Darnell and Carmella

My name is Darnell Lamm, that's Lamm with two M's. I'm a clerk at Bradley's Super Market downtown, or I was at the time this story begins. This is my incredible story.

******

"Okay, Sam, I'm on my way, and I'm walking not driving, so don't worry about me, okay. Sheesh! You're worse than my mother, rest her soul," I said, as I exited the Iron Skillet. Sam watched me go out and smiled; he could smile; he had my back, read looked out for me almost every night.

The Skillet was my favorite watering hole; hell, it was my only watering hole. I was a regular there after work almost every night. Since I lived and worked but four blocks away, I never had a problem with drinking and driving. Tonight, though, I would normally have driven: it was thirty-one degrees and brother that's cold, especially with a twenty knot wind adding the wind chill factor.

I was shivering and cursing myself for being too cheap to call a cab. Well, next time I'd remember—probably.

The street was dead mortal silent. No cars, no hubbub, just silent. As I passed the doorway to Jed's market, I heard something. It was like—chattering. "I looked more closely. Huddled in the doorway, as far back as it was possible to get, was a woman, no a girl.

I stared at her. Homeless, I figured. Homeless, hopeless, and freezing to death.

"Miss, are you all right? Can I help you?" I said. She just stared back at me. She said nothing. "Miss, you can't stay here; you'll freeze to death."

"Huh?" she said

"Miss, let's go down to the all night donut shop," I said. Well, I couldn't just walk away and leave her there could I.

She looked at me strangely, like she had just thought of something. She struggled to get up, and she came with me. I helped her walk; she was stiff as could be from laying there in the cold. And, I could tell by the look of her, as she stood, that she was just skin and bones. This was not good.

We made it the one block up and one more over to the donut shop. We took a table with fixed chairs in the back—I hate fixed chair seating, but it's what they had.

"Hot chocolate?" She nodded. I ordered two and a couple of chocolate éclairs; this girl needed the calories. I paid, and brought them back to her. She was rubbing her hands together desperately trying to warm up.

I looked her over closely for the first time. A teenager, I thought: thin, raven hair, sunken eyes, and a pasty complexion: this waif was not going to survive another night like this. Her clothes weren't exactly ragged, but all she had was a light windbreaker, sneakers, and a dirty print sundress; not exactly winter wear in Columbus, Ohio.

"Say, what's your name? How long have you been on the streets?" I dared ask her.

"And, how old are you?" I added, thinking I already knew the answer.

"Carmela, Carmela Long. A few months. I'm twenty-four," she said, her teeth still chattering. She saw the surprise on my face when she announced her age, but she said nothing.

"I take it you have no place to stay?" I said, realizing how obviously ridiculous my question was before it was even out of my mouth.

"No," she said.

Okay, she was homeless, and she'd been that way for months! I had to get her out of there, and safe.

The walk to my place was short, four blocks, but I didn't relish the idea of trying to get this little bag of bones that far on foot with her stumbling along at a snail's pace. I pulled my cell and called a cab.

She didn't struggle. She was going to the home of a complete stranger, and she said absolutely nothing. She just nodded when I'd suggested it. I wondered if she were at all afraid of what some strange man might be trying

to do to her. But, no, I think all she was thinking about were the éclairs she was wolfing down and staying out of the cold.

The cab ride was short, but I still had the walkup to negotiate with my little victim of the night.

Struggling a little, I was able to get my new boarder upstairs to the apartment; it was a three story walkup, and I was on the top floor.

"Okay, Carmela, I am going to put you to bed. It's almost 3:30AM," I said. I laid her on my queen size bed and took off her shoes. Her socks were filthy and they smelled something awful, and they were full of holes. Jesus, how could a nation as rich as the USA allow such misery to be. Damned Wall Streeters, I thought.

I pulled the comforter up and around her and she snuggled under it. Her eyes flickered, a hint of a satisfied smile flashed in my direction, and she slept. I headed back out through the kitchen and its small dinette which flanked my tiny living room and its skimpy complement of furnishings.

It wasn't much, my place, but it was warm and cozy and, well, it was home.

I sacked out on the couch; it was but a few feet from the door that separated me from where my guest was sleeping soundly.

