–
Ball Bearings

Every Tuesday and Thursday since he began school, Tommy had walked the half-block from the bus-stop to his dad’s South Side factory hand-in-hand with his dad. The last couple of weeks, however, he had made the walk on his own. He agreed with his dad that, yes, he was in Second Grade now, and that, no, he wouldn’t tell his mom, so he would be fine by himself. He’d been getting Cokes for him and his dad at the machine in the back alley for a year and that was even further away than the bus-stop.

It was initially frightening to him and he felt untethered and small the first few times, running until he reached the factory door and then nonchalantly walking in. His dad never made a big deal that Tommy had made it there in one piece and Tommy took comfort in his confidence.

Tommy no longer needed to run from the stop, but he chose to on his first Tuesday back in the factory since returning from vacation with his mom and Jerry. He had resolved to explore more of the factory after he discovered his classmates were interested in the old building over which Tommy had free reign. He wanted to be able to answer more of their questions (“Any dead bodies?” was the one that intrigued him the most) and all he could think about as Jerry endeavored to teach him how to eat lobster for an entire week was the one door in the factory that he had never even tried to open. It was in the back office and he couldn’t fathom what was on the other side, apart from darkness, which seeped out from under the door.

Tommy forced himself into a nonchalant walk as he entered Tanlan Binderies, dropped his Evel Knievel lunchbox in the main office, said hi to his dad, and crossed the factory floor to the back office. He realized his dad had asked him a question thirty seconds ago and muttered “Maine was fine” to himself as he entered the seldom used room.

Tommy’s dad used to spend more time in the back office, but he stopped using it because it was on the other side of the building than all of the machines and he spent more time fixing the presses than he used to. Tommy himself hadn’t been in the back office since he was five, when he found a green ball-bearing on the black carpet and tried to eat it, even though he knew it wasn’t candy. He remained embarrassed that he had done something so stereotypically childish. Even if it had been candy, it had been on the floor. It was one of the only times he had been yelled at and he absolutely deserved it. There were still ball-bearings on the floor now, but they didn’t seem green or round anymore and Tommy was smugly disinterested in them. His attention was on the door, which was there on the far wall, as solid and dark as it had been in his memory.

As he approached the door, he passed a compartmentalized wooden desk, legless and completely empty except for dust and a photo of his father and a woman. The photo was tacked up inside one of the cubbyholes in the desk and the woman was in a bright pink bikini. Tommy’s dad had on jeans and a t-shirt and big dark sunglasses, even though it was night wherever he and the woman were (Tommy wasn’t sure: there was mud everywhere, a chain link fence out-of-focus in the background and a giant tire sticking into the picture from the right). Tommy’s dad was smiling, a can in one hand and his other hand around the woman’s midsection. The woman’s pubic hair was visible along the top of her bikini bottom. She was smiling slyly.

Tommy turned with his back to the door he had come through and bent down so the picture was near the cubbyhole where he had found it, in case he had to shove it back in quickly. He’d seen bikinis before and he knew what pubic hair was. His dad’s hand on the woman’s side was only a few inches away from her pubic hair. His fingers were spread out and pressed firmly against her skin. Why was she dressed like that at night, outside, with no water around? Did his dad know she was going to be there when he was going? What did his dad think when he saw her pubic hair? When he was walking up to her, did he look at it? Did he say anything to her about it?

Tommy hoped he hadn’t.

He thought about his dad’s poster of Chicago as seen from a helicopter and how his dad had shown him, way in the back of the picture, a grey swatch of color that was the South Side. He thought about how the giant industrial building was a speck in that swatch, and how he was in just one of the factories in the building, in a room in the factory, holding a picture that was in a cubbyhole in the room.

The house he had lived in with his parents when they were still together wasn’t on the poster. When Tommy asked where their house was, his dad had put the poster down on his workbench and pointed to a spot a few feet to the left, in the middle of a ring a beer can had left on the wooden surface days or years prior.

–

Ben Dudley is pursuing his Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati, where he teaches composition. He occasionally directs commercials for a down bedding company, often performs stand up comedy, and sometimes writes screenplays. His work has appeared in Foliate Oak Magazine and Zero Ducats.

Starlight Park, the Bronx, circa 1921. G.G. Bain Collection

Thanks to all those high school missions into the Bronx for weed, I find Crescent Ave in a snap. Clockers are leaning up the huge rusted gates that surround what I guess are the basketball courts; to my right, directly across from the gates, is number 612. I circle the block a few times in hopes of finding a parking spot, but all I really do is stir up the dealers, so I double park Mike’s Jeep in front of 612. To play it safe, I secure the club and hit the hazards, but before I’m halfway out the door I’m confronted.

“What ya need, G?” A dark hood covers his head; where are his eyes? “Coke, crank, weed, X, tabs…smack, I gots the smack too?”

“I’m cool.” I slam the door, lock it. He’s still standing there and I’m waiting for something to go off. “I’m good,” I tell him, and head for the 612 entrance.

“Yeah, G…peace,” he says. “You know where to find me.”

