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the Slaughterhouse of Lambs
(excerpt from a work-in-progress)

Ned Haggard

    Roxy’s eyes brightened when she saw Chandler walk into her bar. She smiled, indifferent to her image as the “tough broad” proprietor. Chandler’s eyes met her’s and he smiled widely. Slipping off the bar stool, Roxy pulled her skirt down, smoothed it. She resisted the temptation to run to him. She approached slowly, her heart racing more with each step nearer.
    “So, Dark and Handsome, what brings you to this part of town?” she smiled, stepping into him. He slipped his arm around her waist, patted her derriere and hugged her closer. Her arm around his waist, Roxy steered them toward a corner table past the far end of the bar. Chandler pulled a chair out for her; she positioned it so she could easily see the bar. Chandler looked at Jake who was already heading toward them when Chandler called, “Make one a black coffee, Jake. Rox’ll take her usual. Put it on my tab.” Roxy looked up when he said, “put it on my tab.” Chandler read her expression, “Just keeping up appearances.”
    “You pat my ass where everyone can see and you’re worried about appearances,” she laughed.
    “Oh yeah, and you weren’t so close that we all but went into body meld.”
    Rox looked at him with a sharp but bemused grin. Chandler shrugged and leaned toward her, kissing her cheek. “Does that make up for it?”
    “That weak willy cheek kiss?” she smiled. “Yeah, now they all think you’re my brother and that we’re incest perves.”
    “Don’t worry, Kiddo. By tomorrow all recollection will disappear with their hangovers.” Jake returned and set the coffee down before Chandler and a Virgin Mary before Roxy. He looked quizzically at first Rox then Chandler, waited a moment then walked away.
    “So darlin’, where you been?”
    “New Haven,” Chandler said, “I took a course at Yale from Dagger Man.”
    Roxy’s expression shifted, concern focusing her sight. “You OK?”
    “Let’s just say it was quite a trip,” Chandler replied. The way Chandler spoke, “trip” caught Rox’s attention, but she let it pass. “Dagger may well have a line or two into this place, you know. He knows all about you, even mentioned you by name.”
    “I’ve guessed that, you’ve been coming here for nearly a year.” Roxy shrugged, “Besides, who cares? It’s you he’s after, not me.”
    “Gee, thanks loads, Darlin’ but you’re not safe even so,” Chandler replied.
    “Dammit, Chandler. I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t you think I know that? Why do you think Jake has a few friends spotted here all the time. Two bouncers walk me to and from my car. Dagger may run half the underworld but he would have a mighty big fight on his hands if he ever tried to pull anything on me.”
    “Rumor has it the Ruskies are giving him some trouble. His stock just might be down,” Chandler quipped.
    “You didn’t come straight here, did you?” Roxy asked.
    “Naw, I did a jigsaw and I think I slipped the arrival committee.”
    “Let’s grease, just to be on the safe side,” Roxy suggested.
    Chandler nodded. They stood up. Roxy looked toward Jake who was keeping an eye from the end of the bar. “I’ll meet you at your place,” she said. Roxy slapped Chandler’s face, then spun around as though indignant. Jake’s attention pitched then waned when he saw Roxy’s subtle nod. Chandler slunk out, feigning shame. Several regulars looked up then down as Chandler shot them the evil eye, rubbing his cheek and not just for effect.

