Read Jonah Man Online

Authors: Christopher Narozny

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Jonah Man (6 page)

BOOK: Jonah Man
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There’s no sign naming the shop, just a number painted in black on the brick beside a tin mailbox. I ring the bell and the door opens inward. The old man has trouble getting out of its way. He’s dressed in sockfeet and frayed pajamas. Liver spots cover the backs of his hands, shade the peaks in his hairline.
Please enter, Mr. Swain.
I’m sorry to wake you.
Not at all.
Inside, the only light comes from a dim lamp clamped to a drafting table. A burlap scrim cuts the room in two.
Wait here while I fetch it, he says.
I watch him walk away, his heels rising off the ground, exposing the black bottoms of his white socks. He parts the curtain, lets it fall shut behind him. The front room is crowded with objects of his trade—a sewing machine with a cracked
treadle, a mannequin torso dressed in lace jabot, teetering stacks of mismatched cloth. Near the center of the floor there’s a heap of dust that he’d swept into a mound but hadn’t bothered to discard. There are no family portraits, no upholstered chairs, no magazines or toys. The room smells like months of the old man’s breath and sweat.
I’ve found it, he calls through the curtain. Get yourself ready.
I unbutton my shirt, unbuckle my belt, remove my hook and strip to my underclothes.
This is it, Mr. Swain, he says, backing his way through the burlap. I trust you will be pleased.
He flicks on the overhead light, raises the suit to his chin. It’s studded with counterfeit gems, the fabric white, blue stripes sewn down the sleeves, glitter glued over every stitch. The collar is lined with rhinestones, the right sleeve wider than the left.
Please, he says. Try it on.
He wheels a mirror to the center of the room while I dress. I bend my knees, roll my shoulders, feel the fabric start to conform to my body. The tailor is grinning, applauding his own work. I slip my stump back in the socket. He takes my shoulders, turns me toward the mirror.
Every bit of me shines. Onstage, under the calcium spot, with sparkles stickered to the balls, I’ll look like fireworks exploding up a blind alley.
Jonson’s rolling his barrel offstage as I walk on. He claps his lips together, then whistles through the gaps in his teeth. The lights go down; a single beam spots me from top to bottom.
I start my routine, but something’s not right. The balls seem far away. I feel myself reaching for them. I move closer, deepen the bend in my arms. My eyes strain, maybe from the single light
and the surrounding dark, maybe from the glint off the gems.
I make it through the first set, move to the edge of the stage, throw the balls up, hide my good hand behind my back. My hook spears loop after loop. I’m feeling steadier; faces in the front row seem to be smiling. One woman holds up her hands, fingers splayed, shielding herself.
I’m nearing the end but decide to keep going. I squat down, start the balls spinning faster. I hear people whispering. Everything is happening almost without me. But then one of the rhinestone cufflinks catches the light, deflects it in a sharp line that finds my eye. I jerk my head away, feel my hook scrape against the surface of a ball, watch the ball spin toward the audience, picking up speed in the air. It strikes the shin of an old woman in the front row, doubles her out of her seat. The audience stands as I back into the wings.
The manager fines me twice what I paid for the suit.
I’m feeling for the rag in my pocket when Jonson rattles my door.
Swainee, he says. I know you’re in there. You got nowhere else to be.
I swipe the vials under my pillow, pull the covers up the bed.
A minute, I say.
That’s right, he says. Make yourself decent.
I open the door; he doesn’t wait for me to invite him inside.
Want to talk some business, he says.
Yeah?
Come to make you an offer—discreet like. I got some you can buy.
How’s that?
Had a cancellation. They told me to find my own buyer.
I don’t say anything.
Listen, Jonson says, I’ll cut you a deal. That suit-a-stones for three vials.
What would you do with it?
I like my pajamas with rocks on them. What do you care? You ain’t going to wear it no more. Unless crippling the audience is part of your act now.
Not interested, I say.
You ain’t been doing so well lately, he says. I’m trying to help you out.
I’ll be all right.
To hell you will. Take my offer.
No, thank you.
You got something going I don’t know about?
No.
Well you best find something. I’m done being cute with you. Them rocks didn’t work. Cutting off your hand didn’t work. Truth is, you only got one way to keep alive. Think on it, Swain. Think real quick.
When he’s gone, I replace the vials in the hollows of my prosthetics, link the chain through the handles, lock the padlock and pocket the key. I work the bed against the wall with my knees, stretch the suit out on the floor, smooth down the wrinkles with my palm. I fold the legs over the torso, the sleeves over the legs, careful to leave slack at the bends so the fabric won’t crease. I tape the suit back up in the tailor’s brown wrapping, hurry outside.
The wide residential streets have gone quiet. A sign says the park closes at dusk, but there’s nothing to keep me from walking through. The main path is lined with trees whose leaves are just starting to fall. I stray from the pavement in the dark, stumble over cracks in the asphalt. I walk fast,
