a sip before I could warn her. Her smile twisted into a frown.
“Let me guess, this is as good as it gets?”
“Now you’re catching on,” I said. “It’s so good they don’t even name it.”
She sighed and took another drink, staring at the jukebox. I turned my back, humming along with The Who, and trying to think of the right thing to say. I needed to charm my way into her good graces. I let her have a moment with her beer while I searched through the shoe racks to match pairs. I wanted to ask her why she was here, but I knew that would be about as graceful as a car crash. I wracked my brain for the right questions, and, spinning around to face her, I was confident I could charm her enough to keep her around until my shift was up.
“So, why’d you get stuck down here?” I could almost hear the iron mangling between us, the first train wreck the depot had seen in years. I’d have had better luck pitching my glass straight at her head. She glanced down into the sorry excuse for a beer, then returned fire with a soul-shrinking stare that should have shattered every bone in my body. I regretted asking her, and I dropped my hand down to the lighter in my pocket, convinced that self-immolation was better than screwing this up.
“I don’t really remember,” she said. “I died . . . obviously.” She took another swallow of number three as my nerves nipped like hounds at my restless, shaking right leg. “I guess I wasn’t really the most faithful girl in the world. It’s kind of hard to believe in something you can’t see when you can basically see anything with the touch of a button. How long have you been here?”
“Twelve years and four days,” I mumbled, trying to steer my mind away from the fact that I could’ve been out of here days before. “Wait, what do you mean about being able to see anything?”
A shifty patron shuffled in from the street and up to the counter. He reeked of bad Scotch, and his booze-bloated, blushing face seemed to be locked in a permanent scowl. His mustache stood out. It was thick and virile and entirely outdated, and I wondered if there was some extra clause in his salvation that said he’d be stuck with that awful black caterpillar attached to his upper lip. I tried not to stare as I rang him up. He was completely dead behind the eyes; they were almost as morbid as the mottled black-and-purple bruise of rope burn peeking out from under his turtleneck. Mia pointed at the burn as he shambled off to lane twelve.
“Right. Wow! Happy twelfth anniversary? Is that appropriate?” She laughed. “Either way, before, on the other side, I guess, you could pull your phone out and see anything. If someone tells you that a giraffe’s tongue is black and you don’t believe them, all you have to do is pull out your phone and look it up. There’s proof for practically everything, except for God. And Heaven. And here.”
She looked over at the jukebox, her frown curling back into a smile as Pete Townshend cried out for “teenage wasteland.” She mimed along with the band as I pulled a pair of shoes and placed them on the countertop.
“Sally, take my hand,” I bellowed along with the lyrics, ignoring my complete lack of talent and inability to sing and extending my arm toward her. “We’ll travel south ‘cross land!”
She laughed as her hand met mine. She lifted a pair of ugly red and green shoes high in the air, and we sang along from opposite sides of the counter. Every cell in my body wanted to leap over the countertop and lift her up, to spin her around and watch her hair swing in the air before we collapsed on the floor in a heap to the frantic violin crescendo. Instead, the song played out with each of us on opposite sides of the counter. Her smile refused to fade, even as her eyes locked on the pink scars climbing the length of my forearms. “Baba O’Riley” boiled to its breaking point and fizzled out, leaving us alone and together, with the slow buzz of the bowling alley surrounding us. She set the shoes on the other side of the register, where they were snagged by a passing lost soul.
“And you? Why are you still here?” She slid her hand up my arm to trace the length of the ragged pink range, raising and dipping slightly with each peak and valley. In my time here, not a single person had ever done something so intimate—caressing my mistakes as if to say, “Yes, I understand, don’t worry.’’
My arms trembled, and she pulled her fingers back as she spoke. “Twelve years seems like a long time. Did you kill anyone?” She laughed coyly. “Well, I guess not, since you’re here and not down there.”
“I didn’t, no. But it doesn’t work like that,” I said, jerking my arms behind the counter. “Plenty of people around here have killed someone. Soldiers end up here all the time, people who defended themselves, things like that.” I rubbed instinctively at my wrists. “And all the suicides.”
Her eyes shot to mine as if I’d uttered some horrible epithet or damned every puppy on earth to the supposedly fiery inferno below.
“I always thought suicides were supposed to go to—”
“That’s a myth.” I turned and searched the racks for shoes I could actually wear.
“But it’s in Dante,” she said.
“Yeah. And Dante’s lingering around here somewhere in one of the slums. Apparently, the man upstairs isn’t too kosher with people who know nothing trying to describe the afterlife. Word on the streets is he’s not getting out anytime this century either. And I’ve heard he’s kind of a dick.” I settled on a faux-leather purple-and-orange pair. They were a size too big. “But yeah, all suicides end up here, because they didn’t learn whatever they were supposed to in life.”
“Well, it’s nice to know that we’ve at least all got a purpose, right?” She noticed the shoes I’d grabbed and smiled.
“I guess so. I’m not really clear on that one, you know? That’s God stuff,” I said. I offered her an equally ugly pair of shoes, a hideous mixture of medicinal pink and aquatic blue. I wasn’t hurt when she declined them.
