Once More for Tracy

By 5:30 p.m. Earl had an audience of four gathered around him as he played Killing Me Softly on the harmonica. There was an older black couple, a young skater boy, and a sizzling brunette woman all hovering over Earl.

The black couple (had to be in their thirties) swayed side to side to the tune, the young skater boy (sporting dirty dreadlocks, smelling awfully loud with the aroma of ganja) drummed his hands on his chest and hummed the words to the chorus as Earl played on: “Strumming my pain with his fingers…singing my life with his words…”

And then there was her. The beautiful, jaw-dropping gorgeous, sundress-wearing, long-legged, platform-sporting brunette woman with the piercing green eyes. She did nothing but stand there, taking drags from a long cigarette with only a strangled grin on her face—yet Earl’s eyes couldn’t leave her presence the entire time he played. It was as if he played the tune for her.

Once Earl was finished, he got an uproar of applause from everyone.

“That was bad ass, Pops!” the skater boy told him, dabbing him up.

The couple high-fived Earl and dropped a twenty-dollar bill in his tip jar. “Amazing,” the man told him. “Just simply amazing.”

“Thank you,” Earl said, his voice as thick as Barry White, “y’all too kind!”

As everyone walked away, still infected by the song’s melody, the brunette set her back against the wall and pulled out another cigarette.

“That was the best thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, lighting the smoke.

“Thank you,” Earl replied. Beyond the familiar odor of the cigarette, he could smell the earthy blooms and fruity notes of the woman’s perfume. It was attractive to the level that it activated parts of him in strange and almost inappropriate ways.

“I’m Tracy,” she said, leaning down and giving Earl her hand.

Earl took her hand with a giant palm and gently squeezed it. “Earl. Everybody calls me Poppa ‘round here.”

“Poppa, huh? I can see that,” Tracy said. “You’re a big guy. How tall are you?”

“Last time I been knowin’ I was six-five. Three hunnin’ some pounds to boot.”

“Wow! Definitely a big fella!” Tracy looked deeper into Earl’s eyes and said: “You know, I could use someone like you.”

The comment confused Earl. “Use me?” he asked. “Like…to play songs?”

“No, not with that,” Tracy said. “I could use you as…sort of my driver slash security guard. I run my own business.”

Earl chuckled. “You ain’t serious now, is you? You need a security guard?”

“I’m very serious. Besides…” Tracy pointed to Earl’s tip jar. “It looks like you could use a little extra cash.”

Earl’s face dropped to the tip jar. Today had been a good day. The couple who had left a twenty spot were generous people. That had brought his daily earnings up to thirty bucks. But Tracy was right, he realized. He could use a little extra cash. After all, it’s not every day that someone comes along and offers him a gig.

“You know how to drive Earl?” Tracy asked.

“I ain’t done so in a while, but I reckon I can get the groove back,” Earl said.

***

By 6:05 p.m. Earl was in the driver’s seat of Tracy’s brand-new BMW 765. The lean, mean machine had more gadgets than Earl had ever seen, and it took him a good two miles to get his bearings back on the road, but he handled it gracefully.

           “You’re a natural,” Tracy said. “You have enough leg room there?”

           Earl nodded a Yes. The all-leather power seats provided ample leg space for his big-boned limbs. “More than enough,” he said.

           “It’s got air-conditioned seats, too. Have you feeling like you’re sitting in a cold bath the whole drive.”

           Earl chuckled.

           “Tell me about yourself, Earl,” Tracy said. “How’d you get into the occupation of busking? Doesn’t look like it pays very well.”

           “Certainly don’t afford me no Beemer, that’s fo’ sho,” Earl said. “But I makes it. What aboutchu? Whatchu do for a livin’?”

           Tracy thought about it for a moment, then: “I help stressed out wealthy people decompress after a long day.”

           Earl was puzzled by the response.

           “It’s a niche business,” Tracy went on, “but when you find the right clients, you have a pretty good setup.” She shifted in her seat and adjusted the seatbelt. “Anyway, enough about that. You got friends and family here?”