The sun is the only alarm clock that I own, and it worked perfectly today. The bad news is that I had to get up to turn it off. I pulled the curtains about half way closed and went into the kitchen to put the coffee on; I had a splitting headache, and the exercise wasn't helping. Looking at the wall clock, I noticed it was almost 10:30AM. It was then I remembered that my bedroom was occupied. Carmela? Right, her name was Carmela. I called down to the coffee shop across the street. It was late for breakfast, but I knew that Clyde would be there cooking. I called down to double my usual breakfast order, albeit three hours later than usual. I asked for it to be delivered; something I did from time to time when I was hung over, like now. I was glad I had the day off.

I knocked on the bedroom door. I heard some rustling around, and then some desperate running and coughing. "Carmela? Are you all right?" I said, listening closely at the door.

"Uh—uh—yes. Uh-uh—who are you?" she said. She was obviously confused. I smiled. This was going to be interesting.

"I'm Darnell Lamm. We met last night."

"Huh?" The door opened, and she was still dressed in last night's clothes; well, what else would she be dressed in."

"I'm Darnell Lamm," I repeated now face to face with her. "I found you last night. Do you remember?" I said.

I could see that she was processing the information I was unloading on her, and she wasn't sure exactly how to respond. I took the bull by the horns. "Look," I said. "Take a shower; you need it worse than I do. I've ordered breakfast up too. After you've cleaned up a bit and eaten we'll talk, okay?"

"Okay," she said. She was clearly very timid and unsure of everything.

After the shower, she emerged looking refreshed. But, she was again dressed in her filthy clothes; I'd be getting her some new stuff. The food arrived just in time. I paid the delivery boy and spread the Styrofoam takeout containers on the table. I'd set the coffee maker up some minutes before and it was almost done brewing; it smelled good.

We looked at each other, and I wondered about her past, why she was on the streets, where her family was. So I asked.

"Where's your family?' I said, sipping the black elixir.

"Don't want me. They took my baby away from me: it was illegitimate in their eyes, so they took it away from me," she said. "I left after that."

"I see. No job obviously?"

"No, I had one, but the manager kept hitting on me, so I left. I should've let him screw me; it's been tough," she said.

We talked for some time. "We've got someplace to go," I said. Finish up.

"Where?" she said.

"You need clothes. I've got a little money saved. We'll get you fixed up," I said. She stopped chewing; her mouth was still full of food. She swallowed.

"You mean it?" she said. Twenty minutes later we were standing in front of an ATM. I had five hundred in my savings; it was all of the money I'd been able to save—what can I say; it costs a lot to live in the city. I pulled out four hundred and handed it to her.

We headed to the strip mall a few blocks up the street. I told her to knock herself out that I'd wait in the Denny's across the street. She smiled at me and asked me a question.

"Mr. Darnell, I mean Lamm, is that a birthmark on your right cheek?" I'd seen her staring at me funny a few times, and I'd wondered why; now I knew.

"Yes, kinda unsightly huh?" I said.

"No, no, it's just kinda star-shaped and I wondered if it was an injury or something, that's all," she said.

"No, it's a birthmark," I said, repeating myself. She waved to me and left to shop. I never saw her again.

I waited for some hours before it became apparent that she'd disappeared on me. Well, no good deed goes unpunished, I guess. I headed back to my apartment. The manager's daughter was waiting for me.

"Mr. Lamm, my dad wondered if you could pay the rent today," she said, smiling.

Jenna Wilcox, my landlord's daughter, at twenty-two, was six years my junior. Pretty and sexy I had the hots for her and she knew it.

"Yeah," I said, "come on in." I wrote the check and handed it to her. She put it on the table, leaned forward, wrapped her slimjim arms around my neck and kissed me passionately. Six months later we were married.

******

Jenna and I got along good those first years. The sex was good, the marriage typical, and the economics of it maybe a tad above average. We had just celebrated our fifth anniversary when the shit it the fan.

I lay next to her now wondering what I had done. We had been married for five years. We knew each other did we not? I had thought so, but now I wasn't so sure. No, that's not right, I did know for sure, and the answer was that I, at least, did not know her.

What the fuck was the problem? We had just had sex. She'd orgasmed and so had I. Then out of the blue she said something that I will never forget to my dyin' day regardless of what happens to us in the final analysis.

