X. Atkins - Richmond Noir

What did I have to lose? I followed him to his table. Marwan’s heavy, copper-colored eyes locked on mine as he pulled from the hookah.

“Jamila. You’re a good dancer, Jamila. How much you make tonight, two hundred, three hundred?”

I shrugged. “I don’t talk money with strangers.”

“Good policy. Smart girl. Hey, Jamila, I’ma be honest with you. I run a club. A nice club. What you call a gentleman’s club. The best one. I can tell you for a fact you could make a thousand dollars a night there, easy. You dance like that, Ma fi mushkila , no problem. Only just a different costume.” He leered a little and licked his lips. “So what do you say you come by tomorrow and work for me? I put you on the main stage, none of this tables. Inti Jamila . You so pretty.”

I reached across the table and took the hookah tube from him and sucked in a deep draft of gray smoke. I held it in my lungs and considered my options. I could be one kind of cliché and end up dead in the trailer park on a Saturday night. I could be another kind of trailer park cliché and dance around a pole with my tits out for money. Or I could go back home tonight and see what Saleem Hassan’s next piece of advice was for me, with a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket for which I had him to thank. That looked like the best choice. If dancing around a pole was what he wanted for me, I’m sure he’d tell me — though from what I’d heard the Arab say about girls who did that, I had a feeling it wasn’t what Hassan wanted. I blew the smoke politely toward the floor and shook my head.

“I appreciate the offer, Marwan, but I don’t think I’m cut out for that kind of dancing. Thanks anyway.”

Before he could argue, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and walked out. As I unlocked Bobby’s bike, I could see Marwan scrambling to throw money on the table, but I was down the street before he made it out the door There are men you trust and men you don’t, and there was something sketchy about that little dude I just didn’t like.

Back at Rudd’s, I locked Bobby’s bike to his porch and walked across the gravel road to my trailer I could see Beau through his window, drinking a beer and watching wrestling. I went inside and sat down at my little kitchenette, wondering what tomorrow was going to bring. I could stay and try and reason with Ivan, giving him what money I had, or I could just disappear — but to where? To do what? Although it felt strange to even hear myself think it, the idea of leaving the trailer park filled me with sadness I’d never felt when leaving Christiansburg.

For once, I realized, I was living in a place where the list of things I didn’t hate was at least as long as the list of things I did. I didn’t hate the fact that I shared my walls with no one, thin and aluminum though they were. I didn’t hate the way outsiders avoided our potholed roads that were occasionally blocked by the Mexicans’ work trucks and junker cars, because that meant I didn’t have to deal with anyone I didn’t want to. I definitely didn’t hate the cheap rent. And, though it’d taken me awhile to trust him, I didn’t hate the Arab. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Rudd’s was the closest thing to a real home I’d ever had, and the Arab was the only person I’d been able to count on in my whole life.

I knew that if it came down to it and I told him what was going on, I would have sanctuary in the trailer park as best he could provide it. I’d watched him pretend not to speak English and stall the inmigradón , the cops, and the dogcatcher long enough for Bill Baldy and Bobby Harvey to hustle folks — and dogs — to higher ground. And when the people from Social Services came to take Judy to a group home, he’d chased them all the way out of the trailer park and up Jeff Davis, spitting and cussing in two languages. “ Neek hallak! She already lives in a goddamned group home! What the fuck do you think this is?”

I had no plans to ask the Arab for help, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t willing to take my chances anywhere else. This was where I belonged. Whatever was going to happen would just have to happen here.

A knock at a trailer door after midnight is never good news. Sometimes it’s crack whores, sometimes it’s drunk Mexicans, and occasionally it’s Bobby Harvey coming home to the wrong place after too many sips of Wild Irish Rose. But tonight? Since it was technically tomorrow, it must have been the knock. I took one more sip of coffee and one more drag off my cigarette. At least I would get it over with now, without the dread. It’s the dread that kills you. Well, the dread and the four hundred and twenty-eight dollars in old crack debts that you didn’t make back belly dancing in a diner.

I stood behind the closed door and said a quick prayer of intercession to Jesus, Allah, Iggy, Saleem Hassan, and whoever else might be listening. I hoped that it would be Ivan himself, and not one of his lackeys, so that maybe memories of all the good times might buy me another day or two. Or less cruelty, at least. Not that there had actually been any good times.

I opened the door and looked out, and then down, to see not Ivan but Marwan standing on my step, his low-slung champagne-colored Mazda as out of place as he was in Rudd’s Trailer Park.

“Jamila, habibi , I followed you here. Look, I want to talk to you for real, because you’re making a mistake.”

“There’s no mistake,” I said, angry that he wasn’t Ivan. I had already gotten psyched up for getting killed. “I’m not going to work at your club and I don’t like being followed, so get lost.”

“No, seriously.” He placed his hand on the door to my trailer. “Lemme talk to you because you’re making a big mistake.”

“I think you’re the one who’s mistaken,” I said through my teeth, leaning my weight against the door to keep him out. “I don’t want anything to do with your club. Now get lost.”

“Fuck you. I drive all the way to the Southside to a fucking trailer park to give you a job and you don’t have no manners?” He stuck the toe of his Italian leather shoe against the door and kept it there. “You fucking piece of trash, you should be grateful I even talk to you!” His breath came through the crack of the door, hot in my face, smelling like fruity tobacco. Over his head I could just see the window of Beau’s trailer. Beau stood up slowly from the sofa, looked my way, and turned out his light.

“Fuck you, sharmouta!” Marwan spat once, twice on the steps of my trailer. “You’re not even beautiful! Kelbeh!” After his last insult, he smacked the side of the trailer hard with his open palm. The vibration made the cymbals on the table chime faintly, like a distant call to prayer. Marwan wedged his arm and shoulder into the crack of the door and grabbed a handful of my hair. I leaned back to pull myself loose, but I couldn’t get far enough away and keep the door shut, so instead I tried to twist around and bite him. I had just gotten a good toothhold on his wrist when his body jerked up like a marionette. Through the crack of the door I saw Beau’s big arm hooked around Marwan’s neck. Beau pulled him out of my door, off my step, and up into a standing camel clutch that would have made the Iron Sheik proud.

Beau held Marwan like that for a good thirty seconds, just long enough to scare him, and then flung him loose onto the ground. It was a short fall, broken by an errant cinder block. Every trailer park has them. Unfortunately for Marwan, this one happened to be exactly where it was, and its corner made a sickening thud as it connected with his temple.