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THREE BEERS IN, the talking came easier for her. It wasn’t her natural state—the buzz or the conversation—but Karl had pulled the trigger of curiosity, and it was impossible to escape the crossfire.
“So you’ve been on the streets for how long?” he asked.
“Six years. It’s not so bad if you know where to go, who to see... the right things to say.” She had finished almost an entire pack from the carton in her backpack but lit another cigarette anyways. Karl closed his eyes and shook his head. Leo leaned her elbows on the table, the warmth of alcohol in her head and food in her belly adding to her sense of comfort here—opening her almost non-existent social interaction.
“Go ahead,” she said. “You got something to say. Say it.”
“It’s not always that easy. The way I see it, you’re running out of the right things to say.” He fiddled with the tin ashtray, tapped his own cigarette against it.
Leo laughed. “Cops are idiots. That was nothing. I’ve been in way worse trouble, and I’m still here.” Spreading her arms, she sat back in the chair.
“You’re pretty cocky for someone who looked pretty scared.” He brought them each another beer, and Leo felt the lump in her throat stick. “Why don’t you show me personally how you handle your trouble?”
She realized the flush in her face was not entirely due to the beer, and she instantly wished she had kept her mouth shut. She eyed the bottle in front of her.
“Go on.” He nudged it closer to her and drank his own. “Little badass like you can keep up with me. You’re so proud of yourself, show me.”
The smell of yeast and hops made her lick her lips, but her stomach hardened anyways. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“This is like, my fourth beer. It doesn’t work... when I drink.”
She sounded crazy. She sounded like a phony. She hit her cigarette and breathed the smoke in through clenched teeth.
Karl placed the beer directly in front of her. “Well, you know more than you let on. At least you figured that much out for yourself. What else screws with your words?”
She grabbed the beer and stared at Karl’s upper lip peeking beneath the mustache. His eyes had never left hers, and she felt them probing more deeply now that she was aware of her mistake. He knew way more than she did, and she was about to prove him right, no matter what she said.
“What is this, fucking therapy?”
“You want to know what I know?” he asked and crossed a scratched leather boot over his knee. “Then I need to know what you know. Answer the question.” He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t clench his fists. He barely seemed affected at all by the beer, and yet Leo had matched him drink for drink.
“When I get pissed off. When I get scared. When people ask me too many questions.” She gave him a pointed glare. “I can’t always choose when to make people believe me. Sometimes I can’t stop it.” She shook her head, flicked the cigarette with unnecessary force.
Her heart beat faster through alcohol-thinned blood, and she was momentarily surprised by the lack of burning in her chest. Her mouth tasted the same as ever, without the spicy, metal tinge that always led the way for her really powerful words. She tasted beer and cigarettes—nothing else. She had given up spending her money or “talent” for alcohol years ago, once she realized what it did. Every time she drank and the burning never showed, the disappointment was as harsh as the first time it happened. So was the panic of realizing she couldn’t talk her way out of rash decisions. That made drinking a liability on the streets. But when it was offered freely, and she didn’t feel threatened, it helped to relax a bit. She regretted that now, but there was no way out. Karl held the wild card of information, of something resembling answers, and she had already accepted the invitation.
“Is that what you wanted to hear?” She wanted the sting of her words, but drunken sarcasm would have to work.
Karl made a noncommittal noise of consent, and the back of Leo’s neck burned hot in the next few seconds of silence.
“What happened to your mom?” he asked.
“Seriously?”
He spread his arms, reminding her of the necessity to talk. Tit for tat.
An irritated laugh escaped her. “She’s gone.” She gulped on the beer and wiped her mouth. “I was four when she walked out. My dad was one of the first to use Pointera as a career-booster.” She tried to focus on the strips peeling from the underside of the table. “She called him a robot, but she had no problem leaving me there with him.”
“How long did it take him to...”
Her smile felt sour and twisted on her own face. “I spent my sixth birthday burying Rex in the backyard alone. Turns out a kid can survive on peanut butter and Twinkies. A dog really can’t.”
“And after your dad?”
“Nothing. If she was still alive, she didn’t come to the funeral. I stopped giving a shit way before that.” The grinding of teeth in her head was the only sound for a moment, and she gave up a silent death wish for the woman. That, at least, she didn’t have to share.
