9. Kennedy
Kennedy
CHAPTER NINE
Past
Almost eleven years after the prologue
NEW ORLEANS
I cross the carpeted hall, filled with slot machines that almost blind me with excessively colorful lights. I try to hold my breath to avoid inhaling the smell of smoke.
I’ve noticed that people who are addicted to gambling usually smoke a lot. I hate cigarettes; the smell gets stuck in my hair and follows me home.
Almost halfway to the room I need to clean, I see a pair of shiny black shoes in front of me. I don't need to lift my head to be sure who they belong to.
One of the casino managers, who has been pestering me to go out with him.
The man is shameless, as there is a thick gold ring on his left ring finger. If the rumors are true, he goes out with several employees, and now he seems to have taken a liking to me.
I don't like working here, but my aunt is sick, so when a neighbor, a man who adores me and protected me while I was growing up, got me a job as a cleaner and told me that the tips were good, I accepted.
Now the issue is not only putting food on the table, which is what I've always done since I was fourteen, but also buying my aunt's medicine.
Despite the cigarette smoke and some jokers who think I'm included in the daily rate of this hotel-casino, I earn almost three times as much here as I did cleaning people's houses.
Not that it helps much. We always end the month either in the red or very close to it.
"I could get you something better," the man says, and it's not the first time he's made this kind of offer.
He's not offering me a better position because he thinks I'm efficient—which I am, because I give my all so they don't complain about my service—but because he believes it will "soften" me.
At first, he wasn't so direct. He acted kindly, and the idiot inside me, who despite having lived with Aunt Riny all my life still believes in people's kindness, thought the man was really trying to help.
The first time, he casually "bumped into" my back. I thought he was just clumsy. Then a hand on the shoulder here, another hand on the arm there, and that made me anxious, tense enough to prepare to flee if he approached.
Until one day I couldn't take it anymore and told him straight to stop.
A sensible man, married and with a lot to lose, because I think he must have a good salary at the hotel-casino, would back off. But he revealed that he's not that man, because instead, it was as if I had opened a "gate," given him consent to stop pretending.
I've thought about reporting him to the general management, but according to a rumor I heard, another cleaner who did the same ended up on the street.
I can't wait for my aunt to get well so I can finally leave New Orleans. I can't go now, when she can barely take care of herself, no matter how mean she's been to me all my life.
I want to go to Los Angeles or Manhattan. Try to sell my drawings on the street. The other day I read that many artists started out like that.
"She doesn't need your help, Greytak," I hear Mr. Ernest Wich, the neighbor who got me this job, say behind me.
I breathe a sigh of relief, although I don't want him to get into trouble because of me.
I look up to see the manager's reaction, ready to defend Mr. Ernest if necessary, while wondering what the security guards are thinking seeing three employees standing in the middle of the hall during working hours—a manager, a cleaner, and a dealer.
To my surprise, however, despite staring at me, Greytak says nothing and even takes a step back. Then he looks over my shoulder, where I guess Mr. Ernest is, and walks away.
"Thank you," I say as I turn to speak to my savior. "But won't this make trouble for you?"
"No, he can't do anything to me. I know some dirt on that jerk."
I'm confused and curious to ask what it is, but I don't want to be nosy. I owe a lot to Mr. Ernest.
"Come on, I'll accompany you to the room you have to clean so you don't run the risk of another joker getting in your way."
"I only have a few more, and then I can go."
"How is Riny doing?" he asks as we walk together. His voice sounds flat, without anger or disdain, just curiosity, although intuition tells me he doesn't like Aunt Riny.
"The same. There are days when she can't even get out of bed because of the back pain."
She fell down a staircase at one of her jobs when I was around fourteen, and since then, she can't work anymore.
"Is she still abusing the medications?"
"How do you know about that?"
"I heard you two talking when I came to pick you up yesterday."
Mr. Ernest always gives me a ride to the casino because it's a way for me to save transport money.
"Aunt Riny has been taking more and more, and I don't know what to do. I even thought about calling her mother, Mrs. Vina, in New York."
"And why didn't you?"
"I don't want to be disloyal. I'm also not sure they get along all that well. Since I've lived with my aunt, her mother has only visited her once, and the opposite is not true. Aunt Riny has never left New Orleans to visit her. They hardly talk on the phone. And from what I know, Mrs. Vina already has plenty to do, if what my aunt said is true, taking care of a millionaire family's house and her granddaughter."
"Granddaughter? Riny had children?"
"No. Pam is Mrs. Vina's youngest son's daughter, who died very young. She's a year younger than me. I really don't know much; my aunt doesn't like to talk about it."
"Well, anyway," he says when we reach the door of the room I have to clean, "you need to think about the future. Have you decided on New York or California?"
He knows about my plans for when my aunt gets better. There's nothing for me in Louisiana.
"No. If only I had already talked to this Mrs. Vina on the phone, maybe she could help me find a place to stay in Manhattan, but she only saw me once, and I don't even know if she remembers me."
"No one who meets you is capable of forgetting you, Kennedy. Not only because of those blue eyes that seem like a doll's, but also because of the long, brown hair and fair skin. If you wanted, you could be a photographic model."
I chuckle. "Just photographic, right? Because to be a runway model, I'd have to ask God for another four inches. I saw the other day that if you're less than five foot nine, they won’t even consider you."
"But have you thought about it?"
"No. I want to make a living with my art. Now I have to go, or I'll be late for cleaning. Thanks for helping me with Mr. Greytak. The man seems to have taken a liking to me."
I raise my free hand, the one not carrying the cleaning bucket, and wave goodbye.
As I enter the room, I sigh, disheartened by the number of ashtrays full of cigarette butts and cigar remnants scattered on the meeting table.
I hope these men have good cardiologists to take care of their hearts because soon enough, smoking like this, they're going to need them.