ONE

 

As usual, Lester Banks barely made a dime. Slow weekend. Nothing going on downtown. Only dedicated drunks wandered Broad Ripple. Fares were scarce. Too much competition. Too many cabs in a town where most folks had cars. After shelling out two hundred for rent on his taxi, he paid another fifty for gas. Company forced him to buy theirs. Twenty cents a gallon more than a regular pump. He went home with a profit of a hundred and two dollars on an eighteen-hour work day.

He lived on the west side of town. A shitty apartment building called The Palace Estates. Either a joke or, people with money in their pockets once populated the area. He had neither the time nor the care to do the research. Driving for Yellow Cab wore him out. Whatever luxury the creators of the Estates had intended, the building had become a monolith of crumbling bricks and cracked and broken windows. The wooden door frames had rotted and chipped. The residents were mostly students from iupui and people like him, people who’d missed the last train to the American Dream and needed a cheap place to loiter while time and gravity made death attractive. 

Climbing the front steps, he weaved around three women who’d turned the stoop into their turf. Thelma, Rita, and Doris. Wrinkled west side mamas in loose, faded house dresses guzzling beer and chain-smoking Virginia Slims. He tried to wind by without interrupting their gossip. No luck, though. Thelma cackled and coughed as soon as she saw him.

“Mr. Saturday Night,” she said. “All dressed up, for, what? You ever even try to get laid?”

The other two broke out in gargled, emphysema-laced laughter.

Doris, the lightweight of the group, meaning, she had yet to break the two-hundred pound barrier, said, “All that young pussy inside and you can’t trick one of them into your rat’s nest?”

More chuckling. Reminded him of the green witch in Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Rita rounded out their chorus with, “Who in the world would spread her legs for this loser?”

“Thanks so much.” He bulled past them and punched his code into the keypad by the entrance. He checked his mailbox. Nothing but advertisements for restaurants and cleaning services he couldn’t afford. He put them in an overflowing trash can by the stairs. When he got to his floor, one of his neighbors, Marilyn, stood outside her door, staring at it. She’d never hassled him like the Broom Hildas outside. Story he’d heard about her, she’d been swimming in a cocktail of Prozac and Xanax for thirty years. She moved like a zombie from Night of the Living Dead and often got lost on the way to the laundry room in the basement. Lester said, “Good evening,” as he passed her. 

“Hello,” she said. More like a question. Probably didn’t recognize him.

He started to unlock his own door, then stopped. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “I’ve forgotten how to get into my apartment.”

“You have your key?” He walked over to her.

Reaching into the pocket of her night robe, she said, “Yes, right here.” She pulled out a single key tied to a string she probably should have worn around her neck.

They stood there for another moment. Lester said, “Go ahead.”

“What?”

He took the key from her and put it into the lock and turned it.

“Oh.” She slapped herself in the forehead. “I forgot that part.”

“I guess so.” He opened the door and gave her the key. “Let me know if you need anything else, Marilyn.”

When he got inside his own place, he stripped his good jeans and collared shirt and found some torn, ratty house clothes amidst a pile on the floor. Spent twenty minutes on the shitter waiting for something to happen. After giving up on that, he grabbed a box of Lucky Charms, a bowl, a dying jug of milk, and plopped into his recliner to watch tv. Milk dribbled down his faded, 1999 Colts afc East Champions T-shirt as a rerun of Futurama followed a rerun of King of the Hill. Bobby Hill suggested to his father that he didn’t enjoy life because he was constantly afraid something would go wrong if he did. Just about made Lester cry. 

Outside his apartment, someone stumbled in the hallway. High heels clacked on the tile. He hoped it might be Chelsea Farmer, a college girl who lived two doors down. Always wore light, short skirts that bounced when she walked. The women on the front steps loved ragging on her. Called her the town sperm bank. “Seen her bring four guys home last Wednesday,” Doris had once said. “Even I never did four in the same night.” She hacked up part of her lung, spit yellow goop to the side, and said, “And in my day, I was the biggest whore from Gary to Cleveland!”

Meant nothing to Lester. He’d wanted to make love to Chelsea Farmer since she’d moved in. She never left her apartment without being fully made up and smelling like a perfume factory. He was old enough to understand it was an illusion and he didn’t care one bit. Every time he passed her door, he blew it a kiss. When he saw her in the lobby, he said hello. Her dark hair shot in wild, frayed strands like cartoon jolts of electricity. She’d smile politely, never giving her thoughts away. She had to be at least fifteen years younger than him. He made no mystery to her how he felt. Nothing to lose, far as he was concerned. 