I open the first door and step inside. The lobby’s small and smells like wet clothes and smoke. Hunter is not on the list of occupants so I search for a Lucy? Or was it Lilly? Lonnie? 532 Lucy Lombardi, sounds good. I press the security button and wait to be beamed up.

“Who is it?” The voice crackles.

“Travis,” I say, wondering if this is Sam.

“Travis who?”

“Hill. Travis Hill.”

“The actor?”

“The actor.” I feel like an idiot here.

The door buzzes and I pull it open and step inside feeling nervous about the Jeep? About Samantha? About not dropping some tears at the funeral?

Alone, I ride the shaky elevator to the fifth floor. Love is begging at my door at any price. I laugh and smile at my distorted reflection in the silver ceiling. “Funerals. Starvation. Time.” I smile again.

Inside I see Lucy for the first time. Sam kisses me hello and tells me to come in and meet Lucy.

“Lucy, this is Travis.” I walk over to Lucy who’s sitting by the window rolling a cigarette. “Travis, this is Lucy.”

“Hello, how are you?” A faded red bandanna, Aunt Jemima style, covers her head. She’s chunky, resembles Mrs. Claus. I extend my hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Travis, hello.” She finishes rolling and shakes my hand. A firm surprise. “Sam tells me you’re an actor.”

“Yeah, study at NYU.” I scan the apartment. “Nice place you have here.” Looks like a one bedroom. Where’s Sam sleep? Blanket and pillow on the couch, must be Sam’s room. Walls crowded with impressionistic paintings of oceans and sunsets and mountains, and paint supplies scattered in the corners with white sheets covering works in progress. “Who’s the artist?”

“Sam, honey, tell him.” Lucy sparks up the lighter, brings the tiny flame to her rolled cigarette. “She’s real protective of her work.”

“It’s me,” Sam says, blushing. “I’m the artist.”

Sam’s wearing a long black skirt, tight around her hips but loose around the knees, a white blouse, which kind of looks like the one my sister got only a different color, and a pair of suede platform shoes. She’s overdressed for what I had planned for tonight, but looks real sexy so I say, “wow…you look great,” and kiss her cheek, look at Lucy. “Ah, think that went out.” What did I have planned for tonight?

“Did it?” Lucy pulls the butt from her mouth and looks at it. “Oh, I hate this…my lungs aren’t what they used to be.”

“Want me to get it started?” I look out the window, blinking hazards are reflecting off the stop sign. STOP…STOP…STOP…

“Please!” She hands me the butt. “Please.”

“Lighter? My Aunt used to—thanks—she used to roll her own cigarettes.” I light it and take a few deep puffs to get her burning.

“What happened? Gave it up.”

“Ah, yeah…guess you could say that.” Sam’s giggling in the kitchen and I’m wondering what’s going on. Something’s strange. I exhale a cloud of smoke toward the rotating ceiling fan. “It can’t be.” I take another hit, exhale. “It is…this is…” I fan the smoke into my face. “…this is…weed? You’re smoking weed!”

“No,” Lucy says, holding her gut, laughing, “you’re smoking weed.”

Sam comes in laughing with two Coors light cans and hands me one. “I told her not to,” she says, smiling.

“Crazy,” I say and hand Sam the joint, look out the window.

She puts it to her lips, closes her eyes and inhales. She opens her eyes. “Why do you keep looking out the window, Travis?” She asks holding her breath.

“What?” I’m paranoid? “No, my roommate’s Jeep double parked outside.”

“Is it there? Can you see it?” She hands Lucy the joint and exhales.

“Yeah, got the hazards on…I see it.” Lucy takes a hit and coughing deeply, hands me the burning bud. “Just keeping an eye on it,” I say, and take another drag.

“We’ll go after this beer, alright?” Sam looks down and brushes some ashes off her chest. “Okay?”

I blow smoke in her face and think about tearing that blouse open later and putting my mouth on her nipple. “You’re the boss.” We pass the joint around a few more times until we’re left with a roach, and since no one wants to hit it, I pop it in my mouth and wash it down with the beer. “Yummy,” I say rubbing my stomach.

“Did you just swallow that?” Sam asks, holding her throat.

“It’s good luck,” I say and look out the window again. “Still there.”

Lucy gets up and waddles over to the record player.

I grab Samantha from behind, around the waist, and move slowly to Sinatra’s ‘Summer Wind.’

“I never heard that.”

“What! You never heard Summer Wind?” Damn, she smells good. “You’re kidding.”

“No, no. That swallowing a roach is good luck.”

“I missed you.”

“I thought you disappeared.”

“You smell good.”

“Really!”

“What’re you working on?”

She looks over her shoulder. “Huh?”

“That.” I point to the white sheet. “What’s that sheet in the corner covering? Can I see?”

“No. Nothing, it’s not finished.” She pulls away from me. “Are you done with that beer yet? I want to leave. Are you done?”

“Lighten up, Monet.” I check the Jeep again. “Yeah, you?”

Lucy wedges her plump butt back in her seat and begins shuffling cards. “So, Travis, did you get your hands on my granddaughter yet?”

