Night Shift

by Diana Pollin

conclusion

I told you once, I told you a thousand times, Marion Maybelle, you had it coming! You and only you are responsible. The whole place is complete chaos! The begonia, the violets... Gone all gone! And the four o’clocks!... Your favorites! It takes only a minute to destroy the work of five years. The only living things left in this kitchen are you, that devil plant and its spider! It’s like total bedlam and you are guilty, a thousand times guilty for not taking the train when you were supposed to!

She was breathing heavily, trying to shake off the panic gripping her chest, her eyes were all blue, she would have to cover them in heavy make up, wear sun glasses, and in the dead of winter! But what could she say about the swollen cracked and bleeding lip? And her arm that he twisted like an old rag, it hurt like the devil! Bad for the line of work she was in.

Work! It was 2:00 in the afternoon, Roman was sprawled on the couch, in a stupor. She crept quietly to the telephone and called the office. A person called Doreen at the other end of the line told her, “Normally an unexplained absence means an automatic firing, but you are in luck, honey, there’s an urgent request tomorrow: Saint Nicholas Avenue and 156th Street. If you play ball, we will overlook the incident. It’s a night shift. Will you go for it?”

Will she go for it? Did she have a choice?

Wednesday came spitting its sleet at her window, Satan or whoever was ruling the world had decided that day and night should wear the same clothes. Fat chance she would get to see dawn today or any day, now it was just a matter of surviving.

It was what? Four in the morning? Saint Nicholas and 156th Street? It would take hours to get there and back and before she would have to check in at the office on 42nd Street! She’d be home at midnight with a little bit of luck.

And talk about luck... Roman was still asleep and snoring on the couch. She set up the coffee machine in the kitchen and looked at the only other survivors, the plant and its spider, dissecting with diabolical accuracy and not a small amount of grace, a very fat fly. She managed a smile at the spider, God intended it to eat like the rest of us. She had to get to work, this was her last chance. A last minute glance in the mirror. Where was her umbrella?

Eleven o’clock. Past eleven o’clock. Dunkin’ Donuts had been a sea of noise once, long ago, the whole place smelled like molten sugar and cinnamon spice, but not now, sister, not now! Shift those glasses over your nose, hope it’s not broken the way a lot of other things are; he went after me, well, that’s sort of expected, but the plants, the four o’clocks, they did him no harm and...

No more food, can’t stand this place and its noise and those prongs the servers use, look like crab claws just out to get you, like some other people. Yeah, I know, some of the well-meaning customers are starting to look over here, never seen a battered housewife before unless they do the battering; wouldn’t put it past anyone, even the rich and the college boys.

One more minute of this and I’ll be getting the can; I do something for you, dear, and the “Do you need help, lady?” and frankly, it just makes me sick, they put their well-rubbed noses into my business. Outta here. Fast.

The Times Square Station. Slimy flakes greased the stairs. The rush of crowds, the bug-eyed train cars, the people scurrying like little hatched nits onto the platforms, and fanning out over the stairs, the stations slipping in and out of view like in a crazy clock where phases of comfort or ill ease have replaced the hours.

She hung onto the pole feeling like a discarded strip of linen, bound for the rag bin. And the train chugged on and on and on, the crowds... the crowds... Never had crowds like this late at night. The next stop was Atlantic Avenue, and... no one there! The train was suddenly empty! Amazing! She was alone. Or almost.

He was on a seat. He was puffing on a cigar. He nodded to her, but, she spoke first, and she asked him, “You said it was... a new-her-ism?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Are we still on?”

“Yeah, but it’s your last chance. You don’t go into Santos’ tonight and you blow it, sweetheart.”

“I see. We’re stopping now.”

“I’ll be walking behind you. Remember: your last chance.”

Atlantic Avenue slid into view, the doors opened. Jiminy Cricket spoke. “You are seeing things and hearing things. The guy behind you isn’t even there, and if he was, he is Satan.”

She stepped out of the train, and into the penumbra of the station, a gloomy stairway lay ahead.

“Life and death are not for you to decide.”

She moved slowly towards the first step. Her feet ached. Each step dripped with water, the rain had not stopped. Thank Goodness she had the umbrella.

“You married him for better or for worse.”

She stopped halfway up the flight. There would be nobody in the toll booth and when she reached the mezzanine level, there would be nobody but Marion Maybelle Peters and Satan in unholy alliance. The outrageousness of it all even caused her to giggle. It was too extraordinary; she could always not go into Santos’. She started the climb to street level.

“All right, he has fouled up, but it’s your Christian duty to forgive, and pray he’ll see the light.”

She was on street level. Gabriel was trailing, looking at his cigar that had gone dead. JC droned on: “And remember what you learned in church! The dark cellar where sin grows...”

She reached the street with the umbrella open. Gabriel was behind her. He had relit his cigar. A street lamp was puffing its lurid breath in Santos’ direction. Her black umbrella made her one with the darkness, she tilted it down over her face, just below her eyes.

It was past midnight and cold. A taxi stopped at Santos’. A hooker got out. Tall, thin, grasshopper body. Loudly striped black and white fur jacket and short pants. She ran into Santos’, ran back, stuck her scrawny neck in through the window to talk with someone in the back seat.

The light turned green, but the taxi stood still as a headstone. The hooker and her long white boots disappeared behind the screen of a cheesy yellow door and a tall, silver-haired middle-aged man stepped out. Reverend Andrews. He ran into Santos’, returned with a carton of Marlboros. They sped off.

JC ‘s voice rushed in. “There must be an explanation for all this.”

Trembling she turned to Gabriel.

“It is not the thought. It is not the deed. It is the flowers,” he said softly.

She nodded and understood what he meant. Then she went into Santos’.

to Challenge 400...