Savannah had watched the man come up the walk minutes before, noting his crisp strides, the way each foot landed on the instep instead of the heel-toe, heel-toe approach of most men. He had oddly put out his palm to press the doorbell, and Savannah knew she had to answer.<\/p>\n
The man now sat across from her in her husband\u2019s recliner, his back not touching the fabric. Savannah waited with her head turned slightly toward him, listening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see it quite like this,\u201d the man said. He had a navy-colored canvas fedora in his hand and spun it around by the brim.<\/p>\n
\u201cDidn\u2019t see what?\u201d Savannah sat on the couch across from the recliner. She squeezed her legs together, crossed them at the ankles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just kept up nicer than I\u2019d have expected. On account of you, I\u2019m sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The man stopped spinning his hat. He hooked it on his knee and bobbed it up and down.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I\u2019m sure you know where your husband\u2019s skipped off to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a match. He didn\u2019t say quite where.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDidn\u2019t say quite where,\u201d the man mimicked, like he was trying her on. This irritated her, and she glanced at the large bay window that looked on her yard and the houses across the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might have said specifically. I\u2019d have to think about it. The cities he fights in, they blur.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOver here,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n
Savannah looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at a person when spoken to, is that not right? And you have no idea where he is now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClatskanie, maybe. I might have heard Clatskanie.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t do much with might. Where did he fight last?\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah touched her hair in thinking. \u201cHe was boxing in Dyersville three weeks ago and Thermopolis the month before. You know this already. I\u2019m sure you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah didn\u2019t like his nonresponse. She said, \u201cI guess you better start looking south.\u201d<\/p>\n
The man stopped his leg. The hat went still. \u201cSouth is where we heard he might be going. You can\u2019t really bet on what people say, though, can you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose not,\u201d Savannah said.<\/p>\n
The man pulled open his suit jacket and reached inside. \u201cI\u2019ve left my cigarettes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see you have a pack on the sill over there. Be a dear, and grab me one from the pack. These things always make me a little uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah smoothed her dress as she stood and walked to the window. She looked across the street at the breadbox houses, the swinging gates, the steep drives. She prayed for the Albees, the Richmonds, the Koschecks, for someone, anyone to get her out of this.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething more interesting than me out there?\u201d the man asked.<\/p>\n
Savannah darted her hand at the pack, squeezed it so she heard the cellophane crinkle under her fingernails. She turned from the window. The man wasn\u2019t even looking at her. He was staring at the fireplace across the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere, have one. Take them all,\u201d she said as she extended the pack. \u201cI don\u2019t care.\u201d She\u2019d smoked five of the cigarettes that morning. It bothered her when he took the pack from her. She thought it would feel all right, but it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Savannah sat down on the couch again. She pulled the hem of her dress over her knees. The man jerked his hand upward, and a single cigarette shot from the pack. He opened his mouth wide, not even once looking at the cigarette, and placed the barrel of it in his mouth, pulling the pack away.<\/p>\n
Savannah stared. She said nothing. She hated her husband for putting her in this position.<\/p>\n
The man held up a hand and started snapping his fingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA light,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I\u2019ve forgotten my cigarettes, I surely don\u2019t have my lighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah stood. She walked over to the desk at the window. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a matchbook. \u201cWe only have matches,\u201d she said. She seldom saw her husband now and wondered if there was even a we<\/em> anymore. She thought of how everything in the house\u2014the small boxing trophies with taut, gold fists and tucked chins; the oily wrist wraps; the tinking wind chimes; the sheets\u2014seemed to belong only to her in his constant absence as she dusted these things alone, washed them alone, pulled the covers tight across her body in the night. She couldn\u2019t shake the idea that he had chosen something as simple as punching another man over a life with her. Over a marriage. But she had fallen for him all those years ago because she<\/em> lacked that kind of passion that gives spark to the eyes, and he hadn\u2019t lost that yet. It was she who was changing, and Savannah didn\u2019t know why. What she knew was boxing wasn\u2019t as simple as she\u2019d just thought of it, only bullish punch after punch. If she ever said that to him, oversimplified his passion with words like this, he would undoubtedly lose it and come after her, and sometimes she was afraid of how much she wanted it that way.