           Earl shook his head. “Just me. I ain’t got nobody here.”

           “Well, now you got me!” Tracy said, putting a hand on Earl’s thigh. “You’re my friend.”

***

The first stop was a luxury high-rise apartment in downtown Houston. Earl parked the Beemer in the parking garage, on the twelfth floor, where there were rows upon rows of expensive cars just like Tracy’s. A Maybach Mercedes, a Ferrari, several Tesla’s and even a Lamborghini.

An hour later, at 7:45 p.m., Tracy was finished with her first meeting. Earl opened the door for her to step inside, and he could smell that she had given herself a few more sprays of her exotic perfume. He also noticed that, although she was still beautiful as ever, her hair was a bit different. A bit tangled, her make-up a bit smudged.

“How’d yo meetin’ go?” Earl asked, putting the Beemer in drive.

“Pretty good,” she said. “A bit premature, but hey, I still get paid the same! At least this one didn’t have any strange requests.”

“Strange requests?”

“Yeah, sometimes they ask for weird things,” she said.

“Weird things?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it all, Earl. I’ve seen it all.”

“I still don’kno what it is you do,” Earl said.

“You really wanna know?” Tracy asked.

“You tell me, Ms. Tracy. Do I?”

As they drove on to the next meeting, a cozy silence filled the air. Neither of them said a word, and yet so much energy was communicated between them. It was almost a meditative state, and Earl felt a closeness to Tracy. A closeness he hadn’t felt for anyone in a very long time.

***

By 8:10 p.m. they pulled up to a massive two-story house with a circle drive, and Tracy asked Earl to keep the engine running because she wouldn’t be too long.

           “He’s an easy one,” she said, stepping out of the car. “I’d say no more than thirty minutes and we’ll be outta here.”

           At the front door of the house, Tracy was greeted by a short man with a receding hairline. He looked in Earl’s direction and scowled, and Tracy pointed to Earl and said something to the man. Whatever she had told him, he didn’t seem to be enthused by it.   

           As Tracy and the short man walked into the house, Earl noticed that there was a young boy riding his bike in circles around the driveway. When they caught each other’s gaze, the boy walked up to the car.

           “Are you her bodyguard?” the boy asked.

           “You could say that,” Earl said. “You live ‘round here?”

           The boy nodded. “That’s my house,” he said, pointing to the big house.

           “Who was that man Ms. Tracy was talkin’ to?”

           “That’s my dad,” the boy said. “She comes over every Wednesday night. That’s when my mom goes to visit my grandma in Dallas.”  

           Earl couldn’t believe it. Was Tracy this man’s mistress?

           “Shouldn’t you be inside?” Earl asked. “Sun startin’ to go down, Son.”

           “Not until she leaves,” the boy said. “That’s the rules.”

           Earl felt a sense of anger rising from within. What type of father…

           An hour later, Tracy bolted out of the door, heels in hand. She was walking with such haste that Earl wondered if she had been in danger. He stepped out of the car and began walking toward her.

           “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said. She turned to the boy and said: “Your father asked me to tell you to get inside, Jimmy.”

           On the road, Tracy propped her feet up on the dash and chewed a nail. Earl knew something was the matter.

           “You gon’ be aight?” he asked.

           Tracy said nothing. Just stared out of the window.

           “He was supposed to give me something,” she finally said, moments later.

           “Give you what?”

           “Some pills. He’s a doctor.”

           “What kinda pills?” Earl asked.

           “You ask a lotta questions, Earl! I’m not paying you to interrogate me.”

           Earl felt ashamed for caring so much. “My bad.”

           Tracy reached in her purse and pulled out a Ziploc bag with three pre-rolled joints in it.

           “You smoke bud, Earl?” she asked, perching a joint between her lips.

           “Used to,” Earl said, “Not no mo’.”

           Tracy fired the joint up and pulled from it. Thick smoke filled the Beemer, and an all-too-familiar aroma ignited Earl’s senses.