The ruckus in the hall continued. Enough of a racket to compel him to put his cereal on the wicker table next to his chair. Without turning on the lights, he navigated the small mountain range of dirty clothes on the floor and squinted through the peephole. Took his eyes a moment to adjust. A reminder that he probably needed to get them checked.

In the hallway, Chelsea Farmer pinballed between her apartment and, it seemed, Lester’s. Back and forth, staggering worse than Marilyn. She wore an olive-colored, low-cut top and skin-tight yoga pants. Or were they leggings? Anytime a young woman wearing them got into his cab, he asked what they were called. Different women gave him different answers.

Chelsea crashed into her door, unlocked it, opened it, and disappeared inside.

Lester said, “Of course.” Why the hell would such a specimen ever consider giving him the time of day? He decided to call a girl who worked under the name Honey. She charged seventy-five for outcall service. As he rummaged through empty bags of Church’s and McDonald’s on his dresser, he found his cell phone, a pay-as-you-go flip-model young people referred to as an antique. Before he could open it and dial, three taps landed on his door. 

“No way,” he said. It’s only God, playing a joke. “Just a minute.” How long had it been since he’d made love to a woman who didn’t keep one eye on the clock and the other on his wallet? Social formulas danced in his head. Could he bring himself to take advantage of her? Every night he dreamed of staring into her big, brown eyes, close enough to share breath. How long had he yearned to run his fingers through her wavy black hair? 

They’d spoken twice. Once on the front stoop, where she explained she went to iupui. She wanted to be a teacher. Raised in Delphi, Indiana. Like most girls her age, she was infected with armchair neo-liberalism. Convinced she could save the world, one public school at a time. She’d talked about mystical crap that made no sense. She’d said, “Last night I dreamt about digging a hole to bury bananas near the art museum. You know what that means.” He said he had no idea. She’d rolled her gorgeous eyes through a jungle of painted eyelashes and moved on.  

Another afternoon, just as Lester had woken up and stepped out to start his work day, she asked him to help her park her neon green VW bug. She sat in the passenger seat, pretended to be more interested in some paperwork on her lap. Trying not to look too excited, Lester said, “Line the front of your car with the side mirror of the car you’re trying to sneak in behind.” Then he demonstrated. “From there, it should take you two hard turns of the wheel.” He slid the Bug in between a Town Car and a Renault Encore. She thanked him as they got out of the VW and then she headed into the building. The women on the front step pointed at him and folded over in hysterics. He didn’t care. For the next three days, gravity didn’t exist. That’s when he began fantasizing the girl would someday, magically, show up at his apartment.

And now, here she was.

Must be fate.

On the other side of his door, Chelsea Farmer stood, her ear against it, listening. She’d sprinkled glitter all over her face. Wore enough blue eye shadow to paint one of those depressing Van Gogh pictures of stars. Were such a woman to climb into Lester’s cab on a Saturday night, he’d dismiss her as just another young person dolled up for alcohol and a one-night stand. But his gonads assured him this girl was different. He took a moment to straighten his shirt. His paunch hung over his waist like the crest of a wave. Should’ve started that diet. Maybe the girl had a Marlon Brando fetish. She’d grown up in the time of Family Guy and King of Queens, when fat slobs landed hot, skinny wives. Sure, sure. Maybe Hollywood had done him a favor. He took a deep breath and opened the door. “Hello?” he said, acting as though she were the last person he’d expected to see. 

The girl stared at her feet. Reeked of booze and perfume. The same citric scent women in strip clubs wore to attract cash. “Hey.” Her voice sounded like it had been delivered across time and space, from somewhere under water.

“Hey,” said Lester.

“Am I bugging you?”

“Not at all.” He tried to play it cool. Pull your stomach in, lard-ass.  

She sniffled, looked at him with sad, desperate eyes. “Can I come in?”

He stepped aside. “Of course.” Slow down, dummy. Don’t look so anxious. 

The young woman shuffled up to him, waited for the door to close, and then dropped her head into his shoulder. He had no choice but to put his arms around her. She rubbed her body against his, crying and breathing heavy. He let her cling to him until he considered the scene awkward. Loosening himself from her grip, he said, “Why don’t you take it easy for a minute?”

