Forgive Me

Dead Weight of a Dead Man

I could see in those icy eyes he did not recognize me. My figure had changed too much; I was no longer the meek, defenseless mother but a striking panther, struck from head-to-toe with confidence.

-2/7/1920

My reflection met me from a peculiar wine glass at my lap, licking up my features with an idealizing tongue and swelling my face with something desirable. It immediately took me aback, for the woman in the glass was not me but some arousing enchantress. No amount of starvation could bring me such luscious lashes or fleshy breasts, and it brought me to the realization that this could not be reality. In reality, that hair was glistening with grease, not spotlight, and those eyes were glassy with tears, not lust.

The pinch of panic waned and I leaned back in the velvet seat underneath me. If only a dream, the guilt of what lay outside of it could not reach me; I was free to be rid of human emotion and drift on an endless cloud into disaster.

I was surrounded by men, all of faces painted with savage colors, and ducked my head below my veil. The sweat hanging on their skin and the glint in their beetle eyes dropped on my heart as if a thousand boulders had ripped through the sky and tore down the Earth in search of my morose. The setting-- I knew it all too well-- was one I had seen not the night before when my fingers slid over the pistol in my pocket and fired into a wicked air. No, this could not be! It could not! I did not wish to hear the banter, nor the howls, nor any last comment the women on stage made. The dream was toying with me.

A man was staring across the way with a different glint in his eyes, not wishing to harm me but only to have a pleasant conversation in the gentlemen's club. I did not return the gaze for more than an instant, keeping my lips to my glass and my eyes anywhere else, but he would not waver. His locked eyes teemed the women on stage with envy; how could I blame her? The man was a handsome one: bristles of unkempt hair spiked along his neck and a soft, royal gaze peered from below his glasses. He too held a glass, though never took a sip, only swirled it in his fingers like a baton.

I knew him, no doubt, but the name refused to leap from the tip of my tongue.

He rose from his seat and headed my direction, sending my stomach tumbling. I could not know him! Yet, he was more familiar to me than anyone about The Cherry Den. And that was when it hit me, my stomach wheezing with the smoke of a pistol. It was him! He was standing right there in front of me, looking no more weary than the day before his death. He wore a wealthy man's collar and a wealthy man's gaze, unlike anything I had ever witnessed him sporting, and fashioned it with his own carved smile. It wasn't possible, and yet, here he was!

Father-- my teacher, my coach, my friend-- whom I had abandoned long before justice existed, seated himself in the chair across from me, fist at his chin and eyes on the stage. His tilted smile hung to his face like wet clothing but his eyes sparkled in recognition. He turned to me and my face went pale. I forgot the nightmare, forgot the guilt, and only stared into the joyous man's face with ferocious terror.

"They have a great dancer tonight," he remarked, turning back to the woman on stage. "She doesn't have a good attitude, though. Just look at that neutral expression! I'd say that brings her ratings down by fifty!"

My throat wouldn't allow me to speak. There was something sharp caught in it, lodged between my brain and my vocal chords. But, even without the handicap, there were no words I could utter. This was my father. What the hell could I begin to say? Sorry? Would that fix the devastation upon me? Would that solve his eternal suffering? Could I apologize for something I would never change if given the chance? No, I could not bring myself to speak. There was nothing to be said.

"If I were you, I'd be proud," he continued on as if he didn't notice the illness of guilt spreading down my body. "She's a natural, just like you."

"What are you talking about?" I stammered.

"Why, don't tell me Missy Begum, my own flesh and blood, has forgotten when she danced on that stage! You were born for the struts and the twirls and the seductive winks across the room. It's a pity you retired but at least we have my granddaughter to adore as we did to you."

Something dropped inside me, slipping down my legs and out my toes in something red and weeping. There it was, my heart, crawling toward its own punishment with open arms.

I saw what I had been missing: the periwinkle eyes, the glistening hair, the missing crease between her nose and lips, the twinge of fury in her expression. This was her, June, in the flesh. No! No! My June is young and bright! My June is sweet! She possesses no wide hips or large breasts to murder the drooling men at the sidelines! But, even as I tried to deny it, I could see that resentment in her marvelous eyes. Yes, this was her, with absolutely no evidence to rebuttal.

"J-Ju-June," I choked, clutching my throat with dead fingers.

And the man-- the dead man with the burrowing eyes-- smiled.

