Short Cuts (4 page)

“Not too drunk to drive you to the hospital,” I said.

“I won’t ride with you!” Sheila yelled.

“Suit yourself. But you’re not going to wake Patti. Lesbo bitch,” I said.

“Bastard,” she said.

That’s what she said, and then she went out of the kitchen and out the front door without using the bathroom or even washing her face. I got up and looked through the window. She was walking down the road toward Euclid. Nobody else was up. It was too early.

I finished my drink and thought about fixing another one.

I fixed it.

Nobody saw any more of Sheila after that. None of us
vitamin-related people, anyway. She walked to Euclid Avenue and out of our lives.

Later on Patti said, “What happened to Sheila?” and I said, “She went to Portland.”

I had the hots for Donna, the other member of the core group. We’d danced to some Duke Ellington records that night of the party. I’d held her pretty tight, smelled her hair, kept a hand low on her back as I moved her over the rug. It was great dancing with her. I was the only fellow at the party, and there were seven girls, six of them dancing with each other. It was great just looking around the living room.

I was in the kitchen when Donna came in with her empty glass. We were alone for a bit. I got her into a little embrace. She hugged me back. We stood there and hugged.

Then she said, “Don’t. Not now.”

When I heard that “Not now,” I let go. I figured it was money in the bank.

I’d been at the table thinking about that hug when Sheila came in with her finger.

I thought some more about Donna. I finished the drink. I took the phone off the hook and headed for the bedroom. I took off my clothes and got in next to Patti. I lay for a while, winding down. Then I started in. But she didn’t wake up. Afterward, I closed my eyes.

It was the afternoon when I opened them again. I was in bed alone. Rain was blowing against the window. A sugar doughnut was lying on Patti’s pillow, and a glass of old water was on the nightstand. I was still drunk and couldn’t figure anything out. I knew it was Sunday and close to Christmas. I ate the doughnut and drank the water. I went back to sleep until I heard Patti running the vacuum. She came into the
bedroom and asked about Sheila. That’s when I told her, said she’d gone to Portland.

A week or so into the new year, Patti and I were having a drink. She’d just come home from work. It wasn’t so late, but it was dark and rainy. I was going to work in a couple of hours. But first we were having us some Scotch and talking. Patti was tired. She was down in the dumps and into her third drink. Nobody was buying vitamins. All she had was Donna and Pam, a semi-new girl who was a klepto. We were talking about things like negative weather and the number of parking tickets you could get away with. Then we got to talking about how we’d be better off if we moved to Arizona, someplace like that.

I fixed us another one. I looked out the window. Arizona wasn’t a bad idea.

Patti said, “Vitamins.” She picked up her glass and spun the ice. “For shit’s sake!” she said. “I mean, when I was a girl, this is the last thing I ever saw myself doing. Jesus, I never thought I’d grow up to sell vitamins. Door-to-door vitamins. This beats all. This really blows my mind.”

“I never thought so either, honey,” I said.

“That’s right,” she said. “You said it in a nutshell.”

“Honey.”

“Don’t honey me,” she said. “This is hard, brother. This life is not easy, any way you cut it.”

She seemed to think things over for a bit. She shook her head. Then she finished her drink. She said, “I even dream of vitamins when I’m asleep. I don’t have any relief. There’s no relief! At least you can walk away from your job and leave it behind. I’ll bet you haven’t had one dream about it. I’ll bet you don’t dream about waxing floors or whatever you do down there. After you’ve left the goddamn place,
you don’t come home and dream about it, do you?” she screamed.

I said, “I can’t remember what I dream. Maybe I don’t dream. I don’t remember anything when I wake up.” I shrugged. I didn’t keep track of what went on in my head when I was asleep. I didn’t care.

“You dream!” Patti said. “Even if you don’t remember. Everybody dreams. If you didn’t dream, you’d go crazy. I read about it. It’s an outlet. People dream when they’re asleep. Or else they’d go nuts. But when I dream, I dream of vitamins. Do you see what I’m saying?” She had her eyes fixed on me.

“Yes and no,” I said.

It wasn’t a simple question.

“I dream I’m pitching vitamins,” she said. “I’m selling vitamins day and night. Jesus, what a life,” she said.

She finished her drink.

