The Parallel Apartments (59 page)

Charlotte wished she'd kept a diary. Dot's life was more real than her own. If Charlotte had kept one, she could pick it up anywhere and read and pretend that maybe she'd lived a real life, too.

Her eyes burned from the smoke and from squinting through the magnifying glass under the lone sixty-watt kitchen bulb. Dot's grammar and syntax were really beginning to bug her, though she had to admit her spelling was awfully good for a hooker.

“Heavens.”

She stood up, stretched. She opened a kitchen window. She was fairly sure Livie wouldn't sneak in through an open window, but if she did, Charlotte would simply go to a motel. She would finish the diaries and contemplate her new condition there.

In the bathroom she tucked the diaries under the sink, drew a bath, soaked for an hour, followed up with an hour-long sleepless nap, then got up and dripped some Visine into both eyes. She recalled buying the Visine from a Randalls that had closed a decade ago. Perhaps Livie would come home to find her mother crawling around in the yard, blind, howling, and eating ivy and dirt clods.

She moved the diaries and impedimenta to the floor in the hallway, where visibility, if she had the lights on in all three rooms at the end of the hall, was much improved. She found five pillows and a blanket, a couple of fresh ashtrays, the rest of the carton of cigarettes, and a cold beer, then made herself comfortable on the hallway floor.

          
October 20, 1969. DD Im sorry I forgot to write yesterday but I was in such a hurry to see Heron I forgot. He still thinks Im a lady and he gets all anxious around me. Yesterday I know he wanted a kiss but I got confused and went home. Gee why is it harder to kiss a man than give him a knob job, beats me. Hes going to find out and that will be that. No Lou yet, maybe he went to Boston, I heard him say something about that one time. ps. Short date with a bus driver he gave me a brandnew tenner. Come to find out there were two stuck together they were so brandnew, lucky me.

          
October 22, 1969. DD, Heron came over today, I didnt think he knew where I stayed but I don't think he made me even though I had all my spikeheels and garters all over Creation. He had flowers pink, and yellow, but no red. At Herons place where we went after dinner at Tujagues we didnt kiss and it got time where I had to skdaddle. Because I had a long date with some john my nieghbor Ivette gave me, his name was John too, for real and no kidding he showed me a card with his name right there, that happens sometimes. He went for a old fashioned and afterwards hit the hay for good, lucky me again.

          
October 24, 1969. DD, Heron brought me a little holster for my pistol that goes on my thigh. I told him he could put it on me if he wanted but he just went to pieces again and went home. I made up my mind the next time I see him Im gonna kiss him and show him my leg with my new holster. ps. Loup-Garou and some friend with a ugly rug turned up early again. It was raining so hard I didnt want to go all the ways across the Quarters to make
a withdrawl from the crabmeat bank so we had a shorttime circus for 50$. I dont like Loup-Garou and his friend. I had my little pistol just by the bed under the rug but they didnt hit or holler this time.

          
October 26, 1969. DD, Maybe Lou won't make it after all Maybe he fell back in love again with that oldtimeusedtobe he told me about that time a long time ago at Peggy's when we got so soaked in gin we wound up sleeping on her bar room floor underneath the jug band stage. Hes afraid of her mama though so maybe he just went to Houston and thats that. If he comes back I just hope him and Heron get along.

          
October 27, 1969. When Heron came over I took away his flowers and kissed his mouth and got him over on the bed. I cleaned up the room before and Ivette let me use her electric sweeper and I put clean sheets on the bed before, too. Heron got awful excited awful quick and turned rabbit before I even could work his belt off. Then he got real sad, I don't know why some men are like that. He said he loved me and after that he was real gentle and quiet. He smelled nice. I told him I loved him too. I say that all the time to johns and I don't mean it and now I don't know if I mean it or not. I sure hope I do Dear Diary.

          
October 30, 1969. DD, Heron hasnt been around and his shops closed for two days nearly. Where is he?

