Confidence Read online

Tracy wrote flirtatious thanks to the guys who had sent their cocks to Samantha and promised more explicit pictures soon, possibly some that even fulfilled the unhygienic and clearly insane requests of bootlickr1968 and pissonmetx. He turned finally to the pages of some other amateurs, and hardened again at a few pictures of “nevadawife” in her kitchen, wearing a pair of rubber gloves. Her breasts were sagging and there was a bulge over her C-section scar, and yet both her nipples were pierced. There was a doll collection in a cabinet behind her, and a calendar on the wall with pictures of kittens.

  He heard the front door snap and creak open, and he closed the browser. He stood at the top of the stairs and called cheerily down.

  Morgan was already rattling around in the kitchen. He heard the clatter of the dishes he had left on the counter, and the distant beeps as she checked the messages he had already checked. He went down to her.

  She hadn’t taken off her jacket and was sliding in socks. Her cheeks were red. “No, I’m not okay,” she said, “I’m not really.”

  Tracy coughed.

  “I’m walking under the bridge, in the tunnel, after I get off the streetcar, and there is absolutely nowhere for anyone to move in there, with the construction, you just have to go with the crowd, and this woman, this thing, stops in front of me, turns around to face me, and she pulls down her pants, these like snowsuit pants, under this skirt, and she pisses, right there in front of me. She pisses.” Morgan folded her arms and stared at Tracy.

  “God.” He put a hand in front of his face.

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  “It’s awful.”

  “And she’s blocking my way. I just have to stand there and wait until she finishes and pulls her pants up.”

  “Her snowpants.”

  “And she’s staring me in the eye the whole time, like daring me to stop her.”

  “Huh,” he said. “That’s terrible. It’s dark in there.”

  “I don’t know, Tracy.” She turned and began filling a kettle. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  Morgan put the kettle on the burner and the gas lighter clicked like an insect. “I’m starting to wonder. About bringing up a kid here.”

  Tracy sat at the dining room table, which was also the kitchen table and very close to where Morgan was standing. “I know,” he said carefully. “I know. It’s still pretty bad. But it is changing. It really is. Once they finish the construction on that bridge—”

  “Did you want to make something?” She was looking in the fridge.

  “I was going to do something with rice.”

  She closed the fridge and opened cupboards.

  “Listen,” he said, “I went by that place, Coral’s or something, that place Stephane said was a lesbian bar, and it totally is, I thought it was, it totally might be. It’s all stripped wood and, you know, an old jukebox. There’s no sign outside. That’s a sign if I’ve ever seen it.”

  Morgan was reading a box of couscous.

  “On Saturday we’re going to go for brunch at Valhalla. You’re going to see beards. You are definitely going to see beards. You are going to see beards, glasses, you are going to see, I don’t know, short-haired women. Seriously. I would bet—” He got up and stood behind her and put his hands on her pelvic bones. “I am not going to bet an eye or a testicle, I am going to bet like an elbow, that you are going to see one Swedish stroller.”

  Morgan stood still for one and a half seconds and then she put her hand on Tracy’s, at her waist. She leant back into him a little. She said, “The ones that look like barbecues.”

  “With the baby way up high. The barbecue on wheels. The rolling barbecue.”

  “That costs two thousand dollars.”

  “With a little baby roasting inside. So you can watch it roast. As you push it.”

  She laughed.

  He said, “Watch me cook.”

  At ten-thirty she was already in bed. She was reading a photocopied article and playing with her necklace. It flashed coral in the lamplight. He undressed beside her and she didn’t look up. He inserted himself beside her. He said, “I should know. I know I should know, but where are we?”

  “On the chart?” She turned the page. The title of the article had the words strategizing and acquisitions in it. “We’re at seven or eight. Around there.”

  “And just remind me if that’s good or.”

  She sighed a little. “It’s at the end of the menstruation period, which I don’t know, since I didn’t bleed anyway, and the fertility period, so I don’t know, it’s on the boundary.”

