truvy
Thursday, March 06, 2003
The Copy Machine
I'm posting a friend's short story today. She's probably going to smack the shit out of me, but I won't see her until Sunday, so by then maybe she'll have calmed down. Anyway, this is done w/out her permission, but copyright 2003 by Union Girl.
The Copy Machine
She stops smoking, or maybe that is a few years away.
She showers at three in the morning, breaking the night into the candied hours and the washed ones. There is nothing but the stirring of the dogs, the occasional thrash of a train in the distance, the plush steps of Martin's tricks running up and down the back stairs. She is thirty years old.
This is one Wednesday night.
The cell phone vibrates against her leg, clipped through the belt that she has had for seven years. She doesn't even look as she hits ignore.
"I swear to god, Martin," she calls to the empty room. The boy gives her number to every second rate piece of ass in this city.
"For the rainy days, poops," he says, gently. As if one drizzly day she will wake up and get the urge to sleep with Harvey, the insurance salesmen with hair on his toes, or Tim, the guy who solved a runny nose with his oversized Metallica long sleeved tee. Anyone halfway decent, Martin saves for himself.
"Doesn't matter if they're straight, Charlotte," he would say, running his tongue over his teeth. "And that's the law of the land."
It is four seventeen when the front door slams.
"I let you live here because you pay on time," she calls to Martin as he pounds up the back stairs to his room. He is otherwise silent, which means there is no one with him. After three years, she has grown accustomed to his booming baritone voice.
"I do have a roommate, but she's cool. Respects my privacy, you know?" he signals, and Charlotte will quickly shut her door.
More often than not, she wakes before him to find a twenty or a fifty on the kitchen counter, sometimes with a scribbled note of thanks. Very rarely do they leave a number.
"Oh, you're up," Martin says, charging into the living room, plopping himself beside Charlotte on the couch. "God, I must be getting old, poops. Not one of those little chickens looked even remotely good tonight. Not a one."
"Oh, it's hard being twenty-two," she sighs.
"You were married at twenty-two, you little slut." He throws his head into her lap. Too long brown hairs pulse into the night.
"And look where that got me, Martin, my love."
She doesn't know where this is going. She's a good girl, really, but she knows too little. "My sweet Charlotte," Rick had called her, on their wedding day, and a thousand times since.
"This is as far from domestic as you can get. It's nice though."
It is Thursday night, not even eleven, and Martin's brought home a Talker.
"Well, I kind of like that. My roommate, she's one of those born again lesbians, I think. Left a husband and a little boy to live in this godforsaken hellhole." Martin talks too loud.
There is no response. She imagines the Talker jerking off at the mention of freedom.
The main line rings on Friday at noon. She doesn't have to be at the restaurant until three. She imagines her mousy boss, terrified of a crowded room, asking her to fill in just this once for some girl who's called in sick.
She lets the phone ring and ring.
"You're really very pretty, you know that?"
Charlotte is half naked, brushing her hair on a Saturday morning, when a short Hispanic man, appears inches behind her. Lordy, she thinks, this one's on the prowl.
"You Martin's friend?" She forgets the waiting shirt hanging on the door.
"Who's Martin?"
"The guy you - and you don't ask names, do you?"
"No ma'am."
"Look, I usually don't… I mean, I'm not …"
Martin waddles in and smacks the man's ass.
"Come on Pablo, I told you last night she wasn't for sale."
In a world where you can still buy Chinese special lunch for six bucks, things are pretty good. When she doesn't think about Rick and the baby (who will always be two, and who will always wear the denim overalls and yellow tee she left him in), life is okay.
They will someday grow up, she thinks, but they are in no hurry. There is time enough for that. She is not alone.
als 3/3/03 (c)
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