James once told me that the first thing he noticed about me was my pristine white sweater in a crowd of stained and lint-marked others. I became known for never having lint on my clothes. I am a meticulous, precise picker. My sweaters are pill-free. My black tee shirts are unscathed by impurities like cat hair or couch fuzz. I have an eye like a hawk when it comes to little strings and stray hairs. I even own one of those lint shaver machines to ensure the smooth propriety of my wools and poly-cotton blends.







I’m not even packing a bag. I can buy anything I’ll need. Most of my stuff is just sentimental garbage anyway. Pictures, knick knacks, souvenir tee shirts—stuff that ties you to a place because of the way its texture and fabric is weaved with memory and sentimentality. Shit that fills a room but still leaves it empty.

I step out onto the stoop carefully, not wanting my flip-flops to slip on the smooth, hard stone, which is still wet from a rain shower. The air is thick with humidity as I breathe it in, condensing in my lungs as water, drowning me.

I had hoped my first breaths of freedom would have been thin and clean and refreshing, assuring me and pushing me forward. Instead, the air is sweating on me, leaving a hot film on my cool skin. I skid across the sidewalk cobblestones as I descend the hill.

It’s the middle of the night, but the clouds glow grey, reflecting the eternal lights of the city. It figures that the world has a ceiling on the night I finally break free. No crystalline black night, reaching out into infinity to assure me that I am making the right decision. Just dull, low fog, making me feel like I should crouch down to avoid hitting my head. Each street light has a halo in the mist, like I am looking at the world without my contact lenses in.

I left my keys on the kitchen table as a form of insurance. The locked door of the apartment has closed behind me, and so I couldn’t go back now even if I wanted to. I belong to myself now, and I feel reckless. I walk down the street, looking for trouble.

I want to find some frat boys to tease or an expensive sweat-shop-supplied designer store to spend at. I want to flirt with a group of men smoking outside a sports bar. But it is way past the time when all the stores have closed, boys have gone to bed, and drunks have been arrested.

One of the busiest streets in the city has almost nothing to show for itself save the occasional unemployed taxi and scantly-filled city bus. There is a 7-11 open, its lights projecting out onto the black street, and I am a moth to its glowing fluorescence.

The old man at the counter doesn’t look up from a tattered paperback as the bell above the door dings my entrance. He is not the kind of man who should be working at a 7-11. His skin folds in lines around his eyes like he has spent many years laughing. His face bears a yellowish-white Santa Claus beard that hearkens the innocence of St. Nick. He’s not the kind of person who should be awake at this hour of the morning in the city. He should whittle toys for his grandchildren or write books about fishing. He should drink tea with his Mrs. on a porch while she knits. He seems the type that figures crossword puzzles and tells bedtime stories.

The light inside the store is blinding, making me squint. Its thinness feels thick and comforting. I have a friend in this Santa; neither of us belongs in the world of 4am. Perusing the aisles, I search for what I am looking for. Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need a medium ballpoint pen or a box of tampons?

The cereal boxes look like art, lined up in colorful splendor. The frozen pizza is arctic, with a thick layer of frost that burns the tips of my fingers as I run them over the snow banks. Every condom under the sun lines the back wall behind the cash register, giving the friendly old man a pornographic backdrop.

The bell on the door dings, and a woman with greasy blond hair enters. She has dark brown roots many inches longer than any self-respecting hair-dyer would ever let hers grow.

“Look at this,” she says, her voice cigarette-tainted. She takes an orange bottle out of her purse and dumps pills out onto the counter. “I got them from the hotel.” She nods her head in the direction of the grand, old hotel across the street, its opulent lobby visible through picture windows.

I hide behind the muffin display, peeking out past the carrot brans, moving forward to listen.

“Put those away, Denise,” Santa murmurs, shaking his head.

“You know they don’t ask you for a key when you get into the elevator?”

Santa harrumphs a little and shifts his book on the counter, ignoring her. He and I are both a little uneasy. We are both strangers in this world of too-bright lighting and drug-addicted passersby.

“They just ask you what floor you want to go to, and they take you up,” she continues.

“Get out of here,” he is trying to concentrate on his book.

“I just wiggled all the door handles until I found an unlocked one. Then, I went right in. I swiped the pills off someone’s dresser.”

“Please, put those pills away,” he stands up, sliding his glasses down his nose to get a better look at her, “I told you Denise, you can’t be bringing this around here anymore. I don’t want you crackheads in the store.”

She is counting the loose pills on the chipped beige counter, rolling her eyes at him, “Calm down, calm down. I just wanted to show you.” She begins to put them back, one by one. Each fingernail is half-covered in chipped red polish.