“What?” Great weed! “Say again?”

“Travis, don’t listen to…to her.” Sam sneezes. “She’s trying…” She sneezes again. “She’s trying…”

“God bless,” I say.

“She’s trying to…”

Lucy interrupts. “Someone has to watch her.” She holds up a Joker, smiles and flings it at me. “I know all about you actor types—first hand.”

She holds up the other Joker and Sam snatches it from her. “Lucy, you’re embarrassing him,” Sam says, laughing. “Now stop it, really.”

“Oh really.” I grab Sam, kiss her cheek. “Then you know…we never kiss and tell.” I kiss her lips, slip in a little tongue for good measure. “Right, Claude?”

“That’s it,” Lucy says. “Samantha, I’m calling your father!” She jumps up and storms into her bedroom.

“She’s nuts.” I take Sam’s beer. “Let me help you with that.”

Sam’s still laughing. “Now you’re in trouble,” she says, getting in my face. “My Daddy’s gonna kick yo ass, boy!”

Lucy returns violently coughing and rubbing her large eyes. “Look at this.” She hands me a photo. “Know who that is?”

I examine: stocky guy holding young girl in bikini on beach. “Ah, looks like…ah, is that…you?”

“Nineteen, prime of my life. And all my stuff’s real.”

Damn! “You look great! Who’s the guy holding you?”

“Can’t tell?” She looks on with me. “Guess!”

No way…can’t be. “Looks like…like, like Stanley Kowalski.”

Lucy gets excited. “What! Who’d you say?”

I look at her. “Stanley Kowalski—Marlon Brando.” I look back at the photo. “Is it?” I turn it over. “Holy Shit!” I look at Sam, then read the back: “1949 Jersey Shore, Lucy and Marlon.”

“Told you…told you I knew you actor types first hand.” She goes back to her seat by the window, starts shuffling again. “Told you.”

I follow holding the photo. “No way, that’s so cool…how’d you know him?”

“I’m finished,” Sam says. “I want to leave. You ready?”

“Hold up.” I hand Sam my empty can from the table. “Really, how’d you know him?”

“I knew him in just about every possible way you could know a man.” She turns to Sam and me and puts her fingers to her lips. “We were, shhhh…lovers.”

“No way, awesome. What happened?”

“Well, what happened was…” She goes back to cards, deals out solitaire. “What happened was—fame. Fame happened. Once Bud got big, and believe me he did, well, he simply forgot about me.”

“You’re serious.”

“It took me awhile to get over it, but then I met Augustine—Samantha’s grandfather, and well…well he made me forget about everything. When I see Bud in the movies now I just have to laugh. I think what if, what if I married Bud, but then I would have never met Augi. Oh, how I loved that man.”

I feel really strange and I’m at a loss for words so I utter an intelligent, “wow.”

Sam breaks the silence by telling Lucy we have to go and I check the Jeep again and tell Lucy it was great to meet her.

“Yes.” She gets up and hugs Sam, then me. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Travis…and take care of my baby.”

“I will, she’s in good hands.”

“He’s the perfect gentleman,” Sam says and pinches my ass.

“Samantha, when are you coming home?”

“Ah, late…don’t wait up. I’ll be fine.”

Lucy hugs Sam again and tells us to be careful ‘cause there’s a lot of crazies out there and we say we know and then we leave.

Chris Conroy‘s fiction has appeared in several online and print publications, including Whetstone, Word Riot, Ward6 Review, 6S, and Zingmagazine.  His new fiction is forthcoming in the inaugural print issue of The Wanderlust Review. Conroy holds an MFA degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville NY.  His folks were born and raised in the Bronx. Contact Chris at conroy18@hotmail.com

Chris Conroy

Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas

I swear right now that everything your gonna read in here happened 100% true. Cauze when I used to look back at all this crap that went down with me, sometimes I wouldn’t even believe it myself. I used to trip a lot on shrooms and acid, plus get high off weed or hash in weird places which can mess up how your ass remembers shit. (Though shrooms can help you with other stuff, but I’ll tell you about that later.) The thing is, when you start writin’ down a story from your life, it totally makes you sort shit out, so I’ll admit I’m doin’ this to understand what the fuck happened myself. Still, for anybody who wants to read it, it’s a real good story even though there’s parts in here that get kinda wigged.

The whole thing started way earlier than that fateful Saturday on April 1, 2006. But I’m scared all the stuff about my dad and the hometown where I’m from is gonna bore your ass. Unless you live around there, probably you never even heard of Berwyn frickin’ Illinois. Cauze there’s people from Chicago who never even heard of it, though on sunny days you can see the Sears Tower clean off Ogden Avenue. Berwyn has some nice streets with good houses, though also the town is trashy, like corner bars and train tracks and dudes walkin’ around with their jeans fallin’ down. If you lost your beer gut, probably someone in Berwyn picked it up and never even noticed.

