*
In the morning, Cal told Laura that they had dodged a bullet. What an edgy neighborhood! He could not resist getting in a dig. Laura’s eyes turned flat and unresponsive. She had been moody the night before, doubtless judging him for another blunder. Maybe he got the capital of Bullshitistan wrong. She had raved about how the apartments were bigger and cheaper in the Armory. How edgy it was. Well, here was its edge. His dad had suggested they install a gun turret in the living room window.
Cal caught their landlady outside while Laura was in the shower. She gave him the details she had gathered from the police scanner. Hispanic male, twenty-five years of age, five foot eight, 160 pounds. The same age as Cal. Slumped over in the passenger side of the vehicle with a bullet in his head. The car had been left running, which prompted the call to the police, although Mrs. Caracelli made clear that she had not called.
Cal thought she had to be eighty. She was skeletally thin with wiry gray hair and wore a black velour tracksuit with sky-blue piping. She kept a cigarette behind her left ear. From the first showing, she had seemed to favor him. He was handsome, and old women in particular warmed to him quickly. Cal’s weak salary as a bank teller hadn’t bothered her. She had said, You have to start somewhere. Yeah, he had replied, I’ve got my share of shit to eat. They were both native Rhode Islanders. He had grown up in an East Bay town with colonial charm and a working-class core. The old lady had been okay with Laura’s family kicking in half the rent too, since she was in a grad program at Brown. Italian Early Modern, Laura had said, what they used to call the Renaissance. The old woman had chuckled and looked at her bust of Dante. Laura was from Westchester, but Mrs. Caracelli said New York City with a frown of disapproval. She had even let them keep chickens, another fancy of Laura’s. Mrs. Caracelli said it reminded her of her childhood, spent a few blocks south. Cal had been skeptical about the chickens, but Laura went for fads. Like home fermentation and composting. He did like to go outside for warm eggs to scramble, although there was something twisted about it. He enjoyed their game of Farmer Brown. A little American Gothic in the city, Laura said.
Laura came down the two wooden steps to the street, her hair wet from the shower, wearing tight jeans, which he liked, and a tight purple V-neck, which he also liked. When he had met Laura just over a year ago during happy hour at McFadden’s, his first thought had been that she was just the type of girl he liked to watch get off. The uptight ones were always the best. She proved him right. Before the big move, they were practically porn stars. He knew just where to touch her. Something electric had been working between them. The excitement of the commitment maybe. Another layer of distance removed. He had never felt that electricity before.
“What have you heard?” she asked, coming close to him.
Mrs. Caracelli nodded good morning, smiling brightly, and watched as Cal explained. He stood where the car had been, towed away an hour before. Exhaust hung thick in the air as if the tailpipe still coughed out fumes, filling the lane of tightly packed wood-frame buildings.
“How did we not hear a gunshot?” Laura asked.
Mrs. Caracelli interjected, sitting on the creaky steps to the second floor smoking her cigarette: “They didn’t kill him here. They just dumped him. Classic job. I guess they didn’t want the car either.”
Laura, wide-eyed, turned back to Cal. The look expressed horror either at the violence or at Mrs. Caracelli’s indifference. He almost laughed, although none of it was funny. Laura stepped closer to him and whispered, exaggerating the words with her mouth, “We can’t live here.” She looked back at the old woman and smiled.
“Mrs. Caracelli,” Cal called to her, “has this happened before?”
The old woman gave a skull-faced smile and took a drag on her cigarette. She let the smoke pour from her mouth like a dragon. “You should have been here thirty years ago. Needles all in the park. Hookers. Drug dealers right on the street. Jesus.” She took another pull from her cigarette. She reminded Cal of his grandmother.
Laura’s eyes grew wider. Her long, thin face had become longer and thinner.
Cal whispered, “We just moved in. We have a lease.” Laura didn’t seem to care about that, but when you grew up with everything given to you, it never occurred to you that somebody had to pick up the tab.
“Who cares?” she whispered back fiercely. She stood where the car had been, along the picket fence that bordered Liz Westerberg’s flower garden. Laura shook her head, short little shakes, as if her processor had hit a snag that caused her to reboot again and again.