           “Besides,” he said. “I can’t be gettin’ high on the job. I gotta protect the boss lady.”

           Tracy chuckled and said: “Touché, my friend. Touché.”

***

At 9:55 p.m. Tracy hurriedly got back in the Beemer and urged Earl to go. This meeting had been in a sketchy neighborhood in Third Ward—with sketchy characters standing around, lurking in the darkness like predators looking for prey.

           “Hit the gas, Earl!” Tracy yelled. “Let’s go!”

           Earl put the Beemer in drive and gunned it. In his rearview, he could see a group of thugs chasing after them, some of them getting in cars and starting them up.

           Earl hit the gas and swung a right onto the feeder road, and quickly gained speed toward the on-ramp to I-45 and zipped onto the freeway. He switched to the fastest lane and kept a careful watch in the rearview for anyone on their trail.  

           A few miles down the freeway, he felt that they were safe.

           The entire getaway journey, Tracy had been laughing uncontrollably and excited as if she was injected with a potent dose of adrenaline.  

           “What the hell happened?” Earl asked. “Why they was chasin’ you down?”

           “These fuckers!” Tracy said, still laughing. “They forget everything when they have their dicks in their hands!”

           “Whatchu mean?”

           “Oh, you know,” she said, “he’s a cheapskate. So, I took what he owed me in other means.”

           “You took sumthin’ from him?” Earl asked.

           Tracy reached under her dress and pulled out two sacks wrapped in plastic wrap.

           “Just a coupla 8-balls!” she said. “That’s a huge discount if you ask me!”

           Earl was shocked. Why would she steal meth?

           “Let’s pull off on the next exit,” Tracy said. “There’s a smoke shop off the feeder. Need to buy me a piece.”

***

By 10:30 p.m. they were parked in an alleyway between two abandoned buildings. With the windows rolled down, Tracy smoked the stolen ice out of a glass pipe, and immediately, the cool night air was destroyed by the odor of rotten eggs and cat piss.

           “Guess I done figured out what you do now,” Earl said with disappointment in his voice.

           Tracy blew smoke in his direction and said: “Did you? What is it that you think I do, Earl?”

           Earl looked down at the steering wheel. He couldn’t stand to look at her smoke this junk.

           “I just know what you do,” he said.

           Tracy got in his face. “No, tell me what the hell you think I do!”

           Earl thought about it for a moment before he answered.

           “Them men,” he began, “you take away they stress, they give you money. I get it.”

           Tracy chuckled and it was almost menacing.

“Them men?” she jabbed. “What’s the highest grade you completed, Earl? Fourth grade?”

That wasn’t the first time someone took a jab at Earl’s vernacular. He wasn’t angry about it.

“So you’s thinks I’s a hooker?” Tracy continued to poke fun. She was high, Earl knew.

“I ain’t nobody to judge,” Earl said. “Get it how you live.”

Tracy took one more hit and tossed the pipe back into her purse.

“Come on, we’ve got two more meetings to attend.”

***

By 1:05 a.m. Tracy was down to her last client. The one before this, she had met at a 24/7 adult video store, where she had swiped the client’s wallet and ran off with it. When she had made her way back to the Beemer, the man was right at her tail. That’s when Earl had stepped out of the car and confronted the man.

“She stole my wallet, bro,” the man yelled in a thick Indian accent. “She took it from my pants pocket.”

“You best get on outta here, man,” Earl had said, sternly. “You don’t want no prollems.”

The man had tried to rebuttal, but he was too afraid to go against the behemoth of a man.

In the car, on the way to the next meeting, Tracy had pulled the Indian’s wallet out from her purse. She had taken out the cash and tossed the wallet out of the window, all the while laughing about how she had played the Indian for a fool.   

Earl was beginning to understand just what type of person Tracy really was. He had felt like a fool himself for thinking of her as a good person. In a way, he had felt betrayed. Nonetheless, she had trusted him to take care of her. She had chosen him, out of all the men she could have chosen tonight, to protect her.

