The Moonstruck

Hell had settled over the city, in these early days of June.

It was a freak heat, claimed the voices crackling from the televisions and the radios; the first in twenty years. The sun, constant and yellow, bleached the clouds and beat heavy on the streets. The concrete spit with fire and all the flesh ached with the heat. Folks lingered in conditioned space, fiendish children took their fathers wrenches to the hydrants in the streets, and the rest of us were wrung out of our clothes, desperate and angry.

I stood at the kitchen sink, running a dirty bandana under the feeble stream of cold water from the faucet before putting it to my neck. I smiled lazily, relishing the sensation of the droplets trickling down my chest and settling in the cloth cradle of my bra. Stooping slightly, I peered through the window over the mucky basin, squinting through the dust-speckled pane at the street below.

A ghost avenue. Hopeless grit slung itself across the cobbled stones and danced in the arms of a meager breeze. Steam was rising from the pavement and from the cars parked along the curb. The scene made me thirst and I tucked the ear of the damp rag into my lips, sucking hungrily.

It was always in these ugly moments that I mused on what could’ve been. A pretty house, with a swimming pool maybe. And enough ice for all the whisky Stanley and I could swallow.

But that was the rub. If daddy hadn’t been so flighty, if he hadn’t been so muddled in with the wrong crowd, if my mommy hadn’t been so pious, I’d have never met Stanley. And then where the hell would I be?
“In a pretty house with a swimming pool, that’s where,” I murmured, slinging the bandana over my shoulder and it hit my back with a wet slap. I padded over to the pantry, the floorboards thundering with my flat-foot steps. I rummaged through the sparse contents, my thoughts running loose and lazy.

Stanley and I weren’t shit-poor. He made enough at the Gratis Hotel downtown, waiting tables for the rich with one hand and sticking his wanker in their soup with the other. And daddy’s checks came every month like they always had, since my eighteenth birthday, made out in fountain ink to Marie Moretti.

That’s all my father ever was to me. Blue-fountain ink and a name. A bad name, spat from my mother’s lips and whispered around the corners of my childhood home.

He was a gangster. A callous truth I’d known since before I could remember. Mother had made it her duty to constantly remind me just what a scumbag he was. A loaded scumbag. A loaded scumbag who knew where I lived and kept an eye on my funds. I liked to think he cared, but Stanley always told me not to nurture such thoughts. I’m sure mommy would say the same if she hadn’t already left the world she’d deemed ugly and corrupt for greener pastures.

I was then arm deep in the cupboard, my fingers teasing at the Planters peanuts which had been shoved into the very corner. When I finally felt the cool of the jar against my palm, I sighed in relief, coming away from the pantry. I quickly shuffled back over to the counter, unscrewing the lid and I had just crammed my fingers into the jar when from the window came a loud, grating cry.

I gave a start and the jar slipped from my hands, falling with a spectacular crash. Bits of broken glass and a host of lightly salted peanuts spilt across the floor, dancing at my bare feet.

“Shit!” I cried, leaping away from the mess so as to avoid getting cut. The clutter on the floor continued to chatter and tinkle as I raised my eyes to scowl at the source of the disturbance, familiar and unwelcomed.

The cat sat in the window, pressing her velveteen fur against the screen. The dust on her black coat seemed to glow in the yellow light, which bled across the kitchen floor and illuminated the glass there. She meowed at me and I curled my lip.

“Hooker,” I spat and her yellow eyes flashed.

“Is that any way to greet your loving husband?”

Stanley had come home. I heard the plink of his keys as he threw them onto the counter, the quiet pop of his buttons as he removed his white waiter’s coat. I didn’t look at him; the cat and I went right on glaring at each other.

Stanley shuffled over to the fridge and removed a perspiring can of beer before moving to the table in the far nook of the kitchen all the while observing the mess on the floor.

“Butterfingers,” he muttered and he kissed my cheek as he passed, a couple peanuts crunching beneath the only pair of dress shoes he owned.

“It’s that damn cat,” I groaned, taking the bandana from my shoulder and twisting it distractedly in my hand. I wrung a few droplets and the floor hissed where they fell.

Stanley slurped his beer noisily, smacking his lips. “Need me to get my gun?”

I shot him a dubious look. “You own a gun?”

