by Fawn Bonning
“Mommy?”
The squeal caught in her throat.
He was standing at the side of the bed, close, an arm’s length away. She had completely missed him in her hasty scan. He was so small, his shoulders barely clearing the top of the mattress. Finally. Finally he’d come to her.
“I can’t sleep, Mommy,” he said in his sweet little boy voice.
Kate tried to compose herself. He had frightened her terribly. Taking a deep breath, she searched her heart for the right words. She didn’t want to scare him. “Bad dreams?”
He nodded, his tiny face in shadow. The nightlight behind him was backlighting his fine fair hair, giving it a warm golden glow. She longed to stroke it. It would be silky soft. “I was dreaming about a big black dog,” he whispered softly. “She was lost and scared. She was looking for her babies.”
Her breath caught. She’d seen a black dog just like that wandering along the highway. “Come,” she said, patting the bed beside her, feeling the tears well, and hating the fear that consumed her at the thought of him actually clambering up and snuggling down beside her.
He shook his head.
Even past her relief, Kate felt her heart tear and the tears tumble. He was afraid of her. She didn’t blame him.
The small boy sighed. It was the sound of warm tears gliding down a dampened cheek, the sound of torment. “Do you love me, Mommy?”
Kate clenched hands that were cold and clammy. She felt her shoulders hitch as a sob lodged in her throat. She swallowed it back down. “Yes,” she forced out.
“Then why did you let the man hurt me?”
She threw a hand to her mouth, trying to smother the sob that had forced its way past the lump. She fought to regain composure. “Oh, Sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
“He killed me, Mommy.”
Tears were streaming down her face, an endless flow. They called her Stone Mountain in the courtroom; cold, hard, heartless, unbreakable. It was a man’s world in that arena. There was no room for softness. It had taken years of schooling, years of struggling to make a name for herself, endless late-night hours, a grinding, grueling schedule. The timing couldn’t have been any worse. She’d been exhausted—physically, emotionally, financially. She thought it wouldn’t be fair to the child. She wasn’t ready. She just wasn’t ready.
“I’m sorry,” she wept, unable to hide the tears any longer. “I just…I thought it was the right thing.”
She began to cry, loud, uninhibited sobs that shook the bed. She didn’t care if he heard. She wanted him to. She needed him to know how sorry she was.
“Don’t cry, Mommy,” he said as her sobs settled down to shuddering gasps. “Don’t think of sad things. Think of happy things and it makes the sad go away. Think of a good name for the baby, my baby brother. I like Jacob. Jacob is a nice name.”
She put a hand to her stomach. No one knew. She was only five weeks along.
“You won’t let the man hurt him, will you, Mommy?”
Kate shook her head vehemently. She would never do that again. Never! “No. No, sweetie.”
“Oh, good,” he said, his mood turning lighter at once. “Do you think that you will name him Jacob?”
Kate brushed at the tears that wouldn’t stop. “Jacob is a very special name. But…I think I would like to name him Christopher,” she whispered. “Do you like Christopher?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes. I love Christopher. And I love you, Mommy,” he added. “I wish I could stay with you forever.”
She bit her bottom lip to keep from screaming. She couldn’t say the word out loud, could only shake her head.
He nodded. “Because the man killed me?”
She nodded.
He sighed one last time. It was the sound of a warm summer’s breeze as it gently swayed the treetops, the sound of peace.
Closing her eyes, she lie back, pressing her weary head into the pillow. She needed to sleep. To hell with work. She was going to sleep for two weeks, maybe three. She needed to rest. For Christopher.
She placed her hands on the flat of her belly, imagining what it was going to feel like being big and round. “Good night, Christopher,” she whispered softly. “Sweet dreams.”
She breathed in deeply, grinning despite the tears trailing to her ears. The room no longer felt cold. It was as if the sun was shining, shrouding her in brilliance. She basked in the warmth for a few moments, before opening her eyes to darkness.
He was gone. She knew he would be. He had delivered his message. And she had heard it.
She spoke to him anyway, hoping he might hear. “And sweet dreams to you, too…Jacob.”
▪
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Bug Man
(Thing in the Van)
“Jesus! What the bug is that stench?”
Cranking up the window, he turned on the air. That disgusting skunk I splattered, he thought, running a hand over his stubbled chin.
“Like this drive isn’t long enough without having to hold my breath the whole buggin’ way.”
Turning the air to high, he pointed the vents so they were blowing directly into his face.
He despised the long drive he made every Monday. But he wasn’t about to give up his night of poker with the boys. Every red-blooded male needed a little male bonding time, right? A few hours set aside every week for a little stimulating conversation. Male things like football and baseball, politics, work, women.
“You could have chosen to live closer to town, though, Vern, instead of out in the bugging boonies.”
He couldn’t figure why anybody in his right mind want to live in some toilet hanging off the side of a stinking cliff. Out in the middle of freakin’ nowhere!
Reaching into his shirt pocket, he stroked the wad of bills tucked away there. As usual, the backwoods boys had lost their ass’s to Big-City Ciello. Why they even bothered with the formality of dealing out the cards, he didn’t know.
