I'll Pray When I'm Dying

by Stephen J. Golds

  A trio of addicts from the den.

  Ants crawling from a nest.

  Ugly little crowd.

  Repulsive.

  Ben turned the muzzles of his weapons on the things and fired into the fleshy mass until both weapons clicked on empty and his index fingers stung.

  He dropped the Japanese pistol clattering to the floor and clicked open the cylinder of the .38, letting the spent rounds scatter tinkering onto a nearby tabletop.

  He turned to the old man and woman who had gone from crying hysterically to holding each other tightly in silence. Watching him. Their eyes so white and their mouths resigned, trembling, little slits.

  He reloaded each round slowly with palsied fingertips.

  “Tell me everything about Jones. Tell me everything about Li Yu. I want you to tell me where Li is. Tell me. Where she is. I want you to. I want you to tell me where Li is. I want you to fucking, fuck, fucking tell me everything,” Ben stuttered, moving closer to the shrinking, cowering couple, the revolver shakily aimed at the space above their heads.

  Later that night, Ben let himself into his darkened apartment and quickly closed the front door, securing the masking tape back over the edges.

  Secured the vacuum.

  Locked it.

  Checked it.

  Rechecked it.

  Counting to seven and then checking it again. And again. Touching the lock and counting. Touching the catch and counting. Running his fingers over and around the door’s vacuum checking for drafts, gaps. Counted to seven. Sighed.

  He slipped off his shoes and kicked them into their designated place with his feet. Took a tissue from a box of Kleenex by the front door and used it to wipe some of the caked blood from his hands. When he finished, he rolled it into a ball, dropped it onto the floor and toed it aside with piles of other discarded tissues. Slipped off the maroon spattered jacket, reeking of gasoline, blood and bile and folded it into a hemp dry-cleaning sack hanging from a brass hook on the wall.

  Unclasped his shoulder holster and hung it on another hook parallel to the sack.

  His shirt and slacks were removed next, folded carefully into the sack. Jockey shorts, vest and socks followed. He wiped his hands again with another tissue. Dropped it.

  Picked up the can of bug spray and sprayed around the edges of the door and entranceway. Coughing, eyes stinging from the fumes.

  He then walked briskly to the bathroom across the hall, ducking his head away from the threads of red and blue string that crisscrossed through the air, marking which areas were sanitized and which spaces weren’t.

  He scrubbed his hands with soap and water in the basin.

  Smelled at his hands.

  Cursed.

  Washed them again.

  Sniffed at his fingers.

  Cursed.

  Washed them again.

  Dried them on a towel and dropped it into another dry-cleaning sack piled in the corner.

  Brushed his teeth until his gums bled and the bristles on the toothbrush were stained a dark pink.

  Took a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard underneath the sink.

  Broke the seal.

  Sanitized the neck under the flowing water from the tap.

  Unscrewed the top and gulped a few mouthfuls.

  Gargled and spat the contents down into the watery dank plughole.

  Standing in front of the mirror glaring at the naked, pale, gangly form reflected back at him. He stared so long his body seemed to warp into something else. A creature that crawled or climbed. Something that lived in darkness. A scurrying thing. He took a long hit on the bottle again and swallowed. His throat and guts bitter-raw.

  Carrying the bottle with him, he stepped into the bath. Running the water into the tub as he stood shivering in the confines of it, waiting for the cold water to reach his preferred depth before sitting down. Clean. Pure. Washing away all the filth and all the bad. All clean. All clean and all better. Filth made sickness. Wash away all the bad now. Wash away all the sickness and all the bad. Splashing the water over his shuddering body, gulping heavily from the bottle and wiping away the tears that streamed from his inflamed, swollen eyes.

  Murmuring her name over and over in groups of seven through chattering teeth.

  Li Yu.

  Li Yu. Li Yu.

  Li Yu. Li Yu. Li Yu.

  Li Yu.