          
November 3, 1969. DD, I sure missed you because the pigs tossed me in the wildlife preserve for three days. They caught me three dollar upright with a poor old fellow in Saint Louis 2 I don't know what they did with him but me, I got out at last and went home and there was Loup-Garou who had brung himself and four boys couldnt of been more than 12-13 years old. Those children turned out there pockets and nickles dimes pennies and wad up dollar bills spilled all over. Loup-Garou showed those children my pussy and said thats what yall are gonna fuck but Im going first so pay attention. Thank heaven all those children were little rabbits. Then they set down Indian style like they were at a camp fire while surprise, Loup garou poked me down south. I didnt want to holler at him in front of those children, if I was gonna holler Id of rather shot him. Then Loup-Garou pitched more scratch on the
floor and told me to teach those boys French and they would be on their way. I start on the second littlest boy and he took my back of my head and slammed it right up my throat like ladies had been knobbing him his whole life. I gave him a good slap and he started crying. Surprise, the biggest boy gets hold of me and stuff it up from behind and Loup-Garou slaps me back and tells me orbit the littlest boy deep and surprise a knock comes at the door and Loup-Garou answers it! Its Heron Scaro hes got his hair combed and in a suit and red roses in a jar and he sees me. Loup-Garou gets right up in his face and hollers Busy! and pushes Heron down the hall. DD, I don't think I'll ever see Heron again. I cried a lot later on.

          
November 4, 1969. DD, Herons pawnshop was closed up today. I put some scratch in my crabmeat bank.

          
November 4, 1969. DD, its really the fifth because its so late. Its raining and Im watching the beer joints across North Rampart but, Heron don't patronize beer joints.

          
November 5, 1969. DD, I can't sleep and I sent off two johns that came knocking for morning knobjobs before work, I coulda used the money too. The east morning sun is so bright it makes my eyes water.

          
same day 10 minutes later, Oh brother That sun made me cry for real. I otta kill that Loup-Garou and Im not even gonna write his name out again I hate him so much.

          
November 5, 1969. DD, A john who says he works for Mister Marcello came by and told me he could help me. Brother I know what that means, that means he was gonna be my pimp, so I told Ivette so long and now here I am in a room over a lunch counter down by Lee Circle and I already have two new gentlemen that promise to be regulars. I get a free chickenfry downstairs once a day if I keep up the rent.

          
November 5, 1969. DD, I was busy all day so Heron didnt come up in my mind much but later on I laid down on the bed and cried out my eyes so hard I nearly threw up.

          
Nov 8 Lous here! Lou! Lou! Lou! Lou! Oh I saw him on the street car right out my window and I chased it down and jumped on even though it was still moving. He's here with me now, asleep on my bed.

          
November 10, 1969. DD, Come to find out Lou was up in Austin City and he looked up old Charlotte. He said it didnt work out and something bad happened but he didnt say what instead he just started crying like a sick child, it sure surprised me, and he didnt want to stop so I let him cry even though I had planned to be the one crying and cry all over him when I saw him again. He beat me to it I guess.

          
November 11, 1969. DD, The fun wore off and Lous on my last nerves again like always. Except he wont get out of bed even to eat. I told him about Heron too and that just made him cry more and more even though Im the one who was wanting to cry like I said.

          
November 12, 1969. DD, Hes always right there on my bed until its time for bed then he gets in the chair. He wont talk. I send him downstairs to the lunch counter when I have company.

          
November 26, 1969. DD, Been real busy making some good dough. I had to send off old Lou. He just mopes and sleeps and hes in the way here.

          
December 1, 1969. DD, Damn Heron damn Lou breaking my hearts like that.

Charlotte bit her thumb as hard as she could stand.

She took another long bath, got out, and drip-dried in front of the mirror, watching, as the fog receded from the center out, the revelations of her sixty-six-year-old body.

She lay back down in the hallway, naked this time, and read on.

