Grown Men Cry

Henri walked along the liquor store aisle saying the names of the Spanish and French wines in her head. She thought she probably wanted a red so it wouldn’t have to be cold. Or maybe she should just buy one of the few whites that were in the store, already chilled behind glass.

“Can I help you find something?” a voice said from behind her. 

“Yeah,” she replied. “I’m looking for a red.” 

“Okay. No problem,” he dragged his finger along the different bottles. She thought the back of his head was sexy, unlike the front. “What are you going to be pairing it with?” he asked.

“What?” 

He smiled a little; it was condescending. “What are you having for dinner?” 

She paused for a second. “Wine,” she finally said, picking up a bottle with a pale purple label. She waved it at him with her fingers stretched out and pushed by him. 

It was getting dark by the time she walked up to the Stevens’ house. She wrapped her hoodie around the bottle and held the bundle below her arm. 

“Henri. Good,” Mark said when he opened the door. “Come in. Come in. Mrs. Stevens and I were just worrying you weren’t coming and we’d have to miss our reservation.”

“I’m so sorry,” she returned. “The buses were way behind schedule, something about being understaffed the driver said. There are a third less buses on the road right now.”

Mrs. Stevens came down the stairs; Henri watched her work to pull a thin cardigan over the bulges of her body. “Hi sweetie,” Mrs. Stevens said. “So, Charlie is finishing up some homework now at the kitchen table. There is money for pizza on the counter. Charlie can watch an hour of TV and then its bed by eight and we should be home no later than ten. Thank you again!”

And with that the Stevens’ were out the door, in their car, and down the street.

* 

“Hi Charlie,” Henri said. 

“Hi Henri,” he said, not looking up from a thin workbook. 

Henri pulled a stemless wine glass from a cabinet and unscrewed the bottle, pouring herself a deep glass and sipping from it before setting the bottle down on the marble countertop. She slipped the pizza money into the pocket of her jeans and opened the fridge. There was yogurt, eggs, milk, cheese, lettuce, and the like. She turned back to Charlie. “Did you know I make the best scrambled eggs in the world?” 

“You do not,” Charlie said, now at the age of eight where children work too hard to prove they are no longer gullible. “How would you even know that? You’d have had to have eaten everyone's eggs in the whole world. There would need to be a contest and judges.” 

“You’re right. You’re too smart for me. How about this,” she said. “Tonight for dinner we have a scramble off!” 

“Okay cool!” 

Henri took a few sips of wine; it was cheap and stung her nose and she swallowed it in gulps. She slipped a Marlboro out of the pack in her back pocket. It was squished some.

“What is that?” Charlie asked. 

“Here,” Henri replied. “Let's go hang on the swings out back and I’ll show you.” It was dark out and the cool air felt nice on Henri’s wine flushed cheeks. The two sat down onto the swings and pushed themselves around in little circles with their toes. Henri lit the cigarette and drew deeply so the end flared with audible heat. She held it in; she turned to Charlie and blew. “Like that,” she said, her smile soft, inviting. “Here,” she passed it to Charlie who did as Henri had, sucking in deeply and coughing violently, dropping the cigarette to the damp grass.

Henri laughed and picked it up. “That’s alright. I did that in the beginning too. The trick is not to breathe it straight into your lungs. You're not being a dragon who breathes fire in and out. You’re being a king—calmly and slowly. You’re proving that you are in charge. Try again,” she said, handing it back. “Breathe into your mouth a little first so it cools down and then suck it into your chest. It’ll feel good and warm. Smoke is actually very soft.” 

Charlie took the cigarette carefully, drawing on it with the gentleness of childish lips, letting the smoke fill first the mouth then the lungs and then releasing it into the cold air like an exhaust pipe. 

“Perfect,” Henri said. 

“That was awesome,” Charlie said, standing up from the swing and sucking, carefully, again.

“Yeah,” Henri leaned into the swing so she could pull the pack from her pocket. “You’re really good at it too.” She pulled another out and lit it, dragging on it beside him. The night was cool and very damp. 

She smoked the one she’d pulled and then another and he just had the one. They went back inside, flipping the TV from Kardashians to Real Housewives and eating frozen chocolate from the freezer until he fell asleep. 

At nine fifty Henri heard the door. She put the empty bottle in her bag and walked over.

“Hey,” Mrs. Stevens whispered. “How’d everything go?” Her face was blotchy and chalky.