She is taking too long doing it, obviously testing him, obviously high, obviously having no place else to go. I have never seen a real live crackhead this up-close before.

“I’m going to call the cops,” he sighs like he feels bad for her. I feel bad for him.

“Aww, come on, don’t.”

“Well then just clean them up and go then, huh?” He moves behind the lottery machine and picks up the telephone receiver, dialing numbers slowly as she laboriously repacks her stash. “Hello, yes? I am going to need some cops at the 7-11…”

“Fuck you!” she croaks, sprinting out the door, her bag clacketing with unprescribed medications as the bells tingles her exit.

Santa hangs up the phone and sighs loudly, looking in my direction apologetically.

“Did you really call the police?” I have decided not to buy anything.

“Dial tone,” he shakes his head, picking up his book once more, “All they really need is a good scare most of the time.”

The sadness of both of us fills the room. Him, with his relinquishing of his picturesque country life, and me with my wandering abandonment. I want to tell him that I understand.

He lifts his book to his face and begins to read again, ignoring me. The cover of the book is a photograph of two women kissing. On Our Backs: The Best of Erotic Fiction, Vol. 2.

Not Santa. He is my friend! My stomach turns at the thought of his being part of this seedy night time world. He licks his lips as he reads eighty-nine synonyms for “penetration” and creative descriptions of nipples. I had been tricked, duped by his grandfatherly whiskers and Kris Kringly appearance. He is no less sleazy than any of the other creatures of the pre-dawn morning. He had been my companion, my friend. I leave him for the abandoned streets.

If James knew I was out here, he’d flip his shit. Of course, if I read a book that was considered a best-seller or watched anything other than the History Channel, he’d flip the same amount of his shit.

I picture him waking up in the morning, finding me not there. The spot where I usually lie feels cold. I am not asleep on the couch with an approved title open on my stomach. I am not in the bathtub with aromatherapy bubble bath. I am not making him vegan bacon for breakfast.

He’d search the apartment, and then the light bulb would appear over his head. My absence wouldn’t be the “yes” he’d wanted, but it also wouldn’t be as painful as the “no” I wanted to give him. I would just be gone, and his proposal would be answered.

I would not have to stand up to him and hold my ground. I would not have to hear him present another goddamned logical argument. We would not have to have a civil, even-toned, healthy discussion. I would not have to be the one who felt like she was about to go insane if I heard him say one more goddamned word.

It was over. I was locked out. Gone. Goodbye James.

Stretching up into the fog is the crackhead’s hotel, and I make that my next destination, yawns creeping slightly into my breathing pattern. It’s formal and ritzy, and I like the smug feeling inside of knowing that crackheads meander the hallways when no one is checking. The entrance way to the lobby is all glass and formality, but there is no one to keep me out.

I hate being in the revolving door. It is slow and heavy and the air inside is extra thick and dense, my sandals flip-flopping echoingly like I am at the indoor pool at the YMCA. I feel trapped inside a submarine with the oxygen supply depleting as the seconds pass.

When I am spit out on the inside of the hotel, I feel very alone. The air is supercooled to combat the humidity, and I am aware that there is nothing to warm me. Everything in the lobby is marble or gold, except for glittery crystal chandeliers that drip from the ceiling. My flip flops answer back from the cold walls, and I feel like I’m in jail. The lights are dimmed to create atmosphere, but I feel confined in darkness.

I make my way past the front desk, pretending I belong in the place. The sleepy-eyed college students at the desk either don’t notice or don’t care, and I can’t decide which makes me feel more invisible.

The elevator is old, gold-encrusted with curlicues and swirls, carvings of angels and leaves and little sprigs of berries on twigs. They could be the gates to Heaven… or Hell. Which is why I press the call button.

It buzzes and clunks in an unsafe way. When the doors eke open at a snail’s pace in front of me, I see a young man in a red and gold uniform through the black iron gate.

“What floor, please?” he asks, courtesy built into his voice. He is bored, but not tired. He tugs open the iron gate to let me in with him.

“Ten.” I like the number. Even, divisible, useful. The doors slam shut and the cage clanks definitively.

I’ve never been in an elevator with an operator, and I am entranced. I did not know they even still existed. “Going up,” he smiles gently at me, as though he can tell I have had a rough night. He presses a lever at the door, controlling our ascent.

He has green eyes. A very pale green that I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been looking. It occurs to me that I don’t know anyone with green eyes, and have perhaps never seen one in real life. I am staring.