“This is Gotham,” he shrugged, raising the faded beer can as if to toast to the city’s destitution and crime. But perhaps he was. He’d spent a good part of his life profiting and thriving on the petty offenses Gotham was largely known for.

I felt myself smile, though I shook my head. “No, you can’t shoot it. It’s not a stray – I think it belongs to the girl that just moved back in down the hall.”

He made a face, setting his beer down with a quiet plink. “Who? The bird in flat nine?” I nodded. “Moved back in?”

I shrugged, going to fetch the broom from its place beside the garbage can in the corner. “That’s how I’ve heard it.”

When I turned back, a serious look had settled over his face. It looked funny there, but I knew it well. The conversation was about to get a little ugly.

“Why are you so fucking blasé, Marie? You don’t remember what happened?” His fingers drilled feverishly against the beer can. “She went fucking crazy.”

I rolled my eyes, playfully twirling the broom with my hands. “That was nearly two weeks ago- "

“Crazy people don’t just fucking recover!” He was yelling now, slamming the can repeatedly on the table.

I dropped the broom and it clattered loudly. “I never said she recovered!”

He shook his head like a stupid, dirty dog. “I don’t care. I don’t like her here and I don’t like her or her specky boyfriend or their fucking cat!”

In one swift brutish movement, he chucked the can at the window. The beige lather flashed in the sunlight and the cat took flight. I could faintly here the trash cans in the alley below clatter as she made her escape.

Stanley and I both stared at the tin, spinning lazily on the floor, like anxious teenagers watching the bottle turn toward a latent lover.

Quiet settled over the kitchen, laced itself with the heat and spread itself across our skin. I was used to his brash behavior. It was his nature; Stanley was very much an animal. But I supposed that was the attraction. His spitting tongue, his sweat, his bestial swagger. He acted out often and without warning. But I liked his tantrums. I’d grown up in a close-collar, gold button household; swears were deemed pleads for damnation and sex was a bloody secret, kept feverishly from my little ears.

With Stanley, I could cuss until my tongue withered with shame and fuck until I was spent with sweat.

Animal.

I let him cool down, gripping the splintered broom, and went on managing the mess. The glass tinkled gaily against the floorboards and against each other as I arranged a small mountain of rubbish.

“Damnit,” Stanley muttered after that lengthy silence. He ran his hands roughly through his hair, like a shamed little boy. It stood on end, heavy with pomade, and I couldn’t help but smile, one hand curled on the broom handle, the other settled at my waist.

He looked at me, his eyes wide and watery, as though he might cry. “That was the last beer.”

My grin widened and I set the broom back in the corner, nimbly leaping over the pile of dust, peanuts, and broken glass as I moved to the sink. I retrieved the bandana and used it to soak up the beer that had spilt on the counter.

The floorboards sighed and Stanley did the same. I cradled the rag in the clammy meat of my palm as I moved to him. He lifted his lips and I slid the ear of the cloth into his mouth. He drew from it eagerly, biting at it with his teeth, keeping his eyes on mine. He tipped forward suddenly, burying his face between my breasts and holding me close.

“Marie…” he groaned, his voice echoing in the hollows of my ribcage.

I shushed him, petting down his frowzy hair. He rocked against me and I rocked on my feet. Back and forward. Back and forward. I breathed him in, remembering just why I spent those long hours between the sheets when he was away, missing him and smoking his cigarettes to perfume the air with his scent.

Yanking the rag from his mouth, I replaced it with my lips. He took to them just as keenly. And in his kiss, I felt his need. It was a dangerous thing. Easily rallied. The flat seemed to rattle around us as we stumbled through the kitchen. We blundered right on through the pile of muddle and I felt the glass dig into my feet. I ignored the pain, too busy lapping the last droplets of beer from Stanley’s tongue.

And so we retired, shedding our clothes and attempting to shed our skins. We tore through each other, slashing and cleaving and sighing until the light fell away from the window, fleeing the city though the heat lingered on. Still it pressed upon the concrete, upon the desperate in their homes, upon every inch of flesh

I did not know it then but it would ravage. And ignite. Tempt the wicked and the wasted. Draw them to the spitting city streets, but keep them from the sun. For they and we were made to wander in darkness, moonstruck.

All of us.

Ready.