Bitch

by Chrissy Stegman

I walked the sidewalk, my body faceted by dusk, moving toward the city’s heart. It was pleasantly warm for November and the low-slung evening filled itself with sound. The city was a specter of creation and destruction, and it was sharing its contradictions with me: honking horns, kids crying out, a dog’s sharp bark overlapping a burst of laughter from somewhere I couldn’t place. This is what I need, I thought.

I heard the glide of a taxi beside me, its brakes exhaling in a way that startled the car of my body, and I felt a metallic sigh as we both settled into a halt. In my periphery, I caught movement, the window lowering, a dark figure leaning into the coming night. The cab driver’s face emerged, confiscated by shadow, and I was struck by how he seemed almost handsome. He looked middle-aged, a wisp of dark hair barely holding on, the balding crown of his head catching the streetlight with a worn, shiny luster. I could fall in love if I wanted, I thought.

“Hey, you need a ride?” he called, his voice breaking through the cab’s radio, cutting across “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. I hate the Goo Goo Dolls, I thought.

I could feel the tiredness beginning to pull at the edges of my legs, but it wasn’t unpleasant yet, just a simple ache. I paused, considering: the cab, a kind of polemic against my meandering which seemed full of purpose. The driver’s eyes watched me, waiting for an answer.

I felt myself nodding. The cab driver waited, engine idling, as I moved toward the rear passenger door, my fingers reaching for the handle. But as I touched it, a blur of bulk and fabric collided with me. It was a woman, heavily coated, her face flushed in a way that suggested her blood pressure was keeping pace with her surge forward. She had a growling chihuahua in tow, its teeth bared at the world as if it might rip it apart.

Her velocity knocked me off balance, and I found myself on the ground, the concrete rough against my palms. She yanked open the cab door, her dog yapping in unison with her huffs of exertion, and in a swift movement, she was inside. The dog pressed its face against the cab’s window, eyes wild, barking a declaration of its tiny victory.

The cab driver hesitated, or maybe I imagined that pause, before he pulled away, tires muttering at the street. Something twisted in my chest, a torsion of betrayal, as though the Universe had flipped me the middle finger. I sat for a moment, watching the gemstones of taillights sail into the night. I deserve this, I thought.

I took stock of my humanity: scraped raw. Check. I pushed myself off the pavement, palms stinging, and brushed the dirt from my jeans. I glanced down at the smudge of dark oil blooming at the hem of my white cotton blouse. Oh well, I thought.

I decided to walk to Café Gripe for dinner but then Vito’s came to mind. A cliché with its candles and dim light trying too hard to imitate intimacy, but it was always open, always warm. The sidewalk felt longer than it should have, my footsteps still carrying the illumination of humiliation, but there it was—Vito’s, its charm spilling out onto the street.

I saw the long line. A serpentine tangle of exhaustion. I walked up to the hostess stand, feeling the eyes of those waiting lancing into me. The hostess herself looked glazed over, as if she’d been three gummies deep since the start of her shift, her glassy eyes offering an automatic smile. She needs to be kissed, I thought.

“Table for one?” I managed, my voice half-swallowed, trying to make myself smaller. She nodded, grabbed a menu, and without a word started leading me through the jaws of tables. I followed, and I heard it. A voice rose above the rest, sharp: “Bitch!”

I bristled. The word hung in the air, a miasma of guilt. The Universe has spoken, I thought. The hostess didn’t acknowledge it. We just moved, her leading, me following. The restaurant was a delicious din of knives against plates and laughter mingling with the entire world, which still somehow continued despite the excoriating word. So, this is what it’s like to be a bitch, I thought.

I glanced behind me to see a man glaring at me, his twin boy toddlers crowding behind his feet. “Hey, can we just let them have my table?” I pointed to the trio. The hostess shook her head and said the table could only seat two and no children were allowed near the fireplace. I winced and smiled weakly at the man and walked along with the hostess. I guess I’ll stay a bitch, I thought.

She seated me at the table for two, the empty chair across from me felt like I was thrust into a therapy session with an accusation. I watched her shuffle back to her podium, the menu left in my hand, a flimsy shield.

