He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

"How... how long...?"

Her voice cut into the quiet and the pitch black of the room. In the heat of the moment, someone rolled over the TV remote and turned it off. The room was instantly ink-splotch black. The air was full of the sounds of sex; heaving, grunting, moaning, pleading and then a crescendo marking the sounds of climax. It hadn't taken very long to get there, but the descent back to regular breathing and heart rate seemed like an endless journey. Both lay on their backs, staring at the dark space that was the ceiling until the only sounds were quiet, shallow breaths.

"You couldn't tell how long I was?"

"Oh! You..." She elbowed him, laughing. "That's not what I meant. How long had it been, for you? Since... you know, the last time."

JC had to think back. It really had been a long time. He'd been out on the street for a year and a half, almost. Before then, he wandered from house to house, couch to couch, staying long enough to gain a few weeks of good will before he thought it would best to move on. He dabbled in dating but women found the no job, no home, no car thing to be a turn-off. And while he'd met some okay girls out on the street, he'd never met anyone he felt like being with. Until now.

"I guess it's been almost two years, if you can believe it."

A bark of laughter cut through the air. He felt his face flame with embarrassment. "Two years? What did you do with yourself in all that time?"

He snapped back to earlier in the day, in the shower. He grinned. "I'm sure you'd like to know. How about you?"

Phee went quiet. He thought maybe she'd fallen asleep, but her breathing wasn't soft and even. It was ragged, like she was trying hard to push the air out of her lungs and then suck it back in. He immediately regretted asking.

Her voice was gritty and deep, like it had been the night he first saw her, so much of her tart demeanor gone. "A year. Just over a year, actually. That night in the park, when I brought you the booze and offered you the coat…it was our anniversary." She rolled to her side and rested her head on his shoulder, winding both of her arms around his. "That's why I was down there. That's... that was where..."

“So he… on your anniversary?”

She sniffed. He guessed that was a yes.

Something sparked in his mind. A memory. He heard about a homeless guy being stabbed in the park. Moe warned him about hanging out down there-- it was thought to be the work of some gang of bored kids who thought no one would miss a homeless guy."I remember that. I guess I didn't realize it was Davey."

"Yeah. The news and all of the advocate groups were all over it for about a minute. Long enough to get ratings and funding. Not long enough to make a difference."

"So, what happened?"

She lowered her head toward his arm and brushed her lips across his skin. Damn, that felt good. Rachel never did sweet little mindless things like that. "This is some awesome post coitus conversation right here.”

"You started it. But you don’t have to answer if you don't want to."

"It's okay. I'm usually fine; it's just the anniversary, and all. Crying like a little bitch lately."

"It’s alright. Cry if you want." He would try not to let it bug him. There wasn’t anything he could do to make it better.

"Seven years, we'd been together, that day. We wanted it to be real special, you know? We had been talking about the seven year itch... you know that movie?"

"Marilyn Monroe?"

She nodded. "It's all about how every seven years you itch for something new. We said we weren't that couple that needed someone new or something exciting to spice up our life. Living was exciting enough. Anyway..." She rolled to her back, getting into the story, it seemed. JC rolled to his side, propped up on an elbow.

"We decided to celebrate. It was going to be an actual date. Real fancy. We'd been saving some of the money he got from random things like recycling and pan handling, stuff like that. We got all cleaned up and put on our best stuff and we met in the park for our date. We bought hot dogs and sodas and walked around, holding hands and talking. Davey was in a really good mood. He was probably high, but I didn't really care, right then. He wasn't antsy or angst-ridden or moody. He was happy."

She paused for longer than a pause should take. When she didn't continue, JC reached toward her and ran a hand down her arm until they were holding hands. She squeezed his hand in hers.

"We—“ She stopped and gulped a breath of air before she could continue. "…were in the park. On a bench. Security came by and told us we had to move. Davey got kind of mouthy with the guy, told him we were on a date. I didn’t want him to get beat up, so I dragged him off.

“We went to another area of the park, where it was real dark and laid there in the grass. The stars were twinkling and they seemed so close, like I could reach up and just touch one. It was beautiful. Magical. We made love out there. And it was awesome."

He heard the smile in her voice, happy that the memory didn’t make her sad. Instead, it seemed to bring her some comfort.

"Davey asked me what would make the night perfect. I said I wanted some ice cream. He hopped right up, pulled his pants back on." She giggled and he laughed along. "Before he left, he took off his scarf and he wrapped it around my neck. He kissed me and he told me he loved me and to sit tight. Keep it warm for him. He'd be right back."

