Atonement

Helena woke up in a Denny’s parking lot. She woke up with all of the things she had ever done and the things that had been done to her, and did her best to lean into them.

The lot was empty, save two other vans that had stayed the night, their curtains still drawn over untinted windows, which were politely parked as far away from her and each other as possible, in accordance with the unspoken etiquette. 

Sleep bleared her eyes; the morning chill crept into the car, stopped just short of the mountain of quilts she huddled under. She reached for her phone, taking care to keep as much of her body in the warmth as possible, and logged onto her workplace, which was how she referred to Craigslist. She adjusted the price for a rare mushroom she’d found in the woods, sent off some pictures of her feet for more than she had ever thought they’d be worth, and responded to a request for yard work assistance in a town an hour east. The last one replied almost immediately. He said to come over when she could. 

Sure thing, Daniel, she said.

The restaurant was at the edge of a town with a population of 316, and the edge of the town was pressed up against the edge of the Pacific. A mossy wooden fence strung a barrier between the parking lot and its end. It dropped off abruptly, the gravelly concrete looking worn where the wind had buffeted it away. Helena climbed over the fence. She brushed her teeth with her legs dangling over the cliff face, and when she spat the liquid arced stunningly into the ocean three hundred feet below.

One hour later she rang the doorbell and waited on the porch. There was a pot of overgrown daisies by the doorstep, and foxtail grass poked up through the floorboards. The door opened. The man had a light, scruffy beard. He wore a faded red cap that was faintly discolored from sweat.

“Are you Stephen?” asked Daniel, using the name from the email address.

“Helena.”

A long pause.

“You’re here to help with the fence?”

“Yeah.”

Daniel took her out to the backyard. He pointed out the rotting wood and explained his dream to have a brand new fence with ruler-straight white boards, and that he once could have built it himself but his back gave out now and again these days and he needed someone young and fit to take care of the trickier parts. So they started to dismantle the fence together. They dug shovels into the dirt around the fence posts and brought up the concrete blocks that anchored them down. The silence was punctuated by the scrapes of the shovels and an occasional grunt of effort. Daniel said:

“So, Stephen, I mean, Helena. Are you gay? Transgendered?”

Helena paused for a moment, bent halfway over her shovel. Daniel had removed his hat and was wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. He was turned away from her.

“Something like that,” she said.

She held her breath until Daniel said, “I’m gay myself. So it’s okay with me.”

There was a pause because they had to use some effort to take out a block. Then he continued, “You look like a handsome young man, but use a woman’s name. I don’t understand it. But that’s okay.”

When the old posts were all taken down, they ran a line of string along the perimeter, marking a spot every few feet. Then they were back to digging holes and placing the new posts in the holes, which was long, mindless work. Daniel took this opportunity to continue speaking.

“When I was growing up it was different. All the young people today are bisexual or binary or some variation. It gets confusing.”

“Sure,” said Helena.

“When I was growing up, everyone was gay or straight and that was it. Of course, if you weren’t straight, things weren’t easy. You had to worry about getting hurt, or kicked out by your family if you were young, or sometimes even getting killed.”

“We still do,” said Helena.

“We still do,” the older man echoed. “That’s absolutely right. We still do.”

They finished placing the posts. Then they filled the holes with concrete and put dirt on top so the concrete wasn’t visible. Daniel ordered takeout, and they ate burritos ravenously while the sun set over their day’s work. When the sun was gone and the burritos were gone, Daniel asked hesitantly if she wanted to come inside.

“Absolutely,” she said.

He tried to court her with shy, everyman mannerisms. He dimmed the lights, brought two cinnamon candles up out of the garage. He put them on the bedside table with some flowers picked off the porch. He had her sit down on the bed. Then they undressed each other, and she put her head on his downy chest and felt his heartbeat push against her softly.

“Have you been with an older man before?” he asked.

“I have. I’ve been them, too,” she said. She ran her hand over his underwear, and his eyes fluttered closed.

“I’m trying to become a good person,” said Helena. “Do you have any advice for me?”

They were stretched out parallel on the bed, their rib cages barely not touching.

“I’m afraid I’m not that good of a person. I can’t help you,” said the older man.

“Are you a bad person?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, if you’re right about that, then you’re doing just fine.”