    Roxy took her seat at the end of the bar creating impression of angry disgust as she “chatted” with Jake who leaned close. They shared a knowing glance and Jake shook his head, cast his head back for effect, and laughed. He leaned nearer Roxy; she whispered that she’d be leaving shortly. He looked at her and nodded his understanding. “Goin’ be in tomarrah?” Jake asked.
    Roxy grinned. “I hope not,” she whispered, patting his hand. Jake grinned gently and nodded. “Good luck, I got ever’theng covered OK, either way.”
    “I know Jake, I know.” She leaned back. “Did I ever tell you I don’t pay you enough?”
    “Yes, you say that all the time,” Jake smiled.
    “Well, this time I will do more than say it,” Roxy said.
    “You say that all the time, too,” Jake replied. He turned, approaching a customer who called toward him, setting his beer stein down on the heavily varnished, old bar. Roxy didn’t like his looks; he was new and something about him made her wary. She glanced around unobtrusively to see if there were others who gave her the willies. He was seemingly alone, hopefully that was a good sign but she knew it could be otherwise, too. She decided to wait longer than she’d intended before slipping out to go to Chandler. The man took a swig from the frothy stein Jake set down before him. He looked at Roxy over the rim of his upturned beer stein. She kept his sight for a moment before shifting her attention toward Jake. Seeing Jake’s recognition, she slipped off the bar stool and wandered toward the man.
    “You got eyes for me, stranger?” she asked. The man held the beer stein before him and looked at her. He turned, wordlessly and made his way toward a table at the back, near the pool table. Roxy watched him, assessing his wordless behavior. She motioned toward Jake. Approaching, she leaned over the bar and whispered, making a point of looking at the man who was watching them. She turned her attention back to Jake, pleased that he was noticing. “Email a Jpeg of his image to me, from the video,” she whispered to Jake. He nodded but did not look at the man. Roxy did before walking back to her perch at the far, wall end of the bar. When she glanced up again, the man was gone, the beer stein sitting empty on the table he’d left. A bushy bearded man, short and beer bellied wandered in from the outside. He took a place at the bar and Jake slowly made his way over to him. They chatted briefly, Jake nodding toward Roxy.
    Jake tapped him a Bud and set the glass before him. Jake served several others then made way toward the end of the bar where Roxy sat.
    “So?” Roxy asked.
    “Drove away in a maroon Bentley convertible. Pat got the license. I’ll run it through my contact tonight and send that with his photo,” Jake said. Roxy glanced toward Pat who unobtrusively tipped his glass of beer toward Roxy. She nodded just enough for him to see. She looked back at Jake, “Bentley, huh? Either he has a lot of confidence or he’s a fool parking a money bucket like that around here. Does he think his big buck wheels are boost proof?”
    “Or the boosters know he’s connected.” Jake added, “Or he was just desperate for a beer.” They looked at one another. “Or the boosters know he’s connected,” Roxy whispered to herself, weighing the likelihood. “We’ll see what Chandler can add up after you run him,” she said. Jake nodded and walked up to another customer awaiting a drink. Roxy stopped him, calling, “What kind of beer?” Jake surmised the value of her question. “Beck’s Dark,” he said, turning away and heading toward the customer again. “Pretty fancy brew for this ‘hood,” Roxy thought. “Most would have thought too fancy for this joint,” she mumbled. She made a mental note to make certain to let Chandler know.

****

    Chandler sat in the shadows of the loft he kept as a hideaway. He looked out the last of the windows spanning the width of only one of the walls at the playground across the street, several stories below. He heard the children laughing, running, playing. He watched them and felt lonely. He thought of Roxy. She would be here in a few moments; she was the only person he trusted with the knowledge of his hideaway. He would have liked to have been a parent. Well, sometimes he thought that. There was something so lifting about a child’s glee and abandon, playground joy but he also knew the reality of the neighborhood they were in and the likelihood that most of them would end up with broken lives, but still...in their playground mirth, there was the song of hope and possibility. Not all of them would fall through the cracks, not all but...many. Likely most. Chandler felt the full melancholy of life, the bitter and the sweet. In earlier days, he would have opened a fresh fifth of Bourbon and slowly immersed himself in his discouraged musings until the bottle as empty and he once again believed in better days. It wasn’t uncommon for him to find them empty in bed with him the next morning accompanied only by the ache and loneliness of his throbbing hangover. Roxy had been his salvation, she’d brought the priceless gift of hope.

