Beneath Ceaseless Skies #106, Page 3

  “Miss Em,” she said, “you have to eat.”

  Miss Em waved her hand as though trying to shoo a fly. “I’ve got no appetite.” She turned to Florence and her eyes brightened and, for a moment, she was almost like the Miss Em that Florence had met those years ago. “Did you bring my medicine?”

  Florence had.

  It wasn’t medicine. Back when Florence was new to the city, Miss Em was just smoking it. It was for her pains. She told Florence—Florence was the only one she told—about how she’d had a baby seen to once and it had ruined her insides. Each month she got terrible pains, and the opium was the only thing that helped. Miss Em would take to her pipe and sleep away an afternoon or two when her times came on her. But then she started smoking when she wasn’t bleeding; then started drinking it, an ink-colored water, even eating it whole and sticky. Things had gone bad after that. Every time she tried to stop, she got so sick they were all sure she was on her deathbed. The doctor had given her the little Bayer bottle; he said it was a safe version of what she’d taken in her pipe. He said she could take less and less of it each time and, in that way, free herself from it.

  And now she weighed no more than a child, and her hair was as white as the land Florence had come from.

  Miss Em was forty-six. “Florence,” she had said, “you’re in charge.” She’d moved upstairs. She asked Florence to inject her everyday. She didn’t say that she was dying, that she was allowing herself to die, but Florence loved her and Miss Em had always known best.

  Florence prepared the needles in the kitchen on a silver saucer. The doctor who came every month to inspect the girls and see how they were doing gave her a new bottle each time. He smiled at her sadly. But he never said that he had been wrong too, or was sorry for how it had all gone. Florence carried the needle to Miss Em on a tray with her broth.

  Miss Em’s arms were an eruption of purple, green-y old bruises and deep little pockmarks, like pits in a rotten fruit. When Florence injected her, her body went slack and her face smoothed out. Her mouth moved gently, like a fish searching for water in the air.

  “Miss Em,” Florence said, “there’s a client who cut up a girl. She got sepsis, nearly died. The DeRoss boy.”

  Miss Em snorted. She knew him.

  “I think....” Florence hesitated. “I think I should fix him?”

  Miss Em didn’t look at her but stared at the ceiling as though her eyelids would not obey her and fall. “Don’t think,” Miss Em said. “Do as I taught you.”

  Miss Em put her hand over Florence’s. It was like having a bird’s wing rest upon her skin. “Didn’t I teach you well?”

  Florence leaned down and kissed the old woman’s cheek. Like old, well-used writing paper, as soft as a baby’s tender slack flesh. “Yes, you did, Ms. Em.”

  There were…things…little itching crawling things with too many legs and strange, creeping antennae…living in his skin. He could feel them moving at night. They lived in his belly flesh and ate his dreams. There were little red crescents in the palms of his hands where his nails had bit in deep.

  Thomas itched and Thomas burned, in a rented room three neighborhoods away from where he had been holding court for the last year and a half amongst the whores and the bounders, the gamblers and sporters and black sheep like himself. His father had given him a six-month advance on his stipend, but Thomas wasn’t sure that it would be enough. Giving up the pièd a terre was an insurance measure.

  He had been told that Miss Em’s girls were special, sacrosanct, but he had never really believed it. Even the best whore was still a whore, after all.

  But part of what lured men into Miss Em’s house was the danger, the mystery. The man who told Thomas about it went starry eyed; “the sweetest pussy I ever had,” he said, “and my heart... I could feel it the whole time.” He’d grabbed Thomas’s hand, made him put his palm against the man’s chest. “I could feel it banging against my ribs.”

  Thomas had to know; he had to see. “You see?” his father had said, when he asked for the advance; “do you see what you’ve gotten yourself into? Did I raise you to cavort with tarts and conjurers?”

  Once, he had tried to get back in, but even two handfuls of bills, sweaty and crumpled from his turned-out pockets, couldn’t sway the big mulatto at the door. Someone was playing piano music inside and he could hear the cheery swell of it. Briefly, a curious white face appeared in the window in a haze of cream and lace. And then the curtain fluttered and the face disappeared.

