The Square Shoulder of a Man Named Butch
VII
Roxanne hadn’t slept that night. Under the overpass downtown, she wasn’t the only one seeking shelter from the cold rain. She went from one place to another, looking for a dry, safe spot to go through the handbag. Finally, as it was nearing dawn, she settled in the basement door entrance in a shabby house just beyond the industrial buildings that lined the river south of downtown. She dug out all of Ms. Claire Everly’s belongings. A little less than seven hundred dollars cash, hidden in the various little crevices of the deceptively spacious handbag. She also found several credit cards, two bank cards, and a checkbook in a long wallet. There were lipsticks, a powder compact, a slew of receipts, peppermints, and some loose change had settled on the bottom. Roxanne tucked the cash inside her bra and stuffed the contents back into the purse.
The realization that she was a thief gnawed at her, her stomach knotting painfully in a combination of hunger and guilt. She needed a plan. Her parents weren’t the most strict or straight-laced but they had taught her that stealing was never an option. But she was desperate, and had no where to go. She remembered one of the only times that she’d ever stayed in a motel. She had been woken by her mother, who pulled her from the bed and carried her down the stairs. The fire alarm was sounding and her father was frantically running from the kitchen to the basement with a fire extinguisher when they swept through the foyer and out the front door. Her mother had assured her that nothing was wrong, No, honey, there’s no fire, I think it’s just the carbon monoxide alarm. Daddy’s just checking the furnace to make sure. We’re going to go stay somewhere else tonight, just to make sure. Once inside their minivan with the engine running and the heater blasting, Roxanne had fallen back to sleep, only waking when she heard her mother and father arguing in hushed tones. Vicki, that’s not the sort of place you take your family to stay. I’d rather shell out the extra money and stay in a motel that doesn’t charge by the hour. She had opened her eyes to see them passing a neon Motel sign that blinked “vacancy” in nauseating orange flashes. They were driving further north where the motel signs were lit from within with names like “The Carlton Inn” with shrubberies and covered parking zones in the front. Well, I don’t think a hundred dollars for tonight is going to break us. They had pulled into one such motel and her father had paid for a room with two beds and they watched television until she fell asleep.
She thought of that night as she walked in the rain the few miles to the nearest Goodwill, hoping that it would be open by the time she got there. It was, and there she purchased an outfit, some mismatched socks, a pair of shoes, and an umbrella. Down the block from the Goodwill store was a motel with a partially lit neon sign. The clerk at the desk looked at her through the wire mesh and plexi-glass partition, probably thinking she was a prostitute, and gave her a room key in exchange for forty dollars. As she walked away he was grumbling something about noon being the checkout time.
Room 212 smelled of mildew and old shoes. The bed was made, but did not look very clean in the dim light of the single floor lamp. The bathroom was a seventies style puke yellow that made the dirt and stains blend in. She had hoped that there were plenty of soaps and little shampoos, but there was only one small wax wrapped bar beside the sink. She showered, using most of the small bar of soap to wash away the stench of two weeks on the streets. She dried with the small rough towel, not looking too closely at it. She left her room again and crossed the several blocks to the nearest drug store, where she bought new necessities; everything she needed to clean up and start her new life.
When she returned to the motel she showered, washing everything twice. She brushed her teeth twice, then a third time after she had flossed and rinsed with mouth wash. She put on new socks and underwear, and her Goodwill clothes, gathered all her things and put them into the plastic sack from the drug store, and stuffed them into the drawer under the television.
Out on the street she started walking. She looked for signs that read “Now Hiring” and at the fourth sign, a small soda-shop style diner badly in need of remodeling; she opened the door and went inside. She inquired at the lunch counter; the worn older woman perched on a stool behind the register pointed her toward an office in the back. Behind the small metal desk was an old man, dark gray hair stiffly pulled over the balding spot on his head. Before him were neat stacks of folders, each one labeled, weeks of receipts and invoices. He pulled his glasses from his thick face and managed a polite smile.
“Can I help you young lady?” his voice was much younger than his appearance, thick with an accent she could not place. It came out strong and authoritative, not unlike the voice of her high school principal.
“Yes, sir, my name is Roxanne James and I’d like to put in an application,” she said, and though her hands were quaking she managed to still her voice.
“Won’t you have a seat,” he gestured to a chair, “You look young; are you old enough to work?”
