DANIEL LEBOEUF - LIFE LEAVES MARKS

Daniel LeBoeuf has seen his work published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Pilcrow and Dagger, On The Premises, The Scarlet Leaf Review, Near to the Knuckle, and The Tampa Tribune.  He makes his home in central Florida.  His website is www.danielleboeuf.net.

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Life Leaves Marks

​"Tell me about this one," she said.
Her perfume, delicate and whispery, enveloped me as she leaned in and touched the scar in the crook of my right elbow. I inhaled deeply, adding her scent to the memory of the glorious sex we'd just had. Now we lay together, calm and sated. Her fingers traced the irregular oval white shape that had adorned me for a decade.
"I got burned."
She looked up at me with her bright emerald eyes. "How?"
"I was cooking spaghetti sauce and I used too much tomato paste. It was a thick, gloppy mess by the time it had simmered for an hour. I took the lid off the pot and was transferring it from the stove to the hot pad so I could serve it when a bubble burst and sent a dollop of sauce arcing through the air. I saw it all in slow motion. I had the sauce pot in one hand and the serving spoon in the other one. There was nothing I could do, no way I could move fast enough to avoid it. It landed and, damn, did it burn! This is what was left after it healed. A permanent reminder not to use too much tomato paste."
"That sucks."
"Yeah. It did."
Her fingers traced upward, over my bicep, landing on my shoulder and the puckered skin found on it.
"What happened here?"
I sighed. "Drive-by. When I was a kid."
Her head snapped up and she stared, her eyes wide and her mouth open. "You were in a drive-by?"
I nodded. "I was asleep in my room when some gang bangers sprayed down rival gang members hanging out near my house. A bullet went through the wall and lodged in my shoulder."
"What the hell?"
"It wasn't the best neighborhood."
"How bad was it?"
"What? The neighborhood?"
"No, the gunshot."
"Pretty bad. Bad enough to spend two days in the hospital when we didn't have insurance."
"That's horrible."
I nodded. "It wasn't my favorite way to wake up."
"Was the neighborhood that bad?"
I half-smiled. To call that neighborhood bad was like saying mud is opaque. You couldn't walk down the street without being hassled for money, whether it was for an outright handout or an offer for drugs or prostitution. Half the houses were boarded up, and the other half were falling apart. Ours was the only nice one, with little flowers planted in window boxes and paint that was less than three years old on the walls. I'd come a long way since then. Too bad I hadn't been able to bring my mother along with me. She died when I was sixteen. Dad, well, who knew where he was?
"Yes. It was bad."
She pushed her lips out a bit but said nothing. After a moment of silence, her fingers traced on. I knew where they would land next. It was the cousin of the shooting scar, a thin, straight line of white across my chest. You can't see one without seeing the other.
"Should I ask?" Her fingers traced up and down the line, tickling me on the skin around the scar.
"Knife. Same neighborhood."
"Oh my god. What happened?"
I chuckled. "I wouldn't give a bum money."
She shuddered as if she'd been electrified. "I don't like that word."
"What word?" I already knew, but her comment pissed me off. This was my story to tell, not hers.
"Bum. It's insensitive. People sometimes call me a bum. You don't know what that man's story was."
I shrugged. "Oh yes I do. And it's hard to be sensitive about a man who cuts you with a knife."
"But, that doesn't make him a bum. He was probably just a starving homeless person. Or someone just needing some extra money."
"Carl was homeless, and that's a fact. He was also a burnout who smoked meth. If he were still alive he'd probably still be smoking meth. He never worked, never even looked for work. He squatted in one of the abandoned houses on our street. He begged for money for a living. And he slashed me with a knife. I think that if I want to call him a bum, I should be allowed to." I shifted in the bed and continued.
"Carl was a microcosm of everything that was wrong with where I grew up. You weren't there. You didn't know him. I'm sorry if the word offends you, but grow up. Someone might wind up on the streets through no, or, at least, little fault of their own, but you don't stay there unless you're a bum. I saw all kinds of homeless pass by when I was growing up. Some people made it back. Some just seemed to be permanent victims. Still others were trapped forever in a hell of their own making. Carl was one of those."
I was silent as time ticked by, waiting to see her reaction. Finally, she dipped her head, kissing the scar. I understood. She was leaving the subject alone. That was good. I don't harbor much ill will about my past, but Carl is an exception.
"Tell me about it."
I sighed. I've told the story so often it comes out as mechanical now. "I was coming home from school. That alone made me a mark. By my age most guys were in gangs already and school was just somewhere to hustle drugs and alcohol. Carl hung out three doors down from my house. Him and about four other burnouts squatted there. In the front yard a sign hung from a single chain link, alerting anyone interested that 'The Barnaby Team' was trying to sell the property. As if it were sellable.
"That day I was walking home, and Carl came out demanding that I pay a toll. Said my family had money and there was a toll for using the sidewalk in front of his house now.
