Shoot the Moonlight Out, page 14
“You mind if I smoke?” Lily asks. She reaches into her bag for the pack of Parliament Lights stuffed below all the folded stories.
Jack shakes his head.
“Want one?”
Another no.
She lights her cigarette.
Bimsy brings their food, even shakier than before. Lily thinks about ordering another Russian Roulette, but she decides against it. She doesn’t want to come off as too much of a lush. Her grilled cheese is about the saddest thing she’s ever seen. It looks like a toy rubber sandwich that comes with one of those kitchen playsets kids have. It’s pale, not buttery and golden like she remembers. The cheese dripping from the side is neon orange. A soggy pickle, which seems drained of its green, is next to it on the plate. Lily picks up half the sandwich, holding her cigarette away from her, and takes a bite. She wonders if it’s always been this bad, if she’s developed actual taste in the last few years, or if the Roulette’s gone so far downhill that they can’t help but fuck up a simple grilled cheese. She pushes the plate away and focuses on her smoke.
Jack spoons some soup into his mouth and seems unimpressed.
“I dated this guy Micah in college,” Lily says, finally ready to talk about what’s been on her mind. “We didn’t go out long. He was okay at first and then he was terrible. He lives in Westchester. That’s where he’s from. I guess he found out I was back in New York after graduation and he started calling me a bunch. Kept threatening to show up at my house. He finally did a few days ago. Said he’s staying at a motel in Coney Island and he’s not leaving until I see him. I feel like he’s watching me all the time. As soon as I get home, he calls, which means he’s either calling the whole time I’m out or he knows exactly when I get home.”
Jack looks around the diner. “You don’t see him here, do you?”
Lily takes a long drag off her cigarette and then takes a good look at the faces of the people occupying various booths and tables. “I don’t see him, but he could be outside. Even if he’s not following following me, it’s too much that he’s here when I told him not to come, that he’s hounding me. I haven’t given him the time of day.”
“Absolutely,” Jack says. “He calls once, maybe twice, that’s one thing. Take the no and move on.”
“I’m just so uneasy. That’s what was going on with me in class tonight. I’m probably making more of it than it is. I haven’t heard anything since yesterday. Maybe he smartened up and went back home. I’m sure it has to happen like that sometimes, right? It’s not all like the TV movies where the guy goes full psycho.”
“How you’re feeling is understandable.” Jack’s speaking through gritted teeth. He seems angry.
Lily butts out her cigarette in the glass ashtray on the table. Inexplicably, a clown’s smiling face is in the center of the ashtray, also emblazoned in gold. Under the face, in script, is another slogan: HAVE A LAUGH AT THE ROULETTE! Ashes smudged on the clown’s nose and all over his hair. “Jesus, these things are creepy,” she says, pulling it near her to take a closer look. “Who puts a clown in an ashtray?”
Jack presses his spoon around in his soup, turning the yellow mush of the lentils even mushier. He takes the final swig of his coffee.
Lily continues: “I never thought I’d have a stalker, you know? I guess no woman worries about it until it happens. I know it happens a lot—all these bad men—but I never thought it’d happen to me. I’m freaked out.”
“I can help you if you want my help,” Jack says.
“I don’t want to get you involved. I didn’t bring him up because I was hoping you’d offer to help, but it’s really nice of you. My mother’s pretty much brushed me off. Her new boyfriend thinks I’m overreacting too.”
Jack leans forward. Some smoke still lingers between them. “I know we don’t know each other that well, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Guys like this Micah are unpredictable. Yeah, some of them might finally come to their senses, but some of them get it in their heads that they’ll do whatever they have to do to get what they want. I don’t want to scare you more, but I bet a lot of women don’t know it’s the worst-case scenario until it’s too late.”
She nods, nudges at her grilled cheese on the plate, considers taking another bite but decides not to. “Thank you for saying that. Too many people would give him the benefit of the doubt. Say he’s just trying to learn to process rejection or whatever.”
