JERRI BENSON

JERRI BENSON CONCRETE ANGEL

“It’s just a small detour,” Peyton said to her husband hours before in their Jeep. After miles of sand and sage brush, seeing the green sign, “Las Vegas 32 miles,” offered Peyton an out, at least for the night. “Come on, Dad will still be dying of pancreatic cancer tomorrow,” she said, smiling, not meaning the smile, it was her coping mechanism. Peyton’s husband was patient with her, played along.

Forty-five minutes later, he checked them into the tropical themed Flamingo. The hotel smelt like rancid coconut and cigarette smoke. As her husband tried to talk over the crowd noise and slot machines to the tall man behind the reception desk, Peyton wandered off without him.

Peyton, a middle-aged mother from Boise, was drunk and getting drunker. She avoided her husband’s desperate calls after he noticed she wasn’t behind him. He looked for her, while she tried to blow off a little regret in Vegas.

On a skywalk overlooking the Bellagio’s fountain, she stood on her tip-toes to see over the concrete barrier. Between the passing masses, Peyton watched a small group of men in dark business suits and loosened ties wolf-whistling at two leggy blondes in matching white-feathered bikinis and glittered heels posing in front of the placid water. The men’s vulgarity made her want to do something childish, like spit on them.

Two hours, two days, two weeks, that’s what the

41

doctor said her dad had left, that was two weeks ago, just before Thanksgiving. Peyton didn’t know what she would say to him. They hadn’t spoken in five years, not since her parent’s divorce. “Your mother stole my money for you,” he said. “I’ll pay you back,” Peyton pleaded.

“Didn’t think I would find out, did you?” he asked. She hadn’t answered. What he said was true.

She turned, leaned her back against the skywalk wall and pulled out the bottle of vodka she had tucked inside her lime-jean jacket. Peyton went to drink and instead, splashed the now tasteless liquor down her chin, wiped it with the back of her hand, and chuckled.

She swirled the bottle, trying to regain her cool and watched the clear liquid at the bottom. Peyton thought she could see a faint reflection of herself being pulled and distorted at the center. She’d been drinking since late that morning.

A horn honked below, which set off a chain reaction from the other cars. The hum from the crowds of people vibrated. The bright towers of Paris and largecaped men on billboard signs closed in on Peyton. Her image twisted in the bottle into broad familiar features, a large pocked nose – a bristled chin.

“Seventeen and pregnant,” Peyton’s father said. “I’m not paying for your mistake. I should have known you’d do this to me. I want you out.” Peyton didn’t tell him what she wanted that day in her parent’s kitchen. She didn’t tell him she was scared or that she loved him. All she could say was, “I’m sorry.” For the next twentyeight years she was only allowed to visit on holidays. Her mother never forgave him and took the risk he would kick her out too. Peyton tucked the bottle back in her jacket to silence it.

42

Behind her, “Sleigh Ride” blared from the fountain’s speakers and the swoosh of bright water burst from the small pond. The skywalk reeked of car exhaust, booze and piss. An elderly couple walked past her, arm in arm, wearing matching red windbreakers. The man looked at Peyton, then the poorly-concealed bottle and frowned.

“Asshole,” Peyton murmured, wobbling a little.

Others didn’t look at her, like she was invisible, or they just didn’t have the space in their lives to allow her to exist, even if for a brief moment.

Instead of heading to Arizona to watch her father die, Peyton watched half-dressed young women, drunken men, and couples of all ages headed in one direction or the other – to casinos, music shows, and strip clubs.

The crowd on the other side of the skywalk parted; the vulgar suits Peyton wanted to spit on stumbled off the up escalator.

“Fuck you,” a small suit said to one of the others.

“You’re such a pussy,” a bigger suit taunted, giving the smaller suit a shove.

“Knock it off,” a bald suit said, moving between the two other men.

“I’m sick and tired of his bullshit,” the smaller suit said as the group of men continued towards where Peyton stood.

“Come on little man, you think you’re so tough,” the big suit said, pulling off his jacket.

“What are you staring at you fucking bitch,” the small suit yelled at Peyton.

“Fuck you little man,” Peyton said, thinking she was being funny.

43

“Fat bitch!” small suit replied.

Peyton went for the bottle under her coat, but it slipped, dropped, making a high pitched pop as it shattered at her feet. The bigger suit shoved the smaller one towards Peyton. She changed directions so he would miss her and stepped on a shard of glass, not feeling it at first as it sliced through her flip-flop, until she took her next step and it lodged into the arch of her foot. She felt pressure before the hot pain. Suits went flying by her until one slammed into her back. Peyton didn’t hear the thud when she hit the ground. She did hear the collective gasp of the people around her and tasted metal on the back of her tongue.

Peyton lay on the concrete, still warm from the day, drunk, but in no real physical pain, yet. A small crowd gathered around her. She heard the clicks of the nudie cards, as the men scraped them together, advertising sex. Piles of the cards littered the strip. She saw a summer day and a blue plastic pool with neon fish on a dandelion littered front lawn. There was a little girl who lived across the street from her as a kid. She had long blonde hair and wore a white and yellow-spotted bathing suit. Peyton, still wearing her childish pudge was envious of her friend’s lean body and how she expertly posed with her hand on her hip while Peyton’s father pretended to take pictures of her, clicking his tongue.

“That’s beautiful, Michelle, smile sweetheart, you’re a star.”

Peyton tried to emulate the poses she saw in her father’s Playboys she’d found in a small chest under his side of the bed, but she could only remember what they wrote in the centerfold. How the naked women liked to

44

“walk barefoot in the sand, enjoy pizza by the slice, and to slow dance to Air Supply in the cool night breeze.”

“I love hamburgers just like my daddy and I like it when he takes pictures of me,” Peyton said. Her father looked at her oddly, confused. He scratched his chin, and then went back to staring at Michelle. Peyton tried more poses, but none of them worked.

She heard her phone ring in her pants pocket. It was probably just her husband still looking for her, he could be annoyingly attentive. Or, maybe it was her mom, checking up on her again. Peyton wouldn’t find out until hours later in the hotel room, her body sore and bandaged, sitting at the small table, staring out the window at the pink flamingo statues around the pool, listening to her husband snore, the call was from her brother.

“Hey sis, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day. Shit. I don’t want to have to do this, but he’s agitated, you know how he gets. I’m sorry. Dad doesn’t want you to come.”

But, in that moment, on the skywalk, instead of answering her phone, Peyton gazed up at the muddy sky, the stars washed out by the lights on the strip. A thickbrowed man appeared above her, leaned over until she felt his moist breath on her face, it smelt like yeast and strawberry gum, “Are you happy?” she thought the browed man asked in her father’s rough voice, “Are you happy?” Peyton replied.

She closed her eyes and remembered two feet of snow on Easter Eve. She wandered through a small house in pink snow gear, peeking in each door to see if anyone was awake. Golf was on the television in the living room. The crowd was applauding politely. Her

45

dad slept in his recliner, an arm across his bare pot belly, a hand on his red- bearded cheek. The grass skirt of the hula girl tattooed on his chest appeared to sway a little as he breathed. Peyton wanted to crawl into his lap, but she knew better.

Outside she found an undisturbed patch of fresh snow, perfect for a snow angel. With her eyes closed and her mouth open she felt the cool flakes on her tongue. Scissoring her arms and legs she smiled at herself, for herself, happy, happy, happy, she sang.

46