“I’m sorry, kid.” He drained his beer, stood, and cleared his throat. “Well, I’m turning in. The couch is all yours.”
She smashed her cigarette out and watched him click the lights off. “That’s it?” He said nothing.
The yellow street lamp filtered through the cheap blinds, falling on half of his mattress. Through the lit smoke, she watched him undress. She didn’t mean to stare, but he was right there. Down to his boxer shorts, his chest lit up in the streaks of dim light, showing surprisingly less hair than his beard and head would suggest. He sat on the mattress, and his eyes met hers for only a second.
He had caught her watching him, without invitation, or shame, or humor. Her mouth went dry, and when she drained her own bottle, he buried himself in the blanket and turned away from her.
She lay on the couch, its old age no doubt responsible for the odd, lumpy comfort. The toes of her shoes caught the street light, and she stared at them. The man’s acknowledgment had left her bitter and rejected. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept in someone’s house on the couch. Alone. With her clothes on. But through that sting of silent denial, she knew this wasn’t just another way to get through the night. She folded her arms and let the dizziness beneath closed eyes spin her down into sleep.
––––––––
His place looked different in the morning—sad. The one window opposite the door lit up the cracks in the walls, the frayed ends of the couch, the stains in the rug, and the duct tape on the table leg. The light washed everything out, made it feel empty when the night before, it had held the dark mystery of something new.
A part of her had still expected him to try something during the night. Even after their conversation, her reason for staying, she still wasn’t convinced. Even after he met her eyes with a silent no, she had wanted it to be a yes.
Karl was frying bacon on the portable stove, and she watched the rhythm of his moving arms, the way he stood with his feet wide, legs straight.
“Breakfast smells good.” He didn’t say anything. She stood from the couch and walked toward him. “Hey.” He made a noise in his throat but didn’t look at her. Her face went hot. She deserved his attention. He had fed her, shared his booze, given her a place to sleep, and no matter how rare those things were for her now, they were hardly equal to what she had given him. If he expected her to admit her secrets, to listen to him and open this door, it wouldn’t be for free. She was fed up with being invisible. She placed a hand on his arm, and he froze. He met her gaze with calm detachment. Her need flared into anger, and a white-hot pressure burst in her stomach.
“Kiss me.” The words burned in her chest, up her throat, out of her mouth, and his eyes relaxed. “You want to kiss me, because I’m more than some homeless-girl freak show.”
Karl bent toward her, gently grabbed her face below the ear, and his mustache was surprisingly soft against her mouth. The fork clattered onto the table, and she pulled him closer. He was a good kisser, but when her breathing got heavier, when she pulled him tighter against her body, her enthusiasm went unmatched. He kissed her, but that was all.
She pulled back, held him around the waist. The anger melted into a pool of guilt in her diaphragm, and she clenched her eyes to shut out his face. “That was fucked up.” She whispered it through clenched teeth, and the heat of his body melted through his shirt to appear as sweat in her palms. Her heart was beating faster now at his silence. She looked up.
His eyes moved from lazy slits to round awareness, the color flashing in his irises like the flare of a stricken match. “Are you done?” he asked.
She could have kissed him again if she wanted, he was so close. Her hands washed in a new wave of clammy anxiety when she realized that that would be his only response. Anyone else would have been shocked, maybe angry. She tightened her grip on him, hungry to find the tension of a loaded spring. She could pick that tension out anywhere, so used to the aggression that always followed. The kind she expected. Karl’s breath was a steady hum of warmth on her face.
She dropped her hands from his hips, fighting back the urge to push him over. The only reaction she would ever get out of him was that flash of intelligence returning to his eyes. The awareness in them alarmed her more than any harsh words or heavy hands. She wiped her hands on the back of her neck and focused her attention on the door.
Karl retrieved the fork and continued with the almost burnt bacon.
He knew exactly what she had done. He was the one person who knew, who could put two and two together and hold her accountable for the childish ways she used it. He had ignited her latent need to be known. She couldn’t turn back now. And whether or not her interest in him was physical, whether it stemmed from her need to finally be seen, it still scared the hell out of her.
He didn’t have to tell her not to do that again.