I tried to settle in. The fire was warm. A simple and elemental kindness. The flames crackled politely. I let myself sit, really sink into my body, into the chair, the weight of everything drifting outward into the fire. Maybe the fire will eat my shame, I thought. The mantle above the fireplace was styled with a decorator’s precision, all candles flickering with purpose, roses arranged in a large glass vase. The old mantle clock seemed funerary and mournful. Estate sale, I thought.

The restaurant moved around me in a gentle chaos of dining with glasses clinking, the precise swish of polished shoes across the floor, waiters whispering. This is a blanket of sound, I thought.

The waiter approached, and I didn’t need to look at the menu. I already knew—knew before I even stepped into Vito’s, what I would order, because it was what I always ordered. “A 6 oz petite filet, medium-rare, and a glass of water.” The ritual was as much for stability as it was for hunger, the familiar order asserting a fragment of control. The Internet will be mad at me for eating meat, I thought. “Your side, Miss?” The waiter stood there, his pen poised, and I realized I hadn’t even glanced at the options. My eyes darted to the menu, and I could feel the seconds piling up between us, the waiter’s impatience forming a knot of pulse. He started stippling his pen against his leather folio.

“Sorry,” I whispered, too much heat rising to my face. I scanned the list and landed. “The baked sweet potato, please.” The waiter smiled, but it was thin. “Excellent,” he said, and vanished.

He returned soon with a crystal goblet of water and a small dish of lemon wedges. I reached for a wedge, turning it slowly in my hand. This is what a lemon feels like, I thought. The lemon's skin was taut and bright, a small sunlit thing against the dim glow of the restaurant. I traced my finger over the tiny bumps, pressing my nail into the flesh, just enough to feel the give, the juice beneath. The smell of fresh lemon broke into the air in front of me, that sharp, clean scent mingling with the warmth of the fire. A small burst of something pure.

I held the lemon wedge to the light, watching the way it glinted, the juice pooling at the edge of my fingers. I pressed a little harder, feeling a sting, revealing a papercut I hadn’t noticed until now, a small bite of pain that felt almost welcome, a point of focus in all the chaos. Just me, the lemon, the pain, the fire, I thought.

"Here you are," the waiter said, placing my plate in front of me. I looked up then, really seeing him for the first time. His eyes were red-rimmed, irritated. Maybe from the heat of the kitchen, or exhaustion, or something else entirely. I wonder if he sleeps at night, I thought. His black hair fell slightly across his forehead, swiping just above his eyes, which were a muted hazel, soft and reflective. Why is this so hard, I thought. I offered a small smile, a kind of truce for the awkwardness earlier, and he returned something that resembled a smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

I didn’t realize how unoriginal my hunger was until I sliced through the steak’s pink center. Meat eater, I thought. My fork and knife moved in a practiced rhythm, the scraping and gentle sawing motion, meditative. I turned to the sweet potato, its warm, pliant skin practically bursting. The knife sank in easily, parting the buttery, orange flesh. I leaned in, preparing for that first taste, when something shifted. There was a strange, low rumble beneath me, not quite sound but sensation. I felt my table lift into a violent, disorienting crash.

I was on the floor. The wooden table had come down on top of me, its sharp edge pressing into my chest, pushing the air from my lungs. My goblet of water had shattered, shards embedded into my cheek, the wetness spreading through my clothes, the cold sting of glass mingling with the heat that still radiated from the steak, now lying across my back. I can’t breathe, I thought.

The sweet potato’s butter seeped into my blouse, the heat providing horrifying comfort against my spine, while the slick grease made its way down my skin, tracing lines that felt mocking in their delicacy. I tried to catch my breath, but my lungs refused to expand. The weight of the table crushed deeply into my ribs. I’m going to die, I thought.

