Heart-Shaped Pillow
“Lip Service” by Ann Petroliunas
Your dad was sick when you took the job at the hotel. You were not hospitable enough for hospitality. He was not cancer-sick but heart-sick: sick which meant they divvied the ribcage in two, began vivisection of the gravel-packed organ, profane, blue, ballooned. Sick which reduced him to baby-dom, all naked and spitting up, tears all down the face, tears all fueled by flesh-fear so realized as to become new again. Through this fear he was helped to the bathroom. Through this fear he apologized to you. And you apologized to him, apologized that he nearly died knowing his daughter still worked minimum wage at a Chili’s. He said nothing more during his limp over, gurgled with each movement. You knew he was considering all of the speedballs, all of the burgers, all of the you.
Your voice that you had once vivified from its masculine tone became weak wind carried through a vase’s crack. That sound of it seemed to stay past the apology and to resound wherever you stood, whether in his ICU room or at bar rails, where it would find a stronger gust. On the nights in which you came home to your apartment, the apartment rented upon your dad’s credit card, the wind-sound of your voice would stop altogether.
You, inhospitable you, took the job at the hotel.
You thought he was happy when you told him the news. Pressed against his chest every day was a gravel-filled and heart-shaped pillow given out to the heart-sick at Bryan East Hospital. The nurse explained how it distributed pressure through the divvied ribcage. “It’s so good,” your dad said. “It’s so good.”
Tonight was your first night fired from the hotel. You were not hospitable, but that was not the reason for your being fired. Cat, your manager, had assured you of that. Instead, it was the incident, or the review, or some combination of the two. That wasn’t the info important enough for her to share. It was important, though, for her to assure you how thoroughly H.R. had considered it all, considered the money, considered the guest, considered you, tranny struggles abound. And considering those considerations, proceedings of today, you found yourself there again, at Lancaster’s Bar. Languid bar, shitty, fumy.
You walked in alone and still wearing that skirt and that blouse that became corporate burial garb. You sat at the bar top, faux marble and beige, few seats away from the men of the PepsiCo warehouse. They were no good, there every night; been with them before.
Emma poured you a red Cosmo. Tasted like cranberries steeped in acetone. You sipped it and waited. Bum lights bumped upon wood-paneled walls, made the drink look murky. You sipped it and waited. A scar of the word “sir” constricted your brain matter, old, opened, fresh. Tranny struggles abound. A man walked up to you from behind.
“Hey there,” he said, voice like a steel string being tuned downwards.
“Hello,” you said, voice like a steel string strumming a sharp note.
“Mind if I sit here?” As he settled himself in.
***
The day previous was your day off. The day latter would now be a day off. And so you thought of day-previous as some sort of warning unheeded, a shooting pain in the left arm, a stint in the vessel two years prior. But you knew reprieve was no bad sign.
The sign was the phone call you received that afternoon. Your afternoons were always free then. You would spend sun-slanted hours staring up at the ceiling, studying how the sun-slants shadowed its popcorn design. The phone call upset you. It sundered your study. And it was Cat on the other end, Chat-GPT voice and all.
“Hey, Ev. You got a second?”
You wanted to say no, that you were too busy studying the ceiling. That you had a ceiling exam the next day. But you said yes, you had a second.
“Awesome! So, we received a review from a guest that mentioned you, and not in a good way.”
“Okay.”
“Did a guest misgender you while ordering food from the bistro, and did you misgender them back while delivering the food?”
“Yes.”
“Okay…” her voice sloped off into shoals of static. Both of you listened to them roll in as you sat there awhile. When you heard her again, it was as you would have heard a gull’s call on the wind.
“You know you can’t do that, right?”
You did know that, but you had wanted to do it for three years by then. It was something like suicide. Something you thought of doing. Some ultimate move. And you would have never actually done it, just thought about it. Thought about it for some time.
You didn’t know why you did at last pull that reverse card. You did know that you were more comfortable regarding risk those days: eyes-closed driving, going home with PepsiCo men. Ignoring the shooting pains.
You remembered your health insurance and sprung from the bed. Solipsism left your voice.
“Yes, Cat, yes, I do, and I really am- I am so sorry for doing it. It was a stressful night, and the guest was particularly, like, well, you know, particularly in-my-face about it.” Static swooshes on the line again told you she didn’t know.
