By Philip Lear
I first saw Rosie standing in the hallway bracing two large packages against her door while fumbling for her keys. She was short and had straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her eyes were like big black saucers . She was thirty-fiveish and a little on the chubby side. She looked kind of cute with her knee under the packages and her ass sticking out as she struggled desperately to keep them from falling.
“That’s quite acrobatic,” I said.
“Funny guy,” she responded.
“I won’t steal them,” I said offering to help.
“Here smart guy,” she said as she handed me the packages.
When she reached over I saw what looked like a large tattoo on her left upper arm. At first glance I thought it was something like a flag with alternating ridges of red and blue with an uneven yellow border around it. Today women have tattoos all over their bodies. I’ve seen hearts and angels on the arms, letters between the fingers, roses on the ankle, Gothic designs in the pubic area and Crosses on the lower back. They all have meanings- some personal and some political. It could have been the flag of some unknown country.
Once I dated a women who had her life’s history tattooed on her body. That was Carole. She had an in your face boldness that I liked and her tattoos were a statement about her life. Wearing a big bold tattoo of a flag made me think that Rosie was like her.
But something about it wasn’t right. It didn’t seem to have the symmetry of a flag. And when I looked closer, I saw it was a bruise. A bruise could be from a fall, a punch, bumping into a table or even from lovemaking. And with some people it doesn’t take much.
Not that I bruise easy, but one time I got a nasty one. I was in the office walking forward with my head turned back talking with a very attractive new trainee when wham, my head hit an open file cabinet drawer. I was out cold and ended up with a large round bruise on the side of my head and a lot of ribbing from my coworkers. When I was in earshot I would hear someone say, ‘Don’t forget to watch where you’re going’ . And after that every time that trainee saw me she’d manage to disappear.
“I’m Jack. I live next door,” I said to Rosie pointing to 2A. “I Just moved in. ”
“I’m Rosie - in 2B,” she said pointing to her door.
After she opened it she turned around and took the packages.
“Thanks Jack. See you around.”
I forgot all about my brief encounter with Rosie and her bruise until later that week. It was Saturday and I was in the laundry room. Rosie was there too. She was carrying a huge load of wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. It was another balancing act. She had her tongue in her cheek and was trying hard not to drop anything.
“Another acrobatic act,” I quipped.
“Oh, the wise guy,” she said.
“Can I help?”
“Nah. Thanks, I think I got it this time.”
She had all the wet clothes dangling from her arms in every direction and her feet were spread wide apart as she waddled the few steps over to the dryer where she managed to stuff everything in. As I watched her loading the dryer I noticed another bruise on her right arm.
“Got it,” she said as she stuffed the last piece in and turned on the dryer.
“A tattoo? “ I asked jokingly pointing to her right arm.
She rubbed her hand over it slowly. “Nah I just bump into things.”
But this time there was no mistaking where this bruise came from. It had the imprint of a fist.
“Well now you have matching bruises,” I said.
She looked over her other shoulder at her left arm.
“Oh, that one’s nothing. It’s fading.”
“When I was a kid I used to buy those decal tattoos and stick them all over my arms. These bumps reminded me of them.”
Her shoulder twitched like she had just received a jolt of electricity. How stupid of me.
“Sorry. Bad Joke,” I said.
After that we sat silently on the bench across from the machines. There was a National Enquirer and I picked it up and read for a few minutes. The Enquirer had a circulation larger than the New York Times or USA Today. There was stuff in there about Anna Nicole’s body and Brittany’s rehab but there was also an article about a Martian Princess which caught my eye.
“I always like the stories in the Enquirer,” I said pointing to the paper. “A baby born with two heads, Anna Nicole’s Body missing. Look at this one. A Martian Princess, landed her spaceship on Staten Island.”
She blurted out a slight laugh.
“Staten Island? I always thought there was something funny about those people. They have that strange greenish complexion,” she said.
“The Princess must have mistaken them for Martians,” I said.
“It’s those dumps that make them green.”
I held the Enquirer out to her. “Here, have a look.”
She cocked her head at a slight angle and gave me a funny look.
“You sure you didn’t buy that paper?” She jibed.
“It’s not on my reading list.”
“Oh. A reading snob,” she joked.