"We didn't have any money to spare, you've got to know that. My mom worked two jobs and I had a part-time job after school to help out. But I never had any money in my pocket. Didn't eat lunch at school because Mom made too much to qualify for free lunches and we didn't make enough to pay for it every day. Not and get her medicine too. And she needed her medicine to stay alive.
"I told Carl I didn't have any money, but he just stood there demanding it before he'd let me pass. I tried to walk around him, but he pushed me back. Said I had to pay. I said I couldn't. He pulled out a knife. I tried to go around him again and he slashed me across the chest. It was bad. Too bad for Mom to treat on her own. She took me to the hospital because they have to treat you there even if you can't pay. They washed out the wound and stitched me up. Cops came, asked me a bunch of questions, but Carl hid out until the heat blew over and then came back to squat in our neighborhood again. We called the cops a few times, told them Carl was back, but they never came out. Guess I didn't matter to them. What's one more poor kid, right?" I looked at her, gauging her reaction.
"That's terrible." Her voice was low, breathy.
"That's life. You grow up poor, you get marginalized by the system. Too many problems, too many people needing help, and too few people dispensing it. Resources only stretch so far. We had jobs, we could mostly pay our own way, so the system didn't have much to do with us.  We made enough to survive but not enough to escape."
"I can't believe all this," she said, shaking her head. "So much violence in your life."
It was quiet for some minutes as she traced lazy circles on my chest with her index finger. I looked around her bedroom. Gauzy pink curtains were tied back, letting in the afternoon sun. The walls were a more delicate shade of pink. Between the two windows hung a painting of a horse.
Tensing my back, I said, "I should go."
She didn't move. "Please. Just a little longer. This is nice."
I settled back into the soft mattress and sighed. I wanted to go back to work, but nothing was urgent.
After a couple of minutes passed her head popped up and she looked at me. "I have to pee." I admired her body as she climbed out of bed. It was magnificent, and what had first attracted me to her. She'd been playing a violin on the street with the case open, begging for money. She'd had some talent, but her beauty was what drew me to stop and listen. I dropped a hundred into the case and waited for her to notice. When she did and looked up at me, I smiled. I'm told I have a winning smile.
"Can I buy you lunch?" I asked. She nodded and silently put her violin away, laying it on top of the coins and bills she'd collected. I walked with her to the nearest deli. She had a Reuben, which she ate with gusto.
"You were hungry."
She nodded, wiping the Thousand Island dressing from her lips.
"When was the last time you ate?"
She grinned. "This morning. A bowl of Cheerios with a banana cut up in it."
I nodded. "So, what's your story?"
"My story?"
"Yes. You're playing a violin on the street for money. I figure you must have a story."
She'd opened the bag of chips and poured them onto her plate. She'd gotten the BBQ flavor, and I liked that she didn't eat them from the bag. "I'm a student at the university. I have a job, if that's what you're asking, but I play on the street because I have to practice somewhere and my neighbors complain to the landlord if I do it in the apartment. So I set up outside, and I figured I'd turn it into a side hustle too. I mean, what's it hurt?"
"What's your major?"
"Sociology."
I'd liked her. She'd asked about me and I'd started from my own college days and quickly skipped to the part where I was doing well in real estate.
"That's not why I'm here, by the way," she said, bringing the straw in her drink to her lips.
"What isn't?"
"Your money. The hundred you dropped in my case. That's not why I'm here."
"Oh? Then why are you here?"
"Your face."
"My face?"
"Yes. It's an interesting face. I wanted to get to know the person behind it."
"But the hundred didn't hurt anything?"
"Well, it got me to look up at least."
When lunch was over we didn't say much else to each other. It was like a foregone conclusion that neither of us questioned. I took her arm in mine and she led me to her apartment. There had been no making out, in fact hardly any kissing at all. We entered her apartment, our clothes came off, and we had slow, quiet, intense sex.
And now I was stuck in that awkward place after sex with a total stranger. She came back from the bathroom, all pert breasts and long legs. She flopped into bed and turned to look at me.
"I probably should give you a scar."
I sat up, quickly. "What?" I sputtered.
She lay back and laughed. "I should give you a scar."
"Whatever would make you say that?"
"You have great stories behind your scars. I want to be one of those stories."
I lay back on my elbows. "I'm not sure I like that idea."
She rolled over. "Just a little one?"
"No."
"Do you do this often?"
"What?"
"Sleep with women you barely know?"
I could feel myself blush, and didn't answer her.
"That's what I thought. I want you to remember me. I want to be a scar story."
"Couldn't we just have dinner next week?"
She stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. "It's not the same. I want to be a story you tell to a woman twenty years from now. The crazy sociology major I banged in 2017."
I looked at her emerald eyes and disarming smile, and seriously considered what she was suggesting. It really would make a good story some day.
 
The End