“And you never saw him again?”

She swallowed. He felt it and heard her gulping back her tears.  

“I heard all this commotion and people running and so much going on. There was a crowd hanging around and I came out to see what was up. One of the guys that we hung around with at the time grabbed my arm. He was crying, like sobbing. He was a mess. I was like what? What? He was like, Nix… It’s Davey. It’s Davey.

“I knew, then. I could tell by the way the cops just stood around and no one was in a hurry. They didn’t give a shit. I tried to go to the hospital but he was at the morgue and since I wasn’t family…”

“They wouldn’t let you claim him.”

She shook her head, swallowing again. Her breathing had evened out and she sounded stronger when she spoke again. “I had to get someone to help me get our stuff before it got picked up by the city. I stayed with Cass for awhile before her old man turned into a bastard. Then I got a lead on the job at the hotel and one of my friends had this room and was moving out. I took it. Owners don’t care, so long as the rent is paid.”

“And you’ve been here ever since?”

Phee sat up and rolled off of the mattress. He heard her walking around, feeling for the pants that she’d kicked off. She disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes and came back out, but instead of coming to bed, she stepped over him to the other side of the room. He watched the figure of her, a silhouette in the drapery covered window.

JC sat up, trying to see through the dark. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for my cigs,” she said. “I need a smoke.”

“You could turn the light on.”

“Got ‘em. I’ll just be a minute.”  The door closed behind her before he could respond.

JC laid back down. Then sat up again and found his sweatpants and put them back on, then got under the covers. It was still a cold night despite the heat they’d built between them.

So now he knew about Davey. Whether he was better or worse for it, he couldn’t tell but at least he knew what had happened to him. The fact that Phee seemed drawn to him because of his similarity to Davey was becoming less bothersome by the day. He didn’t want to start taking her for granted, but he had to admit that compared to some of the guys he’d seen out there, up and down random streets and living under highway underpasses, he was living pretty well the last few days. He had money in his pocket, food in his belly, and the first sex he’d had in almost two years was outside smoking off her orgasm.

Or at least that’s what he told himself she was doing.

*****

The Laundromat was a luxury that JC rarely let himself indulge in, but by the looks of his paint and dirt encrusted jeans and shirt, he didn’t see any way around it. Phee had some laundry too, so they stuffed a few bags with dirty clothes and headed out.

“Do you ever think about where you’ll be in the future? Like years from now, I mean.”

JC looked up from the People magazine he was reading, left by some other patron before him. He hadn’t paid attention to pop culture in so long; he didn’t know who any of the people were. Like, who was Justin Beiber? And what was Twilight?

“Years from now?” He shook his head, suppressing a laugh and went back to his magazine. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said, looking up again. He closed the magazine and tossed it back onto the pile he took it from. “I had other goals for this time in my life, the time I’m living right now. I let myself down. I let everyone down. Why get my hopes up? Why dream, when something could happen and snatch it away from you?”

“Maybe so you have something to hang onto? How do you make it through life with no dreams?”

“Easy. I live every day as it comes and I don’t plan on tomorrow. If I think about tomorrow, I have to think about the next day, and the day after that, and you know what? Thinking about day after day after day of nothing is pretty fucking depressing.”

Phee squirmed and bit down on her lip. He hadn’t meant to make her uncomfortable. She was just so unrealistically optimistic that it made him want to scream.

“Have you ever failed at anything? Have you ever fucked anyone over? Have you ever destroyed someone’s life? I’m guessing no.” She shook her head, confirming his assumption. “Don’t try it. It makes you bitter and hopeless. I’m sorry I don’t live in the same world you do, where shacking up with some guy that looks like your dead boyfriend, or coddling a grown ass woman with kids who can’t clean up her own goddamn house makes you feel better about your life, but I don’t. I don’t live in that world.”

He got up, kicking his chair back in his tantrum and headed for the machines. They ought to be done washing in a few minutes and he needed something to distract him from the sensation of Phee staring him down from across the room.

I shouldn’t have said that.

He could just walk back over to her and say that. He was thinking about doing it, but his feet weren’t moving. Instead, he leaned against the table used to fold laundry, his hands shoved in his pockets. He saw himself in the reflection of the machine in front of him. His hair was puffy and standing straight up, despite the great cut from the night before. His cheeks were sunken, his shoulders slight. His face bore a sullen, woeful expression.

