This is the hotel where, one year ago, Beverly Cicero was sliced open for protesting a war I fought in. It is a place I do not know, this hotel, but when I left home late last night I knew I was coming here. I found it by driving fast and hard; I pretended she was chasing me. I pictured her red hair dripping with anger-sweat and wetting her eyelashes. Ever since she met Beverly, she hasn’t worn any makeup on her eyes. When I picture her, there are no black makeup stains running from her lower lashes. There is no womanly darkening on her face at all, only red violence that sends me pushing hard inany direction that is far from her. I want to be in a place that is colored like me, somewhere dark with cold blue lights and bedding that smells like mold. I cannot be anywhere red tonight. Nowhere bright and hot and cinnamon-flavored.




I am a man. I never expected her to find the patches of unsettlingly soft skin undermy eyes and take advantage of them. Then again, I never expected her to describe Beverly’s stomach to me either. Apparently it was white and silky-feeling, a baby stomach, a lot different from the rest of Beverly. Slow and redder with intoxication, she told me shamelessly about the whole thing,the leaky hotel, the room number and everything. Now that I am here, I wonder how much she remembers of that night. I told her some things that night too, like how I’d managed to get through the entire war without killing anyone. I don’t even know if she heard that.



My wife is bright red, Beverly was snow white, and together they slept in this same room that is as dark and expired as me. Did she see me as she and Beverly wiped the mold from the corners? Did she see me as she shut the windows to keep the curtains dry, to keep Beverly warm.




I see her now, as I clean the little scratches under my eyes. I have a dozen squares of toilet paper and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. As I wipe each scratch I tryto be as gentle as I can with my hand and it reminds me of how I handled her at first, back when she still tried to cry quietly when she was around me, like she was embarrassed. Pain is still my biggest fear and only my hands know what to do with that which stings in a bright red way.