by L V Gaudet
“She might even think I’m dead.”
“No,” she decides, “Mom would cling to my memory and refuse to believe I’m gone forever. She will always watch for me in every crowd, waiting for me to be found and come home. That’s the kind of person she is. She’ll never give up on me, not until they show her my dead body.”
Knowing the torment she is putting her mother through, especially after being kidnapped and found again, makes Kathy feel wretched.
She wishes more than anything in the world to call her mother right now.
She turns to the phone, not letting herself think about anything. She isn’t going to call. She’s just picking up the phone. She picks up the receiver, her mother’s number itching at the tips of her fingers. She puts the receiver to her ear and is met with silence. She frowns at the phone and taps the hang-up button a few times. Nothing. The phone is dead. Numbness fills her.
“Michael knew I would weaken. He disconnected the phone,” she whispers.
She sags and tears slip down her cheeks. She looks at the clock.
“How long will it take to stop at the laundromat to wash and dry a load? Two hours? An hour and a half? How long to change our lives forever?
It must cost a lot of money to buy fake identities complete with legitimate documents and a past that will show up in any search or background investigation. Where does Michael get the money from?”
For the first time since running away with Michael, Kathy feels the overwhelming urge to flee from him.
17Peek-A-Boo Neighbour
Jason McAllister is sitting in his room watching out the window. There is little else to do in a tiny single-room apartment with barely enough room to fit a narrow bed, small dresser, and single wooden kitchen chair.
He sees the brief flutter of the upstairs window curtain of the house across the street. He has seen it on repeated occasions.
Across the street, the man in the upstairs window is looking out. He sees the man in the upstairs window of the rooming house looking out his window. He’s often seen him sitting for long periods just watching out that window.
He lets the curtain drop, pulling his arm back and bolting to huddle in the corner.
“He’s staring at me again,” he says, his voice jagged like his nerves. It is beyond his comprehension that the man could just be staring out at nothing, watching the occasional car and pedestrian go by out of boredom.
He forces himself out of the corner. He has important work to do. He gets back to business.
Today he is busy plastering all the windows of his little room with layers of newsprint soaked in water and baking soda, creating a papier-mâché barrier. Unfortunately, the smooth nature of glass makes it a less than perfect perch for the slimy paper that keeps sliding down the slick surface.
He keeps at it, determination fuelling his energy with a rough buzz, his movements jittery.
“He won’t be able to see in through my windows and walls anymore when I’m finished.” He has already half finished re-wallpapering the inside of the outer wall with tinfoil to block the man’s psychic stare.
Jason is feeling too cooped up to just sit in his room any longer.
The neighbour lady has been doing a pretty good job avoiding me, which is just as well. Seeing her stirs urges that I can’t risk answering to right now.
He leaves his post at the window and goes downstairs. For the first time, he enters the living room.
The room is dark and gloomy, the lights out and curtains drawn closed.
Jason stands just inside the doorway surveying the room. There are plates, clothes, and garbage cluttering the room. The foul smell of rotting food, dirty clothes, and human over-habitation fills the air.
He flips the light switch on the wall a few times. It does nothing. He pulls the curtains open, letting the sunlight in through the dirty window.
The brightening of the room does nothing to brighten its appearance. The furniture in the small room looks sadder in the light.
Jason looks around. The dead plant still sits forlornly on top of an old tube television, the moth-eaten drapes hanging from a slightly bent curtain rod, ugly and discoloured from years of tobacco smoke. The walls are also stained from the smoke residue, looking as if nicotine infused condensation had sometimes trickled down the walls.
He shakes his head at the mess.
“There is no reason to live like this,” he mutters.
Jason starts picking through the litter, collecting whatever dirty dishes he can find in the filth. There isn’t a lot. The house has few dishes that are supposed to be available for all its residents. Apparently they are all here.
He dumps the dishes in the kitchen sink and picks up the garbage can, carrying it back to the living room.
Jason picks through the rubble, tossing the garbage into the can and the clothes into a pile. Some might have been clean, it doesn’t matter. Cockroaches skitter away in a panic when he picks some items up.
“There must still be a bloody nest of them somewhere,” he mutters, certain the still unseen living room resident is the main reason they are still flourishing despite the poison traps. He glances in the direction of the kitchen where the basement door resides, although it isn’t visible from here.
For a brief moment he pictures swarms of the pests slithering endlessly over each other down in the basement with a dry rustle that never stops. He stomps his foot quickly, crushing one bug attempting to make its escape.
When he’s done, the garbage can is full and the pile of clothes is surprisingly small. He carries the trash can back to the kitchen and retrieves the cleaning supplies he left under the kitchen sink. He isn’t worried his housemates will steal them. None of them seem to care less about the cleanliness of where they live.
Digging out the vacuum, another barely functional resident of the rooming house, he drags it along with his armload of cleaning products to the living room.
He turns the vacuum on and it comes to life with a sickly growl, making unpleasant crackling sounds as it sucks up dirt and chip crumbs from the carpet as he moves it back and forth.