––––––––
He asked her if she wanted to meet others who used the beat, as he called it. She said yes. It wasn’t necessary at all for her to say yes. They both already knew she wasn’t going anywhere, didn’t have anything better to do, that this was the closest thing she had to a purpose. Without any words at all, she now felt both free and trapped. If she had told Karl to go fuck himself, if she had stormed out of his place as she’d planned, would she really forget about all the things he’d already told her, no matter how vague? She knew there were things you never, ever forgot. Since she’d taken to the streets, completely on her own, Karl’s invitation might have been the first thing she could not make herself forget.
They got into his station wagon after a strained breakfast, and that too looked the worse for wear in the daylight. Leo noticed he didn’t lock his garage of a home. She was willing to bet the door didn’t even have a lock. It felt too soon to ask. That steely gaze of his was a better deterrent than any other punishment. The control he had over his emotions was enough to make her hands slick with sweat as she pulled on the handle to the car door. She couldn’t get his apathy and that kiss out of her head. He acted as though it never happened, which was probably for the best. Still, she doubted she’d touch him again anytime soon. There was no great lay in their agreement, but what she was about to learn was far more worth it. It was impossible to imagine what Karl was getting out of the deal.
Cigarette smoke snaked through the open windows. They drove silently in the scent of burnt ash, and Karl pulled over beside a payphone on the downtown main road. She tried hard not to watch him as he stood with his back to her. She heard the lilt of his voice through the open window but couldn’t make out the words. He seemed completely at ease, standing squarely with one hand in his pocket, but Leo found herself searching the street.
What was she looking for? As far as she knew, it wasn’t illegal to use a payphone. She felt watched, like she had come out of hiding and been spotted in the middle of a hunt. Now that her secret was out, the world would change around her. But the cars heading their way passed without slowing. The barking dogs were only chasing squirrels. Nobody cared about them and the beaten station wagon.
Just as she started to laugh at her own idiocy, Karl opened the door and scared the smile right off her face. She coughed on the smoke in her lungs.
The softness of the smile he gave her washed out her momentary paranoia. “Jumpy?” he asked and started the engine.
It was the first thing he’d said to her since before breakfast. She realized she’d been hoping this whole time that she hadn’t seriously fucked up. She wanted him to like her for who she was, not what she could do. That feeling was surprisingly uncomfortable.
“Hey,” she started and fumbled with a new cigarette. “About this morning—”
“We’re good.” He glanced at her quickly before lighting her cigarette with one hand and steering them onto the highway with the other.
His curtness cut right through the weight of that discomfort. She felt her shoulders relax, realizing how long she’d been so tense. She was not used to the rationality of other people or the compassion of anyone in the same boat. They were good.
Karl took them out of downtown and into the limit of the suburbs. There was a dividing line between the grittiness of the city and the white picket fences and manicured lawns. Leo had learned early on not to cross that line. These people who seemed to live on a different planet, who relished in the scandal of the homeless in their neighborhood, had nothing good to offer. More often than not, the police got involved, and while Leo had always managed to get herself out of it, the trip was more trouble than it was worth.
Something vaguely familiar picked at her from the cleanliness on the other side of the line, from the lack of chaos and the routine of the American Dream. It pulled at a memory she couldn’t quite retrieve, threatening things she thought she knew but tried to forget. Her mother, so long gone, came to mind amid these HOA-prescribed hives of the middle class. Had her mother come from places like this? Or perhaps she’d escaped to them, leaving the dirty, worthless, scandalizing family of hers behind. Whatever the connection, Leo ran from the line, dreaded crossing it, and wondered what on earth kind of business Karl had so close to it.
Some people lived on that line, the limbo in between, and if one picked the right person, it didn’t make the area all that bad. Karl pulled into the drive of a ranch-style house, the yard full of fallen leaves spilling onto the porch. He put the wagon in park, and Leo stared out the window.
“Who lives here?” she asked.
“Her name’s Bernadette. She’s a pretty important person.” He opened the door.
“Is she the leader of the ‘beat people’ or something?” She instantly cursed herself for the stupidity of that question and flushed when Karl laughed out loud.
“She’s a storyteller, and she’s a friend of mine.”
“Is she the best?”
He glanced up at the house with a tiny, nostalgic smile. “Maybe once. Come on.”