Sadie(58)

JOE PERKINS: First tattoo I ever got, and that’s how the place got its new name. Everyone asks me, “Where’s the bird?” And I say right here. [LAUGHS]


WEST McCRAY: When I told Joe I wanted to talk about a girl who might have stayed at his motel about five months back, he told me he’d do his best, but the people who tend to spend the night are like a motion-blur through his life. They never stay long enough to make an impression. Still, when I show him a picture of Sadie, he remembers her instantly.


JOE PERKINS: Oh, yeah, she was here. She talked a little funny. She was looking for a friend of mine. Both those things are how come I remember her.


WEST McCRAY: The friend was Darren?


JOE PERKINS: Yeah, Darren. She came here asking if he was around, but he wasn’t, at the time. I don’t know what she wanted him for. I don’t think she ever said. I only saw her the once, though. I think she stayed one night … might’ve paid for two? I don’t know. I trashed the records when we sold.


WEST McCRAY: Tell me about Darren.


JOE PERKINS: He saved my life.


WEST McCRAY: Did he?


JOE PERKINS: Yeah. I was thirty-five, driving along the highway here, headed back to this place. Got hit by some drunk asshole. The car rolled a few times, ended up in the ditch. Drunk kept going. Still don’t know who did it but I hope that fucker rots. Well, Darren was right behind me and saw the whole thing. He pulled over … I was out cold and I’d sliced up my thigh. Anyway, the hospital told me later he kept me from bleeding out before the ambulance arrived. We been friends ever since. After that, I said any time you need a room, man, you got it.


WEST McCRAY: Where is he now?


JOE PERKINS: I don’t know. He ended up taking me up on the offer about the room. Number ten. That’s his. I didn’t let anyone else stay in it. He was free to come and go as he pleased, and he did. He was rarely here more than a few weeks at a time.


WEST McCRAY: That’s awfully generous of you.


JOE PERKINS: Well, my life’s worth more than a room. Anyway, he’d head off for a while, but he always came back. He was a great guy, just never had his shit together. One of those, you know? This is the longest I’ve gone without hearing from him … I’ve been trying to get hold of him to let him know we sold. I can’t put him up anymore.


WEST McCRAY: You have a number?


JOE PERKINS: Yeah, I can give it to you, but it’s been disconnected.


WEST McCRAY: He’s right.

I call it and nothing gets through.


JOE PERKINS: I’ve had a bad feeling about it, to be honest. Got worse when you called me, wanting to talk. A girl’s looking for him, he’s missing. You’re looking for her, she’s missing. [PAUSE] Who is this girl, anyway?


WEST McCRAY: She says she’s his daughter.


JOE PERKINS: [LAUGHS] All the time I knew him, Darren never mentioned no daughter.


WEST McCRAY: It’s what she says.


JOE PERKINS: I just don’t … [LAUGHS] If he had a daughter, he shoulda been where she was because he wasn’t the kinda guy … he wouldn’t step out on his family. He saved my life.

Jesus, the more you tell me, the worse I feel about all this.


WEST McCRAY: Could you show me Darren’s room?


JOE PERKINS: I don’t know, man. I mean, I gotta pack it up … I been putting it off, but I don’t want to go in there until I know for sure I got no choice. All he asked is we left it alone when he wasn’t here and I respect that but … you really think he’s in trouble?


WEST McCRAY: I can’t say for sure. All I know is that I’m looking for Sadie and she was looking for him and like you said—now they’re both missing.


JOE PERKINS: What’s his room gonna tell you about that?


WEST McCRAY: I won’t know unless I see it.


JOE PERKINS: [SIGHS]





sadie

“This could use the hospital … stitches, like.”

We’re in the main office, out of view of the window, my arm stretched across a table atop a towel, ugly and open and still bleeding under the fluorescent lights overhead. I can’t look at it for too long without wanting to be sick. It didn’t seem so bad in Keith’s room. Here, it looks bad. Ellis has an ancient-looking first-aid kit between us. He raises his eyes to me, awaiting some kind of confirmation, like yes, a hospital.

“N-no.”

I couldn’t kill him.

It nauseates me, that I couldn’t, because he’s all that’s standing between me and Keith now. I have risked everything for this kindness, or whatever it is, and that makes me worry that I’m too starved, too broken, to do anything right. I know I am. I just thought I could be better than it for once. I close my eyes briefly.

There’s a phone near us. Ellis hasn’t made a move toward it.

In a neat little pile in front of me, the tags, the IDs.

“Didn’t think so,” he says.

He cried when I took the knife from his neck. That’s the comfort I’m clinging to; in his eyes, I looked like I could’ve done it. He feels like he walked away with more than he had before the moment I lowered my hand. I was dangerous. I had a knife.