Natashia Deon - Grace

“Asshole charmers,” she say. “You heard of snake charmers? Snake charmers hypnotize snakes with flutes and shit. My guns do the same to assholes.”

She blows a stream of white.

“And they’re a good distraction,” she say. “Keeps ’em in a trance long enough for my girls to pick a pocket, shop, and be back with empty wallets by the time the game is through.”

“But you could kill yourself.”

“And?”

“You could be dead.”

“And by the time of my funeral, my girls would be best dressed. Now, if you finished with your concern, gon’ and get my bath water ready.”

“Naomi,” I say. “My name. It’s Naomi.”

“All right, Naomi. . get yer ass up and fix my bath water.”

“Yes’m.”

I run across the hall to the bath where I already put her water. I pour flower oil in it ’cause she like that. I always bathe her and wash her hair. It’s nice hair.

I make sure it ain’t too cold, pour in a little more hot from my kettle, then cool from my pitcher. It’s just right. Five lit candles make the room yellow and warm. I give it one spray of perfume to clean the air and float a lily on top of the calm water.

Cynthia bursts through the door, drops her towel, and stomps in the bath, splashing water everywhere. Her cigarette bounces from her bottom lip, she say, “It’s always them little-dick mother fuckers that want me to make the most noise.”

She pushes herself forward in the water so a wave of warm flows back over her. She stops to take a drag of her cigarette, turns to me like she gon’ ask me something, but blows out smoke instead.

I mumble.

“Speak up!” she say.

“Christian?” I said. “You Christian?”

“Nope.”

“I mean. . was you one? You seem to know the Bible and all. The verse about shepherds. I thought. .”

“Ain’t one. Never been one. Ain’t gon’ be one now, so don’t try to sign me up. Here, wash my back.”

I don’t want to ask her no more questions.

“I want to show you something,” she say.

She’s still wet from the bath and wraps her towel around herself. The oils I put in her water are steaming off her, smelling like a face full of roses. “Where we going?” I say.

She kneels down next to the bathtub and reaches her arm under it, huffing. “Help me with this.”

I follow her around and get on my knees, too, look under the tub and see her fiddling with a copper latch laid on the floor. It looks like a door knocker but I don’t see no door.

She taps the knocker with her fingertips trying to lift it. It slips away. She tries again. It flips over this time. Thuds. “There,” she say. “Help me move this tub.”

“Be easier we get the water out first.”

“We gon’ move it. Just like it is.” Weren’t a question.

I roll to my butt, put my feet against the tub with hers and we push with our legs. Grunt. Push. It moves. We push it all the way back past the latch. She crawls over to it, holding her towel tight against her chest. I sit up on my knees.

The latch is in the center of a square door etched in the floor. Cynthia pulls the door open. Dust rises while clumps of dirt, stuck to the bottom of the door, crumble down the passage and rests on the top step of disappearing stairs. Piano music swells up from the dark hole — an echo of what’s going on in the saloon out front. Cynthia starts down the stairs. “You comin?”

I shake my head no. “It’s dark down there.”

“Come on,” she say, not asking.

I say a quick prayer and follow.

My white dress powders brown in the dirt as we slowly walk under the brothel. Above us are all of its rooms. Light shines through the floor boards touching our faces. A woman’s high-heeled shoes tap and shuffle in the kitchen above us — Bernadette’s in there bent over the sink with her boyfriend behind her. She’s supposed to be working. Cynthia huffs and keeps walking, steps over some lump in the dirt. I kick whatever it was out the way, thought it was a stick at first but it’s a stiff dead thing. My knees buckle and Cynthia grabs my arm. “It’s up this way,” she say.

Above us, the slits between the floorboards become wider because of the warped boards. “Water damaged,” Cynthia say. “Fools laid the new floor right over the rotten joists.” Some of the wood boards under the bar don’t even touch. They’re opened like a gapped-toothed man, teeth staked in the gums, showing everything inside — food and drink and tongue and voice. I can see everything up there.

Men dance to the fury of fast-playing piano. Their steps hard-fall as they move with hired women captured in their two-step twirl. The bottoms of the girls’ dresses make them look like caught butterflies. Prisoners who still smile ’cause it’s for the money.

“They cain’t see us,” Cynthia say. “I bet if they blew out the candles upstairs, they’d be scared if they looked down and saw us spooks staring up at ’em from under the floor.”

I laugh a little.

Across the room upstairs, a thin man, vested and white-button-shirted, leans over Cynthia’s piano with his back to us, hiding the black and white keys but unmasking notes. Cynthia looks back at me and her face is bright like a little girl’s — giddy and happy, like she ain’t ever been a day in this whorehouse. She covers her mouth with her hand, giggling.

She takes a few steps and swoops her backside down on a bench just ahead. She dusts it off and slaps the space next to her. I sit down, too. She whispers, “This used to be my secret place. Still is. You got to do the secret handshake to be here.” She grabs my hand and hooks her pinky finger around mine, then shakes hands with me.

“I used to come down here all the time,” she say. “At first, to watch my business.” Her voice raises, “People always trying to steal from me. Gotta have eyes everywhere.”

A new couple shuffles a two-step above us.

“After a while,” she say. “When Sam came to work for me, ’bout four years in, I changed some things around. Didn’t need to be there all the time. I could be at peace down here. Think.” She smiles, lowers her eyes, like she’s embarrassed she telling me this. So I smile back at her to let her know it’s all right.

She say, “I imagine some whore before me, before I owned it, snuck down here and did this, too. Watched. Maybe she waited for her prince to come rescue her.” She points to a door behind us. It’s wonky and broken like the floorboards above us. I can see clear through the crooked pieces of the door to the porch steps outside. “Right through there is the front porch. I reckon she made it out that way.”

“You think she found her prince?” I say.

“She ain’t here, is she?”

Cynthia hugs her knees to her chest and watches the dancers do another pass above us.

“Why didn’t you leave?” I say.

Her legs drop from the bench. “You dumb or something? This is mine. I ain’t never leaving. Maybe you ought to be the one going. I been taking care of your ass too long.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to. .”

She act like I’m not here now.

I really am sorry.

Sorry I said it. Sorry I made her remember we ain’t little girls. Sorry we ain’t in a secret club and we ain’t innocent.

“Ain’t nobody comin for me,” she say, and draws her knees up again. “Don’t need nobody to, neither.”

I don’t say nothing else. I wait and watch her relax to the swirl above us where red curtains and dim lights paint the room. I could fall asleep right here.

The brothel door at the top of the steps swings open into the room and behind us new feet stomp up the porch steps. But by the time we turn around to see, the shoes have disappeared. They appear again in the doorway. New customers.