“How’s Pam doing?” I said. “She still stealing things?” I wanted to get us off this subject. But there wasn’t anything else I could think of.

Patti said, “Shit,” and shook her head like I didn’t know anything. We listened to it rain.

“Nobody’s selling vitamins,” Patti said. She picked up her glass. But it was empty. “Nobody’s buying vitamins. That’s what I’m telling you. Didn’t you hear me?”

I got up to fix us another. “Donna doing anything?” I said. I read the label on the bottle and waited.

Patti said, “She made a little sale two days ago. That’s all. That’s all that any of us has done this week. It wouldn’t surprise me if she quit. I wouldn’t blame her,” Patti said. “If I was in her place, I’d quit. But if she quits, then what? Then I’m back at the start, that’s what. Ground zero. Middle of winter, people sick all over the state, people dying, and nobody thinks they need vitamins. I’m sick as hell myself.”

“What’s wrong, honey?” I put the drinks on the table and sat down. She went on like I hadn’t said anything. Maybe I hadn’t.

“I’m my only customer,” she said. “I think taking all these vitamins is doing something to my skin. Does my skin look okay to you? Can a person get overdosed on vitamins? I’m getting to where I can’t even take a crap like a normal person.”

“Honey,” I said.

Patti said, “You don’t care if I take vitamins. That’s the point. You don’t care about anything. The windshield wiper quit this afternoon in the rain. I almost had a wreck. I came this close.”

We went on drinking and talking until it was time for me to go to work. Patti said she was going to soak in a tub if she didn’t fall asleep first. “I’m asleep on my feet,” she said. She said, “Vitamins. That’s all there is anymore.” She looked around the kitchen. She looked at her empty glass. She was drunk. But she let me kiss her. Then I left for work.

There was a place I went to after work. I’d started going for the music and because I could get a drink there after closing hours. It was a place called the Off-Broadway. It was a spade place in a spade neighborhood. It was run by a spade named Khaki. People would show up after the other places had stopped serving. They’d ask for house specials – RC Colas with a shooter of whiskey – or else they’d bring in their own stuff under their coats, order RC, and build their own. Musicians showed up to jam, and the drinkers who wanted to keep drinking came to drink and listen to the music. Sometimes people danced. But mainly they sat around and drank and listened.

Now and then a spade hit a spade in the head with a bottle.
A story went around once that somebody had followed somebody into the Gents and cut the man’s throat while he had his hands down pissing. But I never saw any trouble. Nothing that Khaki couldn’t handle. Khaki was a big spade with a bald head that lit up weird under the fluorescents. He wore Hawaiian shirts that hung over his pants. I think he carried something inside his waistband. At least a sap, maybe. If somebody started to get out of line, Khaki would go over to where it was beginning. He’d rest his big hand on the party’s shoulder and say a few words and that was that. I’d been going there off and on for months. I was pleased that he’d say things to me, things like, “How’re you doing tonight, friend?” Or, “Friend, I haven’t seen you for a spell.”

The Off-Broadway is where I took Donna on our date. It was the one date we ever had.

I’d walked out of the hospital just after midnight. It’d cleared up and stars were out. I still had this buzz on from the Scotch I’d had with Patti. But I was thinking to hit Birney’s for a quick one on the way home. Donna’s car was parked in the space next to my car, and Donna was inside the car. I remembered that hug we’d had in the kitchen. “Not now,” she’d said.

She rolled the window down and knocked ashes from her cigarette.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I have some things on my mind, and I couldn’t sleep.”

I said, “Donna. Hey, I’m glad to see you, Donna.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said.

“You want to go someplace for a drink?” I said.

“Patti’s my friend,” she said.

“She’s my friend, too,” I said. Then I said, “Let’s go.”

“Just so you know,” she said.

“There’s this place. It’s a spade place,” I said. “They have music. We can get a drink, listen to some music.”

“You want to drive me?” Donna said.

I said, “Scoot over.”

She started right in about vitamins. Vitamins were on the skids, vitamins had taken a nose dive. The bottom had fallen out of the vitamin market.

Donna said, “I hate to do this to Patti. She’s my best friend, and she’s trying to build things up for us. But I may have to quit. This is between us. Swear it! But I have to eat. I have to pay rent. I need new shoes and a new coat. Vitamins can’t cut it,” Donna said. “I don’t think vitamins is where it’s at anymore. I haven’t said anything to Patti. Like I said, I’m still just thinking about it.”

