The Spot: Stories

When the tape worked lose from his mouth he said, Augusta, my dear grandchild, you sweet thing. Augusta just stood with a bewildered look on her face. Give me a smoke. I need to catch my breath. Give me a cigarette from that pack over there on the counter, he said. Augusta went over and picked up the long green pack of menthols, shook one out, put it between his lips, found a kitchen match, lit it, and watched while he took a puff, blew and sucked, blew and sucked, blew and sucked until the cigarette fell to the floor. Put it back, he said. Please put it back.

I’d like to describe her face as otherwise, but truthfully Augusta’s eyes in the kitchen that night were flat and mute and silly-looking. They weren’t lifeless, exactly, but they were glazed over and sat above her fat cheeks like two raisins pressed into dough while Lester went back into the mudroom, rummaged around, and came out with a broom handle. Give him a whack, he said, holding his fingers up to frame the scene, taking a few steps back, trying as usual to find the right vantage, because from the start, when we met on the train up in Bartlesville, he was making a movie in his head. We were hiding — just two fucked-up kids pulling a ticket scam — in the bathroom, hunched up in there, listening to the conductor whistle as he passed between cars, going through the vapor-seal doors. Lester said something like, My name’s Lester and I could make a movie out of your life, leaning low into my face, pressing his beard against my cheek, keeping it there and then moving back, fumbling for a pill and scooping a bit of water from the tiny faucet into his palm — with the pill — and then flopping it expertly into his mouth. You could make a movie of my life? I said. Yeah, he said. I said, Okay. He said, Give me your life. I said, Girl named Genevieve, fucked-up Mom, boyfriend named Vernon, when I slept with Vernon Mom kicked me out of the house, street, street, more of the street, now here. He said, I could do that. I said, Yeah. He said, Okay, I got it, where’s all this take place? I said, I’m an Okie girl, all the way, and he said, Hey, me too, that’s weird, I’m from Oklahoma, too, the crank state, the old dust bowl state. I said, Okay, that’s where we’re at. He said, Try this, giving me one of his pills. I said, Okay, taking it while he nuzzled my face, saying, Guys named Vernon are always assholes, for sure. I said, You’re right, and we went into one of those high-powered laughing fits, you know, the kind that says we’re gonna be together united in love and joy forever, bound by this laugh and this laugh alone. He said, Yeah, I could film your life, leaning down and giving me a kiss, the smell of blue toilet water stinking between us, the coast clear, the train rocking. I said, Where you going and what for? He said, Chicago, to scam tourists on the tour boats. You go on and, like, sit next to them and when they’re looking up at the buildings, gawking at the superstructures, you just steal their stuff. I said, That’s the plan? He said, It’s not much but it works because they’re all hayseeds and leave their purses right there, under their chairs, gaping open when they go back to the snack bar to buy cookies and soda. Just reach in and take, take, take, he said, touching my cheek, running his hand while the pills took hold good and tight.