My Dearest Jonah (5 page)

Outside the raccoons are beginning to scratch and root for sustenance. I hear them scurry along the porch, tearing through my garbage, picking morsels from the litter and
upturning all and sundry in the vain hope of survival. Usually I would make an effort to dissuade them, but tonight I feel generous, and so I let them feast as I prepare for welcome slumber.

Take care of yourself, Verity. This is all I can ask of you, and in return I offer my thoughts and my prayers. In keeping with our newfound honesty I would also like to know precisely how you
ended up where you were, if it is not too much to ask, if only to abate my appetite for each and every aspect of you and your life which I find so fulfilling. I don’t now what I did before it
became the muzak to my own existence.

I have enclosed a small carving made from a log I picked up on the walk back from work. I whittled it down and smoothed the edges until it began to resemble the shape of a heart, somewhere
between the cartoon Hallmark sentiment and the ugly yet vital organ on which it is based. The shape seemed pleasing, apt almost, though incomplete, and so I suppose you are the recipient of a work
in progress. I hope you like it.

With all my love,

Jonah

Dear Jonah,

There was a bullet lodged in my front door this morning. How it didn’t wake me I don’t know. And whether by accident or design it has certainly affected the overall mood of my day.
Suffice to say its appearance caused little stir amongst the occupants of this quaint little motel, and so I choose to take it as simply par for the course in my newfound residence, lest my mind
run away with itself.

But first things first. Congratulations. If I know one person who deserves a chance in this life, whether second, third or fourth seems irrelevant, it is you. I feel as though
all my prayers have been answered. As if by fixing you I will become solved myself. How likely this is I do not know. But one thing I know for certain is my joy for you and your newfound lease of
life. I will raise a glass in your honour.

That is not to say I am without my reservations. People are not generally good Jonah, unfortunately I have come to find this out the hard way, and how easy it must be to take advantage of a
lonely man with a good heart in a strange town. Aimee seems like the sort of girl who could be trouble. Beware lonely women Jonah. Their intentions are seldom noble. For what it’s worth my
advice is to stay far from her and her ilk, though I’d be the first to admit that my recent coterie would perhaps call to question my authority on associates.

Secondly, and before I forget, thank you. Your carving is beautiful and now takes pride of place on my bedside table. The jewellery box you sent me was left decapitated and dismembered on my
bedroom floor, the throat of its chime severed mid sentence. I would still have taken it were it not for the pool of blood in which it lay. This, however, is more than an apt substitute, and is the
first step towards what I believe they call ‘nesting’ in this barren womb of a space.

Did you ever collect as a child? I did. When I think of my youth it is not necessarily the obvious which strikes a chord; the endless summers or comfort foods that others describe with such
precision you wonder if they happened at all. I think of my groups, my anthologies and assortments, which I acquired and documented almost religiously. There were the living things, my ants first,
which were forgotten conveniently by my mother as we moved to another base, then my saplings, ordered initially by size then eventually by hue – the intensity of green moving from the
glittering right to the pallid left. My worm collection lasted only until I was informed of their want to grow into two separate entities were they ever chopped in half. The detail now seems
admirable to me - stoic and steadfast, almost romantic - but at the time filled me with such dread at the thought of a species able to multiply of its own accord that I took them as far as my legs
would carry me and threw them in a writhing comet across the ravine. After that there were others. The glass shards I’d find on the railway lines as I walked home from another school, pebbles
of obscure shape and size, shells when lucky, candles, bus stubs, lottery tickets, matchsticks, candy wrappers, tyre caps. All of my memories made flesh, lined like cavalry and displayed for my own
pacification.

I remember, too, the weight of anxiety that each new collection would bring. These little traps I’d set myself. Each time the burden of responsibility would override any childish whimsy
until I became physically sick with worry. Aged seven I was kept from school for three weeks with a fever which to this day I swear was caused by issues of or relating to my bottle caps.

Funny what you remember. I found myself thinking about that today.