    Quickly, Chandler swept from the chair and crouched, ready to spring as he heard a key in the door. There followed a tapping, three times, silence, then a count of five, and finally, another, single tap. He cautiously moved to the wall near the door and pushing aside the photo of a winding Parisian staircase by Atget, looked through the off-center fisheye. It was Roxy and she was, as expected, alone. He quietly, cat-like stepped, stocking footed to the door and released the deadbolt and latch spring lock of the steel door. He stepped past her as she walked in, a bag of groceries in her arms and looked up and down the hallway with its peeling, ancient wallpaper. The rubber mat that served as a roller rug of sorts, running the length of the hallway was cracked and broken at points along its edges atop the worn, wooden planking of the hallway floor. Bare bulbs lining the centerline of the ceiling were dirt crusted, dusty with several, long ago burned out. A lone, red bulb burned brightly at the end of the hallway marking the window leading to the fire escape, a yellow bulb at the other end marked the head of the stairs and it too, burned strongly. Chandler closed the door and turned the spring latch that set bars into the frame on the sides, at the top of the door, and into the floor.
    “I’d like to use energy saving bulbs and brighten the hallway but I don’t want to tip off anyone to my location,” he said, apologetically. “Too much out of character might draw the wrong kind of curiosity.” Every time Rox visited him, he explained his wishes for things to be better, cleaner, updated, obviously self-conscious about his hidden ownership of the building and regretting the necessity of keeping it visibly in-character with the neighborhood. He took the bag of groceries from her arms and walked into the kitchen, an area defined by the highly polished, brown swirl concrete counters with naturally stained, solid oak cabinets lining the two, intersecting, bare brick walls and the center counter with a large, inset cutting block, a double basin, stainless steel sink, and electric burners. An exhaust hood of glistening stainless steel hung directly above the burners. An oak carousel book stand at one end held an assortment of cookbooks; the pyramid shaped top held an assortment of cutting knives. Rox looked around.
    “I am always amazed at your exquisite sense of taste, your loft is prettier than mine. Did you really do most of this yourself?”
    “Most of it. You ask the same thing just about every time you visit.” He stood up from the bottom, section drawer of the brushed, stainless steel refrigerator. He closed it and approached, took her in his arms. “All of it,” he said. He loved her grey-blue eyes and the bright joyfulness that almost always graced them.
     Rox smiled. “I’ve been wondering where were you this time,” she asked. “I’ve been worried.”
    “Sorry, New Haven was not my destination but Digger made an offer I couldn’t refuse with an all expenses paid bonus, eighteen hours of psychedelic Riverview.”
    “Oh,” she sighed, understanding what it was she’d heard in the way he’d spoken the word, “trip” earlier, sharp irony.
    “Uh-huh, but I’m here. What can I say?”
    “One of these times your luck is going to run out,” she admonished, twisting from his arms. She leaned against the center counter, her hands behind her, gripping the edge of the glistening countertop.
    “And what about yours?” Chandler replied, a little more caustically than he’d intended.
    Roxy looked around helplessly. Tears flooded the corners of her eyes. He stepped closer. They folded their arms around one another. Chandler felt the welcome warmth of her breath on his neck. “I have faith,” Chandler whispered in her ear. She drew back, searching his sight.
    “I do too, but we never really know what that means,” she replied.
    “So why worry?” he asked.
    “You’re such a fatalist, we don’t have to walk the edge of the cliff like you do.”
    “I love the way you worry,” he said. She frowned, her sight narrowing. She looked poised to shake him or hit him. Chandler persisted, “What about you? I wouldn’t call you overly careful.”
    “More so than you but like I said, Dagger’s not after me. Not directly, or...whatever.”
    Chandler slipped his arm around her and guided her to the love seat. They sat down and he turned toward her. “I’m not certain he really is. He’s had more than his share of chances.”
    “He’s a psycho, Chandler. He lives in a different time, in a different world. Look at how he dresses, slicks his hair. Where does he get Brill Cream anyhow? I can’t even buy it online, for God’s sake. I’ve looked. Thought about carrying it at the bar, a novelty item. He and his boys have stepped out of The Untouchables. Their suits, their fedoras. Well, Indiana Jones has brought some of that back, I guess. But still...he’s a cold-blooded murderer who thinks he’s a genius. It worries me. So far, it’s been kind of cat and mouse, and dear, like it or not, you’ve been the mouse. When will he pounce for real? All cats get tired of their games.”
    The sincerity in her eyes unnerved him. Was she right? She reached out and pulled him to her, hugged him. He shifted, closer. She stroked his wind blown, dirty hair. “How long since you’ve showered?” She asked, amazed she had not noticed sooner. She sniffed. “Good Lord, Chandler. You smell like...gardenias?”
    “I only used a little,” he replied, sheepishly.
    Roxy stood up and motioned with her hands, palms up, fingers beckoning. Chandler stood and she raised his turtleneck jersey over his head. He twisted and freed his arms then pulled it over his head, freeing his face. She ran her fingers over his hairy chest. A little gray showed slightly, only a few strands between his pecks. She thumbed his nipples, knowing he was one of the few men who was responsive that way. She loved teasing him. He smiled. She unbuckled his pants, unzipped the front.
    “You’re in the shower,” she said. “Now!” She yanked down his jeans and his underpants. He stepped out of both with her help. He gathered his jeans in his arms, turned and started away from her. She gave his buttocks a sharp slap.
    “Hey!” he called, glancing around, skipped away from her. Once a bit distant, he hobble walked toward the bathroom, playfully exaggerating the sway of his rear. “You’re a sight,” she laughed, watching him make way, naked across the spaciousness of the open loft toward the bathroom.
    “Make fun, woman!” he called, looking back; he nearly lost his balance but a quick hop restored him.
    “Already did, Dear. Did you think I was waiting for your permission?”
    Chandler grunted and closed the bathroom door behind him, the automatic light brightening the polished, pink marble countertops and mirrors just before the door closed behind him. The tiling of the walls, with delicate, Japanese brush patterns on every few of them shown briefly. She was utterly amazed at the marvelous taste and refinement Chandler had built into his loft dwelling. She walked to the kitchen and gathered ingredients for a cappuccino. She heard the shower distantly as she began steaming the milk. She sighed her contentment; for a night, at least, they would enjoy themselves and she would pretend for a time that their life was constant and loving, dependably whole. They both had their crosses to bear and so far, at least, they had each other. So far. The uncertainty bled into her contentment and she fought an impulse to fling the steamed milk across the expanse of the loft. She started. The security shutters began their timed descent interior to the spaced windows that looked out on the neighborhood below. The sun burned a fading orange nearing the unseen horizon, its bright orange-yellow rays blazoning around the silhouette of several skyscrapers visible in the distance. The sky was already darkening and a quarter moon shown off center, luminous with crater shadows and hanging in the sky, suspended between the fading daylight and the dark night. She watched the shutters drop relentlessly, slowly upon the beauty of the scene. She looked around and felt an impulse to cry and felt oddly afraid. What had they done to earn such torment? She lowered her head in meditative prayer, struggling in that moment to believe, to trust, to find the solace she so often found in prayer.