  “Do we take your temperature?” He sat up.

  “You don’t do any fucking thing. Except put your cock in me.” She didn’t put the papers down. They were stapled together.

  “No problem.” He put a hand on her shoulder.

  She held up one finger, and turned the last page. When she had finished reading, she folded the papers together. She put them on the edge of the bedside table and straightened them so that they were in line with the edge. Then she turned the lamp off.

  She did not turn to him but lay flat on her back. He caressed her breasts and her belly.

  He said, “Did you take your temperature anyway?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to do the mucus measurement thing?”

  “Why? Just fuck me.”

  “Yup.” He lay there for a second longer. Then he turned on his side and slid a hand between her legs. She parted them and he stroked her there. She became wet quickly and this aroused him and so he heaved himself on top of her. Her kissed her ardently and she kissed back a little bit and then turned her head away.

  He bit her nipples as he thrust. She gasped and this encouraged him to reach down between their bodies and try to stimulate her, but she pushed his hand away. She bucked and ground into him, panting a bit, so he just fucked her harder. She pulled on his nipples. “Yes,” she hissed. “I want it. Let it go.”

  A shout came from below them, from the heating ducts probably. He ignored it, feeling full and close, and then there was another, louder, and a thump. He slowed his rhythm.

  Morgan went limp. Then they both went still and listened.

  Even on the top floor, you could hear everything. You could hear them say hoochie and ho and bitch and cunt. You could hear thuds and crashes. Now Tracy and Morgan were lying on top of each other, their skin damp and cooling, and Tracy’s penis shrinking inside her. They lay perfectly still and listened.

  Every time this happened, Tracy dreaded hearing the wet sound of a smack. It would be something quite recognizable, probably, and if he did hear it, definitely and clearly, it would put him in a situation that would be morally difficult if not frightening. He did not want to have to deal with that. So now they were both listening for the sound of a smack.

  “Shit,” said Morgan.

  Tracy rolled off her.

  They were also both waiting for the sound of a baby, a baby they had never seen. And there it was, the hiccuping wail. It was as if it was coming from inside the walls of their own bedroom. It made them both stiffen. Tracy put his arms over his head.

  The baby cried and coughed as if it was choking, while the two girls in the basement shouted.

  “Is that normal?” said Tracy.

  Morgan hesitated. “Sure. It’s just a baby. They sound like that.”

  The baby cried for another period which may have been only five minutes although it felt like fifteen.

  “They’re just ignoring it,” said Tracy.

  Then there was a real increase in rattling and screaming. There were shudderings in the walls that meant that something heavy had been thrown against them.

  “Christ,” said Tracy. “This is, we can’t just listen to this.”

  Morgan sat up and pulled a pillow to her chest. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to have to go down there.” He got up, his cock still waving around like a garden hose, and pulled on his bathrobe. T
hen he took it off and looked around for his pants. “I’m going to have to get fully fucking dressed.”

  She didn’t stop him.

  The basement apartment had a much-vaunted separate entrance, something that had allowed him to charge almost $900 a month for the two rooms, so he had to bring his keys and go outside in the cold, down the stairs into the little pit where the door was, a pit always full of wind-blown wrappers and cans and leaves, and pound on the door. He pounded and waited and pounded again. He felt a little queasy. He couldn’t hear the shouting from out there. Perhaps they had stopped.

  He was just turning around when the door opened. It was Deiondre, the one who looked like a boy, without her cap, fully dressed in her black jeans and hoodie. She said, “What?” Her little dreadlocks were wild and spiky.

  “Hey,” he said. “Everything all right in there?” He had rehearsed this.

  “Yes. You got a problem?”