Back in ’06 I was tryin’ to get my life improved, cauze my job at the stupid Buona Beef wasn’t workin’ out like I planned. I was takin’ some classes by this community college called Sterling College which is over in Cicero, like the town right next door by Berwyn where some parts get ghetto. My first class started in January, though by March already I was dropped out and flunked. It got way too hard, frickin’ English 086 and Intermediate Algebra. You gotta study all day for them classes, only you don’t got all day when you crash a car and end up owin’ a guy lots of cash.

I knew this dude Diego. By accident I smashed up his uncle’s Buick with more than two grand in damage. And Diego needed it fast cauze his uncle was gonna come home from Mexico in like a month or six weeks without no warning. The only way I could get that cash was sellin’ weed, which I promised after high school I wouldn’t do no more. But Buona Beef wasn’t gonna pay for no Buick.

One buyer I knew was this landlord (not mine) with some properties all around Oak Park and Berwyn and Cicero…he was real rich cauze he inherited maybe a dozen houses when his old man died. The thing is, this dude was a SMOKER…a frickin’ Deadhead, Phishhead and Radiohead, all his clocks 4:20 all the time and every day. His beard was real big, like three gallons of hair on his face. So in my story I’m gonna call him Big Beard.

Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas

I would meet him by Oak Park in this laundrymat right near the Green Line el stop on Oak Park Avenue. We would make the deal in my car cauze he never wanted to show where he lived. So that’s where it started on April 1st, 2006 when I was waitin’ for Big Beard in the frickin’ laundry and mindin’ my own business. He was usually dead on time, though now he was maybe ten minutes late. But I stayed cool, busted out some Cypress Hill on my headphones. I had a yellow pillow case with three jeans in there so I could throw them in a dryer, pretend I’m an official laundry user. And I just watched my jeans go round and round and sat chillin’ with Cypress.

Now I’m gonna change another name. Cauze this story is really about a lady who came in the laundry that day…I’m gonna call her Audra. She was from this country called Lithuania, which is totally a real place and you can google it if you want. Over there they talk Lithuanian, a real messed up language with longass names like Aušrainė, Ventvaitė and Šišvaiška, so Audra’s more easy for you to read. When I first seen her, she was maybe 32 or 34. Though also she could of been 29 or 30 since I never got her real age pinned down exact. Back then I was just 20, so when she first came in I didn’t think too much about it. I mean, she was real beautiful. But big deal. Tall blonde women walk around Oak Park all the time cauze they get married with all them rich assholes who live there.

Big Beard wasn’t coming. I called with my cell but he didn’t pick up. Then I went out to roll some Drum and have a smoke, look up and down the street for his ass. Frickin’ I didn’t see him noplace and went back in to wait real annoyed about it.

From the place where I sat down I could see Audra’s reflection in a dryer. After this one thin dude left with his laundry basket, it was only me and Audra in there. She didn’t have no load to wash, just kept messin’ with her phone, readin’ some messages and textin’ somebody. I thought I was real smooth lookin’ at her reflection so she didn’t know about it, but then we had one of them moments where the chick catches you starin’ at her. Real quick I looked at some “important shit” like the trash can. But I was nailed red handed and dumb, especially since my dryer was already finished for like five minutes.

Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas

I’m one of them dudes who gets like a moron if a hot chick is gonna talk with me. It’s all this buzzing on my back, plus my tongue goes dry like a brick. She was comin’ over…totally knew how to click her heels so damn evil. I figured I’ll get my dry clothes, act like everything’s regular, though I got paranoid cauze maybe she’s a cop. She knows that’s my Plymouth Horizon outside, the one with an ounce of weed in the glove.

Audra said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Um.” I was trying to button some jeans. “Sure.”

“Would you like to make a thousand dollars?”

That question didn’t really make it all the way to my brain. Audra sighed. “Earth to Nate,” she said. “Can you answer? Stoner boy?”

“What? Sorry.” It was kinda smooth how I took off my earphones and put the whole CD player in the pillowcase. “I’m Nate, yeah. You mean, like dollars?”

“One thousand dollars, Nate? Do you want to make that much?” Right there I heard how she talked with a little accent, only it was real small. “Won’t take long.”

I think I shrugged. Or maybe I scratched my chin or something. “Sure. I’ll make that much.” I kinda went auto pilot and followed her to a shiny ass Lincoln Navigator. To hide my boner I kept the pillow case in my lap when she was drivin’ me around.

Dude, my name ain’t Nate. That’s just the name I used to give weed customers like Big Beard. I guess I should of known right there Audra had something to do with him, probably she knew him and got the name from him. But I was seein’ her legs up close and could smell her perfume like sleeping potion. I said, “My name’s Andrew. Though that’s like the long version. Cauze people call me Andy mostly. Or Drew…they call me Drew. Frickin’ Cicero boys, they just turn it into D. But that’s kinda ghetto.”

I could of been named Larry Hick Dominick or Michael Jeffrey Jordan, she didn’t care about it at all. Audra just drove that huge car with her blue eyes on the road. I looked at them eyes real careful cauze I seen a rainy day in there like something was sad. Also her one eye was kinda red, a little swelled when I had a better look.