“She told me point-blank that I looked like a man. She was making sure to call me ‘sir’ as often as she could. I’m so sorry. It got to me. It was stupid. It shouldn’t have.”
“Did you shove the plate at her in an aggressive manner?”
“What?” Popped from your mouth like a BB pellet. “Oh, fuck me. Did she say that?”
“She did,” Cat fired back. “But what I need to know is whether or not that happened.”
“It absolutely did not. I did not- I would not do that. I am not aggressive. To anyone. You know that, Cat.”
“No, I do, I do!” Her voice filled with portamento. “We caught a bit of the food run on the cameras that night, and it did, well, it looked professional. It was sort of in a blind spot, but I didn’t see any, um… any aggressive movements or anything like that. H.R. needs your side, though.”
“Tell them I was very polite while I was calling her ‘sir.’” Your solipsism returned.
“That won’t help you.” Her portamento leveled. “She said she checked out early because of you. She said she felt threatened.”
Cat then handed the last strike down like a death sentence.
“So it counts as a loss of revenue.”
What you managed to choke out on your end, you think, was this: “I understand. I completely understand.”
A death scene from television played in your head. You were that hitman, hitwoman, whatever now, staring out onto the waters and listening to the static shoals. Shot near the heart.
“Okay. Thank you, Evelyn. Are you available to come in for a bit before your scheduled shift tomorrow and sit down for a quick chat with us?”
***
The man who invited himself to sit down next to you at the bar rail of Lancaster’s is about to throw up. He tells you, suave and slurred, that this is his tenth gin and tonic. You’re on the sixth cranberry-acetone concoction, five paid for by him, small man with an oily forehead below a hair swoop meant for the last decade. You’re sozzled enough to notice, now, how the Bakelite shade overhead makes him glisten like a savior. And this savior is perfect, Mr. Nobody, too drunk to remember to tell you his name. Mr. Nobody, Mr. Bakelite-Draped-Savior, Mr. Too-Drunk-To-Make-Decisions. You realize that last one when he leans in, balanced himself with a hand on your thigh, bobs his head towards your nether.
“I’m not gonna find any surprises down there, am I?”
You stand, with that, from the chair in slow-motion, drinking in the last warmth of his hand.
“Not tonight, sweetheart.”
Muted mahogany moves all about the surfaces, whirling from the forefront and into the periphery of your eyesight as you open the door to the bar’s patio. You fish your phone from your pocket. Its screen shows neat notifications: in a first little line is “Missed call.” In a second line, much larger, is “Dad.” Another bubble lay atop perfectly. “Voicemail.” “Dad.”
Your gaze into the phone’s screen had unlocked it already. Your thumb brushes the top-most bubble, turning it grey before blanche-white envelops the screen, and a quiet message sounds. You hold the glass to your ear.
Your dad talks about nothing, about dinner and weather, your mom’s illness, inadequate heating. He asks, eventually, if you have your rent covered again, a question he assumes to be an obsolete excuse for hearing your voice. You do not return the call. You do not ask to drink from any hand.
Yet you adore how you drink from your savior’s hand, adore how you drink the acetone, wished to drink in the mahogany varnish, to coat the clean insides of you, arteries and all, heartbeat stifled like the ticking of the clock installed on the ceilings of your dreams.
To lie down is sanguine. To sleep, perchance alongside PepsiCo men, ones who stayed the night, unmarried ones, who, come morning, told you of how you wept, wept in your sleep, called out for a heart-shaped pillow as they took your body and pressed it to their chests.
About the author
Ava Schmidt is a writer of poetry and short fiction. She is currently studying English and history as an undergraduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She performs readings of her work at Larksong Writers Place, a nonprofit organization in Nebraska. Her writing centers on existential questions and the experiences of transgender people in America.
about the artist
Ann Petroliunas is a 2022 MFA recipient in creative writing from Portland State University. She is a high school educator, writer, and collage artist. Born and raised in Chicago, she now resides in Oregon and often gets confused about which one is home. Ocean waves, glue-sticks, and avocados are a few of her favorite things. Her writing has previously been published in The Rumpus, Heavy Feather Review, and The Normal School, and her artwork in Liminal Spaces.