Charl could barely move. She wished she could go back to sleep, back to a safe space of weirdness, but she was awake now, in an unsafe space of weirdness, nestled against Don\u2019s body, smelling the grody pits of her man, no more grody than her. No way was she going to go back to sleep now. The Econolodge on Madison in Atlantic City. The day after Easter. A cold, steady rain falling out the window. No one was around this time of morning.<\/p>\n
Charl slumped up out of bed, pleasantly shocked to find one last cigarette squirreled away inside the soft pack of Winstons on the table, sitting there in the half light coming through the open windows. Flattened a little but smokable.<\/p>\n
And smoke Charl did, stepping onto the walkway looking out onto the back alley and a hotel that didn\u2019t exist anymore, boarded up, graffiti-laden. A pile of old clothes heaped in the alley as if someone had dematerialized. A couple stilt legged seagulls. She shut the door behind her quietly, careful not to lock it. Room 17. A good luck number. Smoke in her lungs good as food in her stomach. Almost. Not really. Not nearly. Her mouth a cave full of bad smells, old liquor and stale smoke. The last time she ate? Sometime last night when Don found half a pizza in a smashed pizza box. A gift from god. Pepperoni? Definitely pepperoni: she tasted it when she belched.<\/p>\n
Don was asleep in the room now. Hopefully.<\/p>\n
She went back inside, finished with her first and probably only cigarette of the day (they had no money left) and her precious alone time, spent contemplating the rain\u2019s pattern on the alley, the smell of Atlantic City in the morning, something like bacon wafting over from some breakfast place making her feel both hungry and sick, smell of ozone and the cigarette she smoked and the cloud of someone toking weed nearby, a wake n bake in progress somewhere, trying not to the think about anything in particular, though memories of their last few days together intruded, wild days that ended definitively the night before when he\u2019d barked at her and she\u2019d pushed back at him because she wasn\u2019t going to put up with that shit. Charl was not some fucking towel to use however he wanted. She was, had always been, a fighter. Their first fight: a hallmark of its own.<\/p>\n
When she shook him in the bed, she knew right away: this was no sleep. No, this was something more serious than sleep. This was death. Heavy as a bear. A little vomit had leaked out the side of Don\u2019s mouth, gray and pink from the pizza, stuck in his stubble, and his hair still looked done up, the way he did it up, standing straight up from his forehead, mostly brown but a little gray, too, the fact that he was ten years older than her no longer a thing that mattered. At all. Because he was\u2026dead. He was not Jesus; he was not going to rise from the dead. It was not Easter; it was the day after Easter.<\/p>\n
Alone time was all she would have from now on. That was thought number one. Not concern about whatever passed for his soul, as if he had one, but fear for her future. How the hell was she going to get along without Don? I mean, she\u2019d done it for most of her life, so\u2026 She\u2019d been with Don only three months, knew in the span of her entire life she\u2019d probably barely even remember him and this time she\u2019d had with him, depending on how long she lived herself\u2014 a valid question\u2014, but he had been everything for those three months. Everything. Her ride or die. Her meal ticket. Her supplier. Never mean, until the night before. She\u2019d never even seen him angry, not at her or anyone else, prior to last night, but they\u2019d been on a binge four days without eating or sleeping much, and that could turn anyone mean, so, even though she had wished death upon him before she passed out, she\u2019d also understood and fully expected to forgive him in the morning and maybe, if they both had the energy for it, have some rollicking makeup sex.<\/p>\n
They did okay, sexually. At first they\u2019d done it every day, sometimes twice a day, but lately it had been more like every three or four days. She attributed it to his age more than their drinking. They\u2019d gone a week without it, once, and both seemed to forget how to do it, had to approach each other like it was the first time again. Which, considering how early in the relationship it was, worried her. But didn\u2019t anymore. There were bigger things to worry about now. She looked at Don\u2019s dead face against the pillow. It looked meatier than before, which made no sense, but. Thick brown stubble stuck out of his pale skin like wire that had been pulled through. An ugly sleeper, he always looked better awake. Maybe he wasn\u2019t dead after all. She stopped herself from checking his pulse, let the possibility of his survival linger. But knew he was dead, definitively.<\/p>\n
She assumed he\u2019d choked on his vomit, but it was within the realm of possibilities that Charl had killed him. Strangled him and\/or put a pillow over his face and pressed as hard as she could. If she wanted to, she could. No question about that. He was not the strongest man she\u2019d been with, not by a long shot. She was small but almost definitely stronger than him. What did she remember from the night before, really? Not a whole lot. Him barking, her sulking, her pushing back, him storming out of the motel, him coming back. Not apologizing. Barking again. His face like a face she\u2019d never seen before, on him. Some scary psycho man face. She\u2019d seen plenty of those. Every woman had.<\/p>\n
Better to remember the time they\u2019d had before they got pissed off at each other. When it had been fun. Easter night. Staggering back onto the boardwalk after daiquiris at that stupid daiquiri bar, the cop car rolling down the boardwalk real slow, tires rumbling on the boards, white cop with a flat head watching them as they staggered against each other, laughing. Karaoke. \u201cFeels like the First Time.\u201d Slot machines lit up like Easter eggs. The found and providential pizza. The endless ocean. The fifth of vodka he bought, with what money? They kissed sloppy on the beach, too drunk to do anything more. It had all been celebratory, revelatory, perfect and fun. Somehow they\u2019d made it back to the Econolodge. She had no memory how. And no memory of how the fight started, what it was all about. It had been sudden as a chink of light.<\/p>\n