  As he walked away, he was certain he could hear the singular liquid trill of a woman’s laughter. He clutched his head and his hands came away covered in thin, fragile hairs. “I can pay!” Thomas screamed. “I can pay!”

  The night was indifferent. The white women in the piano room laughed. Thomas itched.

  They called the woman ‘Mama’, though she said she’d never had a man. “You don’t know what I’d have to give up to lose my cherry,” she told people, when the topic was raised. Now she was big and the hair receded from the front of her skull. Her eyes were beetley and amused; her front teeth were jaggedly cracked.

  She worked out of a stall with a silk roof, between the cheesemongers and the silversmith’s in the Thursday downtown market. She sold little bags with bird talons sticking out the top, powders in paper packages, and if you came to her in the right way, if you said the right things, if you had the right amount of money, she’d sell you some conjure-work.

  “You’re marked,” she told Thomas; “it’s more’n my life’s worth to touch you.”

  “I have money.” Thomas started to dig in his pockets, but she shook her head at him.

  “It ain’t gonna save you. Make your peace, say your goodbyes. You a young man and all, there’s got to be something you’d like left to do.” She smiled at him. “I’d hurry.”

  Thomas hated her, hated the skew of her ruined teeth, the little brown sediments between them. He hated her big, winking face and her chicken feet and grave ash. Sweeping his arm along the table, Thomas smashed her wares, glass and stone alike, against the street. Mama flinched but didn’t say anything. He spit at her. Still, Mama did not speak; she stared appraisingly at the globule of saliva resting barely an inch from her arm. It was shot through with erratic threads of blood.

  “I... itch,” Thomas said, reaching under his coat and vest, despite himself, clawing at his stomach with worn-down fingernails.

  Mama shook her head. “I’m sorry, little one.”

  That night, as he was painstakingly washing his face, Thomas dropped three ivory colored teeth into his wash basin. The blood curled, infected the water.

  Officer Clark came every third Sunday of the month, and more and more he’d been bringing Mr. Witting, the accountant, along with him. They were both young and pink-cheeked; Officer Clark had a mustache, Mr. Witting did not.

  Officer Clarke craned his neck in the hopes of seeing behind half-closed doors and fluttering curtains; Mr. Witting stared at his hands, or at Florence’s sheet of numbers. Officer Clarke relaxed into the sofas and followed the girls who moved in and out of the room with his eyes; Mr. Witting sat fireplace-poker straight on the very edge of a sofa cushion and bit down hard on his lips.

  Before they came, Florence had spent two hours picking out her most demure dress and styling her hair low over her ears. She didn’t paint her face and instead just scrubbed it until it shone, milk and ivory. She faced her mirror and thought she looked like she was going to church.

  Every week, she turned the ledgers over to Officer Clark. At the bottom, there was a total and, next to that, a percentage. Officer Clark handed the ledgers to Mr. Witting, who peered at them closely, the little stub of a pencil expectant in his fingers. When Witting had given his nod, Florence handed over a small packet of cash, a sum corresponding exactly with the listed percentage. Officer Clark then smiled and tucked it into his coat. He gestured, with a flick of his eye, at the upstairs. Florence would nod. There would be a girl waiting there for him.
He favored the negro girls.

  Mr. Witting did not go upstairs. While Officer Clark busied himself, Mr. Witting sat opposite Florence and did not speak. At first, Florence had tried to engage him in conversation, even to offer him an assignation, for services rendered, but it was like shouting into the void.

  Florence sat patiently. She was at home with silence.

  “Pardon me,” Mr. Witting said. He had a way of begging one’s pardon that suggested no consideration or deference at all. “But, is Miss Em indisposed?”

  Florence smiled at him, a smile she reserved for men. “Miss Em is getting older. Running a place like this is a task for younger women. She’s earned her rest now.”

  “How old are you?” Mr. Witting asked.

  Men didn’t usually ask Florence how old she was; she had never been sufficiently sprightly of appearance to play the young girl. In fact, perhaps she had appeared too old far too soon. “I’m twenty-two,” she said.

  “Not so young, then.” Mr. Witting smiled at her; Florence wondered if it was a smile he reserved for women. “A woman unmarried at your age would generally be considered anomalous, no? But I suppose it is not exactly the same for women of your occupation.”

