Adrian McKinty - Fifty Grand

Jack’s shirt. His breath on my neck. A joke. A question.

Yes, Jack, I do. I want to feel your body on top of me, I want you to give yourself to me utterly, completely, all of you, Jack, even if only for a night.

Another refill and I caught him looking at his own reflection in the window. He grinned sheepishly. It’s ok, Jack, this is you at your peak, lead rolls in the pictures, money, women, fame. This is you on top, before the injections and the rejections. You shouldn’t be ashamed to look. You’re fabulous.

“New haircut, not sure I like it,” he said and pulled a strand or two.

Oh, don’t speak, Jack, just come over.

Why is it always the woman who has to show the man? I thought, drained the third martini and got up from the couch. I stepped out of my skirt and panties, I let the blouse fall to the floor, I unhooked my hair.

“Two hundred dollars in a new place on Pearl and they didn’t even trim my sideburns,” he said, still looking at the haircut, but then he saw me and his common sense kicked in. His mouth closed. He put down his glass.

“Fuck,” he said.

“My sentiments exactly,” I replied.

Blindfolded dawn. Sound, then light. A timer clicks, a motor whirrs, and the curtains pull back by themselves. Snow at morning’s door. A pinkish-white dusting on the balcony rail.

The sun inching over the Front Range but as yet invisible behind a smother of low gray clouds. Above the clouds, a red sky turning American blue.

Hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

Something’s wrong. A shiver.

“Jack?”

But Jack’s asleep. Dreaming of Oscars and Spirit Awards.

I sit up and look around the bedroom.

Maybe Youkilis has come in early.

Maybe I’ve overplayed my hand.

No, the alarm box in the bedroom is still blinking. It hasn’t been disabled. No one’s come in.

Is there someone outside? A deranged fan? I have read about such things in French magazines.

I slip out from between the covers, find a pair of Jack’s sweatpants and one of his T-shirts. I pull on the sweatpants, tie the band tight, and tuck in the T. The T-shirt says “Total Loser” on it. Why would someone buy that? It must be an American joke. How long would I have to be in this country to stop feeling like an alien? Did Dad ever get over it? I think of Mork in that Yuma show from the seventies-that was Colorado too.

I walk to the glass doors and scan the balcony and the gravel drive that leads to the road. Chairs. Bird footprints. Snow . Once I would have run outside. Not now. I’ll never see it again after tomorrow. Not until Jefe and Little Jefe finally go to be with Marx.

Hector’s voice: Well, Mercado, what else do you see with that keen cop eye of yours?

A water tower rising like a Wells tripod from the trees. A breeze ruffling the upper branches. A plane on the approach to Vail.

No psychotic stalkers or fans.

Spotlights at the big Cruise estate at the top of the mountain are making a kind of false dawn. Spotlights and a flashing red landing beacon. The helicopter bringing Mr. Cruise will be here soon.

I walk to the window nearest the bathroom and check the garden and Jack’s car. The gate is closed and the car is still in its spot.

There’s nothing out there, I say to myself.

I sit on the ottoman and pull the hair back from my face. On a desk I find some other one-night stand’s scrunchie and make a short ponytail.

What now?

I could do breakfast, but Jack’s TiVo says it’s only 6:15. Too early to get up quite yet.

I don’t want to go for a walk. I don’t want to sit here.

Hell with this.

I lift the duvet, slide back underneath the cover, and sidle my way next to him.

“Jack,” I whisper but he’s out.

His breathing hushed, slow. One of my hairs falls on his face. His nose twitches.

What am I doing here with this lovely boy? The psalmist has words for you. But not me. I’m content to say nothing, to lose myself in the silence, to ripen in your good looks.

Oh, Jack, you’ll never get taken seriously as an actor with that face. You ought to be in Attica judging beauty contests between Hera and Aphrodite. You ought to be out in the earthblack woods, butterflies alighting at your passing, does sniffing the air.

You’re so un-Cuban. So finely sculpted-masculine, poised, confident. Like the statue of David I will never be allowed to travel to see. You can. You can do whatever you like. You’re one of those imperialist Yankees we read about in high school. One of those white men who run the globe. Sure, I’ll meet your friends, Jack, and you can meet mine. Tell Paco he’ll never be a big cheese like you. Tell Esteban that this isn’t Mexico anymore. This is your land, Jack. You beat them all to it. You were here before Columbus slipped anchor for China. You were here first. Flying your Enola Gay . Singing “Jail-house Rock.” Bunny-hopping on the moon. Let me be here with you, Jack, let me stroke those washboard abs, that botticino marble skin, let me ride that long American cock and lick the sweat from your back.

I slide my hand between his thighs but the Ambien and martinis keep him down.

I’m leaving, Jack. I’m going soon. You’ll come see me? Defy the U.S. Treasury. Rendezvous in the Hotel Nacional. A good career move. Maybe they’ll put your picture up next to Robert Redford’s.

He grins in his sleep and I close my eyes. Feel his warmth. Lie there.

The winter sun burning through clouds. Ice melt. Water tap-tap-tapping on the window. My boy smiling in his dream.

I touch his cheek and his eyelashes flicker.

Wake up and we’ll skip this scene. I could be legal by noon. Drive me to the FBI office in Denver. This year alone five thousand Cubans have come over the border from Mexico, all of them now on the path to citizenship. Citizen Mercado and her boyfriend, Jack.

You like the sound of that?

And I’ll forgive Paul or Esteban or Mrs. Cooper.

María is the sovereign lady of forgiveness.

Forgive. Yes. I don’t even think I’d care if it was you, Jack. Not Youkilis, Youkilis covering for you somehow.

It wouldn’t matter, would it, Jack?

Uhh, he says in agreement.

I put my arm under him. My breasts press against his back.

Yes. Let’s slip away.

You’ll understand, Dad, won’t you? After all, what did you ever care about any of us? What were you thinking about on that slope? Did you see my face? Ricky’s? Not Mom’s. Probably you were drunk or high. Crying out for Karen or the girls you had on the side. Drunk and happy like you were the day you abandoned us in Santiago. Did you see me as you lay dying? You were not on my mind. I wasn’t even in Havana. Wild goose chase for a wife killer. Train to Laguna de la Leche. Reading one of Hector’s extensive collection of banned books. Thucydides. Given to me as a birthday present. Yeah, that’s right… the day after my birthday. Well, Pop, did you even bother to look down on me on your way to eternity? You would have liked Pajero, near Laguna-a perfect shithole. Moonshine shacks, tin houses, open sewers. Our killer-of course-long gone. Girl on a bicycle brought me a message from town. Señora, a phone call from Havana. Phone call? Sí, señora . Back together on the bike. Two of us. East among the sunflowers. East into the dying sunflowers, the words of Pericles by the lake, while you were being unmade.

Ring-ring on a rickety black café phone from the thirties.

Ricky’s voice as distant as the moon.

How did you find me?

Listen, darling sit down, are you sitting? I’m sorry, Dad’s dead, some kind of accident in Colorado.

What? Where?

Colorado.

My first thought: Good riddance. Not one letter. Not one dollar.