"Darnell, you don't satisfy me. You're not terrible in bed. I just came; I have to give you that; and I—we—usually both do. But it's not enough. Tonight was a test for me, for you too. Darnell, I have taken a lover, and I am going to keep on seeing him. I had to tell you. I can't go on cheating on you like I have for these past several weeks.

"I'll understand if you want a divorce," she said.

I looked at her in such shock that I think she was beginning to laugh, but she checked herself when the tears started clouding my vision. Well, I guess she still did have some feeling for me, after all. "What?" I choked. It was all I could think of to say.

"I know this is a shock. I don't want a divorce," she said. "I love you not him. But, I will not tread on your pride and my self-respect, by treating you like an unknowing cuckold.

"It's up to you, dear, if you want to stay married," she said.

I looked at her and my feelings for her, my love for her began to evaporate. My heart was broken. It wasn't fair. Soon my emotions took over and began to fill me with despair. "Is your lover near?" I asked with a calm of my own that I did not feel.

"No, tonight was just for us. I told him I had to be sure. I am now," she said.

I looked at her face, so calm and—frank. "You know," I said, "when I married you, I had long thought, I mean seeing all of the stuff that was happening around us: my friends, yours, strangers in the news; that no one could ever really trust someone else to be true, rely on them. But, I changed my mind after we began going together. I really thought I had found my soulmate, my true love, the one that I could trust. It's obvious to me now that I was right in the first place.

"Thank God we don't have children," I said, as I pulled on my pants and slid my tee-shirt over my head.

"Darnell, I wish—" She stopped in mid sentence to watch me. "I wish it weren't this way. I don't want you to hurt, and I really mean it. But, it has to be this way. But, we can still have sex once in a while if you really want it. I won't cut you off completely; I told him that. He wanted me to, but I told him you were too good to me to do that to you."

"You say sometimes," I said, as I finished dressing. I stood and stared at her. I wanted to cry, scream, even hit her; but I just waited.

"Huh?" she said, finally.

"You say you and I can have sex sometimes. How often is that? Once a week?" I said.

"Well..." My face felt hot. I was—nervous—psychologically shaken.

"Once a month," I said.

"Something more like that," she said.

"And him, how often?' I said. She looked down not answering me.

"Once a week?" She still didn't answer me. "Two or three times a week?"

She looked up at me. "Darnell, there is no need to talk about him. But, yes, maybe two or three times a week or so with him. I won't throw him in your face, Darnell. You need never meet or even hear about him. We're not trying to humiliate you. And, you're no unknowing cuckold. You're my man, my main man. It's just that sex—I can't go on faking it anymore. I need to be able to be, do, be myself. He fulfills that need for me. But, in everything else you're the one and he has no say."

"And, I don't, haven't, I mean satisfied you all of these years. You've been faking it all of these years!" I said.

"Darnell don't torture yourself. Like I say, you can get off once in a while. Have me, and I promise to make it nice for you," she said.

"Mercy," I said.

"Huh?" She looked questioningly at me.

"A mercy fuck, maybe once a month if I'm good that's what I get. That's what you mean when you say I can get off once in a while. Well, what if I go out and get me a girlfriend, you know to get myself off more often?" I said, finally starting to stand up for myself. What if I do decide to get a divorce?

"Darnell, I told you, I'd understand if you want a divorce. I don't think it's the best thing for you though. In the distribution of assets—well.

"And Darnell, you won't get yourself any little bit of fluff on the side, I know you; you love me. And, no, when you and I do it, it won't be any mercy fuck. It will be making love. It will be recommitting ourselves to each other. I told him that, you know. That you and I were committed to each other that we love each other.

"He didn't want me to tell you about—us. He thinks your male ego won't be able to handle it very well. Well, he doesn't know my man like I do. Like I said, I know you love me and will let me have this. That's how strong my marriage is, I told him," she said. She actually looked proud of herself—no—of me!

I needed to know who this guy was, who my competition was. "Who is he? I said.

"His name doesn't matter, Darnell. You don't know him. It would just bother you to know his name. Let it go. Let's just be together like before, well, almost," she said.

"I can't do this, Jenna, I can't. I'm going out. I need to be alone for a while." I'd finished dressing. I turned from her and left. I was sick to my stomach, both because she had so totally humiliated me and because my marriage of five years was ending, and ending badly. I was ending badly.