          
December 26, 1969. DD, Lou paid a visit today, hes looking a teeninesy bit more spry than hes been looking and he found himself a position with a glass company, putting big ole windows up in office buildings. And brought me a present, thats a bottle of purple ink Im writing with right now. Pretty, don't you think, Dear Diary?

          
December 29, 1969. Just like I knew it all along! I thought if I didnt even write it down in you that maybe it wouldnt be true but goddammit I am pregnant. Today I paid Ivette a visit and she said right away when she let me in Shit I know that face, you got a Irish toothache. So Ivette give me the name of a man out in Bogalusa, thats a town way across the big lake Pont Chartrain. Lou will go with me.

          
January 22, 1970. DD, Brother I put it off and put it off but here me and Lou are sharing a big chair in a office at a yellowcab dispatch up Bogalusa and Im nervous. Oh there he is, bye DD

          
January 22, 1970. A whole hell of a lot sure can happen in 3 hours. For one thing the man wouldnt let Lou come in the backroom with the old pool table covered in newspapers Brother that made me more nervous than anything else, I felt like a old fish laying up there. It hurt but it was all over pretty quick and the man gave me Bayer Aspirin pills and a wad up old shirt to catch the blood and sent me back out to Lou then gives both us a ride in his yellowcab over to a motor lodge by the bus station. Lou tucks me in but Surprise he says he can't handle his secret on his own any more. I say What secret and he tells me a whole story about how a while back when he was up in Austin City he slept together with a pretty woman, only come to find out the next day at a funeral that she is his daughter he never met before, Livia. Brother that knocked me down. Lou just melted in tears and now hes asleep. I'm going to eat a few of these Bayer Aspirins and do some crying myself now. Good night, Dear Diary.

XXIII

January 2005

It was past one in the morning. Rance was cleaning himself after an erotic throwdown with Lalique, a Fort Worth socialite who wrote love letters to Rance, and thought he was writing back, but it had actually been Casey at the other end of the correspondence. Casey could write a moving love letter.

The next client was due at two.

For months Marcia Brodsky had been running the Dollhaus alone, without the aid of Casey or Porifiro, neither of whom she'd heard from since the day she fired them. Rance had thankfully not shorted out or otherwise malfunctioned since Senator John Hill bit Rance's replipenis, so there had been no serious heavy lifting to do. The only major project had been a build-it-yourself heated doghouse, acquired so Schmidt wouldn't suffer during the winter. It had taken Marcia a full day to put it together. Schmidt had since found little use for it.

There appeared to be one solution to the Rance/Schmidt problem. Since the two of them simply couldn't live in the same house, Marcia was planning
to open premises for Rance, to which she would travel every day, like a real job. But that scenario was not possible for a year or two: it would take at least three million bucks to build and staff a state-of-the-art brothel that would feature, she imagined, not just Rance, but two new dolls, Danielle and Jesse, both of which were still in development at HoBots, but which should be available for purchase sometime later this year. Marcia, as wealthy as she was becoming, did not have
that
much money. So, for the time being, Rance would live in the boudoir, and Schmidt would live in the yard. Marcia had tried to spend a platonic night in the doghouse with Schmidt, but it had not gone well. There was just too much history.

At five to two, Marcia unbolted the door leading from her kitchen into the boudoir, where Rance was dozing lightly between the violet satin sheets.

“Rance.”

“Mm? Is it time?”

“Few minutes, dear. Your date tonight is a new client. I think he's
really
new, like a virgin, at least that was the sense I got from him on the phone a few months ago.”

“Goody!”

“He likes the lights off.”

Marcia turned the dimmer to off, went back into the house, and bolted the door.

A noise at the money slot. A familiar and welcome noise, the brush of banknote paper against the machined steel of the sturdy drop box. Marcia collected and counted its contents: $750 in cash, and one of the many half-off coupons that during the slow month of May she'd foolishly handed out in front of the Yellow Rose, a manky strip joint on North Lamar.