  “That’s true,” Florence said. “But I never had much use for marriage myself. At least when some man sweats and grunts like a hog at slaughter all over me for three minutes, I get my share afterwards.” Florence opened her silver case and selected a cigarette; she looked up at Mr. Witting as though just remembering that he was there. “Oh, but Officer Clark says you are just hitched up yourself? Congratulations, I suppose. And to the lady.”

  A little blossom of pink rose up in the center of Mr. Witting’s cheeks. A blush. He stared down at the ledger in his hands. He scoured it with his eyes.

  The old man wore a shabby overcoat in need of a brush-up and patch job. Maybe he wasn’t so old after all; his beard was still mostly brown and clotted with the remains of a dozen hurried lunches, street dust, blood from cracked lips. His hands were brown with caked dirt and they shook as he took Thomas’ hand and turned it palm-up. His eyes, watery blue and the crinkled red of burst blood vessels, widened involuntarily. “You…” he rasped.

  “I’ve got a mark,” Thomas said, jerking his hand out of the old man’s. He’d been to every dark corner of the city, every back parlor and side street. He’d spent half his advance and he hadn’t been able to sleep for three days. And everyone just took one look at him and turned him out again.

  “A real bad mark.” His voice was low and his eyes were huge; his breath in the boy’s face was a vile mixture of gone off meat and a yeasty rot. Thomas breathed shallowly through his mouth and tried to pretend that he didn’t notice.

  “Nobody will touch me,” he said. He reached into his pockets, half-expecting to be halted. He spilled the bills out careless on the ground below the man, who immediately crouched to pick them up. Thomas’ eyes were watery; the money just looked like paper, like trash.

  The man looked up at Thomas, sucked his teeth. “You got more of this?” he asked.

  Florence had carefully brushed the hair from Alice’s nightgown and put it in its own envelope. “Write your name on that,” she said, giving Alice a soft lead pencil. The girl was still muzzy in the head from fever and she had never known her letters too well, but she wrote out her name and surname in big, painstaking script. Florence burned the hair and the envelope into ashes.

  She had made Jerome hold Thomas DeRoss’ mouth open and she had written an “A” in soot upon his tongue with her fingertip. When she was done, she went to Alice’s bedside and stroked her sweaty hair. The girl’s fever had broken and she was sleeping deeply. Florence checked her daily, after she brought Miss Em her meals and medicine. Alice looked better by the day; soon she was sitting up. She lifted her nightdress obligingly, allowed Florence to check underneath. The “Thomas” was fading quickly; it was just a faint, dusky rose color now. Florence smiled at her, patted her hair like a mother.

  Florence was there at Alice’s bedside, telling her all about how she’d be up around in two shakes; how they’d done for the DeRoss boy and it wasn’t something she had to worry about no more, when Jerome came for her. Something like this could spook a girl, make her fearful and hateful. She’d either get out entirely or wind up a corpse. There was something, indelible as a word carved into flesh, that stayed with a body that’d been hurt, been wronged. It glowed; excited certain folks, certain folks who were looking for it. Florence could fix up Alice’s body, but only time would tell if she was truly ruined or not.

  Jerome stood politely in the doorway. Alice croaked out a “hello” and he nodded to her. “Florence,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Officer Clark sent his bean-counter over, said he has to talk to you. It’s important.” Jerome was impassive as always, but Florence was learning, slow and sure, how to read his face and body. She didn’t think he liked Mr. Witting any more than she did.

  But Florence put on her smiling face; she descended the stairs careless as a girl. “Always be enjoying yourself,” Miss Em told her; “this is a world without trouble, you must remember that.”

  Mr. Witting had his hat in his hand but he stared hard at her in an ungentlemanly fashion. “Miss DeWitt,” he said.

  “Mr. Witting,” she replied.

  Florence stood at the bottom of the staircase and smiled and smiled, waiting for him to speak. She was in her house, her universe; he spoke at her pleasure and she could wait until the second coming if she had to.

  After a protracted silence, Witting cleared his throat. “Officer Clark requires a larger percentage.”