Now, here, Don dead, her alone forever. What was she supposed to do now? Just leave his body in the motel room and get the fuck out? Maybe. She wasn\u2019t sure anyone knew she was here in Atlantic City. Had she told anyone? Like who? Who did she have to tell anymore? She\u2019d lost her last job as a housekeeper in Asbury Park weeks before, perpetual tardiness, the story of her life. Don had been there and they\u2019d just\u2026 taken off. He\u2019d reassured her everything was going to be okay, that they were in on things together, and even though she\u2019d only met him a few weeks earlier, she believed him. She knew he was a man who got along by his wits, a scammer, a schemer, but who was she to judge? He\u2019d been there at the exact right moment and, despite all indications to the contrary, she still believed in providence. Did Don tell anyone where they were going? She had no idea.<\/p>\n
She lay in bed next to him, closed her eyes. She would have to wipe away all traces of herself from the room, her fingerprints on everything. She imagined getting up and going to the store for cleaning supplies and felt herself drifting off.<\/p>\n
When she woke, Don was still dead. She peeled the sheet down off his body. He was shirtless but wore his black underwear. They were tight. The rest of his body looked like a sausage, faint red and blue veins and arteries just beneath the surface of his pale skin. His tufted chest hair. She was tempted to take off his underwear and look at his cock one last time. It was one of the most middling cocks of her life. Not big, not small. Soft, it curled up like an anemone. She resisted the urge, for now.<\/p>\n
Got up, drank water out of one of the motel room cups, looked at his pile of clothes by the side of the bed. Her head hammered. The vodka bottle, a fifth of Popov, was empty but she upended it anyway, got maybe a drop, felt like crying. She picked up his clothes and went through the pockets, found his old black leather wallet, smooth and rounded at the corners. Surprised to see it jammed full of bills. It was dirty money, not money he\u2019d won and not told her about at the casino. Nearly three hundred bucks. Two hundred ninety seven to be exact. Charl felt like crying. Partly from joy. It was better not to parse her emotions, better to let them simply pass through her, water through a duck. There were too many feelings to isolate any one. She took out all the cards from their respective slots in the wallet, a panoply of plastic, knew the credit cards were maxed out because he\u2019d tried every single one of them the last few days. There was his ID. New Jersey State. Relieved to see that his name was, in fact, Don Thompson, like he\u2019d said. Didn\u2019t recognize the address in Ramapo. In the inside compartments of the wallet Charl found two pictures of two little girls. School pictures with smoky gray backgrounds. One kid wore a pink dress over a white shirt, the other kid looked Goth. Charl turned them over. Names and ages written in a scrawl. They both looked like good kids, but the second one looked troubled. She knew how good girls could go bad. She put the pictures back. He\u2019d had a whole life she knew nothing about. Was surprised she didn\u2019t care more.<\/p>\n
Got dressed in a black hoodie and her jeans that used to fit but now had to be held up by Don\u2019s old belt. Looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes black holes, her skull starting to show through the skin. Give it enough time and it would be there. Slick white bone. She went out to the corner store, got a carton of cigarettes, a container of orange juice, some jerky, a razor, a toothbrush and toothpaste, ordered a huge breakfast from the Seaside Grill on the corner, took the plastic container, stuffed full of food, back into the room.<\/p>\n
Don didn\u2019t smell yet. She wondered when bodies started to smell. Knew Don\u2019s body was already decomposing, even if she couldn\u2019t smell it. She was already breathing in parts of him. Which was fine with her. She would take him all in, reconstituted, carry him with her for the rest of her life. What she had known of him was enough to know that she loved him, at least in a way. At least until last night, when she hated him for the first time. That psycho face. Every man was capable of turning, no matter how harmless they seemed. She knew that she was a fuck up, that everyone from her past thought of her as a fuck up, but so what? She could be a fuck up alone. The smell of vomit was faint, and she opened the window while she ate, cold mist filtering through the screen and dotting the fake wood table, her hand. She ate until she puked, shoveling in home fries and french toast and little sausages like dog dicks, then she ate a little more, then she closed the plastic container for later.<\/p>\n
Tenderly, she got a washcloth and cleaned the side of Don\u2019s face with it. His skin was like sandpaper, stubble catching and pulling the terrycloth. She thought of sharks. Then she folded his clothes neatly, threw away the vodka bottle. When a knock came at the door, panic shot through her, but then someone said \u201chousekeeping\u201d in a tired but shy hispanic-tinged voice. \u201cNot now!\u201d she yelled. She empathized\u2014 she\u2019d seen some shit in her five months as a housekeeper. She was relieved when the housekeeper moved on to the next door, the rattle of cart wheels on the metal landing. She opened the door, put the Do Not Disturb hangtag on the knob, closed it again. Felt safe and unsafe. Looked around the room. The art on the wall, a single painting, was\u2026 not art. It was like a painting produced by a robot. Lifeless. Lines and colors, geometrical. She wished she could disappear inside it.<\/p>\n