“I’m not a reading snob. You just saw me read it.”
“I like The Enquirer because it has no real ugliness in it,” she continued. “It’s not like the Times or Post. There’s gossip and stories about aliens but no bad news. Nothing about wars or terror or nuclear weapons.”
She grabbed it and started to read aloud. Rosie had a Spanish accent. She stopped for a second and turned to me.
“Do mind if I read this aloud?
“No, go right ahead.”
“I want to practice my English.”
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“Mexico.”
“What part?”
“Puebla. It’s in Southern Mexico.”
“Watching English movies with Spanish subtitles is a good way to learn English too. There’s a Spanish theater on West Fourteenth. You could learn English and I could learn Spanish.”
“That would be interesting. Would you really like to learn Spanish?”
“Yes I would. I studied it years ago and kind of liked it then. ”
I could see she was thinking. She looked down at the floor and shook her head.
“Nah, Ralph wouldn’t like that,” she said.
“Who’s Ralph?” I asked.
“He’s the guy I live with.”
“Did he give you those tattoos?”
She nodded.
“Love taps,” she said.
“He must love you a lot.”
“He can be the nicest guy in the world, but sometimes he gets angry. He’s older and insanely jealous. He thinks every young guy is making a pass at me. I didn’t mean for it to be this way but he’s become very possessive. He watches everything I do. But most of the time he’s so sweet.”
I didn’t want to push her. After all I hardly knew her. And besides, I hadn’t seen Ralph. Maybe he was also black and blue.
Our building had pretty thin walls and several nights later I heard some shouting. It was in Spanish and I couldn’t understand a word. I also thought I heard dishes smashing. But I didn’t know who was doing what to who. Sitting there hearing this I started to boil. I thought about going over and straightening Ralph out but didn’t. Suppose she was the one who was giving it to him. Intervening in a domestic dispute could be nasty. They might both gang up on me.
I didn't see her again until the middle of the following week when she and Ralph were riding down in the elevator. When I looked over at her she looked back at me. She had tried to cover a bruise on her left cheek below her eye, but it was still visible. I think she wanted me to know. And her look. It wasn’t just a casual glance. It was like she was saying, here he is. He’s the one who’s been beating the shit out of me.
Ralph was older maybe fifty or so. He had a long face and fish eyes that made him look like a reptile and his arms hung down like a gorilla’s. He had no visible bruises.
That son-of-a-bitch I’d like to give him a little of his own medicine. I even thought about looking at her and pointing under my left eye, but she might be humiliated. And I wasn’t ready to take him on either. They lived next door. Having just moved in, the last thing I wanted was to get involved in a war with my neighbors. So I did nothing.
A week later when I was dumping my garbage in the incinerator room I ran into Rosie. Her face was puffy like she’d been crying.
“Hey! Are you OK?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s him.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s jealous. I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone telling him about your invitation to the fourteenth Street Movie and he overheard it. Now he’s furious because he thinks that you and I have a thing going.”
“Are you kidding?”
She shook her head.
“He’s like a volcano.” She said.
She showed me a cigarette burn on the back of her right hand.
“Sweet Jesus. Look at what he’s done. You can’t go back in there. You’ll wait in my apartment and I’ll call the cops.”
“Don’t order me around. I can handle him.” she said angrily.
“You’d only be protecting yourself,” I said.
“Your getting involved would only make matters worse.”
“Don’t you see what’s happening?” I asked.
“I can’t do it,” she said.
“But your hand.”
“Don’t butt in,” she said emphatically.
“If things really get bad you can still come over to my place.”
“Goodbye Jack,” she said.
I watched her walk down the hall still thinking I might call the cops, but decided against it. She was very clear about telling me to butt out.
The next day I got up early and went off to work. Several times early in day I started to make the call to the police, but kept getting interrupted. Then things really got busy. There were meetings on top of meetings and conference calls and by the time I got home, it was nine o’clock.
As I rode up to my floor I thought about Rosie. I had completely forgotten about her. Now I wondered if she was okay. But when I got off the elevator and saw the yellow police tape strung across her door I knew otherwise. I’d failed her and now it was too late. Maybe if I could have forced her stay at my place I could have called the police and she’d still be alive. Like other ugly things that have happened in my life I would carry this memory with me forever.