<\/p>\n \u201cMatches are fine,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n Savannah walked over to the man and leaned down, tearing out a match and striking it. She stared at the match, then at his eyes as they shifted behind the flame. She waved the match out. The man scoffed and leaned back in the recliner.<\/p>\n \u201cLight it, for Christ\u2019s sake,\u201d he said. His words buzzed through the cigarette.<\/p>\n Savannah struck another match. She hesitated, then held the flame to the tip of his cigarette. The man closed his eyes. Once the paper was crackling, she waved the match back and forth, spit on her fingers, and pinched its tip. It was a gesture she hadn\u2019t done before but had seen her husband do on occasion when lighting a candle in the dark house.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel more suited to talk business now,\u201d the man said, drawing back his chin.<\/p>\n Savannah set the extinguished match and pack on the coffee table and returned to the couch.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat business?\u201d she asked, as if unaware.<\/p>\n \u201cThe business of your husband.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that was only my<\/em> business,\u201d she said. She smiled, hoping she could make light of the situation.<\/p>\n The man didn\u2019t smile. He closed his eyes with the inhale of the cigarette, rolled it down his fingers and back. He momentarily bounced the hat on his knee, then stopped it with a finger and opened his eyes. \u201cHe owes us a good deal of money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know a little about it,\u201d Savannah said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe owes a good deal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow much is a good deal?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwenty grand and change.\u201d The man pointed an accusatory finger at Savannah. Smoke spun upward from the reach of that hand.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, Jesus,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cJesus is right,\u201d the man said. \u201cYou need all of him you can get.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI knew he owed some money but not so much. Never did I figure so much.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey never do figure.\u201d The man studied the burning tip of his cigarette. He was concentrating so hard that Savannah thought he might do something crazy like stick her with the bleeding tip.<\/p>\n She had stuck a lit cigarette into her husband\u2019s forearm years ago. He had gone through her underwear drawer, pulled out several packages of her cigarettes, and threw them into the garbage, telling her she needed to stop. That people were dying from those things. She dug her nails into his wrist and took the glowing cigarette from her mouth and stuck it right into the ridges of him, twisted it like a key in a faulty lock. He jerked her to her knees. Savannah stared at the white ringlet imprinted on his forearm, waiting for a fist to strike, a touch, something to happen between them, but nothing came of it. Her husband simply left the kitchen and turned on the faucet in the bathroom. Savannah knew he\u2019d never understand how she stood at the window every morning and afternoon when he was away fighting, how she watched the neighbors hauling their children to swimming and piano lessons, elaborate cookouts, basking in the pruning of small trees. She watched life move around without her from the living room window, saw it all through a thin pane of glass with only the company of blown and rising smoke.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of what you do or don\u2019t know, he owes,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been on a bad streak. He\u2019s talked about it for months. He\u2019s been teetering, I know\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t act like you don\u2019t know when a boxer\u2019s taking dives.\u201d The man scooted forward. \u201cHe\u2019s been betting on himself to lose and taking dives. This isn\u2019t the first you\u2019ve heard.\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah remained calm. She knew the man might be trying to work her up for something, but she didn\u2019t know anything about her husband\u2019s boxing scam, and her mouth wasn\u2019t going to get her into any trouble unless she wanted it that way.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t tell me anything,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey usually don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt happens a lot. Boxer doesn\u2019t tell his wife, thinks he\u2019ll come home some evening with a grocery bag full of cash. No more coupons or thrift stores or under-the-table deals. Boxers are dreamers like everyone else, they\u2019re just not so smart about it. Too many knuckles to the brain.