He chuckled at the memory of their disgusted faces as he’d turned over his last royal flush. That alone was almost worth the drive. Almost.
He brought a hand up to rub at his temple. His head felt like it had two giant hands on either side trying to pop it like a big fat grape. Aspirin didn’t help. Not even the heavy duty prescription crap.
“Christ!”
He clicked off the radio. Just one more reason he hated these damned mountain roads. You couldn’t find a decent station to save your ass. Even if you did find one, the static and constant fading in and out was enough to drive you nuts.
“Thanks, Vern!”
He stared at the road illuminated by the headlights. Even with the brights on, the road was too damn dark. And deserted. If he ever broke down or had to use the crapper, he was screwed big time.
“Shit out of luck.”
His stomach gurgled right on cue. Some kind of bug in his intestines eating him from the inside out. Freakin’ Hershey squirts for freaking six months. Eddie Ciello didn’t relish the idea of squatting on the side of some stinkin’ road. Especially this stinking, dark-as-pitch road. With his luck, he’d probably end up stepping in a nest of rattlers or something. Damned hills were loaded with the things. If he got snake bit, he was really up shit’s creek. There were some stretches of road that had to be at least five miles long without a single house to be seen.
He didn’t like that. Eddie Ciello was a city man. Born and raised some forty years in the wonderful city of Jersey where traffic nosed along inch by inch with horns blaring and fingers flicking off left and right. Real humanity. How he’d ever let Terri talk him into moving smack dab in the middle of nowhere just so he could fumigate some stinking cockroaches, he would never know. So he would inherit her father’s lousy exterminating company. So the crime was low and the air was clean. Big bugging deal. You had to drive a hundred miles out of your way to find a little entertainment, for Christ’s sake.
“Freaking asinine!”
There was only one good thing about this drive. It gave him time to think. And he’d
been doing just that, mulling over just how he was going to get rid of Treena.
Not that this was any problem for him. A big-city man knew how to take care of business when business needed taken care of.
“Just go ahead and dip your hands in when things get messy. You can always wash them later.”
That was his moto. Words to live by.
“Clever, clever, clever.”
Yep, Eddie Ciello was one clever guy.
Pressing the mister knob, he turned on the wipers to clear the bug carcasses from the windshield, just one more lousy nuisance to contend with. Had to keep a clear view in case some stupid animal happened on to the road. Like that stinky skunk, stupid animal number one.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. It was too bad about Treena. She didn’t ask questions. Just did what she was told, always yes sir and no sir, the way he liked it. Two years now taking care of the kids, cleaning, cooking. She was dependable, never sick, and he was never going to find anyone else to work as cheap. But, had the witch left him any other choice, really?
“I think not,” he mumbled as he flicked off the wipers.
He didn’t like that crap he heard creeping under her door lately—singing, chanting, whatever you wanted to call it. And at all hours of the night. Cockroach hours. That crap made him think of spells and shit, and Eddie Ciello didn’t go for none of that weirdo voodoo crap. She was Haitian. Probably raised up in some backwoods voodoo village, but he didn’t want it under his roof. He didn’t appreciate the heap of chicken feathers he’d found stuffed under his bed when he’d gone searching for his shoe. They fell out of his pillow, she said. Bugshit! And he especially didn’t like finding that white powder spread all over the house. To kill the ‘cockaroachies’, she said.
“I’m a freakin’ bug man, Witchilda! We ain’t got no buggin’ cockaroachies!”
A pair of eyes appeared, glowing in the headlights ahead. Okay, so maybe there’s two good things about this ride.
“Stupid animal number two,” he muttered under his breath, and stomped on the accelerator. Leaning forward, he gripped tightly to the steering wheel, his heart racing along with the engine.
“Eddie is my name, buggin’ extermination is my game!”
Adrenaline surged through him as he barreled down on it—a possum zigzagging across the road, its stubby legs in overdrive. It was too quick, skittering off the road and into the brush before he could reach it.
“Ohhhhh, lucky bitchin’ rat-ass bugsturd!”
Never did find that damned shoe, either, he thought, raking his nails along his right thigh where the newest rash was flaming beneath his jeans.
Treena was a goner. After what he’d found in her room this morning, had she left him any other option?
“You think I ain’t got a key to your room? It’s my bugging house, Miss Voodoo Who Do You Think You Are!”
The witch had no right going through his photo albums.
He plucked the picture from his pocket. There he was, standing proudly beside Terri in her wedding gown, the precious heirloom handed down from her mother and her mother before her, an ivory satin relic covered with thousands of tiny, fancy pearls. Their wedding picture.
Even though it had been fifteen years, he remembered the day it was taken. Terri was a good looking woman, there was no doubt about that. Delicate sprays of pearls cascaded from her headpiece to frame a face that appeared so happy, the smile stretching from ear to ear as she tilted her head to peer lovingly into the face of her beaming betrothed. Sweet wedded bliss forthcoming. Sweet wedded bliss.