I grew up in my life with some real depressed women. Pill poppers and boozers, my older sister, my mom, my alcoholic grandma, all three filled up with hurt inside where they wouldn’t tell nobody. My dad left my mom with a whole pile of crap, kids and bills, stuff that’s real hard to handle by yourself, and lookin’ at Audra I could see that kind of thing in her. If you know it, it’s a real special quiet, though under the quiet they got lots of loudness tied up with real tight knots. I knew for sure she had it cauze it was strong from deep inside. Not no make up or fancy clothes can cover it up.

Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas

She pulled that Navigator in a garage where I seen a boat. On the walls it was lots of fishing stuff, like poles that you could catch a shark or a whale, plus posters with dudes wearin’ them green rubber pants and stupid hats. The garage went to the house and I followed Audra through some rooms, like four or five. The kitchen had a shandeleer in there and I seen crystal bowls and some dishes on small tables. A Mexican lady was cleanin’ the place and I almost stepped on the mophead dog cauze the little shit was the exact same color like the carpet.

One room smelled like clay and wet paint…it was filled up with paintings and statues, some of ’em leaned up by the walls. One painting was a dude fishing, then another one showed this cabin by a river and some people sittin’ by a bonfire. But in the middle of the room was this clay thing. It wasn’t finished yet, but I could tell it was frickin’ Big Beard’s head! He was makin’ his own face…the same way how sometimes you see a dude’s head on a piano, only bigger. Further down one hallway I seen a picture of him shaved trim with Audra in her wedding clothes. She wasn’t that much younger then.

Audra made me go in a bedroom. Before I could ask what the hell’s goin’ on or where the fuck is Big Beard, she was takin’ off her clothes. “Andy? Or Drew?” It took like ten seconds and she was standin’ butt naked like we’re in porno. “You don’t mind, do you?” Audra touched my face real gentle and I went shiverin’. I was tryin’ to hide behind the pillow case but she dumped that stupid thing in a corner. Then she fell back on the bed and spread her legs. “I want you to eat me out,” she said. “Please. You’ll do it, won’t you?”

Dude, I laughed, I think, cauze Audra also started laughin’. One thousand dollars? When I seen her laid down like that and feelin’ herself I forgot about money. I was just happy this one girl gave me all them pussy eating lessons my junior year. Thanks to her, I totally got in there real confident.

It’s amazing how much wacko shit you can think while you go down on a strange older woman. Am I breakin’ some laws? What if Big Beard comes home? He’ll hook me up with them fishing hooks. The Mexican lady was closin’ some doors and slidin’ shit way deep in the house. We could hear all that with the bedroom door wide open, but I wasn’t gonna stand up to close it now.

In the beginning it was kinda fun. But pretty soon shit got complicated. She started howlin’ loud like someone’s stabbin’ her, totally makin’ extra noise. I thought we were done, but she wanted more. She kept makin’ my hands go all over her body, made me pinch her and told me to do it harder. She wouldn’t let me take no break, would just grab my head and hold my ears. Pretty soon she was moanin’ like her family died and her face turned sunburn red. Then Audra told me, “Just wait a moment,” and right there she busted out her cocaine stuff.

Dude, it wasn’t cool. Cauze when a real gorgeous woman cokes up naked in front of you, it ain’t hot, just tweaked and wigged…she rubbed her eyes and some mascara got smeared. I started wantin’ to get the hell outta there, and when my cell rang I thought I had a chance. But she knocked it outta my hand and made me do it again. I did just cauze I couldn’t know what she’s got next, maybe a knife stashed under a pillow or a gun. She was totally jacked up and crazy, like she wanted an orgasm to kill her.

The phone kept ringin’. The Mexican lady fired up a blender in the kitchen. Then somebody started a lawn mower outside and a helicopter flew over pretty low. “Turn that shit off,” she said, but she had her hands tight around my head and was pressin’ me down. “Turn it off!” She held me tighter…I didn’t know what the fuck to do…Audra was so damn strong and her nails went diggin’ real hard in my neck. I didn’t know why, but pretty soon she started beatin’ her hands on the bed with real hard slaps, then she pushed me with her feet so I fell off the bed. I think she was cryin’ now or freakin’ out, or just makin’ a scene to scare me. She yelled, “Don’t you touch that phone.”

“Hey, it’s cool.” I tried to stay chill. “It’s okay. I ain’t gonna call nobody. It’s cool.” I kinda sat down next to her real gentle and pet her real light. After a couple seconds, she freaked. “Just take money and get out!” Audra rolled over by a little drawer where it was loads of cash in one envelope, totally crisp bills. She counted the money, shoved it in my hand and told me to get the fuck out.

Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas

The Mexican lady was still in the kitchen with a blender. I walked past with my shirt torn and my neck all ripped up, my face barely even wiped off. But the lady just kept cuttin’ mangoes, kinda rubbin’ her forehead with the back of her hand. I got lost in that house for a minute, but then found my way out some side door. I was already on the corner of LeMoyne and Oak Park Avenue when I checked my pocket, figured out I left my phone in Big Beard’s house.