\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah considered the times she ran her fingers over her husband\u2019s knots\u2014smooth orbs that she pressed with her fingers and iced with frozen bags of peas. She had stitched his running cuts with dark string and bit the fibers with her teeth to tie off the ends, and for what?<\/p>\n The man stared at her. His cigarette almost chewed down to the filter.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout the money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have the money. I mean, I don\u2019t have it. There\u2019s nothing here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat so?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d she said. When she saw the man look at the ashes, almost falling, she scooted farther down the couch, away from him. He put his free hand under the cigarette and tapped the ashes into his palm.<\/p>\n \u201cTray?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Savannah rose and moved toward the kitchen, thinking only of a dinner tray, plate stand, the little wooden platter with fold-out legs that she would offer her husband when he preferred eating on the couch in the spare room, flipping through old magazines with articles about punching technique and setting combinations while she ate alone at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n \u201cAh-ah,\u201d the man said. \u201cI see it over there. On the mantel.\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah turned and walked to the mantel over the fireplace. She picked up the glass ashtray, pitched the cold ashes into the fireplace, and walked back. On her way over, she gripped the edges tight. She thought of bashing the man\u2019s head, but where? Where could she strike him that would knock him cold?<\/p>\n Her husband had tried to teach her to box once. He\u2019d taken her to the backyard on a morning after a heavy rain where he\u2019d wrapped chains over a thick oak branch and attached a heavy bag with an iron clip. He tried to explain the movements of the feet, how you had to keep on the balls and never the heels. Never. He had her put her weight on her heels just to show her, and he shoved her with the base of his palm, knocked her to the ground. When he pulled her up, it was by the wrist, and she felt the wet back of her dress sucked to her skin. He moved her feet apart with the push of his boots, then grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed them in, forcing her into a shrug. He told her to hold it there and fanned out his fingers to push on her clavicles, rolling her shoulders back. When she was balled tight, he told her to hold the position, keep it snug but hang loose. She didn\u2019t understand a demand like that. Then he had her coil her fingers into fists and stepped back for a second, his hand over his mouth in thought. And then he stepped forward and very lightly, delicately pulled each thumb out from under the fingers, telling her, I won\u2019t see you break a hand. Then he put her fists, offset, up to her chin, laid his hands over her hands, covering them, directing her arms as if they were the gears to heavy machinery. But even the straight punches she could not understand, the mechanics having everything to do with things he could not say to her, could only physically try and adjust. He grabbed her hips and jerked them to pivot along with the back leg, but his exertions on her body, the berating he gave her when she did it wrong, made her shut down, drop her hands, and refuse to listen anymore.<\/p>\n Savannah returned to the ashtray in her hands, looking over this man in the recliner, wondering from what angle would be best to hit him.<\/p>\n \u201cRight there, dear, on the edge of the coffee table.\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah hesitated, unsure if she could strike him or not. She decided to set the ashtray down.<\/p>\n \u201cAll right,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The man leaned forward and poured the ashes into the tray, then dabbed out his cigarette. He sat upright again, stiff. \u201cYou may sit down,\u201d the man said. Savannah was staring out the window. \u201cI said, you may sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the bay window and across the street, Savannah saw Morty Carmichael. He was a door-to-door vacuum salesman who showed up on the block every few weeks to clean one room of each house and try to sell the vacuum off his back, which he carried, harnessed to dark shoulder straps. He was wearing his usual suit, flame-red with black outlining on the cuffs. He had once told Savannah he thought the suit would give him more authority, like a firefighter, like the vacuum was his spray hose and the dirt that was eating through the carpet was a fire that needed putting out. She had always let him in, always appreciated him cleaning without a charge and how he would offer it every time, knowing full well she couldn\u2019t afford to buy the vacuum he so heavily lugged. Savannah saw Morty as a lonely man who went door to door to hear his own voice, to be reminded that he did in fact live, exist, appear in this unforgiving world. She appreciated his company, how he would tell the same stories each time as if she\u2019d never heard them\u2014the one about the mime who shadowed him as he sucked insects and dust with a flat triangle extension from a narrow hallway baseboard or when he accidentally sucked up a family mouse as they both, the mouse and the double-wide shovel head, went for a spec of browned apple skin. And once, last month, when she saw him through the bay window, one arm swinging and the other bent behind him, securing the weight of his harnessed pack, she pulled the shades and lay on the couch. Her husband was somewhere outside of Macon, Missouri, and Savannah rested the back of her neck on the arm of the couch, let her head tip over the arm and back so a stream of blood filled her brain, and she put a hand down her waistband and worked her fingers around, thinking only of Morty Carmichael and how soon he\u2019d be at her door.