LITMIR.BIZ

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back to bed?”

      The clock on the wall clicked. A drop of water splashed in the pan left to soak overnight in the kitchen sink. Delores looked past him down the hall. Paul knew before he turned that Janie was there. She didn’t say a word. Before he could stop her, Janie was gone, the door to her room shutting behind her.

      JANIE WORKED THE rest of the week, staying for the payday crowd to top off her savings from the past two months. Paul came to The Habit twice and never looked at her. She felt more alone than she had in a long time. She thought something real had happened between them. She’d learned that when she gave her body away she lost a piece of herself, so she didn’t do it often. She’d bartered with sex as a trade for something she needed before, but that was different. When she was in bed with Paul, she felt as if she belonged there with him. She thought she’d be alone forever. The only cure was the road. She didn’t talk to Dee about Paul or about leaving. She just wanted to go. At the health food store on their way to work one afternoon, Janie read the bulletin board while Dee bought some Tiger Balm. The Oregon Country Fair was in Veneta, outside Eugene, two weeks and three hundred miles away from The Habit and Paul Jesse. Janie had almost five hundred dollars stashed. She’d leave that week.

      Friday morning she packed her things and asked Delores for a ride to the freeway. Dee didn’t seem surprised and didn’t try to talk her out of it. The past week had been strained. Delores kept trying to bring up Paul and Janie stayed quiet.

      Delores pulled over on the shoulder of the northbound on-ramp to I-5. “Well, here you go. Take it easy.”

      “See you.” Janie felt lighter than she had in a week. She faced the direction of traffic and extended her thumb, hoping for a gypsy trucker who wanted company and might be going straight through to Eugene. Nothing like miles and a new scene to get your head back. She’d moved on from so many places and people over the past two years that staying put, no matter how much she thought she wanted to, scared her, made her feel trapped.

      There wasn’t much traffic so she waited, standing patiently, wondering if she should have gotten a ride from Dee to a different on-ramp. Hitching from small towns could be hard. A station wagon slowed down but didn’t stop. Finally, as despair was setting in, a white delivery van with Oregon plates pulled over. The driver, a youngish guy, got out and adjusted the passenger side mirror. “So, where you headed?”

      Janie looked him over. “Down to the Country Fair in Eugene.”

      “I’m going to Portland. That’s about halfway.” He opened the door for her. Fast food wrappers and a metal clipboard holding some papers were on the seat. “Go ahead and put your stuff in the back.”

      Janie didn’t usually ride in vans. Somebody could be hiding, but when she pulled off her pack and slung it in the back she didn’t see anybody. He seemed like a regular worker on the job wanting company. The guy slammed her door and got back in, stepping on the gas and merging with the afternoon traffic.

      The heater rattled. Janie tried to roll down her window but saw that both the window and door handles had been removed. Her heart started thumping and her mouth turned to sand. She stared out the window, pretending to be fine as she went through escape routes in her head.

      “You want me to show you something?” His voice was wet like he didn’t swallow enough.

      “No, that’s okay.”

      “I really want to show you my special place.” He took the next exit onto a county road. They were out in the middle of nowhere. “You’re going to be my pretty girl.”

      “Can you pull over? I get car sick and I think I’m going to throw up.”

      “And you lie, don’t you? Pretty girls always lie.”

      “I’m not lying. Can you let me out?”

      “No. We’re going to have a party in my special place and then maybe I’ll let you out.”

      The van was hot with the windows rolled up and the noisy heater running. He turned onto a dirt access road in a tree farm and slowed down. Nothing but acres of Douglas firs as far as she could see. Janie threw her weight against the door hoping to pop it open. It didn’t budge.

      He laughed. “You can’t get out till I say so.” He backed the van around in a pullout on the single-lane dirt road and stopped.

      “Please. Let me go. You can leave me right here.”

      “Not yet.” As he got out of the van, Janie jumped across the seat and locked his door. Running around to her side, he opened the door and came after her, forcing her into the back of the van. She screamed and beat at him, her arms and legs ineffective. He caught her by her hair, wrapping it around his fist and slamming her face into the metal door until all she could taste was blood. He dragged her down, turning her over and pinning her body to the cold metal floor. His breath was hot and stank of old food and cigarettes as he grunted into her ear. “You won’t be pretty anymore.” He punched her face until she gave up and lay still. She could smell the sour sweat of his body. Blood filled her mouth, making her choke. Her eyes swelled shut. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Nobody knew where she was. Nobody would be coming to get her.

      HOURS LATER HE pulled her from the van and pushed her body into the underbrush. Janie watched through one swollen eye as he dug through her pack, scattering her belongings and taking her money before driving away.

      She lay on her side afraid to move until silence filled the dark. She focused on a tree trunk a few feet away. She knew she should be cold. She wasn’t. She knew she should hurt. She didn’t. She touched her face, examining the damage by fingertip. Her face felt misshapen. She couldn’t see out of her left eye. Her nose was huge and she had trouble breathing. Her lips were split, but she didn’t think she was missing any teeth. She pulled herself to her knees and began to gather her clothes. Standing up to dress, she felt dizzy and thought she might pass out. She stood still and concentrated on the rough feel of the bark beneath her fingers. She knew she wasn’t that far from The Habit. She would think of getting there. She wouldn’t think of how stupid she’d been to get in the van. She wouldn’t think of the rules she’d broken – rules she’d created from experience – when she got in the van.

      1. Always check the doors before you get in.

      2. Never take a ride in a van.

      A phrase she remembered played in her head, and she let it spin as she began walking. Keep on truckin’. You got to keep on truckin’. She repeated the phrase until she reached The Habit miles away.

      Shelter from the Storm

      STELLA SAT ON A STOOL NEAR THE DOOR, OCCASIONALLY checking a college boy’s ID but mostly scanning the crowd to make sure nobody got out of hand. It had been a good night, quiet for a Friday. Stella thought they might be able to close a little early for a change. That would be fine with him.

      In 1968, Stella returned to his hometown of San Francisco fresh from two tours as a medic in Vietnam. He’d joined the Navy Reserves out of high school to escape the infantry. He wanted to be a doctor, and money for medical school would be available when he got out. At the time, so many corpsmen were being killed that reserves went immediately on active duty. The kicker was he’d been assigned to the infantry anyway. A firefight near Marble Mountain northeast of Da Nang put an end to his desire for college or a medical career. Stella quit making plans for the future and concentrated on survival.

      The club was Ernie’s idea. They’d been friends from the old neighborhood and ended up in the same company during Stella’s second tour. Back in the world, stateside, they’d met again by chance at a bar in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. During a late round of drinks one night, they decided to pool their money and buy a bar. It didn’t matter to Stella what he did. Get out of the city, buy a bar, hire some dancers, make some money. Just like that. Now he was happy just to think about closing early and going home to his bed alone.

      Stella yawned and straightened his back. He could almost feel the cool cotton of his sheets. The doors next

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