THUGLIT Issue Three Read online

  “Always working an angle,” she said quietly. “Always trying to make a play, just like your father. I suppose you’d like me to buy that autograph from you. That signature you or one of your cronies put on there. Well, I’m not going to.”

  “No, Mom…”

  “I’m not going to, Sonny. I’m done playing. You’re all patched up now. Why don’t you take your book and go meet your good buddy Harold for a drink. The two of you can have a nice laugh at my expense.”

  “No…”

  “I’m all through, Sonny. This time…I’m really all through.”

  She wouldn’t look at me as I got up to leave.

  That night, I did go find Harold. And I did have a drink. More than one, in fact. But I left the book where it was: sitting on her kitchen table.

  *****

  I planned it all out myself—Harold only helped with the details. I still had some names and numbers from my short stint dealing at NYU; as luck would have it, it was the film students more than any others that had a taste for speed; something about needing the occasional boost during long hours in the editing bay, they once explained to me, not altogether convincingly. When I contacted them, they were more than happy to go along.

  It was difficult getting Veronica out of her apartment. Since getting fired from the diner, I discovered she’d been receding speedily into alcoholism and an affectless lethargy that left her words slurry and her limbs as loose as a rag doll’s. In fact, it wasn’t until I mentioned the possibility of earning some money that I fully grabbed her attention; and then it still took a full forty minutes to coax her into putting on a fresh set of clothes and grabbing a cab with me across town.

  When we arrived at the loft, the students already had the camera and the lighting set up. Veronica took one look at them, her knees buckling momentarily and her bloodless lips curling inward, and marched back out the door we’d just entered. I caught up with her by the elevator near the end of the hallway. I tried to take her elbow, but she yanked it away and turned on me, no longer loose-limbed or slurring her speech.

  “What the fuck is this all about?” she snapped, an acuteness in her glare that I hadn’t seen there before.

  “Wait—hear me out…”

  “You said you had a job for me.”

  “This is a job.”

  “Fuck it is. I told you, that part of my life is over. Veronica Tate is dead and gone. No one wants her back.”

  “I want her back. Lots of people want her back.” I swallowed hard. “My mother wants her back.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you or your goddamned mother want,” she spat. “But I’ll tell you what I want, not that you asked—to be left alone. I just want live out what’s left of my life in peace.”

  She spun and hit the elevator button so hard her thumb joint popped like a snapping twig. If it hurt her, she didn’t let it show.

  Her breath came in long, jagged rasps, but I suspected the rasps were laced more with panic than anger. The camera and lights had spooked her, like an apparition suddenly materializing from a repressed and receding history. I let her gather herself; let her take a moment to calm her jangling nerves and slow her ragged breathing.

  When her shoulders stopped trembling, I laid my hand on one, gently but firmly. This time she didn’t pull away. I could feel her collarbone shifting under a paper-thin layer of skin.

  “But who’s going to hire a crazy old woman like you?” I offered, echoing her own words, her own thoughts, back to her. “Think about it—that’s all. This is a chance, at least. These guys? All they want is an interview. They think they can sell it to a TV show…for pretty good money, too. That money’s yours. Every penny—and you don’t have to lift a finger or lug a dish to earn it. They just want the recognition. They want to see their names on the screen, and tell people they’re the ones that found the great Veronica Tate.”

  “And brought her back to life,” she added bitterly, her initial shock seeping away by slow degrees.

  “Kicking and screaming.”

  “Kicking and screaming is right.”

  Her shoulder sagged slightly beneath my palm, and she emitted a heavy and exhausted sigh—a sigh drenched with failure and despair and the burdens of age. In the Bowery, I’d heard that same sigh many times.

  “I tell you, Sonny,” she said tiredly, resignedly. “Goddamned life.”

  Veronica did go back into the loft, and she sat for the interview; but she didn’t look at me or speak to me again that night. I’d swear though, that there was a moment—just a passing, fleeting instant—when one of the film students flicked on that first klieg light, and her deep dark pupils ignited like two white-hot flames, that Veronica Tate looked happy again.