For some reason there has been a more customer-friendly approach from the staff of this hotel, no doubt spurred by my delivery of a roll of banknotes to the front desk and a polite request to
remain in the same room as long as it would afford me, after which I would happily re-feed my meter. So now sometimes twice a day my stocks are being replenished. Individual servings of alcohol and
sodas, of sanitary products, of sewing kits and shoe polish (?) delivered with a smile and a nod from one of the unbearably gorgeous Hispanic maids. The individuality pleases and mystifies me in
equal measures. Having made it so clear I intend to stay for the duration surely human-sized portions would be a better investment on the part of the establishment? Though there is something oddly
satisfying about being given just what you need, no more no less, especially when you know that extra is but a phone call away.

The point being that I have become a hoarder of my packaging. Lilliput bottles, soap boxes, shower cap covers. Even the thread I unravel and hide so that the little plastic drums are mine to
keep. I’ve arranged them into some variation of a house on the small coffee table beneath the window where I write to you. I have informed the maids - whom I am coming to know by name - never
to discard anything they find on the table itself. They seemed to understand, though as I have not left my room in seven days and have no intention of doing so for the foreseeable future I envision
no problems on that front.

I’m rambling. I know. And I can’t put it off forever. It’s just that I don’t know exactly where to start. I think of Eve, of The Iguana Den, of the gold
and glitter and the guns and the money that have made my life what it is today, and it all seems so obvious in hindsight. Like dog shit: so easy to step over when you realise it was there. But I
didn’t. I trod straight through it entirely of my own accord. And relaying the stupidity of my actions to you seems harder than everything that has gone before.

To pinpoint the exact moment I began to unravel so spectacularly would be like trying to retrace an earthquake. But I suppose that when pushed, the genesis of my quandary is undoubtedly J.

J wasn’t his real name. It wasn’t even his real initial. This fact remained hidden for the duration of our courtship. I suppose I never thought to ask. A person
tells you their name and you take it as given. Though he was not the sole advocate of deceit. I came to play my fair share of the game, and so in some ways we were both as bad as one another. Bad,
that is, within the confines of our relationship. Out there in real life he undoubtedly surpassed me in terms of sheer wickedness. There was no evil in J. Evil is innate. It could almost elicit
pity if you thought long and hard about it. He chose his path. There was a moment where he hit the forked road between right and wrong, between life and death. He seldom chose wisely and within two
months went from stranger to lover to murderer.

How’s that for a shift in circumstance?

He caught my eye at the diner, which seems so remote on the horizon of my history that I can barely make out its shape. He caught my eye there, though how long before that I
caught his I cannot say.

“Sunny side up, sugar?” I asked, moving to the farthest edge of the counter.

The weather never changes here. They say that about a lot of places. It’s never true. Here it is though; the sand absorbs the warmth of the sun and magnifies it into a constant heat;
forever pressing like a soldering vice around your head and ankles. Everyone feels heavy and leaden. No shirt unstained. It makes the days lap over one another like waves until before you know it
years have passed by and you wonder how long you’ve been standing so still.

“Surprise me,” he said.

I laughed and nodded, leaning over to look at the notepad in which he scribbled. He seemed amused at my interest though equally adamant to keep whatever he was writing out of view. His suit
marked him out as an oddity. His hat pulled low over his face. That face. Jagged and gnarled, though noticeably young. He was gaunt in a healthy way, and as I would come to find out could shave at
breakfast and be in possession of the most immaculate stubble before lunch.

In the distance two vultures shriek at one another over the same decaying carcass. I wipe my brow and fill the almost empty cups for the lizards and cacti that line the same stretch of counter
day in, day out. Some are men. Some are women. It changes with the light. Some have wives. Some have children. Some have sheer silk suspenders clinging to their thighs beneath those battered 501s.
None of them a question. None of them an answer. They simply hover until they are moved. Myself, I enjoyed the variation. The combination of the regular and the obscure. Mostly I liked the fact
that it all stopped mattering the moment the door closed behind me. Jobs like that never followed you home. Never swirled around your head while you were in the queue at the grocery story, or
filling up your car with gas. They never rang you five times a day. Never wanted to cuddle afterwards. Jobs like that disappear the moment you take off your name badge. I don’t know why every
girl in the world doesn’t have a job like that.

