Jacqui was old; she knew that much. No, not old (fifties aren’t yet old), but still, the accusation seemed to hang in the air, following her. Standing in the kitchen, forgetting why she had wandered in, she spotted the quarters on the table and remembered that she had forgotten to do laundry. Well, she felt old. Her image stared back at her from the darkened window, wispy hairs loosened from her bun and hanging in her face like wrinkled strips of copper. Like an old woman, she thought. I look like an old woman.
She shook her head a little, and tried a smile. She was still attractive, maybe even beautiful (if you squinted). Men still looked at her, but she had decided long ago that she had no need for another man. She warmed herself with this thought: Sam still found her beautiful. She was sure of this, in some sense. There was a picture of him in every room, even the kitchen and bathroom, which was excessive because she never felt that he was far away. Rather than reminders of the past, she felt she was continuing on as a witness. It was an indulgence she didn’t care to examine too closely.
She circled back to her bedroom to collect her laundry, twin beams of light flooding through the dark room as a car passed through the parking lot. They froze her in place momentarily and she forgot what she was doing, until she felt a click in her brain and her purpose returned. Laundry, she thought. I’m just doing the laundry.
The temperature dropped by a couple of degrees as soon as she stepped out of her apartment into the hallway, the laundry basket pinned against her thigh. It was always hot in her apartment, so that it was daunting to step outside. You had to brace yourself for it. Goosebumps stood out on her arms as she gave in to a weak moment and chose to acknowledge that even small tasks seemed impossible to accomplish today. Think, for example, of the fiasco with the quarters.
She had walked the twenty minutes – it had taken longer today, because everything was so wet from last night’s rain that she walked slowly, carefully – to the gas station to get her quarters. Passing the nearby nightclub that often had police cars parked outside on the weekends, she tightened her coat and wondered what she would look like to a passing observer. She wore a purple and pink scarf she purchased from Ardene and tall leather boots from Reitman’s.
At the gas station, she waited in line as two men ahead of her each took their time discussing their automobiles with the clerk, then she stepped to the counter clutching a five dollar bill.
“Air?” the clerk asked, snappily, Jacqui thought. She stood blinking at him. The clerk was a Middle-Eastern man with a heavy accent. While he spoke to her he swept glances across the small store.
“Change?” he said, so quickly he barked it out, Jacqui thought again. “For air? For your tires?” He pointed with his head to a window, through which stood an air pump.
“Oh,” Jacqui said, fidgeting with the bill. Thinking, preposterously, that he might refuse her change for any other purpose, she said, “Yes. For the air,” and felt blood rush to her neck.
A friendly smile broadened the man’s face, and Jacqui noticed how handsome he was.
“It’s free,” he grinned, waving his hand dismissively. “Please, help yourself.”
Jacqui stood speechless, still holding the bill out, the clerk now with his back to her. She clung to the bill with her thumb and forefinger, waiting for the man to turn around, wondering what she would say to him if he did. Nothing, there was nothing she could say. Somehow, she had botched this. Another customer entered, an electronic beep sounding. Jacqui pocketed the bill before the clerk could turn around and hurried out of the station. She had had to walk another half hour to a second store for more coins; she carefully stated her intention to use them for laundry, though the young pierced girl behind the counter could not have looked liked she cared less. Jacqui rattled the coins in her pocket as she left, understanding she was feigning something but unsure of what.
Now, dropping her basket onto the washing machine, she felt something like hopelessness wash over her. She opened the lid and discovered a flattened, forgotten sock from another tenant. She peeled it out of the washer’s interior and thought of Sam, without seeing the association. He still clung to her, she supposed; she wore him like an article of clothing. Or maybe he was still wearing her. That would have to be good enough.
She absently reached into her pocket – no coins. They still sat on the kitchen table. For a moment, she stood staring at the machine, remembering a morning from her childhood when a snake had surprised and frightened her on an unpaved driveway. It had been indistinguishable from the gravel and rocks surrounding it. She had assumed there was no threat – had assumed, for instance, that no snakes were lurking in the gravel bed.
Back in her apartment, the total warmth cocooning her, she stepped to the kitchen table. The stove clock was blinking 10:48 and she suddenly felt like everything was horribly wrong, not understanding why she was doing laundry at this time of night. She hadn’t realized it was so late.
That’s when she heard the scream: when the clock was blinking 10:48, and she was confused by the hour.
It came from her bedroom. It was a man’s scream, wild with fright, maybe, or shock. Jacqui’s heart began pounding so violently she was worried it would damage itself somehow.
Approaching her bedroom, she could hear more sounds – dull thuds, and scratching sounds, and many muffled voices. There were several men in her room, then. It was with something like excitement that she opened the door.
She immediately knew the room was empty. The same undisturbed mustiness hung in the air as always. But the sounds persisted, and another sharp cry came from outside. Jacqui spread the bedroom curtains.
There were five men – kids, maybe 20 years old – striking at another man lying prostrate in the parking lot. It took Jacqui’s eyes a moment to adjust, and when they did, the indistinct movement of the standing men turned into brutal kicks to the head of the fallen man, strikes to the face and torso and groin, even something resembling a short baseball bat pummeling into his back. Jacqui stood watching in disbelief.
The man on the ground was clearly unconscious. He made no effort to protect himself. With each kick to his head, it bounced off the pavement and his limbs twitched with each blow, legs kicking a little. The ferocity was stunning.
“My God,” Jacqui said aloud. "They’re going to kill him."
She rushed to her phone and called 911, describing almost with serenity what was happening in front of her home. Time seemed to be slowing, or coming to a fine point. “They’re probably from that nightclub,” she even mentioned to the operator. “There’s always trouble from that club.”
Within minutes, sirens were approaching. By this time, the assailants had ceased their attack, and were gazing around at one another, apparently silent. Jacqui couldn’t quite imagine what was happening out there. The fallen man lay still in the middle of the rough circle they created.
As soon as the sirens could be heard, the entire group fluttered into motion, as though this was what they had been waiting for. Without anything seeming to be said between them, they grabbed the fallen man’s arms and legs and quickly hauled him off along a sidewalk that cut back around Jacqui’s building and into the darkness of a nearby park. It almost seemed like a gesture of tenderness.
Two cruisers pulled into the lot, and Jacqui dashed outside in her housecoat, feeling a desperate fear beyond anything she had felt in her life. The police were about to arrive and find nothing. For all they knew, and for all it mattered, nothing had happened. But no; something had happened here and Jacqui had borne witness to it and every bone in her body ached to tell it. She wrapped her housecoat around her and braced herself for something: disbelief, from the officers, or an argument, maybe even a physical fight. It was absurd. She felt more healthy and alive than she had felt in years.
She stepped in the blood as she ran to the officers, as they emerged from the cruisers like shadows with flashlights and squawking radios. Jacqui stood speechless for a second. There was more blood than she ever could have imagined could come out of one person. It was thick and circular and framed by lighter smatterings of darker blood. She thought she would faint for a moment, then a renewed burst of energy ran through her.
“Here!” she screamed at the silhouettes of officers with bright lights ready to make their investigation. “I was here all along! I saw everything! Don’t take my word for it. You can see for yourselves! Here!”
The officers hesitated briefly, and reached their hands to the waists, finding an old, hysterical woman standing in blood.