  I met up with Harold just after midnight in the Suffolk Street Pub. This time we sat in the back, near the jukebox and a passed-out Melody, who was snoring unmelodiously in a neighboring booth. Harold took a thick white envelope out of his pocket and set it on the tabletop between us.

  “Everything go okay,” I asked, not really a question.

  “No troubles. Soon as I saw you two leave her apartment, I sent in this guy that’s done some work for me in the past—good guy, works quick. He found it right where you said it’d be; back bedroom, on top of the dresser.”

  “And you’ve already got a buyer.”

  “Kid, one thing I learned from my fencing days—anything ever belonged to a movie star goes like hotcakes. There’s this queen living on the Upper West Side, the son of a bitch is just obsessed with Veronica Tate. When he heard what I had, I could practically hear him drooling over the phone. He made me promise to bring it up to him right away.”

  “He didn’t complain about the price.”

  “The fruit probably would’ve gone twice as high. But this was your deal, I didn’t want to muck it up negotiating. Seven grand. Five hundred for my guy, fifteen for me. That leaves five thousand, which you’ve got laying in front of you. This should square things with Sly, and even give you a little mad money to blow on your next ill-advised wager.”

  I couldn’t look at the money. Instead, I kept my eyes pointed straight ahead, fixed on my reflection in the curved, candy-colored glass of the jukebox. It stretched and distorted my image, until I was the kind of twisted, red-fleshed creature that children envision in their nightmares.

  Harold nudged the envelope toward me, and lowered his bronze-tinted glasses down the bridge of his nose.

  “Ain’t you gonna count it?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. “Or at the very least smell it? Nothing smells as good as newly-got money, my friend.”

  “I’m not,” I answered clearly, matter-of-factly.

  Harold leaned forward, his leather jacket creaking quietly as he rested on his elbows.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “Don’t tell me this is guilt. Look at it this way, maybe those college punks really will sell the tape and make her some dough. The cash’ll certainly do her more good than that damned wig, just sitting there gathering dust. And anyway, who’s she to you? I can’t believe what I’m seeing here—don’t tell me you’re finally growing a conscience?”

  I laid my hand flat out on the table for Harold to see: the three crooked fingers. The swollen and purple knuckles. The makeshift splints taped together with resentful maternal precision.

  “I’m not growing a conscience,” I assured Harold and my misshapen self floating in the jukebox glass. “After all, I’m my father’s son.”

  Lucky for Me

  By Rob Brunet

  You ever notice how dawn happens? The way light seeps in under the motel room drapes right before you crash, and you recognize the pattern on the carpet as a stain? Or how one minute it’s dark and you’re trying to convince some bottle-blond your crib is nearby and toasty warm. And the next minute, the car hood you’re both leaning on is slick with dew, she’s shivering, and you’re sober enough to realize you’re not about to wrap your arms around that. Dawn shatters reality. Or reveals it. Take your pick.
/>   Lucky for me, the night I brought Trisha back to the Seven Oaks we were in bed, spent, legs knotted around each other, long before day smacked night. My eyes shut tight.

  Like most of them, the ones that stir my crotch anyway, Trisha didn’t bother dying her hair or even getting it cut professionally. Long, dirty brown, bangs kind of straight but with those slants in the corners that told you she did them herself in the mirror. Her nose wasn’t so much crooked as off-center, and her teeth were too small for her mouth. But her eyes. Those eyes that, even blunted by bar scotch, screamed, “Help me.” How could any man look in those eyes and not fall flat on his face trying?

  I saw three guys flame out before I made my move. In between, she’d futz with her phone, looking busy or maybe telling her old man she was having a ball with her girlfriends.

  The game was on the flatscreen above the bar, and my perch gave me an unimpeded view. I hung in right to the bottom of the ninth, willing the Rangers to send two men home—just two, is that too fucking much to ask?—before ordering a pair of double Johnnie Reds and sliding down three stools to drop one in front of her.

  “And now, you?” she said. “Game over, you come take your best shot? What do I look like, some college girl who’s going to give it up for four ounces and a smile?”