Now it was no way to remember his number. And from LeMoyne the walk back to the laundry was like twelve long blocks past Augusta and Chicago Avenue and then Lake Street. But Big Beard must of been hard up for weed cauze he was still waitin’ in a restaurant across the street from my car. That dude came out when he seen me pissed from a parking ticket stuck on my window. “Nate. What the hell happened to you?”

“Nothing. Where the fuck were you? Called your ass, you were late first.”

“Had some issues, sorry.” He was lookin’ me over real good when I was messin’ with my car keys. “That’s blood on your back? You get into a fight?”

“Don’t worry about it.” We made the deal. I thought he might smell his wife’s perfume on me, so I rushed him out, said I’m late for all kinds of shit. Then I frickin’ left Oak Park with more cash in my pocket than I ever even seen in my whole damn life.

Gint Aras (Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas) was born in Cicero, IL to immigrants displaced by World War II. He attended the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign and earned his MFA from Columbia University. To support his writing, he has worked as a hearse driver, fast food guy, hotel houseman, pasta cook, actor and delivery man. He currently teaches English and Humanities at Morton College and lives in Oak Park, IL.

Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas

Check out Liquid Ink, the official website of Karolis Gintaras Žukauskas ["Trapped on Planet Earth since 1973"]. And to find out what happens next in Andy Nowak’s crazy life, read the novel Finding the Moon in Sugar, which is available from Amazon.com and elsewhere. “That Fateful Saturday” is the novel’s first chapter.

Detroit, 1967. © The Bettmann Archive

A few years before 1970 I met a nice white guy who gave me work driving lady wrestlers to Joe Arven Arena in the south end of Windsor. What’s now a suburb was then a bad area swollen with drunks and gamblers and married men. I know now that I was no better. I kept my nose down. I tried to stay out of trouble. But my problem was I fell in love with the circuit’s best fighter, a lithe white girl named Clara Noble. And for me, she felt nothing. God bless her.

I tried hard to get things going between us. While driving, I’d steer the conversation in a way that allowed me to ask her out. But she was getting over some Puerto Rican she married a few years earlier, when she was eighteen. It lasted three days for them before someone stabbed him dead.

One night in ‘67 I was late getting to the arena. Late buses drove extra slow that night. When I got there, a janitor sweeping up in the bleachers saw me come in and he called, “Ain’t you been sentenced yet?”

I ignored it and asked if Paul was in the locker room.

He shook his head, swept. “Try the office.”

When I went in Paul was against his desk with a hand down his pants. Some young girl I never saw before was sleeping on his sofa. Her t-shirt, her bra, they were pulled up so her little breasts stuck out in the open.

Paul froze when he saw me and said, “Give me a minute here.”

Ten minutes later I came back and knocked on the door.

He was behind his desk. The girl’s clothes were put back in a bad way.

“It’s on you to put Clara in a good mood tonight,” he said. “She’s going in the ring against Asta.”

“You’re a brave man,” I told him.

“Betting’s down. Something’s got to happen.”

Asta was second best to Clara. They were very good friends and had, in the past, always refused to fight one another.

He eyeballed me. Then he said it again, “Clara’s mood is on you tonight.”

I waited for him to give me the car keys. When he did, he was looking at the little girl on his sofa. She slept like a baby. Pink-skinned, blonde-haired, polka dotted all over with freckles. With gold unicorn studs in both ears.

I wouldn’t have guessed her a day past seventeen.

“Yankee,” he said. In one word giving me a bit of her history: teens from Detroit often crossed the Ambassador to drink underage in our town. On occasion, Paul got hold of one and made an easy night of it. This was her. Her face shinned with cold sweat. Paul tickled her naked heel and she curled the toes, frowning and groaning and moving just a little. “You hear about Detroit?” he said.

“Is she from Grosse Point?”

“I mean the riots.” His fingers played her toes like piano keys.

“What happened?”

“The way things are over there, she’s safer here with me.”

“What’s her name?”

“I forget. But she’s something else, isn’t she?”

“What’d you say’s up in Detroit?”

“You couldn’t pay me a million bucks to cross the bridge tonight,” he muttered, slapping the car keys into my palm.

I drove his blue Galaxie around for a while, picking up new girls and some regulars. Dropping them at the arena.

Across the river, fires made Detroit glow red in the night. The radio gave me the sum of what Paul had said: riots.

Clara was waiting on a bench by the curb outside her building. Touched by the yellow light of a street lamp. It did something to the blackness of her hair. I can’t explain it except to say it seemed more precious than usual, likely to stay that way forever. She had on a long brown coat, and beneath it, I knew, two bathing suits, one over the other. It was her way to dress at home rather than use the locker room. That pleased me then and the thought of it pleases me now. She saw value in herself. Self-respect.

I pulled up and let her in next to me. Her pale white face broke the night in half. And her eyebrows, her pupils, seemed made of it.

“Hey, Beautiful,” she said.

I asked her to see a movie with me. She said, “I can’t stand theatres.”

She pulled her smooth black hair into a tail and twisted it in a tight bun.

