The darkened room, though not pitch black, merely shadowed. Red hat blue hat. Red hat blue hat. Kay slowly slid her hand between her legs. No pain, surely she would know, there would be pain, there would be cum, men with their sticky, angry seed. She coiled onto her side, feeling the vulnerability of her body, soft-shelled, permeable. But not raped. Then she inhaled, an atavistic trigger, she breathed in, conscious that she was scenting the room.
The sheets were clean. A window was open, she felt a breeze. Someone was here, not red hat blue hat.
Ben.
He had fallen asleep in a chair in the corner.
Her mouth was furry, her tongue swollen as a dead animal left in the heat. She shut her eyes, but that was no better. She opened them again, slowly taking in the small room, the overall impression of masculine disinterest, pale light seeping through the blinds. His room, he had brought her here. She remembered only red hat blue hat.
His room, his house, the thin walls, the rickety window sashes, the blotches of mildew in the upper corners. She scanned over it now. He was poor. She felt sorry for him—pity, that most emasculating emotion.
He opened his eyes. She watched his pupils shrink, portals closing. The blue of his irises symbiotically erupted, ocean depths radiating out from that dark center. They were beautiful eyes. But unreadable.
“You want a coffee?”
“What time is it?”
“Morning.”
“What happened?”
He stood. “I’ll get you coffee.”
He did not touch her as he passed. He padded out of the room, and she could hear him in the kitchen, running water, scooping coffee grounds out of a can. No room service, as with her other lovers, no breakfast buffet of tropical fruit and soft white bread rolls with slabs of cold yellow butter, the waiter’s slim black hands on the white china pot of coffee, the white starched napkins, everything a separation, a pretension, white, black, the extravagance of a napkin to someone paid less than a dollar a day. To be served breakfast by a black man in his ravaged country is complicated, too complicated to write about. So she wrote about what was easy, wars, refugees, General Christmas. To love was too complicated, so she fucked.
Ben came back, handed her a mug. He sat on the chair, not the bed, not close to her, and she knew he was choosing distance. From his pocket he retrieved her phone.
“The bartender looked on this to see if there was anyone who could help you out, any local numbers.” He tossed the phone to her.
Her ribs, her head hurt. Red hat blue hat. “Thank you.”
“Why were you there? At that bar?”
“I needed a drink.”
He leaned in. For a moment, she thought he might hit her. But he splayed his hand on her chest. Kay looked up at him, his face was closed and she was far out, down a dirt road. No one knew she was here. It may take me a few days to respond. As if there was anyone she needed to respond to. She spoke, almost a whisper: “Can you give me a ride back to my car?”
But he did not relent, “Why were you in that bar?”
She shut her eyes. “I just needed a drink.”
He withdrew his hand.
“Your clothes are over there,” he nodded to the fake cherry wood bureau.
She saw them stacked neatly, freshly laundered, her handbag on top. She remembered pissing herself—he would have smelled this. He had bathed her while she was unconscious. He had taken off her urine-soaked panties and loaded her into the shower. He had held her naked in a way that was the opposite of passion. He had seen the bruises mottling her back and sides. She hunched her body away from him, drawing the sheets around her. He left the room.
For a brief, sharp moment, she wanted him to come back. She could call him, and he would return, there would be something other than this waxy sadness: touch, a smile. But she heard the sound of his truck starting.
*
The radio filled the gap between them on the way to East Montrose: My Angel is the centerfold, na na na na na na. What else might Ben listen to? Bach’s cello concertos? Beniamino Gigli, songs of L’Africain? “Some dude,” she heard Michael’s condescension. “Some plumber guy.”
Ben pulled into the parking lot behind the Dirty Ditty, stopped beside her car. She half-imagined she might see her own blood on the pavement, some residue—evidence—of the assault by the hats.
“I should go to the cops,” she said.
“Don’t do that.”
“What they did to me, they’ll do to other women.”
“Other women don’t go in there.”
Kay sheltered her eyes from the sun’s hard flare. An overweight woman with a child in a stroller was crossing the parking lot, smoking and talking on her phone. Kay put her hand on the door handle, but then she reached back for Ben, reached out for him, she wanted to retain something of value. She put her hand on his. He did not move.
At last, he exhaled. He removed her hand as if it were not her hand, not a hand that had caressed him and aroused him, but an object, neither cared for nor disdained, and put it back on the truck seat. “I didn’t know you took a photo of me.”
“I didn’t know you’d looked through my phone.”
“You sent it to your husband.”
“No,” Kay began, “that’s not what happened.”
But what did happen, she thought. My child sent it.
“Go back to Frank’s, pack your things. Leave.”
“Ben, please—”
Now he turned to face her. He was someone else now. “Leave. Just leave here. You have to.”
She got out of the truck and he pulled away, before she’d even shut the door, tires screeching on the pavement. He made a sharp turn out of the parking lot and the door swung shut with the momentum, the truck and Ben gone in a loud burst of exhaust and burning rubber.
Kay stood, bewildered by the light, the light searing down her optical nerve like a laser right into her brain.
“You okay?”
The woman with the stroller. Only she was more of a girl, perhaps 18.
“Can I have one?” Kay gestured to the cigarette. The girl thought for a moment—the expense of cigarettes, to give one to a complete stranger; then extricated the pack from the pouch on the back of the stroller. She flicked on her lighter, and Kay lit her cigarette and inhaled, a diver going deep.
The baby was gazing up at her with bright eyes, his smooth, pale skin yet to be splattered by the brains of the world.
“He’s gorgeous.” Kay attempted a smile.
“Yeah, he’s a good boy.” The girl stroked her child’s hair. “I know I shouldn’t smoke.”
“You’re outside,” Kay absolved her. “It’s all right.”
“My mom died of lung cancer. You’d think I’d know better.”
So undefined, this girl, her shape all soft, her face without angles, a face you’d never remember, plain, functional. She had no barriers. She was open and guileless. She’d talk to strangers about her dead mother. “I’m sorry,” Kay said. “That must have been really hard.”
The girl stared at the cigarette in her hands, the fingernails chewed down, raw cuticles. “I’ve tried to quit a bunch of times.”
“Was your mother a good mother?”
A considered sigh. “Good enough, I guess. I’m here, aren’t I?”
Was survival the only criteria?
Kay took another long, grateful drag. “I’m not a good mother.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t love my children.”
“Love, oh yeah. Lots of people love their kids, still treat ’em like shit.”
“But,” and now Kay’s face screwed up into an ugly knot. “I think I hate them.”
The girl exhaled, regarded Kay. “They got a good dad?”
A man who flew back from Africa for his children. “Good, yes.”
“They’ll be okay.”
“And you’ll quit smoking?”
“Sure.” The girl smiled, and this made her pretty, dimple-cheeked. She offered the pack to Kay. “You keep them.”
“No, I—” but Kay took them. “I should pay you. These are, what? Twenty bucks now?”
The girl was already moving away, waving a plump hand. “The doctors said her lungs were like a clogged toilet. She died puking blood.”