Never Say Die

Never Say Die
The cell is on mute, but its buzzing wakes him. He rolls over, gropes through the change, keys, crumpled cigarette pack, lighter, mini-alarm clock, dog-eared paperback novel, and other personal detritus deposited and forgotten on the bedside table. Finds it. Punches a button, stares dully at the bright, tiny screen. Scowls into a focus. In the phone’s stark brilliance, his face looks deathly, furrowed, hollow. Momentarily, he can’t recall where he is. But only for a moment. A scan around the room’s semi-darkness, the clustered shadows in the gray-blue ambient light from the parking lot illumination beyond the blinds reminds him. He’s briefly ashamed. The phone buzzes again in his hand, startling, insistent. Years ago, he thinks, it would have been a jangling ring, loud enough to wake deep sleepers next door. Now, just an annoying buzz. Barely audible from a few feet away. Wouldn’t penetrate the paper-thin walls of this dump. Nobody has real telephones, anymore. He punches in two letters: “OK.”
He swings his legs off the bed, winces when his heel callouses hit the threadbare rug. He rolls his shoulders, head, then pulls a crooked smoke from the damaged pack, lights it as he rechecks the text, glances behind him at the girl in the bed. She’s a narrow hump of quilted flowers—petunias, he notes—soughing. Home-dyed hair, stiff from spray or mousse jabs the pillow. She radiates a sharp vapor of cheap perfume that penetrates the pungent blue tobacco cloud. Tattoo on her neck. Initials P. R., with a black rose. Patsy? Paula? He shakes his head. She looked better in the bar lights, more prepossessing, softer. Younger. Prettier. Her mouth is open and drooling slightly as she breathes. At least, he grants, she’s not snoring.
He examines the text, again, re-verifies. Sanchez. Caller ID is a nifty trick. Prevents doubt. Cell phones have their uses. Hides him, too. This is a burner. It’ll be in a dumpster before dawn.
He looks at the time. It’s late. Or early. Depends. Time, regardless. He grinds out the half-smoked butt in an overflowing ashtray, rises stiffly. His right knee grates. Bone on bone. Surgery there, he thinks. Need to have it scoped at the least. Standing, he stretches, feels his neck muscles straining for blood flow. The need to piss stands him semi-erect, and he glances at her again, considers, shakes his head, kills the phone. Still naked, he goes to the bathroom.
The light is too bright, room too pink, too yellow, too red, reeking of conflicting odors, aromatic, saccharine. Mildew, cleansers, a hint of bleach, of pine, too sour, too sweet. Mirror is cracked. Colored thongs and skimpy bras hang from the shower rod. Spiked heels kicked behind the commode. They don’t match. Toilet seat is loose, won’t stay up. He leans forward, holds it with one hand, holds himself with the other. An imitation chrome shelf laden with emollients, colognes, sprays, perfumes, other cosmetics straddles the toilet. Crusted residue coats their lids and tops, some covered with a fine powder or maybe dust, shoved in the back, forgotten or rejected. He looks down, studies his flow. Steady. Mold—maybe just filth—crowds the corners, black stains in the tub, rust in the bowl. A dump, he confirms.
He lights another smoke, turns on the hot tap and waits. A wadded washcloth is in the corner of the tub. It smells faintly sour, looks reasonably clean. He wets it, uses the scraps of soap left in the clotted tray next to the tub, scrubs his penis, testicles, rubs down inner thighs and lower abdomen, then his upper chest, expunging her scent. He wrings it out, splashes a rinse. Still dripping, considering, he opens the medicine chest. A few pill bottles—Celexa, Zoloft, Wellbutrin—telling but not alarming—Celebrix, Mydol, Ibuprophin—nothing significant. No birth control. No rubbers, either. They went bareback. Old school, he thinks again. The bottles are nearly empty, some out of date, neglected, labels washed away. He checks the name on one. P is the first initial. Polly? No. There are some creams, ointments. No lube. No dope. That’s good. No tolerance for junkies. She didn’t even offer him a joint. Just a drink. Whiskey. Scotch, at that. Who keeps scotch, anymore? Old school, he thinks once more. He finds a disposable razor on the cabinet’s shelf. Caked with scum, dull, but serviceable. He holds it under the tap, boils out space between the blades.
He wets his face with the steaming water, then pumps out a palmful of anti-bacterial gel from a throwaway dispenser, works it into something like lather and spreads it across his cheeks, chin, and neck. Waits a beat, allows the soap to soak, stares past the streaked, dirty surface of the broken mirror. He sees an old man’s face, sunken gray eyes beneath bushy brows, hairline in retreat, leaving a thin, ineffective rear guard of skinny strands. Stretching the skin with split fingers, he methodically scrapes away the thin film of slimy soap and dark whiskers, working in careful rows, around the cigarette, cautious in the places where, he notices, the skin is getting loose. An old man’s face, he repeats the thought. Creasing around the eyes, slight bulbing of the nose, ancient acne pockmarks barely visible in the glistening path of the razor. Some discoloring here and there. Need to watch that, he thinks, drops the butt into the toilet, presses the handle. Won’t flush. Doesn’t even try. He uses both hands to rinse.
A towel hangs loosely from a rack. He sniffs it and detects nothing but residue of detergent, fabric softener, maybe. Wipes his face, torso, groin, then steps back from the mirror. His lats, anterior deltoids are prominent, so are his biceps, long and wiry, like thick cords. Scars, a star just above his heart, a jagged trace on his right shoulder, a tiny white circle down lower. When he sees them he remembers the blows, the pain, nothing more. Now, they’re just there. Old friends. Reminders. She touched them, kissed them. Strange. Sexy, though.
