I sit with both legs stretched out before me, crossed at the ankles, the bed sheet draped over my midsection, my arms crossed over my chest. On the other side of the small, dingy room with green wallpaper, a round table sits in front of the only window covered by thick navy curtains that have been pulled together, shutting out what’s left of the daylight. Another hour and it’ll be dark. The flatscreen television—like the telephone and the broken hair dryer and stained mini coffee pot—has been mounted to the room to deter theft; it hangs from a moveable arm bracket affixed high on the wall. Old ‘Seinfeld’ reruns play on the screen with the volume low. The muffled sound of music from the bar on the ground floor beneath me funnels through the thin walls and floor.
The bed moves as the whore—OK, her name is Jackie—shifts around next to me.
I look over just as she’s standing up with her back to me, her naked ass shaped like a cherry. I like that.
“Where are you going?” I ask, mildly interested.
She steps into her skimpy black panties and walks around to my side of the bed, crushing her cigarette out next to mine; a thin sliver of leftover smoke rises from the ashes.
“I’ve gotta be somewhere in an hour,” she says indifferently.
I reach out and clamp my hand around her wrist, stopping her. Jackie never really has to ‘be somewhere’—I’ve known her for two months—and all of a sudden I feel like an asshole. Well, I admit I am a fucking asshole twenty-four-seven, but I don’t like it when I actually feel like one.
She looks down at me irritably, waiting for me to get on with it, blinking her light brown eyes.
“I’m a dick,” I say and let go of her wrist. “Sorry. Please, just sit back down.”
Unconvinced, Jackie manipulates the inside of her mouth with her teeth, staring at me indecisively, and then reaches for her bra anyway lying on the stained carpet. Not wanting her to go—because I actually enjoy her company even when we’re not fucking—I swallow my admittedly ridiculous ego and say, “Tell me more about what happened with that rich bitch sister of yours. Did she ever apologize for shutting you out like that, for keeping you from spending time with your niece—Katie? That’s your niece’s name, right?” I really had heard everything Jackie was going on about before, when I was lost in thought thinking about my own issues with my own flesh and blood. I’ve just never been the type to talk about my shit, or to listen to anyone else’s. When I’d told her before that I wanted to ‘talk first’, I meant something more along the lines of everyday mundane bullshit: about the hair I found in my goddamn omelet this morning; the cab I rode in for three miles stuffed in the backseat with two steroid-addicted assholes whose arms were so big they couldn’t reach their armpits to apply deodorant—I’ve been taking a cab lately so Victor and Izabel won’t know I’m still in town, though if I know my brother, he knows where I’m at by now. But somehow, while talking about why I was taking a cab, Jackie started talking about her sister. Oh yeah, I guess it was because I mentioned that I had been avoiding my brother.
I still don’t care much about her sister—from what I’ve heard, they could be the stars of their very own reality TV show—but to make her stay a little longer, I’ll listen if that’s what she wants.
Jackie’s fed-up expression finally turns forgiving, and she drops her bra back onto the carpet and sits down on the bed beside me, her feet on the floor.
And for the next thirty minutes I listen to her tell me everything.
“So what do you think I should do?” she asks, and I realize she really does want my advice.
What the fuck do I look like, a shrink?
“You want my honest opinion?” I ask, at least warning her beforehand because I never sugarcoat anything.
“Yeah,” she says. “I want honesty.”
I shrug and then bring my arms up, locking my hands behind my head.
“She may be your sister,” I say, “but that doesn’t make her off-limits. You do what you gotta do; beat the shit out of her if that’s what’ll make you feel better”—my eyes meet hers with warning and purpose—“but that shit you were saying about calling Child Protective Services just to get back at her—that’s