  College girl she was not. College mom, maybe, but somehow I doubted any kid sprung from this lady’s loins would have passed their SATs. Hard to do that from a trailer.

  “You look lonely,” I said, “and it’s late.”

  She picked up the scotch and drained half in one pull. “Lonely,” she said. “If I was, any of these guys could fix it. If that’s the best you got, thanks for the scotch and shove off.”

  Best I got? Try sweet fuck-all. The suitcase in the trunk of the leased Impala. I barely knew what was inside it. That and the thirteen thousand in fifties stuffed in my vest pocket, most of which belonged to my bookie now the Rangers had lost.

  “Take a look around,” I said. “It’s barely ten o’clock and this place is dead. I just lost a wad on a lousy baseball game but I’ve got room on my credit card for a few more rounds. Will it kill you to talk to me?”

  She turned her head toward me without moving her shoulders. Lifting the right side of her lip in a sneer, she said, “So talk.”

  My lips felt wet, sloppy. I sucked my scotch and spun the rocks glass in a circle on the bar. I wanted to tell her how tough it had been, slipping down through the ranks, taking and losing jobs I knew were beneath me. What it felt like getting fired as a commission-only sales rep for a discount flooring outlet. How my wife blamed me for buying a house bigger than we could afford that wasn’t worth the paper under it any more. “A fresh start,” is what she called it when she met me in the living room with that suitcase she had packed for me. Had it really been four months already?

  Instead, I stretched my cheeks into a smile, looked into those eyes full of hurt and said, “I like to take risks. How about you?”

  She puffed a quick stream of air through her off-center nostrils. They rattled just a bit, making me wonder what had happened to her. She glanced up at the bottle-rack mirror, then stared into her glass and said nothing.

  “Like that game,” I said. “I could’ve won eight grand on one good pitch in the ninth. Instead, it cleaned me out. But there’s always tomorrow. And the rest of tonight.”

  “So, you live for the moment. That what you’re telling me?”

  “I’m not big on plans,” I said. “Life has a way of fucking them up.”

  That was it, wasn’t it? I mean, it can’t all be my fault. Like the stake in my pocket. I’d earned it fair and square. Three good bets, letting my wins ride. I’d finally collected last Saturday. Costas was a real prick about paying me out. Then he makes me beg to lay my bet on the Yankees in a double header.

  “The fucking YANKEES,” I had said, cupping my other ear so I could hear him on the pay phone at the back of the bar. “At worst, they’ll lose one game.”

  “Your luck, there’s no such thing as a lock.” His voice, I’m sure he took lessons to make it grate like that. How else does a two-hundred-fifty-pound Greek wind up sounding like a pinch-nosed accountant.

  When I lost, and lost again Monday night, he demanded I clear my tab before taking another bet.

  “I just made fifteen last week,” I said. “You know I’m good for it.”

  “Yeah, remind again how good you are with cash money.”

  “I’ll clear it tomorrow,” I said. “Besides, the Rangers are gonna win, and I’ll be back in the black.”

  “Win or lose, you’ll still owe me. Only question is how much,” Costas said. After making me sweat another solid minute, he said, “Meet me same place. Nine o’clock. Twelve if they lose, four if they win. Either way, you buy my breakfast.”

  See? No way could it all be my fault. You don’t go from three straight wins to four losses on your own. Luck’s got something to do with it. But you know what they say about luck and love. Or lust. Funny how a guy can be hammered flat, lose everything that ever mattered to him, and still feel like he’s going to rescue some lady in a green dress on a bar stool, drowning.

  “Do you believe in luck?” I asked her.

  “I’m more into fate.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  She twisted her torso to face me, breasts straining the light fabric of her dress. Locking my eyes in hers, she said, “Fate is both of us winding up in this bar. Couldn’t be helped. Luck is whatever happens next.” She re-crossed her legs, left over right, brushing my calf with her shoe as she dropped it between us. “I’m Trisha,” she said. “Do you dance?” Then, without waiting for an answer, “I’ll show you how.”