A faint tattoo of a Porsche logo, faded to a shadow, is on his left arm. He barely remembers getting it—New Orleans, he recalls dimly, then suddenly and clearly sees the face of the artist—what a word, he thinks, for a small, ugly, dark man, covered with ink, smoking a cigar while he worked, intently getting every detail just so, incessantly talking Cajun nonsense. He often wonders, why Porsche? It appealed the moment, but he couldn’t say what made that so. Never owned one, never particularly wanted one. He preferred other indulgences.
He lifts his hands into fists, forms forty-five degree angles with both arms and flexes. His biceps and triceps stand out, as if suddenly summoned from some covert place to present themselves in brilliant boldness, bringing into relief the faded rampant horse in the crest. He holds the pose, studies himself, notes blue veins roping across his upper arms. There’s some softness around the middle, but not bad. No real fat. He holds the pose until it hurts, savors the pain of straining tissue, then relaxes, rinses his face once more, towels off again. There’s a hairbrush clogged with yellowish strands. He runs it over his skull. Again, he notices, the top is thinning.
He thinks of Sanchez. Shorter, thicker, older, looks younger, somehow. Bulldog built, right down to the jowls, tiny dark eyes. Full head of black hair, great smile, white and even. Goddamn Mexicans always have great dental-work, he thinks, squeezes some paste from a flattened tube onto his index finger and runs it over his teeth. Works it in, massages his gums. He sees no mouthwash, so he rinses with water, again using his palm, dries off, takes one more look, backing up now to show more. Legs are strong, quads stand out. That’s sure. But older by the day. Unavoidable.
He wipes the sink with the cloth, folds and drapes it and the towel on the rack. Neat. Rinses and replaces the razor.
When he returns, bathroom door left ajar for light, he checks her again. She still sleeps, ignorant, quiet in a dreamworld where good-looking girls always come out on top. Pam, he thinks. Not Pamela. Maybe Pammy. No. He looks at the quilt. Petunia? No. Silly. He can’t remember. She’s worked hard at it, he thinks. He spies her cell, lying on the bureau, charging amidst a hodgepodge of framed photographs. Couple of a dog, one of a young girl, not her. Two older adults. A portrait. Holding hands. Smiling. Benevolent. Parents? She’s in a larger one, as a cheerleader—or maybe not, he reconsiders. Pep squad, dance line, maybe. Hair blonder, eyes brighter, face more open. She smiles through a fortune in orthodontics. Uniform tight across the bust, short skirt, muscular legs. She’s deliberately in the middle of a trio of girls, arms stretched to pull the other two closer. Both prettier. No trepidation there, he thinks. Not then. Brazen, bold, fearless faces. Confident in youth and beauty. “Never Say Die,” is written in bold red sharpie across the bottom of the picture. He flashes on Ozzie Osbourne, Black Sabbath. How long ago was that? He tries to date the picture, but there’s no clue their pert coolness is emphasized by the upraised index fingers of the flanking two. “Number One.” But the other two are closer to the top. Behind her bright eyes, he sees that she knows it.
Not that she’s ugly. Anything but. Not too bright, though.
He looks at her again. One leg outside the quilt, coltish. Curved instep, fancy pedicure, red starfish tattoo on her ankle, bruise on her thigh. He didn’t do that. She’s coming to a terminus. A year, maybe two. Looks will coarsen. Truckload of makeup won’t hide lines on her face, already faint beneath the pancake. Tits will sag, hips turn to gelatin, thighs to cottage cheese. Heels will harden, teeth will yellow. No money for quality plastic. No education, no training, probably. No imagination, either. Paperback by the bed is a cheap romance. Harmless soft-core porn. Trash. No, not too bright. Fate is as indelible as her tattoos. How old? She said twenty-five. Closer to thirty. Maybe older. Girls that age are stingy with time. Stop the clock, but keep moving. Lying about it is easy after a while. Soon you start believing what you say, if you can remember what you said.
She gave him a good fuck, though. That she knew how to do. You don’t learn that in a hurry. She had years behind her.
He finds his shirt, pants, bends over at the waist to stretch out more kinks—harder to loosen up every morning. He pulls on his socks, shoes—oxfords, soft- soled, heavy—ties them tight, double knots. Puts on the shoulder rig. Mexican leather, soft and supple, a gift from Sanchez. It’s heavy with the .357. Old school, again, but reliable, viper deadly. Easy, ready with the flick of a thumb. She spotted it quick in the bar. Heat rose in her eyes, and two hours later, it was all over her. Guns are like dicks, he thought. It’s not the size. It’s what you do with it. He flips the cylinder in the beam of light, knows it’s full, checks it, anyway. Habit. Bright brass glances in the narrow slant. Hollow points. Sure thing.
Sanchez prefers autos. Big, shiny, nickel-plated, ivory-gripped. He wonders if Sanchez knows how to use them, then wonders, casually, about Sanchez’s dick. Might be a correspondence there. He grins, thinks of Sanchez’s wife. He closes the wheel, holsters the pistol. No clips, no slides. No flash. Just point and shoot. Plug and play. Reliable.
He checks himself in the bureau mirror. He looks even older in the shadow-streaked light, older than when he was naked in the brilliance of the bathroom bulbs. He knows he tends to slouch, maybe stoop a little. Bad habit. Need to fight that. He straightens his shoulders, rolls his head to loosen the stubborn tightness in his neck, shoulders, upper back.Should have