“Does God pay attention to what’s going on? Like, does he listen to people?”
“Not really. I’ve asked Michael. Apparently, God looks in when he’s bored, but he doesn’t really change anything or make many executive decisions. We’re the ones who assume he’s up there listening. You can’t help but be a little self-absorbed when you’re living in a world you can’t fully comprehend; and the thought of omnipotent indifference? It kind of trivializes everything, doesn’t it?”
“So, God’s a grump, Dante’s not in Heaven, and suicides don’t go to Hell. Am I missing anything?” She mimed writing down each point on an imaginary notepad. I hoped she’d attribute all that information to me, maybe turning the o in my name into a heart.
“If you’re taking notes, you’ll want to avoid most of the ethnic food here.”
“That bad?”
“It actually tastes great. But afterwards? I’ve never had a quesadilla that was worth convulsions.”
Her smile returned, but her gaze was still on my arms. I knew that look. Sometimes we get so curious that discovering some small piece of information becomes integral to our very being. It could be something as simple as someone’s favorite color, an embarrassing story that someone won’t elaborate on, or a secret letter carried away before prying eyes can get all the details, but until you know, it will haunt you. My scars haunted her, and she was desperate for an exorcism, in the same way that I was trying to fill an entire book in my head with her life and times.
“Did you?”
>
“Yeah.” The word came out terser and more defensive than I’d intended, but I was far from excited about telling that story. The door to the back room flew open in a grand fashion, my ridiculous little German boss stumbling out as my saving grace. He’d probably had his ear cupped to the door, ready to pop in should the conversation get awkward. He strutted past the two of us like he owned the place and made his way right up to the jukebox.
“Just so you know,” I warned Mia, sighing as his lanky, wrinkled finger tapped away at buttons. “You’re about to hear a whole lot of yacht rock.”
“Yacht rock?” She tapped the side of her now-empty glass, cocking her head.
“That’s maybe the fastest I’ve seen somebody tear through one of those,” I smiled, grabbing the glass and quickly replacing it with a fresh one.
“Honestly, I never thought I’d be thirsty again, but I just can’t seem to get my fill.” She barely got the words out before taking a sip from her new drink.
“You get used to that. It never really goes away.” I debated whether or not to tell her that she was wasting her time trying to get drunk, but the incessant tapping of Jonas’s fingers on the jukebox buttons distracted me. “Anyway. Yacht Rock. It’s kind of like that really tacky, late-seventies, singer-songwriter soft-rock crap. You’ve heard it. Every town seemed to have a radio station devoted to it, with some bad, washed-up DJ. Steely Dan, Kenny Loggins, stuff like that. Anyway, Jonas loves the stuff.”
“And I take it that’s Jonas?” She pointed at my employer.
“Yes ma’am. Jonas Ehrlichmann,” I said, impressively butchering his last name.
“Ur-lik-man!” he hissed over his shoulder.
“Yeah. Jonas has been here for years. And I think this place has twisted him up, because every chance he gets, he puts one of those awful songs on the jukebox. I’m surprised he’s gone this long without coming out here and popping a coin in.”
“I never put coins in my own jukebox,” Jonas chimed in, still focused on the machine. “That would be foolish. Bad for business. There is a code. You press a few buttons and you select your song for free.”
“You’re going to have to tell me that code, J,” I said, tossing a bar towel toward him. When it landed, the towel perfectly covered the small hairless patch on the back of his head. Without looking, he snatched it off and pulled a corner of it through one of his khaki belt loops.
“I will take the code with me when I finally leave this place.” He pressed the last button, and a twinkling piano tune cut a swath through the low murmur of bowling alley chatter. I recognized the song instantly and raised my hands to my ears in a futile attempt to block it out.
“Jonas! Are you kidding me? ‘I’d Really Love to See You Tonight’?”
He pulled an about-face and raised a wizened finger in my direction, pointing it like a freshly-sharpened saber.
“This is a song that I was never fortunate enough to hear as I danced mit meiner Frau. I thought perhaps you and deine Freundin would like something sweet to listen to as you flirt while you are supposed to be working. Maybe you could dance. It has been so long since anyone danced here.” He seemed to direct his request at Mia, smiling his charming little-old-man’s smile and nudging his spectacles. Then he looked at me, the corners of his mouth curving down sharply as my cheeks flushed at his insinuation. “Or you could continue to be a little shit and poke fun at the musical choices of a tired old man.”
His eyes welled behind his ancient spectacles and I had to look away. I swiveled my gaze back to her glassy seas, dying for another long swim, or for a simple excuse to get out of showing her that I was nothing but left feet and bad rhythm. It takes a colossal absence of coordination to fuck up a slow dance, but I was certain that, in this love-drunk stupor, what might start as a slow, soft sway would end in sutures and stitches. I could see it: the two of us slowly twisting and turning to this lame tune like something out of a romance movie—a magic moment in time, until the inherent law of the In-Between kicked in and we both tumbled down one of the greased lanes, colliding into pins instead of each other.
“That’s really sweet, but it’s been such a long day, you know? I can’t believe how tired I am.” She yawned unconvincingly and stretched. “Do you maybe want to walk me home?”