  London, England

  Wednesday, February 24th, 1926

  William stood smoking on the hotel balcony watching tugboats make their way down the Thames, the people clambering like sheep across Waterloo Bridge. The water of the river a dark green going on black. A deep depression weighing him down like a corpse on his back. His whole body ached. His skull felt as though it was full of broken, sharp things. The wind was viciously chilled, and the day a machine grey. St. Paul’s Cathedral towered over everything on the smoky landscape. Peering out over the city at the bone white structure of the house of God dropped a jagged rock in his guts. As though it mocked him. Ordering him to pray, to ask for forgiveness. He’d like to see the building burned, if only to take away the feeling he got whenever he looked at the fucking thing.

  His own Superintendent had tried to have him murdered. The whole cabal of them, all the way up to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The fucking sodomites, backstabbing Judases. Had taken over all his money earning operations with as little as a few words and a day of telephone calls and telegrams. William had few choices left now. He’d played the cards he’d had and lost. Pushed them all too far. Lost to a queer, a dago and a woman. Now it was jail or death or run. Running seemed the only logical option. He coughed up mucus and spat it over the balcony. He’d got word to his wife. Told her he had to lay low for a little while. Had told her where the bank documents were in his study. To go to the safety deposit boxes he had stashed all over London. She was to bring as much cash, stocks, bonds and jewelry as she could to the Southampton Docks the next afternoon. They would set sail for the United States of America. Leave this wretched city once and for all. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had left. As for Harewood and all his politician friends, there was a journalist that William was well acquainted with that drank in The Ten Bells Pub every night. He’d written a detailed account of all of the Superintendent’s corruption and frailties, the house of prostitution on Berkeley Square. The Commissioner. The poles. Their sick, twisted, degenerate sex parties. The murder of a nancy boy. It was all in an envelope on the writing desk in his suite. William would pass through Spitalfields on his way out of the city tonight, leaving the signed account with the landlord, telling him to pass it to the journalist as soon as he entered the pub. William wouldn’t leave the gambling table completely empty handed. He’d leave London burning and Harewood tied to the stake at the fucking center of it.

  He flicked his cigarette over the edge. Glanced down over at the streets below and went back inside. The curtains caught the wind, brushing against his face like fingertips and he startled and cursed. Walked, slouched shouldered, over to the oak writing desk, picked up the bottle of Scotch and drained it. Dropping the empty bottle onto the ivory-colored carpet dully. Went over the telephone beside the king-size bed and told room service to bring him another. Sat down on the bed staring at the painting hung above the dresser again. A painting of a poppy field in summer. He looked at his hands. His palms. The lines that crisscrossed his flesh. As though he could see every action he had taken in his life that had led him to this very room. A dried smudge of maroon-brown between his thumb and forefinger. He spat on it and wiped his hand clean on his trousers. Glanced up at the painting again. The poppies seemed to move in a breeze. A puddle of blood seeping across floorboards. Red wine spilt across white sheets. A song like a nursery rhyme.

  Finishing the song, she sighed. He turned his head to the dresser she was seated at. She smiled at him in the reflection of the mirror. Lips so red against the milky white of her visage in the candlelight. Pulling her long, wavy blonde hair up into a p
earl clip. Three dark brown moles forming a constellation on her right shoulder blade. He got up from the bed and went to her. Kissing the nape of her neck. Tasting lavender. The sounds of Paris at night drifting through the open window. So far away from the Somme. A phonograph started playing somewhere. French vocalists singing beautiful words he didn’t understand but didn’t need to. He told her he loved her. The girl who told him her name was Margaux. Told her love was everywhere in their small tenement room. L’amour. He walked around touching the sparse furniture, the walls and shouting the French word for love over and over. She giggled with her hands to her mouth. A picture of eternal beauty and eternal youth. Margaux. Every night together like this for weeks. He wanted to tell her that she was his first. She couldn’t understand his English. He held his forefinger up into the air of the room, whispered one in French and then pointed the finger at her. She giggled again. Still nothing more than a very young woman. Her creamy face in the candlelight angelic. Wanted to tell her so badly he wanted to stay in Paris. Stay in this place for always. With her. Margaux.

