Atwood Margaret - The Heart Goes Last

“Brewski,” says a man at the bar. “Same as before.” Charmaine smiles impersonally and bends over to take the beer out of the fridge. Straightening up, she sees herself in the mirror – she’s still herself, she’s still there, not too tired-looking despite the restless night – and catches the man staring at her. She turns her eyes away. Was she teasing, was she flaunting it, bending over like that? No, she was only doing her job. Let him stare.

Last week, Sandi and Veronica asked her if she’d like to turn a few. She could make more that way than she was making behind the bar; way more, if she’d go offsite. They had a couple of rooms nearby they could use, classier than the Fuck Tank, real beds. Charmaine had a fresh look: the clients liked sweet, big-eyed, kiddie-faced blondes like her.

Oh no, Charmaine said. Oh no, I couldn’t! Though she’d had a tiny flash of excitement, like peering in through a window and seeing another version of herself inside, leading a second life; a more raucous and rewarding second life. At least more rewarding financially, and she’d be doing it for Stan, wouldn’t she? Which would excuse it. Doing those things with strange men. Different things. What would it be like?

But no, she couldn’t, because it was way too dangerous. You never knew what men like that would do, they could get carried away. And what if Stan found out? He’d never go for it, no matter how much they needed the cash. He’d be destroyed. Besides, it was wrong.

Stumped

Stan tries Conor’s last known address, a boarded-up bungalow on a street that’s only semi-inhabited. There might be faces looking out of some of the windows, there might not. Possibly they’re only tricks of the light. There’s what might once have been a communal garden, with what might be some withered pea vines. A few wooden stakes poking up from the spiky knee-high weeds. On the broken sidewalk leading up to the porch there’s a skull painted in red, like the one he and Con had decorated their tool shack clubhouse with when he was ten. What had they intended? Pirates, no doubt. Strange how the symbols persist.

This house was where Con was squatting when Stan last saw him, two or was it three years ago. He’d had a message from Con, which had sounded urgent, but when he’d got here it was only the usual: Con needed a loan.

He’d found Con in a tank top and Speedo shorts, a line of spiders tattooed up his arm, throwing a knife at an inside wall – to be precise, throwing it at the outline of a naked woman drawn in marker – while a few of his witless buddies passed spliffs and cheered him on. Stan still had a job then and was feeling self-righteous so he’d done the big brother thing and chewed Con out over his shiftless ways, and Con had told him to sodomize himself. One of the buddies had offered to rip Stan’s head off, but Con had only laughed and said that if there were any heads to be ripped off he could do it himself, then adding, “He’s my bro, he always does that before the high finance.” After some glaring, they’d ended by doing the double back pat and Stan had leant him a couple of hundred, which he hasn’t seen since but would sure like to have now. But then Stan had made a mistake and asked about that long-ago Swiss Army knife, and Con had laughed at him for getting so bent out of shape about a stupid knife, and they’d ended up trading angry insults just as if they were ten.

Stan knocks on the blistered green door. No answer, so he pushes at the door, which is unlocked. Some arsonist must have set fire to the place from within because it’s semi-carbonized; hot sunlight glints off the shards of window scattered across the floor. He has the queasy idea that Conor might still be somewhere inside the house in blackened skeletal form, but there’s nobody in any of the charred and roofless rooms. The smell of smoke oozes from the singed, mouse-riddled furniture.

When he comes back out there’s a man peering into his car, with larceny in mind no doubt. The guy looks scrawny enough and doesn’t appear to be holding a weapon, so Stan could tackle him if need be. Still, best to stand well back.

“Hey,” he says to the dingy grey shirt and balding skull. The guy whips round.

“Just looking,” he says. “Nice car.” Ingratiating smile, but Stan isn’t fooled: there’s a cunning flicker in the sunken eyes. Maybe a knife?

“I’m Conor’s brother,” he says. “He used to live here.” Something shifts: whatever he was planning, the guy won’t try it now. That means Con must still be alive, with even more of an evil reputation than he had two years ago.

“He’s not here,” says the guy.

“Yeah, I can see that,” says Stan. There’s a silence. Either the guy knows where Conor is, or he doesn’t. He’s trying to assess what it’s worth to Stan. Then he will either lie and try to lead Stan astray, or not. A few years ago Stan would have found this situation more frightening than he does now.

Finally the man says, “But I know where.”

“So, you can take me there,” says Stan.

“Three bucks,” says the guy, holding out his hand.

“Two. Once I see him,” says Stan, keeping his left hand in his pocket. He has no intention of paying for a blank space with no Conor in it. He has no intention of paying anyway, since he doesn’t have two bucks on him. But Con will have two bucks. Con can pay. That, or kick the guy’s teeth in, what’s left of them.

“How do I know he wants to see you?” says the guy. “Maybe you’re not his brother.”

“That’s the chance you take,” says Stan, smiling. “Do we drive?” This could be hazardous – he’ll need to let the guy sit in the front seat with him, and there might still be a weapon. But he has to risk it.

They get in, each of them wary. Down the street, around the corner. Along another street, this one with a few ratty kids kicking a deflated soccer ball. Finally, a trailer park, or at least some parked trailers. Couple of slitty-eyed guys at the entrance, one brown, one not, blocking their way. So, a fortress of sorts.

Stan stops the car, lowers the window. “I’m here to see Conor,” he says. “I’m Stan. His brother.”

“That’s what he told me,” says the guy beside him, covering his ass.

One of the guards kicks the left front car tire half-heartedly. The other talks briefly on his cellphone. He peers through the window, then talks some more – a description of Stan, no doubt. Then motions him to get out of the car.

“Don’t worry, we’ll watch it for you,” says the phone-wielder, reading Stan’s mind, which features at the moment a car with no tires left on it and not much of anything else. “Just go through. Herb’ll take you.”

“Pray he’s the brother,” the second man says to Herb. “Otherwise you’ll be digging two holes.”

Conor’s out behind the farthest trailer, in a weedy open space that might once have been a house lot. He looks taller. He’s lost weight; he had a slob period there for a while, but now he’s trim. He’s shooting at a beer can on a stump; no, a stack of bricks. The rifle is an old air gun Stan remembers from his boyhood. It used to be his, but Conor won it off him in an arm-wrestling tournament. Con’s idea of a tournament was simple: you played until he won, then you stopped. It wasn’t that he was bigger than Stan, but he was more devious. Also he was considerably more violent. His Off switch never worked too well when he was a kid.

Ping! goes the pellet against the can. Stan’s guide doesn’t interrupt, but he moves around to the side so Conor can’t help seeing him.

A couple more pings: Con’s making them wait. Finally he stops, leans the airgun against a cement block, and turns. Fuck, he’s even shaved. What’s got into him? “Stan the man,” he says, grinning. “How’re you keeping?” He steps forward, arms wide, and they do an awkward version of the hug-and-back-pat thing.