Jonas had been a soldier back in the living world, and he was certainly playing wingman tonight. Before I could acquiesce, my coat was flying at my face, hurled with exceptional speed and strength for a man who hobbled when he walked. I caught it, though to the outside world it probably looked more like I was awkwardly swatting a fly. I pushed my arms through the sleeves to a soundtrack of lulling piano keys, with Jonas Ehrlichmann humming along to every note.
“Go on, but get here early enough in the morning that you have time to clean up the lanes. Tomorrow is the busy day.”
“Jonas, no day is a busy day.” I turned to Mia. “C’mon, let’s bolt before he starts playing Hall & Oates.” Her tiny giggle warmed me better than any coat.
“Wait.” Mia stopped in her tracks and turned back to Jonas. “What was the last song you and your wife danced to?”
He wiped his spectacles on the hem of his shirt. As he returned them to his nose, I noted another tear in the corner of his eye.
“It was ‘The Way You Look Tonight,’ as played by a piano player whose name I never learned, at an anniversary party for my mother and father in the early summer of 1940.” He nodded to each of us, then waved us off, turning his back to avoid any further trips down memory lane.
***
We hurried into the street like we had some place to be, coming together as the first rush of cold night air hit us like tiny darts of ice. Some ethereal entity had turned the cosmic thermostat down low and broken off the knob long ago. The nights were the worst, when the perpetual winter chill dropped below freezing, and every inhalation was laden with ice crystals vying with the oxygen for precious space in your lungs. The agony was knowing that, here, you’d never freeze to death. Your body would endure every onslaught the wind, rain, and snow could deliver. You’d trip, slip, stumble, fall, and freeze, and though you’d never have to worry about frostbite or pneumonia, you’d still give what little you had for a modicum of heat.
Mia’s fingers coiled with mine for warmth. I didn’t know if I’d ever felt quite as happy as I did in that moment. Not in the past twelve years, and not for some time before that. We dragged our streetlight-stretched shadows down the sidewalk on Sullivan Street. I could survive even Hell if she was there to hold my hand.
“Where is your apartment?”
“It’s above the bakery on Fifth and Vine,” she said. “But I don’t really want to go back yet.”
I held her close to keep out the cold as we walked the scarred pavement. We passed by the train station where Charon sat humming softly and billowing smoke into the starless night sky. Excited faces appeared behind the only clean windows in the city, looking out one last time on the shithole they’d come to know and would never have to walk through again. It was impossible not to feel jealous. I was meant to be on that train earlier in the week.
My mind raced at the possibilities. Surely I was still in the system. We could make a break for it now. We could run through the ticket gates and turnstiles. We could make it. I’d failed before, but back then I was all Clyde and no Bonnie. With Mia in tow, we could bust out.
And if we didn’t, my foolish plan would likely add another two years to her sentence, and countless more to mine.
I let the ember of the escape impulse smolder out and sink back into my bones, watching her marvel at the station. I was transfixed by the smoke, spiraling up into the sky in great gray puffs until it became indistinguishable from the clouds. There was no leaving yet, and another group of arrivals would fall with tomorrow’s rain. Sometimes the In-Between seemed to kick you right in the teeth.
When she’d had her fill of the escape car, Mia tugged at my hand, pulling me down streets I’d seen a thousand times before. She a
sked about buildings and businesses, and if there were celebrities here. I did my best to answer her questions. I told her about the restaurants, the brewery, where she could go for a cup of coffee that might pass for decent, how certain saints came down on occasion to check things out. She’d point out passersby: a guy we both thought may have been Jim Morrison, the miserable people who couldn’t smile, the suicides, even the sin eater.
“He’s a what?”
“A sin eater,” I said.
“That guy doesn’t look like a heavy metal band.” She pointed down a sketchy alley at the old man, who sat not far from us on a decrepit terrace, staring off down the street. A ghoulish figure with an olive complexion and an overgrown beard, he was wrapped in an old bathrobe that hadn’t seen soap for a decade or more. The tattered ends of his robe caught in the wind, tangling around the wrought-iron bars around him. If I saw him on a poster for poor hygiene, I wouldn’t have been shocked. Though we were louder than most of the late-night foot traffic, his gaze never shifted to us. He continued staring toward the center of the city, picking at a tin of apple sauce, his argent hair tied back in a loose ponytail.
“So, are you trying to tell me apple sauce is a sin? Because if that’s the case, I really don’t think I’m ever going to understand this place,” Mia said.
“I mean, it’s not my first choice,” I snorted. “But no, it’s not a sin, it’s a snack. That guy literally eats sins.”
“How do you—” She clutched me and shivered.
“It’s like a ceremonial thing. It’s old Catholicism, I think, something that no one really talks about anymore because it’s sketchy. I asked Michael about it once. In a way, it’s cheating.” I scratched my head, trying to find the words to explain it. “He performs this ritual-thing over you. He eats, he drinks, he says a prayer, and then he takes on all your sins. It’s a twisted play on communion, I guess.” I shrugged, imagining what it must be like, shouldering the burdens of others in that capacity. “The guy must have a back like Atlas.”
In-Between Days Page 5