The Goodbye Man (3 page)

Survive.

I relax into the man’s grasp while his lips curl over his teeth further in a grateful smile. His grip around my waist tightens as he pulls my small frame into him. His erection presses into my belly and the only thing I hope for is a condom. My brain doesn’t function normally as I prepare myself to be taken by a man that I do not want, but when HIV is so prevalent, a condom is the only thing I care about right now.

“I paid ya Daddy good money for this pussy. Ya better not disappoint, little girl.”

Though enamored with words, I find myself tongue tied now. No response would make this right as my father sits back and watches while a man twenty-plus years older than me preps himself to fuck me. I look over the large fellow’s shoulder and watch as trash dances from the wind of the recently departed subway car, the heavy steps of people still going to and fro. Dirty white, five-gallon buckets line the tunnel, making me remember times when I couldn’t find a restroom and was forced to piss and shit in plastic containers, hoping to dodge the train before it came. The throbbing in my leg brings me back to my hellacious reality. Gulping hard as the man’s hands leave me, I contemplate running, to where or to whom, I don’t know. I am only certain of one thing. This is not going to end well.

I part my lips for a brief moment, thinking that I may have the right words to speak, but stop myself as a hard blow meets my cheek. I fall to the cold dirty concrete, feeling it tear into both my palms while I tried to brace my body from the fall. My long brown hair that my father hates is tugged on violently as I am forced to look into the eyes of my abuser. I hate this part, preparing to be taken by a man that I don’t wish for. You’d think that after five years of being in these situations, I could travel far away to a place where I could become detached. Too bad it doesn’t work that way. Every part of my sensory system is magnified by a million. My vision, hearing, taste, and lastly, feeling.

I look to the man’s eyes; the stark whites hold evidence of what my father craves as little hazes of red plant themselves around. The grin from before is absent and is replaced with the man clenching his jaw tightly. My mind wanders to a place as I try to disassociate myself from this terrible situation while I think to what got him so angry. Then again, Hunts Point is full of many vile assholes. Maybe I am the
abnormal
one.

“Is that pretty mouth of yours not gonna answer me?”

He pulls on my head further; I am surprised my neck isn’t snapping in two. I move my lips to talk, but I am breathless. He frees my hair and I crawl over to the tiled wall, bringing my knees up to my body. I can feel my father watching. If I don’t give in and do what this man wants, I will pay.

‘
Men like girls, Svetlana, not women. Learn to like it, too. We make more money that way if men know you real. I teach you to get wet pussy and be a good whore like ya Mat,’
Pavel would say to me.

I zap into the current and think back to that statement. It is what will save me. If I don’t act like I want it, or enjoy it for that matter, then Pavel could very well kill me. Fuck, why do I even bother living anyway? Humans are creatures of selfishness; they don’t have the ability to understand that sometimes dying would be better than living. It is the fear that holds us back. All I do is trade one fear for another. Not sure what good that does, but I am his girl and still I listen.

“Yes, sir.”

I unfold my legs and stand, popping the button to my torn and tattered jeans. Panties are a luxury and one that I don’t have. I push my jeans down and pull my tank top up, exposing my bare breasts.

“Damn, girl. I am gonna tear that shit up.”

I offer him a made up smile. If he only realized how many times I have heard that line. I am taken day after day, time after time, yet still my little heart continues to fight in this fucked up world. I was created as my soul was doomed from the start. Perhaps God had made a deal with the devil the day I was born. Freedom won’t find me. Even if it does, I will always be stuck within the restraints of this. Things are the way they are for a reason. They can’t always be explained.

“You a whore and prolly ain’t got checked for AIDS. I’m packing, don’t worry, fucking slut,” the large man says to me, pulling out a shiny condom packet.

I want to fall to my knees and thank God above, but gratefulness is never what it seems. The fellow exposes his huge erection and sheathes the condom over it. He closes his fist and I back up to the cold wall, the aching from my leg soon to be the least of my worries. I look to the steel beam, once again and focus on something else as my eyes trace the letters of the
HP
in the distance, reminding me of home sweet home. The shadow that I can never ignore lurks in the background as his laughter returns wildly.

“Don’t take easy on girl. She likes it rough.”

Pavel emerges from the trembling glowing lights with his hands in his stained jean pockets. He is always looking, watching, judging.

“Good thing, sweetheart. I like a little blood and gore to go with my whore.”

For a few seconds, I think I am going crazy as I see the man before me transform into a beast. Maybe that is my dysfunctional brain coping in its own fucked up way, but his lips curl over the top of his discolored teeth again and they seem sharp enough to kill. His closed fist meets my cheek and the familiar taste of blood enters my mouth. Pain starts from my toes and works its way up to my head.