“The Halton has a balcony. We wouldn’t hurt our necks to see the screen,” I said.

She flared her nostrils. “You watching the road?” she said.

“I get it,” I said.

“I heard you raped some girl.”

“I said I get it. That’s a misunderstanding.”

“Watch the road.”

“All I’m saying is we should go out sometime.”

“I don’t do the black and white thing.”

“You married a Puerto Rican.”

“Who was no where near as dark as you. The darker the one and the whiter the other the worse it is in the eyes of God.”

“I go to church, and that’s bullshit.”

“I’m way too white and you’re the blackest person I’ve ever met.”

I thought, if I could just touch her knee, squeeze it, she’d swell up and the love for me I knew was in her would seep out her pours like juice.

She tuned the radio.

Across the water, Detroit burned. We traveled west of Riverside, the way I had taken the bus. Before we reached the bridge, when I figured we were equal with 12th Street, I slowed down and we had the best view of the shit you could ask for without actually crossing over. Smoke and flames. Helicopters staying in the sky like vultures.

Clara watched and chewed skin off her bottom lip.

“I don’t want to do this shit anymore,” she murmured.

I slowly pressed the gas.

A line of men with grey fish faces extended from the arena’s front door. We floated past them to the rear. I wanted to apologize to her. And I turned to do it but I could tell her mind was somewhere else. She was fusing with the neckline of her swimsuits. The way her hand moved under the breast of her big coat, I imagined her heart was outside her body and she had to massage it to keep the blood moving through her.

Inside, Asta owned the locker room. She wore boots, unlaced, and nothing else. It was a tactic Clara and I knew well – Asta meant it to advertise her daring and every muscle. She once told me the reason she had her hair cut so short was to show off the muscles that beautified her back.

This tiny joint stuck out of her mouth like a loose tooth. And as soon as she saw Clara come in, Asta offered it over to her.

Clara took it, breathed in the fumes, and gave it back.

After that, Asta pulled Clara away from me, into the small crowd of young girls warming up for their fights. They were mostly in bad places in life. So many were alcoholics or young mothers or worse. The fronts they put up were transparent. They were childish and terrified. You saw it best when they first stepped in the ring. But backstage they fed off each others efforts to believe otherwise. Faking love, behaving as sisters.

I knocked on Paul’s office door. He let me in. The young girl was still out like a light. Paul sat behind his desk, drinking chicken soup from a thermos, paperwork spread out before him.

“How is she?” he asked, chewing.

“She’s okay,” I said.

“Happy?”

“She’s alright. Happy. But maybe she’s not feeling it.”

“You tell her she’s fighting Asta?”

“No. Just seems like it.”

“She sick?” Drinking. Chewing.

“I think maybe tonight’d be a good night to give her a new girl so she can finish early and go home.”

“I spread the word. Bets are coming in.”

“Well,” I said, looking over my shoulder at he girl on the couch, “maybe she’ll be alright after all.”

He put his soup down and rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes. When he opened them they were already fixed past me, on the girl. “Looks good, doesn’t she.”

“She’s a beautiful girl. Is she okay?”

“How should I know. She’s burned out. She’s sleeping.”

“Looks like she’s had better days.”

“I’ve had better days. She looks great compared to me,” he said, and he shuffled the mess of papers, pushing some to the floor.

Someone in the locker room started knocking at his door. He was on the ground, on all fours like a dog, when Clara and Asta shouted through that it was them. When they came in, Asta was stretching an extra small red bathing suit up over her powerful chest. Clara went right up to Paul and said, “My cape in here?”

He looked up at her. She looked back at Asta. Asta smiled at me and I looked back to Paul. Like a dog. Thinking. Considering Clara’s question. When it came it him, he got up and went to a row of small lockers behind his desk, looked in a few, then found the right one. Pulling it out, he folded the flowing gold sequenced cape over his forearm.

“Who’m I against tonight. I feel walked over. I want to go home and go to bed.”

“Bets are in. I can’t change a thing,’ said Paul.

“My mind’s not in it tonight.”

“I sign the cheques, Clara. I make the rules.”

“I get it,” she put her hand out to take the cape from him. “But I want to go to bed early tonight.”

Paul stepped back. He held up the cape, showing that he wanted to tie it around her neck himself.

Clara sighed. She didn’t want formalities or games. Not tonight. She’d made clear what she needed. But she knew, like I knew, that Paul would play it like a bastard if she didn’t give in just a little. So she turned around to let him, but as he put his hands on her collar bones, Clara saw the young girl on the couch.

“What’s this, Paul,” she said.

Then Asta looked too, and she whispered, “Jesus.”

The two of them, Clara and Asta, went and crouched beside the couch to look at the girl up close. Asta sniffed her lips. “Hello?” she said, but the kid was a stone.

“What’d you do to her, Paul?” said Clara.

“We partied. It’s nothing. She’ll sleep it off is all.”

Asta layed her hands on the girl’s forehead, then her ears, then her neck.

“You two have fights to get ready for,” he said. “You hearing me?”