Henri bit her lip and looked between her and Mark. “It was alright. He was a little fussy and wouldn’t finish the homework or go up to bed, so he’s asleep on the couch.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Mrs. Stevens looked worried, craning her head like she could see into the living room. “That’s so unlike him. I’m so embarrassed.” She looked to Mark. “We’re sorry for the extra trouble. Here,” she opened her wallet and added a ten to the money she’d been holding since they walked in. “And Mark can drive you home.” She had food in her teeth and her lipstick was caked and cracking on her old, thin lips. 

“I wrote you a song,” Mark said in the car. 

Henri turned toward the window to hide a smile. “Oh, did you.” She said it without the lilt of a question. 

He pressed the car’s touch screen until the instrumentals for “A Boy Named Sue” came on. She rolled her eyes, letting her head fall back to the seat, and looked at him. He had a goofy smile and was bobbing his head to the rhythm. 

“You’re such a dad,” she said as his knee started bouncing to the song. 

“Well, you’re daddy left home when you were eight,” he started singing to the track. 

“Dude!” she said. “Not cool.” But she was laughing. 

“But the weirdest thing that your daddy did do was he went and named you Henri.” 

“Your syllable count is all over the place,” she laughed and turned the instrumentals up to drown him out, but he got louder like he and the stereo were one. 

“My name’s Henri. How do you do?” He looked at her, smiling, eyes wide in anticipation.

She shook her head. “Fine,” she said, clapping. “Very impressive.” 

“Really though,” he said. “What is it a family name?” 

“Just turn,” she said. 

He turned the block before her house and rolled across the empty lot of the municipal court building until they reached the far side. He pulled his pants down and she looked out into the darkness of the trees. He rubbed himself and she took him into her mouth, relieved he was already hard. He came and she swallowed and opened her door. 

“I can drive you the rest of the way,” Mark said.

“Nah,” she replied. “I’m good to walk. See you next week.” And she watched the car roll back across the lot and turn left, blinker illuminating the night. 

* 

Her mom called the second she was through the door. She kicked the shoes she’d just torn off out of the way and waded into the darkness of her apartment. 

“Yeah, mom,” she answered. 

“Hey, hun. How’s your night going?” 

“Just got back from the Stevens’, so I really can’t talk, okay?” She stripped her shift off in the small bathroom and began brushing her teeth so hard her gums hurt. She stared with disgust at the floor where she’d dropped a bottle of concealer, sending tan liquid oozing onto the floor. That was nearly a week ago now and it had hardened like spilled paint but was squishy and held the shape of her toe as she lifted her foot back up. 

“Oh well hold on. I was kind of wondering when you could come by and pick Jiff back up? We’ve had him for almost a week now?” her voice rose at the end, half apology half question.

“Honestly,” she stepped back out into the room, turning her desk lamp on and falling into the plush seat, head against the back, fingers on the bridge of her nose, all squinted up, wrinkles growing. “I probably can’t get him this week either. Okay.” She swiped a few crushed red bull cans off the desk and into the already full waste bin and crumpled two Dunkin Donuts bags that were blocking the view to her monitor. 

“It just seems to us, and we’ve talked about it here and really tried to see it from your side, that between two babysitting nights a week and two day shifts at the theater you should be able to get home enough to walk him. I mean you paid that seventy dollar pet fee when you moved in and he is yours and everything. It’s really not so so many hours that you work, Henri.”

“Yeah, shut the fuck up, mom,” she said quickly as she pressed the end call button, not sure if those final words had traversed the space between her apartment and her mother’s house and not really caring either way. 

She stepped out of her pants and sat on her bed. She really only babysat so she could fuck Mark and she really only worked at Regal to steal movies that she uploaded and then sold online and, more recently, to watch Ashley, the recent hire—no older than twenty, short, blonde hair always wrapped up in two messy pom poms on her head, mouth always unnaturally red from the cherry slurpies she sipped all shift long. She’d ordered her standard Regal shirt two sizes too small and a strip of pale lower stomach showed all day. 

The two had opening shifts together in the morning, so Henri drank three beers in the time it took for the last bit of the My 600-lb Life episode she flipped to to finish. Her place was small and if she pushed the tall chair out of the way, she could see the screen from bed. The fitted sheet had loosed itself from one of the corners and stretched diagonally across like a bungee cord or a tendon. She fell asleep before turning the monitor off—the blue sleep screen blazed all night. 

* 

She nearly jogged to the bus stop the following morning, already running late.

“Hey, girl,” Ashley said when Henri pushed through the back door, always propped open with the same piece of broken asphalt. Henri was glad to see Ashley in the tight jeans she often wore with the rhinestones looping around the back pockets. 

