Cold Goodbye

ARTIE WAITS FOR ME OUTSIDE MY MOTHER’S PLACE ON FRIDAY NIGHT, leaning against a parking meter with his crutch tucked under his arm. He pulls a plaster cast out of his pocket and shows me the imprint of his gapped mouth.

“VA’s getting me false teeth in two weeks.” He spits a brown stream of tobacco juice into the gutter and checks the sky. “Smells like rain.”

“I’m happy about your teeth, but you could have shown me inside where it’s warmer. What about your new leg?” I glance down at his stump.

“Needs a refit.” He shoves the cast into his jacket. “They sent Rich up to jail in Auburn today. Debby’s in the kitchen crying.”

I turn toward the bar door and Artie taps my shoulder. “Curt, you should forget about it and go home. You got your job back at the dairy. You don’t need Debby messing you up.”

“I won’t stay long.”

“Date with the vampire?” he winks.

“She wants to show me reports.” The night computer operator where I work, Angie is known as the vampire because of her black tee shirt and jeans, long black hair, and dark red lipstick. I’m meeting her when she gets off work, but we’re not planning to talk reports tonight.

“You should go to Angie now,” Artie says.

We duck our heads as a cold, wet breeze blows up the street. “Artie, just because Rich is in jail like Mark doesn’t mean I’ll start up with Debby again. I can’t keep up with her drinking and she wouldn’t have me anyway.”

“I know her. She’ll want a big shoulder to cry on.”

Back inside I order a pitcher of Genesee Ale for Artie and me. Debby’s brother Daryl pushes through the kitchen door carrying two plates of burgers and fries, a sure sign Debby’s in no shape to wait on tables. He stops behind our stools and taps my shoulder, pointing his chin toward the kitchen. I follow in his wake, ignoring Artie’s wrinkled brow.

Debby leans against the stainless steel refrigerator, her cheeks moist and puffy. She breaks out crying and wraps her arms around me like a strait jacket. “They took him away from me,” she sobs. “How can they do that? Take my men to jail?”

I stroke her curly auburn hair, recalling our short fling. She went back to her old boyfriend Mark quicker than a flipped switch when he came home, and I got fired for showing up drunk for work, no job, no Debby. She and Mark lasted about three weeks, the standard half-life for her romances, igniting with a flash and decaying like spent fuel. But I never felt the full decline, still stuck in that first moment with her, trying to forget it and seal it away.

“Now Rich is gone,” she says, catching her breath. “I miss him so much.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, thinking I should say something.

She stands up on tiptoes, reaching around my neck, kissing me hard, and I don’t stop her. She shivers slightly, irresistible, and I stare into her wide brown eyes shining with tears, catching a reflection of my own eyes. “Can you give me a ride home?” she asks softly. “Darryl says I can leave early.”

I glance at her brother who nods his assent, though he doesn’t look happy about it. Not sure if he’s thinking about cooking and serving tables himself or about Debby and me. “I walked here.”

“You can drive my car. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

“Sure, I’ll walk back.”

She plants a wet kiss on my cheek and I trudge out to the bar to pick up my jacket. Artie tips his forehead, following my route to the coat rack and back to the kitchen like I’m a losing boxer going out for the last round.

At Debby’s apartment she lures me inside with a promise of Genesee Ale. One beer and then I’ll leave. But as soon as we step inside she drops her damp jacket, and our arms wrap together, breath and pulse rising in the same rhythm. She shivers again and I know I’m lost, our clothes falling off like molted skin.

We never make it to the bedroom, making love and lying for hours on her Persian carpet, sprawled on piles of pillows, elbows and knees knocking the growing scatter of beer cans, until I finally doze off, unable to match Debby’s thirst.

I wake up cold and alone, no clothes, no blanket, legs hooked under the coffee table, stiff and thoroughly drunk. I hear Debby’s peaceful snores from the bedroom and the soft ticking of her wall clock. Past one. I dress and stagger out the front door, leaving Debby asleep like she left me, but at least she’s warmer.

I walk quickly toward the Exchange Street Bridge, cold rain falling heavily and running down my neck. The brim of my Yankee cap provides my only protection, the deluge soaking through my jacket, sneakers squishing. The waterfall below the Park Dinner splashes high in the dim streetlights, its current under the bridge dotted with ice, looking like Beer River.

At Angie’s door I pause, feeling even colder. Her apartment is dark, but I see a light in her bedroom when I knock. She cracks the door, clutching a black robe around her, hair tussled with sleep, face paler than usual, rinsed of makeup.

“You look terrible,” she says.

“I messed up.”

“You sure did.” She pushes the door open.

“I was supposed to be here at eleven.”

“You’re frozen.” She waves me inside.