And, she had called him her friend. Friend.

***

At 3:30 a.m. Tracy finally returned from her final meeting. Earl gasped at the sight of her: her bruised face, her wildly messy hair, the rips on her dress.

           “They do this to you?!” Earl asked, grabbing her face. “I’m gonna—”

He started gaining toward the house and Tracy pulled him back toward her.

           “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said. “I need a shower.”

           “What about what that fool did to you?”

           “It’s his thing,” she replied. “It’s one of the weird requests I told you about.”

***

By 4:15 a.m. Earl and Tracy were at the Embassy Suites near downtown. Tracy had taken a shower and was lying on the bed, while Earl dug into a pizza they had picked up from a 24/7 pizza joint.

           Tracy picked up the glass pipe from the bedside table and took a hit. Then another. And another.

           Earl looked back at her and produced a look of disapproval.

           “You ain’t gon’ be able to sleep, you keep hittin’ that thang,” he said.

           “Who are you? My Daddy?” Tracy said, loading another batch of ice into the pipe.

           For the next hour, Earl agonizingly watched as Tracy became increasingly restless and paranoid. She moved about the room like a fidgety child, looking out the window, listening to the hotel room door, checking the peephole. She was as insecure of her surroundings as an eyewitness to the mob.

           “Take it easy,” Earl said, stopping her from bouncing off the walls. “I gotchu.”

           Tracy shoved him off her. “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled. “Don’t you ever touch me!”

           Tracy tucked under Earl’s arms and ran toward her purse.

She reached in and pulled out a switch blade, and, extending the blade toward Earl, she lunged at him—

—Earl tried to grab the knife, but he caught the blade. Blood squirted from his palm.

—Tracy swung to the right, cut his left forearm.

—she swung to the left, cut his right upper arm.

—Earl lunged toward her, against all odds, and that’s when she stuck the blade into his thigh.

The pain was excruciating, but Earl was too pumped with adrenaline. He lunged for her this time…

He wrapped a giant hand around her throat, and the other one he wrapped around her wrist—the hand with the knife in it.  

“Stop this!” he begged. “We friends, ain’t we?”

He squeezed the hand with the knife in it tightly, and it finally fell out.

He shoved Tracy against the wall with all his might, his other hand still wrapped around her throat.

Tracy kicked and punched the giant man. Earl felt nothing.

“We friends, damn it!” he yelled. And even louder: “We frrieeends!”

He tightened his grip and grabbed her fragile throat with both hands…

***

When Earl came to, his hands were still wrapped around Tracy’s throat. Her eyes were wide open, and the life had been drained out of them.

           Earl gasped. He quickly took his hands off her crushed windpipe and felt her face.

           She was cold and pale. Motionless.

           “Tracy!” he yelled. “Tracy, wake up!”

           Earl realized what he had done, and what he couldn’t come back from.

           It was him who was pale now. Motionless.

***

By 6:30 a.m. Earl was at the police station.

           “Can I help you, Sir?” a lady officer at the reception desk asked.

           Earl looked down and said, “I killed a woman.”

           The lady officer produced a surprised look.

           “You killed a woman?” she said. “Who did you kill, sir?”

           “Her name is Tracy. She in room 713 at the Embassy Suites up the street.”

           A couple of other police officers caught wind of what Earl was saying. They approached him and surrounded him.

           “What happened, man?” one officer asked.

           Earl thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “She was my only friend. And I killed her.”

           “Why don’t we go into a more private room, and we can talk some more,” the lady officer said as the other officers grabbed Earl’s arm on either side. His imposing figure was no match for any single officer to escort.  

           “Before we go in,” Earl said, “can I play my tin sammich one mo’ time?”

           “Your what?” an officer said.

           “Top left pocket. My harmonica.”

           And with that, for the next three minutes and forty-six seconds, Earl played it once more…once more for Tracy…

           “Strumming my pain with his fingers…singing my life with his words…”