I tilted my head, my neck slack from the impact, my body pressed beneath the chaos. My face against the cold tile. Through a whir of pain, my vision caught a detail of a black shoe near my face, eclipsing the room. I tried to focus on the shoe. A black penny loafer without a penny, I thought. I let my gaze crawl upward. There was someone crouching, bending low to meet my eyes, and for a moment, I couldn’t figure out why the face was familiar. I’d seen this person before. My mind was skipping frames, images sliding, until one held for me. It’s the man from earlier, the one with the toddlers, I thought. Here he was, face softened, distorted, leaning in closer as if trying to understand how we’d ended up there, me pinned beneath the table, him bending down. The connection felt tenuous. My eyes kept losing focus.

“How’s your steak now, bitch?” he hissed. I watched as he lifted his black shoe. The arc of his leg was almost graceful, like he was executing a high kick, and then his foot came down hard, slamming into the table, pressing it deeper into my back.

Everything coalesced into the deconstruction of sound, of bodies moving around me. I heard scuffling, shouts rising up into a fury of red static. There were a dozen feet in my line of vision. A mess of footwear converging around me, the restaurant staff moving in, trying to apprehend the angry father. I really can’t breathe, I thought.

The children were crying. I could hear high-pitched wails that cut through the noise. I saw them, their little Thomas the Tank Engine feet sprinting past my face. Somewhere, a woman was screaming, her voice ripping through the confusion. The scream is mine, I thought.

***

The lights above me buzzed, a blaze of flood. "You're okay, sweetie," someone said, the voice disembodied, floating in from a distant corner of the room. Colors slowly began to sharpen, the room’s pale blue-green walls gradually coming into focus. Above me, a spotlight blared.

“What’s going on?” The voice again, closer this time, more present. I squinted, and a face swam into view. A mask, a pair of kind eyes looking down at me, a frame of brown hair peeking out from beneath a blue cap. “You’ve had quite an interesting evening, haven’t you?” I felt movement then, hands lifting me, the sensation of being shifted, moved by people all around me, their blue-robed forms a syncopated line of color as they transferred me to a softer surface which felt beautiful. Like synchronized swimmers, I thought. I tried to think. My brain had become a vast bog. Traces of moments yielded to memory. A black shoe. My face was starting to come alive now, throbbing, the pain crawling out of numbness.

I tried to speak, but nausea hit me with its violence. My stomach twisted, and I turned my head. I heard the frantic rustling of fabric and then there was something cool and metallic pressed against my cheek. A basin. I retched, my body convulsing, pain tearing through me like everything had been lit on fire from the inside.

 ***

Ten days in the hospital was a slow, sterilized drift. Time, exaggerated by painkillers and boredom, made nurses move in and out like apparitions. My face healed in its own terrifying way. The bruises are migrating from purple to yellow, I thought.

Ten more days and I was standing outside, the air greeting me with clarity. The sky was grizzled with dread and the clouds, boxes of empty. I breathed in deeply. A cab pulled up, and I stepped forward on shaky legs. 

That’s when I saw him. A man. Cutting in front of me, his hand reaching for the door handle of the cab. I watched his hand, the movement casual, as if he had every right, as if I were simply background noise. No, I thought.

“No!” The word tore from me. I rushed forward, a scream bursting out, unfiltered and grotesque. His eyes went wide with disbelief. I didn’t look at his face long. I couldn’t. This isn’t about him, I thought. I yanked the cab door open, threw myself inside, and slammed the door shut.

“Drive?” I managed, and the cab driver gave me a look of nervous acceptance, and then we were moving. The city hazed out, everything outside the window became a slow smear of color and motion.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Vito’s.”

I twisted in my seat and turned back to look. I wanted to see if the man was still on the corner. He was there. The man. Just a man. His mouth moving, shouting into the void where the cab no longer was.

The city sped past, and I leaned back into the seat, letting the world slide by inexplicably, as if the light outside the cab window could swallow everything. I really am a bitch, I thought.

BIO: Chrissy Stegman is a poet and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. Her recent work has appeared in Gooseberry Pie Lit, Jake, UCity Review, Gone Lawn, Gargoyle Magazine, Stone Circle Review, Fictive Dream, Inkfish, 5 Minutes, Libre, and BULL. She is a two-time Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. Her chapbook, Somewhere, Someone Is Forgetting You, is forthcoming from Alien Buddha Press. www.chrissystegman.com