  He went to her again. Pulling the pearl clip softly away from her head, tossing it onto a bureau and letting the waves of gold fall down her naked back. Like something from a renaissance painting. Her hair in his fingertips like the threads of something very fragile and he felt himself become hard. He took her by the hand, leading her to the bed. Pushing her softly down on the white covers.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered, reaching up her thighs, pulling gently at her knickers.

  A harsh knocking at the door jarred him from the memories. The room appearing a little darker.

  “Who is it?” his voice broke. He coughed. Clearing his throat.

  “Room service, Sir. You requested a bottle of Scotch, Sir,” came the answer.

  “Just leave it outside.”

  “Very well, Sir. Will you be needing anything else, Sir?”

  “Do you have a time-machine like in that novel?”

  “Urm, I’m afraid not, Sir.”

  “Well, fuck off then, you dozy cunt.”

  “Yes, Sir. Very well.”

  He jumped up, staggered, placed his ear against the smooth, cool wood of the door and listened to the clatter of a tray and glasses being placed on the floor outside, footsteps fading down the hall. He unlocked the door, peering up and down the empty, elegant hallway and snatched the bottle, leaving the tray and glasses where they were.

  He’d been in the suite going on two days. Felt longer. The walls seemed to be breathing. Constricting, choking him. The furniture creeping towards the center of the room when he’s head was turned. The flowery, ornate wallpaper made his head spin. Vertigo. He needed air again. Trapped in Limbo. Purgatory. Even in dreams she came for him. The song sung from the throat of the dead. The stench seeping from rotten orifices. No peace for the wicked. No rest for the dead.

  Since coming to the Savoy Hotel, he’d drunk himself into blackouts but still she came. He’d known she’d always been there somehow. Never really left. Hovering always at the periphery of his vision, a sunspot, or mark upon the eye. In crowds, always her back turned. In the songs of children. In his wife’s eyes on their wedding night and in the voice of the priest echoing through the church aisles. In his son’s smiles and tears. She was in the silence of the early mornings and in the loneliness of the nights. In the desperate, beautiful face of every single whore he saw on the streets of London.

  He unscrewed the cap from the scotch and drank greedily from it. Sat down on the bed. The poppies swayed and poured. He jumped back up. Ripped the fucking painting from the wall and slid it under the bed.

  Standing a moment, staring down at the floor, he changed his mind, retrieved the painting, took it out onto the balcony and slung it out over the railing to the street below. stumbled back inside and sat down on the carpet, his back to the wall, drinking until he couldn’t lift the bottle to his lips anymore.

  They called Paris the ‘City of Light’. A metropolis of artists, writers and painters. He knew why artists loved the city. It was the way the rays of the sun hit the boulevards and monuments. A wash of gold and yellow. A city born for spring, for summer. The scents of flowers weaving through a soft breeze. The light came down on Margaux’s tenement building warming the bricks and stone. People on bicycles rode past him in pairs talking amicably. He really loved Paris. He really loved her. The bitterest of tears fell from his snarling face onto the bouquet of roses he held crushed in his fists. Waiting.

  After watching the third man come and go from the vestibule of her tenement building that morning he dropped the bouquet atop a pile of trash, let himself in and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Jogged up the stairs to her apartment. Knocking at her door. Gasping at the stale, dusty air. Not trying to wipe away the tears any longer but allowing them to trickle down his face freely.

  She opened the door, smiling, saying something in that elegant, musical language of hers. Then she froze, momentarily stunned by his sudden presence. Not who she was expecting at all. He always called by in the evenings. She murmured his name the same way that had always caused the breath to catch in his chest like a kite moving higher into a pastel blue sky on a string in the hand of a small boy.

