Chapter 10

The Last Day

11:17:23 p.m.

BAM!

Corinne Chartofsky slammed the door hard enough to break it in half. "You get out of here before I blow your head off! I'll kill you before you'll ever get another cent out of me!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

BAM!

Another door slam and the shrieking continued. "You lazy, good for nothing, thieving rat! I ought to blow your head off. Probably get a medal. People would say it was a mercy killing.

"Get out of here and never ... Never ... NEVER come back!

"You hear me? You set foot in this building again and I'll finish the job!"

All through the tirade, not a single person peeked out of an apartment door. This type of harangue was common for the woman in 6-B. She picked up men, brought them home, and began the fireworks soon after, resulting in an ugly scene, forcible eviction, and another new man.

Her taste—or her luck—ran towards unemployed, criminal types, with alcohol or drug problems, sometimes both. The beatings were regular and often spectacular. Many nights police officers intervened and saw the offending male carted off to jail after a loud and long altercation.

Corrine was one of a kind. Everybody said so. She hated everyone and everything, it seemed. Because of her brawling, Corrine had been kicked out of no fewer than twelve apartment buildings, each less desirable than the last. The downward cycle had continued until she found herself in the current home, which could be described as the worst of the worst.

Even as the worst tenant in the worst apartment in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, though, Corrine knew she was secure here. This landlord was so tight that he wouldn't think of putting out a paying customer. Permanency didn't do much to improve her luck, however, or to curb her behavior. Christmas Eve was just another night, and tonight's lout was just as offensive as the rest.

Had her neighbors looked out, they would have seen tears streaking her aging, angry face. Decades of cheap booze, with occasional side trips into psychedelics and narcotics, had robbed her of any beauty she may have once possessed. Deep lines creased her red, blotchy face, making her seem much older than her thirty-eight years. Streaks of gray added unattractive highlights to her rusty hair.

Violence temporarily over, Corrine watched her latest loser boyfriend stagger across the street to his old junker and drive away. Loneliness poured in as she contemplated another Christmas alone. Family was not an alternative. After a childhood of ever-increasing abuse at the hands of a parade of "uncles," Corrine had finally found the courage to run away from her mother's home, and she had never looked back. The streets had been a step up for her after suffering at hands of her tormentors. At least on the street she got paid for what her mother's "friends" had taken from her by force.

Satisfied that her current failure wasn't going to return, Corrine calmly walked back into her apartment, locked the door, and sank down on the broken couch to weep. Her tears were silent and heartrending, but there was no one to hear or see and no one to comfort her. In the quiet that followed the violent episode, she thought of her grandmother back in Stroudsburg.

Granny had always greeted her with a smile, hugging her in a way that did not make her cringe and lavishing love and attention on her as if she knew and mourned all her secrets.

On the day that Corrine had run away, she had tried to call her Granny, but no one had answered. Scared that she would be caught and dragged back home, she had stuck out her thumb and gone where the first truck took her, which had turned out to be Bethlehem. Cold, lonely, and scared, she had found a home among the hookers. Soon she had become one of them, working, eating, and living out the long, empty days that had turned into her long, empty years.

Because she had been young and fresh, she was in demand. As time and the ugliness of her trade had robbed her of her youth, her looks, and her dreams, she had drifted down in price and customer quality until she hit bottom and found herself trapped in an existence she wouldn't have wished on her worst enemy. Not for the first time and not for the thousandth, she thought of her lost Angel.

Pregnancy had shattered her image of life on the street. After three mornings of nausea in a row, she had purchased a cheap home pregnancy test and followed the directions. Discovering she was pregnant, she had found herself deliriously happy! Instead of fear, anger, or a fast trip to the abortion clinic, she had rejoiced.

"I've made a whole person!" she had shouted to no one, in the stall of the ladies' room at the Last Chance Diner. "I'm gonna be a momma!"

Determined to make changes for the sake of her baby, she had checked at the local pregnancy crisis center for help getting off drugs and out of the "life." They had been polite but insistent that she contact her mother for support. Knowing that was impossible, she had realized that she was going to have to go it alone.

Four months into her pregnancy, on Christmas Eve, a drunken coward who was enraged by his own pathetic insignificance had beaten Corinne so badly that she lost consciousness, and then awoke to learn that she also had lost her baby. Waking up in the ambulance, she had screamed for them to save her unborn child, but she could tell by their embarrassment that it was already too late. The sadness had driven her deeper into depression, farther from reality, and ever closer to destruction.

The hospital had refused to give her the baby's remains. Unable to conduct a burial, Corinne continued to bear a pain that never ceased. She had named her lost little girl Angel and celebrated her birthday every Christmas. She would forever be her mommy's Christmas Angel.

"Angel." She spoke softly, with a gentleness in her voice that would have shocked her neighbors. "Baby. Nelson is gone. I kicked his butt out of here. He wasn't much, but at least he was someone to come home to.

"I miss you, Darling. How is the weather in Heaven this Christmas? Are they taking good care of you? Do you get to run and play in the sunshine with all the other little babies that never got to live? I think it's soon time for me to leave and join you. I'll know you the minute I get up there, Baby. I can see you in my head all the time. You would be twelve this year and I wonder if you'll know me...

"Twelve is awful big. I bet you're as tall as me and just as pretty as spring rain. Your great grandmother would have been so proud of you. She would love you just as much as she loved me and almost as much as I love you.

"It's terribly cold here. I need a drink to get warm, but it's late and I need to eat worse, so I'm gonna get dressed real warm, lock the place up and go find somewhere open before I starve."

Corrine felt better having spoken to her child and allowed herself to fantasize about a life where she and Angel lived in a sweet white house at the end of a long driveway. They'd spend hours talking about the shape of the clouds and making up stories about them.