The Illusion of Life

Chromesthesia

They pull up outside a motel where the pebble-dashed walls are freshly painted and all the lights in the neon sign are still working. Almost too good for this. The car idles for a moment and the john stares at Toddy as Toddy stares out the windscreen.

"Wait here while I get a key." He doesn't wait for a reply and Toddy continues to stare out the window. The door locks click like he's a skittish animal about to run if the cage isn't secure. Like he didn't offer this. Like he has somewhere better to be.

Toddy still knows how to hotwire a car. He leans over and checks the glovebox: there's a handful of loose change, a rumpled five dollar bill, a half crushed carton of Malboro's and matches wedged in the back. He scoops the change into his hand and counts it. Seven dollars and eighty-two cents. It would buy a bottle of the cheap stuff and he could drive until the car runs out of gas, sleep inside, almost safe and almost warm, then ditch the car before the cops come looking.

Instead he shoves the change in his pocket and grabs the cigarettes. He used to smoke pipes and cigars. He straightens out a bent cigarette, holds it between his teeth and with shaky fingers strikes a match. He stares at the flame until his fingers burn. He could drop it. Let the fire take hold on the expensive upholstery, until he chokes on the smoke like he should've done that night in the flophouse. The match burns out.

He lights another and holds it to the cigarette. His lungs fill with smoke; the car fills with smoke. His eyes start to water. He feels like a dog left in a hot car on a summer day and wonders if anyone would bother to break the glass to save him. Scotty would, but not because it's him.

There's a knock on the window and the doors click again. Toddy's door is wrenched open and the john grabs his arm and tugs him till he's on his knees in the parking lot. The john leans over and pulls the still lit cigarette from Toddy's lips and crushes it beneath his shoe.

"No smoking in the car, you goddamn whore." Toddy imagines Scotty saying it.

He stares at shoes that are waxed and polished so thoroughly that they reflect his haggard face through the warm glow of the streetlights. The john look like he belong in a boardroom, not here, two seconds away from kicking a hooker's face in and two minutes away from fucking him. Toddy wonders how long it takes to buff dried blood from Italian leather.

"Get up," the john says. Toddy does. "Follow me." Toddy does. His fingers clench around the coins rattling in his pocket and he wonders what it would take to make Scotty really hurt him.

....

The room is basic but clean. No stains on the carpet or bed sheets, the wallpaper isn't peeling and it smells of cheap air freshener and old cigarettes instead of cum and liquor. Not so long ago this was sleeping rough.

The john steps in behind him and closes the door but pays Toddy no mind. He flicks the TV on and tunes through the static till voices break the awkward silence.

"Go take a shower, Toddy," the man says without taking his eyes off the screen. "I don't fuck dirty street rats."

Toddy remembers the way Scotty talked when he found him in the bowery flophouse. A different kind of cold. He stands for a moment and watches the stranger's back, the way a tuft of brunette hair sticks out at the side, like Scotty's used to after he'd been wearing the cowl. He could run his fingers through it, lean in and place a kiss on Scotty's neck and it would taste better than any booze.

But that is not what this is.

He leaves the bathroom door ajar, because everything is part of the show now. He is being paid for this.