SFserial | an online novel

The apartment Brody shared with Nick was on the bottom floor of a Victorian. When he opened the door Cherise could see down a long narrow hallway. The ceilings were high. Ornate but crumbling white medallions surrounded all of the light fixtures.  It smelled blank and clean, like paint. She propped up her bass near the door and Brody showed her the bathroom, which she found she needed after all. He waited for her awkwardly in the living room at the end of the hallway. She came in and sat next to him on the futon. “It’s fucking cold in here,” Cherise said matter-of-factly, huddling into her damp leather jacket.

Brody looked at her and then back down at his hands. He wondered who she was, and why she’d followed him. She felt to him like an exotic bird, a long-legged thing who’d ended up in the wrong hemisphere. Her eyes were shocking: so deep, Brody thought, even though they were light for brown eyes. The color of amber, he thought, with darker flecks. He wanted to both crawl into them and look away. Her makeup was smudged under her left eye. And she was shivering. Maybe she’d been more scared on the train that she’d let on. He wanted to warm her up, to make sure that she was okay. After that, he wasn’t sure.

“Yeah, I never really hang out in here anyway.” was all that Brody said.

“Where do you hang out, then?” she asked.

“My room, mostly,” he answered. And then he realized they were still sitting in his living room, not talking, and it was very quiet, so he added. “My roommate’s lived here forever. I leave most of the place to him.”

“Where is he?” she asked, wanting to know more about the man sitting next to her. He had large hands, which she now pictured against the bum’s neck. She shivered.

“Drinking, I guess. He’s out a lot.” Brody replied. “There’s a heater in my room,” he added. “If you’re cold. The one out here doesn’t work.”  He didn’t want to scare her, to have her think that he was going to trap her here, somehow. Which was ridiculous, since it was she who had demanded to come in. Brody hadn’t had a girl over in more than a year. He wasn’t sure that he wanted anyone in his room, much less a tattooed girl who got into fights on the MUNI. But there she sat on the sagging futon, shivering.

“Let’s go in there.” Cherise said. “I’m freezing. And I wanna know…” She waited for the right words to drop like marbles out of her mouth, but they didn’t. So she smiled bravely and said, “I want to be here.”

“Okay…” Brody said tentatively, and then stood up. That sounded reasonable, didn’t it? It was dark and rainy. She was cold. And damn yes, she was pretty. Strange but beautiful. “I’ll turn the heater on,” he said, walking toward his room. Inside, he looked around. It was basically clean. Good. He turned on the little modern lamp by his bed, and the space heater at the foot of it. He called to her in the living room: “You should take that wet coat off, I mean, if you want to stay. To warm up.”

”Kay,” Cherise said from Brody’s bedroom doorway, “Good.” She paused before she went in, while Brody moved her bass in from the hallway, so Nick wouldn’t trip over it if he came home. Cherise questioned herself briefly as she watched him carefully prop the padded bag just inside his bedroom door: why did she want to stay, to be cared for by this random man? There had always been something comforting about strangers to Cherise. You could tell them what you wanted them to know, and they’d never have the time to know anything different, she thought. And, enticingly: No one she knew, knew this man she’d met on the train. She liked that about him. He could be her own little secret, if she wanted him. If he wanted her.

“You want some tea or something?” Brody asked her. “We don’t really have much here.” His shoulders were hunched awkwardly as he shuffled piles of paper and stacks of books around the room, as if he was hiding his height, or as if humbled by the simplicity of the room itself.

“I don’t drink tea.” Cherise said nonchalantly. “But, yeah, sure.” Slipping past one another in the doorway, he went into the kitchen and she went into his room. It was dim and getting warm. She took her time introducing herself to his room, assessing the situation. The room was medium sized, and almost empty. Bed on a low platform on the floor. Made. Two pillows. A raw wood chest of drawers, the kind you were supposed to finish yourself. A desk with a fancy computer and a small and expensive-looking stereo system, CDs piled on top.

She resisted the urge to rifle through the CDs. She didn’t want to know what kind of music he was into. She didn’t want to judge him, not yet. Three small shelves of paperback books. Piles of large, flat art books on the floor in the corner. A couple of Polaroids pinned up on the wall over the desk: an old woman pushing an overflowing grocery cart with a record player on top, some trees by the ocean, a grinning blonde girl with dreadlocks. The room smelled blank and clean, like painted wood and carpet and the electric coils of the heater.

Cherise took off her coat and dropped it on the floor by the bed. She sat down on the bed and then curled up on it, trying it out. Her head rested on his pillow and it too smelled clean, like fabric softener. She covered herself with the gray blanket that had been neatly folded at the bottom of the bed. It was very soft and warm. In the dim light she heard the hum of the space heater and the clink of spoons in mugs from down the hall. She took a deep breath. She was glad to be there, wherever she was. She felt safe. Sammy could wait–she’d be doing her own thing anyway.