* * * * *

The smoke from my Camel obstructed my view but further urged me down the desolate road. The sensation from the cigarette was unfamiliar after a brief hiatus, but I quickly became one with the fire. It traced down the interior of my fingers, fluttering from my cheekbones and down to my knees. So gentle, it seemed, to graze the bruises on my underbelly and lay a kiss on my possessed heart. It was the shoulder I grasped for security, the hand I squeezed for reassurance, and the breath I breathed for comfort. Without it, I feared my knees may give out and leave me, aching, on the road.

I learned from Abigail about the Prohibition and cursed it into the night sky. Why, in such trivial times, were there not legal appliances for me to drown my sorrows in? Ah yes, but despite the illegal aspect of obtaining a drink, in what plain did I care? She, too, had spoke of the wealthy homes who had stockpiled the beverages and were now selling them to thirsty men in the streets. They could not care less for the 18th amendment; business was war.

Without more thought, I was inside a home and gasping as the stench of men entered my nostrils. The place was secluded, as it should have been, and without much resemblance to a normal pub. It moreso mirrored a wealthy family's kitchen. Despite the size, it seemed everyone in the four surrounding neighborhoods were there to receive Death's blessing.

Making my way through the fatigued men, I was bewildered to discover the frigid eyes of the well-known face near the serving man: Detective Holly. It seemed my surprise was shared, as every half-sober man in the room stole a fearful glance in his direction. Law enforcement, it seemed, whether or not it was their job to eradicate scams like this, could not go a month without their motivation.

Without processing the decision through my usual filters, I pulled up a seat beside him and coins in the serving man's hands. Within the minute, my glass had already been downed.

We said nothing for what seemed like hours. I knew not what held him back, but what kept me from striking up conversation was the wilting figure still present inside of me. My exterior was bold and pretentious, but my heart wailed her sorrow. The nightmare still slathered itself over my memory, never loosening its jailor's grip on my prison bars.

Finally, and with a startled jump to my shoulders, he grunted, "You were there, this morning."

A raw chill traveled up my spine and as a decaying taste on my tongue. "What?" I spluttered.

"From the balcony." He took a gulp of the mead in front of him, paying no heed to my expression. "You watched from Ms. Rosetta's balcony."

"Yes, I did-"

"And your face." I minded nothing of the interruption, for his emotion seemed to twist into a worm of frustration and interest on his lips. "Your face was wrought with a grief not even present on the corpse's own. So much grief jammed into those pale cheeks, I feared they might pop."

"Indeed," a voice mused, though it could not have belonged to me. Mine was not so smooth and resistant to his words. No, this one came from my throat but was not what should have been brought into his ear. This was the voice of a woman who wished to deceive. "The face is the window of the heart, Detective."

"David."

"What?"

"Do not call me by my title in such a dismal place," he murmured, his handsome breath searing my cheeks with delight. "A bottle of the Devil's saliva in the palm should not define my position. Call me David."

"Then David you are."

"What is that, in your voice? Why do you slur your vowels ever so slightly? Why do you speak like no other?"

Watching his curiosity drag him by the throat and into my wishes wrapped a sudden urge around my wrists. His gruff voice, his formal tone, his piercing eyes-- they would not be obscured from my animal desires! I wished to wrench him from his position and take him instead into my lips, so he could break my defenses with his tongue. Whatever secrets he discovered, whatever opinions he formulated, I only needed the one night-- the one night of amorous amnesia.

He gave up on the question, instead leaning back and emptying his glass in one fell swoop. As his eyes popped, mine too began to swirl. My head spun around the moon, pumping full of a drowsiness and wobbliness. Never had my body felt so free of mental binds; never had it let go so much as it did now.

"You had to come here?" David slurred, losing the formal tone I was so accustomed to hearing.

"I couldn't be a failure," I whined, placing my white knuckles on the table and facing the floor, "but somehow I've become more of one than ever."

He placed a hand on my shoulder, after two tries and missing. "No one succeeds, only fail and fail. A circle of failure, no way out."

"No, June still loves me."

"June?"

"June, June. . . " My words trailed off, being hastily replaced with more alcohol in my system. "Yes, June!"

"Why can't I figure you out?" He studied my face, brow furrowed and looking as if his head was not pinched with chaos. For a moment, I could not tell whether he had become completely sober or not. "Mystery, I'm good at those! Yes, mystery! Your voice is alien! Your clothes are alien! But you're not just an immigrant, oh no! There's something else about you I can't figure out. And I want you to tell me," he pointed his finger down in a meaningless motion, "right now."

"Just a. . . Just a. . . . . "

With a slump of the shoulders and an internal shriek, my head slammed into the table and there it remained for the rest of the nightly hour.