She sat in his recliner. He took the only other spot above ground in the room—his bed. He moved his Star Wars comforter against the wall and rested his elbows on it. Part of his mind continued the debate regarding the ethics of sleeping with a woman he barely knew. The portion of his brain he assumed took orders from his libido dismissed any such concern as middle-class morality. Crap his parents used to preach. That code of behavior had always been riddled with hypocrisy. Any time he acted the way he was supposed to, any time he did something nice, he got punished. If not by the people he helped, then, somehow, by the universe. This question, however, trumped the others: How many chances will I get to sleep with Chelsea Farmer? 

His conscience: You’re old enough to be her father. 

His libido: Shut the hell up. 

The girl sank her head into her hands and sobbed. “I’m sorry.” She wiped her nose on the ripped fabric of the recliner. “I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

“Impossible,” he said.

“I’m such a fucktard,” she said.

He took in her outfit—the skill with which she had applied makeup, the overbearing perfume. The work of a woman who knew how to entice any man into doing anything she wanted him to. Hardly the effort of a fucktard. So he asked her, “How so?”

“I should be doing something useful,” she said. “But I’m going to school, like a lazy yuppie. I should be working.” 

“Okay,” he said. “Get a job.”

“But I need to finish school.”

“Okay,” he said. “Finish school.”

She rolled to the side, propping her elbow on the armrest and her head on one hand. “Maybe you don’t understand.”

“Okay,” he said. “Tell me.”

And out came the biography of Chelsea Farmer. At twenty-two, she’d endured troubles most eighty year olds couldn’t comprehend. She said, “Geezers don’t get how tough life is for a beautiful woman in America.” Lester refrained from telling her things only got worse. But the girl had experienced some genuine tragedy. Her father molested her the moment her body developed. Fearing scandal in Delphi, her parents sent her to Indianapolis to live with her Uncle Sewell. She fled his place after he decided she owed him room and board and took it in the form of a rape. One boyfriend after another let her down. Some beat her. None pleased her. “I have a serious sexual appetite,” she said. “If a man can’t make me see stars in bed, he’s useless.” Eventually, she took to booze to scrub away the sour memories. “I can be someone else,” she said, “when I’m drunk. I can be stronger, smarter.” 

Her story went on for an hour. Around four in the morning, Lester asked if she wanted to listen to some music.

“What do you got?”

He went through his collection of cassettes. “Some Miles Davis,” he said. “And some Debussy.”

“Gross,” she said. “Do you have a cd player?” 

He did. Someone had left a portable stereo in his cab one night. A white, battered boom box with a broken volume knob preventing him from cranking it. “What kind of music do you like?”

She said, “Ever hear of Killswitch Engage?”

“Excuse me?”

Her eyes popped. “You’ve never heard of Killswitch Engage?” 

He shook his head. “I apologize.”

She bounced to her feet. “Back in a jiff.”

Lester remained on his bed. He pinched thin strands of hair jutting from his chin as though they constituted a beard of considerable thickness. Here would be the butt of God’s joke. The girl would realize how absurd she’d behaved and never speak to him again. Minutes passed. As he rocked forward to stand and make the depressing journey to his door to close and lock it, Chelsea returned.

“My apartment’s a shit sty,” she said. “Like yours.” She said this as though they shared something magical in common. She handed him a homemade compact disc. The handwritten label on it resembled graffiti on a highway bridge. He assumed it read, Wilbur Entranced, or whatever the hell the name of the band was. 

He loaded it into the top of the portable stereo. Listened for it to whir into place, and then pressed “play.” High-pitched guitars and someone shrieking indecipherable lyrics cracked over the speakers. The singer sounded like a spoiled brat. Like a suburban douchebag whose contribution to the radicalization of America was shopping exclusively at Hot Topic. When he turned back around to sit on the bed, he stopped. The girl had claimed a place on his sheets. He took a moment, then settled down next to her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

“It’s heavy metal,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

He wanted to explain to her that whatever noise this Hilltop Persuaded produced, it most certainly did not qualify as heavy metal. Black Sabbath and Motörhead made heavy metal, not this horrendous emulation of a garbage disposal called, what was the name of the band again? Was he that old, he couldn’t remember something he’d just been told? Instead, he said, “No problem.” 

The girl put her hand on his knee and walked her fingers up his thigh. “I’m so wasted.” She nuzzled her lips near his ear and kissed his neck.

Echoes of middle class morality nagging his conscience vanished.