“Hey,” Henri said, pushing by her. “Shift notes said someone needed to check theater eight under the brights because a kid threw up last night. One, two, three not it.” And with that she was out into the lobby. She walked briskly through, to the break room and pulled her Regal shirt over her head. It yanked on her ponytail and smelled. She couldn’t remember when she’d washed it last. She spent the morning slowly vacuuming the floors with one of those non-electric vacuums that made a tut tut tut sound as it failed to remove smushed Reese’s Pieces from the carpet.

It was a slow day, and by early afternoon only ten or so people had come and Henri was sitting on the wood stool waiting to take tickets and watching as Ashley stood on her toes, arms above her head, reaching for more extra large popcorn tins, covered in pictures from Avengers: Endgame. Her waist curved in from both her hips and her ribs. Henri wondered if she could fit both her hands around it. Her skin was so smooth, and Henri thought of dragging a knife along it like a surgeon, blood leaking out and down her bedazzled jeans. 

Suddenly someone was obscuring her view. It was Johanas, their manager, mid-thirties, sunken, dead eyes like he’d perpetually just smoked a bowl, dark blonde hair.

“Goldfinch coming out soon,” he said, staring at her, blank expression, dark circles and hollow cheeks. 

“What,” she spat, shaking her head once and widening her eyes. 

“The Goldfinch!” he said again. “It’s gonna star Nicole Kidman and that Baby Driver kid. Did you read it yet?” 

“No.” 

He laughed. “Dude, I lent you that thing like a year ago.” 

“Okay.” 

“Alright Mrs. Attitude,” he said. “Hope you don’t turn that on the customers.”

She affected her best talking to customers voice. “No, sir,” she said with a smile and the kind of giggle the male clientele seemed to respond to. “Never ever. Can I get chya anything else?”

He shook his head. “You’re too good. Fake everything.” 

“That’s the business.” Behind him, Ashley was still struggling to unload everything from the high shelf.

Henri walked over and let her hand fall onto Ashley’s bare back skin. “I’ll get those.”

The shift dragged on and since no one was coming in, Johanas set the two to extra tasks; sweeping behind the soda machines, restocking the bar and fronting the bottles, taking bathroom broom closet inventory. With Ashley glued to her like a kicked puppy and Johanas using the slow day to catch up on office work, posting job listings (the place had fast turnover), she hadn’t been able to get into the offices for downloads. So, when she was finally freed, saying bye to Johanas, waving without looking behind her, and walking off towards home, she turned right instead of left and sat listening to music on the curb of the liquor store around the corner, waiting for Johanas’ brown truck to go by. His tailgate latch was broken and he drove around with the back down and open, slamming noisily, she knew she wouldn’t miss him. She sipped vanilla vodka in a brown bag until he went by and until she knew Tucker would have shown up to clean and do maintenance. She texted him to let her in the back, she’d forgotten her sweater again, so sorry. And once she was in and he was back out in the lobby she got into the office computer, stealing Joker, Ad Astra, and Little Women. She slipped out the back, Tucker would have assumed she’d left hours ago. She walked the three miles home. 

* 

She command opened all her regular tabs and flipped through them, stopping on a shirtless livestreamer, with pigtails and elf ears, watched for a while and then moved on, finally opening r/bootleg. She posted that she had downloadable versions of the three movies; nothing filmed on a hand held in a crowded theater but actual files with the films. She usually only got between eighty and a hundred or so per movie but she sold each at least six times, mostly to overly funded art school kids who wanted to start their own pop up bijou or outdoor film screening night. It was a good gig that only took a couple hours a week, and it paid for her studio apartment. The most she’d ever gotten was eight hundred when she’d somehow managed, through the perfect storm of fuck ups from the higher ups, to get her hands on a Star Wars film eight days before its premier.

She went to bed early and spent her next three days off watching videos of pet snakes taking live prey and reading Final Fantasy fan fiction, ordering Chipotle from Postmates and letting the thin cardboard bowls pile up by her bed. Her mom called twice and she ignored it both times.

* 

She was due back at the Stevens’ that night and so she got nice and buzzed before walking over, chain-smoking and sipping hard seltzers on the way. But when she got there and clamored up the porch steps she found the door already open. 

“We’re going to my mother’s,” she heard from inside. “No. No, Mark. No. Get out of the way. We are going and you, you take this time and think about the job you lost, think about what kind of provider you want to be for us and think about—” 

Henri pushed the door open. 

“Fuck,” Mrs. Stevens said. “Did you not call Henri off?” She waited like she actually wanted an answer. Mark was standing behind her where the entryway met the kitchen. He was looking at his feet, bare and hairy. 