Donna laid her hand next to my leg. I reached down and squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back. Then she took her hand away and pushed in the lighter. After she had her cigarette going, she put the hand back. “Worse than anything, I hate to let Patti down. You know what I’m saying? We were a team.” She reached me her cigarette. “I know it’s a different brand,” she said, “but try it, go ahead.”

I pulled into the lot for the Off-Broadway. Three spades were up against an old Chrysler that had a cracked windshield. They were just lounging, passing a bottle in a sack. They looked us over. I got out and went around to open up for Donna. I checked the doors, took her arm, and we headed for the street. The spades just watched us.

I said, “You’re not thinking about moving to Portland, are you?”

We were on the sidewalk. I put my arm around her waist.

“I don’t know anything about Portland. Portland hasn’t crossed my mind once.”

The front half of the Off-Broadway was like a regular café
and bar. A few spades sat at the counter and a few more worked over plates of food at tables with red oilcloth. We went through the café and into the big room in back. There was a long counter with booths against the wall and farther back a platform where musicians could set up. In front of the platform was what passed for a dance floor. The bars and nightclubs were still serving, so people hadn’t turned up in any real numbers yet. I helped Donna take off her coat. We picked a booth and put our cigarettes on the table. The spade waitress named Hannah came over. Hannah and me nodded. She looked at Donna. I ordered us two RC specials and decided to feel good about things.

After the drinks came and I’d paid and we’d each had a sip, we started hugging. We carried on like this for a while, squeezing and patting, kissing each other’s face. Every so often Donna would stop and draw back, push me away a little, then hold me by the wrists. She’d gaze into my eyes. Then her lids would close slowly and we’d fall to kissing again. Pretty soon the place began to fill up. We stopped kissing. But I kept my arm around her. She put her fingers on my leg. A couple of spade horn-players and a white drummer began fooling around with something. I figured Donna and me would have another drink and listen to the set. Then we’d leave and go to her place to finish things.

I’d just ordered two more from Hannah when this spade named Benny came over with this other spade – this big, dressed-up spade. This big spade had little red eyes and was wearing a three-piece pinstripe. He had on a rose-colored shirt, a tie, a topcoat, a fedora – all of it.

“How’s my man?” said Benny.

Benny stuck out his hand for a brother handshake. Benny and I had talked. He knew I liked the music, and he used to come over to talk whenever we were both in the place. He liked to talk about Johnny Hodges, how he’d played sax
backup for Johnny. He’d say things like, “When Johnny and me had this gig in Mason City.”

“Hi, Benny,” I said.

“I want you to meet Nelson,” Benny said. “He just back from Nam today. This morning. He here to listen to some of these good sounds. He got on his dancing shoes in case.” Benny looked at Nelson and nodded. “This here is Nelson.”

I was looking at Nelson’s shiny shoes, and then I looked at Nelson. He seemed to want to place me from somewhere. He studied me. Then he let loose a rolling grin that showed his teeth.

“This is Donna,” I said. “Donna, this is Benny, and this is Nelson. Nelson, this is Donna.”

“Hello, girl,” Nelson said, and Donna said right back, “Hello there, Nelson. Hello, Benny.”

“Maybe we’ll just slide in and join you folks?” Benny said. “Okay?”

I said, “Sure.”

But I was sorry they hadn’t found someplace else.

“We’re not going to be here long,” I said. “Just long enough to finish this drink, is all.”

“I know, man, I know,” Benny said. He sat across from me after Nelson had let himself down into the booth. “Things to do, places to go. Yes sir, Benny knows,” Benny said, and winked.

Nelson looked across the booth to Donna. Then he took off the hat. He seemed to be looking for something on the brim as he turned the hat around in his big hands. He made room for the hat on the table. He looked up at Donna. He grinned and squared his shoulders. He had to square his shoulders every few minutes. It was like he was very tired of carrying them around.

“You real good friends with him, I bet,” Nelson said to Donna.

“We’re good friends,” Donna said.

Hannah came over. Benny asked for RCs. Hannah went away, and Nelson worked a pint of whiskey from his topcoat.