Down here in the Gutter, we all know no one is who they say they are. It works the same way for stories, too.
Four walls, a ceiling, and the dream of a better life means something different to everyone...
Four walls, a ceiling, and the dream of a better life means something different to everyone...
Nothing interested the cat. She had bought a red ball. It
squeaked and shrieked when squeezed. Followed by a fuzzy brown rabbit, which was
often mistaken for a rat. It was an
arrogant cat. Nothing pleased him or was good enough for him.
She laughed to herself when the cat found the bed boring,
and went to the window to watch the world outside.
They didn’t have much money but then, they didn’t need much
money. They didn’t have kids, a car, a mortgage, credit cards. They ate their meals
on the floor cross-legged, and he would smoke cigarettes afterwards.
“One day. One day,” he would reply when pressed about
furniture, a car, a vacation, kids. His voice was smug and calm. But somewhere in her, a belief persisted, a
dim light of hope that comes with love that this man, her fiancé, would make
good on his promises.
Each day he returned from working at a laundry mat off
Bundy, his voice sweet with whiskey, his eyes too glassed for any good, and she
knew with each day that his promises slipped further and further away, like
ships moving toward the horizon. He
still talked about auditions, call backs, and his big break.
Her talent was no match for his charm and his blue eyes.
With talk about Hollywood, Emmys and Oscars, it was enough to make you think he
won one once. She studied at Julliard to be a pianist, and now she used those prized
hands in the mailroom for a production company, shuffling other people’s
dreams.
“We’re so close. He’s so close. He’s got two call backs this
week alone,” she once told her friends over coffee. They nodded, politely.
After almost three years, she was doing gigs for temp
agencies. Anything to pay the bills, she told her mom. She sat in her studio
apartment on Pico, staring at the ceiling, then the walls, all painted oyster
white, cracked like well-worn leather. But when he said, “But look at this
view. People would kill for this view,” she smiled back at him. He was right.
Once she looked beyond the power lines and the alley, outside the window, it
was a glorious view.
Three days ago, she bought a black teddy from Fredericks off
of Hollywood and a few g-string panties. All on sale. She wanted to
surprise him. Yesterday, she promised her fiancé tomorrow would be special, and
chided him not to be late because "you wouldn’t want to do that."
He smiled, kissed her good night, said “I can feel it. I’m
close.” He told her I love you the way a child apologizes. He said he had
auditions lined up for next week.
Today. She called in sick at work and watched him dress and
rush out for the bus. She fell back in and out of sleep, dreaming of white
walled buildings jammed against each other at odd angles. Red clay tile roofs
checkered with twig bird nests. Bronze-skinned women, their white shirts rolled
up past thick forearms, picked flowers from long gardens. She dreamt of quiet.
She awoke in late afternoon, pulled from her sleep suddenly
aware that he still had not called. But he always called. She went to the
kitchen, poured herself a glass of wine and sat against the wall, thinking. He was running late. Probably missed the bus. It
happens sometimes, she realized. She
slipped out of her clothes and returned to the bed, unsure of what to do next.
Should she dress for tonight, or put her pajamas back on? It was still a couple
of hours until he was due home.
At six, she slipped into a g-string, pulled the teddy on.
She wore red lipstick, black pumps, and felt like a whore. Standing in the
bathroom mirror, she laughed, then getting into it, flexed her lips into a
pout.
Three drinks later, it was nine. She padded through the
house barefoot, the pumps kicked under the bed, full of courage. At midnight,
she passed out and awoke the next day with a dry tongue in an empty bed.
* * *
When he still hadn’t returned a month later, she looked
across the studio floor with heavy eyes at the leather black bag. She called
around. No one seemed to know where he was. When she bused down to the laundry mat where
he worked they said that someone by that name never worked there; her staid
despair turned into indignation. Her fiancé was too much a coward to look her
in the face and tell her as much.
On the ride home, alone with her uneasy thoughts, her vexed
reflection trapped in the bus window.
She crated up his belongings. There wasn’t much. Jeans, T-shirts,
a few sweaters, a set of pressed chino pants. She didn’t know what to do with
the black leather bag. She peered inside one more time, at the list of
nine-digit numbers scribbled on a notepad from the Four Seasons Sacramento, a
copy of Gray’s Anatomy stamped with the words Folsom County Prison, a chewed Ticonderoga
number two pencil, the set of car keys attached to a circular keychain from the
National Zoo. She zipped it closed and snapped it shut, without shedding a
tear, as if the bag belonged to a stranger.