This bellboy has no idea that my presence in his elevator is breaking a heart. James is still sleeping innocently, having no idea that when he wakes up, his heart will be broken. I want to convince myself that it’s his fault for even asking. Rose petals, white wine, classy dinner, all that… he knew that I wanted none of it.

We are silent until we reach the tenth floor, approximately an eternity later, and I wonder about elevator etiquette. I have stared into this boy’s eyes for nine floors, and I step into the hallway without a word.

Richly-colored carpet and mahogany tables with delicate legs adorn the hall. The expensive, patterned wallpaper is broken up by thick doors with shiny gold numbers on each. The plush carpet smushes under my sandals as I make my way to the end of the hall, where golden curtains hang down to the floor, framing the twinkling skyline out the window.

I hide my body in the thick folds of fabric of the curtains, keeping myself concealed should a hotel guest happen by. Pressing my cheek to the cool glass of the window, I take a deep breath. The city sparkles below me, and I count the blocks and building to find my apartment. I can just barely make out the grill on our building’s roof deck in the pinkening sky of morning.

I wonder if James knows he will never see me again. I wonder what he will do with all my things—if he will leave them for the garbage, or if he will donate them to charity.

The city looks so innocent from up high. You can’t see dysfunction and crackheads and perverts and boys who try to keep you. You can’t see thieves like me who embezzle pretty views without paying for them. Thieves like me who steal into the night, never to return.

I go back down the hall and call the silent elevator operator and his loud elevator back to me. Waiting, I hear each little tick and clunk, each little bang and bump as the old machine comes to get me.

It feels like the doom in between James’ question mark and my lack of response.

The bellboy smiles benignly, just working late, “Hello.”

“Lobby, please.”

He nods and does his job, not interfering with my trespassing. He is no policeman.

I move slowly on purpose, giving him every chance to protest. Stepping toward him, I avoid eye contact on the chance I might lose my nerve. I wrap my arms around his neck, moving my body closer. He catches my seriousness, wiping the perma-smile off his face, changing his entire persona until he is a real person. One of his hands finds a place on my waist, but the other is occupied with operating the elevator, so we will have to do without it. When I fall into him with my weight, pressing myself against him, he stumbles back a step and crashes into the wall off the elevator. I can feel us tremor the cables that lower us down inch by inch, slow enough so we have time to do this.

Maybe he’s tired, but he kisses me back without question. He doesn’t taste like anything, which I kind of like. He’s just warm and wet and good. Friendly, almost like kissing between girlfriends during drunken games of truth or dare. It somehow feels okay, wholesome—just me and a stranger, falling down an expensive hotel.

His hand lets up on the lever to give us more time, his other hand exploring the goosebumpy skin at the waistband of my corduroys, slipped just under the radar, only invasive enough to make me want him more, but not creepy or overly-enthusiastic so that he scares me off. I almost wonder if he’s done this before.

His fingertips are caressing my bare skin and I am surprised by their gentleness. For some reason, he’s being tender, and I want to stop kissing him to say thank you. For once, someone is kissing me.

I feel as though I haven’t been breathing, and a high, gaspy sigh escapes from my throat, echoing off the gilded walls of the elevator. My knees are weaker than I would have guessed, and I tip back a little, like a toddler after her first steps.

I am surprised by how sexual my inhale sounds, still bouncing off the walls, replaying over and over so that I want to throw myself back into him and feel his fingers tickle me familiarly. A blush runs its course all over my body, heating me in the air-conditioned icebox. I dart my eyes to the floor.

The lapse has made us both a little shy, and so he clears his throat and presses harder at the lever, which makes us move a little faster to the lobby.

Neither of us talks, and I don’t have the desire to. When we hit bottom at the lobby, he opens the door for me without a word, smiling his calm bellboy smile.

The sky is whitening out of its sunrise pink as I emerge from the hotel. The world is waking up. Cars begin to fill the street, Starbucks flips its lights on, the bums on the corner are awake shaking their change cups.

The old man at 7-11 is replaced by a yawning lady with a potbelly. Light pours out of apartment windows into the street. I ascend the hill, in sort of a daze from kissing and not sleeping. I need food. I need water. I need home.

The door buzzer belches sound into the street, and I immediately want to take it back, I imagine catching the sound waves in a net before the reverberate into James’ ears. I contemplate running, like I’d tried in the first place. But it’s too late now.

He is at the door, rubbing his eyes, “Where did you go?”

“Out.”

“When?”

I push past him to get inside.

“What’s this?” his eyes are wide, seeing me. He pulls a piece of lint from the sleeve of my shirt.