BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT - - - - Stalking Gracie, Part 3: When the train stops at Belmont and Kimball, a large crowd of people gets off, and Mr. Gracie and I look at each other. Our eyes meet. The Belmont and Kimball station is underground and curved like a missile silo, only made out of brick. I'm being careless today, which is why Mr. Gracie has seen me. But he looks away. He pulls a newspaper out of his bag, opens it, and begins to read. He would come and get me about once a week; I never knew exactly when. I'd wait in my room for him. I remember Mr. Gracie's hands closing around my neck, how I couldn't breathe, and then how I didn't want to breathe. I remember how his body felt warm on my back and how, when he pulled away from me, I felt exposed, as if somebody had yanked a blanket off me. I remember what Mr. Gracie said to Larry, after he knocked Larry in the teeth with his billy club: he said that if anything happened to me, he was going to hold Larry personally responsible; that if I so much as cut my finger, Larry was going into the hole. Larry, the biggest kid I've ever seen, with biceps like watermelons. And I remember the look of fear on that kid's face. And my fear hoping I would be gone before Mr. Gracie. But I wasn't. Jefferson Park is the last stop in the city. I follow Mr. Gracie off the train. We walk down the iron stairs to the bus terminal. The air reeks of gasoline. People are milling around, and ten buses are waiting to haul passengers to Cicero, Berwyn, Rosemont, and points west. I lose Mr. Gracie for a moment in the crowd, but then I find him again, negotiating his way around a large woman with a stroller. He strides up the steps onto the Archer 68 bus. We're a long way from downtown. Mr. Gracie's commute takes more than an hour. I sit right across from Mr. Gracie. I put my hand over the pocket of my jacket. I'm doing this for Maria. We made a pact. He puts his paper down on the seat next to him, it unrolls to the classifieds, and we look each other straight in the eye. He's wearing a light cloth jacket. He still has broad shoulders, but he looks thin now, almost frail. Suddenly I feel panicked. It's a hot summer day, but the air conditioning on the bus is turned up too high. A minute ago I was drenched in sweat, and now I am freezing. "So," Mr. Gracie says, rolling the word around in his mouth like a gumball. "What's on your mind?" I try to smile. I place my hands on my knees. Mr. Gracie places his hands on his knees as well. Mr. Gracie has long, thin legs. He looks like a spider. "I'm glad you're not working there anymore," I say. "You're a predator." "A predator," Mr. Gracie says, and he lets out a small laugh. He takes a cigarette from his pocket and slides the window open. "No smoking on the bus," the driver says, looking in his rearview mirror. For all the people in the station, the bus is sparsely occupied: eight or nine passengers. Archer is a desolate street: closed-down factories, hot-dog stands. It runs on a diagonal through the West Side. The street itself makes no sense in the city's layout, as it never reaches downtown. Mr. Gracie shrugs his shoulders, kicks one leg over the other, leans back. I watch his face for signs of fear. If only I could get Maria to understand me more. She always does what she wants. "Terrible," Mr. Gracie says, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the world outside, "to work so hard all day and step out into this kind of heat. I've always worked hard for less than I'm worth." I start to look away but catch myself. I want to be aggressive. "You know what you did." Mr. Gracie narrows his vision on me, letting the outside world pass by unnoticed. "How about this," he says. It's a familiar tone of voice, and I slip back, pressing my tailbone against the seat. "If you still had anything left to you, which you don't, I'd do it again." I can see his teeth. "Look at you. Look at how you're dressed." I look at my old jacket, my only pair of work pants. Why can't I have nicer clothes? "You look like an old man. You should at least have learned how to dress. Don't you have an iron?" I look down at the floor, fold my hands. My script is gone. I had it all planned out, everything, but now it's gone, gone. I try to think about his wife and children, but I can't. My mind doesn't want to think. I can't bring up the images. I can't remember what it looked like but my memory is just dull yellow paint and a thin strip of metal at the end of an office shelf. I shake my head. The floor of the bus is polished steel, with thick ridges that run from the door to the back window. There were no windows in the detention center, and the windows in the group homes were webbed with wire. We ride for miles in silence. Just before Mr. Gracie gets off, he says to me, "That's a big city out there. Eat a man alive." He pauses. "Somebody should have taken you home, you know?" He stands in front of me and places his hand, his long fingers, over my face: his palm resting on my jawbone; his fingers over my eyes and across my forehead; his thumb in my ear. "Do this for me: Get a haircut. Clean yourself up a little. You'll feel better about yourself." He starts to move his hand, but I press my face against it, pushing into his palm. "Don't follow me anymore, Theo. I can't take care of you. I have my own family. You wanted to have this talk. Fine. Remember, I kept you safe. You were safe when I was around. None of those boys did anything to you when I was there. You know why I kept you safe, right?" I nod my head. "That's right. But you're on your own now. Take care of yourself." Mr. Gracie pulls his hand away, slaps my knee with the paper. I hear the squeak of the bus door opening. The sound of boots in a hallway. By the time I step into the apartment, it's late. The orange glow of the streetlights filters in around the drawn window shade. I'm relieved when I hear Maria's breathing. Then I see the dark blue handprint on her shoulder. She's lying in bed, staring at me. I peel my clothes off, fold them carefully into the milk crates, hang my jacket in the closet. In the bathroom I run the water and wait for it to get hot, then soak a towel with hot water and hold it against my face. I shave carefully with soap and my old razor. I cut myself only once. Then I pull the razor blade out and make a tiny cut on my shoulder. A thin, stinging cut. There's hardly a drop of blood. Then I cut myself three times more, making a little tick-tack-toe board on my arm. I run my finger over the wound, push gently to make it hurt. Lean forward into the wall and push harder. Breathe in the tiles and the mildew, the smell of the sink. Breathe. I climb onto the mattress with Maria. She's wearing scented lotion. "Did you do it?" she asks. She's a silhouette. The sound of transactions on the street below filters through the window. We can always hear the noise from the streets. It's one of the many reasons why the rent is so low. "We talked," I say. She turns to me. Her soft arms and the web of veins running from her elbows. Her unshaven armpits. "That's not what you said you were going to do." "I wanted to." She turns away from me, tucks her hands beneath her head. It's gotten very late. "Don't turn away from me," I say, grabbing her hair tightly. She lets out a gasp, and carefully backs her warm body into mine. - - - - To purchase Happy Baby, click here. - - - - Previous Excerpts:
|
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.