She was able to extract pieces of his life story from him. He’d grown up about thirty miles away, got somewhat decent grades, went to a local college, married a local girl. They’d been together less than a year before he realized something was wrong, and he left without a word—just gathered his essentials one night and drove off in their shared car while she was asleep. He couldn’t bring himself to go far, though, because he did love the town, even if he couldn’t stay there. So he settled for Amsberg, a similar place with different people. He managed to find his way to—stumble upon, really—the underground scene in nearby Los Angeles. One year was devoted to trying out every variety of opioids he could get his hands on; then he started working as a farmhand and had to stop because the drugs interfered with his work. He managed to quit, but the dealer pleaded with him to keep buying, at least until the dealer paid off some of his debts. So Daniel kept buying, and he’d hand out the drugs to his coworkers on the farm until his boss found out after one of the workers collapsed on the field. She turned out okay, but she and Daniel were fired. Next he worked as a stripper in a nightclub. He didn’t enjoy it much, and it was meant to be an in-between job. But one night some customers convinced him (with thinly-veiled threats) to join their commune in the Mojave, and he went with them and lived there for six months. They put him in charge of the goats. He tended to them every day, and every Monday he’d shoot one of them dead, and its scream would scare the birds out of the trees, and they would all have a feast. When he left he did so on foot, all the way back to Amsberg. He was greeted by a note on his door saying that both his parents had died, and seeing as it must have been put there by someone from his town of origin, he wondered if they had known where he was all this time.

“All that happened to you?” Helena asked.

“Some of it happened to other people. Friends, lovers,” he admitted. “But I can’t remember which parts, anymore.” He rubbed his chest slowly. He seemed exhausted; his eyes kept closing.

“Someday I won’t be able to tell your stories from mine, either,” Helena said.

Daniel gave her directions to the nightclub that he had used to work at. He said she’d like it there, and that she’d get along well with the club owner.

“Ask for Miss Silver,” he said.

She drove the hour into the city, and when she arrived at the location she looked down at the paper with the address, then up at the bar-diner, Servii, at the futuristic metal chairs and “MENU” spelled in lightbulbs over the menu, which was printed on a fake chalkboard—and went inside.

“Is Miss Silver here?” she asked the bartender.

“The place you’re looking for moved a long time ago. It’s in San Francisco now.”

Helena asked for the address, and she gave it to her. 

“I’ll be heading there now,” she said, “thanks.”

“Now? All the way to San Fran?”

“I could have a cranberry martini,” she said. She couldn’t stand the taste of alcohol.

“Cute!”

There was one empty seat at the tables, next to a woman sitting alone. Helena sat next to her and started a conversation.

The woman worked at the Albertson’s and attended a local community college part-time, which she had been doing for years. She had a baby who was four, who was with his father at the moment. She asked what Helena did for a living and she said, “I do freelance. Some odd jobs, but mainly sex work. I trade sex in exchange for life advice.”

She gave the expected response: a slow blink, a snort through the nose, a dubious statement: “I don’t think that makes you a real prostitute, then.”

“What, do I need a license?”

“Don’t you at least need, like, a pimp?”

“If you want to be old-fashioned about it.” She unwrapped the straw on the table and stuck it in her martini.

The woman saw her do this and said, “Waste of plastic.”

“Don’t like germs,” she said.

“What made you come to LA?”

“I was looking for someone. They’re not here, so I’ll be moving on soon.”

“What happens after you find them?”

“I go to the next town.”

“So you just go from town as fast as you can?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds sad. You just get the surface view of everywhere you go.”

` ”I’m not a deep person.” She took a long sip. “What brings you here?”

“Let’s see… I was born here and then… I stayed. There was never any reason to leave.”

“That sounds pretty sad to me. So I guess we’re both sad.”

“To each other.”

“To each other.”

The woman said, “This feels like a movie.”

“A rom-com?” Helena said, putting on what she thought was a movie-star smile.

“It’s one of those weird indie ones that people say is good because it’s weird, but in reality it doesn’t make sense and they don’t want to admit that they understand it.”

“What happens in this movie?”

“It probably starts with something like, a boy and a girl living in a cottage town with stone houses. The boy works as a deliveryman and the girl has to stay home to take care of her sickly old father, but he’s a total jerk. And her mother, they don’t explain exactly what happened to her because that would bog down the narrative, but she shows up in the girl’s dreams and takes her into caves where there are friendly snakes who whisper things to her, I don’t know what. And then one day—“

“The snakes say ‘Go down to the arroyo on the equinox.’”

“Okay, sure, they say that. And then one day the boy delivers a package to the girl’s house, and they have a meet-cute. They have this long arc where both of them are learning to trust someone for the first time. Then it turns out that the girl’s father is evil, which is really convenient because he was hard to like, and he’s trying to cast a spell that will steal the life force from either the boy or the girl, so they’ll die and he’ll be healthy again. So they… to prevent him from doing this they… oh, whatever, they go to the arroyo on the day they’re supposed to. The girl’s mom is there as a ghost, and she makes rain come down and the water wraps around the evil father and kills him. You sort of expect him to say something redeeming as he dies, like he’s actually been looking out for his daughter this whole time, but he just twitches a few times and then spiders come out of his mouth.”