<\/p>\n Savannah watched Morty now as he knocked on the Richmonds\u2019 door across the street. If he was still selling in a zigzag pattern, she knew her house would be next.<\/p>\n Savannah felt a tug at her wrist. \u201cSit down!\u201d<\/p>\n She stood fast and waited for the man to let go. Only when he had, when she earned the small victory of standing over him for a few seconds, enough to try him, enough to see that he might not be capable of what his demeanor promised, did she take her seat on the couch. This gave her a bit of confidence.<\/p>\n The man pushed the ashtray, and it skidded across the coffee table, spilling some of the ashes.<\/p>\n \u201cI told you already, I\u2019m not comfortable with these things.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt won\u2019t happen again, dear<\/em>,\u201d she said, knowing it might be a push too far. She looked out the window. Morty was pitching his vacuum to Esther Richmond, running it over a patch of grass near the porch. He\u2019d shown Savannah the same trick several times, how the vacuum, on \u201cpower retrieve,\u201d could suck blades of grass from the ground, white roots and all. He picked them out of the clear canister and displayed them on his palm like fine diamonds, a look in his eye.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t happen at all. I\u2019m a guest here. Now, treat me that way, dammit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d she said, turning back. She couldn\u2019t think of anything to say, so she folded her arms under her chest. The man now eyeing her with intentions she hadn\u2019t fully seen in him before. She felt uneasy and unhooked her arms and wiped her hands on her dress.<\/p>\n \u201cYou said something about south,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour husband was heading south?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe could have been.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCould have. I told you, we don\u2019t work in these kinds of ways. We don\u2019t work in \u2018could haves.\u2019 If you\u2019re fucking with me, I\u2019ll\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think you understand the severity here. Sometimes when the money doesn\u2019t come through, when the slob boxer doesn\u2019t come through, we have other ways of settling things. Do you understand? Sometimes it\u2019s just like interest, get it?\u201d<\/p>\n His knee was moving again.<\/p>\n \u201cI think,\u201d she said. She looked across the street. Morty was tilting the canister for Esther Richmond. She stuck her hand in and sifted through the grass. She let Morty come inside.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t want to default to that,\u201d the man said. \u201cNot today. Not any day. We just, sometimes, have to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh. Sure. If you must,\u201d Savannah said. She was in a far-off haze. She knew Morty wouldn\u2019t be across the street for long. Couldn\u2019t be. Esther Richmond was just amusing him.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t talk like you\u2019re patronizing me.\u201d<\/p>\n When Savannah didn\u2019t respond, the man leaned forward. He banged his hand on the coffee table. Savannah shot up. The ashtray rolled around.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere did he go?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said south. Somewhere south. That\u2019s all I know. South of here. Not here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe know he\u2019s not here. What did he last say to you about where he might be going?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d Savannah twisted her hair.<\/p>\n \u201cThink. Our partners lost a great deal betting on those fights. He owes us. It goes up and up until he comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the window, across the street, through Esther Richmond\u2019s window, Savannah could vaguely see Morty running the heavy-duty vacuum across the living room carpet. He moved in ebbs across the window. The half of him did.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere?\u201d he demanded.<\/p>\n Savannah came out of the haze. \u201cNogales,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cArizona?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI heard him say it on the phone. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s fighting there. I don\u2019t know anything about it. I only heard somewhere outside Nogales, and that\u2019s all I know.\u201d She breathed heavily and looked down at her chest. It was covered in pink and white splotches.