Brody stopped in the doorway, two white mugs in his hands. Looking at himself from his new visitor’s perspective, he realized his life, like his apartment, was clean, well organized, and empty. Having spent so much time alone in the last year, this evening of unplanned human interaction was unnerving. How was he supposed to act? Looking at the girl he’d met on the train in his bed, curled up under a blanket his mom made, his heart creaked in his chest. Who was she? He hadn’t felt his heart do anything in years. What did it mean?

It meant he was still alive. It meant there was something left inside him; he hadn’t functioned it all away. He walked over to her and set the mugs on the bedside table.  “Here,” he said. “It’s like, peppermint or something. It’s Nick’s.” She didn’t open her eyes but smiled, relaxed. He crouched down, not sure he wanted to sit on the bed with her, not sure he wanted to interrupt her thing, whatever it was that she liked to do, sleeping in strangers’ houses.

Brody stepped up. “’Scuse me,” he said to Cherise, and pushed himself in between her and the younger guy who was digging frantically in his pockets for something he could use to kill her. Cherise stepped back clumsily. She didn’t lower her fists, but glared at him from behind her sunglasses. Brody said nothing to the angry man with the crazy blue eyes, but his heart was pumping as he steadied himself. His left hand formed a solid plane which crashed, cutting down like an axe, just below the man’s ear. It took less than a second, and the blue-eyed man’s shoulders crumpled.

Blood pounded in Brody’s ears. He felt powerful, and it made him uneasy. He was afraid to push this whole scene too far, to really hurt someone like he’d done before, so he hooked his leg behind the harasser’s and pulled. Suddenly the man was seated again, next to his friend, rubbing his neck. The blue eyes stared up at Brody, confused that he now had both the guy in the hoodie and the mini skirt chick who’d kneed him on the chin to contend with. The train came to a screeching stop in the middle of the block before UCSF and the driver, a no-nonsense black man, short and overweight but clearly in charge, walked back to them, followed by the man in the brown hat.

“What’s the problem?” The driver demanded.

“No problem, man,” the older bum spoke up.

Cherise was standing shell shocked, her arms now locked behind her, her bass propped between her legs. She stared at Brody. What did he do to the guy? She wanted to know so she could do it too. Brody looked fairly innocent, he hoped, the white tails of his iPod still hanging from the neck of his hoodie. He took a deep breath. “No problem, sir. I’m just getting off here.” Brody said, looking directly at the driver. He managed a weak smile and snuck a look at the girl with the aviator glasses, who now kept her head down, as if pretending not to be involved. The train driver carefully scrutinized the four of them. “Heard there was a fight back here. Anyone pressing charges?”

“That dude–“ the blue-eye antagonizer whined “–that dude hurt my neck. And she –that one, there—“

“Anyone pressing charges?” The driver interrupted. “Or you–“ he looked directly at Brody “–getting off here?” The door. swung open

“No charges, man.” said the older man. “Nothin’ doing.” He kept a hand on his younger friend, holding him back from answering the driver again.

“Yeah, I mean yes sir, I’m getting off here.” Brody rushed towards the door, frantic to be off the train. He wondered as he pounded down the steps whether the girl was pissed he had stepped in. And yet – what the hell did that guy have in his pocket? Brody was confused, unsure if the line he’d just crossed was warranted. He could imagine the guy’s neck in his hands again. His hands felt gummy with sweat, and his temples throbbed. He could have hurt the man with a little more pressure and an extra twist. Giving a last nod to the girl and the driver of the train, Brody slipped out into the drizzle, just a couple of blocks too early. And Cherise, with the prospect of staying with the bums and the driver, picked up her gear and rushed to follow Brody out.

“Hey!” she said, running to catch up with him, fumbling to put on her jacket without setting down the instrument. “Hi.”

Brody was definitely confused. He had been on his way home after a 12-hour work day, and now his clothes were getting all wet and he had just assaulted someone on a train. And the girl who started it all was suddenly with him, matching his stride. “Where do you live?” she asked.

“End of the next block, there,” he replied. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, and then the words start coming out quickly: “What did you do to that guy? That was crazy! I can’t believe you made him sit down so fast. I was going to kill him, that dirty asshole. Fucking crazy fucker. What was it, you know some kind of judo or something?”

“Something like that.” Brody answered quietly, looking at the girl by his side. She was definitely tall, though her boots added an extra two inches, he noticed. Her face was prettier than he had thought on the train, but not perfect. There was something about her nose…it was larger than some of her other features. A nose that could be at home on a Mayan statue, he thought. Strong. Proud. Her eyes were large, light brown, and sparkling with intensity. She had long black lashes.

He was trying to take in these details, to know whom he was dealing with, as they walked down the block towards his apartment. She was watching him too. Their faces were close. It was almost as if they were already a couple. Then they were at the stairs to Brody’s apartment, which were slick with moisture. It had just stopped drizzling and seemed even quieter than normal on Hugo Street. “Are you…okay?” he’d asked again, for lack of anything better to say.

Cherise looked down at her boots, and then back up at him. She wanted to sit down on the steps but it was wet everywhere. She needed to collect herself—she was not even sure why she’d gotten off the train. She was supposed to meet Sammy and Dan the drummer at Sammy’s place out in the outer Sunset.