I welcome it and swallow it as it temporarily calms my grumbling belly and thoughts of food and water. I stumble but remain on my feet. The hard as steel fist that punched me meets my face once more and my knees give out. I fall to the cold ground and wonder how many minutes the man has before another train comes by to load people.

People. Yes, there are people around but they don’t care. I am in the shadows at the end of the platform. They hear commotion and may see it, but this is part of the chaos here. This is the
normal.
The man is putting on one hell of a show and I am the act.

“Scream, I will fucking kill you in front of your father.”

Grumbling from his throat interrupts the throbbing from my head as he spits on me. I understand his point; I am trash, a no one, a whore basking in his soon-to-be gore. But, get it over with already.

“Stand,” the monstrous man commands.

I oblige, quickly standing so I don’t get another punch to my already swelling face. My vision is turning double and my head is pounding. I am doing everything in my power to get through this so that Pavel gets his money. Then we can find an alley so I can sleep.

“You ain’t no virgin, girl. But I wanna play like you are. Let’s play ‘Big Daddy pops little girl’s cherry’.”

I turn my head slightly to the side, unsure what he means. He takes one hand and slams my body against the wall again, gripping my neck tight enough for me to see stars, but not tight enough for me to lose consciousness. His free hand grazes down my belly and to my sex. I expect his fingers to enter me, but expecting is the biggest mistake when being a whore. There are no rules, especially when you belong to someone else.

“Blood and gore for my little whore.”

He shoves my knees apart and sticks four fingers inside of me. I gasp out loud as a tear sears through me. I am dry, but that doesn’t slow him down. The friction only causes him to grin more at me while he shoves four fingers higher inside of me. Overwhelming discomfort rips through me and I can’t remember ever being violated this badly. I pray for death as he jabs his four fingers in and out, in and out, in and out over and over again until my blood covers his hand.

When he is satisfied with his damage to my sex, he releases himself and I want to huddle into nothingness and cry. I can’t remember the last time I wanted to sob like this, but right now I want to. This man has cracked me open and now I understand that maybe I never want to be put back together again.

“Ah, there ya go, girl. Seems Big Daddy could pop that pussy cherry after all. Now, eat it.”

My eyes grow wide while my mouth hangs open. He sticks his blood covered fingers into my mouth while ramming his dick inside of me. The distant screech of the subway car is welcoming, but even that wouldn’t stop this man. I am surviving hell on earth. With each passing thrust of his hips, I am swimming deeper and deeper into a place that I crave.

A goodbye.

I am a dealer in spare parts.

The smell of antiseptic
cleaner burns my nostrils as I examine the row of empty waiting coolers on the counter, each one carefully labeled and prepared. There is no room for mistakes when you are playing with lives. Red and blue, some are big and some smaller, depending which part they will carry.

Cornea - 1

Cornea - 2

Heart

Lung - left

Lung - right

Liver

Kidney -1

Kidney - 2

Bone Marrow

Bone

Tendons

Pancreas

Intestine small

Femoral veins

Saphenous veins

Skin grafts 1 - 15

My nephew, Mateo, reads them out loud as he checks them carefully off the list in his hand.

They will each be filled with ice and sent to our facility or others where they can be used to save lives. To save lives I have to take lives first, nothing is free. One life for twenty-five others and a large amount of money for me. It is a fair exchange; no one misses the ones I take. There is never anyone to say goodbye to, just me at the end of their miserable lives. The ones that are saved, those are the ones that would be missed, the ones that are still needed by others. The loved ones that mean something in the world.

Days like today are long. Harvesting days are always long days. Coordinating twenty-five people is difficult; doing it undetected is a nightmare. The plastic curtain flaps behind me as Mateo leaves the room after checking each cooler against the check list. I breathe the chemical air in deeply before I walk down the narrow corridor, dark and hidden from snooping eyes. I open the metal door at the end; the sound of it scraping on the floor makes my hair stand on end. The cold, sterile space is lined with hospital beds, in each one lying an unconscious body, an unknowing but willing donor. When I can match enough people dying to the ones I keep alive, then we fetch them and take what we need. Two of my staff hover around the bed of the one I am here to fetch; one of them is a doctor from some God-forsaken Eastern Bloc country where he couldn’t make a living. I have eight doctors that seek solace here; some for crimes, some from crimes and others just desperate. Pay them enough and they work hard and keep silent. Desperate men have very few morals.

