Read Online West of Here by Jonathan Evison - Free Book Online Page B

something to do with forsaking his father, who had exhibited an appetite for brutality that only the quiet ones seemed to possess. Tobin was also a quiet one. Descending the staircase, Gertie could feel his critical eyes on her and avoided his gaze.
    “What are you looking at?” Tobin said.
    “My feet.”
    “The hell. I see how you’ve been lookin’ at me for weeks. The next time I catch you, I’ll skin you. Now, mind your business. That little waif from Dakota wouldn’t be on the nod, would she? Fell asleep under a stable hand yesterday afternoon.”
    “Maybe the lumber camps have worn her out. She’s popular, if you haven’t noticed.”
    Tobin spit on the floor and frisked Gertie with his eyes, head to toe. “If I find out you’re lying, I’ll have my pound of flesh.”
    “You’ll have that anyway,” she said, the hem of her skirt dragging across the dirty floor.
    Gertie crossed the threshold into the afternoon air and turned her coat collar up against the chill. Though it was reckless to test Tobin’s limits, and she knew it, somehow Gertie had convinced herself that she was at an advantage. It was true she ran a brisk trade, that she kept her girls clean, attentive, and clear of the opium. It was true that her sarcasm and her ability to absorb a punch inspired a sort offrightened respect in Tobin, and even truer that Tobin had a weakness for her carnal expertise, whereas he never partook of the other girls. Lately, she was beginning to fear him, though. Lately, she was beginning to think about making a run for it. Not that she had a plan, like most whores who ever managed to get themselves free had, not that she’d set by a little money every week like a sensible whore would have. No, mostly she indulged San Francisco like a daydream in her idle moments. She liked to picture herself as a lady instead of a whore, walking cobbled streets instead of muddy sloughs. She knew it was silly, and she kept it to herself. Sometimes she liked to picture herself filling her days with whatever it was ladies filled their days with — she imagined museums, coronations, high tea. But her imagination could never go too far with this picture before she ran out of the ever important details to populate it. Usually, she fell back on images smaller and grayer: herself working in a laundry on Polk Street, living alone with a Siamese cat and a parakeet who knew her name. Gertie imagined herself cooking, growing herbs on her window sill, buying shoes with her paycheck, and eating in restaurants with checkered tablecloths. Maybe she’d allow some dark Italian to take her to shows on Friday night and steal a few kisses on her doorstep.
    Raising her wide freckled face along with her tattered skirt hem, Gertie traipsed south down the boardwalk with her chin held high, past the realty office and the livery to the dry goods store, where dusting off a crude bench, she seated herself, crossed her legs a little less than demurely, and looked out over Front Street, wishing she had a bottle of whiskey. Across the street at the Olympic, a filthy old Indian was reeling in the mouth of the alleyway as though he’d been struck by lightning. His head lolled about dazedly as he took one step forward, then one back, then one to the side, and repeated the sequence again and again without making any progress. Within moments, a trio of loggers spilled out of the Olympic and clomped north down the boardwalk, pausing at the mouth of the alley to watch the old man flounder. They made crude sport of the Indian for a minute or so, mocking and taunting him, calling him Chief Firewater and the like, until finally the stooping man with the burned face gavethe old fool a push, forcing him backward into the mud, where he struggled miserably to regain his feet. The trio erupted in laughter. Gertie was glad Tobin wasn’t there to see it. Surely, he would’ve been amused.
    A team of six horses strained north down Front Street, heads down, shoulders slick