“Let’s go in.” Cherise said this casually, as if they’ve known each other for years. “I have to pee.” She didn’t actually have to pee, but she couldn’t otherwise explain why she wanted to get into his apartment. But she compulsively wanted to see where he lived. Maybe just sit around with him, watching TV or something, she thought. After the chaos on the train, she suddenly craved the calm that this stranger exuded even more than the noise she’d been rushing towards at Sammy’s. She had no idea who he was, but she didn’t want to leave him just yet.

The men laughed loudly and roughly at one another’s jokes. The older one, the instigator, was a large man with dirty gray hair and a yellow-gray beard. He had a twinkle of fun about him, a clownish air, but also, Cherise feared, no restraint. The younger one had uncut, mousy brown hair and something disconcerting about his eyes – eyes that were swimming pool blue, and startlingly blank. “Lookit all those tats,” the older guy said.

It was then Brody noticed the girl’s arms and part of her chest were covered in tattoos. All he could make out was part of a bluebird on her chest. Then he realized he was staring and, annoyed at himself for following their lead as they scrutinized various aspects of her, forced his eyes back towards the front of the train. He respected her for not moving seats, not responding to the men, except for the outburst that had caused him to pay attention. He hoped she’d get off at the next stop, and that he could go home and make something to eat. He tried to keep his eyes directed ahead of him, pretending to focus on an advertisement for DSL.

“Dunno who her daddy is, to let her get all of those.”

“Looks like a lil’ whore, don’t she?” sneered the younger man with blank blue eyes. He leered at her, his hands on his knees, a look of smug satisfaction on his face.

Cherise’s head cocked slightly to the left at the mention of her dad, but she clamped her mouth shut. The bird she’d flipped them had died in her lap, and only her tightly clenched fists remained. As she later discussed with Brody, she’d already warned them not to fuck with her – what else was she supposed to do? They were fucking with her! Through sheer willpower, Cherise made her face a cement wall–but it was quickly cracking. She wanted to kick that younger fucker in the head, was what she wanted to do. No one else gives a shit, she thought, that these fuckers just called me a whore. As always, it was up to her. One more comment, she dared them. Just one more.

“Hey! Hey girlie!” the younger one was leaning across the aisle. His eyes were squinting, concentrated, as he leaned forward across the aisle as if to shake her, to make her look at them. “Hey, SLUT!” Cherise was up in half a second, standing over the seated men. Brody saw she was tall, almost as tall as him.

“I SAID. Don’t! Fuck! With ME!” she commanded them. Her voice was rough, though loud and clear. She stood directly in front of them, the older guy on her left, younger one on the right. Her fists were at her hips and she expertly balanced as the train punched through the tunnel after Duboce Park. She looked strong, Brody thought. She looked back only once, to check that her bass hadn’t moved.

Now that she’d crossed the invisible line running down the center of the train, coming to them, the older guy was chuckling and rubbing his yellowing beard. The younger man hadn’t moved when Cherise got up. He was still leaning towards her, a terrible combination of drunken lust and anger on his face, evidently excited by the prospect of something happening. And then Cherise’s knee (in that plaid miniskirt no less) jerked upward and hit the young guy on the chin.

On that evening in early November it was drizzling rain-mist in downtown San Francisco as Brody hurried down the stairs to MUNI. He had planned to put on his running shoes before he left the office; he’d wanted to take a couple of laps around the Kezar Stadium track before he went home. But when the N-Judah train finally arrived in the Powell Street station, Brody looked grimly at its flickering overhead lights and fogged-up windows and decided it wasn’t a night for running after all. He instead envisioned the pizza he could reheat, how quiet his roommate-free apartment would be, and all of the serial cable TV shows he’d recorded and had not yet gone back to watch.

When the train pulled out of Van Ness station and went above ground again, it was relatively quiet. The sound of swooshing cars, the rain against the windows, and the relatively new twilight seemed to communicate what most everyone dreaded: the coming of winter. Like every winter in San Francisco, it would be dark and wet.

There was a strong smell of bourbon in the steamy train, mixed with the usual scents of newsprint, cheap umbrellas, and damp wooly pea coats. Brody kept his headphones on, hoodie up, head down. He stood in the center of the train, which rotated as the train went around corners. It was quiet except for the banter of a couple of men in the back, until he heard a woman–Cherise as he soon learned–saying loudly, clearly, seriously:

“Don’t. Fuck. With. ME.” And the laughter of men, coarse and rumpled by booze: two rough looking guys in tattered clothes sitting to Brody’s left in the second car of the train. Cherise sat across from them, slumped in the center chair of a red-orange bench. She wore a faded orange t-shirt that slipped off her shoulders, a blue plaid miniskirt, ripped dark gray tights, and black boots. Despite the gloom outside the train, her eyes were hidden behind rain-specked aviator sunglasses. Her legs were lazily spread but the pleats of the miniskirt made a puddle in her lap, where her hands were primly folded.

She had a black leather motorcycle jacket and an instrument, a guitar or something, in a puffy black case in the seat by her side. Her hair was black with big swaths the color of merlot. Not really Brody’s type, but interesting to watch. He liked her color scheme.