Read Something in My Eye: Stories for Free Online Page B

table, a family and not strangers at all. This is what I brought with me in my suitcase when I came to town: a toothbrush and a comb, a notebook and a pen, a dressy shirt for a job interview, casual clothes for hanging around, and all the money I had left, which was around five hundred dollars in cash that I kept in my shoe to confuse anyone that tried to rob me. In my previous city I had often worried about being robbed with a gun in my face, and my plan, should this have happened, was to tell the robber that I had a good bit of money, then take off my shoe and dump the cash onto the ground. While the robber was confused and stooping to pick up my money and poking around in my shoe for more, I would very quietly run away and avoid a gruesome fate. The first couple weeks in my new town I stayed in a motel under the freeway across from a veterans hospital, which wasn’t so glamorous, I admit, but they offered affordable weekly rates for travelers on a budget. In fact, the only ugly thing I found in the motel was a big bloodstain under the bed, which I noticed while looking for a cracker that I had dropped, but before I let this discovery affect me, I decided that if I’d just been a little more careful in lifting the cracker to my
mouth, I never would have found the stain. True, it would have lain there, bloody and silent, beneath me as I slept, but who is to say it wouldn’t have worked on me anyway? Even so, I remembered my vow, and left it at that. The motel made a good effort at being a hot destination. Out front, it had a pool in the shape of a heart which overlooked the expressway, and I would have liked to dip a toe in had it not been November. The Jacuzzi was initially inviting, but I never got a chance to use it because it had been cordoned off by police tape ever since I had arrived. I managed to live pretty frugally: cheese and crackers for breakfast and dinner, and oranges for the Vitamin C. Finding a job was the only thing I thought about; I studied the classifieds like they were sacred scriptures, and even did fake interviews with myself in front of the mirror for practice. In the mornings I would shower and shave with a disposable razor and soap, which was sometimes tricky because I tend to grow hair inconsistently, at inordinate speeds along different parts of my face. The motel had complimentary toilet paper, so I was able to staunch any of my cuts with little folded scraps before I left my room. One day though, I was in such a hurry that I cut myself under my nose, bad enough that I had to ask the manager nicely for a Band-Aid. People gave me nasty looks on the bus that morning, and I only figured out why, when, after I had filled out an application at a coffee shop and was using the bathroom in the back, I noticed that I had a pretty sizable amount of blood in my teeth, which I wasn’t able to taste because of the cinnamon gum I was chewing. My brother’s song went something like: If we should ever meet, I will kindly take your hand. If we should ever meet, I will cudgel every lamb. If we should ever meet, I will wear my cleanest gown. If we should ever meet, I will set fire to this town. If we should ever meet, I will deny those close to me. If we should ever meet, I will feign to disagree. My first couple of weeks in town, I applied to about eighty percent of the town’s businesses. I submitted applications at restaurants, toy stores, electronic stores, video stores, supermarkets, office buildings, bars, shoe and watch repair
shops, cell phone stores, music stores, banks, home furnishings stores, department stores, and money lending stores. During this time, when I was still really new to the town, no matter where I was at noon, I would try and find a family restaurant to have some lunch. I would sit at a table for an hour, studying a map of the town, highlighting any streets I had not yet seen. I’d eat as much as I could. Most places didn’t allow you to take food out, so I