  “Why?” Florence sputtered. She spoke before thinking; she sounded outraged and girlish. She thought she saw something smug and grossly pleased flicker in his face.

  “I am not privy to that information, nor do you require it.” Mr. Witting smiled. His eyes were light, bright blue. He looked like a hungry winter wolf.

  “You expect me to tithe more to a crooked copper than I do to the good lord?” Florence asked, recovering a little of her cool. Her heart was beating so rapidly; she willed it to stop, she willed her skin to resist the flush and redden.

  “The lord has nothing to do with this house,” Mr. Witting intoned. Florence could easily imagine him at a pulpit, listing the sins of the assembled and relishing their everlasting punishment.

  “We pay him as much as we can,” Florence said; “you want us to work in the red?”

  Mr. Witting shrugged. “I am not your accountant,” he replied. “But I would suggest recruiting additional young ladies? Re-evaluating your rates? Work, as anyone else must, harder and faster and better.”

  Florence eyed him, wondering if that was an innuendo. He didn’t seem the sort. “No,” she said simply.

  “You have no choice,” Mr. Witting told her, just as simply.

  Florence’s heart seemed to leap into her throat; she pressed her hand there and she could feel it pulsing urgently. She swallowed hard; she swallowed it down.

  His hands grew dry and brittle and cracked. They opened up across the palms and the knuckles, and soon he was leaving lines of red blood across his bedclothes and the possessions he had left to his name. Light hurt his eyes; he was sleeping now twelve, fifteen hours a day. He hadn’t kept anything stronger than water down in three days.

  Underneath his nightshirt—which he wore at all times now—he could feel welts raising on the skin of his stomach. They were sticky and painful to the touch. When he was not sleeping, he looked at himself in the mirror and marveled at the pale ghoul who stared back.

  “What you’re doing…whatever you’re doing…it’s not working,” he told the ragged conjure-man, who met with him in his apartment now that he could not longer negotiate the stairs. The man looked nervous and much cleaner than he had been when Thomas had met him; his hair was combed and he’d gotten a new broadcoat.

  The man smiled; his teeth were still rotty and awful. He held up a large
brown sack. It seemed to pulse gently, bulge outwards and then suck inwards, but Thomas could not be sure. His eyes had become... unreliable, of late. “I finally got ‘em. Miss Priss, the deli cat had her litter! You’ve gotta get ‘em ‘fore their eyes open. Gotta be an innocent thing, ain’t a thing more innocent than the new and blind and dumb.”

  The conjure-man approached Thomas, white and recumbent. “I’ll be gentle,” he promised, holding Thomas’s straight razor over Thomas’s wrist. Swiftly, tenderly, he opened Thomas’ wrist lengthwise. The pain was new and sharp, distinct from the constant dull aches from each part of his ravaged body. The conjure-man collected the blood in a little porcelain saucer begged from the landlady. He’d set his bag beside Thomas; it was warm against his side and he could hear minuscule, croaky complaints from deep inside it.

  The conjure-man wrapped a roll of cleanish cotton around Thomas’ wrist and told him to hold it against his heart. “Pressure points,” he said. Then he mixed up the blood in the saucer with the half-bottle of milk that had been sitting on Thomas’ dresser all morning, since the landlady had brought it up. She wasn’t a kindly woman by any means, but Thomas’ grisly deterioration had moved something in even her hard heart.

  “There,” the conjure man whispered tenderly, opening the brown sack. “All warm, just like momma’s.” Kittens, six of them, waddled out of the sack, nosing one another and inching towards the saucer of milk. They were mostly grey with dark stripes, but there was one that was mostly black and another that was all soft smoke-colored. They found the saucer and dug in eager. The rose-colored milk vanished quickly in the little scoops of their bristly pink tongues.

  Thomas watched while the conjure-man slit their throats with Thomas’ straight razor. “There, there,” the conjure-man said, touching them softly, petting between their tiny ears with his smallest finger. He cradled them in one hand; he kept them warm against his chest. He smeared the blood in a circle around Thomas’ bed. When he was done, he placed them all in a neat little row in the burlap sack. “I’ll bury them behind the deli so’s they can be near their momma,” he assured Thomas.