“You remind me so much of Amelia,” Jack says after a couple of seconds pass. “Maybe our paths crossed for a reason, huh? I know that’s a stretch. I’m not the most religious guy in the world or anything. I don’t like when people say ‘God did this’ and ‘God did that,’ but maybe God did bring us together because you need your father back and I need my daughter back.” He pauses, as if he regrets what he’s just said, as if he knows it’s just too much too soon. “I’m sorry. That’s a lot to put on someone you barely know. My world’s real small. Please forgive me for linking you to Amelia. You’re your own person. I just, you know”—struggling to make words now—“never expected a second chance. I can help you.”
Lily thinks that what he’s said is a lot, but it also feels true. She’s moved. In this diner—where she used to come with her father—she feels suddenly like Jack’s daughter. She’s not really even sure what he means when he says he can help but she certainly appreciates his saying it. She’s not sure how to respond. She reaches into her bag, pulls out another cigarette, and rolls it around between her fingers. She taps her nail against the edge of the recessed filter. “I don’t believe in God anymore,” she says finally, “but I feel like maybe you’re right. Maybe something brought us together.”
FRANCESCA
That first night at Long Eddy’s when Bobby showed up, Francesca didn’t think things would go very far. She second-guessed whatever feeling she’d had that made her want to call him in the first place. When he arrived, they sat together awkwardly in a booth, each other’s phone numbers smudged on their hands, and tried to talk. A candle burned on the table. The jukebox played songs she didn’t know. Pierce kept serving them drinks, which loosened things up. She’d gotten mostly sober waiting for Bobby, refusing a few rounds, but when he was finally there, her nerves got the best of her and she started really putting them back again. Beers, shots, whatever Pierce brought over. Bobby, also clearly nervous, did the same. Within an hour, they were dancing.
They left the bar around 3:30 A.M., stumbling, not knowing where they would go. They got slices at a pizza joint that was still open. The slices weren’t very fresh—the cheese was marbled, the crust crispy and cracked—but, in the moment, it was just about the best thing she ever tasted. They sat on the sidewalk against the wall of the pizzeria, smelling piss and bleach in the air. Bars around them were starting to close down. Staggering adults and staggering kids passed in front of them. She’s surprised she remembers as much as she does. It was the drunkest she’s ever been. When she left Long Eddy’s, Pierce made her promise she’d come back.
After finishing their slices, Francesca scooched closer to Bobby, sitting there against the wall, putting her head on his shoulder. They sat like that for a while. They talked about outer space. She said that sometimes she liked to imagine hurtling through space. Swimming through all that silence. Bobby said he had a dream that he was living on a colony on Mars once. After a while, they kissed. His lips were rough. He tasted of the pizza.
They decided to walk around. Bobby said maybe they could find an all-night diner and get coffee. That’s just what they did. She doesn’t remember the name of the place or what street it was on. She remembers neon and chrome. A bright spot in the dark night. A crinkling vinyl booth. A bathroom with graffiti on the mirror. Squatting drunkenly over the toilet, trying not to touch the seat. They ordered coffee, yes, but they also ordered dessert. He got cherry pie. She got a hot-fudge sundae. Their server was sweet. A blur of red hair and perfume. She asked if they were married. They laughed. It had somehow become one of her favorite nights ever.
After the diner, they wandered around until the sun came up. They got coffees to go and drank them on a bench in Washington Square Park. She talked about movies. He said they should stay up until the theaters opened and then go see a movie. She agreed. She slept with her head on his shoulder for about an hour. When they got up, she grabbed a Village Voice from a newspaper rack and checked the listings. Ten was the earliest show. He said for her to pick. He didn’t know about any of the movies. She chose Sexy Beast.
They both loved it. She felt sure Bobby would fall asleep after being up all night, and she thought that might kill the magic, but he munched popcorn and stared wide-eyed at the screen. Despite the coffee and all the wandering, they were both still drunk. The hangover took hold near the end of the movie. They finally kissed again during the credits.
On the train back home to Brooklyn, Bobby asked when he could see her next.
“How about tomorrow?” she said.
“Tomorrow, as in today?” he asked.
“Today, sure. Don’t you have to work?”