“Caesar,” he greets me as he kicks the brake off the wheels on the bed so we can move it freely. We leave through the opposite side of the room, straight into an operating area that puts some of the best hospitals in the world to shame; three other doctors are inside. I stop at the door, as I am not going to scrub my skin and don a silly blue suit. I bend down to the pale face of the girl with no name and only a number and I whisper in her ear, “Goodbye,” before they whip her through the giant electronic doors and to her early grave. No one lives forever, but cutting her life short just made some others longer.

Now to replace her.
 

Tomorrow I will have to fill that bed with another, one with the same blood type and tissue match. One that no one will miss. Tomorrow. 

For now I wait as each cooler is filled and transported from here to the waiting recipients. They are all getting saved today. Some will see for the first time and others will have future beyond tomorrow. It takes a few hours to remove everything we need from her. I sit in the chair in the cold room watching the parts leaving one at a time. My every breath creates a little cloud of condensation and I fixate on it as the minutes pass slower and slower. When Mateo clicks the last cooler closed I get up, I have one last thing to do today. The blood pools thick on the theater floor and the doctors are covered in smears. There is no point in being neat when you are working on a corpse. They have covered the wreckage with blue theater cloths and disconnected the tubes that kept her alive. I heave against the heavy gurney and push it out the doors, through the room where all the other numbers wait. Down the passage, the wheels squeak and echo off the walls, the very last door at the back of the building is the elevator to the basement. The incinerator room. The end of the line. As we sink below the world above, I hope this one goes to heaven and not hell.

Burning flesh has a unique, rank smell that cannot be mistaken for anything else. It is in the air down here, and no amount of air-conditioning or chimney will remove it. The air is tainted with death. Her body weighs so little as I lift the bundled mess into the giant furnace. The heat causes an instant sweat to drip from my brow and I close the door as fast as I can. My job is done for today. I wipe my face with my sleeve as I walk back down the corridor to the offices at the front of the building. The
front
of my enterprise, and the face the public sees, we are a medical waste disposal facility. So very few people come through the doors, just trucks that deliver the sick mess to us. We use every shortcut in the book to get rid of it. 

I light a smoke as soon as I sit at my filthy desk. I am not allowed to smoke in the rest of the building and I have been craving this all day. I let the nicotine soak into me as I inhale it as fast as I can. It dulls the shakes, and by my third one I am less twitchy. Harvesting days are even longer because I cannot smoke. Even worse is the amount of people on these days, people means voices, whispers, sniffs and even cries; the sounds that could send me off the edge. I have misophonia and certain sounds change me into a monster with no conscience or restraint. Whispering voices are the worst. They make me react in ways I hate. Sound is my enemy, my own ears the vessel of war against my own mind. I am always afraid of what other people’s voices will do to me.

I start to reshuffle the pile of papers on my desk. I have no interest in any of it, and the only papers that matter to me are the checks that get cashed to pay me. Mateo is the one who does the real work. The boy is too smart for his business. I need to go home and put my dick in something soft. I am tired, and violence almost always follows tired, especially if I have had to endure voices all day. I dial the petty pimp that I have used for years, starting when he would pimp his wife out from the apartment next to mine. He has something of mine and he uses his whores as a way to pay me for keeping it. 

“Caesar,” I am answered in his broken Russian accent.

“Send me someone Pavel, and not a fucking twelve-year-old. I am a man. I like women.” I hate talking to him. He is below me in so many ways.

“I have someone, maybe for you.” 

“Good. Even better if they are blood type AB negative, then I won’t have to return them tomorrow. They can just say goodbye tonight.”

“Ya, I have one, not twelve but about fifteen?” I agree because I am too tired to fight with him. I am not a fan of fucking little girls, but I am not opposed to it. I need the release, and another girl to fill that bed tomorrow. This way I get both and a day off. 

Mateo comes in just as I am about to leave for the day. My nephew is a good looking boy in a world full of bad men. “Did it all go well?” I know he has come from the clinic where some transplants were going to happen today. Death is no stranger to us, it is a constant presence; we barely even notice it anymore, so it is no surprise when he tells me, “The heart guy died, but otherwise it was uneventful.” He passes me and goes to the desk. 

“Good, get this shit sorted out. It looks worse than a fucking whorehouse in here. I am going home to fuck something and sleep.” I let door swing closed behind me and make the short commute home to my hovel on Kelly Street. I could live on the Upper East Side with all my money, but I would be seen or noticed there. I would far rather be the shadow that comes to fetch you when it’s time to say goodbye and no one cares. So, I live in my filthy one bedroom apartment and fuck the whores that crawl the streets of Hunts Point. 

I am the Goodbye Man.