Take My Name Down Slowly

One white letter leaves the rail and lands without applause. At three-oh-eight, Mr. Rook came out with cash inside a glove. Said, “The river took Miss Vane tonight. The morning crowd will come. “Pull her name before the papers. Leave the empty sockets bright.” I climbed above the shuttered doors and put my tester to the sign. I hung those letters eighteen years ago. I knew which screws would fight. Then the blind inside the box office moved against the light. A bare hand pressed the dusty glass. The dead don't breathe it white. The lock turned once beneath me. She stepped out of her advertised night. She said, “Take my name down slowly. Let me watch the voltage leave. They can mourn the girl in silver they were never made to meet. “Take my name down slowly. Start with Vane and leave no trace. If a sign can make a prison, let the dark unmake the cage.” Stage paint held beside her left ear. One stocking had a laddered seam. Her passport lay inside her coat, creased beneath the laminate. “Rook kept this behind the bourbon. He kept May Bell off every page. Tonight I heard him phone the papers: ‘Celia drowned. Prepare the stage.’ “There'll be black-edged souvenir cards, double cover at the door. While he sells the voice he buried, I can reach the four-ten coach.” She said, “Take my name down slowly. Not because I want it back. I need to see each borrowed letter lose the current from its back. “Take my name down slowly. Let him sell an empty frame. Celia Vane can die by morning. May can leave without that name.” Eighteen years ago, she waited on this ladder's lowest rung while I pencilled MAY BELL lightly where the house name used to run. Rook said, “May is for a waitress. Vane looks costly when it's lit.” I wiped her real name with my sleeve. She was nineteen. I was quick. I told myself I only wired it, that a sign could not be chains. But my hands built every letter. Now my hands could take the blame. I took her name down slowly, first the Vane and then the lie. Not to bury her for business, but to let May leave alive. I took her name down slowly. Every socket cooled to black. When Rook raised his mourning curtain, there was nothing looking back. Take my name down slowly. It was the first thing she could choose. By the time they sold her ending, May was three towns past his reach. The final C stays warm against my glove. The coach door folds across the street. The driver asks her for a name. She says, “May Bell.” The letter settles into canvas.