Jason spends a good hour cleaning that living room. He discovers the bulbs in the lamps had been loosened so they won’t turn on. When he finishes, it smells much better and the discarded clothes are tied in a garbage bag in the corner. If they remain untouched, he will put them out with the rest of the trash.
Jason spends another hour with the ancient television pulled out and its back removed, trying to see if he might be able to repair it.
Giving up on the television for now, Jason takes out the trash again and washes the dishes. Finally done, he parks himself in the sole kitchen chair and just sits.
A few hours later the front door crashes open and the stinky couple come staggering in. They bounce drunkenly off the wall, hanging on to each other to keep from falling. She giggles, but it sounds off. Something is upsetting her.
Jason hears them both gasp in shock. He smiles. They saw the living room.
“What the hell happened here?” The woman’s voice is shrill with surprise and unexpected pleasure. “Oh my gawd!” He can hear them muttering, their words slurred.
Her boyfriend’s tone of voice is rude, annoyed. Jason can’t make out what he said to her, but it sounds harsh. She hushes up quickly and they head for the stairs together.
As they ascend the stairs, Jason gets a glimpse of her face. It is puffy and swollen looking, splotchy from the tears she already shed. Their eyes meet for that brief heartbeat as she passes out of sight. Hers are a bottomless pit of unhappiness, outlined with red from the tears that threaten to come again. Bruising stains her cheek.
“Someone roughed her up,” Jason says quietly.
He is tired. He gets up to head up to his own room, glancing briefly at that padlocked basement door before leaving the kitchen.
Halfway up the stairs he can hear the stinky couple arguing in their shared room. He pauses, looking up towards the sound, and continues on to t
he second floor.
Jason stops outside their door, listening to the angry voices. There is a thump. It could be a body falling or something else, then snoring followed by soft sobbing.
It’s a usual day for The Stinkers, as he mentally calls them.
Jason goes to his own room, closing the door behind him. He lies on his bed for a long while before finally dozing off.
Jason’s snoring sputters and stops and he opens his eyes. It’s the middle of the night. He was woken by the pressure in his bladder. He gets up and stumbles out of his room to the bathroom, bleary eyed and more asleep than awake.
He groans with the relief as he urinates, tucks himself away, flushes, and steps back into the hallway.
Jason stops, listening. He heard a sound. It takes a moment to place it. Downstairs.
Fully awake now, he treads softly, moving down the hall to the top of the stairs and peaking over, looking down.
He listens to the sounds of someone moving around, swearing quietly. He is sure it’s coming from the living room.
The main floor is in darkness with just the weak light of the moon and stars coming in the windows giving enough light to see shapes without any real details. Whoever is down there hasn’t turned on any lights.
Jason starts creeping down the stairs, staying low and against the wall to stay out of sight. He stops at the bottom, crouching pressed against the railing.
It could be a burglar, but not likely. There is nothing here to take and someone robbing the place wouldn’t waste so much time in one room or be moving things and swearing.
He hears now the sounds are coming from the kitchen.
Looking through the stair railing to the kitchen doorway, he watches for any movement. The figure shifts, just a sliver of them in view at the edge of the kitchen doorway, moves away, and then walks past the doorway to vanish again.
Jason leaves the stairs, moving quietly into the dark living room. He looks around to see if anything looks out of place. The garbage bag of clothes is ripped open and the clothes spilled out carelessly on the floor where they were left after being rifled through.
He hears footsteps. The intruder is coming down the hall.
Jason presses against the wall by the living room doorway, holding his breath, waiting.
The intruder steps into the living room, dressed in dark clothes; a black hoodie with the hood pulled over his head hiding his face. He gets only the smallest glimpse of the pale flesh of the face, not enough to judge age, sex, or any other characteristics. The intruder is shorter than average height and skinny.
He watches the intruder stare down at the clothes.
The intruder starts turning towards Jason.
Jason pounces before the intruder has a chance to see him, lunging forward to take him down in a tackle, letting his weight and the force of his momentum take them both to the floor, grabbing and pinning the intruder’s arms.
They hit the floor with a thump that should have woken the household, the intruder’s cry of surprise cut short quickly with the collision with the hard floor and Jason’s weight working together to knock the wind from his lungs with a sudden wheeze of the air being forced out.
The intruder is a lightweight compared to Jason, and easily overpowered. Jason is fit and strong still, his muscles accustomed to hard labour.
The intruder gasps and gags; coughing and trying to suck in air that will not come at first, impotently trying to struggle free.
Jason gets up, yanking the intruder with him, standing him up and then shoving him roughly down into a chair.
He steps forward, reaching out and roughly yanking the hood back to reveal the intruder’s identity.
Jason blanches, tries to hide his shocked reaction, and stares back at the terrified face staring up at him.
David.
He almost says it, catching the name before it slips out. Of course it isn’t David. David is a grown man now.
A rush of emotions flows through him, surprise, shock, fear at what he had done so many years ago. He feels weak suddenly, dizzy, the room darkening.