  Tracy sighed. “Well yes I do, Deiondre. You guys are fighting all the time, and we can hear it, and it scares me, to tell you the truth.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “Yes, it is, actually. It’s so loud we can’t sleep at night. It’s a disturbance. And whose—”

  Behind Deiondre came the other girl, Teelah, the girly one with the tight jeans. Her hair was straightened and tied back. She said, “What do you want?”

  He said, “Are you okay?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know if you are okay. I want to know if you are in any danger.”

  Deiondre snorted. Teelah didn’t smile. She said, “Everything’s fine. You leave us alone.”

  “No,” he said, “I won’t. You guys have to stop fighting. It’s dangerous and it’s, it’s scary. It’s my house and you’re disturbing me and my wife and I won’t put up with it anymore.”

  “Okay,” said Teelah, “okay. Everything’s fine. You leave us alone and stop bothering us.”

  “I will if you cut it out. And listen, there’s a baby we can hear crying.”

  Neither of them responded. They were expressionless at this. This was an excellent technique, for Tracy didn’t know where to go next. He said, “Neither of you mentioned there would be a baby moving in.”

  “What is your problem?” said Deiondre, and she leaned closer to him.

  “You want to leave us alone now?” said Teelah. “You leave us alone. Everything’s fine now. Leave us alone.”

  “It can’t go on,” said Justin. “Next time I call the cops.” And he turned and leapt up his front stairs. He fumbled with the keys—because he had locked the front door out of instinct—and heard the basement door slam.

  Morgan was up and waiting in the kitchen. “Whose baby is it?” she said.

  “I can’t ask them that. It’s none of my business.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re the landlord.”

  “And I can’t kick them out for having a baby either. You know how that would look?”

  “What are you mad at me for?”

  Tracy put his head on his arms on the table. There was a silence in which they both listened as hard as they could. There was no noise. “I’m tired,” he said, “of everyone being mad all the time.”

  She put her hand on his head, briefly, then disappeared up the stairs.

  They had two couples for dinner, all university friends. Tracy worked all afternoon on a pure vegetable stew which was zesty if a little fibrous. One of the couples had a baby but didn’t bring it because they had found a babysitter. Tracy watched them closely but they didn’t seem any fatter or less happy. They seemed quite happy, in fact, and they both drank wine. Morgan drank a little too much wine.

  Tracy was talking about the gypsies and he could tell it was irritating her for some reason. But he couldn’t stop. He said, “But they won’t stay here, you know. Right now everyone thinks it’s going to be Roma central, this neighbourhood, like Chinatown or Little Italy, but it won’t, because they’re going to move on.”

  “Why?” said Priya.

  “Because they’re nomadic,” said Dagmar.

  “That’s it,” said Tracy. “They’re essentially nomadic. That’s how they’ve lived for thousands of—”

  “But isn’t it because of persecution,” said Vanessa, “that they always move around? I mean, the Jews didn’t exactly want to wander around the world for a thousand years either. And now that the Jews have found a safe place—”

  “Not exactly a safe place,” said Dagmar.

  “Well, whatever, the point is their own place, and they’re going to stay there.”

  Tracy was shaking his head. “But Roma though. I don’t know.” He didn’t know why he wanted them to be essentially nomadic. Perhaps because it was more romantic.

  “Are you saying it’s in their blood,” said Morgan, “in their genes to be nomads? Or have they just been nomads because no one’s ever let them stay anywhere? Don’t you think that’s a little almost racist, like saying blacks have a natural sense of rhythm?”

  Bang went the floorboards. A woman’s voice under them yelled. It wasn’t clear what she had yelled. Then there was a whole lot more thumping and screaming. Morgan got up and started pulling dishes off the table.

  “Ey,” said Tracy. “Not finished.”

  “Excellent stew,” said Jordan.

  “Is that your neighbours?” said Vanessa.

  Morgan said loudly, “There’s nut cake.”

  Something ceramic shattered below them, and then a chatter of the two girls yelling at once. It was frustratingly incomprehensible.

  “Wow, that’s loud,” said Vanessa.