I stand on the rubber mat, shaking with cold, as if her words drained the last heat from my wet skin. A puddle forms around my shoes.

“It was Debby, wasn’t it?” she asks.

Nothing for me to say.

She strides back to her bedroom, pushing a lock of hair over her ear. I lean against the door frame, not wanting to sit down and soak her chair. Folding my arms against the shivers, I feel deeply tired, hardly drunk any more.

Angie crosses the living room, stopping halfway and throwing a black bath towel at me. I wipe my face and drape the towel across my shoulders.

Keys jingle in her hand when she returns dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, pulling on a slick black raincoat. “Let’s go,” she says.

I follow her out to the carport and crawl into her Datsun, covering the seat with the towel. She punches the knob of her cigarette lighter and waits for it to pop as the car warms up. We head back across the Exchange Street Bridge, the suds of Beer River making me queasy. No words pass between us. She’s quiet and determined like a deputy driving me to jail.

After she drops me off my hands quiver trying to hold my key steady. I pile my clothes inside the door and retreat to the bathroom, drawing a hot tub and throwing in crystals of the bubble bath Angie left a few nights ago. The bubbles are gone by the time I emerge, drying quickly and hustling to bed.

I spend the weekend drinking coffee in my threadbare chair, staring out at the rain slanting over the parking lot, and I try to read a programming manual, hoping it will help me if Angie wants to show me reports. Normally I might walk down to Mother’s on Saturday night, but the deep cold lingers in my bones. Maybe my desire for Debby has finally burned out, but I’m not ready to risk it. She’ll forget about me when Rich gets out of jail, and maybe Rich will forget about it, too. He was never my best friend but he’s more likely to blame me than Debby.

Monday afternoon after my shift on the forklift, loading milk crates onto delivery trucks, I head upstairs to punch computer cards with the shipment details. When I finish I check my monitor one last time, seeing a message from Angie.

vmpire: gotta minute?

sure

vmpire: come down

on my way

I grab my fresh stack of punch cards and head to the computer room, also known as the morgue. The frigid air-conditioning wafts out the door as I step up to the raised white flooring. The cold air protects the ancient PDP-11 computer. Angie swivels on her chair to watch me, her black tee shirt bulging with her full breasts, her face firm. She wears deep red lipstick, not smiling. The cold never bothers her.

“You look better,” she says.

I feel my face flush even in the chilled air. “I’ve been studying DB2 to learn reports.”

“This isn’t about reports.” She taps the chair next to her and I sit down, staring at the monitor on her table. “I want to talk about Friday night.”

I turn to face her.

She says, “We’ve been seeing a lot of each other.”

I glance up at the vent in the ceiling, sucking cold air and making it colder, thinking I hear the beginning of another goodbye. “I know you don’t want a boyfriend.”

“You have so many demons.”

“You mean Debby.”

She shakes her head. “Sure, I’m angry about that. But if you have a brain, and I think you do, you’ll get over her.” She reaches for her cigarettes and flicks her lighter.

Smoke curls toward the vent.

She follows my eyes upward. “You stare at the ceiling in the middle of the night.”

“I’m listening.”

“Listening for what?”

“An old habit.”

“From Vietnam?”

I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t want to bother you with my problems.”

“There are other little things.”

“They don’t sound so little.”

The air conditioner suddenly stops and smoke billows around her face with nowhere else to go. Her eyes glaze. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

My cheeks feel numb, trying to answer.

Angie leans toward me. “You can’t say it, can you?”

“I’m not good with words. It’s not you.” The air-conditioner shudders on, chilling me inside out. “I mean, it is you.”

She cups her face in her hands, her shoulders rocking, her cigarette forgotten. “I can’t let myself do this,” she cries softly, raising her eyes, black mascara running down her cheek.

I take her cigarette before it burns her fingers, dropping it in the ashtray and retrieving a tissue from the box on her shelf. I snatch one for myself, blowing my nose and dabbing the corners of my eyes. We hold our gaze for a long moment, until we finally shake hands awkwardly like diplomats.

Back home I return to my chair and the scenic view of the parking lot, sipping a can of Genesee Ale and then another. I grab the blanket off my bed, still feeling a chill.

Around eleven the phone rings, shaking me awake. I hear the morgue’s air conditioner and the humming computer cabinet fans.

“Hey,” Angie says.

“Did my shipping job run okay?” I ask, trying to guess the reason for her call.

“I’d tell you if it didn’t.” She exhales slowly. “I still want to show you reports.”

I glimpse the manual lying face down on the floor. “Yeah, I want to learn reports.”

“Later in the week. How about Thursday? Come down after your shift.”

“Got it.”

“Bye.” She clicks off.

I pick up the DB2 book and check the beer cans around my chair. One sloshes and I swallow the dregs, trying to remember where I left off.