The frightened boy staring up at him can’t be any older than David was when he ran away.
Warily, watching for any movement that might signal the boy is about to bolt, Jason reaches and flips on the light switch, bringing two table lamps to sallow life.
“What are you doing here?” Jason demands, his voice rough and angry, trying not to let the emotions tearing around inside him show.
The boy swallows the lump in his throat, staring up in mute terror. He cannot make his jaw work to make any words come out.
“I asked you a question. What are you doing here?” Jason repeats.
He studies the boy. His pant legs are rolled up and bunched around his ankles so he would not be walking on them and he seems even smaller inside the hoodie that is sizes too big. His worn runners look like they must flop on his feet with every step, much too large like the clothes. His hair is greasy and unwashed and needs a haircut. His face is pale in a sickly way, washed out with fear and probably ill from not eating anything but junk and not getting enough sunlight.
He steps back so the boy can see the clothes on the floor. They are oversized for the boy, like the clothes he wears now. Most likely they were stolen from some machine in a laundromat or grabbed quickly at some homeless shelter without checking sizes in a hurry to flee before they call the authorities to collect the under-aged boy.
He thumbs towards the clothes on the floor. “That yours?”
The boy nods. He looks around the room, eyes as big as saucers.
“You’ve been living here, haven’t you?” Jason asks.
The boy nods again.
“Can’t speak?” Jason asks. “Speak, talk.”
“Y-y-yes,” the boy manages to stammer out, working his mouth hard to force the words out through his fear.
“You are too young,” Jason shakes his head. “They don’t let kids in a place like this. We got a cowboy junkie, a hooker, and a loser. No kids.”
The boy moves his arm hesitantly, pointing and motioning upwards. “The attic,” he mumbles.
“What about it?”
“And the crazy guy in the attic.”
“Yes; and the crazy guy in the attic.” Jason pauses. “And someone is living in here.” He indicates the living room.
The boy looks sheepish.
“What’s your name?” Jason thinks better of it. “Forget it. I don’t want to know your name. I don’t even know you are here, you got me?”
The boy just stares at him.
“Why are you here? Go home kid. Go home to your family.”
“I can’t.”
The boy’s eyes hold a troubled faraway look.
This kid is running from something, maybe from someone, Jason thinks.
“Why not? Just go home. You have no business here. Does anyone even know you are here?”
The boy shrugs. He is used to meeting fear and confrontation with a blank stare, his body turning numb to mute the trembling that might have given away the sinking sick feeling inside him, and has gotten pretty good at hiding his emotions.
He thinks he is better at it than he really is.
“They don’t pay attention,” he says. “The other people here don’t even use the living room. They don’t care.”
“I haven’t seen you before,” Jason says. “I’ve seen The Cowboy and The Stinkers.”
The boy almost grins at that, but he’s afraid of the man confronting him despite his attempt at showing bravado.
Jason continues.
“I’ve seen your filth piled up in here. The others don’t seem to know or care who is living in here. How come nobody sees you?”
“I only come at night. I leave early. I go where I got to go.”
Jason knows what that means. The boy hides somewhere else during the day. Somewhere that probably isn’t safe or warm at night. By his pale flesh it’s probably someplace underground, a parking garage or basement, som
ething like that.
“So you decided to hole up here,” Jason says.
The boy nods. “It’s shelter.”
Images of David and the other street kids he hung around with after he ran away from home come to Jason. He had followed David, keeping tabs on him, making sure he was all right.
He knows the kinds of things these street kids do to survive on the street and it makes him feel sick. It made him feel sick then too; knowing the hell David was going through. But every time he got close enough to try to bring the boy home, he ran again. He could have just taken David home by force, but he knew David would have just kept running away.
He would have had to keep him locked away in the cold dark root cellar to keep him there. He couldn’t do that to the kid.
It was just something that was in David, the need to run. The memories, long suppressed, of a life before. David knew he didn’t belong to me; didn’t belong with me.
And there was what happened to Cassie.
Her smiling face floats up in Jason’s memory, so small, her innocence. He pushes that painful memory back too. I can’t think about that right now. I have this other problem to deal with.
Jason studies the boy again.
He’s terrified. Not just of the man who just attacked him in the dark. Not just of being discovered squatting in the living room of an un-cared for rooming house where the tenants keep to themselves and don’t see or care about anything else.
The boy is scared of being taken back to wherever or whoever he is running away from.
It’s the same fear I saw in David’s eyes.
Jason steps forward, grabbing the kid by his hoodie’s neckline, bunching the fabric in his fist just below the boy’s throat, and pulls him roughly to his feet. He pulls the boy close, their faces almost touching.
“Look kid,” Jason says quietly, a warning, his breath warm on the boy’s face. “You don’t live here. I don’t care if you crash here, but you don’t live here. I don’t see your clothes, I don’t see your garbage, I don’t see your dirty dishes, and I don’t smell you. This is a living room, not a rodent’s den. Respect it.”