  Downing the drink, she grabbed her purse off the bar and walked out the door. By the time I had punched my PIN into the card reader the bartender shoved at me, I figured she was either long gone or she’d be waiting right outside, adjusting her lipstick in the dark. What I didn’t expect was to find her leaning up against the Impala, passenger side, one heel pressed against the door with her shoe dangling from the toe. How did she know my car? She said, “You’ve got straight written all over you. How’s about I show you a thrill?”

  We drove south, out toward the airport, to a place she knew where people danced. She walked ahead of me into the bar, her ass pulling her flimsy dress side to side, heels all staccato on the fake marble walk. The bouncer took his time patting her down and barely gave me a once-over. Not that it would have mattered: I don’t carry. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted Mr. Happy Fingers to find the money in my suit jacket. Even if it wasn’t mine anymore.

  Trisha was true to her word. I’ve seen a babe or two bump like that, but never for me. Not on a dance floor, with a hundred other bodies shaking it to a rhythm she outright ignored. The lights, the fog, the shimmer of sweat on the back of her neck--she worked it like a pro. For what felt like an hour, she didn’t even let me leave my stool. Just put on her show.

  At least four other men made a move and then slunk away, tails between their legs, when her withering glance made it clear they were humiliating themselves trying. One guy, too wasted to catch on, grabbed her waist and pulled her tight. I started down off the stool until her look froze me. Her “Help me” eyes went steel cold and with a flick of her shoulder that could have been part of the dance, she whipped her hand around the drunk’s wrist and spun on her left heel. He fell to one knee, wringing his wrist in his other hand, and stumbled off the floor, whimpering.

  After that, Trisha waved me to my feet so I could dance with her. Her torso caressed mine, teasing, prodding. She moved with such precision, I thought maybe I’d only imagined her drinking all those scotches in the roadhouse. But when she arched her neck and looked down that shifted nose at me, her tongue peeking out from behind those little teeth, her eyes were a wall of hurt wrapped ten layers deep. Anything but sober.

  I knew that look. It’s the one that says every high brings a lower low. Every win gets crushe
d by loss. It’s the look my wife had when she threw in the towel on eight years of mistakes, shattered plans, repeated failures. How could I have ever believed she wouldn’t find out? The bookies knew where I worked, where I lived. No one lends that much money to some mook they meet in a sports bar without checking him out, knowing he’s good for it.

  If only I had won a bit more often. Or, just for once, big enough to get out from under. Or stopped cold when I paid myself even from the line of credit she’d co-signed. Those were the best days of our marriage. We were flush. Two good jobs and a half-empty house we were filling with furniture. Garbage days, the end of our driveway looked like Christmas over and over, stacked with flattened corrugated cardboard and boxes of empties from the liquor store. Why couldn’t that shield me from the adrenaline rush of Monday Night Football? Why’d I always need one more hit?

  Nothing good outlasts the bad.

  Twenty minutes of grinding with Trisha, I was sweating and had to peel my jacket off. I slipped the envelope from the vest pocket to my pants. If I didn’t think she’d noticed, she made it clear she had. She backed into me, pressed tighter than she had been, and ran a hand across my crotch. She squeezed my stiffness, then rested her palm on the wad of bills, letting me know they were competing for her attention, giving them a pat before she spun again and kissed me once, hard, biting my lip sharp. I jerked my head away, feeling skin tear, tasting iron.

  Three tunes later, she twisted her fingers into mine, grabbed my jacket for me and tossed it to my free hand. She marched me back to my car and pressed me flat against the door. She sucked my broken lip like a baby on a nipple. It swelled and bruised inside her mouth. Her legs spread around one of mine and she pushed so hard I half- expected her dress to tear.

  “I’m hungry,” she said. She jabbed my chest with all ten fingers to push herself off and threw a little double wave at me to get in the car and drive. She wobbled twice before slouching into the seat, pulling the lever to recline it all the way back. She said, “Third light, turn right, two blocks. Bagel shop. It’s got a big orange sign.”