Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

Mary’s room was at the corner of the L-shaped hall, and he came to it from the back stairs. A fresh angle on the place. A man stepped out, closing her door behind him. Pete’s stomach dropped. The man walked straight toward him, looking down. Pete gazed at him — gray temples and a hundred-dollar suit — and then turned toward the nearest door and pulled out his keys. The man walked past and exited where Pete had just entered.

Pete found himself in front of Mary’s apartment, just short of knocking. His fist in the air. He wondered what she’d say. If anything. His mind and heart fairly raced, but all his reasoned thoughts biased toward ignoring it. Not her type at all. Maybe she had some kind of business with him. Maybe it had to do with a case. Maybe he was her father.

She didn’t have a father.

Maybe she was Iris.

He ran back to the stairs that exited off the theater lobby. On the landing above the elevator, he squatted to see the operator sitting in the open car on his stool. Pete jogged up to the second floor, summoned the elevator, and was back on the landing just as the elevator door closed. He ran down the last flight of steps and outside.

Pete waited in front of the theater for the suit to exit. The man didn’t see him or recognize him if he did. Pete hung back, watching him. The guy was pushing fifty. A fit fifty. Trim, not unattractive. But still.

When the suit crossed the street and walked north, Pete remained on his side of Higgins and tailed him two blocks until he entered the Montana Building. Pete dashed through a gap in traffic and followed him into the lobby. The suit had just boarded the elevator. He stopped the door from closing.

“Thanks,” Pete said.

The man nodded. Pete entered and stood to the right and just behind the suit. He scanned the man for the flush of sex. Faint scratches and blemishes. An aura of contentment. Every hair was in place. A pleasant cologne tinged the air between them.

“Floor?” the man asked as the elevator closed.

“Eight,” Pete said.

The suit looked over at him, one eyebrow aloft. He gestured at the panel of buttons. There were only six floors.

“Top floor,” Pete said. The man pushed the button and the elevator rose.

Pete wondered what it was he intended to do following this guy.

The man exited on his floor, Pete rode the elevator to the top, back down, and got off on three. A hall of offices with frosted glass windows. Law offices.

He went outside, stood on the sidewalk for some time. A woman in a car gestured at him to cross, as he was standing in the gutter. He got himself back on the sidewalk. He loitered in the entry of Butterfly Herbs wondering what to do. There was a deep ache of jealousy within him that surprised him. He watched but did not really see a policeman question and then arrest a vagrant.

He marched back to the Wilma. The elevator operator said she was in.

“No shit,” Pete said.

She was fresh out of the shower. In her robe, steam coming off her wet black hair like a smoldering tire. He wondered did she look through the peephole to see was it him. Was it a surprise to find him there. They spoke, but beyond the usual pleasantries he could not say what of. He slipped into the bedroom as she bent over and towel-dried her hair in the bathroom. The bed was made. He smelled the linens. She spoke to him from the bathroom and he searched the wicker baskets. Her underthings. Shirts missing buttons. He searched the floor for used condoms. For a cuff link or billfold. A gray hair.

There was nothing. He thought of loose buttons.

Of Beth.

This was about his wife, about her fucking someone else.

Mary came in swabbing her ear with a Q-tip and wearing the towel on her head. He set a wicker lid back on one of her wicker baskets.

“What?” she asked, her head tilted sideways as she worked at her ear.

“I didn’t say anything.”

She righted her head and asked him what the matter was.

“Nothing.”

“Why are you digging through my shit?”

He made an innocent gesture that asked what on earth could he be looking for.

“I’ve been in more group homes than I have fingers and toes, Pete. I can tell when my space is being… inspected .”

“Who was that guy?”

“What guy,” she fairly growled. Her face said he better have a pretty good answer. A whole detailed explanation.

Is one woman all women, he asked himself. Do they know what they do to us. Do they try on cocks like shoes, and keep some of them and put back others. Is she Beth again.

She is.

“The fucking suit who came out of your door just before I got here.”

Her mouth fell open, only just.

She blinked.

“Pete, I’m gonna say this once because I can tell you’re angry and it’s freaking me out: I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bullfuckingshit. Elevator Man said you were out. Wouldn’t let me up.”

“I was out. Asshole. I just got home, showered, and I just got out when you knocked,” she said. She shook her head, as if to clear it.

“I saw him come out of your room, Mary.”

“Who?!”

“The suit! Not thirty minutes ago.”

“Wait a minute. How did you get in?”

“Fuck you is how.”

“Stop it.”

“Just tell me who he is. Don’t lie to me.”

“Okay, look—”

“Are you a prostitute?”

For a halted moment she looked like she was going to cry. Then she stepped aside and pointed at the door.

“Get out.”

“Are you Iris?”

Her fists were like billiard balls. She was naked and the towel on her head unwound and fell over her eyes and he had her by the wrists, but only for a moment as she bit his hand. He had her hair, briefly. Something hard struck his temple, and he let her go, and again his head rang and he found himself marveling that she’d acquired a hammer. She reared away from him, and he could only see through one eye and double at that. The heavy ashtray hit him square in the sternum and he doubled over.

She sobbed behind the bathroom door. He looked in horror at the strands of hair laced through his fingers and shook his hands in the air like the hairs were spiderwebs. Knots bloomed all over his skull.

She stood in the bathroom doorway. In her robe. Maybe an hour had gone by, sitting in the ashes and cigarette butts on her floor.

“I’m not Iris.”

“I know what I saw.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You went through the door off the balcony.”

“So what?”

“Pete. You were on the wrong floor.”

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” he said.

“Asshole! Listen! You started on the second floor, you went up the stairs, but you counted from street level. You went up two flights to the fourth floor. Ass. Hole.”

She closed the bathroom door. His head tingled as a fresh draw of foolishness rolled over him.

“Mary.”

He heard water running and knew she couldn’t hear him. Would that he’d never come. If he could take back the past couple hours. He sat on the bed and, when she returned, stood up and told her he was sorry. That he was an utter shit.

“That was fucked up, Pete.”

“I know. I don’t think that way of you—”

“I don’t like being accused of things.”

“Nobody does.”

“Especially not me. Half my life I’ve been blamed for shit I didn’t do. It got to where I was used to it. I carry that with me all the time. This guilt, Pete. Even now. Fuck. Fuck you.” She pointed to the window, the world outside of it. “For you to come in here…”

A long tear ran down her face and to her chin and fell to the floor. The soft pat of it on the hardwood over the traffic, the creaks of this old building. An untroubled expression of resignation on her now. She wiped her nose.