And Sometimes I Wonder About You

28

After a month of a dedicated housekeeper’s hard work the smell of old socks and twenty years of brooding had finally been cleaned away from Dimitri’s room. My father, whom I would always and forevermore call Clarence, was asleep therein. He told me that he felt best sleeping in a different bed every night; that he felt safer moving around.

I should have been asleep too. My days had been strenuous and the drinking wasn’t light. But there I was in my den/office wondering how it could be that I had discovered hidden feelings for my wife and once again lost her in just a few minutes’ time?

I picked up the phone at four minutes shy of midnight and dialed a number. After four rings a recording of Aura Ullman’s voice said, “You have reached me, so talk to me.” I hung up before the beep.

I’d called Aura hoping that there might be love somewhere for me, too. But if I couldn’t have love I had to dig deeper.

“Mr. McGill,” she said after the Hotel Brown switchboard operator connected us. “What revelation do you have for me at this hour?”

Just the sound of her voice brought up a vibration like a growl in my chest. The creature making this sound in me was like a wild thing — both hunted and free.

“I want you to know that I’m not asking you for anything, but...” I said.

“But what?” There was a lot of satisfaction in those two words.

“I’d like to come over.”

“I understand,” she said with no underlying gratification. “Come along.”

I walked there. The whole time I was thinking about how foolish it was to pursue a woman like that; a woman as dangerous as any killer I’d gone up against.

I was so wrapped up in these thoughts that I bumped into a pedestrian waiting for the light at Seventy-third and Broadway — a very large pedestrian male.

White, short-sleeved, and generously tattooed, the man made a sound like the one in my chest.

He said, “What the fuck’s wrong with you, nigga?”

We live in a brave new world. Many white people in their thirties, and younger than that, take the derogatory slang from the music they listen to with no notion of insult based on race. I felt, however, that this particular individual had learned his slurs behind bars and under guard; at close quarters and in situations that were life and death on a daily basis.

I smiled broadly and held my upturned palms near shoulder level.

“Bring it on, my brother,” I said. “Bring it on.”

The tattooed man moved his left shoulder to put himself in an advantageous position for fighting. My smile deepened. He took me in with well-trained eyes, and the anger he carried around like a weapon suddenly faded. The light turned and he walked away at a pace he hoped I wouldn’t try to match.

If there was anything that should have dissuaded me from going to the Hotel Brown it was that ex-con’s reaction to me at that moment in time.

Marella and I didn’t speak until after 4:00 that morning. With her eyes, teeth, and clawlike nails (both hand and foot) she dared me to do things to her that most women have no stomach for. And no matter how far I went she was ready for more. It wasn’t fun and it certainly was not love but more like an operation to amputate a gangrenous limb or to excavate a diseased organ. We were doing each other for survival, not edification.

When it was over I wondered how far I’d have to go to get back to some version of civilization.

“I know a man in New Orleans named Gregor Vincent,” she said as she was washing the sex off both of us with a warm hand towel.

“Yeah?”

“He thinks I’m a virgin.”

“And?”

“His family owns half of South America and they do business in gold, not currency.”

“Sounds like your kinda guy.”

“We could make enough off him to take a five-year vacation and not even feel it.”

“Why you need me?” I asked, turning the notion of a criminal on holiday around in my mind. “I mean you’re the whole business on your own.”

“It’s good to have a strong man in the wings,” she said. “And even people like us need somebody to talk to from time to time.”

Despite my better nature, my desire to make up for my transgressions, I was tempted by this woman. She had touched a part of me that I hadn’t even known existed.

“We could take a piece of the next score and set up a trust fund for your wife and kids,” she offered.

“You don’t really care about the money,” I said, experiencing a sudden epiphany.

Marella smiled.

“Money’s nice,” she said. “It’s necessary, too, but... But I like to feel alive, you know? Love and money are fine but they’re only useful if they bring you to life.”

“And do you love me?” I don’t think I’d asked that question since my single-digit years.

“That’s not really a possibility for people like us now is it, Lee?” she said.

She reached out and took my damp penis in her left hand. As it engorged, her smile broadened. Looking in her eyes I realized that I was ready to go with her, to leave my family and office, loved ones and enemies to fend for themselves.

She had me, so to speak, by the balls.

Her stare brought to bear a will that was bending me like she was my dick. I didn’t resent her power any more than a bear resents the warmth of the sun waking him from blissful hibernation.

It was 5:00 a.m. and Marella was my escape hatch, my enlistment papers for the Foreign Legion.

It was 5:03 and the tune of the song “Seventh Son” played on my cell phone.

I reached for the phone while Marella clung to my erection.

“Twill?” I said on a hollow breath.

“Hey, Pop.”

“What do you need?”

“From the sound of it maybe what you gettin’.”

One of the reasons I loved Twill was that I couldn’t hide much from him. With this thought I realized that I did have the potential for love. My erection waned and Marella released her hold on me.

“Where are you?” I asked my son.

“At the front of your hotel. That GPS shit work like magic.”

“I’ll be right down.”

“Are you leaving me, Lee?” Marella asked as I was pulling my pants up.

“I got to get downstairs and see about my son.”

“You know what I’m asking.”

“When I was your age, Mar, I did everything you’re doin’ now. I stole and cheated and lied and worse. Meeting you makes me realize that I miss those wild days. I miss it. I got friends that miss it. But I know, and you should know, that one day one of us would have to stab the other in the back — have to. That’s as much a fact as Gregor Vincent’s gold.”

There was a feral genius glowing in Marella’s eyes. She nodded ever so slightly and then shook her head.

“A few nights like the one we just had might be worth a knife in the back,” she speculated.

“Not if you see it comin’.”

“Will I see you again?” she asked.

“I’ll fix this thing with your DC ex,” I said. “And I’ll come spend the night again if you still want that.”

She kissed me with a fierce passion and then kissed me harder.