He turned away from the vision. The sight of his own reflection made him sick. And angry. He was such a far cry from the man he used to be.

Phee didn’t say anything else to him at the Laundromat. She found reasons to not be near him or say anything to him. She folded her laundry across the room from him, packed it neatly into the bag she had brought and waited for him to finish a few minutes later. They walked out of the Laundromat and the several blocks back to the hotel in complete silence.

At her room, she opened the bag of laundry and began unpacking it into her system of baskets. Towels, the pieces that made up her uniform, jeans, t-shirts and underwear were all neatly stacked in their places. In contrast, JC re-packed his backpack with the freshly washed clothes. He wasn’t sure if she was kicking him out, but in case she was, at least he wouldn’t have to pack.

Phee was digging into the boxes under the desk, again. Those seemed to be reserved for Davey’s things. She pulled out a shoe box and opened it, smiling at the contents. There were miscellaneous things in there, from what JC could see—a watch, a necklace, ticket stubs. And pictures. She flipped through them for a few seconds and pulled out a few, then spoke to him for the first time in hours.

“This is him,” she said softly, laying the photos on the desk, one by one. Davey was a thin, wiry man. Tall. In one of the photos, he was squinting into the sun, a half smile on his face. He looked like he was laughing. In another, he wasn’t smiling at all. He seemed serious, pensive, troubled. His eyes were blue and he had dark hair and pronounced chiseled features. He had been a good looking man.

“Davey was tall like you. Dark hair and light eyes like you. You both have high cheek bones and great, classic noses. You’re both smart, you like to read and stuff. You’re both way too serious for your own good.”

 She chuckled for a moment but then the smile slid from her face. “But one thing Davey wasn’t, was cruel. He wasn’t a victim. He never had the mentality that whatever happened to him, just happened. He went after things. He created opportunities for himself.

“You probably think he was a loser but Davey was an even bigger dreamer than I am. He wanted to be more than a ratty kid from the south side with nothing going for him.  Maybe we didn’t have a place to live but he always took care of us and we had plans. Davey died trying to make me happy. I’ll never forget that.”

She slapped a hand onto the desk, sliding the photos off of its surface and back into the box. “All you’ve done so far is stick your dick in me and you think you have the right to hurt my feelings and say whatever comes to your mind because you’re mad at yourself. Maybe it’s not the Taj Mahal and it’s nowhere near your old life, but you could still be sitting on that fucking park bench wondering where your next meal is coming from and freezing your balls off.”

Phee slid the cover back onto the box and set it back inside the larger box she had pulled it from, then slid the that box back under the desk. She turned then and flounced to the kitchen area, opened the refrigerator, stared into it and slammed it closed.

She stood in front of the refrigerator, facing the wall. Only slightly did she turn her head when she said, “You don’t have to go. I want you to stay, but don’t be an asshole. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not an asshole.”

JC nodded but she didn’t see it. After a few seconds she turned and walked around him. “I need to go to the store. I’ll be back.”

“I’ll go,” he said quickly. “What do you need? I’ll go.”

She rolled her eyes while shoving her arms into the sleeves of her coat. “No. I don’t—look, I will be right back. Sit here and watch TV or read or… whatever.” She grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

“Phoenix.” She stopped, her arm in mid-reach for the doorknob. He knew that would get her attention. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m really sorry. I don’t mean to disrespect you. I’m sorry for being an asshole. I’m grateful for how nice you’ve been to me and I suck for saying that to you. I’ll go to the store for you. Or with you, if you want. I owe you.”

She hadn’t turned around, but she hadn’t moved yet, either. A few seconds passed. JC heard the neighbors upstairs watching TV. The volume was up so loud, he could tell what show they were watching.

“I’m not sending you to the store. You’ll never get all the right stuff. If you’re coming, let’s go.”

JC smiled and dove for his bag, grabbed his wallet and followed her out the door. The return of her attitude, he hoped, meant he was forgiven.

They set off for the neighborhood grocery store, which was at least ten blocks away. “You should answer your own questions, you know,” said JC, as they crossed the street.

She looked up at him, a “V” of confusion between her brows. “What?”

“Your question to me. Since you’re so big on dreams, what are yours? Do you think about where you’ll be, a few years from now?”