“Imaginative,” said Helena.

“Oh, you know, I just go off real life.”

“Is your dad really sick?”

“No, that part was made up. My parents are both alive and well.”

“I’m glad to hear.”

“What should the characters be named?” she asked.

“You should name them.” 

“Okay. Something like, like, like, ‘Magi’ for the girl, and ‘Luko’ for the boy.”

“Which one of us is which?”

“I’d be the girl and you’d be the boy,” she said, “obviously.”

They stayed the night at the girl’s house. The sex was light and playful because they were equally aware that it was fleeting. In the morning Luko kissed Magi’s forehead and said, “I have to go now.”

“Do I owe you something?” she said. “For your services?”

“The story counted.”

Magi went back to sleep.

He paused for a moment outside of her apartment to watch the cars go by, the parents taking their kids to school before work. He saw a mom reach into the back seat at a red light to slap her middle schooler, and someone threw a plastic cup out of a passing car window onto the road. It was a Friday.

Halfway to San Francisco, Luko followed an offroad to its end. It curved out and around the ocean’s edge, then stopped in an anticlimactic circle of dirt. Luko left the car there and followed the edge of the cliff. It was overgrown with thickets of lupine, brittle coyote brush, wild strawberry, and poison oak, which he was pretty sure he was immune to, but avoided just in case. He pushed through the bushes until he found a narrow path snaking down the cliff face that had been carved out by the bored and adventurous people who had been there before him. And thank God for that, because he still would have tried to get down if there hadn’t been a path, and he didn’t really trust himself to do that.

He left his clothes folded on the abandoned shore and wandered into the ocean. The water moved up and down his body, from his navel to his chest and back down and again. The thread of the water’s surface left a cold bite wherever it touched. Soon the tide lowered and revealed the rocks in full, glistening black, with puddles in their indentations that had hermit crabs and purple starfish in them.

In the afternoon he returned to the main road, and listened to the wind-rush of fast cars passing and the low murmur of the talk radio, loud enough to hear sound but not loud enough for the words to register.

The Silver Lining loomed over the center of a busy San Francisco street in gleaming neon. The music was so loud the floor shook, even from outside. Luko was rarely afraid, but when he pushed the door open he nearly turned straight around and drove all the way back to the abandoned turnout off the highway.

The club was dimly lit, and the few lights that there were were green and blue. A projector in the middle of the ceiling sent the lights spiraling, spinning, and dashing across people’s faces. The light went out in strobes so that the people were briefly revealed and then melted away immediately. There were beautiful people, tall and thin with hollowed cheeks like models, and there were beautiful people who in any other setting would be considered ugly, and people with lots of makeup that made them look like glowing aliens under some lights and like they were made of moondust under others. There were people with leather belts tightened over glistening skin, skin dripping with sweat pressed against more skin, arms and torsos laced with tattoos. He looked incredibly out of place with his unwashed flannel and feral shabbiness, but he let the shame pass through him and slid up between some strangers, who accepted him as just another drop in the sea of people.

“Do you know where Miss Silver is?” he shouted to them over the music.

There was a spot in the crowd where the pattern ceased to be random and instead the people faced inward, radiating from a single spot. At the center was a woman. She wore ridiculously platformed shoes that made her tower over the others. Her dress moved like seafoam over and around the biggest, roundest, most buoyant pair of tits that Luko had ever seen. When she turned even slightly, her face sparkled.

Luko waved his arms and shouted Miss Silver’s name. The sparkling woman looked surprised, but she motioned for people to move out of the way. Once she was close up, Luko saw that she was much older than he had originally thought, and she had elegant wrinkles framing her mouth and forehead.

“Daniel sent me here,” he said. “He thought we would get along well.”

“I know lots of Daniels,” said Miss Silver.

“This was Daniel… Daniel…” He couldn’t remember his last name. “It doesn’t matter. I’m Luko, and I’m here now, not him.”

Miss Silver touched a passerby on the shoulder. She asked them to get them both drinks from the bar.

“Miss Silver, I have a—“

She asked to be called Annette.

“—a proposition for you.” He told her about his trade, and what he was offering, and what he was asking for.

“Advice? I’m twice your age. What could I possibly learn from you?”

“You misunderstand. If you give me advice, then I’ll sleep with you. See, I conduct my own private sex work of sorts. I exchange sex for wisdom, and someone tipped me off that you have some very admirable wells of wisdom.”