She rolled Don\u2019s body onto its back, covering him with the covers, then took a long hot shower and thought about Easter. The way, as a girl, she dressed in a fancy dress and stood on the driveway with a stuffed bunny in her hands\u2014 a picture she\u2019d seen a hundred times before but didn\u2019t remember living. Shards of church memories: easter bonnets, easter baskets, sermons, lambent light through stained glass. Jesus had risen, but what did he do after he rose? Rested, she hoped. She remembered ham and dyed eggs, lamb-shaped cakes, a world so distant from this one it could have been science fiction. She wondered how long the hot water would last. Was willing to find out. Let it fall over her body, which had seen better days. Too thin in some places, too flabby in others. Why did Don even want her? He didn\u2019t anymore. He didn\u2019t want anything anymore. She lathered with the motel soap, shaved her armpits and legs, was tempted to shave her bush the way Don asked her to a few times but wouldn\u2019t. That was unnatural. Not that she hadn\u2019t before. Soaped up her hair and let the suds run over her. Felt almost human. The food had helped her head and she felt her stomach working away at what remained after she puked. It hurt a little. If she could make food a normal thing again. If she could\u2026<\/p>\n
She dried off then realized she had no clean clothes to put on. She put her black hoodie, her jeans, her white undershirt, her red underwear into the bathtub, embarrassed by how they looked and smelled, though who was there to be embarrassed in front of? Now that she was clean, the clothes smelled worse. All the smells from the last four days had seeped into them. Smoke, of course, but also blood and piss and shit and other unidentifiable but organic odors. The aromascape of Atlantic City. Gross. People they\u2019d walked past the night before had given them a wide berth, wrinkling their nose. Normals. Now she knew why. The water turned gray and brown and red and she worked like a washerwoman of old, scrubbing and kneading, scrubbing and kneading, then wringing it all out and hanging it all up to dry from the shower rod.<\/p>\n
Naked, she slipped under the covers beside Don\u2019s dead body. She didn\u2019t want to at first but her body did what was natural and she found herself curling against him, her man. He was not warm but wasn\u2019t cold yet, the way they said dead bodies got. She wondered how long before that would happen. There was no warmth to him but she was warm inside the covers and she imagined she lent him some of her warmth.<\/p>\n
She dreamed she brought him back to life with the warmth of her own body and she pulled down his black underwear and she slid down onto his hard cock and fucked him as he gasped with the breath of new life. She woke up a little wet and a lot ashamed, and she refused to touch herself even though she wanted to. Hard to tell how long she\u2019d slept because the day was the same gray, but she felt\u2026better than she had in a long time. She did nothing for a while but simply felt alive. She missed moments like this, when they\u2019d hang out in bed after fucking and do nothing. No need to do anything. They\u2019d done that a lot in the first few weeks, less and less often recently. She imagined the feel of his fingertips along the surface of her skin, her hips and sides and arms, raising gooseflesh, as if she were something special. Back when he\u2019d been amazed by her. Maybe that was all a put-on, but it felt real.<\/p>\n
She would have to do something and soon, but she didn\u2019t want to do anything. It was kind of nice having Don like this. He was quiescent. The word came to her unbidden from some former life when she\u2019d read. She\u2019d been a weird reader kid in middle school. Hard to believe that had been her. Back before things had rolled out of control, a whole series of bad decisions involving boys and men, drugs and liquor. She felt her stomach grabbing hold like a fist, and she went into the bathroom and took the first semisolid shit in at least a week. She looked in the mirror. If she kept up like this she would be back to her old self in no time. She wanted to go out and get fucked up, wanted a drink or four, but she didn\u2019t need that shit anymore. Of course she did.<\/p>\n
The money was enough for probably two nights at a motel somewhere and another meal. Maybe some cheap sweatpants. Her clothes were still damp, but she put them on anyway. They felt like someone else\u2019s. They still smelled a little. Some things can\u2019t be held back or covered over. She could buy some new clothes, cheap, from the Salvation Army. Could become someone else. A new name. She would still be Charl even if she could convince people to call her Debbie or something. She was not someone who could change like that.<\/p>\n
She pocketed the bills and walked out into the night. The Vietnamese woman at the package store looked at her out of narrowed eyes that seemed to breathe the way mouths breathe, relieved when she didn\u2019t see Don following her, or maybe noticing that Charl was different now. She bought a liter of vodka, Tito\u2019s, a step up from their normal Popov, and a half liter bottle of tonic water, and she went back dangling a black plastic bag from her hand. It was wet outside but not raining, and the same people she\u2019d seen the last four days were all out on the streets. No one said anything to her.<\/p>\n
In the motel room she set up two drinks in the plastic motel cups they used for almost everything. She toasted him and drank one, then sat there crying. Once she got that out of her system, she finished the other drink, wiped down the place for her prints, and went out the door, the black plastic bag dangling, leaving the card key on the table and Don decomposing in the bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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