Midnight's Children

The wind cuts up my skirt, burrows up my ass and chills my heart to ice. I stand in the orange glow of a streetlight, my breath like pockets of fog. For the third time, I smother my lips with a tube of pale pink lipstick and replace it in my purse. Far away from my wintry orange realm, a siren screams. An old hotel sags a block from me. On the sign five blue and pink neon letters are dead. The remaining three sizzle ominously. My bra is cutting off my circulation.

Six hours ago, I finally lost it. Starvation can drive you into the roaring river of desperation. I was there and clawing for an escape. That river was beginning to look like a Downy soft blanket. Five and a half hours ago, I met Elaine. She didn’t give me food or a place to stay, but she gave me my way out. “You don’t need to try to look like a whore. They’ll just know. They can smell it. Trust me, honey. It’s better than sleeping beside a garbage bag.”

A Mustang roars around the corner like a mad rhinoceros. It zooms past me so fast it takes my breath away. At the end of the street, the car slows and skids through a U-turn. The engine gurgles as the car now inches toward me. Several feet away, the car stops. A man slips out and leans against the hood, the end of his cigarette shining like a beacon.

The man smashes the cigarette beneath shining black shoes and walks toward me, hands in pockets and head turned toward the cement sidewalk. He is dark and small—a tight fist in a rumpled gray business suit.

The man stands just outside my pool of light, eyes scrutinizing his loafers.

My heart clobbers at my chest so hard I think it might break through. I know what I should say, but my mouth is drier than the Sahara desert, and my tongue feels like cardboard.

He clears his throat. “How much?”

“Eighty,” I say in a girlish falsetto. It is the only sound I can make.

He nods and walks past me down the street.

I follow him in silence to the hotel, our shoes clacking in time with each other.

The hotel manager sits with his shirt open, a mini-television on his lap and a game of solitaire spread on the desk before him. The man tosses some bills onto the counter, but the manager hardly looks up from his television; as his right hand surrenders the key, his left puts the eight of clubs on the nine of diamonds.

I follow the man again, my legs numb. He fumbles with the key and unlocks the room. When the door opens, my nostrils are bombarded with the odor of some kind of cleaner, underneath which is another smell, something muskier, something lascivious.

As the lights go on, all I can see is the bed. I never knew a bed could look so uninviting. A single flat pillow adorns a headboardless double mattress. Bleach stains speckle a navy blue comforter which cannot hide a fierce, fat man depression.

That bed is nothing like my own. At home, in the late night stillness I would ooze underneath my Hello Kitty blanket and let the worries of the day float through the ceiling as my muscles relaxed. The clean smell of my sheets would drift me to sleep and cotton candy dreams of kissing Brad Pitt. Even the shotguns firing next door or the crack of Dad breaking Mom’s face in the next room couldn’t have woken me when I was in Brad’s arms. “I love you, Jilly.” “I love you too, Brad.”

Elaine would balk at stupid things like that. Before leaving me by the orange streetlight, she spit more advice, “You can’t have dreams anymore. You have to smother them, murder them. You’ll catch hell if you let yourself have dreams in this business.”

“But Elaine,” I said, “Dreams are what make us soar.”

Her eyes burned into my retinas as she replied, “That’s your problem, girl. You’re still too alive. Good luck.” And then she was gone.

My stranger moves nonchalantly through the room. He kicks his shoes off at the door and places his wallet on the nightstand, along with his keys. He pulls off his tie as if ripping a stubborn weed from the ground and turns his back to me to unbutton his shirt, revealing a stark white undershirt and arms which look like they are sculpted of dark chocolate. He folds the shirt and lays it gently on the chair arm. When he unbuckles his pants, I turn away. He releases an eighteen wheeler size sigh as he sinks into the room’s only chair.

My eyes flit around the room. Broken television, picture of flowers, carpet stains, navy blue arm chair. I cannot but see the man in the chair. In his Tweety bird boxers, he is the closest to naked I have ever seen. Unexpectedly, our eyes meet. I blush, but he looks away.

His hand smoothes a crease in pants which are now folded neatly on the chair leg. “Do you dance?”

“No,” I say, my voice breaking.

He doesn’t reply and he doesn’t look at me.

“Money,” I squeak.

He waves me toward the nightstand. I set down my purse and open his wallet. The new leather smells like aftershave and cracks when I open it. The folds are void of pictures. All I can find is a driver’s license and three crisp hundreds. The sight of the money reminds me of the empty pit in my stomach.

“I can’t make change,” I say blankly.

A voice, closer than I expected says, “Take a hundred.”

I don’t hesitate. I stuff all three bills in my pocket without looking up.

Suddenly, hot breath pulses against my neck and a finger slithers up my spine. My stomach burbles and twists. I want to go home. But home is my shattered illusion. A nightmare I can only flee. This is a nightmare too.

“Turn off the lights and lie down.”

I feel dizzy, but obey. The bed springs groan in response to my weight. I realize too late that my shoes are still on and kick them off as I hear him creep in beside me.

One eternal moment passes before a hand finds my arm. I shrink from it, but he grasps me more firmly and slides his hand across my chest, groping and fondling. He rummages beneath my shirt and his lips kiss my neck. It feels like a spider has just bitten me. A choking tumor grows in my throat. His hands are smooth, but his touch hard. He grunts and pushes at my skirt, wriggling it off. He deftly skins me of my clothing, tossing each article aside. I feel his hairy legs tangling themselves in my smooth ones. His hands grasp my hair, pin me.

And then I feel it. I want to scream. He is moaning and pushing me into the reeking mattress. I cry and pray desperately to all the gods in heaven. This will never stop. I am caught on an out of control merry-go-round. Images blur. Apple crisp, Lee Dungarees, homework, swimming pool, first kiss, starlight-starbright, vodka and gin.

He yells one long and lusty note, and withdraws from me. His hands yank free of my hair, pulling strands out like pieces of my soul. He lies panting beside me, a sated panther.

Outside, a dog barks, a car screeches, a glass breaks, a woman screams and a gun fires. Beside me snores the stranger. Inside, I feel cold. Elaine would be proud. All my dreams are dead.