To a Hooker in Minneapolis

I used to write her letters I never sent.

The paper was thin and filmy, like the kind we used to roll joints with. I’d press the pen hard, let the ink soak into the fibre like a wound. I’d tell myself I’m being honest this time. I always told myself that.

Then I stopped writing.

I hadn’t thought about her in a while.

Not until her letter showed up. No return address, just smudged ink and a Minneapolis postmark. I almost tossed it. Figured it was junk — bill collector or maybe one of those third-hand scams about car warranties. But then I saw the handwriting. Slanted and uneven, like a lie trying to stand up straight. Unmistakable.

The first line hit like a shot of cheap bourbon:

Hey Charlie. I’m pregnant.

Like she was ordering Chinese.

I sat with that for a while. Let it settle in the space between the radiator rattle and the neighbour’s TV leaking through the wall. They were watching an old episode of I Dream of Jeannie. She always knew how to lead with a punch.

Said she was living above that dirty bookstore on 9th, off Euclid. I could picture it. Hell, I could smell it. The neon buzzing like a bad tooth, windows fogged from the inside. At least, I hoped it was fog.

She claimed she was clean now. No more dope. No more whiskey. I wanted to believe it, but I’d seen her version of clean before — just another kind of dirt. There aren’t enough Tide pods in all the laundromats in all the towns in all the world.

There was a man. Of course there was. A trombone-playing track rat who talked big about love. He gave her a ring, said he’d raise the kid. Not his kid, mind you. Said he’d treat him like his own. That kind of talk. Always easy when it’s theoretical. Like heaven.

Like love.

She said they went dancing every Saturday. I pictured her in some threadbare dress, eyes glazed, spinning in circles while the trombone guy made promises he wouldn’t keep. She was always chasing some ghost of tenderness. The whole shebang. But she never was good at shebangs — always skipped the part where the wolves need to be fed.

Then she twisted the knife. Like she always did.

Said she thought about me every time she passed a gas station. Said the smell of grease reminded her of my hair. Back then I wore it slick because that’s what I had, not because I wanted to. We made do. Made do with buying or selling or sleeping on floors.

Should have pinched some pomade.

She still had that old record we used to play — Little Anthony and the Imperials. Said someone stole the record player. I didn’t ask who. I already knew.

She said she almost lost her mind after Mario got picked up. Said she went back to Omaha to stay with her folks, but everyone there was either behind bars or under dirt. So she came back. Like always.

That was her classic go-to move, the only one she knew — burn a bridge, then camp on the ashes.

She told me she was happy. First time since “the accident.”

She didn’t say which one.

I remember the night. Sirens, a blood-slick street, her sitting on the curb with a cigarette shaking in her hand. Said she didn’t see the red light. Truth is, she didn’t see anything that didn’t glitter.

We both had accidents we never got over. Hers left a dent in the passenger side of a Pontiac and two weeks of headlines. Mine walked out of my life holding a bag of pills and a look that could curdle sunlight.

Then she got dreamy.

Talked about buying a used car lot if she could get back all the money we spent on dope. Said she’d never sell a car — just drive a different one every day, depending on how she felt. It was such a her thing to say. Wild, impractical, kind of beautiful. I imagined her behind the wheel of a rusted ’72 Buick LeSabre, blasting doo-wop on the eight track and outrunning herself.

But it didn’t last.

I didn’t think it would.

Hey Charlie, for chrissakes. If you want to know the truth of it.

No husband. No trombone. No dancing. She needed money. Said she had a lawyer to pay. Said she’d be up for parole by Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, for chrissakes. Like she picked it to be poetic. She always did have a thing for theatrics.

Her letter ended without a signature. Just her thumbprint in the corner, greasy from the fried eggs made with powdered yolk and margarine with a faded best-before date. The kind of mark you don’t notice until it smears.

Like regret.

I lit a cigarette. Watched the smoke curl into the past. Folded my reply, slipped it into a drawer with the others, and poured myself a drink I shouldn’t have touched. Return to sender.

Minneapolis.

For chrissakes.

Little Anthony was singing, “Well, I think I’m going out of my head. Yes, I think I’m going out of my head. Over you. Over you.”

I stole the record player.

Now how do ya like that?