The Bodyguard ("Embers" story #70)

EMBERS
by Michael Kroetch

The bodyguard’s mother is in her house. She’s at her kitchen table. She has the windows covered tightly with her nice, bright pink floral curtains and has made sure Jesus and His cross are snuggly wrapped in a cashmere blanket and safe inside her dresser drawer among her brassieres and panties. Better for Him to be tucked in there going totally crazy thinking about what He shouldn’t be, than to be out here. It’s the middle of the afternoon. She should be at work. She knows this. It’s what’s going through her mind as she stands and goes over to the dresser drawer to make sure it’s closed tightly enough. Nosey Jesus. Sometimes she hates Him even more than she hates cigars. Why can’t He and the neighbors just mind their own business?

Then she checks her lipstick in the mirror. Just to be sure. It’s perfect and must be because she’s afraid of the man at the market who sells her detergent. She doesn’t know what he might do if her lipstick is off even by the smallest fraction. His car will soon pull into her driveway with its old, loud motor spewing gray smoke and spitting oil everywhere. The beast. He will want to light his cigar in her bedroom, but she won’t let him. Not again. She told him so the last time, and she meant it. It’s not her fault that he laughed after she said so. He was once a communist. In Poland. A secret policeman. That also was not her fault. She couldn’t be responsible for what people did in the past. But she could be responsible about the present and about making sure he kept his greasy Russian cigars in his pocket. She had strict laws. Proper decorum in her house was one of the most important things for her. His sandpaper laugh, rude vocabulary, and brutal oil stains did not fit. So what if he put his Polish hands on her in a way the yoga instructor never could? She’s not a sausage. It can’t keep happening. She’s going to bring it to an end.

And when she is on the altar in her wedding gown, it will be. Forever. She’s told herself so a dozen times and so she knows it’s true. Thinking about this and wanting extra protection from the market man, she rushes into her closet, pulls out the lacy dress, and slips it on as quickly as possible. In the mirror she sees herself. The wedding gown is as radiant and perfect as her lipstick. She will not let the market man in. Not this time. Never again will his beat-up old car be making everything filthy and out of control. But behind her she already hears his harsh laugh rumbling, and, mirrored in the shadows, sees the dull orange embers trembling off his cigar down onto her carpet.