Annette laughed at this. “You really think you’re that valuable? Just for your confidence, you can come home with me this one time.” The person from earlier returned with their drinks, and she kissed them on the cheek.

“Hold on,” Luko said as she motioned to lead him away. “You still haven’t paid your side of the deal.”

“What do you want to know, then?”

“Any sort of advice you have,” he said. “I also take stories.”

“That’s too broad,” Annette said.

“Something that will help me be a good person.”

“A good person, huh?”

“A better person. A not-bad person.”

“Good, bad, who decides?” said Annette.

“I do, for myself. And you do, for yourself.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because I can still learn from others. I want to incorporate more of them into myself.”

“You mean you want me to tell you what to do.”

“You could put it that way.”

“Okay, here I go.” She touched her long, sapphire nails to her temples and moved them in small circles. “I think you should… Face your fears. Figure out what you are running away from. If you have broken relationships behind you, mend them. If you are disappointed with the world, figure out what you can do to change it. Life is short when you live recklessly. Either do something with the time you have, or be more careful.”

Luko thought about this. “That’s certainly good advice,” he said, “but sometimes good advice is impractical.”

“I told you it wouldn’t work,” Annette said. “Now come with me.”

She took him to the back of the club, through an industrial-looking door and then a beaded curtain. There was a plush velvet couch that she sat on with her legs crossed, and motioned for Luko to sit next to her. She regarded Luko affectionately, like he was a little kid with a skinned knee.

“Someone like you comes to me every night,” she said. “A young person, usually some little twink, who’s dropped out of college, or they’ve been kicked out of their home, broken up with by a partner, consumed by addiction, has come to an uncomfortable conclusion about life, and on and on, and they have it in their head that I have everything all figured out. But you haven’t given me anything to go off of. What’s your crisis?”

“That’s not me,” Luko said. “I ask everyone this. It’s what I do. I’m not lost.”

“You ask everyone you meet for life advice, yet you feel in control?”

“Other people inform me, but I decide what’s true for myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no idea what’s actually true. If I don’t pick something, I won’t do anything.”

“That’s exactly right. Truth is only necessary as it guides your actions.”

“So what actions do you do?”

“I run this club,” said Annette. “I do the paperwork, set up the lights and the decorations and hire the bartenders. I make weekend nights exciting, monitor the wild ones, coax the shy ones. And in the morning when everyone’s gone I sweep the floors. Then I go to my other job, where I’m another person, and it’s none of the business of anyone here.”

“Do you feel more genuine when you’re working here?”

“When I’m there I’m Anne or Annie or Annie Silver, and here it’s just Annette, and a long time ago it was Miss Silver. Sometimes I’m Anne and sometimes I’m Annette, and sometimes I’m someone else altogether, and none is more real than another.”

Luko watched her closely as she spoke, admiring her tight dress, her plunging neckline. Her eyelids and cheekbones shone; her lips glistened as she moved. Each word was like a sun breaking over a mountaintop. Luko felt the heat of each word touch his face, though it might have been due to the accumulation of hot, clammy bodies in the next room over.

He pictured himself crying in Annette’s warm embrace. The tears and the softness of her breasts made a warm sea that wrapped around him. He tried it out for real, putting his head to Annette’s chest. No tears came. He listened to the soft pump of her heart.

“Can I have your name,” said Luko.

“Honey, I don’t do marriage.”

“Not your last name,” he said. “The whole thing. Just for a little bit, like a week or so. You can have mine in return.”

“Oh, no thank you. But we can share ‘Annette.’”

“Can I have Annie instead of Annette? I like that more.”

“Sure.”

“You’re very generous,” said Annie.

When she woke up there was gray city light streaming in through a wispy curtain. The bedspread was red and gold and black. There was a note on the other side of the bed, which was neatly folded, that said Take what you want from the fridge.

Annie Silver got up and stretched. She thought the colors of the bed were nice, so she took some nude pictures using her phone’s automatic timer, which she filed under OnlyFans, pre-edit. Then she tried to make her side of the bed as neat as the other, but couldn’t quite get all the wrinkles out. The refrigerator was in the next room over. When she opened it, it blasted her with a sour morning breeze.

She took a bag of cherries for later and ate half a piece of shortcake at a flimsy dining table. The fork went in and split the cake and strawberry filling spilled out. Annette was nowhere to be found; at the day job, perhaps. The silence was pleasant at first, but it got dull after several minutes. She logged onto Craigslist while running her index finger along the plate to gather up the last of the crumbs. Apparently there was someone on the Arizona border who was looking for assistance with kitchen repair.