“I need the money. I don’t have any parents and I want to live on my own,” said Roxanne, her false confidence never wavering.
The man looked at her for a very long time. Roxanne started to twitch uncomfortably in the chair. Finally, he picked up a paper from a bin to her left and a pen from a cup on the corner of the desk, and handed them to her, “My name’s Mr. White,” his “t” came out crisp, and she wondered if it was his real name, “I’m the manager and owner of this restaurant. You can fill this out, but I’m not sure that you’ll be able to do much around here. I’ll help you what I can, up to six hundred dollars.”
“Thank you so much,” said Roxanne, starting to write. In the address space she put in the address of the motel, pausing a little before the second line, trying to remember the correct zip code.
“I have a full staff of waiters, but I need someone in the kitchen. Since you’re young you can do dishes, but you can’t touch any of the appliances. If someone doesn’t show up for their shift, you can wait a few tables. You can work two, three hours a day through the week, after school. After six hundred dollars I have to put you on payroll—tax forms and all…I suppose you won’t be causing any trouble, right?”
“No, sir,” and Roxanne smiled for the first time in two weeks.
VIII
The first sign of his anger breaking free again was while Carl was driving. He found that driving in the city was mad. People who followed the rules, he could tolerate, but those whose driving was less than exceptional bore his rage without even knowing it. He cursed under his breath at them, and sometimes, if the music was loud enough in his car, he would shout. Follow the rules, Carl. The person who arrives first at an intersection has the right of way, Carl. Fasten your seatbelt, Carl. Don’t forget to check your blind spot! Oh, how I wish people would read their driver’s manuals. He heard his mother’s sing song voice inside his head and cringed.
No, he preferred to walk. He favored the street that went through the campus, where there were always pretty young people doing important things. Watching for and spotting the same ones at the same time of day, first outside the high school two blocks north of campus, all the girls and boys arriving well before the bell. Then he saw the older, more developed women and men of the college campus; all those walking to and from class, jobs, or sports. There were a few here and there that he always looked for; he gave them names inside his head and pretended conversations. Carl thought of himself as an observer as he drove. Slightly removed from the college world he was once immersed in, following their lives through the things they carried.
The day that Carl stopped listening to the inner voice that was his mother, he was driving to work because it was raining. It was Saturday, and he had been called in to work to fix the boss’s computer, which had crashed the prior evening. It was the third Saturday in a row that he’d been called in to fix someone’s computer. “You know, I sent out a memo last week. You just can’t download all this crap onto work computers—they don’t have the memory capacity to handle all that,” he’d told them the previous Saturday.
On his way downtown, he didn’t follow too closely to the other cars. He minded his speed, distance, and used his lights and signaled. He was almost to his building when a car darted out from a side street, right in front of him. He had to slam on his breaks and nearly stop to keep from hitting the sleek black sedan. He cursed and sped up, fishing in his console for his notepad and paper. At the next light he tried to copy down the plate number before the light changed and the car sped away. Carl checked his blind spot and changed lanes, speeding now, to follow the man who cut him off. The black sedan was just entering the public parking garage up ahead. Carl went into the garage after him, jabbed the button, and snatched a ticket from the machine. He sped up the entrance ramp and followed his glowing taillights up the spiraling levels. At the third level the sedan parked, and Carl slowed as he passed by, glaring at the man gathering his things inside his car. He parked a few spaces away and pulled an old baseball cap low on his face. He stepped slowly and deliberately out of his car. He circled around to the open trunk and reached inside. He started toward the man, his quickening footsteps echoing louder and louder.
As the man walked toward the elevators, he punched buttons on his phone, a coffee mug tucked in the crook of his arm. Carl struck quickly. The man never expected it. Dropping his things, he immediately started to fight back, when Carl struck again with the tire iron. The man went limp, his coffee cup rolling away from him sloshing mocha java whatever onto his nice leather briefcase as it stopped. Carl lugged the man up onto his shoulder and hurried back to the car. He put the unconscious man into his trunk, then ran back to gather the briefcase and scattered bits of blackberry. Carl got back into his car and drove back out of the garage.
He turned onto the street and headed home, dialing work on his cellular phone. He hated to use his phone while driving, but decided it was necessary. He told his boss he was sick, and wouldn’t be coming to work.
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