sucking in all the breath my chest will hold.
There’s a light flickering beneath the drape in the tailor’s window. Across the street, a cluster of hobos shamble around a tin ash can, burning what smells like rubber and driftwood. Their frayed dusters and porous bowlers glow white.
The tailor opens his door as far as the chain will allow.
This is no time to come calling, he says, peering at me through the narrow space between door and frame.
I can’t use it, I say.
What?
The suit. Can I come in?
No, he says. I’m sorry, but this is not a proper hour.
I’ll be gone in the morning.
What is it you want? he asks. I hear phlegm shifting at the back of his throat.
I want to return it.
Return it?
Sell it back.
I’m sorry, he says, but that’s not possible. I have no need for it. I put a good number of hours into that suit. I did exactly what you asked, and it was not easy—was not easy to keep the cost within your budget, which frankly was quite meager. So tell me, what is the problem?
I describe the glint off the gems, the arch of the ball just before it struck the woman’s shin. He nods, clears his throat into a handkerchief, shuts the door. I hear the chain sliding free of its plate.
OK, he says. Come in.
The burlap curtain is drawn to one side. A fire in the small iron stove at the back of the room makes a black silhouette of the half-mannequin, casts the piles of fabric in shadow. There’s a book lying open on a cot near the stove, a glass of wine within
arm’s reach on the floor. The only sound comes from kindling sparking in the fire.
He gestures to a child-sized chair beside the drafting table, switches on a lamp, clears away a stack of patterns.
Let me see it, he says.
I hand him the package. He unwraps it, examines the hopsacking cloth, the tiger’s eye and rhinestone. The tips of his fingers are blunted, calloused—the knuckles have lost their bend. I look over the living space. The cot is padded with cushions from a discarded sofa. There’s a bursting armchair, a small stack of branches by the fire, a column of books piled in a corner, a wicker hamper for his clothes.
I can discount the labor by a percentage, he says. The stitching limits the portion of material I can reuse, though there is some. As for the gems, since they are counterfeit, they are not worth much.
He lifts a store receipt off a milk crate, scribbles a column of figures on the back, circles the bottom number.
I nod.
All right, he says.
He walks into the living space, pulls the curtain shut behind him. He’s left the suit on the table, folded at the waist, the torso resting on the pant legs, the arms hanging off the edges of the table. I take a last look, admiring the small bluebird he embroidered on the right shoulder, the tight black stitching that went into drawing distinct feathers on the wing and tail, the actual red and white feathers he’d pasted down to make a tuft crowning the bird’s head. Maybe he’ll put the suit on display—nail it to a wall or fit it for a mannequin. Most likely it will end up buried in one of his piles.
He comes back, sets the bills in my palm.
I am sorry it did not work out, he says.
I start to answer, but my voice catches, and he’s already leading me to the door.
I stop in a bar that’s crowded though the street outside is empty. There are tables of men playing cards, women in flounced dresses working the floor. I take a stool with my back to the room. The barman is busy clearing glasses and soaking up spilled liquor with a rag. I wave him over, order a shot and ask him to leave the bottle. The surface of the bar is pocked and peeling. The whiskey keeps me stuttering over the same calculations—number of vials divided by number of jumps, cost of the suit minus what the tailor paid plus the fine. I puncture a varnish blister with the tip of my hook, pull the coating back.
Halfway into the bottle I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s one of the women who work the floor. She’s wearing a lace dress cut low. The tops of her breasts are dotted with moles, her bare arms flushed—the kind of ruddy flesh that turns white wherever you touch it. Her face is painted like a stage girl’s. I pretend not to notice when she starts at my hook.
She leads me up a staircase behind the bar, into an open wooden booth, draws the curtain behind us. I lean back, shut my eyes. The booth smells of chlorine. The smell turns my head. I’m not sure if I’m standing or lying down. I feel her hands on my bare chest, her nails raking my skin.
By the time I leave, the tailor’s bills are gone.
Twenty-Nine Palms, California
July 1902
 
You’re a charlatan. You’re a thief, and you won’t rob the citizens of my town.
Connor wiped rain from his glasses with a handkerchief, set the handkerchief back in his blazer pocket and raised his head to the small gathering.
This man wants you to continue in your suffering, he said, so that your physical state might mirror his own sour disposition.
I’m telling you to pack up and leave.
Sir, tipsification is a vice, particularly before noon.
And yet here you are, before noon, peddling your dressed-up liquor. I know you and I know your business. You prey on people who have exhausted every legitimate avenue and have nothing more to lose.
BOOK: Jonah Man
2.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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