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no good fighting around there. What\u2019s he doing there?\u201d the man asked himself.<\/p>\n Savannah looked out the window. She pleaded with Morty, with all of her body, to have him zag to the house. If he could only make it soon.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just no good boxing down there. I can only figure he\u2019s gone because it\u2019s near the border. I think your man has run for good.\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah couldn\u2019t comprehend, after all this time, after all the trips and attempts Morty had made to sell these vacuums, why in the world Esther Richmond was keeping him like this. In that moment, she wanted to destroy her, to stand in her place across the street and feel the vibrations of Morty\u2019s vacuum, hear the hum of it. To be surrounded with the damp-denim smell of him, feel his short fingers on her elbow.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you hear me? I said your man has run.\u201d<\/p>\n Savannah had seen Morty on so many occasions. Laughed at his swooping hair, his firecracker-red goatee, the way his neck stuck out so high and narrow that she thought of him as a chicken stretched out.<\/p>\n \u201cDammit, listen to me,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n Savannah looked at the man. She had never seen a face so linen-white, mostly absent of features except deep grooves around the eyes, down from the nose, and at the sides of his mouth. It angered her, his violation of this space she had been forced to own for so long, someone always telling her to do one thing or another, and now here he was, a stranger in her home, demanding things of her, threatening her with his movements. Another man who wouldn\u2019t understand the way she polished the space and kept it warm, waiting each night for a phone call, for the voice of her husband to come over a thin line, to tell her he was all right, that everything was all right, and if things worked out, life would get better. But her husband knew nothing of her life, how all of this\u2014the boredom, the hollow waiting\u2014gave her no real life to speak of.<\/p>\n She turned sharply from the man. If he came to claim something of her husband\u2019s debts, to make her pay for his wrongs, then maybe he should get to it or get out.<\/p>\n She thought this. Then she said it.<\/p>\n A moment passed\u2014a blip, a tick of time\u2014and then a hand grabbed her by the hair, flung her at the coffee table so her stomach caught it straight on, knocked the wind from her, scooted the table off its place. As she bobbed for air\u2014the pressure of a hand at the back of her head\u2014she thought of the freckles on Morty\u2019s knuckles, the way they looked when he wrapped his fingers around the neck of the vacuum hose. She felt the weight after that, the rush of wind from her dress thrust forward, heard the scuffing of shoes, the panting, like a starving animal. She could hear the shuffle of his suit, the wisps of his inseams as he lugged the brushes, the extensions, the cords, the shampoo formula, the heaviness of this hollow canister. She felt him put a clump of her hair in his mouth and suck on it until it was heavy and wet. She reached over her shoulder and yanked on the little rope of hair, forcing him to spit it out. She took a blow for it, but where, she couldn\u2019t say. She pulled the thick strand of hair in front of her face to see it for herself\u2014the bristles of a damp paintbrush.<\/p>\n Then the hand became her husband\u2019s. The one that dragged her around the backyard, that held an unfamiliar phone to an ear each night, that left her scraped-together money in an old coffee can, that waved goodbye on hundreds of mornings when walking toward the bus station, her never knowing if this was the last she\u2019d see of that hand, the final movement.<\/p>\n After some time, she was finally loose of the man and put her forehead on the coffee table, felt the smooth dry of the wood, the cool. She heard a click, a belt maybe, and reached for her clump of damp hair, held it tight to her red cheek.<\/p>\n In a few moments it would be calm. She would recognize the air filled with the smell of fried cigarettes and the metallic rubbing of wet skin. When she would roll over to regain something of herself, she rub her eyes, causing light streaks to shoot behind the lids. And she would hear the gradual tread of feet, unsure if they were the hard steps of feet coming or feet going, but she would know, either way, that she must get up now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Savannah had watched the man come up the walk minutes before, noting his crisp strides, the way each foot landed on the instep instead of the heel-toe, heel-toe approach of most men. He had oddly put out his palm to press the doorbell, and Savannah knew she had to answer. The man now sat across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[974,1306,1211],"class_list":["post-13802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-boxing","tag-jonathan-starke","tag-noir","writer-jonathan-starke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13802"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14041,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13802\/revisions\/14041"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}