walked to the door, placed his hand on the doorknob, and turned.
It was locked.
He kicked in the door.
The room was empty.
The window was wide-open, and the curtain popped in the wind.
SHE CRAWLED slowly over the stones and dirt under the house and waited for him to leave. She pushed along her back, knowing that if she made a run to the street he’d see her. She waited, and slowly inched forward just beneath the room where she slept. Lucrezia heard footsteps on the uneven wooden slats as light broke across her face and hands and onto the dirt. Under the house, there was garbage and rusted toys and stray chickens that nested in the crossbeams.
She could not breathe. She inched along.
Johnny Rivera’s shoes ambled over the wood, back and forth, pacing. She heard cabinet and dresser drawers opening and slamming. She heard him cursing and tossing the metal bed onto its side.
Lucrezia bit her lip and covered her ears. She was afraid to breathe.
The pacing stopped.
He was right above her.
She looked up.
A chicken began to cluck nervously in the rafters.
Rivera shifted his weight.
The chicken kept clucking and flapped its wings. Feathers scattered in the light.
Lucrezia lay on her back looking up at the old wooden floors, a mirror image of Johnny Rivera.
There was more slamming and cursing until she finally heard the thwap of the back screen door, and then she saw him walking around the casita and over Fifth Avenue, where he disappeared.
She heard the sound of a car’s ignition.
It was only then that she took a breath, pulled her duffel bag close to her, and made her way from under the house.
It was late in Ybor City and the light had turned golden on the brick streets. She walked along the backs of casitas and restaurants and fishmongers and tobacco warehouses. The tugs sounded in the port and she heard the gulls eating out of trash cans.
She needed to find a phone.
AFTER MAKING all the calls and putting out both editions, a few of us retired over to the bottom of the Thomas Jefferson Hotel, across the street from the Times, and the Stable Room bar. The Stable Room kept its front door open on cool nights, and the inside was softly lit from candles in red glass. There was wicker furniture and a long wooden bar, and a piano man who always started up about quitting time in downtown Tampa and sometimes played until the last drunk stumbled home. I knew him by name because in ’55, people in the newsroom and in the bars were my only friends and a bartender or a piano man could be a hell of a source. Or at least I told myself that while I hit whiskey sours or cold Miller beer and smoked on a few cigarettes, trying to work it all out.
When I entered, wrinkled and sweat-dried, the piano man, Tony Kovach, launched into “Invitation,” a song by Bronislaw Kaper from a movie I never saw. The song always reminded me of Fort Holabird and reading files till dawn, with my only company being a midnight disc jockey named Hot Rod Huffman, who’d sometimes doubled as Maurice the Mood Man: And now, here is music that is not loud, not harsh, not shrill, not putrescent—but music that is soft, beautiful, and sweet: sugarcoated music for you and yours .
I ordered a whiskey sour and talked to Ann O’Meara and a couple of other reporters who had to take a few minutes to drink, calm down, and let go of all that energy and absorbed violence before they went home to their wives, husbands, and families. Outsiders. People who could not understand the energy and the franticness of the whole thing. I had only a studio apartment on West Hills in Hyde Park, with a small radio, my clothes, a growing stack of Esquire magazines, a much-loved Webster’s dictionary, and Dave Brubeck albums. I planned to stay for an hour or so.
I might move on to another bar or check back by the Times . When you are young and alone, you can wander from place to place. You had nothing keeping you anywhere, and the feeling was powerful, that ability to
It was locked.
He kicked in the door.
The room was empty.
The window was wide-open, and the curtain popped in the wind.
SHE CRAWLED slowly over the stones and dirt under the house and waited for him to leave. She pushed along her back, knowing that if she made a run to the street he’d see her. She waited, and slowly inched forward just beneath the room where she slept. Lucrezia heard footsteps on the uneven wooden slats as light broke across her face and hands and onto the dirt. Under the house, there was garbage and rusted toys and stray chickens that nested in the crossbeams.
She could not breathe. She inched along.
Johnny Rivera’s shoes ambled over the wood, back and forth, pacing. She heard cabinet and dresser drawers opening and slamming. She heard him cursing and tossing the metal bed onto its side.
Lucrezia bit her lip and covered her ears. She was afraid to breathe.
The pacing stopped.
He was right above her.
She looked up.
A chicken began to cluck nervously in the rafters.
Rivera shifted his weight.
The chicken kept clucking and flapped its wings. Feathers scattered in the light.
Lucrezia lay on her back looking up at the old wooden floors, a mirror image of Johnny Rivera.
There was more slamming and cursing until she finally heard the thwap of the back screen door, and then she saw him walking around the casita and over Fifth Avenue, where he disappeared.
She heard the sound of a car’s ignition.
It was only then that she took a breath, pulled her duffel bag close to her, and made her way from under the house.
It was late in Ybor City and the light had turned golden on the brick streets. She walked along the backs of casitas and restaurants and fishmongers and tobacco warehouses. The tugs sounded in the port and she heard the gulls eating out of trash cans.
She needed to find a phone.
AFTER MAKING all the calls and putting out both editions, a few of us retired over to the bottom of the Thomas Jefferson Hotel, across the street from the Times, and the Stable Room bar. The Stable Room kept its front door open on cool nights, and the inside was softly lit from candles in red glass. There was wicker furniture and a long wooden bar, and a piano man who always started up about quitting time in downtown Tampa and sometimes played until the last drunk stumbled home. I knew him by name because in ’55, people in the newsroom and in the bars were my only friends and a bartender or a piano man could be a hell of a source. Or at least I told myself that while I hit whiskey sours or cold Miller beer and smoked on a few cigarettes, trying to work it all out.
When I entered, wrinkled and sweat-dried, the piano man, Tony Kovach, launched into “Invitation,” a song by Bronislaw Kaper from a movie I never saw. The song always reminded me of Fort Holabird and reading files till dawn, with my only company being a midnight disc jockey named Hot Rod Huffman, who’d sometimes doubled as Maurice the Mood Man: And now, here is music that is not loud, not harsh, not shrill, not putrescent—but music that is soft, beautiful, and sweet: sugarcoated music for you and yours .
I ordered a whiskey sour and talked to Ann O’Meara and a couple of other reporters who had to take a few minutes to drink, calm down, and let go of all that energy and absorbed violence before they went home to their wives, husbands, and families. Outsiders. People who could not understand the energy and the franticness of the whole thing. I had only a studio apartment on West Hills in Hyde Park, with a small radio, my clothes, a growing stack of Esquire magazines, a much-loved Webster’s dictionary, and Dave Brubeck albums. I planned to stay for an hour or so.
I might move on to another bar or check back by the Times . When you are young and alone, you can wander from place to place. You had nothing keeping you anywhere, and the feeling was powerful, that ability to
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