“Sorry,” Henri said. “Was I not supposed to—” 

“It’s fine. I’m sorry,” Mrs. Stevens said, pulling a shoulder bag farther up her arm and grabbing Charlie’s hand at the same time. “Charlie and I are taking a trip. Come on, Charlie,” she said as he released her hand. “I’m putting this in the car. You have one minute to say hello and goodbye to Henri.” She passed by Henri who stepped out of the way. Mark’s face was swollen and he stepped out of sight into the kitchen. 

“I’m going on a trip,” Charlie said. 

“I heard.”

“I’m going to see Mima,” he said. 

Henri pulled two cigarettes out of her back pocket and slipped them into his hand before putting her finger to her lips, shhh. He beamed and ran after his mom. Henri heard the car start and then squeak as it left the driveway. 

“She doesn't like know about us, does she?” Henri asked, sending her voice towards the kitchen but remaining by the open door, a cold breeze pulling in crumpled leaves.

“No,” she heard. “No, I lost my job again.” 

“Oh,” Henri was relieved. There’s nothing more obsessive and calculating than a wronged wife, that’s what had pushed Henri from her last apartment. She’d been careful this time that neither of the Stevens learned exactly where her place was. 

“What’d you do?” she asked, walking into the kitchen and reaching behind the cleaning supplies below the sink to pull out the Bacardi she’d stashed there a couple of weeks ago.

Mark looked surprised and then laughed. “What else do you have in this house?”

“Porn, coke, and a body from one particularly annoying pizza boy,” she swigged the sugary alcohol and winced. “Fucking horrible,” she said. 

He nodded, but held his hand out and she passed it to him. They moved to the couch and he started rubbing his hand on her legs, she forced a moan like she was already into it and undid his pants. She was licking his thighs and playing with him in her hands, but he was soft. She kept trying until she felt him shaking and heard a whimper. She looked up and he was crying. He leaned onto her shoulder and sobbed once. She tried to scoot away, but his weight was heavy on her and he was crooked, supported only by her. “Jesus fuck,” she said, standing quickly so he fell to his knees, pants around his ankles, every part of him small and limp. “You can’t get it up any better than a sniveling toddler. Can’t keep a job. Can’t be faithful but also can’t fuck the babysitter. What the fuck. This is literally so gross.” He cried harder and she stepped over him, leaving the front door open behind her, thinking of his slouching body, soft in the stomach, soft in the crotch, pants stuck at his feet crying in an empty house with an open door for all the street to see. It made her shudder to think she’d ever even been there, ever held him in her mouth. They’re so much hotter when they stay faithful. Once they cheat, they're just like everybody else. 

* 

What she saw when she got home lightened her mood. A DM inquiring about the Joker download. The user was offering one grand; she didn’t buy it but was interested and messaged back,

MoiveTheif8: a grand? who spends a thousand on a movie download? you know I use a third party and you won’t get your download until the crypto is authenticated, yeah? 

KevlarKevin14: I assumed as much, girl. 

Why is everyone on the goddamn web a weird incel? 

KevlarKevin14: Figured you’d been shown how. I’m still willing to pay the agreed upon sum. I have big plans for the theater. I need to know this movie. I need to memorize it. I need to know exactly when to enter with my own show. 

The fuck, Henri thought. 

MovieTheif8: where do you live? 

KevlarKevin14: Connecticut 

MovieTheif8: you planning this for AMC or Regal? 

KevlarKevin14: First one, then the other. All will fall. 

Henri spun her chair around. The dude was weird but a grand was a grand. She said okay and sent the download once the money came through. 

She spent the night scrolling through reels and eating salt and vinegar chips. Mark called and she blocked his number. Her mom called and she pressed the message icon, typing take him to the pound, I’m not getting him.

She called Regal early, feigning food poisoning, saying she wouldn’t make her shift, and later that afternoon when Ashley called for the eighth time, she turned her phone off. Whatever happened happened and she hadn’t really been a part of it anyway. She wasn’t gonna let herself become a victim, but it wasn’t her responsibility to be a hero either, and that didn’t make her a villain.

Isabel Geary Phelps recently received her Master of Fine Arts from The University of Colorado Boulder and her Master of Humanities from The University of Chicago. Her short fiction and poems have appeared in The Minetta Review, The Greensboro Review, Eucalyptus, and Plains Paradox Literary Journal, among others. She was a fiction finalist with Split Lip and received an honorable mention from Glimmer Train. She was awarded the Battrick Poetry Prize and the first fifty pages of her new novel, Camille Leroux, won the Denver Women’s Press Association Scholarship. She currently teaches Creative Writing at IIT in Chicago.