She made some noises about not wanting me to go out so late, but she knew I had to have some space and didn't really push very hard for me to stay.

I had my jacket and the clothes on my back, my wallet, and absolutely no idea what I was going to do. Out of the blue, I remembered the waif that I'd tried to help out years before. I wondered how she'd fared. Her story had been similar to mine in that those she'd loved and depended on had shit on her. Of course she'd shit on me. Well, I made up my mind. I headed for a nearby motel. It was midnight. I'd shack up there for a night or two and make up my mind how I was going to handle my wife and her lover. Well, that was my plan. Plans don't always materialize like we might expect.

I rose early. I showered and dressed. I called in sick to work; I needed the day off. After eating at Denny's, I went to the bank. The shock I got there was unnerving. She'd cleaned everything out. That was what she meant when she implied that a divorce would not be economically good for me. She, and her lover, had planned on making me their wiling cuckold and provider while holding me in thrall. Well, I might not be much, but I'm not going to be fucked over without a fight. Someday, I'd have mine; I had no idea at that moment how long that someday would be in coming.

She'd left two-hundred in the account and another two-hundred in savings. Everything else was gone: CDs, cash, even the safe deposit box was empty, all my important documents, passport gone. I closed the accounts. I headed back to the motel with $460 in my wallet. I spent another night and hit the road. I decided to just disappear.

As I strode along the street downtown, I wondered what she'd be thinking as I made no effort to contact her or return home. I wondered if she'd feel any guilt about leaving me so few options and so little money, essentially fucking me over every which way she could. My eyes narrowed. Whatever happened, to me, someday I would get mine back.

I paid for a forty dollar bus ticket and headed for Indiana. I had no papers, no proof of identity, except my Ohio driver's license, oh, and my ATM card which was now worthless because of my closing the accounts they were based on.

I had to find shelter and a job and fast.

It was the seventh of May. Unable to find a job, I was fast running out of cash. It was then I realized that I was now jobless, homeless, and derelict. That was the first night of my new status: I was a bum.

******

"I don't know Melvin. He's just disappeared. He's been gone for a week and the store hasn't heard from him. I guess laying it on him like that was a bad idea after all. Like you said, his pride couldn't handle it," said a concerned Jenna, as she sat across the table from her lover, Melvin Goode.

"Jesus, I was afraid of this," he said. "No word at all then?"

"No, none. He cleaned out the last monies from the checking and savings accounts and closed them. He's got a little cash, but not much, and he has no credit cards; you know he never believed in them.

"He's gonna have to call sooner or later. He can't last long on the funds he has," she said, hopefully.

"He can last out there forever, Jenna. All he has to do is find a job, any job," said Melvin.

"What am I going to do, Mel? He was paying the bills. I don't work. I never have. I have no skills," said Jenna.

"Well, I could move in here with you? I work. I can take over the bills. But, if I do that, you have to divorce Darnell and marry me," he said. She looked at him strangely. She nodded.

******

The streets were cold during the winter. I thought about moving to Arizona, but that would cost money, and I had zero funds. At least the bay of the warehouse was out of the wind. Jesus, how I hated the wind.

Fifteen years, now, of this bullshit, and not a day of it not thinking of Jenna and wondering if she even gave a shit. My mind often returned to that last week in Ohio before I'd left my home, my wife, my job, and all hope of any kind of life. Oh, that's not right either; I had a life. It was a life of self-pity and despair, but what the hey, it was more than some folks had, right.

I wondered if Jenna had divorced me; I was sure she had. Probably married her asshole lover. What a laugh. He'd cheat on here too. Fact was she just wasn't all that hot a lover. Who was I kiddin', she was a great lover; I was the asshole mediocrity, if that even.

The weather wasn't too bad, yet. Fifty degrees, Friday, and 6:00PM the big animated sign on the bank across the street announced. I huddled in the shadow of the supermarket's loading dock; I checked the dumpster every day at this time; they usually dumped the wilted produce and sometimes other stuff at this time of day. Hey, it's how I shopped these days.

I'd have to head back to the warehouse and the cover of its receiving bay soon. I didn't want Carlos trying to steal my place again. If he tried, I had my shiv, and I knew how to use it; one did have to protect one's turf.