Asta pinched the girl’s cheeks and the girl showed little signs of base life. Scowled. Something she’d eaten that day bulged up through her throat and dribbled out her mouth.

“Shit,” Paul said.

“What’d you give her?” said Clara.

Then some pink blood filled in around the girl’s bottom teeth.

“Bets are in,” Paul shouted, dropping Clara’s cape on the floor, gold falling in a heap. He marched behind his desk and sat down. “You’re fighting each other tonight. Clara? Asta? You hear me? You’re fighting each other tonight.”

Clara turned to Asta and said, “She needs a doctor?”

Paul leaned forward. “It was a little coke. She’ll get over it.”

“She needs the hospital.”

“Let her sleep it off.”

I was against the wall.

“She looks like shit,” Asta said.

The young girl burped and whimpered. Her teeth were pink. Starting with her shoulders, she tried to move, but couldn’t. It looked painful. She sunk deeper. Her skin paled and her freckles reddened in contrast.

Clara squeezed the girl’s elbow.

Paul’s voice crept up as if out of a mouse hole: “Is she dead?”

Asta put her ear on the girl’s chest. “I think her heart’s beating.”

Nothing.

“Wait,” Asta whispered, “I think that’s it. Like, ba-dum—ba-dum—ba-dum.”

“Well?”

“It’s very weak.”

Clara stood up. “I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

“Calm down, Clara,” Paul said, standing again. “Beautiful’ll take her.”

“I am,” Clara said. One of her feet was squarely on the cape, pressing it into the dusty concrete floor.

“You got to fight,” Paul shouted.

Clara ignored him. “Get the car, Beautiful. Asta, help me move her.”

“Her heart is so weak,” Asta whispered.

Now Paul pushed all his paperwork onto the floor. “Everyone stop. Beautiful can take her. Calm down. She’ll be fine.”

“I’m taking her,” Clara contended. “Now get the car, Beautiful.”

Suddenly I existed again. I squeezed the keys in my fist. I looked at Paul. He said, “Not my car,” making fists and grinding his knuckles on the desk.

“His car,” Clara ordered me.

She glared at me.

I squeezed the keys so tight they should have disappeared into the flesh of my palm.

I heard Paul say it again – “Not my car” – but by then I was already pushing through the girls in the locker room.

The car was running when Clara and Asta pushed through the back door, the girl slung between them like a hammock between trees. From the driver’s seat, I reached back and swung open the door.

Asta crawled in backwards, pulling the girl’s jeans. Clara got in behind me and nested the girl’s head in her lap.

He didn’t follow us. Paul. Some people called him Saint Paul. A nickname I later heard he started himself. I doubt he left his office. I never saw him come out the building as we drove away. The arena just shrunk in the rearview mirror, and that was that.

I listened to Clara and Asta in back: Asta said, “She one of Paul’s American girls?” Clara said, “She’s in horrible shape.” Then they said nothing for a few minutes, until we came into view of Detroit again. Then Clara said, “This whole thing’s got me charged. I could’ve gotten in the ring and taken on anyone.”

I looked at them in the mirror. Asta dipped down to listen to the girl’s chest. “There it is,” she whispered, “ba-dum—ba-dum—”

Clara was looking out the window. Chewing her lip. Some hair had come loose from her bun. Light reflections off the river moved over her face.

“You watching the road, Beautiful?” she said.

“We’re almost there,” was all I could think to say back.

Detroit was experiencing something ancient. I thought of that movie Spartacus.

At the hospital, I pulled right up to the emergency doors. Clara and Asta, these muscular girls in swim suits, hauled the unconscious girl out of the car. Nurses came to them. One cupped her hands on the car’s tinted windows and tried to peer in at me. Clara spoke to others. I knew what it would look like to the police to find a black man bringing in three women like this. So I left.

That was a moment when I could have disappeared to another country and become a new man and the world would have been better for it, I’m sure. A farmer maybe. Somewhere far away. But no.

I saw her thirty years after that. I worked in a hospice. Made beds for the dying. A whole family or late twenty-somethings admitted their mother, who was too young to be there. I knew soon as I saw her that this woman was Clara. She was blind and she wore hearing aids. One twenty-something, I assume her daughter, pulled her mother’s hair into a bun and sang to her.

I said nothing to them. Perhaps they knew nothing of her past. Perhaps for their sake she became a new person.

I got hold of her records. She was indeed Clara Noble.

The night she died I was making the bed a few rooms away. Her daughter found me and she said, “I can’t find anyone.”

I told her I could radio the councilor.

She pushed her hair back. She picked up a pillow and a pillow case and began helping me make the bed. It was the type of thing I once wished Clara and me could have done together. Make bed and babies. But a life with me would have included the life before me she never wanted. This way was okay. Her daughter did another pillow. Then she pulled her hair into a pony tail, and if you were me you’d have seen it too. The likeness.

Joseph William Frank is a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Masters program in English Literature in the field of Creative Writing. For his writing, Joseph’s received scholarships from the University of Waterloo, the University of Toronto, and the Humber School for Writers. He lives with his wife, their son, and dog, and is at work on his PhD.