  “Does that go on all the time?” said Priya.

  “It’ll stop in a minute,” said Tracy.

  And they all sat in silence to listen, staring at the tablecloth, except Morgan, who was clattering at the kitchen counter. And sure enough in a minute it stopped completely. And there was no baby crying this time.

  “This one is not entirely vegan,” called Morgan from the counter. “There’s milk in it.”

  When he got off the commuter train from work, at the platform under the great humming freeway, Tracy liked to take his time walking home. There were a few blocks of factories before his street, and some of them were still functioning. There were loading docks with lights flashing green and red and engines belching as the trucks idled and grunted and edged angrily into the street. There weren’t even any sidewalks there. There were warehouses with artists’ studios lit up with fluorescents; you could see ladders inside and sleeping lofts and bicycles. And then half of them were under renovation, with sales offices for condos on the ground floor. No one ever seemed to be in them.

  And then he would loop out to the main street, the big intersection where the McDonald’s was and the streetcar stop. There was a row of bars, grocery stores of conflicting ethnicities—guy in skull-cap and beard in one, Tibetan lady in another—and a barred-up pharmacy and a dollar store. According to the free weekly local paper, which held a great many graphic advertisements for prostitutes in its back pages, there was a massage parlour somewhere at this corner (“Sweet Aroma Therapy Centre all new girls real photo”), but he could not see any sign or marker, even when he stared at upper windows. You would have to call to get the address. It was probably up a dingy set of stairs and in a narrow apartment above a store. Tracy had never been to a place like this.

  There were the usual bruised girls outside the McDonald’s and he had to admit it was partly to look at them up close that he liked this detour. There were no nipples on display today, but one horrible stretch-marked exposed belly. Tracy took one more good look at all the upper windows before moving on. It would be possible that the girls in the putative massage parlour were the same sort of crack people, but more likely that they would be a little cleaner and more professional. He had heard that they were all Chinese. He had never had sex with a Chinese girl. perhaps they didn’t even speak English, which would be troubling. They wer
e probably all slave labourers, in debt to human traffickers, snakeheads, the people you heard about on radio documentaries, or maybe they were even Roma girls, with skinhead pimps. That would be a bad scene.

  There was one of those Roma girls on the street right there, walking fast, in white jeans and glossy black hair. She looked totally clean. She avoided his gaze.

  And now he was almost home and his stomach was queasy because, he realized, he was afraid of his house, afraid of running into his basement tenants. Which he really didn’t have to be: it was his house, his own house, it was ridiculous.

  At the top of the street, the old man, Leslie or Francis, out walking for a change. “Well now how are you doing yourself now?” he shouted.

  “Just fine,” said Tracy, risking, “Leslie.”

  From five yards away, the old guy asked. “Let me ask you something.”

  Tracy smiled but just slowed his walk, as if to show he hadn’t time to stop.

  “If you spin an oriental person in a circle three times.” The guy stopped, puffing.

  Tracy stopped too. “Yes.”

  “Does he become disoriented?”

  The sky was the colour of a recycling bin. The street, at that moment, was ugly. Tracy squinted against the pale light. With effort, he said, “Ha. That’s a good one. Another good one. I’ll be seeing you.”

  “You take care now.”

  “Yup.”

  And as Tracy turned, the old guy said, “You want to do something about those two girls.”

  “Really.” He stopped again. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Those two coloured girls, I guess they’re tenants of yours, they’re getting out of hand. You let them fight like that you’re going to have trouble.”

  “Are they bothering you in any way?”

  “I’m just telling you it’s not right. It’s not right for the whole street. It’s a bad example, and if they start—”

  “What did you see? Have they done anything to you in particular?”

  “Yesterday, the two of them fighting right in the street, up and down. Hair-pulling and cursing and the whole nine yards.”

  “Really. I’m sorry to hear that. But you let me know if they do anything to you in particular, all right?”