    Her cappuccino made, she looked up as she heard the bathroom door open and went back to one of the stools on the other side of the counter. Chandler walked out, his mid-section covered with a large, white towel and his feet in bath slippers. Another towel hung across his head, draped on his shoulders. She watched the tight strength of his washboard abs, the muscled movement of his thighs as he stepped toward her. His arms were lean with pronounced veins and muscular biceps and forearms. His shoulders were heavily muscled too, although one was darkly bruised. His hands stood out in contrast to his rugged build, long-fingered and delicate, a pianist’s hands...or a surgeon’s.
    “You want to get pneumonia, don’t you?” Roxy chided. She got up and walking past him, went into the bathroom and returned with his white robe. She draped it across his rock hard shoulders. She eyed the fresh bruise more closely and the several wounds that left indentations; two from knife wounds and one from where a bullet had entered and been removed. She closed his robe around him and he dropped the towel. Chandler reached down and picked it up. He swirled it into a loose rope and threw it over her head, pulling her toward him. Roxy was shorter and when she looked up at him, he saw a gentle vulnerability and willing submission that flooded him with wonder and desire. The privilege of her filled him with an ache and joy, a sense of marveling amazement. He knew she never let anyone see her so open, so unprotected. He kissed her, felt her lips on his, tasted the warm wetness of her parted mouth, the swollen tautness of her responding tongue. They both weakened and stumbled toward the couch where they fell, still in one another’s arms. They succumbed and felt the wetness of their tears. They broke their embrace and shifted, cuddling. They opened his robe and he wrapped her in it.
    “I thought you would have undressed,” Chandler said.
    “I watched the sunset until the shutters dropped. Then, I made a cappuccino.” She motioned toward the handled glass on the countertop. “I just locked into the sweetness of the moment, I guess.”
    “It makes little difference,” Chandler said, regretting his words the moment he said them.
    “I know,” Roxy replied, her tone resigned with an edge of disgust. “I know,” she sighed. Her thoughts strayed, seeking the safety of brief distance. She looked at him and tears flooded her eyes, wet her cheeks. He lowered his eyelids, softly, near coyly and hugged her toward him. They both sighed.
    “I’m still glad we love one another,” she said.
    “I don’t think I could ever love anyone else as much or more,” Chandler said softly.
    Roxy broke from his arms, standing up. She straightened her sweater, tugging it down at her waist. She reached with both hands and pulled her hair back, looking at him. She went back to the counter where her cooling cappuccino waited. Taking a sip, she set the glass back down and went toward the cubicle that was their bedroom; entering, Chandler heard the closet doors open. He lay back and looked at the soundproofed ceiling with sunken sections using indirect lighting. Murals of celestial, mythological figures that had transited the Ancient Greek imagination were painted on the sunken sections. Luminous paint, selectively used added grandly to the scenes in the indirect lighting.