  He’d prayed outside, slouching against the chipped brick wall. Prayed that he was wrong. Prayed it was just his foolish mistake. A misplaced lover’s jealousy to be laughed off later after they had made love. The men were family members. A brother, an uncle, perhaps. But standing there in the doorway, looking over the room, the disheveled sheets, the coins tossed scattered on the mattress, the bottle of wine, glasses half empty on the bedside table. The lipstick and rouge smudged across her face, standing there in her fucking stained nightgown coming off at the bruised shoulder. The fucking stink dripping off the walls and the furniture. He realized he had fallen in love with nothing but a cheap, fucking whore. He had been giving her money, but it was for food and clothes. Things she needed. A gift, not payment.

  Margaux said his name again, but this time it sounded empty. Meant nothing to him anymore, like the prayers, the city light and the music on the phonograph seeping through the hallways. She reached out a palsied hand to him, bottom lip trembling. He shoved her hard back into the room, following her inside and closing the door. She sat on the end of the bed, drinking the wine from the bottle, resting it on her thighs. He glared down at her. His mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. Unable to find the words for the unbelievable pain in his guts. She shrugged, started singing her song. Her blue eyes on his shoes as he made his way to her, telling her how much he loved her. He loved her so fucking much. Did she know that? Understand that?

  When she giggled it was like a blow to the face, the chest. He stood there, swaying, shaking uncontrollably as she giggled and smirked at him like a disobedient child with her hands to her smeared-red mouth.

  His teeth clenched tight.

  The hands around the little fucking whore’s throat clenched so much tighter.

  The bottle tumbled to the floor. The scotch seeping from the bottle into the carpet, into his trousers mixing with the piss and the shit already soiling his bottoms.

  William vomited until his eyes and throat burned like a soldier in a cloud of mustard gas.

  Coughing out her name.

  Margaux.

  Margaux.

  Margaux.

  South Boston, USA

  Thursday, February 21st, 1946

  Stevie’s wake at The Seven Shamrocks had finally wound down. The last of the old timers to leave was Mikey Spillagan. He’d come all the way from New York City, had spent most of his time at the wake telling ‘remember when’ stories about him and Stevie’s formative years, Kerryman jokes, and trying to convince Ben to come out to Hell’s Kitchen to work for him. Said he needed good men like Ben to fight off the encroaching mafia. Said he’d heard a lot of good things. Ben lied to the guy, said he’d give it some thought, and Mikey finally shuffled out into the street to go back to where he’d come
from, leaving the Dorchester Street gang sitting silently around a table with trays of stale ham and cheese sandwiches that had been slapped together by Stevie’s widow Deborah and daughter Meghan.

  Ben’s guts growled; he hadn’t eaten in a long while. Didn’t feel like it. Couldn’t. He stared at a piece of boiled egg that had fallen onto the ring scarred tabletop, sipping poteen from his flask and scratching at the back of his head. Throat still sore. Voice still broken in parts.

  Deborah came from behind him and kissed him lightly on the stubbled cheek. Took his hand in hers. Squeezed. He didn’t avoid it. Her eyes were the bluest Ben had ever seen. Watery. Lined in red. Always so damn kind. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. She kissed his hand and placed it back in his lap.

  Meghan came over and started to clear the table. Attempting a smile at Ben, but failing badly. She tucked a long, wavey strand of red hair behind her ear, nodded at the men and carried the tray of half-eaten sandwiches away. Ben covered the piece of crumbly egg yolk with a napkin trying his best not to look at the absolute disorder scattered in front of him. He pushed his chair even further away from the table. Taking longer drinks from the flask and waiting for the women to leave. None of the Irish spoke. A silence with a sharp, violent edge pervading. The most dangerous kind of quiet. The Mulligans were drinking hard. IOU dozed. Leary puffed at a cigar, blowing smoke rings towards the yellowed ceiling. The man everyone called a negro was actually Portuguese; Negro Paul spoke first, breaking the hush with a sledgehammer.

  “How about that fire in China Town last night, huh? They reckon it was one of those junkie dens went up in smoke. Puff! I hear they identified some of the dead. Wei Tu Hot, Ou Chi, Ho Li Fuk and Sum Ting Wong. An Irishman was among the dead, too. O. Howie Burns.”