Fall 2020 | Occasus | Issue 10

Knocking Man

At around one o’clock in the morning and dressed in no more than a long ratty t-shirt, Mindy O’Connell cracked the motel door open the slightest bit, peeked outside, then let out a sigh of relief when she saw familiar green eyes staring back at her, followed by an eyebrow quirked with mild confusion.

“Hey, detective,” Mindy greeted.

“Is now not a good time?” the detective asked her.

“Nah.” Mindy pulled the door open fully and stepped aside, nodding for him to enter. “Just wasn’t expectin’ you to come ‘round tonight. Gosh, how long has it been? Four months since I’ve seen you last? Wasn’t sure if
you were ever comin’ back.”

“I was busy workin’ a case,” he replied, taking a long draw from the cigarette perched between his fingers as he stepped inside the motel room that had seen better days. The detective was quick to notice that an array of stuffed animals were still scattered around the twin bed adorned with flowered sheets, smiling up at him with their stitched mouths. He glanced at the compact television set. “We caught the guy.”

Mindy followed his gaze to the television screen, small and black. “Well, I already know that!” she said suddenly. “I saw you and your partner on the television a few days ago. You looked mighty fine on there.” She tossed a wink over her shoulder before settling down on the bed, crossing her legs, and watching in amusement as the detective stood before her with a bag of McDonald’s idly hanging from his left hand. She cocked her blonde head back and gave him a slight smirk, purring, “You still thinkin’ about my offer?”

The detective shook his head, blowing smoke. “Nah, kid.”

He handed Mindy the brown bag, and she fished around its contents to pull out a pack of fries and a quarter-pounder with cheese. She passed the greasy bag back to him and motioned towards the green cushioned chair positioned beneath the only window. The detective sat down and pulled out his own burger, stubbing out his cigarette and unwrapping the yellow packaging. He glanced at Mindy briefly. “You don’t look so good. You gettin’ a rough time from some johns?”

“I’m fine.” There was a firmness and finality in her voice—an indication that any further questions on the subject would enter the realm of unwelcomeness and be met with uncomfortable hostility. Although that hardly stopped Mindy from tucking her battered legs underneath herself and tugging the grey t-shirt down and over her pale skin that was marred with deep blues and angry purples. She sighed. “It’s just that men turn into little boys when they don’t get what they want.”

“I’ve heard as much,” the detective mused blankly. His dimmed eyes scanned the eggshell walls, lingered over the one that was covered with floral wallpaper, and took in the wooden dresser that had a pair of fuchsia panties hanging from one of the knobs. His gaze settled on the sparkly jewelry box nestled behind the lamp on the cluttered night-table.

“You still sellin’ those pills?” he asked, nodding his head towards the box.

Mindy stopped in mid-chew, then swallowed stiffly. “You here to bust me for drugs?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“Calm it, kid.” The detective took another bite from his burger, leaned back in the vodka-stained chair, and calmly asked, “How much are you charging nowadays?”

Mindy studied him under curious lashes, then reluctantly admitted, “Twenty-five.”

Reaching into the pocket of his wrinkled suit jacket, the detective withdrew his wallet and fished out two twenties and a ten. Mindy’s eyes widened slightly when the cash was presented to her.

“Are you sure you want that much?”

“Dead sure. Now, don’t go askin’ me twice.”

It was during this moment that a sad, almost melancholic gleam wandered into the detective’s green eyes, and Mindy thought he looked somewhat lonesome as he sat there with a gun in his pocket and a serious look painted over his angular face. He had looked so handsome and glorious on the television screen, having caught the bad man and rescued a little boy from a ranch on the outskirts of town. But it wasn’t until now that Mindy could see the faint traces of unease in the detective’s expression—a slight downward tug of his lip every now and then—and hear the depressive notes dance across the smoothness of his voice when he lost himself to deep thought. Mindy sadly acknowledged that he was a broken man filled with regret, wandering through life as it passed him by like a train whipping down railroad tracks.

“You got a wife and kids to get home to?” Mindy gently asked the detective while she took his money and grabbed two packets of pills from her jewelry box. She reluctantly handed them over, watching as the detective stuffed them into his wallet.

“Nah.”

“Well. . . You got anything else to do tonight?”

The detective pulled back his suit jacket to show a half-emptied flask.

“No. Uh-uh. Come here.” Mindy tossed a jumbo teddy bear with a pink ribbon tied around its neck off of the bed and then patted the flowered duvet. Daffodils and daisies spread out beneath her delicate, piano fingers.

“Do you like football? All men like football.”

The detective didn’t really like football, but he said that he didn’t care.

“Well, that’s just fine then,” Mindy replied. She then wandered over to the television, fell to her knees so naturally that the detective felt a slight ache spread across his stomach, and thumbed through the dials to find the football game. Once the green field and ant-sized players flickered to life, Mindy sprang from her knees like a popped kernel and flopped back down on the flowered sheets.

After an awkward moment, she sighed loudly and rolled over to give the detective a pointed look. “I don’t bite, you know,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Get your ass over here.”

The detective obliged her request, slowly stripping himself of his gun and suit jacket before easing onto the bed beside her, and that’s how they stayed for some hours—Mindy’s back pressed against his hard chest and her hands moving in a storm of elated fist pumps and frustrated birds flips. Eventually, the detective decided that he liked how her hands moved, how obscenities slipped past her lips as though they were casual words, and how she mindlessly shoved french fries into the air for him to eat when she wasn’t busy chowing down herself.

For hours, the detective watched her through his half-drunken state, eyelids drooping like saddlebags, and it wasn’t long before he felt himself become wholly inebriated.

Meaghan Furlano is a Canadian writer and first-year sociology student at Western University.