J notices me playing with a child’s puzzle that I found discarded in one of the booths as I wait for his bacon to crisp. “Simple things please great minds,”
he says, not quite smiling. “That’s what they say.”

“They have a tendency to be wrong,” I reply, with an equally ambiguous hint of amusement. Funny, the one thing I remember about what has come to be known as Day One is that, at this
very moment, all I could think of as I stifled my smile was ‘so cool Verity, you’ve never played it so cool in your life... ’

“Aint that the truth, darling,” he adds, closing his pocket book and placing it in the lining of his jacket. I place his breakfast in front of him and am granted the donation of a
slight smile.

“So, what brings you to this part of town?” I ask eventually. The majority of customers have left by this point and we are near enough alone.

“I got some business that needs fixing,” he says. A gruff voice, each word a painful gift as though they were organs being donated for your survival.

“Well aren’t you just the man of mystery. And unusually coiffed for these parts.”

“Something - ” he says, locating a tricky piece of bacon from his tooth with the fork of his tongue “ - was taken from me. I’m here to oversee its rightful
return.”

“The plot thickens,” I lean back against the hob and try to get a better look at him. Attraction is a funny thing. It can happen despite you. It was only at that moment that I was
able to take in the overall package - the quirks and idiosyncrasies of his face and shape. I was impressed, Jonah, no two ways about it. And what’s more I could tell that in some small way he
felt the same.

“You don’t know the half of it, darling,” he says, standing up. His breakfast remains half eaten. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Came for the eggs, stayed for the service,” I say, taking his plate and the cash he has left on the counter.

He laughs, nods, and leaves.

I walk back with the thought of him playing like music. I go home and slump on my bed and feel the four walls of my house bob up and down like it’s nodding in agreement. I take a shower.
Drink some beer straight from the can. Enjoy a cigarette in front of the mirror because I like the way the smoke curls and disappears like secrets from my lips. I lie on my stomach and imagine an
entire lifetime spent with a stranger I have shared barely three sentences with. By the time I come to my senses the sheets are saturated and my wrist cramps painfully beneath my weight. I try
three kinds of nail varnish whilst slightly drunk - one on top of the other - until the colour blends into a new, ugly shade somewhere between brown and green but with a sleek gloss finish. Then I
shake my hair into a form not far from sexy and breathe out loudly while I spray it in place. Time for round two. Welcome to The Iguana Den.

What exactly The Iguana Den is I still can’t say. Even once I became part of its insatiable mechanism I was not sure how or why it came to be. Initially I knew it as a legend. Then as a
patron. Finally I became one of its most treasured possessions, as profitable as the watered down beer that they served by the pitcher.

Some nights I’d be so bored, Jonah, so bored and tired of life that I would dress myself up for no reason whatsoever, just to see myself change. Then I became more daring in my role.
Dolled up in my finery I would stroll out into the night. Feeling the dark on my skin, the night air ripe with potential as I waited patiently for my knight in shining armour, knowing that I was at
least dressed the part should some magnificent situation ever arise. Nine times out of ten I ended up dressed like some fallen debutante eating pie in the twenty-four hour cafe across from the
Rialto. Tired. Alone.

This changed the night I met J.

It doesn’t take much to alter you completely. And a brief encounter with a handsome mystery filled me with an emotion that I cannot quite put into words even now. It was somewhere between
curiosity and fearlessness. As though I was unable to stop until I hit upon a change. So I walked past the town, past the familiar streets and the ordered traffic system. The road changed beneath
my feet from asphalt to dirt track. My heels sunk and twisted. My shoulders flayed by the dancing sands. Far away, in the growing void, three men surrounded a tin can of burning garbage. I walked
for miles and miles before I saw it. A blue streak, like a mirage. It flashed and disappeared before my eyes. I became transfixed and followed its taste, its sound, until I was standing outside a
living legend.