“Whore,” he muttered, stuffing the picture back in his pocket.
Fumbling for the cigarette pack on the seat beside him, he plucked one out and popped it into his mouth.
“How long after that picture was taken did you start boppin’ the butcher, babe,” he mumbled past the bobbing cigarette as he snatched up his lighter. “Probably thinking about him the very second that picture was snapped, weren’t you, slut?”
Giving the lighter a couple of angry strikes, he lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply.
He’d done everything he was supposed to like the decent husband he was. Went to work every stinking day whacking disgusting disease-ridden cockroaches and rats, his lifelong dream. Every day was like a breath of fresh air.
“Not!”
He spent every day sucking in insecticide, inhaling it, absorbing it through his skin. He was riddled with raw rashes, had the terminal squirts, a head virtually on the verge of exploding. Real exciting. But such was a day in the life of a small-town bug-man, one excitement after another.
“Not!”
His life was a bugging bore. But he suffered through it for Terri and the kids. He kept a pretty decent roof over their heads, too. Kept all the bills paid. He even kept the stinking front yard mowed. Every bugging Sunday, where was good ole Eddie? Out pushing a mower, by god. And he didn’t just leave it at that. No sir. When he was through pushing a mower for an hour, he’d run the weed whacker, and even edge the front walk so everything would be picture perfect. And for who? That’s right. His ever unfaithful butcher-boppin’ buggin’ bimbo of a wife.
He took another long drag, waiting for the wonderful nicotine tranquilizer to kick in and get his agitated nerves under control.
He’d kept up his end of the bargain. All she had to do was raise the kids. Was that so difficult? Just raise the freaking kids. She didn’t have to work, didn’t have to worry about bills, just raise the kids, keep the house clean, cook a meal every now and then. She had the good life. And how did she repay him? She went and let every bozo within a fifty-mile radius go and dip his wick.
He peered into the rearview mirror at the darkness in the back of the van. Something was moving back there.
No. He was agitated. It was thinking about his picture in that bowl of goop. Fingernail clippings had been in there, and strands of his hair. Did that witch really think she would get away with that weird voodoo ritual crap right under his nose? He’d given her a home, a good roof over her head, free meals, water, electricity, and fifty dollars a week to boot, and this was how she repaid him?
“Women,” he muttered. No matter what you did, how hard you busted your ass to give them everything, they were never satisfied. They always wanted more. More, more, more. Me, me, me. Women were vain, selfish, shallow, self-centered, materialistic, narcissistic—
He peered up at the rearview mirror. He was certain this time. Something was moving around back there. Probably a filthy rat partying in all the garbage back there. Or maybe a snake.
“Shit!” His scalp came alive like it was crawling with cockaroachies. “Goddamn you, Vern! Move your ass back to civilization where decent folk live!”
The two giant hands on either side of his head squeezed tighter.
He hated snakes, despised them. Would exterminate every last one from the face of the earth, if he could. Nothing made his skin crawl more. Not that he would run shrieking like a sissy or anything if he saw one.
“Hail, no.”
It was just that…snakes were so damned sneaky. He didn’t like that. Didn’t like sneaky period. Didn’t like sneaky wives slipping around to butcher shops behind their husband’s backs to bop the porkchop man, and sure as hell didn’t like snakes sneaking into places they had no right to be. It was the way they were shaped, long and thin, just perfect for sliding into tight, constricting spaces, squirming into sewer pipes and right into the commode, sneaking under door cracks and slithering under beds and curling up in shoes. And you never knew they were there until you were stepping on the damned things. He hated that. And he hated small towns where snakes seemed to proliferate. They didn’t have snakes in the big city. So he couldn’t be too hard on himself just because they gave him the willies.
He strained his ears, listening for movement.
“Come on, grow a pair, you twit!”
It was probably just a soda bottle or something sliding around back there. Just some harmless p
iece of junk. There was too much damned garbage back there. Dirty clothes, newspapers, soda bottles, potato chip bags, you name it, it was back there. He kept meaning to clean it out, but he was too damned busy trying to earn a living to have to worry about such menial tasks. That was women’s work, anyway.
Terri used to be good about stuff like that. Yeah, before her…mysterious disappearance, the van had always been spic and span, he had to give her that. She kept up with her chores in between her daily visits to the butcher shop.
Lifting his chin, he blew out a satisfying stream of smoke.
Terri. He had to admit he missed her. But…it had to be done, didn’t it? Yes. There was no way around it. Had she given him any other choice, really?
“I think not,” he muttered.
He took one last drag, holding the smoke in for as long as he could before letting it slowly out. Cranking the window down part-way, he flicked out the butt.
“Couldn’t have everyone in town talking, could I?”
Infidelity. Adultery. Fornication. Butcher-bopping bimboism. Whatever you wanted to call it. You couldn’t pull shit like that in a small town. Small-town folk had big mouths and even bigger noses that they just loved to stick into everybody else’s business. She, of all people, should have known that.