“I make my own hours, pretty much.”
He walked her home. Victoria was at camp, but Grandma Eva gave her hell. She said she smelled like booze and the city, which was exactly what she smelled like and there wasn’t much better. Grandma Eva said she was throwing her life away. Francesca ignored her and went to bed. It was almost two thirty in the afternoon.
A call from Bobby woke her up around eight that night. She felt lucky to have grabbed it before Grandma Eva or Victoria. He asked how she felt. Not too great, she said. Her head was spinning. She found some Tylenol in the pantry and drank it down with a full glass of water. It felt like the first glass of water she’d had in years. Grandma Eva watched her while she talked on the phone. Victoria gave her space. Bobby asked if she wanted to go out for dinner in the neighborhood. Maybe Chinese food on Eighty-Sixth Street. She said yes. Victoria asked if she was okay. She said she was great, that she’d had a great night, just too much to drink. Grandma Eva’s voice got raspy and desperate. “No granddaughter of mine’s gonna behave like this,” she said.
Francesca took a shower and got dressed and met Bobby at a cramped little Chinese place next to a fruit stall on Eighty-Sixth Street. Chickens and ducks hung in the window. They sat at a booth in the back with a red tabletop and ordered egg rolls and lo mein. Bobby was hungover. He said he’d called Max, his boss, and told him he wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t come into work. Max was pissed. Francesca talked about her grandmother. The food helped with their hangovers.
The next night they went to a movie at the Marboro. Evolution. It wasn’t very good. Bobby fell asleep this time, and she didn’t hold it against him.
There were other dates that week too. A pool hall in Bay Ridge. An afternoon and evening of browsing at Kim’s Underground and Bleecker Bob’s and Other Music and Mercer Street Books and Generation Records. Drinks again at Long Eddy’s, though Pierce wasn’t tending bar this time. They shared one of Francesca’s hand-rolled cigarettes under the awning outside. The next night they got drinks at the Keyhole Cocktail Lounge, and the old Ukrainian bartender was the drunkest she’d ever seen him. They stayed until four and had to help him close. They brought him upstairs to his apartment—he lived right over the bar—and tucked him into bed. He passed out cold and they were standing there in his strange apartment, full of tchotchkes and framed family pictures, the smell of leftover coffee in the air, and Bobby kissed her, really kissed her, and she felt happy. They went back to the same all-night diner, not quite as drunk as last time but still pretty drunk, and got dessert again. The next day was another throwaway. She got home around noonish, Grandma Eva really railing on her. Bobby skipped work again.
Last night, they met at the Roulette Diner, splitting a plate of disco fries. Bobby asked if she wanted to get a room in the city and she knew what he was really asking. He said he realized it hadn’t been that long but it’d been such an intense week and he was feeling strong feelings for her, the kind he’d never felt. She felt like she knew him as well as she’d ever known a boy. Better. “Yes,” she said. He said he’d find a place if she wanted or they could just wander around until they found somewhere. It was New York City and there had to be hundreds of hotels and motels, though they’d both never paid much attention to stuff like that. There was the one on St. Mark’s they both knew of. They didn’t know how much it or any place would cost, though. Could be a lot. She said it was better to wander and let fate guide them. They’d wind up where they were meant to wind up.
Now, after a week she never could’ve anticipated, she’s headed back into the city with Bobby. She’s not sure she believes in fate. Not at all. But it felt like the thing to say in the moment. She’d never had a thought like that before. She’d never spoken of fate. Was it fate that her father died? That a big hunk of concrete and rebar fell on his head? Was it fate that her mother made her father move to Southern Brooklyn? Was it fate that her parents met at Long Eddy’s? Was it fate that Francesca’s path crossed with Bobby’s via Max Berry on a dumb nothing afternoon when the world seemed like it might be dull forever? Maybe she does believe in fate.