    In the bedroom, Roxy stretched out on the bed and looked up at a similar scene. She marveled at Chandler’s ability to have done it himself but he had once said that his father was a tradesman who did custom work on houses; some of his skill had apparently worn off. As curious as she was, she never encouraged Chandler to talk about his younger days, let alone his youth. From time to time, he dropped bits of information but generally, her impression was that he kept that part of himself guarded. Knowing pain often keeps its own time, she never persisted in knowing more than he shared spontaneously; besides, she was very much the same and he, too, never asked for more than she offered.

    She got up and, taking off her clothes, folded them and left them on a chair, then went into the bathroom and showered. When she came out, Chandler was sitting up in bed, reading. He set aside his reading glasses and turned aside the bedding, tapping the mattress. Roxy dropped the towel and stepped slowly to the bed. Chandler drew in his breath, reactively at her shapely beauty. The feminine swell of her hips, her flat belly, the slight undulation of her naturally suspended breasts as she stepped nearer all but took his breath away. He ran his sight languidly over her and found her beauty nearly unbearable, all but otherworldly. The oval round of her face and her peach skin complexion made him smile. He lingered on her rose colored lips, free of lipstick, soft and perfectly inviting. He moistened his lips with a quick swipe of his tongue, unconsciously. She returned his happy grin, slipped in and snuggled closely. Chandler set aside his book, The Childhoods of Arch Criminals, turned off the lamp and turned into her arms. The night enveloped them with the blessing of lapsed awareness. The city churned its tales near, far and below. For the moment, they hung suspended in the bliss that would invariably give way to the bittersweet of unspoken realities which, in memory and fact would renew their necessity for caring, reluctant distance.

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