Triptych

Nobody wanted to touch her.

“Hey, Knight in Shining Armor All,” she said, shaking her hand toward John. “Come on, stallion. Help me the fuck up.”

John hesitated, but then he reached down and pulled her up. She smelled of cigarettes and bourbon, and had a hard time standing on the spike heels of her shoes. Her hand dug into his shoulder as she steadied herself. He tried not to shudder in revulsion, thinking about where that hand had been. In the sunlight, her skin was sallow, and he guessed her liver was desperate enough to shit itself out of her navel if it was ever given the opportunity. She could have been thirty, she could have been eighty.

The cop took charge. “You wa

“He wouldn’t pay me,” she said, tilting her chin, indicating the prone Ray-Ray. Her voice was like loose rock rolling in a cup of phlegm. What words she didn’t slur were probably not worth hearing.

“You gave him one on credit?” the cop asked, not bothering to hide his incredulity. The man had a point. John wouldn’t sell Ray-Ray a petrified turd on credit.

“We was in there,” she said, meaning the Port-a-John behind the building. “He tried to sweet-talk me, the lousy fucker. Said he was get-tin‘ paid tomorrow.”

The cop’s eyebrow shot up. “You gotta be shittin me.”

“He followed me out here, trying to make a deal,” she continued, clutching John’s arm again as she swayed. “Like it’s double coupon day at the fucking Kmart. Stupid cocksucker.” She lifted a patent-leather heel and kicked Ray-Ray in the arm.

“Hey, hey, now,” Ray-Ray said, groaning as he rolled over onto his back. John figured the asshole had been playing possum and wanted to beat him again for causing all of this.

The cop prodded Ray-Ray with his shoe. “You try to get a freebie, you stupid mope?”

Ray-Ray put his hand over his eyes, shielding the sun so he could look up at the cop without being blinded. “No, no, man. That ain’t the thing..Ain’t the thing at all.”

“Get up, you fucking idiot,” the cop ordered. “You.” He pointed at the whore. “Where’s your drag?”

She was busy wiping the concrete off her elbows. “Up by the liquor store.”

There was a crash of static from the cop’s radio, then, “Unit fifty-one, fifty-one?”

The cop clicked the mic, said, “Check,” then pointed to John, talking over the information the dispatcher gave but obviously still listening. “You. Prince Charming. Make sure she gets back home safe. You,” he pointed to Ray-Ray. “Don’t make me tell you one more fucking time to get the fuck up or I will run your ass in so quick your P.O. won’t even have time to call you a cab back to the pen.” Ray-Ray jumped up and the cop clicked on the radio and said, “Roger, I’m there in ten minutes.” As an afterthought, he asked Art, “You okay with all this?”

Art frowned, his forehead sloping into a V. “Yeah, whatever,” he finally agreed. “Shelley, take the day off. Come back with your head in the right place tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” John said, so relieved he could have cried. “Thank you, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”

The respect brought him some back. “You want me to get rid of this stuttering freak?” Art asked John as he jabbed his thumb at Ray-Ray.

John thought about it for a good second, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for this asshole. “We’re fine,” he said. “Right, Ray?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray-Ray said. “We cool. We cool.”

“Shut up,” Art said. “I don’t want to see you back here until Wednesday morning, you got that?”

Ray-Ray nodded. Twice.

Art gave the prostitute a scathing look, then told John, “Get her out of here before we start losing customers.”

John didn’t think he had a choice. The whore had grabbed on to him again, her bony fingers pressing into his arm just above the elbow. He started walking alongside her because something told him if he didn’t, she’d end up face-first in the street.

Traffic whizzed by as they walked up Piedmont Avenue. John saw about a zillion SUVs and sports cars going up and down this road every day. With Buckhead at one end and Ansley Park at the other, the only crappy cars John saw on the road belonged to the maids, landscapers, pool boys and all the other hapless souls who made their living doing the shitwork rich folks didn’t have to do.

“Fucking asshole,” the pross muttered as they waited for the light. Her bony fingers pressed deeper into his flesh as she tried to steady herself on her ridiculously high heels. “Hold up a minute,” she finally relented, keeping her grip on him as she took off one, then the other shoe. “Fucking heels.”

“Yeah,” John said, because she was obviously expecting an answer.

“It’s red,” she told him, jerking him into the street as traffic stopped for the light. “Christ, my feet hurt.” She looked up at him as they reached the other side of the intersection. “I gotta loose tooth, you know? From where he kicked me.”

“Oh,” John said, thinking she was either stupid or crazy if she thought he had the extra money to send her to the dentist. “Okay. Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, you dumb prick. I’m saying I can use my hands but you can’t put it in my mouth.”

John didn’t realize he was clenching his teeth until his jaw started to ache. “No,” he answered. “That’s okay.”

“Lissen.” She stopped, dropped her hand, and started swaying like a raft in the middle of a tsunami. “You can head on back, Romeo. I can make it the rest of the way myself.”

“No,” he repeated, this time taking her arm in his hand. With his luck, she’d fall into the street and the cop would pin a manslaughter charge on him. “Let’s go.”

“Whoops,” she breathed, her knee buckling as she slipped on a broken section of sidewalk.

“Steady,” he told her, thinking she was so thin he could feel the bone in her arm moving against the flesh.

Out of the blue, she told him, “I don’t take it up the ass.”

John couldn’t think of which was worse: the thought of her mouth or the thought of her asshole. A quick glance at the sores on her arms and legs made him taste the peanut butter and banana sandwich from lunch.

“Okay,” he said, not knowing why she felt like sharing and wishing to hell she’d stop.

“Makes me shit fu

“I’m just going to make sure you get back,” he assured her. “Don’t worry about that other stuff.”

“Nothin comes for free,” she told him, then laughed. “ ‘Cept maybe this time. Of course, the walk-now, if you consider that your payment, it ain’t exactly free.”

“I was going this way anyway,” he lied. “I live down here.”

“Morningside?” she asked, referring to one of the wealthier neighborhoods backing onto Cheshire Bridge Road.

“Yeah,” he said. “Three-story house with a garage.” She stumbled again and he kept her from falling on her face. “Come on.”

“You don’t gotta be rough, you know.”

He looked at his hand around her arm, saw immediately how tight he was holding it. When he let go, there were marks where his fingers had been. “I’m sorry about that,” he told her, and really meant it. Jesus, he was thinking about women all this time and he didn’t even know how to touch one without hurting her. “I’m just going to walk you back, okay?”

“Almost there,” she told him, then mercifully fell into silence as she concentrated on navigating the bumpy path where the sidewalk ended and dirt took over.

John let her take the lead, keeping two steps behind her in case she fell over into the street. He let the enormity of what had just happened wash over him. What had he been thinking? There was no reason to get himself involved in Ray-Ray’s troubles, and now he was losing a day’s pay so he could take this pross back to her strip, where she’d probably make more money in one hour than he made in three. Christ. He could have lost his job. He could’ve been thrown back in prison.