down in me

Hemingway got to the office at a quarter to three in the afternoon. He took one of the empty desks by the window and booted up the PC.

“Mister Hemingway? Pardon me, I just wanted to introduce you to your new assistant, Maria Elena. Maria Elena, this is Mister Hemingway.”

Maria Elena forced her rosy full lips into a tentative smile. Hemingway didn’t speak, he just nodded a little. Maria Elena furrowed her ashy brown brow and took a few paces back and away from Hemingway while he continued staring at the flickering screen.

“Are you sure that is him? He looks like one of the Castro brothers, or Fidel himself. Ay dios mio, I am working for Fidel—”

“Don’t be silly, girl. He is very serious and a little scary at first, yes, but really … he is harmless.”

Maria Elena studied Hemingway’s features to convince herself that he was, in fact, not Fidel Castro. He was a weathered old man, but she thought she could see a young sparkle in his eyes which she’d never seen in Fidel’s, so she reckoned that was a good start.

Hemingway was wearing black, military inspired clothes: a beat up flat top cap and a hip length coat with epaulettes. He hadn’t removed these items when he sat down, he’d only unbuttoned his coat. His salt and pepper beard was scruffy and untidy and the skin on his face was flaky. Maria Elena thought she saw him discreetly pick his nose, though he pretended he was just scratching it. She guessed he hadn’t showered today, and maybe not yesterday either, but instead of the disgust she had expected, this filled her with an odd sort of tenderness.

“Now, here is the list of things you must go buy for him. He will probably be here until around 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, maybe later depending how it goes, but you’ll be able to get some sleep in small spurts. Make yourself scarce, but always within earshot in case Mister Hemingway wants for something. Understood?”

“Si,” Maria Elena nodded solemnly.

Maria Elena is a Cuban refugee, who just celebrated her 37th birthday by picking strawberries in an organic strawberry field three hours north of where she lives. She found this choice of birthday celebration humorous and ironic, and she thanked all her angels for her many blessings with lit candles and the ritual offerings she’d been accustomed to providing for the saints since she was small.

Tanned, with wide thighs and hips like a grand, tufted sofa, Maria Elena is actually in excellent shape with a thin waist and pert, small brown breasts. Huge areolae form a couple of dark shadows under her plain white top. She owes her taut biceps and the firm calves beneath her knee-length pencil skirt to years of cleaning other people’s houses, and the years before that which she spent hiding her politically dissenting and morally bankrupt poetry from the pious crazies in her seaside hometown.

“Señor Hemingway?”

Hemingway was now lifelessly staring into an empty Word document, a still hand cradling the computer mouse.

“Señor Hemingway, do you need anything? I am going to buy the supplies for the night.”

“No,” he coughed.

Hemingway hadn’t said a word to anyone in three days and he resented Maria Elena for breaking his peaceful spell and making him cough.

“Bueno.”

Maria Elena was told to purchase Marlboro reds, hard cheese and a few bottles of mid-range white wine and was given ninety dollars. This seemed to Maria Elena like an inordinate amount and she reasoned that if she bought the cheapest items she could find, she’d be able to keep most of the ninety dollars for herself. She was told that being an assistant had its perks, and she figured this must be one of them.

As Maria Elena made her way through the rows of nondescript, office worker desks, she clocked several scenes which mirrored her own. An old man at a desk, feigning solitude. A woman, at an indeterminate point nearby, ‘making herself scarce’, a turn of phrase which Maria Elena found particularly baffling. She passed one desk, turned a corner and pretended not to try to peek over another writer’s shoulder and onto his screen, and was rather surprised when yet another writer’s assistant shot her a vaguely aggressive look. Maria Elena didn’t realize the extent of these men’s fame and the zealousness of their assistants.

When Maria Elena returned to the office and put the supplies away, she casually glanced at Hemingway’s screen. He’d only written one word since she’d been gone: HEGEMONY. Maria Elena thought hegemony probably means ‘long night’.

Maria Elena sat down on the floor and curled her legs under her bottom. The agency madam had left her a cozy blanket which she promptly pulled around her shoulders. She stared at the curve of Hemingway’s broad back and at the wisps of gray hair poking out around the edges of his cap. She stifled a yawn so as not to disturb him and leaned her head back against the wall. Her eyelids drooped almost immediately. Hemingway blurred.

A couple of hours later, Maria Elena awoke with a start. Hemingway towered over her, erect and proud, softly kicking her knee with a steel-toed boot to rouse her.

“Si, Señor Hemingway?”

Hemingway was so above her, she felt he dizzied over her slightly and for a moment she worried he would crumble on top of her. She stood up to face him on a more even keel.

“What can I do for you, Mister Hemingway?”

Hemingway turned and sat back down at his desk. He pushed his chair back and motioned for Maria Elena to come to him. As she approached him, he pointed to a spot between his shoulder and neck.

“Would you like a massage, Mister Hemingway?”

Hemingway wished Maria Elena would be quiet, but he knew that people like her rarely communicate without speaking. Maria Elena took his silence as confirmation and she lay her warm, calloused hands on either side of his head. He, too, was warm, but also bulky and tough, though Maria Elena imagined his skin was wrinkled and flaccid under his large coat.

“It would be better if you removed your coat, Mister Hemingway.”

Hemingway grudgingly did as Maria Elena instructed, revealing a dirty thin, white undershirt. She began working his shoulders and upper back and it felt so good that Hemingway struggled to keep from moaning with pleasure. Maria Elena meanwhile, kept staring at the screen on which Hemingway had now written pages-full, but she could not make out a single sentence because she was too far from the monitor and the letters blurred into one another. She squinted and gave it a good try and once even leaned forward to the point where her chin almost rested on Hemingway’s forehead, but presently he stirred and cleared his throat and Maria Elena quickly regained her focus on the task at hand.