She looks over at Bobby now as the train rumbles underground between Thirty-Sixth Street and Pacific Street. If she had to explain to someone what she likes about him in a couple of sentences, she’s not sure she’d be able to say it coherently. He’s different from any boy she’s ever been interested in. Not as showy. Not as swaggery. He has these heavy, sad eyes. She likes the way he’s sitting there, bent over, his elbows on his knees, tapping his foot. His hair’s effortlessly messy, like he planned it that way. He’s wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. She usually likes tall guys, but he’s about her same height, maybe an inch shorter. He has nice lips. If she had a camera, she’d focus on his lips. She’d also focus on his hands. He has soft hands. He flexes them a lot, opening and closing them, stretching his palms and fingers wide. He says they hurt when he doesn’t do that, he’s not sure why. They’ve been holding hands the last couple of days like it’s sixth fucking grade and it’s been wonderful. Those lips have kissed her neck and her ears. She asked him yesterday if he’d ever seen Drugstore Cowboy. He said he hadn’t. She said they should rent the tape. She said he really reminded her of Matt Dillon in it. It isn’t that he looks a lot like Dillon—the thought she had right after first meeting Bobby—but there’s something about his cool aloofness that rings the same bell. The name of Dillon’s character is Bob in that movie too. She had the poster up on her wall for a while, salvaged from Wolfman’s video store when he dumped a bunch of stuff he previously had in the windows. Dillon’s Bob was hugging Kelly Lynch’s Dianne, his head against her chest. She always remembers it as such a romantic movie. Grandma Eva ripped down her poster because she said it was promoting drug use. To push Grandma Eva’s buttons, Francesca told her she’d never shot heroin, but that she’d sure as hell try it given the opportunity.
“You ever think about getting out of Brooklyn?” Francesca asks now, daydreaming suddenly of a life on the run. Moving from motel to motel. Dust caught in the shafts of sunlight streaming in between the heavy curtains. Those beds, walls, and sad carpets. Watching movies on a motel room TV with crackly reception. Thinking of Drugstore Cowboy led her down this path. What would they be running from? What would they be running to? She pictures them as Bonnie and Clyde types, robbing a bank, pouring money out on the bed. Neither of them even has a car.
“All the time,” Bobby says.
“Where would you want to go? You know, if money wasn’t an issue.”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Vegas.”
She thought she knew him a little and then he says something like Vegas in response to that question. She’s not sure what response she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Vegas. All those lights. Casinos. Showgirls. Hookers. Drinking yourself to death like that Nicolas Cage movie. That’s what she thinks of when she thinks of Vegas. “Really? Why?”
“I don’t know. I had a dream once that I was gambling and winning at a casino in Vegas. I don’t even know how I knew it was Vegas. It was just sort of written into the dream. Anyhow, I was really happy in that dream. It’s dumb. I’ve never even gambled in real life. I could start, though.”
“Good to know. I didn’t figure you for a Vegas type.”
“Where’d you think I’d say?”
“I guess I figured you’d say you never really thought about leaving New York. Like most people.”
“What about you? Where would you go?”
“I mentioned Los Angeles when we first met. If I really want to make movies, I need to be out there, I think.”
They pass over the bridge and get off at Broadway-Lafayette. They begin wandering around. Victoria gave Francesca thirty bucks the other day, and she has that in her pocket. Grandma Eva yelled that she had to stop giving her handouts. That the kid was done with high school and needed a job. That didn’t stop her mom, who was always good about passing her a few bucks if she had it to spare. She asks Bobby if he has any money and he says he does. Max just paid him in cash, and he’s got a hundred fifty bucks tucked into his sock. It’s something she should’ve thought about earlier, but she assumed he had things taken care of since it was his idea.
Their first stop is the hotel on St. Mark’s. She realizes she doesn’t really know the difference between motels and hotels. Truth is, she hasn’t stayed in many. The only time was on a trip to Florida when she was eight and her dad was still around. They drove to Disney World, staying in roadside places along the way, and then settled at a Motel 6 in Orlando. She didn’t remember much about that trip. Pools. Stained walls. Water that tasted like matches. Many meals at Denny’s and Shoney’s. The hot glow of Disney. Flashes of rides. Her father sweating. Her mother eating soft serve ice cream over her palm.