She slowed, kicking at piles of dried up leaves coating the sidewalk. Around them, all up and down the block, people were out and about. Walking, talking, kids playing and riding bikes down the street. If he ignored the run-down, sagging homes and the low-rate, hourly hotels on the block, JC could almost imagine a picturesque, happy Sunday afternoon. At least he was happy for the moment.

“I think about going to school. I was supposed to go, like I said, but I decided to run off with Davey. I kind of wanted to go, but not so far away. I would have been happy to stay here and go to a state school, but… no. Susan and Philip wanted their daughter to go Ivy League.” She snorted a laugh and rolled her eyes.

“But I think about it, a lot. What would have happened if I went to school and had graduated by now and was working? How different would my life be? Years from now, maybe I’ll be in a college library, studying for finals. Biting my nails, and worrying about such trivial things as if I’ll get an A on this next test and not if I can still pay my rent if I have to buy Cass’ groceries this week.”

JC grinned, recalling his brief college years. He didn’t finish, but he had gone for a few years. “Pulling all nighters. Eating fattening food. Gaining the freshman fifteen.”

“Ha, the freshman fifteen.”

He reached over and tapped her lightly on the ass. “You could stand to gain a few pounds, bony.”

“Look who’s talking! I could wrap my arms around you twice last night.”

“Oh, honey… you wrapped all of you around me last night.”

They laughed together for a few minutes, kicking through the leaves. The store was just up the block, barely in sight. He was enjoying their walk, though. He kind of wanted to slow down.

“That was fun,” she said, glancing up at him. She was the slightest bit pink. He thought it was cute that she was being a little shy with him. “I uhm… I really missed sex a lot.”

“Me too,” JC admitted. “I didn’t realize how much until—“

“I know! I hadn’t really thought about it until last night. At the sports bar.”

“Really? Why then?”

Phee slipped her hands inside the pocket of her coat and shrugged her shoulder so high they met her ears. “I don’t know, I guess it was just that you were happy. You got to be a man, with your nice hair cut and self confidence because you’re working and all. You got to watch some football and eat some wings and be yourself. I really liked that version of you.”

“So… you’re saying that if I’d got my hair cut sooner, I could have had sex sooner?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “It was just the perfect storm, I guess. And I was feeling a little vulnerable because you got me talking about my mom. I needed some comfort.”

“Did you get it?”

Her head had been down, watching her footsteps. She looked up then, her hazel eyes bright, a slight smile on her lips, her face framed in her hair. “Yeah.”

“Good. And I’m not being facetious, but I’m glad I could do something for you.”

“I don’t take it that way. And me too.”

They took their time in the store, wandering from one side to the other. JC pushed the cart around, watching her put items in the basket and keeping track of the total. It was a good thing he was working the next week because he was quickly running out of money. He couldn’t just let her foot the bill for all the food he had been eating, though. He would buy the week’s groceries and be thankful that she hadn’t put him out.

JC carried two bags in each hand; Phee had one, each. They crossed the street and walked down the other side of the block, now.

“I’m scared to think about years from now,” JC blurted out, keeping in step with Phee.

“Scared of what?”

“Just… I’m out here because of a mistake I made. A lot of people went through a lot of shit because of me. What if I haven’t found a way to make it better? What if I haven’t found some way to make things right for them? What if I’m still a homeless fuckup with one friend that I mooch off of?”

“You better not be talking about me,” she said, flicking her eyes up to him and laughing. “Besides, who says you’ll still be a fuckup? It was a mistake, which means you can learn from it, right? You didn’t deliberately send people’s lives into the shitter. Learn from your mistake. Move on.”

“It’s just that simple to you, isn’t it?”

“Don’t start that again. This has nothing to do with dreaming. It has everything to do with logic and progress. Improvement. If you’re not becoming a better person every day, what are you doing with your life?”

Good question, he thought. 

“Okay well. So, if you’re telling me to learn from my mistakes and move on and all of that, why haven’t you?”

“Why haven’t I what?”

“You said you and Davey had plans. Are you carrying them out, right now?  Your whole life can’t be about folding towels with Laverne and Shirley and watching after people on the street. At some point you’ve got to live for you. I know you know this, Phee.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, her head down. She sped up as the Standard came into view. “I’m thinking about it. A lot, lately.”

“Yeah? Like, thinking hard about it or kind of thinking about it?”

Phee had passed him and was heading toward the door of the room, but turned back to smile at him. “Thinking hard about it. I might go to the library on Thursday. Download an application and see about becoming educated. Wanna come?”